Soxbadger

QUOTE (Real @ Jan 30, 2018 -> 07:41 PM) Really? Progressive policies would lose on the national stage? You obviously don't read any polls. Medicare is insanely popular for those who have it, saying Medicare for all would be unpopular is flat out incorrect. People overwhelmingly support it. People also overwhelmingly support a minimum wage tied to inflation, tuition free public college, and legalizing marijuana. The reason people stayed home, or voted for Trump was because they knew the difference between Trump and Hillary is negligible when you're talking about POLICY. Also, please don't try pretending as if Hillary won fair and square. The entire mainstream media showed superdelegate tallies before they even cast a vote. Unaware voters saw this as her having a lead that she didn't already have. SANDERS closed a 60 point lead in less than 10 months. He didn't have the name recognition nor had the corporate media behind him. We also know that Clinton literally funded the DNC herself and had all of the strings of power. QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Jan 30, 2018 -> 08:02 PM) Yeah, the idea that progressive policies would lose on the national stage is pretty absurd when you consider that almost every progressive policy position polls at over 60% nationally. Polls had Hillary decimating Trump. Last I checked Republicans control the House, the Senate and President. You can keep relying on polls, but those polls dont matter. Polls dont take into account how electoral college votes are split, polls dont take into account states for the senate and polls dont take into account districts for the House. Hillary won the popular vote, just like those polls,its meaningless. And you can make excuses for Sanders, just like people make excuses for Clinton. But Id rather win elections and be able to implement progressive policies than believe that somehow what people in all of those red states want is a MORE progressive candidate. It defies all facts and evidence. You have to play and win the game in the confines of the rule. Until the popular vote means something, you have to play to the electoral college. The numbers from the last election do not show some sort of path for Sanders to victory. I just dont get the angle here. But Id be glad to be proven wrong, unfortunately history and evidence dont suggest I am.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2018 -> 04:32 PM) Assuming that always chasing after centrist and center-right votes will net you more votes than paying any attention whatsoever to your own base gets pretty damn annoying for the base after a while. Especially when you keep losing bigly. The Republicans have listened to their base and sprinted farther and farther to the right after every election. Democrats have hemmed and hawed and offered nothing meaningful other than "hey, we're not Republicans" and keep getting their asses kicked. Not voting won't accomplish anything, but at some point, you're going to kill the enthusiasm and the motivation for activists to actually get out and build the party if you keep running dogs*** policy to chase after people who aren't going to vote for you anyway (or to appease your big donors). Again what does this even mean? Clinton smoked Sanders. She beat him by 3mil total votes. In the states that it are necessary to win for a Democrat to be elected, Hillary did better in at least half of them, if not more. So where is the basis for "If you go more left more people will vote." There is no empirical evidence to support this. Instead its the great myth that keeps getting pushed by the "more progressive" wing. At the end of the day the way our system works is that one party "wins" and one party "loses". It doesnt matter if the party that loses has "great ideas" or "the greatest candidate ever", they are losers and the other side gets to dictate policy for X years. So instead of in fighting a great idea would be "vote for the candidate who is MOST inline with your belief." Then when that person gets into office, try and convince them that your position is better and that they should move towards you. Think of politics as a a spectrum (1)------------------(10). Lets say I am a 10 and the candidates that are running are a 3 and 6. Is it more likely that the 6 will be convinced to become closer to a 10 or a 3? Democrats didnt lose President because of "dog s*** candidate", Trump was likely much worse. The difference is that for whatever reason the Democrat strategy was misplaced and instead of making sure they had 270, they wanted to get like 320. You learn from your mistakes and move on. But now is not the time to go all crazy on ideology. Trump is disliked, its a mid term election. Everything is going for the Democrats. The only way they screw it up, is they start doing things that make middle of the road people say "WTF?"

QUOTE (Real @ Jan 30, 2018 -> 03:46 PM) Victim blaming, nice. Instead of s***ting on progressives for not supporting neoliberal corporatists who are essentially moderate republicans, how about you come at this from the correct angle and blame the politician for not EARNING their votes. Nobody owes anybody their vote. Victim blaming? How are they "victims?" I am trying to speak rationally to people who theoretically hold a similar view to me. What is the point of "earning" votes, if you lose 2 votes for every 1 you gain? What is the point of forcing politicians to take positions that will result in losses at the national stage? Nobody has to do anything. Which is why in the example, you can sit out and give me $10. That is their choice. They want to sit out, they dont want to vote, then dont complain when the outcome isnt what you like. Dont complain about immigrants, dont complain about SC nominees, dont complain about health care. They chose to sit out, they chose to be silent, so now dont whine about the outcome. Thats not victim blaming, that is trying to explain the realities of life. Most of the time winning requires some amount of sacrifice or compromise. I dont know how better to explain this to people. Right now there are 2 choices to run the US govt. You either align with one of them, or you leave it to the whim of other people. So if 1 party has more align with you, vote that party. Dont think that sitting on the sidelines will somehow get that party to move with you. It wont. It will do the opposite, because that party will see you as unreliable and will go after the reliable votes. Republicans are in control of House, Senate and President. Sanders (the more progressive candidate) lost to Clinton. Clinton crushed Sanders in Florida, Ohio and Penn, yet she still lost to Trump. There is a severe disconnect if you think being more progressive is going to win the necessary states to take back anything. Change takes time and a lot of people fear it.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 30, 2018 -> 02:12 PM) So a statue of great generals in history would be exploiting racist imaging but a statue of General Washington or any other President who owned slaves is not. Interesting discussion, but I think that there is subtext to Lee and other confederate generals. Washington, Jefferson, etc should definitely receive criticism for being slave owners. They also are afforded the defense of "they lived in a different time." But the 1840s were also a different time. Lee and Stonewall committed treason, to protect slavery. Again they are both afforded the defense of "they lived in a different time", but in the time they lived people were much more outspoken against slavery, and had Lee not resigned from his post in the US, who knows how history would have changed. People are judged by their actions and the future is generally unkind to those who held power in the past. Even those who had "good" intentions, often are seen in a much more critical light because it is hard to justify their decisions when you live in a different time. Even Lincoln falls victim to this. Confederates are responsible for almost as many American deaths as every other war/conflict the US has been involved combined. That is something that you cant defend, no matter what time they lived in.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 30, 2018 -> 12:29 AM) There are two dangers. One is the old axiom, you always win by capturing the middle, and anyone that runs way to the left or right gets walloped (historically). That's colliding with an emerging one, as you mentioned, that if you alienate 1/3rd of your most dedicated and committed volunteers and voters on the progressive side, you'll end up with the same exact results as 2016. Both parties are in danger of splitting in two...or you could argue that instead of 4, you would have progressive Democrats (25-30%), everyone in the middle of the country (Centrist/Moderate Dems and "Compassionate" Republicans who are more open on social issues and pseudo-libertarian on economics)....and then Trump's supporters (another 25-30%) on the far right. That's the most fascinating aspect of all this upheaval. Do you end up with 4 or 3 political parties instead of the traditional two by the end of 2012? Or is it STILL just Dems and Republicans? It really feels like another 3rd party candidate (like a Bloomberg/Cuban/Oprah....Ross Perot in 1992/6, Wallace in 1968/72) could emerge and split the electorate as I noted above. If you have a progressive and centrist Democrat both running, one independently, Trump would win again (if he hasn't been impeached/indicted/resigned). Any progressive who "sits out" because the candidate isnt progressive enough is a fool. Its like being given 2 options: 1) If you stand up, Ill give you $10 dollars or 2) if you do nothing, I get $10 from you. And the person keeps asking for option 3.

One day when this all shakes out Republicans/Conservatives are going to really wish they had not gone down this path of trying to completely discredit the FBI/DOJ. Those entities have always naturally skewed toward the right. Its surprising that their love of Trump has made them blind to this, considering that most of them never wanted Trump in the first place. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.”

Full pay through March when he was supposed to retire anyway. Not a bad deal.

Boras should keep his mouth shut. Comparing this to the Black Sox is idiocy. The Black Sox were paid by gamblers to purposefully lose games. Last I checked the current White Sox are not being paid by outside forces to lose games. The issue for Boras is the fans. White Sox fans would likely be more angry if the Sox spent $200mil on a guy than if they lost 120 games next season. He has to adjust his model, because he is living in the past.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 03:03 PM) This relies on state law, so SCOTUS probably won't get involved. Itd be almost impossible for SCOTUS to get involved as the State Supreme Court is the highest court that interprets its own state laws. It can happen, but its rare.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 02:52 PM) Like in 2010 when the Dream act passed the house got 55 votes on the floor of the senate? 5 Democrats voted no. Perhaps if they made that issue do or die, they could have gotten the votes. But the fact is that they let the issue fester, kicked it down the road and didnt realize that maybe one day the Republican party would be even more anti-immigrant. They are going to have to make tough choices now, because ending DACA is just the first step, so if they dont take back 1 part of the legislature, its going to get even worse for immigrants.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 02:41 PM) Then why even try this in the first place instead of taking what McConnell offered last week, which is all you ended up with after a shutdown? They'll cave again in three weeks and ICE will begin ripping apart families and deporting people who have known no other country. Maybe they will cave, maybe they wont. But why wasnt this a big priority 10 years ago? Why wait until youre the minority party? QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 02:41 PM) I get it. There's legitimately a thousand people losing protection against deportation every day. There should be some urgency here. It will get more urgent every day, but now that's the only focus. But they knew this problem was coming. It wasnt a surprise. This just wasnt a big issue for most people until it appeared to become politically advantageous. Obama and Congress could have passed a law greatly increasing immigrant rights, but I dont seem to recall it being that important then.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 02:28 PM) This was still the right call. We can have this fight again in 3 weeks without the second hostage on the table. Its strange that people cant accept that a minority party cant force the majority party to do things it doesnt want. Democrats have to be really careful not to overplay their hand. This whole mentality of "I need to get everything yesterday" just isnt going to work.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 12:54 PM) I'm the most pro-immigration person on this board, but oh well you are probably getting deported. Not my fall, blame the GOP. See ya. Haha Oh wait, where were people like you 8 years ago when the Democrats had the house/senate and President. When they could have used their numbers to pass laws that would have protected immigrants? Last I checked I have been the only person on this board to continually argue that the US should open its borders to immigrants and allow basically anyone to immigrate to the US (outside of criminals etc.) But I also know that holding the govt hostage over such an issue could easily backfire. So instead of doing what my opponents want (making immigrants look less empathetic), I will do what it takes to get into a position to win. In the end, I feel that the political commercial "Democrats put illegal immigrants in front of our troops" doesnt really play well for Democrats. But this could have been avoided if Democrats had pushed this issue much harder years ago.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 12:31 PM) It's for three weeks and does include chip, but it doesn't include protections for hundreds of thousands of dreamers who are going to be deported starting in March and who the Democrats have repeatedly made promises to stand up for. The base is really, really pissed over a vague promise from McConnell, nothing from Ryan, and Trump already coming out and saying he wouldn't sign Graham-Durbin. The GOP is going to continue to kick out as many people from this country as they can unabated Then the base needs to open their eyes because just pandering to the base could lead to more losses. I am probably the most pro-immigration person on this board. But shutting the govt down over immigration could really hurt Democrats/immigrants in the future. With Trump being President, the idea that immigrants are going to get a fair deal right now is a pipe dream. Im not sure what you want done at this point? Do you want Democrats to fight losing battles? Do you want immigrants to lose any empathy they may be getting? I dont want them to be deported, but I also have to live in a world where I dont believe in magic. So right now the best the Democrats can do is try and show how stupid the govt is about immigration. And not do something that will cause people to turn on immigrants.

Democrats shouldnt over play their hand here. It makes sense to cut a deal given the perceived momentum they had in potentially gaining back seats. Obviously if they made a bad deal it wouldnt make sense, but I assume that this is just a temporary thing, maybe with CHIP included.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 16, 2018 -> 02:47 PM) I agree. Plus the X-Men movies have really become a mess. All the actors that play the characters in the present are becoming too old to suddenly join the universes and all the recent movies (including one coming out soon) all take place in the past with younger actors. Let it run it's course. The other problem is that the timeline of characters just is going to get more and more broken because we are living in 2018, not the 80's and 90s. Many of these characters origins come from WWII era. You cant just have them all "frozen" like Captain America. Magneto's entire world view is based on his experience from the Holocaust. Its that origin story that makes Magneto the character he is, it explains why he acts the way he does etc. That is why the best thing for X-Men is a fresh start. Is everything going to be set in the past, or do they try and create some way to fit characters into the present/future.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 16, 2018 -> 02:33 PM) The rumor is that Avengers 4 is going to be an altering of reality by Thanos which will bring the X-Men into the Avengers universe. The upcoming X Men movies mostly deal with time travel and the altering of reality as well That would make sense. Basically Disney is going to want to get away from all of the big contracts, so you pretty much have to phase out Iron Man, etc. If it was me, I would just let the current path come to an end. Then I would reboot X-Men, with maybe a few crossovers. I just think that many characters become too cumbersome.

I think you wait until most of the Avenger stuff is over and then reboot X-Men entirely. Eventually there will be Avengers fatigue so you can just cameo one or two of them, but I think there are a lot of reasons why the main Avenger universe is coming to an end.

I wont name them because its up to them, but there are a few people who identify and vote Republican. Although I can only think of 1 person who admittedly voted for Trump.

Maybe next time KY will realize that votes have consequences and that not everyone will look out for their best interest.

Estate tax technically isnt double tax on an individual. The first tax was paid by the deceased, the second tax was paid by the heir. The inheritance is income for the receiver and therefore its a taxable event. Its no different than gift tax, etc.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 10, 2018 -> 06:59 PM) Another way to help the wealthy avoid taxes. You are right, it would disproportionately help people who make more money. That being said, I do think that state and local taxes should be deductible. I could be wrong, but I believe that the state doesnt tax you on the money that you pay to the fed, so it should be reciprocal.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-seem...-002307665.html Woops, guess Republican's didnt think that states could figure out a way to get around the new rules on State and local tax deductions. Basic gist is that state will set up a "charity" where you can "donate" and it will count as a credit against the state's taxes. Have to imagine that if any state starts writing these bills they will pass pretty easy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 10, 2018 -> 10:03 AM) At the end of the day, this is true. The criticism would be more valid if they SEC had lost their playoff games instead of winning them. I think the bowl games this year showed that the difference between conferences is negligible at best. I think that they are going to have to find a way for a 6 game playoff. Top 2 get byes. The first week of the playoffs is in early December. And then the final 4 is run the same way. With 6 you can guarantee every big conference 1 spot and the conference gets to decide how they pick their winner. That then leaves 1 spot for everyone else, which could be a 2nd SEC team, or a UCF etc. 4 just seems to small, especially when you have teams with multiple losses getting chances over teams who are undefeated. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 10, 2018 -> 10:35 AM) I'd understand that for a mid-tier conference, but the B1G isn't going anywhere whether or not OSU wins it all or finishes 5th. Zero playoff teams this year and I'm sure the conference will feel zero ill effect given how strong they are. And as I said earlier, the other SEC teams are less successful on the field because Alabama is so good. Any financial windfall is going to pay old coach's contracts because they couldnt beat Nick Saban. Big 10 is just a completely different animal than the SEC. Big 10 is powered by massive alumni and large population bases. Big 10 could literally just play themselves all year and still make money.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 04:07 PM) True. I just have been influenced so much by Hollywood and the daily barrage of anti-Trump articles that I assumed everybody in the USA despised him. I remain a bit worried about the North Korea situation. Trump is definitely capable of a first strike on NK and that would not be good. In fact it might be the end of us all. He orders a strike and next thing you know we hear they've sent a few nukes our way and our defense system has no idea how to knock those nukes out of the sky. Trump's approval rating is pretty low. But since this is a Sox board I think that a Hawkism fits. You win 40, you lose 40, its what you do with the other 40 that counts. In today's society 20-30% will always either love or hate the President based on what team they play for.