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[scriver]

Why in the world would the EU want a free trade with USA? They can offer us nothing but toxic maize that we can't get from bullying African countries.

[Reelya]

The USA also doesn't want that.
https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements

If you look through the Free trade agreement nations, and the longer list TIFA agreements, you'll notice a lack of any larger nation that could potentially be a rival to the USA in any way. Nothing for Brazil, India, Russia, Japan, China, or EU nations.

Note that in Europe, the only nations USA has a TIFA agreement with are Iceland and Switzerland. UK may get one once Brexit is finished, as a way to draw an economic wedge with the EU.

So that's the strategy: aggressively seek Free Trade Agreements and Trade & Investment Framework Agreements with as many weaker economies as you can, to get cheap access to those markets, while working to undermine any broader agreement that may facilitate trade between other countries, if it isn't going through the USA first.

While there's some support for broader free trade agreements among the Democrats, the Republicans are firmly on the divide-and-conquer side of the aisle, and have undermined or talked back any sort of deal that involves major powers.

[Frumple]

Interesting article, mostly on why biden has the minority support he does, written by a sanders supporter. Its contents tracked pretty well with what I've seen in my life, near as I can remember (Though there's a caveat that there basically aren't any progressive whites where I'm at that aren't pretty beat down one way or another, so...).

[dragdeler]

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[Dutchling]

Joe “motherfucker abused his position to get his son a job in Ukraine!”

Harrassment is a good thing actually as long as my people do it!

the socially liberal temporarily embarrassed millionaire

Cry harder Bernie Brothers! Nothing you can do will stop Joe Biden from beating Bernie Sanders like he is going to beat domestic violence: LIKE A DRUM!

sneaky neoliberalism

I resent this accusation. There is nothing sneaky about my support for neoliberalism. I respectfully ask you to retract your statement.

[dragdeler]

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[Naturegirl1999]

Why should I, I didn't call you sneaky. Our current political system is just not exactly an openhanded way of fucking people over, eventhough it does get more and more obvious... as opposed to classical liberalism which was "kek you're working for me and still starving, serves you right".

It took the whole democratic establishment, and the entire TV media, also two human sacrifices for lil Joe to win his first states ever by his third attempt at running for president. Even if he does win a plurality I'll be less than impressed, not that that counts for anything just saying...

One thing you can be sure is that I'd record those Trump v Biden debates because they are going to be comedy gold. But I don't see how that matters to you since "you" have basically allready "won" if said matchup were to happen since they're both more or less equally neoliberal.

what’s this part mean?

[dragdeler]

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[Naturegirl1999]

His name was Robert Paulson! Their names were Amy and Pete!

Hehe I mean Buttigeg and Klobuchar. So TBF he did win South Carolina on his own  .


(I tend to use first names of politicians I don't respect though I also like to use nicknames for the ones I like so it's maybe not that obvious)

ok, thanks, that line threw me for a loop

[hector13]

Bernie isn’t the one that pushed the whole Biden nepotism through abuse of position thing, that’s Trump, and the moderate Dems are playing into his hands by consolidating behind Biden. He’s been preparing for the old bugger for months.

And by prepare I mean probably setting up enough dominoes for a character assassination specifically on Biden, or just generally accusing the Dems of being hypocrites by saying they’re not criticizing one of their own like they would little old harmless Donny J, even if they do the same things!

[WealthyRadish]

Interesting article, mostly on why biden has the minority support he does, written by a sanders supporter. Its contents tracked pretty well with what I've seen in my life, near as I can remember (Though there's a caveat that there basically aren't any progressive whites where I'm at that aren't pretty beat down one way or another, so...).

Everywhere we're reading about Biden's perceived electability as his major strength, but that article actually puts forth a much more understandable argument. It's easier to see how anti-establishment risks might be mistrusted by people acutely sensitive to that electoral strategy's potential failure (and perhaps pessimistic about whites actually following through on or being able to achieve progressive policies).

What bothers me is that it really doesn't seem like Biden was the safest candidate. It's obvious from hearing him speak that he's suffering serious mental deterioration, and he'll probably be walking into another drawn-out FBI pseudo-investigation over the Burisma-Ukraine nepotism (further mirroring 2016). That he's getting most of his current support from states that don't affect the election is also not exactly assuring for the general. If Biden weren't in the race the "moderate" vote (scare quotes because who even knows anymore) could have at least coalesced around someone less unfit and genuinely safer in the general, perhaps even Warren.

Still, I don't think people should write the primary off as settled despite the delegate difference. It's worth remembering that it's currently 292 vs 258 delegates, out of 3979. Super Tuesday was four days ago, the candidate count just precipitously narrowed, and Warren has yet to make a move toward Sanders or Biden. You can see a list of the primary dates and delegate counts here:

https://frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2020-democratic-delegate-count.html

I'm pretty disappointed that the DNC didn't schedule a debate between March 3rd and the 10th, especially given the media coverage and the number of voters who apparently decided within days of voting.

[Max™]

I always feel a little bad when I remember Biden has a stutter, so I literally know that pain, oftentimes I get hung on trying to start saying words that begin with a or e or o at weird times, like if you ask me to say "apples are amazing" out of nowhere I'm going to fucking punch you in the eye.

You'll get to share my pain first while you watch me struggle to initiate that first syllable though, and then you get new exciting pain afterwards, hurray!

This is why I have a massive vocabulary, this is why I automatically see words spelled in my head and track conversations so I can anticipate and adjust to avoid any such need where I will have a pause followed by a troublesome word, or can insert a similar but easier to say word.

This is also why I will still make fun of him for cases where instead of using the sort of fix I might try, he seemed to completely forget where he was and rambles about record players instead.

In other news, the governor of Missouri said they had tested nearly 17 people, showing the 3/5ths compromise is alive and well there?

[Naturegirl1999]

When did Biden ramble about record players?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

While Biden does have a stutter, that doesn't explain all of his behavior such as introducing his sister as his wife, forgetting Obama's name, calling Bernie the President, saying he was running for Senate, and specifically the repetition of adjectives which many people report as a sign of encroaching decline. In addition, Biden used to have high control over his stutter as you might expect from a career politician: In the 2016 interview I watched he never stuttered once in a fifteen minute conversation. Now it's every other sentence.

[Max™]

So Biden was asked whether he still held these attitudes: “What responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?” What follows is a transcript of his rambling answer (I have omitted nothing), which for some reason includes references to record players and Venezuela:

    Well, they have to deal with the — look, there’s institutional segregation in this country. From the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Redlining banks, making sure we are in a position where — look, you talk about education. I propose is we take the very poor schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the $60,000 level.

    Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are — I’m married to a teacher, my deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. Make sure that every single child does, in fact, have 3, 4 and 5-year-olds go to school. Not day care, school.

    Social workers help parents deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t know what to play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the — make sure that kids hear words, a kid coming from a very poor school — a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time we get there.

    MODERATOR: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

    Biden: No, I’m going to go like the rest of them do, twice over. Because here’s the deal. The deal is that we’ve got this a little backwards. By the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I’ve confronted Maduro. You talk about the need to do something in Latin America. I’m the guy that came up with $740 million, to see to it those three countries, in fact, changed their system to people don’t have to chance to leave. You’re acting like we just discovered this yesterday. Thank you very much.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/12/20863709/democratic-debate-abc-biden-record-player