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mrandyk

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Travel Squad (8/21)

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  1. Don't you dare demonize someone from the deplorable portion of our nation's population that any poster on this board may or may not identify with. Someone might drop in and suspend your account. (see my most recent post regarding shipping migrants)
  2. Thanks for confirming. It wasn't adding up for me, but I guess I underestimated the depravity of brain-dead racists.
  3. I've had a hard time following this stunt by Desantis. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like most of the migrants involved were following the established policy to become a legal resident via political asylum from Venezuela? Thus, making them legal immigrants? People who are authorized to work in the US, meaning they have SSNs and are paying their share of taxes? Most of the response I have seen has been laughing about sending "illegals" to a rich part of the country, then acting like that state is awful for housing/feeding them while setting them up to become productive members of society. Am I missing something?
  4. Why don't you break down the forgiveness by income for everyone?
  5. I'm completely out if Urban came to town. Character is worth something. Proved himself to be an absolute POS at Florida, at Ohio State, and even in the NFL. I don't need a saint, but I'm not giving my money to satan.
  6. I've seen no evidence of him living with his parents into his 40s, his attire isn't professional but far from a hobo, he wants miniscule drug charges expunged, and he is going to fully recover from his stroke. I'm really not sure how he won the primary, but he is an actual man of the people, which shouldn't be that hard for people to support. I'm dying for normal people to be in politics. How bad is the Oz campaign? He is literally carpetbagging. He is not from Pennsylvania, and has made it obvious in his attempts at connecting to voters. His "Crudités" debacle was probably enough on its own to end this race. Oz is about to flip this seat that has been held by the Republicans since 1969. I guess that's more a testament to Cheeto's s#!tty endorsements than anything, because 5 minutes with Oz would have told a reasonable person that Oz should not hold public office.
  7. I think it is the unique system Alaska employs that caused this. The Republican nominees won 59% of the vote in the general election - 31% for Palin (R), 28% for Begich (R), and Peltola (D) got 40%. They however revamped their state elections to ranked choice voting in 2020. Reading through all of it has been a bit confusing, but here is what I've gathered: They now have open primaries. The top 4 vote getters, regardless of party, end up on the general election ballot. 2 Rs, 1 D, and 1 Independent came through. The Independent withdrew afterwards. So in the general election you had 1 D and 2 Rs. In the general election, if one wins a majority of the 1st place votes, they win the election. No one won a majority. So in this instance, they looked at the voters who picked the 3rd place candidate (Begich) as their 1st choice, and went to their 2nd choice on their ballot. Enough people picked Peltola (D) as their second choice rather than Palin (R). So, it seems that a notable number of people voted like this: 1. Begich (R) 2. Peltola (D) 3. Palin (R) Enough conservative Alaskans decided that Begich (R) was the best candidate, but also that Peltola (D) was a better candidate than Palin (R). I'm sure Alaskans have a strong opinion on Palin. She has been gone for 13 years, was poorly received in her few years as governor, and was running mate for one of the last Republicans with a spine. Under any system that I'm familiar with, we would have seen Palin running against Peltola, and Palin would have likely won. I applaud Alaska. Make the race something other than "the lesser of two evils" and we might start to win as a nation.
  8. 1) Personal Finance class in HS has become mandatory in many (most?) states. I can't speak for everyone, but it became mandatory in SD around 2007. I assure you it had just as much impact as my Algebra, Art, English, History, etc. courses (and I do even work in banking, with the general public, and have received a certification in financial counseling). 2) I agree that from the student's point of view that you should consider what your income could be, weighed against your debt. Don't bury yourself to go into musical theatre. People in highly employable degree programs don't always turn out well though. A friend of mine from business school is still working the floor at Hy-Vee a whole 8 years after we graduated. 3) I already told my story about going to a state school that specifically advertises itself as being notoriously affordable. It's not very affordable at all. It costs about $1,400 for a 3 credit course at USD. You need 128 credits to graduate, if you don't wind up with any extra credits, totaling about $60k. We haven't even touched living expenses or books yet. I just looked at in-state tuition for UNL and it would be about $85k just for the classes. That's insane! 4) This is what high school guidance counselors try to do, and they have been trying to do it forever. You are counting on teenagers who live with their parents to make adult decisions. They aren't adults. Quit acting like they are. 5) I think I agree that student loan debt should be allowed in bankruptcy, because it is the most socially forgivable kind of debt, but I mostly disagree with the idea of going into crippling debt just to go to school in the first place. I work in consumer lending and have interviewed thousands of people regarding their credit. Student loan (and medical) debts are generally overlooked. It does hurt your credit score to neglect them, but any human reviewing a credit report should be able to look past them. Dodging your student loans is much different than dodging your car loan, credit cards, or child support. The two fields I've worked in since graduation have been higher education administration and consumer finance. I've seen all of this from both ends. The cost of education is way too high, we are pushing our children to take on unfathomable amounts of debt (they've never had a bill in their life! They are children, who the hell knows what they are going to do with their life at that age?), and the penalties for failing in this system are quite damning. Without a degree you can't hope for anything above retail, and generally a retail job won't pay for your tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. In a nutshell, higher education is basically a large gamble. Will you finish? Will you pick a field you enjoy once you become an adult? Will it ever pay the loans you took out? It is f#&%ing insane that we accept that bettering yourself through higher education is a gamble. Make tuition cheap like it was before the 90s and we won't have a problem anymore.
  9. Wait. Hunter Biden had a laptop? How do I change my vote?
  10. I also am not a Republican, Democrat, or otherwise. I refuse to register with a political party. I believe that they do not serve our best interests as a nation, and simply exist as a way to serve themselves. People should not become rich by dedicating themselves to public service. That's completely a$$ backwards. I must be uninformed though. You say the Clintons are out there ordering hit jobs? Literally having people killed at their command? That sounds far worse than anything that anyone in the GOP has been accused of. I don't know why you are even trying to say that both sides are terrible. It sounds like the left is tremendously worse. Can you share the evidence? These murders would have come under the presidency of a man who campaigned on jailing these specific murderers, so surely it's all out there in black and white. The right has tied themselves to a blatant felon. A man who should have stood trial for treason even before the current fiasco. We can't yell about "both sides" when one side is attempting to destroy our nation and everything it stands for. You can call it divisiveness. The only division here is people who hold party over country.
  11. Whoa! 5-3 in the rivalry over the past 15 years?! Who is getting a statue? Go to Lincoln if you've never been. Tremendous atmosphere inside and out. Everyone is so welcoming and ready to have a good time. Last time I was at a game I was walking back towards my car in a large crowd, some dude with a football points at me, throws up a bomb that I (thankfully) caught, and when I returned his football he gave me a shot and a burger. So much fun. Truly reminds me of Fargo, but on a much bigger scale.
  12. North Dakota is not good. They are middle of the road in the MVFC, the best FCS conference, but if Nebraska fails to score on any drive it will not be due to UND's efforts. Source: Watched more UND football the past couple years than a non-fan should. Will watch them lose to USD again in November.
  13. Just trying to get ahead of the mass shootings so he can equate them to protests.
  14. The people taking out student loans are generally 18 years old. Can you remember being 18? Were you a fully developed person? Do you think it is reasonable to push tens of thousands of dollars in debt onto kids who can't even drink yet? It is insane. No one knows who they are yet at 18. Your only experience in life is living at home and your enclosed school system. I believe that these 18 year olds (or anyone seeking higher ed) should be able to take classes at minimal cost, while finding a way to pay their living expenses. On the other hand, the PPP loans were established adults taking handouts from the government. I gave you so many examples from my small town. A few businesses did need the money to survive, but like 95% of them were people just putting their hands out to Uncle Sam for no reason other than greed. This cost us far more than student loan forgiveness, and helped honest American workers a whole lot less than student loan forgiveness.
  15. Do you mean PPP loans? Paycheck Protection Program is the given name, but the money did little to protect paychecks. Most of the money just went into the pockets of business owners, regardless of their industry. My small town of 10,000 in remote South Dakota saw the following: Medical clinic received $4 million. Are we to believe that less people saw the doctor during a pandemic? Steakhouse received $110,000. They closed their doors in March 2020 and never reopened. Where did that money go? The car dealerships received $211,000 and $166,000, Did people stop buying cars? (I work in consumer lending, they did not stop buying cars) The university's foundation received $507,000. Did people decide that they'd never donate again? Is raising funds for a state school even a necessity? A construction company received $150,000. Did people stop building homes? The non-profit youth dance organization received $23,000. Did their previously received donations disappear? I could go on, and on, and on...and I don't even live in a populated area. Every realtor and farmer received at least $20k each too. Care to tell me how they were impacted? Them farmers kept working as normal. Those realtors saw record profits. They got to pocket giant handouts even though they had no employees and did just fine, if not better than usual. PPP was an absolute joke. Look up your local area and tell me that you agree with where that money went. Some businesses were devastated by the pandemic, but this program did not discern at all whether one went through a hardship. Far more money went down this drain than went towards helping actual working class Americans via student loan forgiveness.
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