The First 100 days

He thinks definitions of words don't matter. He's not.

 

I thought I was special. Turns out, not so much.

 

The token Sooner has met his match. He must be a closet Aggie.

 

Define utility as you apparently ignored it in my reply.

 

I defined a term that was relevant to the discussion, and you crapped on that. I'm not going to define other terms for you.

 

The feeling I get whenever aggy is around.

 

You also misread about 100% of my comments. You ignored my comment questioning the UTILITY of defining words in the context of a political debate. I never said defining words was universally useless. It’s useful in legal contracts for example. I questioned its utility in politics. Further, by asking you to define various words in this thread, I also proved my point.

 

If we can't agree on what words mean, we can't communicate at all. Surely you understand this.

 

Sadly, one side doesn’t care, or they have the means to twist your words until they’re opposite of your intention. They only respect the ballot box and even then they are trying to rig that in their favor. Trump had to go because they couldn’t control his message. Too bad he shot himself in the foot too many times.

 

You need to provide more clarification as to which side you're describing. One could argue reasonably that you just described the modern day GOP.

 

Case in point. Define ballot harvesting.

 

You apparently have never negotiated $5-$50m deals with the Chinese. Words don’t mean too much once agreed and executed. Communists, leftists, same thing and same lack of regard for principles.


By they way, off topic and tootin my horn, but the aforementioned values are fees paid in cash, not cost of project. A lot of wannabes say they do $100m deals, when in reality their fee is only $100k.

 

If nobody tortuously twisted words on West Mall to fit their desired narrative then the West Mall wouldn't exist. Everyone on West Mall lives to catch their chosen foe in illogical arguments, even if that means abusing the English language to do so.

I hear you on the Chinese but that's not a "language" issue but rather cultural integrity. A buddy of mine was an Enterprise MSFT sales rep in China gor a few years. This was after he owned the IBM account. He regaled me with stories of visits to companies where they'd say they need 10 copies of Windows right after he walked past a floor with 100 PC users. Even after pointing at the 100 users they'd claim they need 10 copies. A rule of thumb was the Chinese companies only licensed about 10% of their need then would use bootleg versions for the rest. If you're MSFT, you accept 10% or 0%. With subscription services I'm sure the model has changed a bit but as long as there are desktop versions the Chinese will embrace piracy, at least until a viable Chinese competitor emerges.

Now, let's talk about how conservatives nor @mchammer ever twist words. The only thing missing is the picture with halo's. Of course, there is that viral video of Newt Gingrich actually lecturing about how Republicans rebranded themselves in the mid-90's by twisting the meaning of words to change the public perception. That would undercut @mchammer 's theory but it's too obvious. Let him continue to play with the noose a little longer.

 

Of course, none of us are on that side.

 

You might be interested in this @OUBubba

IRS data proves Trump tax cuts benefited middle, working-class Americans most

"Income data published by the IRS clearly show that on average all income brackets benefited substantially from the Republicans’ tax reform law, with the biggest beneficiaries being working and middle-income filers, not the top 1 percent, as so many Democrats have argued.

A careful analysis of the IRS tax data, one that includes the effects of tax credits and other reforms to the tax code, shows that filers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $15,000 to $50,000 enjoyed an average tax cut of 16 percent to 26 percent in 2018, the first year Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect and the most recent year for which data is available.

Filers who earned $50,000 to $100,000 received a tax break of about 15 percent to 17 percent, and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 in adjusted gross income saw their personal income taxes cut by around 11 percent to 13 percent.

By comparison, no income group with an AGI of at least $500,000 received an average tax cut exceeding 9 percent, and the average tax cut for brackets starting at $1 million was less than 6 percent. (For more detailed data, see my table published here.)"

 

Trump did good to cut taxes. But he did awful in reducing spending. Taking on debt and printing more money, both of which Trump presided over, are just another form of taxation. He was garbage on that.

Like Reagan. Trump's rhetoric was better than his actual accomplishments. We need a political party in the US dedicated, committed, focused on reducing the size and scope of government and that means reducing spending by a large degree.

 

Liberals analyze this sort of thing differently. They don't look at the percentage reduction in your tax bill. They look at the total "cost" of the tax cut based on budget analysts' estimates (which are almost always woefully wrong but actual numbers and reality don't matter to them on this) and then they look at how much of that is going to the wealthy. And let's be honest. If you make $10M per year, a 6 percent tax cut is going to be a hell of a lot more money (and therefore a much bigger piece of the tax cut's "cost") than a 26 percent tax cut for a guy making $20K per year, because he was never paying much in taxes anyway.

I'm not defending that analysis. I think it's silly and based on faulty reasoning, but it's what Switzer would argue if he hadn't gone to OU.

 

Rhetoric better than accomplishments? How so? I think the reverse is true. His rhetoric sucked.

 

Trump didn't drain the Swamp. He didn't even ATTEMPT to. He hired war mongers into his cabinet even though he campaigned on getting out of wars. He went along with Fauci when he should have either fired him or sat him in the corner. He got the government involved in and incentivized to push the mRNA shot that many on here criticize. But this was Trump's shot in many ways. He supported lockdowns. The worst possible thing he could have done. His increased the size of government through huge spending increases. His Supreme Court appointees so far have been asi-asi. He campaigned against Fed money supply inflation, but he then went against that and instructed the Fed to reduce interest rates again. He didn't appoint a stable money or hard money Chairmen.

I think Trump would have been better than Biden in 2021. I think we are in a worse situation with the Biden administration than if Trump would have won. But honestly, his rhetoric was better than his results.

The best thing for Republicans going forward would be to adopt one thing Trump did well. Fight. Fight. Fight leftist accusations. Don't go along with their ploys. Mock them. Insult them. But fire them. Actually bring the troops home in an organized manner. Don't talk. Act!