Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[Rasulis]

Much like with Biden and indeed any president there are obviously things out of Trump’s control when it comes to the economy.

However, Biden worked to ameliorate these issues, while Trump seems content to throw gasoline onto the fire while adamantly maintaining that it’s actually water. The best water. The greatest water there ever was.

True. I am still bitter that US electorates voted for Trump over Biden. Biden may not be able to solve the underlying economic issues that have been developing over period of decades. However, at least he won't make it worse. Trump is another story.

[NED funded]

Tariffs will be detrimental to the economy. The same with mass deportation.

However, even if he does everything right, there are underlying causes affecting the economy that's beyond his control.

Take housing cost. Thirty years mortgage rate just went up from 6% to 6.8%. We would expect to see home prices to down. Instead, it went up 3.1% nationally. It would have been a lot more if not for the hurricanes and condo fiasco that's driving Miami real estate prices down. Right now, the real estate market is driven by scarcity. His solution of building homes in remote government lands won't solve the problem.

Trump can't fix housing prices. Those are state- and city-wide issues. A good chunk of it which is driven by the refusal of said cities to build new housing. I think the only city that has a reasonable excuse not to is New York. But California housing is an insult.

But I wont extend him that understanding. I will raise it as an issue if housing is even more expensive 4 years down the line (it will be)

[Kathandira]

New Jersey is getting very close to a 60/40 split for Homeowners v Renters. It is disgusting.

[Rasulis]

New Jersey is getting very close to a 60/40 split for Homeowners v Renters. It is disgusting.

With good reason. From Redfin report below. Also, the person who makes his fortune building luxury condos and golf courses is probably the wrong person to ask to fix the US affordable housing crisis. The cost of living in 22 US metro areas are quickly catching up to that of San Francisco - Consumer Expenditures in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area — 2022–23. At least as percent of household income. Not a good thing.

The number of renter households in the U.S. grew more than three times faster than the number of homeowner households in 2Q 2024, driven by the increasing disparity between rent payments and the rising cost of mortgages.

"The median apartment asking rent increased less than 1% year over year in June, while the median monthly mortgage payment jumped roughly 5%," according to a new Redfin analysis of Census Bureau data. "Asking rents were 23% above pre-pandemic (June 2019) levels, while mortgage payments were 90% above pre-pandemic levels." Homeownership grew just 0.6% in the quarter to a record 86.3 million, and at the slowest pace since 2019.

Growth in the number of renter households hit a peak of 2.8% in the first quarter of 2024. In the second quarter, the number of renter households grew 1.9% year over year to reach a record 45.2 million, with 855,000 added just in the past year. June's $1,654 median U.S. asking rent was the highest since October 2022, only $46 below the all-time high and still beyond the reach of many.

One in three households in the U.S. consists of renters, with a higher concentration in coastal metros, Redfin noted. At 53%, Los Angeles has the highest rentership rate among the 75 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. San Diego (52.4%), New York (50.1%), Fresno, CA (49%), and Austin, TX (46.3%) round out the top five renter metros.

[Endus]

The lockdowns and social distancing were pretty major failures of public health policy and of experts.

Lockdowns and social distancing were best practices, and were broadly effective when correctly applied and abided by.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10446910/
https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj.p1959
https://www.newscientist.com/article...trol-covid-19/
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/4/e053938

This was true both in the USA and globally.

So no. They were not "failures". You don't know what you're talking about. You're pushing anti-science denialism.

And it became parricularly egregious when its more ardent supporters were pretty timid about BLM riots that went against every policy implemented back then.

Why the fuckbeans would you bring BLM up? Also, they weren't "riots", nearly all BLM protests were non-violent, and the few that did become violent mostly became so due to counter-protesters, not BLM protesters.

Once the vaccine was available it became indeffensible.

Absolutely fucking not. Not everyone is able to get vaccinated, and cutting down the spread is important in protecting those who can't get vaccinated. Again, you just simply have no idea what you're talking about.

- - - Updated - - -

They're safe. They are still safe. The only people who believe they aren't safe are conspiracy theorists who ignore reality and facts and push misinformation and lies. We've been over this, and if they were as dangerous as the folks I assume you don't side with, but seem to coddle and support weirdly, or at least defend, we'd be seeing massive consequences globally from it. Which we're not.

Like, I posted the actual data on side effects either earlier here or in another thread. COVID vaccines have a rate of serious side effects that's about 1/3 the rate of the MMR vaccines that have been given out for years. And non-serious side effects are vastly lower than the MMR vaccine, which has about a 1 in 6 chance of triggering a fever.

Anyone thinking the COVID vaccines weren't safe simply does not know what they're talking about.

That's not skepticism. That's just misinformation.

One thing that continually bothers me is that "skepticism" is not a synonym for "doubt". Skepticism isn't "I don't think that's true", it's "let's see if that claim holds up". Then you go check the actual evidence, to the best degree that you can, the ideal being to re-run the scientific testing for yourself but that's clearly not in everyone's range of options, and you see what that evidence or testing confirms.

And if it confirms the claim, you go "Okay, cool, it held up". That's "skepticism".

It is not denying the evidence in front of you because you don't like or or handwave it arbitrarily. That's denialism. That is not the same thing.

If you look at a wide body of scientific evidence that all confirms one conclusion, and say "y'know, I just don't agree with that conclusion", you're not a fuckin' "skeptic". You're a denier, in the same class as flat-earthers and young-Earth creationists.

[Gabriel]

Maybe Trump should've leaned hard on injecting bleach.

To think there is a timeline out there where Trump believed his own bullshit enough to try it out... God... and we have to live in this one? It's not fair.

[Lenonis]

Then you go check the actual evidence

My biggest issue with vaccine "skeptics" is they have neither the education nor the intellect to actually understand medical data. This is why I'm so strongly opposed to healthcare being decided by politicians and such and why I think direct-to-consumer advertising is so dangerous. The normal every person has no ability to really understand medicine or medical treatments. So being "skeptical" is just....stupid. Go talk to a doctor or two. Don't watch a youtube video and then think you are equipped to make your own medical decisions.

My parents started Covid out in the worst end of the internet pool. They were full on "the vaccine is Bill Gates trying to microchip us all" - fortunately and thankfully they recognized I do have the education and expertise to understand these things and I slowly got them to where they got vaccinated. But that would never have happened if they didn't recognize their own limitations to understanding science and medical information.

[Breccia]

This is why I'm so strongly opposed to healthcare being decided by politicians and such and why I think direct-to-consumer advertising is so dangerous.

I'm not going to argue against either.

But yes, the skeptics yelling things like "I heard this one guy" having the same, or higher, weight based on their unschooled, no-evidence opinion is leading to things like "

So, the skepticism of whether something like that can be called safe, when it did not really pass all the proper regulated testing phases was warranted, but it was suppressed.

when they have no idea what they're talking about and/or are desperately attempting to justify their bordering on insane anti-vaxxer ways when the disease Trump invited into the country with open arms was killing thousands of people every day.

[PACOX]

Lockdowns and social distancing were best practices, and were broadly effective when correctly applied and abided by.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10446910/
https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj.p1959
https://www.newscientist.com/article...trol-covid-19/
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/4/e053938

This was true both in the USA and globally.

So no. They were not "failures". You don't know what you're talking about. You're pushing anti-science denialism.



Why the fuckbeans would you bring BLM up? Also, they weren't "riots", nearly all BLM protests were non-violent, and the few that did become violent mostly became so due to counter-protesters, not BLM protesters.



Absolutely fucking not. Not everyone is able to get vaccinated, and cutting down the spread is important in protecting those who can't get vaccinated. Again, you just simply have no idea what you're talking about.

- - - Updated - - -



Like, I posted the actual data on side effects either earlier here or in another thread. COVID vaccines have a rate of serious side effects that's about 1/3 the rate of the MMR vaccines that have been given out for years. And non-serious side effects are vastly lower than the MMR vaccine, which has about a 1 in 6 chance of triggering a fever.

Anyone thinking the COVID vaccines weren't safe simply does not know what they're talking about.

Anecdote. I just get vaccinated for COVID every year with my flu shot. Almost everyone in my little section I work got COVID in November. My "symptoms" was a shore throat for less than 12 hours but still contagiou. No one i stay with the got sick because I slapped on a mask whenever I left my room. Didn't turn Thanksgiving into a super spreader event.

Basic hygiene and prevention methods work and are painless. Politicians and the people out here acting getting a covid vaccine and masking if you feel sick are new/take a lot of effort sound like they yearn for 2020. They want all of that to come back, only thing that makes sense. Not like they are bitching about flu shots and soap. They are not telling doctors to stop wearing gloves. It's one specific germ they are obsessed with.

Maybe they miss the attention they got for being "bravely defiant". No one cares anymore. Maybe they exploiting covid policies and need people to get sick so some of them come back. Maybe they find their lives dull and miss the hysteria about pushing shit like ivermectin. Just not as fun when there's highly effective treatments and widespread partial immunity now. Say official talking about they want to ban the vaccines and it's like why? Most people aren't even getting the updated ones anyway. If course some of the whiners are just penny pinchers who don't want any kind of aid being disbursed, weirdos.


I like how BLM always gets brought up. They mean the protests where people were masked up if not because of COVID it was to mitigate all the damn tear gas... also aw and opportunity to remain somewhat anonymous.

A lot of people studied the protests. There were a gold mine of data. Turns out the protests did not drive covid numbers

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9092928/

[Easo]

It was absolutely fascinating reading about the pardon of Hunter - so many excuses and cheers that THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

No shit Trump won the election, the "good guy" hypocrisy is at incredible levels.

[Kaleredar]

It was absolutely fascinating reading about the pardon of Hunter - so many excuses and cheers that THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

No shit Trump won the election, the "good guy" hypocrisy is at incredible levels.

Less “this is good” and more “holy fuck does nobody care about this pearl clutching nonsense.”

Trump and anyone who supports him are in zero position to criticize anyone using pardons for any reason.

[Shadowferal]

Hmf...if I recall correctly from a week ago...
Total number of pardons;
Trump - 143
Biden - 26

[Breccia]

It was absolutely fascinating reading about the pardon of Hunter - so many excuses and cheers that THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

Name one person who said this.

[Woodtable]

It was absolutely fascinating reading about the pardon of Hunter - so many excuses and cheers that THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

No shit Trump won the election, the "good guy" hypocrisy is at incredible levels.

BoTh SiDES

[DarkTZeratul]

About the only people complaining about the pardon being an abuse of power that I give credence to are the ones who said the same thing about all of Trump's pardons.

[Edge-]

It was absolutely fascinating reading about the pardon of Hunter - so many excuses and cheers that THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

No shit Trump won the election, the "good guy" hypocrisy is at incredible levels.

When you look at things in isolation with zero context and you get conclusions like this, yes. But of course, context does make this type of breathless pearl clutching rather pointless.

[Endus]

About the only people complaining about the pardon being an abuse of power that I give credence to are the ones who said the same thing about all of Trump's pardons.

Even then, I think they're overlooking the unethical nature of those proposed to head up the AG's office under Trump and how politically punitive that office will be under him. Even now, the charges against Hunter have basically ever legal professional saying those charges aren't ever taken to court, they're allowed to plea out for a fine, but that's not on the table for Hunter, he's been singled out for specially punitive treatment for some reason.

Sure seems like a reason to issue a pardon, or issue other pre-emptive pardons to prevent future shenanigans against colleagues among the Democrats if you can tell there's whispers coming down among Republicans. It may not be strictly by-the-book, but it's not so much an "abuse of power" in that circumstance as a pre-emptive prevention of future abuse of power.

Like, the central question as to whether it's an abuse should be "was a crime committed here for which the accused should face serious penalty?" If the answer there is "no", is it an "abuse" to prevent such serious penalty falling upon them?

If Hunter had shot a guy over drug money or something, I'd agree. But that's not what he stands accused of. He bought a gun while high, didn't say he was high when he did so, and got rid of it the next morning when he sobered up. Fine him, sure. The rest is political abuse.

[Breccia]

About the only people complaining about the pardon being an abuse of power that I give credence to are the ones who said the same thing about all of Trump's pardons.

Indeed. The worst offender are assholes like myself saying "the country has proven this is behavior they encourage, so why not?" Trump supporters saw Trump use power to his own benefit and elected someone who ran on the promise of revenge. They have no basis casting judgement and no business declaring hypocrisy on others.

[postman1782]

It was absolutely fascinating reading about the pardon of Hunter - so many excuses and cheers that THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

No shit Trump won the election, the "good guy" hypocrisy is at incredible levels.

The charges against Hunter are charges no one gets unless they commit another crime, it was 100% a political hit job.

[Malkiah]

It was absolutely fascinating reading about the pardon of Hunter - so many excuses and cheers that THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

well, i mean... it WAS a good thing, and it was done perfectly within the bounds of why presidential pardons exist in the first place.

a presidential pardon is a thing in the US so that, in theory, a moral actor has unilateral authority to correct an aberration within the justice system.
it's there to allow someone to fix a mistake, to enact a social good that bypasses the process of "the machine" of society.

most presidents use the pardon for their cronies or to cover their asses, biden used it to protect a private citizen from the overt stated threat of continued political persecution that was ongoing not because of anything the target did, but because of who his father was.

that hunter is the president's son is utterly irrelevant in this case, because he wasn't pardoned for being the president's son. that biden said he wouldn't interfere with the case is utterly irrelevant because he didn't interfere with the case.
if republicans had just let the DOJ prosecute hunter for tax evasion and gun BS and be issued a sentence and carry it out, this entire pathetic farce would have been over years ago, but republicans kept meddling and kept interfering with the justice process in order to attack a private citizen because of who his father is.

then, they swore in public they would continue to do so indefinitely, and the president used a tool at his disposal which is there for this explicit and exact purpose in order to protect a US citizen from being attacked by forces outside their control.

there is no hypocrisy whatsoever, this was probably one of the "best" (in terms of: the presidential pardon was used for its ostensibly intended purpose and not as a political weapon) that we've seen... quite possibly ever.