ReeferMadness
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Posts posted by ReeferMadness
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Trump didn't cause the coronavirus. But he did cause this. Despite having the advantages of massive wealth and months of advance notice, the US is now the epicenter of this mess. Trump delayed, denied and obfuscated his way through inaction and he now owns the results. There are credible reports that his administration is punishing states that criticize him by denying them medical supplies. The way trends are going, it will soon be worse than Italy, with overcrowded hospitals and doctors flipping coins to determine who lives and who dies. If complete chaos is avoided, it's only due to the actions and leadership shown by states and cities.
Watch the body language when doctors, scientists or other professionals share the stage with this buffoon. They are clearly embarrassed and horrified that this self-aggrandizing man baby has somehow become president but anyone who says anything contrary to him is removed from the stage. His own administration (Pence included) are constantly toadying to him in a way that would embarrass Kim-Jong-un. The fact that Trump's popularity is still growing in the US is a national disgrace and speaks poorly about the state of wisdom and intelligence in that country.
I have nothing but contempt for the Republican Party or anyone who continues to support Trump. Democracy depends on people being wise and humble enough to see the limits of their own abilities; and also wise enough to recognize the strengths and limits of others. On this basis, democracy is failing miserably. Perhaps, it will be another casualty of the virus.
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29 minutes ago, taxme said:
There has been plenty of documentation to prove that the morons like Schiff, Nadler and Pelosi are nothing more than prolific liars themselves and a bunch of crybaby losers.
False equivalence. However much they might stretch the truth, it isn't even remotely in the same league as Trump. He tells lies almost every time he speaks and they are easily disproven. The comparison is really idiotic.
QuoteWhy there are so many idiots out there who choose to listen to those mentioned above is an interesting question for psychologists and sociologists to try and figure out as to how their brains have become so warped. Everybody likes to use Hitler as an example for everything. Why they never use murderers like Mao, Stalin or Pol Pot is beyond me. I guess that if one is a murdering communist than they best not be mentioned.
Sure - you could compare Trump to any of them. Take your pick.
QuoteLive with it. Trump has been found innocent of all charges, and has now been acquitted of those fake and phony trumped up stupid democratic charges made against Trump. sure, if Trump said that it was going to be sunny today, but it rained instead, Trump would be called a liar by the dumbocrats and their dumbo leftist liberal media. Anytime those screwballs mentioned get to call Trump a liar over nothing they will do so just for spite. Where has Trump lied anyway that was really something serious to be concerned about? Pray tell, will you.
Trump wouldn't allow people from his own fuqqn administration to testify. Why not?? What is he trying to hide?? What is it about people in his cult that can't wrap their heads around how wrong this is? Maybe that's where the psychologists and sociologists should focus their efforts.
Oh, wait. They already are.
QuoteAnyone who believes that Trump is the bad guy here does not have very much common sense or logic running around in their brainwashed CNN heads.
Bad guy? Lemme see.
He's refused to rent to black people, making him a raving racist. I guess that's not a problem for many of his followers. He has a long record of ripping off contractors. I guess his followers don't mind if he's a crook. He used charities to enrich himself. I guess you must be OK with that. His multiple bankruptcies show him to be shitty at business so he's a fraud. Tony Schwartz, the person who actually wrote "Art of the Deal" called him a "scared child" and has repeatedly warned people about his narcissistic personality. He's a blatant misogynist. He's cozied up to the world's worst authoritarians including MbS, Kim Jong Un, Putin, Erdogan and Duerte. His fraudulent university ripped off thousands of people. He's defended and been defended by white nationalists and white supremacists. He and his family have used his presidency to enrich themselves. He's divided the country and encouraged racism.
Bad? I don't know quite how delusional you need to be not see see him for what he is. Maybe you can share.
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On 2/6/2020 at 12:54 PM, taxme said:
Try listening to Trump sometime at one of his rallies. Tens of try to get into the arena where he is about to speak. Many have to stay outside and listen to him on loud speakers.
There is excellent documentation that shows Trump is a prolific liar. Why people choose to listen to him is an interesting question for psychologists and sociologists. However, I'd point out that lots of lying sociopaths, including Hitler, had huge followings. Just because people listen to you doesn't make you right. It just means that people aren't very rational.
QuoteTrump was "aquitted" of all charges against him, and thus Trump broke no law.
Yes, "acquitted". LMFAO. Do you even know what scare quotes are?
Trump was indeed "acquitted" in a "trial" that didn't allow witnesses. Sounds like a Soviet-style trial.
If he was innocent, why was the White House trying so hard to block the first-hand witnesses from testifying? It doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it?
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5 hours ago, taxme said:
No one here can show me anything as to where Trump has broken any law. If you/they can, come on show me? If Trump broke a law, then why has he not been arrested yet? I await to hear from you, like I have been waiting for months now.
Because. he. is. president. And the attorney general is corrupt.
For anyone who watches something besides Fox News, this really isn't too hard.
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On 2/1/2020 at 11:53 AM, taxme said:
The American south has always been a poverty zone for decades now. Even the democrats like Obama never changed a bloody thing for those people living in the south. But of course, all the people in poverty in America today is all Trump's fault, right? Liberals? If they showed any intelligence it would be a miracle.
I don't recall saying it was all Trump's fault. I'm no huge fan of Obama or either Clinton.
US politics is one enormous cesspool. The country is deeply dysfunctional.
But far and away, Trump is worse than either Obama or the Clintons and the red states are, on average, far worse than the blue ones.
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18 minutes ago, ReeferMadness said:
Maybe things like "data" and "thinking" aren't your strongest points.
The US doesn't have the highest median income in the world (I haven't the foggiest clue what "per median income is") but it does have one of the highest poverty rates in the developed world. Over 20% of kids live in poverty.
I should point out that the above number is averaged across the country. The poverty is considerably worse in Trump-voting southern red states.
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5 minutes ago, Shady said:
Sadly you don’t know what you’re talking about either. Btw, the United stares has the highest per median income in the world. They’re doing a lousy job keeping their citizens poor and dumb!
Go smoke a bowl.
Maybe things like "data" and "thinking" aren't your strongest points.
The US doesn't have the highest median income in the world (I haven't the foggiest clue what "per median income is") but it does have one of the highest poverty rates in the developed world. Over 20% of kids live in poverty.
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58 minutes ago, eyeball said:
Just what the Founding Fathers envisioned for America's future presidents?
Constitutionally the Senate failed to do it's job and is expecting American's and history to not notice.
Sadly, many of them won't.
The US prefers to keep its citizens poor and dumb.
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Hey, look at that. Apparently, it's OK just to quote half the article now.
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Here is some honesty from Alberta that you don't see from the main parties, who are more comfortable just feeding the myths.
QuoteTransition is difficult at any time, and particularly in a recession. But responsible leaders do not ignore the science pointing to a climate tipping point in a decade. This is not the time to double down on fossil fuel stimulus, investment and subsidies. Nor is blaming the federal government (in power for just over one term) for the lack of pipelines.
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5 hours ago, taxme said:
What? Are you just new to politics? Every political leader in every political party in Canada does the same thing. They all try to distract the foolish Canadian ones by trying to get them believe and get them to focus everyone on an external or home grown enemy. Kenney is no different to Notley. She was a devious biotch socialist who could have cared less about Alberta's oil industry. Notley tried to destroy the oil industry in Alberta. Corporations and the free enterprise system create the jobs. All the government does is to create a bigger bureaucracy to try and control and stifle the freedoms of free enterprise and corporations from becoming too big, and creating new jobs. Canada has become a house of lunacy.
Trudeau liberalism and NDP socialism have shown us all that they are clueless when it comes to creating new jobs. Those two only believe in control and big government over we the working taxpaying people. Give me a break. It's not hard to see that you are a socialist, right? It's a wonder that the NDP in Alberta do not try to "impeach" Kenney in the next four years. Geez, if they only could? Lol.
QuoteShe was a devious biotch socialist
Note to the moderators: I see you've chosen to ignore the misogynist reference to Rachel Notley. Not surprising - right wingers get away with anything on MLW.
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20 hours ago, WestCanMan said:
Ooh, such a dramatic post.
By dramatic, I assume you mean true. When you've existed on a steady diet of fiction for so long, no doubt the truth does seem a bit dramatic.
QuoteFYI the oilsands isn't like a big aquifer of oil down where you can just stick in a straw and suck it all out. The stampede of companies coming to invest money in the tarsands was necessary to create the technology and produce the means to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to Canada's economy. When oil was under $20 per barrel and technology wasn't where it's at today it wasn't profitable to extract it. Saskatchewan's oil reserves were barely touched.
I grew up in northern Alberta back when they were still called tar sands. Thanks for the "education".
QuoteDid you think that the Alberta government should have just built up the oil patch all by themselves like some socialist hellhole?
Oh, You mean a socialist hellhole like Norway where they now have a sovereign wealth fund worth $1.2 trillion and some of the world's best social programs? Yeah, that would really suck. I'm sure you're glad you're not in their shoes.
Canada had a national oil company but sold it when it wasn't worth much because Mulroney wanted to suck up to Alberta. Alberta invested in tar sands technology as part of Alberta Energy Corporation but sold it at at a time it wasn't worth much because... well, because it's Alberta. In Norway, they take care of the people and the oil companies are expected to look out for themselves. In Alberta, they take care of the oil companies and the people? Whatever, right.
QuoteSo who's to blame for us not getting our oil to markets where we can get more than 50% of what it's worth?
You're asking the wrong question. Why are you shipping raw bitumen out of the province instead of refining it? Why are the royalties and taxes so low that money is being piped out of the province faster than the oil? Why are you producing 3 million barrels a day and still running a multi-billion dollar deficit? Gross incompetence.
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On 11/12/2019 at 10:07 AM, WestCanMan said:
Alberta sends about $50 billion a year total to the federal government and gets less than $30B back.
Between the equalization formula and all the other ways that the federal government ends up paying money that goes back to the provinces, Alberta ends up over $20B short. Quebec gets $13B from the federal government from equalization while Alberta gets zero. Then Quebec asks why they should build a pipeline when they get nothing from it? They get quite enough from it. They always have been. They buy and sell Saudi oil and then tell Alberta to F off. I'm quite happy to F off. Saying goodbye to Quebec would be like having a tumour taken off my ass.
You don't seem to understand what getting ripped off feels like. This isn't an exercise in semantics.
I understand very well.
I understand Alberta is the author of its own misfortunes. I understand that 30 or so years ago, they elected a beer-guzzling ex-mayor whose main qualification was that he publicly referred to people from Central Canada as "eastern bums and creeps". He later showed himself to be so completely out of touch with his own electorate that in a drunken haze, he publicly lambasted and abused people in a homeless shelter, not understanding some of them had full time jobs but couldn't afford rent on what they were making. But back to the main point.
He wanted companies to come in and develop Alberta's low quality tar sands badly. He wanted it so badly, he offered a sweetheart deal. They were offered oil at a 1% royalty rate (essentially free oil) until they paid off the huge investments necessary to develop the tar sands. The result was predictable.
There was a stampede of companies rushing into the tar sands. Since they were paying for the development costs with essentially free oil, they had zero incentive to be efficient. They rushed in like coke-addled rhinos. They distorted the labor-market, bidding up the cost of semi-skilled and unskilled labor which is why Alberta now has Canada's most overpaid workforce. There was so much money sloshing around, people were flying in to Alberta to work their shifts. The resulting gold-rush bid up the cost of real estate, causing increased homelessness (see above). They increased Canada's GDP in a way that didn't really increase Canada's wealth, since most of the money just flowed out of the country to reward foreign shareholders or pay for expensive equipment, the vast majority of which was manufactured elsewhere. It did, however, artificially increase the value of the Canadian dollar, which resulted in manufacturers in other provinces being less able to compete on the world market. Never once have I seen an Albertan cry over Ontario jobs lost due to our bouncing petro-dollar.
Here's what people don't seem to get. Alberta's boom didn't come from selling oil. They're produce 3 million barrels a day! It came from from building massive infrastructure to mine bitumen so that it could be shipped out to American refineries. These are plants which last for decades so an economy based on building new plants is the height of economic delusion. Such is Alberta.
So, now where do things sit? Alberta is running a massive deficit, trading in delusional conspiracy theories, carrying ~$300 billion in unfunded clean-up liabilities, and going all in on a dying industry while oil companies thank them by giving them the finger while leaving. Kenney is determined to give away every last public dollar to the oil industry before it goes under.
So you want to know who's to blame? Look in the mirror. And stop whining.
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14 hours ago, Rue said:
its presumptious and arrogant for you and I to think everything Albertans or their leader does is wrong or without reason.
sure it is. Which is why I never said any of that.
QuoteI also don't write off our oil industry or tar sands although I want us and the world off the addiction of oil.
Unless you're going to somehow rewrite the laws of economics, the most expensive oil will be priced out of the market first...
QuoteThere are two sides at least to every situation.
Sure. When it comes to oil, there is the side of the oil industry which everyone immediately genuflects before. Then there is the side of the workers, which is mostly ignored. There is the side of the resource owners, the people of the Alberta. They've been royally (royalty) screwed since King Klein instituted the great give away. The side of the environment, which, in Alberta at least, is essentially openly mocked. The side of climate change, which Albertans apparently believe will be resolved with a bag of magic beans. Then there is the side of thinking Canadians, who wonder when it was exactly that reality departed Alberta for good.
QuotePlease do nto tell me Trudeau is not a pro Quebec regionalist.
You're hilarious. Criticize me about being presumptuous about Alberta and then come back with a random and completely unfounded accusation about Trudeau.
I'm no expert or fan of Trudeau but here's what I know:
- His childhood was mostly spent in Ottawa
- When he became an adult, he chose to live in Vancouver
- On the subject of Quebec as a nation, he once said that nationalism was a 19th century notion and that recognizing Quebec as a nation went against everything his father ever believed.
Honestly, I don't know why you think what you think about Trudeau. Personally, I think he's a lightweight who's very likable and has had some solid political instruction. I think he went to Quebec because his family name got him elected there, not because he's some kind of secret Quebec agent.
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9 hours ago, WestCanMan said:
The economic benefit in 2018 would be that they didn't have to send $13B to the federal government in exchange for a $200M loan. Alberta has received a total of $0 from equalization payments and sent in hundreds of billions.
Alberta hasn't sent anything. You don't seem to understand how Equalization works.
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4 minutes ago, Army Guy said:
Come on Reefer, are you now going to tell us all, that the Liberal, NDP , or green plan is going to fix climate change, or make a large enough difference to save the world....I don't see a whole lot of the world working together to solve this issue....lots of talking but no real action, unless you are talking about individuals making change, or taking action....So this is not about which party you voted for ...it's about showing leadership and taking action....and there is none of that here in Canada....
The Greens are the only ones who would prioritize environmental issues. The others are pretenders.
But blaming it on the parties is weak. The reason that the parties have won't prioritize it is that too few people are demanding action. Imagine World War II where everyone says "Yeah, someone should go fight those Nazis" but nobody is willing to give up anything until everyone else does first. That's exactly the situation we're in today.
European countries are showing much more progress than we are. And China and India are showing bolder leadership in technology development.
One day, we're going to wake up and find the world has passed us by while we're arguing over the toxic, carcinogenic sludge in Northern Alberta.
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3 minutes ago, Shady said:
Any type of government is at risk for being up for sale to the connected insiders. It’s just that in governments like communism and socialism, the connected insiders are the government.
Hmmm.
I guess we need pure socialism then so there is nobody to sell the government assets to.
Did you notice how readily the communist bosses of the Soviet Union became crony capitalists who are now embraced by right wing politicians like Trump and Johnson? It's almost as if they were never socialists at all....
Which is what anyone with a few brain cells said all along.
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1 minute ago, Shady said:
Yes, but did you? He isn’t saying that capitalism should be abandoned. He isn’t saying that capitalism sucks, as you did. You’re editorializing on the back of the article, and misrepresenting it.
He said it isn't working. I know that sounds hurtful to members or the holy church of capitalism but he's right.
What I said (and I quite clear in my post that I was diverging from him on this) was that this is exactly the way it works. Unless you have strong democratic controls to keep it in check.
I know that right wingers aren't big on "science" or "evidence" or "knowledge" or even "intelligence" but all of the evidence points to exactly that conclusion.
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8 hours ago, Rue said:
You presented a partisan subjective opinion that presumes to tell Albertans what is good for them.
Perhaps you could point out where I did that. I didn't so you can't.
So, with "due respect", perhaps you might read and understand BEFORE you comment. Thanks!
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5 hours ago, Shady said:
I’m not sure what you mean by capitalism sucks. Capitalism is just the voluntary exchange of goods and services, and private property rights. I don’t really know how anyone can be against those basic freedoms. One can debate how and what things should be taxed. But those fundamental freedoms still exist. And we would still be operating under a free market capitalist system.
Wow, Shady. It looks like you're having difficulty with the concepts in this thread.
Did you try reading the article?
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5 hours ago, bcsapper said:
I suppose capitalism sucks in the same way democracy sucks. It doesn't always work to everyone's satisfaction.
Democracy sounds like an interesting idea. I think we should give it a try.
Know what gets in the way? Capitalism. Governments are for sale to connected insiders. Just the way capitalists like it.
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Ray Dalio, Founder of the World's Largest Hedge Fund, Says the System is Broken
QuoteLike many other market observers, Dalio has noticed that stock prices no longer have much to do with the health of the company the stock represents ― markets move depending on whether or not investors expect central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve to flood the market with even more money.
Of course, most progressives know what Dalio and others like him have been blind to all along. Without strong measures to restrain the worst of capitalism and force redistribution of wealth, this is exactly how capitalism always works - or rather fails to work. When you define success as being richer than everyone else, people will find a way to do just that. Whether it's fair, whether it's moral, whether it's legal; those are things for lawyers and ethicists to quibble over. Only ideologues and idiots think that it's relevant that capitalism is transparently not a meritocracy.
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Just now, PPC2019 said:
I have a university degree in environmental resource management. I already told everyone where I stand on climate change. The best solution for Capitalism and the environment to co-exit for the next 1000 years.
I'm sure your mother must be very proud. No doubt you are doing a fine job of covering up/excusing corporate malfeasance. Don't worry - physics will make an exception just for you when it ends civilization.
Keep patting yourself on the back. You're doing great. I'm sure you'll get exactly the karma you deserve.
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Not content with torpedoing Alberta's finances with an idiotic tax cut that just gave money to corporations as they abandon an oil industry with no future, Kenney threatened to further sink the province by threatening additional billions of dollars in expenditures to set up vast new bureaucracies to cover in the fiefdom of Alberta.
QuoteOn the table for the Fair Deal Panel will be research into whether Alberta should establish its own formal provincial constitution, provincial police force, Alberta Pension Plan, its own Chief Firearms Office and a provincial revenue agency that would collect taxes directly.
Albertans themselves can be forgiven for supporting or at least ignoring this delusional lunacy. After all, there hasn't been a major political or media figure who's been honest with them about their oil industry in at least 30 years. Their oil wealth has been stolen from under their noses and handed to big oil companies. Their bribe was having no sales tax.
But for Kenney, he knows he can't make good on his election promises so he's going for the oldest trick in the book. Distract the people by trying to focus everyone on an external enemy. It's beyond pathetic but in Alberta, it makes for good politics.
Will it be the virus that takes Trump down?
in Federal Politics in the United States
Posted
More abject stupidity from a president who appeals to the least discriminating and least intelligent people.
Trump promotes dangerous drugs of questionable efficacy.