1

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 09, 2025, 10:56:19 PM »

That is actually my exact argument that comedian stars are held to a different standard than traditional politicians and can get away with many more improprieties. This is why Trump gets away with so much. He is not a traditional politician and is held to different standards. Trying to hold him to the standard of a traditional politician will not and has not worked.

appearing on a popular television variety show years before you take office is not an impropriety. your example just isn't apropos.

but even if it were, you're still missing the point. you're fixated on can trump get away with it. i'm sure he can. but the folks here are saying it is bad for a president to use the office to enrich themselves, even if it is permissible.

2

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 09, 2025, 12:26:45 PM »

There is a video segment of Zelensky playing the piano with his testicles in front of an audience. If a traditional politician went on stage and did it, or if previously filmed segment was uncovered and publicized as they were campaigning, this would be campaign ending for them. For a traditional politician a video of them pants down in front of a piano would be professionally embarrassing and they would have to resign or get rejected by their party. Zelensky got away with it because he was a media and comedic star, and his antics even gained him popularity.

i like how you go out of your way to make it sound like zelensky got caught doing something horribly inappropriate but escaped the scandal during his campaign/presidency due only to his celebrity.

lol it was an obviously-fake skit on a popular variety show from like three years before zelensky even ran for office, dummy. this is like saying "arnold schwarzenegger got to keep being governor of california even though he was once a killer cyborg from the future!!!!!!!"

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 29, 2025, 12:22:05 PM »

textbook leftist woke talking points the woke playbook woke ideology the far left woke lefty virtue signaling woke leftist Team Woke virtue signaling woke deflection woke

lol honestly, tim's nightly meltdowns have been the highlight of the first 100 days

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 21, 2025, 09:28:55 PM »

apparently only leftists believe in due process and free trade and basic operational security. who knew?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: April 20, 2025, 11:32:03 PM »

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 20, 2025, 08:17:21 PM »

due process is terrorism

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 19, 2025, 04:24:59 PM »

It is fascinating how the left fixates on Trump's height, as if that is relevant at all to the unprecedented political upheaval and mass demolishment of the constitution and due process of law

for once i actually completely agree with you

8

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 07:22:33 PM »

timmy and actionlackey are right, it's just stupid crybaby liberals who think this is bad policy. deranged, leftist comedians like ben shapiro and the national review.


https://www.aei.org/economics/president-trumps-tariff-formula-makes-no-economic-sense-its-also-based-on-an-error/

The formula for the tariffs, originally credited to the Council of Economic Advisers and published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, does not make economic sense. The trade deficit with a given country is not determined only by tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers, but also by international capital flows, supply chains, comparative advantage, geography, etc.
...
Now, our view is that the formula the administration relied on has no foundation in either economic theory or trade law. But if we are going to pretend that it is a sound basis for US trade policy, we should at least be allowed to expect that the relevant White House officials do their calculations carefully. Hopefully they will correct their mistake soon: the resulting trade liberalization would provide a much-needed boost to the economy and may yet help us stave off a recession.

Why can’t I have a factory job just like 1955 Ford? Yes, I’m sure that you wanted to be in a non-air conditioned factory, riveting all day ... that’s your ideal job. No it isn’t.
...
I can name you a period in American history where there was a fairly large surplus in America’s balance of trade. The entire Great Depression.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/04/congress-should-end-trumps-trade-war/

If it seems preposterous that a single person could enjoy this much power over the American economy — and, with it, the global economy — rest assured that it is. In Article I, the Constitution vests the “power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” in Congress, not in the president. As a result, the president has no power to impose tariffs that he has not been accorded by an act of the legislature. If it desires, Congress can choose to take back as much of that power as it sees fit. It ought to do so — and do so now.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariffs-republican-donor-ken-langone-b2729352.html

Longtime Republican megadonor and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone has slammed the president’s tariffs as “bulls****”.
...
“I don’t understand the goddamn formula,” he said. “I believe he’s been poorly advised by his advisers about this trade situation – and the formula they’re applying.”

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 12:26:27 PM »

y'all i really need some help. i'm running a massive trade deficit with my local grocer. i keep giving them money in exchange for food, but they never ever buy anything from me. this is so unfair. i'm losing money on every transaction! help!

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 04, 2025, 01:33:28 AM »

lmao the trump admin (probably) used chatgpt to set the new tariffs. this is fucking insane.

https://www.ibtimes.com/trump-accused-using-chatgpt-create-tariff-plan-after-ai-leads-users-same-formula-so-ai-3768734

https://x.com/typesfast/status/1907600619420147833

thank god we didn't elect kamala, she would've been bad for the economy

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: April 03, 2025, 10:42:32 PM »

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 30, 2025, 11:52:15 PM »

trump is really popular

so if your administration is popular enough, it's okay to be recklessly stupid and then lie to congress about it? i don't follow.

hunter biden

ah yes i forgot trump ran on a platform of "we're no better than democrats" lol.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 29, 2025, 02:13:58 PM »

Pete Hegseth weighed the risks and used an encrypted, government-approved app to accidentally send confidential, sensitive information to a complete stranger, and then sent a couple of people to congress to lie about it

it really doesn't matter how many times you use the word larping — you're the only person who doesn't see this as problematic.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 26, 2025, 10:01:34 PM »

"we are currently clean on opsec" literal lol, fucking idiots.

super looking forward to tom's pathetic equivocations on how gabbard and ratcliffe didn't just straight up lie to congress.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 19, 2025, 10:26:06 PM »

Actually the first person who resisted the plea agreements and testified at a trial was acquitted with the argument that it was reasonable to believe that the officers allowed them into the building:

you almost got that right, kinda.

he wasn't the first to "resist" a plea agreement, he was simply the first one to testify in his own defense. the same defense was used in two prior bench trials overseen by mcfadden, and he rejected it. those defendants were convicted. in martin's case, his acquittal is based on the fact that martin just sort of wandered around a bit and then left.

jan 6 defendants were overwhelmingly convicted by judges and juries alike. outside of like two edge cases like martin's, no one gave two shits about the "but the cops said i could totally do a sedition!!!!!!!" arguments. for what should be pretty obvious reasons.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 19, 2025, 12:27:13 AM »

The capitol police were welcoming the protestors into the building. From this, the average person may believe that they are allowed to enter.

several jan 6 defendants made such arguments in their defense. the average people who made up the juries that convicted them did not give a shit.

protip: even if a cop is like "hey i don't care if you break the law, in fact i will even help you break the law" then guess what — you are still breaking the law. that an individual cop is scared/corrupt/bored/whatever does not change the fact that you are breaking the law.

lol this is just like the "mah stolen election" nonsense y'all still peddle. these arguments were made. in court. and were rejected. by judges and juries alike. because they're just plain wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. stop swallowing everything you read on epcocktimes or whatever.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 14, 2025, 11:39:40 PM »

Sure, I'm willing to sacrifice hypothetical lives who are saved from a hypothetical working future drug to get fraud out of government. Some of them may die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

right, but my question was -- why? even if there truly is a forced choice between the two, why is it better to sacrifice people's lives than it is to sacrifice some fraction of a public grant to waste/fraud/abuse?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 13, 2025, 03:27:41 AM »

for some reason i thought this was limited to cancer research, but it's a funding cap for all NIH grants. that's absolute fucking insanity.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.280590/gov.uscourts.mad.280590.1.0.pdf

lol yeah let's (illegally) cut billions of dollars of spending on medical research and clinical trials and community health funding all because captain k-hole doesn't have a fucking clue how grants work.

19

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 12, 2025, 02:29:05 PM »

so again i will ask -- even if these demonstrably false claims about fraud and waste were accurate, why is it better to have no cancer research and no fraud than to have cancer research + some fraud? why is it better for people to die from cancer just to save a couple of bucks?

why should society lose access to alice's cancer research just because bob wasted some money going to a conference or whatever?

20

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 12, 2025, 03:49:47 AM »

I'm not sure why you think that everyone should unquestioningly agree with all medical research. Big Pharma is not interested in treating or even investigating the root of the issue, only treating the symptoms, meaning that you pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for an extra few years of suffering instead of doing something that actually fixes the root issue.

even if that were true, that doesn't have anything to do with NIH research grants.

But aside from that major concern, I don't see a problem with cancer organizations being shuttered if they are defrauding the public. See this one, for instance.

i am begging you to please stop just immediately believing the first thing you read on nypost. please.

also president elon isn't auditing the books and shuttering specific organizations that are wasting money. he's simply illegally shuttering a bunch of cancer research across the board because he doesn't understand how NIH funding works.

but for the sake of argument, let's pretend for the moment that this headline is 100% true and there is some org out there just stealing cancer research money or whatever. and let's also suppose that for some weird reason, we can't just shut down the offending org. we can either have cancer research + waste, or we can have no waste but also no cancer research.

why is the latter better? like, wouldn't it be better for a child with cancer to have access to cancer treatments, even if the cost is that there is some wasted money? does every system have to be completely efficient or it just shouldn't exist at all?