BF2S Forums Presidential Election 2016

uziq wrote:

i suppose trump can’t go after biden for being corrupt because it’s very very bad optics for himself

Honestly, I'd say Biden is worse, but let's call it a wash.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Jay wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

It's weird that tech companies are your new favorite pet. You know tech companies would never support any sort of weatlh distribution downward, right? Just to be clear the next time you try to call Tom Steyer or Jeff Bezos a leftist.

Trial lawyers? Lol dude where do you get these? What articles are you reading? Generally curious

Rank    Sector    Amount    To Cands/Parties    Dems    Repubs     To DEMS  To REPUBS
1    Finance/Insur/RealEst    $942,324,754    $533,531,541    47.7%    52.0%    $254,272,766
2    Other    $646,528,890    $544,428,742    65.9%    33.5%    $358,636,228
3    Ideology/Single-Issue    $627,840,545    $349,192,979    60.2%    39.4%    $210,278,565
4    Misc Business    $409,141,196    $254,603,505    47.0%    52.6%    $119,636,167
5    Health    $276,868,889    $190,280,085    56.4%    43.2%    $107,317,588
6    Communic/Electronics    $243,744,744    $168,072,253    72.0%    27.4%    $121,039,358
7    Lawyers & Lobbyists    $229,498,437    $217,997,658    72.5%    27.0%    $158,060,765
8    Labor    $174,235,896    $70,336,709    85.6%    13.9%    $60,186,396
9    Energy/Nat Resource    $144,703,059    $96,663,130    22.5%    77.3%    $21,764,507
10    Agribusiness    $99,058,524    $80,130,446    29.7%    69.8%    $23,823,952
11    Construction    $87,560,411    $77,930,556    30.6%    68.9%    $23,868,312
12    Transportation    $74,166,087    $69,406,390    29.8%    69.8%    $20,705,153
13    Defense    $30,477,652    $30,292,902    41.0%    58.3%    $12,422,426

https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/sectors.php

oh, it's because you don't understand the function of large law firms. That makes sense.

Uh huh.

So, Biden was the Senator from Delaware for 36 years. Delaware is where American corporations go to incorporate if they want to remain American flagged. This is because Delaware has no state corporate income tax. This gave him access to a very large number of American corporations and their lobbying dollars. It's why he spent so many years in Senate leadership positions. Leadership positions aren't generally handed out based on talent, but on the ability to rake in donations for The Party and thus accrue allies.

Chuck Schumer is Senate Minority Leader because he represents New York and milks Wall Street for all he can for the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi does the same to the tech industry out in California. It's why she is Speaker of the House. She can make or break other peoples re-election campaigns by either distributing or withholding mega dollars to her fellow Congresspeople. This is how American party politics works. Generally, when a bill to regulate an industry is proposed in the Senate or the House, it is a milker bill. It is designed to scare the industry into coughing up campaign dollars.

The idealists like Warren and Bernie and AOC have no real power because they don't do anything for their fellow members of Congress. Thus, they have no power, because they have no allies. Yes, this generally means they are less corrupt. Score one for them.

Last edited by Jay (2020-07-10 17:40:55)

Jay wrote:

So, Biden was the Senator from Delaware for 36 years. Delaware is where American corporations go to incorporate if they want to remain American flagged. This is because Delaware has no state corporate income tax. This gave him access to a very large number of American corporations and their lobbying dollars. It's why he spent so many years in Senate leadership positions. Leadership positions aren't generally handed out based on talent, but on the ability to rake in donations for The Party and thus accrue allies.

Chuck Schumer is Senate Minority Leader because he represents New York and milks Wall Street for all he can for the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi does the same to the tech industry out in California. It's why she is Speaker of the House. She can make or break other peoples re-election campaigns by either distributing or withholding mega dollars to her fellow Congresspeople. This is how American party politics works. Generally, when a bill to regulate an industry is proposed in the Senate or the House, it is a milker bill. It is designed to scare the industry into coughing up campaign dollars.

The idealists like Warren and Bernie and AOC have no real power because they don't do anything for their fellow members of Congress. Thus, they have no power, because they have no allies. Yes, this generally means they are less corrupt. Score one for them.

I thought low or no taxes and low or no regulation of industry were two of your core beliefs.

I don't doubt Biden is a corrupt shitbag, its a shame neither party can put up an honest idealist except occasionally.

there are an infinite number of gangs in western europe. russians and ukrainians not really, the actual mafias there are very high-level. you will not encounter street level gangs with russian accents. you’re about as likely to encounter the italian mafias tbh.

the turkish ‘mafia’, if that’s quite the right word, are far more prevalent in western europe. then there’s your usual street level gangs of somalians, nigerians, etc. these run extensive criminal underworlds.

the most successful gang nowadays is the albanians. they have pretty much taken over the drug trade and much else besides and pushed older players out. they are totally ruthless. they link up with the older, higher level mafia organisations in italy, as well as go directly to drug suppliers in south america etc. albania really is the hotbed for most crime in europe, as well as neighbouring bulgaria (which is extremely corrupt and mobbed up as well) and romania. albania has been the poorest country in europe after the post-soviet fallout for a very long time, and the country after hoxha has been ran by criminals. obviously the balkans generally have not had a good time.

‘eastern european’ gangs as in polish, nah not really. never heard anything about that. poland has a booming economy, a large middle-class and a ‘law and order last nationalism thing going on. and places like the czech republic etc you don’t hear about. 

every country has its own gangs, but the older immigrant community gangs, like in the 1970s the jamaicans/rastas in the UK, have been totally pushed out and moved on by others. the albanians for example make the turf wars and weed pushing of inner city jamaicans seem totally quaint.  you’re much more often to see ‘criminal networks’ of hardened white nutters covered in tattoos who run crime networks in northern cities than you are to see a pakistani or caribbean gang.

Last edited by uziq (2020-07-11 00:57:02)

You can argue if you like but I included the balkans under eastern europe

Russian crime is much higher level, buying football clubs to launder money etc.

how is anyone not regarding this roger stone thing as absolute corruption? the president has just pardoned someone sentenced in large part because of crimes associated with said executive.

uziq wrote:

how is anyone not regarding this roger stone thing as absolute corruption? the president has just pardoned someone sentenced in large part because of crimes associated with said executive.

Presidents pardon people all the time. It's one of the perks of the job.

The president's testing the waters to see just how much he can get away with. Wasn't Stone only going down for a token 3 years anyway?

Stop doing illegal things then, I guess.

Isn't McConnell planning on blocking everything he can if the Dems win the White House anyway?

Also when anyone deflects to or emphasizes "both sides do it," it puts me in mind of this meme:

In case y'all haven't heard that Lincoln was a Republican,

Trump claims ‘nobody ever heard’ Abraham Lincoln was a Republican until he pointed it out 2020 jul 11
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-claims … 47672.html

“Like people don’t remember, nobody ever heard of it until I came along, nobody remembered it for a long time, or they didn’t use it at least, I use it all the time: Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. You know you say that and people say, ‘I didn’t know that’, but he was Republican, so we’re doing a great job.”

[…]

During the roundtable, Mr Trump also falsely accused rival nominee for president Joe Biden of trying to “impose socialism” on the US, wrongly suggested the Democratic Party wanted to “rip down statues to Jesus”, and said cities with Democrat political leaders were “going to hell”.

Thank you, mister president.