***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[frenchbreadbuilds]

Respect doodoo process.

 

[nawghtyhare]

How much more did you get on each check?

It is a matter of your withholdings. If you made the exact same this year, as you did last year, you paid less in taxes. What you "get back" has to do with your withholdings. Pretty simple math.

its not just a simple matter with ur withholdings

 

[rexanglorum]

Respect doodoo process.

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/2c/36/58/...e8be0452e74--innocent-michael-jackson.jpg?b=t

The walls were covered in due due process

 

[RustyShackleford]

Word is that this secret ingredient that gives Wendy's fries their signature taste. It ain't the sea salt

Allegedly

 

[chao7]

"We don't have money for..."



But let's blow gigantic holes in the deficit to give the already generationally wealthy massive tax cuts.

 

[Belgium]

As a reminder, Michael Cohen's public hearing tomorrow is set to start at 10 AM E.T. by the way.
The public hearing will be conducted by the House Oversight Committee. Cohen is also set to later testify privately.

While Trump's lawyers won't be present of course, 18 acting defense attorneys are set to take their place.

 

[deuce king]

All fun and games until he is sued for battery and/or ends up with a criminal charge. This internet stuff is funny, but there are real life implications to glorifying ignorant behavior. Namely the erosion of the black family when the dude you refer to as a brotha ends up unable to get a job because of his criminal history. I have an actual brother, and would never advise him to behave like he lacks self control.

But yea, likes on the internet...

MAGA is the new word/name for KKK to a good number of conscious black people. Those that know.....know. Also, that’s not battery champ....more like an attempt theft charge IF anything. Either way I truly do support that brotha and any other brotha that does the same...not just for likes on the internet.

 

[gry60]

https://www.motherjones.com/politic...Mnqq0X40v_g32dvMUQc_9kxhE7081oRL-w337pwEHD9qw

A bombshell investigation published Friday by Italy’s L’Espresso magazinereveals a plot that might sound familiar. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of the hard-right Lega Nord party, L’Espresso reports, last year sought a 3 million euro funding commitment from Kremlin-linked entities to finance his political campaign. The scheme, reportedly organized by a loyal aide and former spokesman to Salvini named Gianluca Savoini, enabled the money to flow to Lega Nord covertly, tucked behind an ordinary-seeming oil export deal between Italian and Russian companies.

There is no clear indication of whether this money ever actually made its way to Salvini and his party, L’Espresso notes. But the tale is yet another example of people or organizations linked to the Kremlin working to advance right-wing politics in a Western nation. In this particular case, the deal, regardless of whether it ever came to fruition, shares elements with President Donald Trump’s Moscow tower initiative—another business negotiation during an election that was carried out by a right-leaning politician’s trusted aide who had or was seeking discussions with Russian officials.

L’Espresso reports that the deal came to be in October 2018 when Salvini, a self-proclaimed fan of Trump and an admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, made an official trip to Moscow, disappearing after a press conference and mysteriously ditching his Italian press pool only to reappear the next morning. During that time, Salvini and Savoini reportedly met with Deputy Premier Dmitry Kozak, Putin associate and delegate for energy affairs. The next day, reporters overheard Savoini take part in a hotel meeting with Russian oil executives working out the details of a deal that would for a year send 250,000 euros monthly to the Lega Nord, disguised as diesel sales from the Kremlin-owned oil company Rosneft to Italian state-owned oil company Eni. Salvini didn’t respond to L’Espresso‘s requests for comment; on Friday, opposition politicians in Italy called on the Lega Nord and Salvini to respond to the magazine’s allegations.

 

[deuce king]

Biden in

??

 

[boris]

I know. It's also improved jobs where human hands are needed.

Two things can be true

I don't disagree. I do think we need to be really careful about automation, though. Companies will always put profit above everything else. If they can eliminate the need for human labor they absolutely will. Uber, for example, will use human drivers until they can use self-driving vehicles.

 

[noskey]

Regarding trucking and automation, wages are already being suppressed. Companies like Amazon are on a race to the bottom to see how much these trucking companies will haul for, and theres not much more room to go down. Like I said previously, automation will cause the skill requirement to change, but not replace drivers altogether. Wages will face downward pressure for the short term, but long term will see prices stabilize and then rise based on the continuing driver shortage and higher required skillset. Unskilled drivers will get laid off or go bankrupt first, company drivers will quit or be reduced while wages drop, and the skilled operators who are left will pivot and adapt. Future drivers will come into the industry with more knowledge and education and be able to demand a higher wage, or these shippers like Amazon and WalMart and Target wont be able to deliver to their customers.

Drivers wont be able to simply drive, they'll need to understand the systems and be able to navigate roads and software. But this will help the industry salvage a future until autonomous systems are fully developed in more than a few decades from now.

This is strictly middle mile trucking, not last mile/home delivery which will be replaced by small robots and drones in the next 5 years.

 

[rexanglorum]

Given the Geohell that we live in, a UBI would drastically improve the lives of the very poor. Since the late 90's, the scant socially safety net that we have might give you a tiny stipend for food and medical care and housing but the consensus view on welfare in the neoliberal era is that poor people cannot be trusted with cash benefits. So if we gave everyone a grand a month, no questions asked, it would be life changing for the cashless very poor who are currently kept alive through an infantalizing and dehumanizing in-kind only welfare system.

The problem is that giving everyone a grand every month to every man, women and child in this country would cost roughly 3.3 trillion every year and with all the other stuff I'd want to see happen like Medicare for all, free college, green new deal, reparations for slavery, universal daycare and pre-K and the federal jobs guarantee, a universal basic income is, at this time, too expensive (I don't buy any of the hookum that the US "must balance it's budget like a household" or that "we're broke, like Greece." We have lots of budget flexibility, we print the reserve currency of the world and the very nature of sovereign debt means we aren't like a household. But with all of that said, there still are fiscal limits, albeit very flexible boundries). UBI is currently a solution in search of a problem.

We need to make welfare less conditional and realize that poor folk are no less irresponsible with money than wealthy people. So lets have more benefits for poor people and have a large share of those benefits be in cash.

Then we go forward with the whole suite of programs that I just mentioned and in addition, we make employers pay a what amounts to a payroll tax on their "smart" Capital stock and that revenue would be equally distributed to all Americans. Right now, that would not be a lot of money for each person but in the ensuing decades, that amount will grow into a UBI. The more we'll need a UBI, the more robust it will become. Honestly considering, the scale of work needed for decarbonizing in the 2020's, I'd raise the minimum wage and give employers tax incentive to accelerate their implementation of an AI driven capital stock. It will free up human labor for the massive task of saving the planet from catastrophic climate change.

After 2030, we will really be able to start winding down the idea of working being connecting to your ability to live and consume. The key is to stave off climate catastrophe and find a smooth transition from late capitalism into an increasingly automated luxury socialism.

 

[aepps20]

Regarding trucking and automation, wages are already being suppressed. Companies like Amazon are on a race to the bottom to see how much these trucking companies will haul for, and theres not much more room to go down. Like I said previously, automation will cause the skill requirement to change, but not replace drivers altogether. Wages will face downward pressure for the short term, but long term will see prices stabilize and then rise based on the continuing driver shortage and higher required skillset. Unskilled drivers will get laid off or go bankrupt first, company drivers will quit or be reduced while wages drop, and the skilled operators who are left will pivot and adapt. Future drivers will come into the industry with more knowledge and education and be able to demand a higher wage, or these shippers like Amazon and WalMart and Target wont be able to deliver to their customers.

Drivers wont be able to simply drive, they'll need to understand the systems and be able to navigate roads and software. But this will help the industry salvage a future until autonomous systems are fully developed in more than a few decades from now.

This is strictly middle mile trucking, not last mile/home delivery which will be replaced by small robots and drones in the next 5 years.

Well said comrade. LIBS ARE TOAST. THE COFFERS ARE OVERFLOWING WITH COALLLLLLLLLL

 

[getback]

All fun and games until he is sued for battery and/or ends up with a criminal charge. This internet stuff is funny, but there are real life implications to glorifying ignorant behavior. Namely the erosion of the black family when the dude you refer to as a brotha ends up unable to get a job because of his criminal history. I have an actual brother, and would never advise him to behave like he lacks self control.

But yea, likes on the internet...

@ being denied a job for smacking someone's hat off and snatching a stupid flag.

Looks like it took place in a high school too. Both probably juveniles. Dude will probably get detention or not be able to go to the Winter Ball.

FOH.

 

[noskey]

Well said comrade. LIBS ARE TOAST. THE COFFERS ARE OVERFLOWING WITH COALLLLLLLLLL

AMEN COALRADE. We will replace these socialist trucks with MERICAN AUTONOMOUS COAL-POWERED TRUCKS. No more of this imported Chinese trucking. No more of this socialist renewable trucking. COAL FIRED TRUCKS FOREVER. IN PRESIDENT GOD TRUMP WE TRUST.

 

[hand2handking]

 

[dwalk31]

MAGA is the new word/name for KKK to a good number of conscious black people. Those that know.....know. Also, that’s not battery champ....more like an attempt theft charge IF anything. Either way I truly do support that brotha and any other brotha that does the same...not just for likes on the internet.

When you grab something from someone’s hand it is battery, champ. There’s a famous battery case of someone smacking a plate out of someone’s hand.

 

[dwalk31]

??

I think he announced

 

[blastercombo]

@ being denied a job for smacking someone's hat off and snatching a stupid flag.

Looks like it took place in a high school too. Both probably juveniles. Dude will probably get detention or not be able to go to the Winter Ball.

FOH.

Got sexual predator adults being called kids..... jussssssss sayin

 

[getback]

When you grab something from someone’s hand it is battery, champ. There’s a famous battery case of someone smacking a plate out of someone’s hand.

I'm sure the battery charge in this case would stick

 

[mplsdunk]

You remind me of one of those economist in 1999 calling the US recession proof. Better yet, like a coal miner in the 1970s thinking things will always be wavy. Completely ignoring the flank

Famb, billions of dollars are being spent to make this happen. You can't assume that money is on a fool's errand.

Even if it won't wipe out all those jobs, autonomous freight vehicles gives companies more leverage to suppress wages and break unions.

Keep human in the trucks to handle small road city driving, then you autopilot features for highways. The machine is doing half the work, so why should the human get all the pay.

Sir boomhauer, you sound like a lot of people who aren’t in the industry but did a little reading.

Rule number one of driving. Work for a company that has trucks, not a trucking company.

Trucking companies are already bottom of the barrel jobs. Do some research on swift of knight. They are awful companies that will do anything to screw you out of your pay. There is more to trucking than freight.

Their wages are already so low that you lost already working for one of them...

I work for a billion dollar concrete company that doesn’t invest in robot trucks... I do most my driving off road, auto pilot trucks aren’t going there. That’s not even most of it I’m checking the quality and adjusting it as needed and finally placing it whenever it goes. I’ll be dead by the time a robot can do my job.

It’s hard to give examples because me and you have a different idea of what goes into driving but even if dock bumping freight drivers get replaced there is a million more hands on jobs that won’t be.

City route driving, snow plows, all construction cdl jobs, trash trucks, roll off dumpster trucks, booze delivery, food delivery, I could go on forever.

Wages for freight drivers are already in the toilet, they aren’t gonna have anyone to man the auto pilot truck for even less pay. Why would someone take that job to do all the “hard” driving while the robot does the rest for even less pay?

People have been trying to get driverless trucks going forever. The latest one I heard of got bullied into not moving because cars kept cutting it off in a traffic jam.

I’m sure some trucking will get automated. It already has in a lot of way but all it really has done is saved the driver from wear and tear on their body.

 

[equality]

Sir boomhauer, you sound like a lot of people who aren’t in the industry but did a little reading.

Rule number one of driving. Work for a company that has trucks, not a trucking company.

Trucking companies are already bottom of the barrel jobs. Do some research on swift of knight. They are awful companies that will do anything to screw you out of your pay. There is more to trucking than freight.

Their wages are already so low that you lost already working for one of them...

I work for a billion dollar concrete company that doesn’t invest in robot trucks... I do most my driving off road, auto pilot trucks aren’t going there. That’s not even most of it I’m checking the quality and adjusting it as needed and finally placing it whenever it goes. I’ll be dead by the time a robot can do my job.

It’s hard to give examples because me and you have a different idea of what goes into driving but even if dock bumping freight drivers get replaced there is a million more hands on jobs that won’t be.

City route driving, snow plows, all construction cdl jobs, trash trucks, roll off dumpster trucks, booze delivery, food delivery, I could go on forever.

Wages for freight drivers are already in the toilet, they aren’t gonna have anyone to man the auto pilot truck for even less pay. Why would someone take that job to do all the “hard” driving while the robot does the rest for even less pay?

People have been trying to get driverless trucks going forever. The latest one I heard of got bullied into not moving because cars kept cutting it off in a traffic jam.

I’m sure some trucking will get automated. It already has in a lot of way but all it really has done is saved the driver from wear and tear on their body.

Full of anecdotes and your own experience. Plenty of drivers earn a decent living (>$60,000 a year). You may not be replaced by a self driving car specifically, but if you think automation will have no effect on truck drivers in general in 10-20 years then you're deluded. I'm not going to go do the research and pull up stats for you, you can keep to your anecdotes and personal experience. It's cool

 

[mplsdunk]

Ok, so I have personal experience on the subject we’re debating and you’re using that against me? get real man.

If anyone can speak on the subject it’s me.

I know all about the automated trucks, show me one that can replace a person.

 

[Belgium]

^ Ken Vogel needs to read the Manafort hearing transcript, because evidently somebody is lying to him about who Kilimnik shared or was asked to share the polling data with.

He reported for the NYT that Kilimnik was asked to give the data to Ukrainian oligarchs Lyovochkin and Akhmetov, both of whom owed a significant amount of money to Manafort, which makes no sense. More importantly, that reporting does not fit with the transcript of the Manafort hearing.

The image excerpt below is prosecutor Weissmann talking about the sharing of the "highly detailed" and private polling data. According to an exhibit filed in the hearing by Manafort's lawyers, the polling data was 75 pages long.
"[Manafort] understood it was was going to be given by [redacted] to the [redacted] and to Mr. [redacted] both."
The first redaction clearly suggests Kilimnik as his name has been redacted throughout the whole transcript and we know he was given the data. Weissmann also notes that Manafort knew Kilimnik was going to give it to both an entity/group of multiple individuals and an individual.
That clearly does not square with the NYT's reporting that the data was supposed to be given to 2 Ukrainian oligarchs who owed Manafort money. Aside from the descriptions not matching, why would he request to give the data to 2 Ukrainians who owed him money? Konstantin Kilimnik worked as a liaison for Oleg Deripaska and flew back to Moscow on Deripaska's private jet the day after the clandestine August 2 meeting. Manafort owed Deripaska several millions of dollars and judging by his emails with Kilimnik, he was trying to repay Deripaska.

In an email to Kilimnik, Manafort asked if "the OVD operation" (Oleg V. Deripaska) had seen the articles about his position as Trump campaign chairman. He then consulted with Kilimnik on how to leverage that position. "How do we use to get whole?", Manafort wrote in the email.
Prior to the August 2 2016 meeting, Kilimnik emailed Manafort and said he had spoken to Deripaska for 5 hours and wanted to discuss at the meeting. On August 3rd, Kilimnik flew back to Moscow on Deripaska's private jet from NY.

Also in August 2016, Deripaska was recorded on a yacht in a discussion with the Russian Deputy PM. On August 9th, Deripaska was spotted alongside Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Prigozhin is also a close affiliate of Putin and controls Concord Management, which is currently the only Russian defendant fighting Mueller in court. Mueller has accused them of using non-sensitive discovery material to conduct a disinformation campaign that misrepresented the evidence in the case. Prigozhin was indicted in the Internet Research Agency indictment and is under US sanctions.

Deripaska and Prigozhin on August 9th

 

[equality]

Ok, so I have personal experience on the subject we’re debating and you’re using that against me? get real man.

If anyone can speak on the subject it’s me.

I know all about the automated trucks, show me one that can replace a person.

Did you skip the part that says in 10-20 years? Quick google shows average truck driver salary is above $70,000. That's far from the low-wage bottom of the toilet description you gave. Again, maybe trucks don't effect drivers who do off-roads i.e. you.
Your experience doesn't represent the whole industry.