US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

 

[Anasûrimbor Kellhus]

I'm not going to hold my breath for that. "Red California" sounds like the conservative version of "Blue Texas" to me ... Fanfiction.

the difference is that california on the local/county level gets steadily more red, while texas never seems to trend blue like the dems claim it will..... I do not think it is *entirely* fanfiction when there's already a red corridor.

we might have to nuke SF and LA a few times though

 

[Not Really Here]

we might have to nuke SF and LA a few times though

Rats, and roaches are immune to nukes.

 

[AnotherPleb]

yeah
it's been ten years

Gamergate honestly broke the illusion for a lot of gamers that the media was in any way honest.

If Benjamin Franklin was alive today, he'd take all these old ass harpies with TDS and try to slap some sense to them. I'm sure he'd get ALL the Republican women that voted for Trump.

Ben Franklin and you would have had a lot in common.

 

[The Ugly One]

You can buy soda cheap in Mexico and it uses cane sugar instead of corn syrup.

It's not cheaper than in the USA, and Mexico is the fattest country in the world with a crippling diabetes problem. But they also consume massive amounts of snack food as well. So the idea sucrose will make you healthy is just wrong.

 

[big pauper]

Fructose gets broken down into sucrose and glucose. Sucrose is just bad for you. Doesn't matter if you're getting it from cane sugar directly or breaking down fructose. What HFCS does is allow us to produce sugar cheaply and at insane scales. Without it, you wouldn't have free unlimited refills at McDonald's or be able to buy a half liter bottle at the gas station for a couple bucks.

most high fructose corn syrup on the market is 42% fructose by weight and 50% glucose by weight. table sugar, sucrose, is 50% glucose and 50% fructose by weight. the stuff they put in soda is 55% fructose instead. it exists because they figured out they could use an enzyme to convert the starch in corn to sugar so the massive amount of corn america produces could be used to make sugar, instead of relying on beets or sugar cane. the sugar you buy at the store is made from beets, probably, because you can't make sucrose out of corn, but you can make a syrup that is functionally chemically identical to inverted sucrose. table sugar is also like a dollar a pound man

i think 55% HFCS tastes like shit and it's not like they put what kind of HFCS in the ingredients list - i think there is a lot of room for improvement. but cut this absolute ignorant retard shit out, you could have spent 30 seconds doing some research

 

[The Ugly One]

table sugar is also like a dollar a pound man

Cut supply, price goes up. Eliminate a mass-produced sweetener from the market, cramming sweets in your face and guzzling fizzy sugar water will get more expensive.

This is a good thing. Sucrose isn't magic health sweetener. It was rotting people's teeth out and making them fat from the time the Spanish discovered it. Fatties need to eat less, and making their fat people food more expensive is a good way to do that.

 

[CharlesBarkley]

Ben Franklin and you would have had a lot in common.

They both have crazy ass hair and wear a cape around town?

 

[General Emílio Médici]

glucose is absorbed into your gut directly and used by your body directly as fuel. fructose has to undergo fructolysis with liver enzymes that turn it into glucose, lactic acid, and glycogen

I wonder, would swapping sugar and HFCS in food and drinks for straight up glucose be a healthier way to sweeten things?

 

[LurkTrawl]

Is there something weird about that I'm not getting?

If I explain it I'd drown in puzzle pieces so I'll let someone else explain why having the number 4 book-ending everyone's favorite spooky number is about as ridiculous as 42069 or 77769. That said, I get that it's either synchronicity or just someone on their campaign team fucking with them but it took me by surprise to see that. I don't need numerical 'randomness' explained to me, I get it.

 

[Mark Goldbridge]

It'd be absolutely insane, ridiculously ill-advised, blatant warmongering and likely to tank their 2028 chances if they try to start a goddamn war with russia over sour grapes with trump. Even more so if trump manages to end it relatively cleanly.

It is a plan with functionally no chance of helping them and every chance of blowing up in their face in multiple ways.

I give it about a 30% chance of going through.

They're going to do so much diplomatic damage that Trump can't reverse what they did so the war won't start while they're in office but could be almost inevitable by the time they leave.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Gamergate honestly broke the illusion for a lot of gamers that the media was in any way honest.

The media is far less honest now. Especially since 2020 with the coof and the riots.

 

[namelesstacotruck]

Not just cali, that is a bad forcast all around.

-12 EVs for Blue States
+10 EVs for Red States
And
+2 for Swing States?

That means before -any- swing states come into play the election sits at 214D-229R

Republicans would only need to pick up 41, which....

Nevada - 6
Wisconsin - 10
Arizona - 12
Michigan - 15
North Carolina - 17
Georgia - 17
Pennsylvania - 18


Republicans would need to pick up any two of the bottom -four-, then need to pick up either WI or AZ, NV is they pick up GA and PA.

They could lose MI and WI -and- PA, and still come out with a win.

Georgia is on the edge and can't be treated as safe. Fulton, Dekalb and all the suburb counties are blue and getting deeper blue. Its looking to become a new Illinois very soon if something isnt done to break the D powerhold over the city of Atlanta. The RINO GOP does nothing to stop any of the D bullshit in that area and they will lose the state because of that. Also Governors election in 2026, and off cycles are historically bad for the party of the current president. Looking like Burt Jones. The dem bench is going to be a battle between Abrams going again and Jason Carter (Grandson of Jimmy Carter).

 

[George Lucas]

It's not cheaper than in the USA, and Mexico is the fattest country in the world with a crippling diabetes problem. But they also consume massive amounts of snack food as well. So the idea sucrose will make you healthy is just wrong.

Whether or not soda is particularly cheaper in a certain area mainly has to do with how much people are willing to shell over. Soda in bumfuck, nowhere Mexico is cheaper than in Westwood, that’s for sure. Soda is ubiquitous around the world because of its huge profit margin, regardless of whether it uses corn syrup or sugar. But sugar tastes better. The only reason corn syrup is used in the America is because corn is subsidized. Corn is grass. It could grow in so many places outside America, and yet we just don’t see bottlers switching to HFCS outside America.

 

[big pauper]

Cut supply, price goes up. Eliminate a mass-produced sweetener from the market, cramming sweets in your face and guzzling fizzy sugar water will get more expensive.

This is a good thing. Sucrose isn't magic health sweetener. It was rotting people's teeth out and making them fat from the time the Spanish discovered it. Fatties need to eat less, and making their fat people food more expensive is a good way to do that.

supply? brother it's sugar. the price of sugar is not going to raise in price from an increase in demand when it's probably one of the highest volume commodities on the entire fucking planet. it's like saying "if we start eating rice instead of bread it will raise the price of wheat" like yes in some abstract sense you could be right but too bad that's not how economics works in the abstract and to bring it back to reality america still produces significantly more beet sugar than we do corn syrup.

it's not a magic health sweetener it's literally just the sugar found in food. what do you use instead? xylitol? ascesulfame potassium? come the fuck on

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Good morning, USPG. It's your sexy hunk of man, Hey Johnny Bravo. I've got some interesting articles from The Hill, the DC rag of repute. These are in order of interest to me.

"FEMA employee says she was ‘framed’" (archive)
TL;DR: the stupid bitch who got caught red-handed telling people not to help Trump-supporting victims of hurricanes is doing a media circuit saying Trump supporters are big mean to her and that is why she told people not to help them.

The stupid bitch in question? Her name is Marn’i Washington. This is what she looks like:

A terminated employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said in a Monday interview that she was being “framed” for allegedly advising a survivor assistance team in Florida to skip homes with campaign signs in support of President-elect Trump.

In an interview on NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live,” the former agency employee, Marn’i Washington, denied wrongdoing.

“So firstly, I’m being framed. There’s no violation of the Hatch Act. I was simply following orders,” Washington told Abrams, when asked whether part of the guidance she offered her team was to avoid homes advertising Trump, and if so, why.

“I did not vote for Kamala Harris, so there is no political plight on my part. I was simply following orders,” she added.

Washington sought to pin blame on her supervisor.

“I execute orders. I don’t create policy. I do not reinvent the wheel. My record shows that,” Washington later said in the interview.

Washington and FEMA Director Deanne Criswell were named in a lawsuit filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) last week, claiming they “agreed” to deny Trump supporters relief after Hurricane Milton.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Fort Pierce, Fla., asks for unspecified damages and a declaration that the two FEMA officials unlawfully conspired to violate Floridians’ civil rights.

“While the facts will continue to come out over the weeks and months, it is already clear that Defendant Washington conspired with senior FEMA officials, as well as those carrying out her orders, to violate the civil rights of Florida citizens,” the complaint read.

House Republicans have also opened a probe into the incident, and Criswell is slated to testify about the incident before a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee later Tuesday morning. The committee last week asked Criswell to brief members on the incident and on FEMA’s response to it.

The committee also asked FEMA to provide documents and information about the agency’s effort to reach and aid homes that were skipped because of the incident, along with other communications.

“As the FEMA Administrator, you are responsible for leading the Nation’s efforts to prepare for, protect against, and respond to natural disasters. The Committee is troubled that under your leadership FEMA failed to aid all Americans, regardless of party affiliation,” Republican House lawmakers said last week in a letter shared with The Hill.

Criswell confirmed the termination earlier this month and condemned the incident, saying, “This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation. This was reprehensible.”

Washington said in an interview with journalist Roland S. Martin early last week that the federal agency was scapegoating her and that homes were skipped because of “verbal abuse” by those Trump supporters.

“They all alleged that these actions were made on my own recognizance and that it was from my own political advances. However, if you look at the record, there is what we call a community trend,” Washington said. “And unfortunately, it just so happened that the political hostility that was encountered by my team — and I was on two different teams during this deployment — they just so happened to have the Trump campaign signage.”

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

Next up, we have "Harris campaign’s spending comes under scrutiny" (archive)

This one is exactly what it says on the tin. I know it's been discussed in the thread already, but I like this one because even wastrel Demcorats are wondering how Kamala Harris spent over a billion dollars in 3 months.

Vice President Harris’s campaign is seeing growing scrutiny over its spending strategy as Democrats continue to reckon with her devastating loss to President-elect Trump.

Harris’s campaign blew through more than $1 billion in spending, and there have been reports that the campaign is $20 million in the red, though the campaign is denying that.

“As of Election Day, there were no outstanding debts or bills overdue and there will be no debt on either the DNC or HFP report for post general report,” said Patrick Stauffer, chief financial officer of the Harris campaign.

While Democrats acknowledge Harris faced an uphill climb given President Biden’s late exit from the race in July, her loss of all seven swing states and the popular vote to Trump has prompted the party look inward for answers.

“Everybody fell short,” said James Zogby, a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee.

Zogby explained that if you’re going to be sending out emails asking members of the party for money, “then we ought to be able to say to people, ‘and here’s what we did with it.’”

Recent reports have placed a greater spotlight on the Harris campaign’s spending and debt as the party reels from a decisive defeat in the presidential race.

Some members of the party have questioned the campaign’s tactics, including spending money on production costs associated with celebrity-studded events with Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé and others.

Democratic strategist Jon Reinish wondered if, instead of using the money on some of those events, “could that have been put into a podcast strategy? A Hispanic communication strategy focused on men, a much more effective series of outreach to Black men?”

Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist who has advised the pro-Biden super PAC Unite the Country, said that while the Harris campaign did not have the luxury of raising money early because of when it began, there should be some scrutiny of the spending.

“When you lose an election and there’s that much money there, there are definitely going to be arrows flung at you,” he said. “As part of the autopsy of this campaign, an audit of all funding should be done so we understand what went right and what went wrong. When you lose, you question everything, but we shouldn’t start with, ‘Every dollar that was spent was stupid money.’”

Mollineau also said there should be similar audits of super PAC money, since the “soft side” didn’t have the same time restraints as Harris.

While her campaign suffered a decisive defeat in every battleground state, the margins in each state were largely narrow, with the team crediting its “fundraising prowess” for keeping the race tight.

“Because of Vice President Harris’s unparalleled fundraising prowess, we were able to run an aggressive all-of-the-above strategy to reach voters, keeping the seven battleground states incredibly close,” Stauffer said.

Democrats, including the campaign, say Harris was handed a nearly impossible task with taking the helm of the Democratic ticket roughly three months before the election.

“In a historically short amount of time, Harris for President had to do the near impossible: reach a divided electorate, break through a fragmented media environment, and introduce our candidate to the American people — especially undecided, lower information voters,” a Harris campaign spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that the campaign had “invested more and earlier than ever before into Latino media and outreach.”

Harris’s former communications director, Jamal Simmons, noted there were problems at the top of the ticket long before Harris became the nominee.

“We didn’t know how frail Joe Biden would appear at the debate, but maybe other people did know,” he said, referring to Biden’s disastrous debate performance that led to him stepping aside.

Simmons also argued that he believed Biden’s team could have done a better job blunting Republican attacks against Harris long before she became the nominee.

“The problems with the Harris campaign were long simmering. They weren’t problems of the last 100 days,” he said. “The Biden White House should have been advertising on her behalf much earlier to counteract the sustained assault Republicans have been waging against her online and on television for years.”

The extent of the Harris campaign’s spending and debt isn’t immediately clear, though they will come more into focus next month, after its post-campaign filing Dec. 5.

While the Harris campaign is learning hard lessons from the election, members of the party also think there are things it did well.

“The Oprah interview was a very creative experiment in direct-to-consumer political productions and there are costs associated with that,” Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, wrote on social media. “I would expect to see MORE of this type of thing in the future, rather than less, and think it was a steal for $1m in production costs.”

The rest of the articles on The Hill are just bitching about Matt Gaetz.

 

[Leaded Gasoline]

I wonder, would swapping sugar and HFCS in food and drinks for straight up glucose be a healthier way to sweeten things?

Why not go for synthetic sweeteners? They probably don't even increase your chances of getting cancer that much

 

[big pauper]

I wonder, would swapping sugar and HFCS in food and drinks for straight up glucose be a healthier way to sweeten things?

sprecher's soda has some sodas that are sweetened with glucose syrup and while they are pretty good, just consider this - fructose doesn't spike your blood sugar, so replacing the sweetener with one that just completely hammers your insulin levels the second it enters your mouth has some downsides.

 

[Dr J]

Without it, you wouldn't have free unlimited refills at McDonald's or be able to buy a half liter bottle at the gas station for a couple bucks.

How do you account for countries that don't use it that also have those things.

They put sugar, proper sugar, in most of the soft drinks that are sold in most of the world

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Do what I do and switch to seltzers. Mmm... bubbly!

 

[CharlesBarkley]

I just drink la croix or soda water when I want a bubbly treat.

Do what I do and switch to seltzers. Mmm... bubbly!

Yeah, it’s way more healthy. It’s a shame white claws don’t have a multivitamin in it.