This is far to stupid of a comment to engage on but you clearly desperately need some kind of win to (frank) off here so I'll give you one. Yes, trump never killed close to as many people as Hitler and therefore is not as bad as Hitler.

I have zero idea what kind of relevance that could possibly hit at the end of the day, but again... Clearly need your win. So there it is.

Not as bad as Hitler.

(even though I literally never once said he was, but take the win by all means.)
- joel878

Was Gardiner as bad as Hitler?

it's pretty dumb to compare trump to hitler. the u.s. severely limits the president's powers compared to what hitler had.

hitler had control of the textbooks and the media.

Who controls the textbooks and the media in the U.S.?
- Tumbleweed

Murdoch v. Bloomberg .two tribes go to war

Was Gardiner as bad as Hitler?
- Atomic Wedgie

As a general rule of thumb I consider Hitler to be the gold standard in the 'things you should never compare other things to' department.

That being said I really disliked Gardiner.

I don't understand your position at all. You seem rational most of the time, but this is like a blackspot in your vision.

You have State by State policies that vary from place to place. These policies are in aid of managing the ability for the electorate to cast votes while still maintaining a level of credibility. The fact that they vary from place to place is something the US should really have addressed long ago, but the US is State driven, so fine . . .The policies that were in place were unquestioned in 2016 when he won.

In many places they couldn't start counting the mail-in ballots until the day of the election or even after the polls closed. There's a pandemic which has increased mail-in volumes to record levels. There are different procedures for validating mail-in ballots.

Everyone said this would take longer and the results would likely not be known the day of the election if it was close. This is the result of the pandemic. The other thing that everyone knew was that the majority of mail-in ballots would be democratic because the Democrat party espoused using mail-in ballots and staying safe. The Republican party denounced mail-in ballots.

There's nothing suspicious here - just EXACTLY what everyone predicted would happen. Big GOP count on day 1, Big Democrat count on days 2+.
- Monkeypunk

based on polls that were completely wrong and have negative credibility.

prior forecasts justify nothing.

Murdoch v. Bloomberg .two tribes go to war
- The Law

And for textbooks, it's science vs. fundamentalist Christians in some states.

based on polls that were completely wrong and have negative credibility.

prior forecasts justify nothing.
- Tumbleweed

This is incorrect.

The predictions of mail-in vs. day-of had nothing to do with polls.

Obama never invested in CEPI - while he & his gov't was asked to do so during last year of his last term.

and Trump didn't dismantle the pandemic outbreak team - there was a restructuring in 2018; US personnel were very much involved in ebola outbreak 2018/2019.
end of February this year, people were critizicing Trump for limiting flights to/from China ('racist!!').

truth is -- countries that weren't prepared for covid, were always going to be too late - how much they were effected was linked to (order of importance) 1/ luck; 2/size of country (bigger country, more difficult to manage); 3/ climate & cultural issues (cold weather in jan/feb made lots of cold weather countries limit interpersonal contacts & social networks in some countries bigger than in other countries).

US did relatively ok (which is still very mediocre) - when comparing to other countries and these three factors.

Countries/gov'ts don't learn though -- all covid funds go to a lot of things, apart from actual health systems strenghtening and health (drugs/diagnostics/vaccines) R&D.. so whether it's another infectious disease outbreak or AMR, we'll see the same again in 5/10/20 years
- MaximusAurelius

Yes, they did dismantle the Pandemic Response Team. Call it restructuring if you want, but after they restructured there was no more Pandemic Team. "I didn't demolish the house. It fell down after my explosives went off." They also pulled their researchers out of China.

They never fully shut down the flights from China anyway. I agree that the messaging was very triggered to call him a racist, but he'd spent 3 years doing racist poop at that point, so people were pretty much thin skinned about it. They should have shut down all incoming flights - but really the severity of this wasn't really that well understood at the time.

Curiously, a Pandemic Response Team probably would have known the quarantining protocols to institute, how to go about instituting them, how to quarantine and trace individuals coming into the country and so on. But you know, they were restructured out of existence.

Ignoring that, and even ignoring the misstep with the COVID test kits (we'll make our own that don't work) that allowed things to spike a bit more in the early-going - the problem was the messaging was horrible. You need leadership to lead. They didn't get that, and it was a colossal failure starting at the top.

This is incorrect.

The predictions of mail-in vs. day-of had nothing to do with polls.
- Atomic Wedgie

who gave those predictions then?

based on polls that were completely wrong and have negative credibility.

prior forecasts justify nothing.
- Tumbleweed

So the results are (frank)ed, and the polls which projected those results are (frank)ed.

Double dipping on conspiracy theory despite the matching outcomes.

At the least no one can ever doubt your determination.

right. they spent a cup of coffee in OK and got a 20% increase in dem voters.

maybe we're on to something. maybe it wasn't where the money was being spent.
- Tumbleweed

YOu're spinning wheels ....in OK both sides gained about 80k votes. THat equates to who the (frank) cares. I'm sure Hillary spend less then a cup of coffee in 16' and the good people of OK really really hate the Clintons.

And I know you're smart enough to know I can do the same analysis in a few Dem states. Trump gained a few votes in spite of not spending any time there.

who gave those predictions then?
- Tumbleweed

The invidivual states. The (frank)ing states did, aside from a handful they literally announced guidelines on the order of which votes would be tabulated prior to the election.

There, now you have the missing link to your conspiracy theory in that somehow that equates to the 'dems outlining their plan to rig the election before it even happened'.

Was Gardiner as bad as Hitler?
- Atomic Wedgie

Gardiner was more of an Albert Lebrun

who gave those predictions then?
- Tumbleweed

Democrats. Republicans. Fox News. Rachel Maddow. Atomic Wedgie. Rocket surgeons.

Trump discouraged people from mail-in voting.

Democrats urged their followers to do it.

C'mon, Tumbles - it's not particularly hard to figure this out.

Was Gardiner as bad as Hitler?
- Atomic Wedgie

I mean. Not to the Jews, but the rest of us . . . Maybe?

Democrats. Republicans. Fox News. Rachel Maddow. Atomic Wedgie. Rocket surgeons.

Trump discouraged people from mail-in voting.

Democrats urged their followers to do it.

C'mon, Tumbles - it's not particularly hard to figure this out.
- Atomic Wedgie

As far as I'm concerned he's one wrong response to this comment away from being lumped into the max, drexel, komisoreass section of hockeybuzz credibility.

Yes, they did dismantle the Pandemic Response Team. Call it restructuring if you want, but after they restructured there was no more Pandemic Team. "I didn't demolish the house. It fell down after my explosives went off." They also pulled their researchers out of China.

They never fully shut down the flights from China anyway. I agree that the messaging was very triggered to call him a racist, but he'd spent 3 years doing racist poop at that point, so people were pretty much thin skinned about it. They should have shut down all incoming flights - but really the severity of this wasn't really that well understood at the time.

Curiously, a Pandemic Response Team probably would have known the quarantining protocols to institute, how to go about instituting them, how to quarantine and trace individuals coming into the country and so on. But you know, they were restructured out of existence.

Ignoring that, and even ignoring the misstep with the COVID test kits (we'll make our own that don't work) that allowed things to spike a bit more in the early-going - the problem was the messaging was horrible. You need leadership to lead. They didn't get that, and it was a colossal failure starting at the top.
- Monkeypunk

Those pandemic response teams were never meant for us wide outbreaks, but for regional outbreaks abroad.
Apart from a few Asian countries that had to deal with SARS outbreak early 2000s and realised they had to set up a structure for future similar outbreak, no other country was prepared for covid, and no 'quick reaction' could have truly changed the eventual outcomes (actual cases and deaths).

And for the global medical community.
- Atomic Wedgie

Touché

And for textbooks, it's science vs. fundamentalist Christians in some states.
- Atomic Wedgie

multiple biological genders is science?

Those pandemic response teams were never meant for us wide outbreaks, but for regional outbreaks abroad.
Apart from a few Asian countries that had to deal with SARS outbreak early 2000s and realised they had to set up a structure for future similar outbreak, no other country was prepared for covid, and no 'quick reaction' could have truly changed the eventual outcomes (actual cases and deaths).
- MaximusAurelius

We can disagree about this. I do think that taking it seriously, proper messaging, proper direction and leadership and support would have helped drastically reduce the spread and the number of cases. It would never have been eliminated and a significant number of people would have contracted the virus and died anyway, yes. The pandemic was inevitable. The impact of the pandemic was something that could have been controlled much, much better.

multiple biological genders is science?
- Tumbleweed

None of us are qualified to make that determination.

The real question is where should we turn for answers? Scientists/Doctors or Pastors/Imam?

None of us are qualified to make that determination.

The real question is where should we turn for answers? Scientists/Doctors or Pastors/Imam?
- The Law

Um...Lums?

Wow, this went off the rails..


Politics.

YOu're spinning wheels ....in OK both sides gained about 80k votes. THat equates to who the (frank) cares. I'm sure Hillary spend less then a cup of coffee in 16' and the good people of OK really really hate the Clintons.

And I know you're smart enough to know I can do the same analysis in a few Dem states. Trump gained a few votes in spite of not spending any time there.
- The Law

it's not a few states. biden got more votes than h.clinton in 43 states.

in 23, the increase was 10% or more. this isn't driven from population increases.

i was no fan of h.clinton, but she was a far superior candidate to biden. running up again the same hated guy.

but somehow, without spending big money across the county, biden got more votes in ~85% of states?

some ground game he's got.

Wow, this went off the rails..


Politics.
- bixll

Had a zoom meeting earlier and the guy screen sharing had CNN's livestream on in the background and forgot to close it.

it's not a few states. biden got more votes than h.clinton in 43 states.

in 23, the increase was 10% or more. this isn't driven from population increases.

i was no fan of h.clinton, but she was a far superior candidate to biden. running up again the same hated guy.

but somehow, without spending big money across the county, biden got more votes in ~85% of states?

some ground game he's got.
- Tumbleweed

Don't underestimate the effect of negative partisanship. It's basically the reason Trump won the first time.