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MisinformationQuote:
Originally Posted by JDunn
False. The UK’s early release scheme was announced more than two weeks before anti-immigration protests and excludes those convicted of murder and rape.
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/b...rs-2024-08-26/
Are these thugs the 'concerned citizens' you are referring to?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_riots
If you are okay with one type but not the other then how do you get to a system that can better distinguish between the two? Trump and his followers certainly aren't interested in making a distinction. I understand that one of the big problems, which the legislation blocked by Trump was trying to address, is that the system just doesn't have enough resources to deal with the numbers seeking asylum.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
It was around 3am here and though I began watching the VP debate I couldn't stay the course. What struck me was how Vance attacked Experts, 'people with PhDs but no common sense', a similar barb that Michael Gove made to the British media in 2016 when defending his position to Leave the EU. At least this suggests there is not much originality in Vance's playbook, much as Trump is promising more of the same policies he had in 2015 as if nothing had changed in 10 years.
I am surprised the Democrats don't hammer away at the fact that Trump is a convicted criminal, that he either led or inspired an act of sedition against the USA, if it were the Republicans they would never let up attacking the Democrats for law breaking. Walz missed out on a few blows, judging by the reviews.
Did it change anyone's vote?
The puzzle and its explanation
"Are Americans better off than they were four years ago? Pretty much every mainstream economist would say: you bet. Many go further. “I’ve hesitated to say this at the risk of sounding hyperbolic,” wrote Mark Zandi, the respected chief economist at Moodys, just a few days ago. “But … there is no denying it: this is among the best performing economies in my 35+ years as an economist.” Growth: up. Jobs: up. Wages: rising. The value of your home: up. Share prices: booming. Inflation: falling. Borrowing rates: dropping.In 2020, Donald Trump warned that his defeat would produce “a depression”. Today, even while Germany and Japan face recession, magazines toast the US economy’s “superstar status”. Yet ask Americans if they feel better off, and many answer: no."
"another suggestion emerges in a new report from a progressive thinktank, the Democracy Collaborative. And its argument should be heeded by Keir Starmer and the European left.
The authors examine much the same economic dashboard as everyone else – growth, jobs, wages – but over a far longer timeframe. Behind each graph lies the implicit question: are you, your family, your community better off than you were not four years ago, but two, three, four decades ago? And for many people the numbers say: no.
Take the biggest one: pay. For teachers, clerical workers, sales reps and the great bulk of US employees, whether white or blue collar, wages have flatlined – not for four or even 20 years – but for most of the past half century. Strip out inflation and average hourly earnings for seven out of 10 US employees have barely risen since Richard Nixon was in the White House."
This is the future for Kamala Harris: unless she solves this economic mystery, Trump wins | Aditya Chakrabortty | The Guardian
But surely, this is what Capitalism is, and on the basis of its natural ingredients, Capitalism has triumphed in the USA. Now consider what the meat in the narrative is for Trump and the Republicans -free enterprise? No. Free Markets? No. Immigration and society, culture and identity -the same components of the critiques that were common between the 1960s and 1980s, by, wait for it....Marxists, mostly those 'Western Marxists' who had swapped the critique of the 'economic base' for the 'cultural superstructure' as if one did not inform the other.
And then the lies, broadcast as lies, because the truth is too painful. Whatever, if Harris wins, it will see off Trump, probably not his movement -but will the economic indicators in the article above change over the next 4 years?
That factoid does not seem to be correct. There are different income measures from different sources (which you can see by scrolling down in the link), but they show that real median income has risen by between 20 and 50 per cent since the 1980s. By definition, 50 per cent of Americans must be doing better than the median.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q#0
There are also lots of surveys that show that most people believe they are personally better off over recent years but they think that the country as a whole has gone backwards. It seems like perceptions have become delinked from reality.
The alternative argument is useful, I would only say that as with most economists, when you ask a question from two there are often more than three answers, all of them plausible. How can we know what people spend their money on? People who gave up smoking in 1990 must have more money to spend than once they did, unless they replaced tobacco with alcohol, and so on. So I think whereas there is data that suggests wage growth has been slower than overall economic growth for some Americans, it does also return us to the perception problem.
Is it the media creating the impression the US is worse off than it is in aggregate terms? Trump went to Detroit and as expected, insulted and abused the Americans who live there, as the claim is that Detroit today is not like it was in the pasr. Do people believe Trump when he rants and raves about crime going through the roof when it ain't, or the misery of Detroit where in fact people are happier today than they were ten years ago? Not that Detroit doesn't have problems....I guess in the end rational people who are interested in politics will read around a topic while the rest 'trust' the politicians when they say stuff. Pity.
Detroit shows progress after bankruptcy 10 years : NPR
I don't know if Trump is going to win the election, but I do feel he is unhinged from reality and promising dire changes to the US and world trade. In fact, he seems to reckless, so determined to take revenge on people he despises, and he can do this through litigation designed to shred their finances, that I wonder -
how long after January 2025 will Vance and the 2025 Projectiles make their move and remove Trump from office?
It doesn't get weirder than this -an elderly man conducting a song 'Time to say Goodbye' or just standing there with a vacant look on his face....rather than engage with voters in a meaningful debate about, er, politics....Vance must be convulsed with laughter.
Donald Trump's Town Hall Takes Strange Musical Twist (yahoo.com)
Another prime example of why Donald Trump shouldn't be allowed to step foot in the White House ever again. And his constant ramblings about nonsense at his rallies shows how unfit and unqualified he is to be president.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
The absence of serious debate on policy is, I think, allowing some of the more extreme elements of a potential Trump Presidency to go without scrutiny, even though Harris, when she was AG in California, had some involvement in an individual referred to in the link below with regard to the various measures Republicans have taken -in Texas in particular in this report- to end the services that Planned Parenthood provides to women and families, most of them poor.
Behind this movement is the Federalist Society, a lawyers dream where behind all the hoo-ha of politics real people making real decisions about people's lives are either known to each other and funding each other, or on 'the same page' when it comes to issues such as Abortion, determined to roll back the legislation that once supported women in distressing, even life-threatening situations that now considers the 'rights of women' to be a violation of God's law, or some confection that is closer to the ideology of the Taliban than the liberal democracy once known as the USA.
As a slogan 'Defund Planned Parenthood' might energise some people, or not, but behind those two words -Planned Parenthood- is a service some of America's most vulnerable people need. The article, a long read, goes into the background to a court case plus others and is a disturbing example of what has already happened, that may evolve over the next 4 years, and without doubt that will target Transgender health at every level.
This summary re Texas is a verdict on the outcome Trump and his chums want for all Americans
"Meanwhile, as Planned Parenthood’s fate depends on the courts, the teen birth rate in Texas rose in 2022 for the first time in 15 years. Infant deaths have increased nearly 13%, compared with a 2% jump nationwide. Researchers from the University of Texas found that terminating Planned Parenthood from Medicaid “adversely affected low-income residents’ access to essential reproductive health services, resulting in delayed care and increases in births”, many of which researchers identified as “likely unintended”."
The Maga legal networks that could topple Planned Parenthood and gut women’s healthcare | Texas | The Guardian