Off Topic Thread 5.0

Dog Botherer · 13-05-2020 6:42pm

Podge_irl wrote: »

It's not an option on the table.

For whatever its worth I would have preferred Warren. I think Sanders would have been hopelessly ineffective because ultimately he is not a Democrat and he doesn't seem to realise he needs to get other people on board with his view and he wouldn't actually rule by dictat and fiat.

I think Warren would be much better than Biden but again she was a Republican for most of her adult life and is cut from similar cloth to him.

I think Sanders is very much aware of how difficult it would be, but in his Senate career he has been one of the most competent senators at getting bipartisan support for crucial amendments that have helped countless people. Only weeks ago he strong armed the Republicans into including financial aid to out of work Americans after they tried to cut it. No other Dem helped him, but he got it done.

ClanofLams wrote: »

What are you basing this on? Biden has never been a strong public speaker and has put his foot in his mouth on a regular basis for forty years.

Watch any clip from the past six months and actually pay attention to what he’s saying. He’s completely incoherent. Then watch something from even a couple of years ago. There’s no comparison.

prawnsambo · 13-05-2020 6:45pm

Dog Botherer wrote: »

Just because legislation is complicated doesn’t mean it is good. This is something else the Democrats struggle with, and it’s very much a neoliberal problem in that they have to wrap everything in so many layers of complexity that ultimately little is achieved, while eschewing simpler, more populist messages like “Medicare For All”. Whether that is intentional or simple incompetence it’s hard to say.

Medicare for all has been successfully characterised as COMMUNISM!!!! So they can't go near that.

swiwi_ · 13-05-2020 6:46pm

Our village gave us a CHF50 voucher each (including the kids), valid for any of the village shops, in order to stimulate the local economy post-covid lockdown. A more than pleasant surprise. The adults' vouchers will go straight to one of the nine local wine producers (for a village of 600 residents...). I resisted the temptation to add the kids' vouchers into the mix...

Switzerland is quite interesting (I think) that when you become Swiss, it must be ratified by the confederation, the canton and then the local council. It would like having your new Irish citizenship stamped by the Republic, County Clare and then Ennis, then Ennis sending out a €50 voucher to its residents.

I genuinely think Switzerland is basically 22 separate countries loosely bound together as a confederation. Protestant, urban, German-speaking Zürich has absolutely nothing in common with Catholic, rural, French-speaking Valais where I live for example. Then there is Geneva which only has 25% Swiss citizens. In fact, it's quite hard to become Swiss if you don't marry one. I know a lot of people of Italian birth, in Switzerland since 40 or 50 years, who are still on a permanent visa.

Here endeth the sociology lesson.

Dog Botherer · 13-05-2020 6:47pm

prawnsambo wrote: »

Medicare for all has been successfully characterised as COMMUNISM!!!! So they can't go near that.

Obamacare has also been branded as communist. Every Democratic politician since Reagan has been decried as a commie. Why try anything?

prawnsambo · 13-05-2020 6:50pm

Dog Botherer wrote: »

Obamacare has also been branded as communist. Every Democratic politician since Reagan has been decried as a commie. Why try anything?

You were asking why they wrap things up in incomprehenible detail. That's why. And the funny thing about Obamacare is that people were all against Obamacare but polled favourably for the Affordable Care Act. The very same thing.

Dog Botherer · 13-05-2020 6:52pm

prawnsambo wrote: »

You were asking why they wrap things up in incomprehenible detail. That's why. And the funny thing about Obamacare is that people were all against Obamacare but polled favourably for the Affordable Care Act. The very same thing.

I don’t really follow. Everything any Democrat does will be pilloried as COMMUNISM or SOCIALISM by the right. Obamacare vs ACA is obviously racism. What is your point?

Panda Killa · 13-05-2020 7:03pm

Ah.... remember when we couldn't discuss politics in here...fun times!

prawnsambo · 13-05-2020 7:07pm

Panda Killa wrote: »

Ah.... remember when we couldn't discuss politics in here...fun times!

Good point.

ClanofLams · 13-05-2020 7:10pm

Dog Botherer wrote: »

I think Warren would be much better than Biden but again she was a Republican for most of her adult life and is cut from similar cloth to him.

I think Sanders is very much aware of how difficult it would be, but in his Senate career he has been one of the most competent senators at getting bipartisan support for crucial amendments that have helped countless people. Only weeks ago he strong armed the Republicans into including financial aid to out of work Americans after they tried to cut it. No other Dem helped him, but he got it done.

Watch any clip from the past six months and actually pay attention to what he’s saying. He’s completely incoherent. Then watch something from even a couple of years ago. There’s no comparison.

Have seen a fair bit of him in recent months, watched this interview just there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMRda_3vwr8

He's never been a strong speaker or had an impressive recall ability in the way Clinton and Obama had for detail but saying he is mentally unwell is baseless as far as I can see.

Dog Botherer · 13-05-2020 7:20pm

I’m out then, if you can’t see what’s staring you in the face then anything I say won’t change your mind.

ClanofLams · 13-05-2020 7:34pm

Dog Botherer wrote: »

I’m out then, if you can’t see what’s staring you in the face then anything I say won’t change your mind.

You said watch any clip, I watched one, if you want to point out at what part of that clip he's mentally unwell, go right ahead.

Dog Botherer · 13-05-2020 7:44pm

ClanofLams wrote: »

You said watch any clip, I watched one, if you want to point out at what part of that clip he's mentally unwell, go right ahead.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp9USOohHpk

I can find you plenty more, but what’s the point?

prawnsambo · 13-05-2020 7:56pm

Dog Botherer wrote: »

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp9USOohHpk

I can find you plenty more, but what’s the point?

What's your point? That he couldn't remember something? Clearly I must be mentally unwell too. This all sounds very like the same kind of stuff that was levelled at Hillary Clinton back in 2016. That she was unwell and stuttering and having (or had) a stroke.

Dog Botherer · 13-05-2020 7:58pm

Knew it was pointless.

thomond2006 · 13-05-2020 8:02pm

Throw in NUFC takeover on Twitter and you'll spot bot accounts whose only tweets is supporting the takeover and defending the Saudi regime. Scary.

prawnsambo · 13-05-2020 8:04pm

thomond2006 wrote: »

Throw in NUFC takeover on Twitter and you'll spot bot accounts whose only tweets is supporting the takeover and defending the Saudi regime. Scary.

If you've ever had occasion to visit the Lovin' Dublin website, take a moment and head over to their Lovin' Saudi website. Yep, the same people.

thomond2006 · 13-05-2020 8:16pm

prawnsambo wrote: »

If you've ever had occasion to visit the Lovin' Dublin website, take a moment and head over to their Lovin' Saudi website. Yep, the same people.

Lovin Dublin are scum. Rent a glowing review.

awec · 13-05-2020 8:30pm

If things continue to get heated with the political stuff we'll just ban it again. Dial it down a bit.

jacothelad · 13-05-2020 9:16pm

Former Former wrote: »

I don't think anyone knows.

However, we have known from day one that the UK were only reporting deaths in NHS hospitals, there was always going to be big upward adjustment in the death figure and the UK government took a very deliberate stance to under-report. France started doing this also, but quickly changed.

There are more figures coming out which say that the excess mortality in the UK in the last seven weeks is 50,000.

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/40fc8904-febf-4a66-8d1c-ea3e48bbc034

I just can't understand why he's being let away with it.

The lack of an honest press and a fawning and castrated BBC.

jacothelad · 13-05-2020 9:26pm

Stheno wrote: »

Wtf are the Lerts?

BoZo wants us all to be a Lert. I'm refusing.......;);)

prawnsambo · 13-05-2020 9:32pm

jacothelad wrote: »

The lack of an honest press and a fawning and castrated BBC.

The funny thing is that some of the worst sycophants have turned on him (possibly) because of the horrific death toll. Like Piers Morgan who seems to have caught something that's stiffened his spine. Laura Kuensburg even questioned his response to Keir Starmer's letter. I'm fairly sure I saw a less than flattering tweet from Harry whatsisname of the S*n. But generally, the likes of the Torygraph, Daily Heil and Spectator are cheerleading from the front.

13-05-2020 10:45pm

Dog Botherer wrote: »

I think a sizable chunk of the so-called “Bernie Bro’s” are actually disaffected Democrats

It’s all very depressing.

Dog Botherer wrote: »

Obama’s nickname amongst Latino immigration activists was “Deporter In Chief”. C’mon.

If I recall correctly a lot of that Bernie v Clinton online antagonism was part of the Russian disinformation campaign and I've no doubt the Democrats are fighting a virtual war on several fronts in that regards.

Neil3030 · 13-05-2020 11:06pm

So I just learned that Keir Starmer was a human rights lawyer, and then became head of the Crown Prosecution Service. Basically, the UK's best prosecutor. It's really showing in the PMQs.

But in a more uplifting sense, it's a reminder that there are very bright, competent people in politics. Especially in the UK where the leaders of the Left haven't exactly been very inspiring in recent years (Corbyn, Milliband).

Neil3030 · 13-05-2020 11:11pm

Folks seriously, if anyone is even the slightest bit concerned about Biden's cognitive state, take a look at this:

Specifically, from 9:45 onwards, and the question about Mother's Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q2h6KctHQ8

Biden has had a few memory slips, but you can still probably trust him to go to the store to buy milk, and he would largely keep things together and buy some kind of milk or milk substitute, hell maybe even UHT milk, we'd forgive him that...

But with Trump, I fear if you sent him to the store to buy milk, he wouldn't find his way home...

13-05-2020 11:31pm

Dog Botherer wrote: »

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp9USOohHpk

I can find you plenty more, but what’s the point?

Sure Biden looks terrible in selected clips out of context. I recommend you watch one of the democratic debates in full. Saying he has something like dementia is an insult to those with dementia.

prawnsambo · 14-05-2020 8:05am

Deleted User wrote: »

Sure Biden looks terrible in selected clips out of context. I recommend you watch one of the democratic debates in full. Saying he has something like dementia is an insult to those with dementia.

Well said. And this stuff is just creepy. Lay people deciding that they're qualified to make diagnoses on the basis of a few video clips. As I said above, the same stuff was going around about Hillary Clinton and she's still going strong four years later. And if Bernie Sanders had been selected, the same stuff would be going around about him. In fact it was when he had the heart attack. Meanwhile Trump rambles on incoherently. The mother's day rambling was just bizarre.

Podge_irl · 14-05-2020 9:02am

prawnsambo wrote: »

Well said. And this stuff is just creepy. Lay people deciding that they're qualified to make diagnoses on the basis of a few video clips. As I said above, the same stuff was going around about Hillary Clinton and she's still going strong four years later. And if Bernie Sanders had been selected, the same stuff would be going around about him. In fact it was when he had the heart attack. Meanwhile Trump rambles on incoherently. The mother's day rambling was just bizarre.

I think we can all agree that having a selection of septua- and octogenarians is nonetheless pretty ****e though. It is certainly an indication that something is wrong. Obviously, with the alternative being Trump, you would look past a lot of it but Biden is too old and the fact he has always been a bit absent minded isn't exactly wonderful either, and it is actually a pretty legit worry about Sanders and his heart attack given his age too.

Regardless of what happens, they are not going to be in a great place.

Clegg · 14-05-2020 10:20am

Clegg wrote: »

Just learned that my grandmother is booked for a Covid swab. She's 86 years old and a diabetic so that's not good. Still lives in her family home with my grandad and I know she hasn't been out in weeks. So that balances things out a bit. GP thinks it's a chest infection but isn't taking any chances. Very hopeful that it is just a run of the mill illness.

She tested negative!

errlloyd · 14-05-2020 11:01am

Clegg wrote: »

She tested negative!

That's great news. It's this sort of news that holds off my lockdown fatigue! Good luck to your grandmother and whole family in the future!

Clegg · 14-05-2020 11:12am

errlloyd wrote: »

That's great news. It's this sort of news that holds off my lockdown fatigue! Good luck to your grandmother and whole family in the future!

It's fantastic news. We think it's the diabetes that's causing the issue. Know for certain once she sees her GP and no doubt gets a bollocking for eating sweets non stop since lockdown began.

Off Topic Thread 5.0

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