illinilaw08

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 16, 2016 -> 03:31 PM) Few things: Yes, I find it ridiculous it takes Trump, a billionaire who has bribed the very politicians he's running against, to do this. The problem though is with politicians accepting money. Trump merely gave it, and has no reason to accept it. The system is completely broken, and Trump, being the foremost expert on it, is the first to admit that. Would Trump be an anomaly? Perhaps. That's why I want him to destroy the Republican party. Connections between corporations and politics would be ruined if he's able to oust the Republican leadership. Those connections would hardly be irreparable so yes, its going to take more than Trump. My hope for Trump is to open the eyes of the voter base and I do believe he's the perfect man to do it. I get people hate his showmanship but it's a huge benefit here. He grabs the attention of absolutely everyone, love him or hate him. Trump has done a great job of calling out Bush, Cruz, Rubio, and now Kasich for their connections but it needs to hit overdrive in the GE. Thanks to Trump, the debates vs Hillary will likely be among the most watched television shows in U.S. history. What better platform than for Trump to come out and tell the world how she took bribes from him as well as expose her as the most calculated political machine of our time. So, let me make sure I understand the argument. Your position is that a Trump presidency would destroy the Republican Party. The establishment are the ones who take money from special interests, and that could create a ripple effect altering the system. If my understanding of your argument is correct, it still doesn't alter the point that it takes millions of dollars to run for office at the federal level, in part because of the way the system is set up. Do you think that Trump would make changes to that system (ie, advocating campaign finance reform or putting justices on the Supreme Court who might overturn Citizens United)? Without that, then even if you are correct and a Trump presidency creates a shock to the system and collapses the entrenched Republican establishment, the money and the special interests are just going to latch on to the next crop in Washington... unless the entire political system is going to be filled with self-supporting billionaires who can finance their own campaigns. That's why I'm struggling with your argument. I'm following what you would like the end result to be. I just don't see how Trump accomplishes that.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 16, 2016 -> 02:41 PM) I showed the video of his literally disavowing of Duke but I guess that's handwaving away. I found it ridiculous he had to do it every interview. It's gotcha political discussion at its absolute worst. A grand wizard just supported Hillary too but I'm sure she won't be asked about that. And she shouldnt. Stop wasting your breath on these people. This is the reason these discussions go literally nowhere. You're not convincing me and I'm not convincing you here, clearly. I commented on his birtherism the last page back and it really goes hand and hand with everything. You're being played by even giving it attention. I've addressed this Sanders stuff too already like a lot. We're going in circles on everything. I like him. He'd be my second choice. He just has had 0 chance of getting elected and getting threatened by his supporters was a big turnoff for me, but I don't really hold it against him. What I do hold against him was his response to the aftermath of Friday. BW, quick question for you here: As I read your responses, one of the big selling points to you with Trump is that he isn't beholden to special interests and you want to see money move out of politics. There are no current rules that keep money out of politics. In fact, the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United led to the majority of these PACs and Super PACs. Trump is someone who has benefitted from the lax campaign finance laws. As he likes to continually point out, candidates on both sides of the aisle have curried his favor, seeking his money and influence. Do you honestly think that a Trump Presidency would change campaign finance laws? Do you think Trump would put justices on the Supreme Court who might overturn Citizens United? Wouldn't Trump be a one-off? A billionaire capable of financing his own campaign is an anomaly - it's not something that would alter the system. I guess what I'd like to drill down on is why a Trump Presidency would have any change on the impact of money and special interest in politics generally.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 16, 2016 -> 09:50 AM) -Basically supports a different version of Universal healthcare to replace Obamacare Where do you see this? From Trump's website, I see that he wants to allow purchase of coverage across state lines and allow HSAs? There isn't anything at his website that seems remotely close to Universal healthcare...

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Mar 16, 2016 -> 09:01 AM) He is very anti-gun, do not confirm. The only record that I can see of Garland on guns is: (1) he voted to rehear Parker v. District of Columbia en banc (meaning with all 10 members of the DC Circuit rather than the panel of 3 that issued the original Parker decision); and (2) he joined in an opinion upholding the FBI's background check system for gun purchases as not violating a federal prohibition on creating a gun registry. Based on the above, I can see why the right might be worried, and in confirmation hearings want to flesh out Garland's position on Heller and other second amendment cases, but I don't see anything in his record that labels him as definitively anti-gun, a threat to overturn Heller, or as a threat to take anyone's guns...

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 14, 2016 -> 09:57 AM) Sure, but in terms of the country and policies that affect everyday Americans, there's not much he can do. Remember, you're the one telling me the President can't act unilaterally without Congress or even the SC stepping in. The guy's a terrible person and an even worse candidate, but I'm just not terrified of him royally screwing things up. I just don't think that's possible in our system. GW Bush and Iraq pretty horribly screwed up the budget and probably created a massive power vacuum in the Middle East. The Second Iraq War has had some majorly bad long term consequences. Yes, it was approved by Congress but based on some pretty skewed intelligence. The President can have some very, very adverse consequences on foreign policy...

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 10, 2016 -> 02:45 PM) Well, up 2 at half. I would have liked the 10-11 pt lead they had for a while there in the 1st. Uthoff and Jok are 12-19 with 30 points. Hill is 1-4 with 4 points. I'll take being up by 2 at the half. The BTT this year, for me, is all about giving me reasons to be optimistic about next year. That half did. Hopefully it bleeds over into the second half...

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Mar 9, 2016 -> 02:49 PM) So let me ask a question....with Denver basically having minimal options (and defending champs), do the Bears dangle Cutler? If Osweiler is getting $18M per year, then Cutler's contract looks pretty damn good right now. I'm not sure why the Bears would move on until they have their replacement ready. Also, to echo what Kevo said further down the thread, Broncos fans despise Cutler. And, oddly, every couple months, I meet someone who seriously suggests bringing Tebow back...

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 9, 2016 -> 08:58 AM) Disagreed. I took many a friend to Hawks games in the late 90s and early 00s and they were bored out of their minds watching a bad team in an empty arena lose 3-0. I was unable to get any of them hooked. Oh man, the days of $5 (maybe they were $8?) student tickets in the corners of the 300 level to watch the ABC line...

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2016 -> 01:53 PM) I'm debating whether to grab season tickets. I know they'll be bad again next year, but still... I don't see why the offense can't be good next year. IF Lunt improves and Dudek is back healthy, I don't see why the offense can't score points right away. There are still some decent pieces on the defense. Depth isn't there, but if they are healthy I don't see why they can't at least be decent next year...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 4, 2016 -> 10:52 AM) Seriously. Donald Trump isn't wanting to go to Washington for anyone other than himself. Yep. Leaving aside any of Trump's politics, he's made his fortune (expanded his fortune is more accurate) by exploiting the current financial system (eminent domain, Chapter 11 bankruptcy) to the exclusive benefit of Donald Trump. The guy was born right. He claims to have "only" obtained a $1M loan from his father to get started in business, and he used his father's credit (personal guarantees) and political connections to expand that fortune. Anyone that thinks Trump is Mr. Smith heading to Washington to help the little guy burdened by a corrupt system is just not paying attention.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Mar 3, 2016 -> 03:49 PM) Good story about a prisoner in Colorado who got in six or more good punches in on the asshole who entered the theatre in Colorado and murdered innocent people in the most terrifying of ways. It is disgusting Colorado won't reveal where this bastard currently is incarcerated. THey MUST give this information out. It's probably sad I think this way, but I'm happy the prisoner beat the s*** out of Holmes. He said he wishes he could have killed Holmes but only beat the crap out of him. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/exclusive-inside-...topstories.html Greg, the State's job is to protect all prisoners who are incarcerated, whether they like them or not. The State of Colorado does not need to, and in fact shouldn't, give out any information regarding Holmes' whereabouts.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 3, 2016 -> 04:32 PM) Regardless of this silly Byrd vs Duke thing, I agree with the this. And that comes from someone who despises Trump. NSS, I usually agree with your political posts, but the Byrd vs. Duke thing is not silly. It's an intellectually dishonest effort by Trump supporters to paint Clinton and Trump in the same light re: the KKK. Without opining on Byrd, there's a pretty clear difference between affiliating ones' self with Byrd - who spent years apologizing for his prior involvement with the KKK and Duke, who is still a white supremacist. It's also relevant because Trump has said a lot of xenophobic and misogynstic things on the campaign trail. The point here is that people actually believe the "both sides" meme in this instance, even when they are clearly distinguishable.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 1, 2016 -> 04:16 PM) I don't know what the solution is. I'm just saying I think there's a non-racist reason why there aren't more opportunities for minority actors in this country. It has more to do with profit and risk than it does race, especially when it comes to bigger box office movies. Hold on. I'm confused. If the reason minority actors don't get opportunities is because there is less profit and more risk in casting minority actors, then how is race NOT the driving force behind the lack of opportunity?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Feb 29, 2016 -> 10:04 AM) Don't mean to direct this at you specifically because unforunately I agree he's probably coming back. It's just the wrong decision. He's done so well at burying this program that a point guard ranked around 50ish who is the legacy child of a program legend from the schools biggest pipeline in Peoria is somehow a huge accomplishment. Groce success is now becoming the product of his own failure. I don't mean to sound like we shouldn't be excited for the player specifically or anything. Just that we should win that recruiting battle 95% of the time.l no matter who the coach is. Couple things here: 1) I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a great recruiting class in '17 - even a top 5 class nationally - saving Groce's job. Basically that gives Groce a free pass next season, because those kids won't even be on campus until the season after. 2) Frank Williams is a legacy recruit - in the sense that he played at Illinois. But he doesn't have any connections to the current staff, and my understanding is that Frank hasn't been very involved with the university since he left like 15 years ago. I mean, I'm not sure what Kansas thought of Damonte, but Frank has more connections to the Kansas staff than the current Illinois staff. So it's a little different than the Tim Finke recruitment in my mind. 3) Groce has had his share of failings here, and I'm definitely not sold on his coaching abilities, but if the answer to why Illinois is a bad basketball team is because Groce hasn't effectively recruited the PG position (ie, if Quentin Snider doesn't flip on signing day, this is a good basketball team), then he's solved that with Lucas and Williams in back-to-back classes. I'm not sure it's that simple, but between the injuries this year and the shored up PG recruiting, I can understand why Groce would get some additional time.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Feb 24, 2016 -> 12:12 PM) He wants to stay out of Syria and the middle East on the whole. As recently as November, Trump was saying that he was going to bomb the crap out of ISIS and put troops on the ground in Syria. I'm just saying...

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Feb 24, 2016 -> 11:41 AM) Trump is moderate on a lot of issues so they are not the problem. The problem is making sure the hard right gives him support as they are the base. Republicans ultimately show up to vote no matter, so I don't think it'll be a big deal. Trump may historically be moderate on a lot of issues. He certainly hasn't campaigned on that. The only "moderate" moment I can think of from him in this campaign cycle was in the debate in SC when he put the Iraq blame on GWB. What am I missing here?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 24, 2016 -> 11:21 AM) It would appear that Trump has gotten some additional support. He was up to pretty close to 50% and there is the old addage that people support winners. If the rest of the field doesn't widdle quick, it will be hard to stop the Trump momentum, imo. IF Trump is ultimately the nominee, I'm curious as to what moderate Republicans will do at the polls. I don't expect that there would be a lot of crossover to the D side (whether Clinton or Sanders). Will they vote 3rd party, stay home, or hold their nose and vote Trump?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 19, 2016 -> 11:12 AM) Which I think is really unfair. Why is that Groce's fault that a player makes a stupid decision? Groce should be fired for his results on the court, not some random act by a player in the middle of the night. He has no control over that. Agreed 100%.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Feb 19, 2016 -> 10:50 AM) If true Black needs to be dismissed from the program and any remaining excuse to keep Groce after this season is gone as well. He has to be fired. Yeah, the allegations there are pretty bad. Luther Head got a second chance under Webber for the burglary, and this would be Black's first strike. I don't have a problem with him getting dismissed if this is true. I also don't have a problem with discipline and a second chance. On Groce generally, I was ready to sack Groce a couple weeks back, but like with Groce's second team, guys are starting to develop. Morgan looks like a B1G center (at least offensively), DJ Williams is starting to look like a player, and some of that has to be a positive for the coaching staff. With Groce, I do think it's really difficult to judge the guy on this season with all the injuries. There's not a coach in the country that could have taken this short roster and made them a tournament team. Ultimately, if Whitman doesn't think Groce is the guy going forward, this is as good a time as any to move on. Groce showed that a new coach can do ok dealing with the first real recruiting class - '13 had Hill and Nunn - so there's hope the new coach can salvage a good class in '17. The disaster scenario is Groce stays, the '17 class is a trainwreck, and next year with a healthy squad, the Illini miss the tournament again. To Jenks, unfortunately, most of the '17 guys won't commit until the summer, and that's too late (in my opinion). If you are riding with Groce, you need to let him see next season through. If you aren't, then the decision needs to be made right after the season, and replacement ready by early May at the latest...

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Feb 17, 2016 -> 01:25 PM) I'd love to see a Midwestern high speed rail network centered around Chicago: Chicago-Kenosha-Milwaukee-Madison-Rochester-Minneapolis Chicago-Davenport-Des Moines Chicago-Peoria-Springfield-St Louis-Columbia-Kansas City Chicago-Lafayette-Indianapolis-Cincinnati Chicago-Kalamazoo-Detroit Chicago-South Bend-Toledo-Cleveland Chicago-Fort Wayne-Columbus Agreed. I see high speed rail as having a ton of value regionally - in the Northeast and the Midwest in particular. Just need somebody to bite bullet and invest in the very high start-up costs.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Feb 17, 2016 -> 12:45 PM) I doubt there's a great ROI on 4-6 years of Latin or French or German. I'd also be making kids start foreign language in grade school. There's significant value to knowing a foreign language, but it's really difficult to get anywhere close to fluent in four years of high school (which was the requirement when I was going through). There have been a number of times in my professional life where having a real command of Spanish would have been extremely valuable... So there you have it - I'd make personal wealth management a pre-requisite to high school graduation and I'd be throwing in foreign language in grade school.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Feb 16, 2016 -> 01:06 PM) I went to a small school in the south suburbs, went to school full-time at night while working and paying off school full-time during the day, I even took classes on weekends to help my schedule during the week and I have a position with a Fortune 200 company. Maybe I am being bull-headed but everyone sees the costs (even the visible ones are astronomical) associated with going to these schools and room/board. Young adults also see that nobody is getting a job worth a damn. There are plenty of options out there that are more affordable. Work, go to school, network, meet people in your class, talk to teachers, succeed 18-22 year olds - even smart ones - are as a general rule, profoundly dumb. We don't require kids learn basic financial skills to graduate from high school or college. Yet there's this expectation that an 18 year old is going to look at the long term impact of massive student loans when making that decision. Some do and that's great. But most don't. The amount of good jobs available without a degree are very small - even secretaries in some instances need to have a degree. Doctors are talking about $200k of debt, easily. Law students come out of 7 years of school with massive piles of debt. And those are careers that for years were considered to be safe paths to upper-middle class. And the tax benefits of the debt are minimal. And unlike other bad financial decisions you make at 18-22, you can't get rid of this one in a future bankruptcy. Even if you get into the Income Based Repayment Program, the amount of outstanding principal when you get to the forgiveness part is treated as CODI (cancellation of debt income) and you end up with a massive tax bill. I'm reluctant to get behind a free education policy without taking care of the back end - the trillions of dollar in student loan debt floating around - because there's a risk that the solution for the next generation leaves a giant generation of kids with large student loan debt and the added tax burden of paying for the next generation to go to school. The point here is that "personal responsibility" doesn't solve this problem. Free education doesn't solve half of the problem. And student loan forgiveness generally is a non-starter politically. To me, (1) make student loans dischargeable again in bankruptcy after 5-10 years of payments (that gives people time to reach the point where they too much income or too many things to be able to go into bk); (2) let students borrow at very subsidized rates (if savings accounts are paying .00001%, then we shouldn't be paying 6% or higher on educational loans); and (3) pass legislation to slow the rate at which colleges and universities can increase tuition.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 7, 2016 -> 10:17 PM) Call it a career tonight #18. 2/4 in the show, 2nd time with the trophy, even the people who complain about you got nothin'. this Super Bowl should not help Manning's standing overall. He was pretty awful tonight (13 completions and an INT). Lot of carrying water for Manning by Nantz and Simms tonight... Good for the Broncos though. That defense was ridiculous...

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 28, 2016 -> 11:15 AM) In the general? That would be utterly fascinating. And, as long as Trump doesn't win, might be the right kick in the ass the system needs. Is it weird that I'm almost more scared of Cruz as POTUS than Trump?

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jan 25, 2016 -> 10:43 PM) What a total and complete shock. We are now going to be in a position that the 2017 defense (and most likely the whole team) is going to be a complete disaster regardless of coach. So rather than hiring a new coach with a solid roster with a ton of seniors they will inherit a complete s***show on defense and they will almost certainly have a worse record than Cubit will have next year which will be terrible from an optics standpoint. So f***ing dumb. Or even worse is Cubit goes like 6-6 or 7-5 next year and we retain him and this staff still recruits like crap and then 2017 and 2018 are both complete disasters and we hire a coach when there is zero talent left on the roster. I agree with every word in this post.