Makai

Absolutely. I was really using that to point out reasons they could have difficulty agreeing on what is a reasonable amount without involving the courts. He hasn’t been but she also didn’t request it when she filed for divorce. They have 50/50 custody so both are supporting their daughter. It just hasn’t been decided how much child support is needed to maintain the same quality of life between the two households.

I’m not judging her or saying that she is wrong to live where she is currently living, wherever that is. I am only pointing out that it is a realistic point of contention when figuring out how much support is owed. There is no world where I won’t find $40,000 a month in rent to not be astronomical high. It’s an economic judgement rather than a value judgment.

So, the guy who decided to adapt a book repeatedly criticized for glorifying abuse ends up being an abusive asshole. And of course it’s another guy who framed himself as an ally to women.

Until more information comes out, I am inclined to see this just as standard legal wrangling with lawyers advising each side to not pay/not accept until there is an official ruling. When she initially filed she did not ask for child support and waived spousal support. It seems like they intended to negotiate it privately but could not come to terms they both agreed on. They both make more than enough to support the child lavishly while the details are worked out. I don’t put a lot of stock into dramatic headlines trying to elicit outrage. Reading details of her filing it seems like there are potential points of contention. He generally has a higher average income but she has had recent higher profile work causing her to have higher income in recent months and some of her expenses are astronomical (40k a month in rent).

It’s not really an either/or thing. There are multiple red flags for lying. A extremely consistent story with no variation is a sign of a potential lie because spontaneous memory recall isn’t uniform when repeated. In other cases the inability to repeat details or to quickly fill in new information can also be a red flag. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned in this case, is that alcohol (potentially spiked based on her account) was involved which can explain many inconsistencies.

No, I’m not. I would put myself in the group that heard little. I was aware it happened but I didn’t not watch the footage or tune into the news of it at all. Over a quarter of the population isn’t rare. This election was decided by slightly less than a third of the adult population. Besides polling is becoming increasingly inaccurate. You can’t poll people who don’t want to be polled and I am largely talking about that group who are completely checked out of all things political. I agree but I am not talking about Trumpers. There are a lot of people in the middle who feel that both parties are corrupt and that our political system is broken. I’m not defending or excusing people who led with apathy/self-interest this election but I do understand the mindset behind it. They’re not wrong that our system is fundamentally broken in ways that no president is going to fix. I voted for Harris because I believed her policies would move us in the right direction and because Trump would only further damage the system, but I also believed that there was very little that she would be able to actually accomplish. Right now getting anything done requires a super majority in Congress and/or manipulating the courts. Trump has done the latter which is terrifying to me. I’m honestly not trying to make excuses for anyone but I can never agree that saying people voted for him because of the economy is a lie because I have to face people who voted for the reason every day. I’m not saying that makes them better than Trumpers. In fact, I think it makes them worse in many ways. But I do think it makes them reachable. I’m not asking anyone to try to reach them or forgive them or even to understand them. Fuck that. Let them live with the consequences of their vote. I’m just pissed the rest of us after to suffer through it at the same time.

I did. I didn’t see any of it at the time. It was only very recently when I decided to tune back in, that I became aware. I knew bits and pieces but was mostly clueless. I checked out after Trump won in 2016. At that point I wasn’t on any social media. I haven’t a cable in years so I only watched streaming shows. I actively avoided most news sources. It’s actually wasn’t hard to miss it entirely. Most of the people I know never watch the news and have social media pretty well calibrated to avoid anything they don’t want to see. In real life, conversations about politics were already rare and stopped entirely after Trump won. Thanks. That was me. At this point I find the data to be frustratingly incomplete but it is probably all the media will report on.

Absolutely. I know people who moved from California to Oklahoma and Texas and the kids immediately moved up a grade level because the standards were so different, going all the way back to the 90’s. One of the FAFO stories I recently heard was a Oklahoma mother worried because their kid’s school told her that they weren’t sure if IEPs would exist next year and that the state had to expend a lot of resources buying bibles to meet the new requirement (and, of course, the Trump bible is the only one that meets the requirements). I have long said that I struggle with organized religion because so much of it is about furthering the power of the church itself and schools in many states are doing the same thing.

I agree with you that a lot of people know and don’t care or actively want that to happen. But a lot of people actually don’t know any of that. I’m surrounded by them. I don’t think it possible to overstate just how checked out of all things political a large part of the population is. And for many it’s because they are struggling just to survive so they vote of general vibes on who will be better for the economy or don’t vote at all. Now, I’m not excusing any of that or letting anyone off the hook but one of my takeaways about this whole election is just how poorly educated Americans are as a whole. The system has failed in teaching the basics of our economic system and critical thinking. And we now have a president that is just going to further deteriorate that educational system because one side has decided to capitalize off of that ignorance for their own gains.

Absolutely. I think this is one of the things that is hurt most by the electoral college. I always vote but I also feel like my vote doesn’t count. People can say every vote counts but everyone knows my state is a forgone conclusion and my vote literally counts less than many other states. And it’s not even close when compared to a state like Wyoming.

People kill things they “love” all the time. Serious question, how would that happen? I honestly want to know, because nearly all the experts say Trump’s policies will be really bad for the economy. One thing that frustrates me is that I haven’t seen any Trump supporters truly address how these policies are actually going to be successful. I’d love to find some hope but it feels like it can only come from the idea that he’s not going to do what he says he is going to do. This idea that he apparently has some amazing plan that will make everything better and just hasn’t said it. From what I have seen, the experts raising concerns have data and history to back them up but the people who believe in Trump’s policies use diversion tactics, lie, or freeze when challenged. This is exactly why I feel like we are probably going to continue yo-yoing between political parties in power until something big happens. Too many people are choosing not to vote or are voting purely against the current power with no understanding of how the economy works. I am probably going to be a broken record over the next four years, but we also can’t forget to consider voter turnout when making this analysis. We can’t know how significant those gains are actually significant and if voters really moving red. There needs to be more extensive diving into the numbers before accurate conclusions can be drawn. I would love to see a state by state breakdown because I suspect that the minority vote stats are being impacted by blue state complacency amongst democrats.

There is a task force assigned to investigate and they put out an interim report. The media has moved on but this will be heavily investigated. I am assuming that is something that will be looked into extensively but they were so lax that a random person was able to walk into the White House while Obama was in residence. For whatever reason the security perimeter was inadequate. If they were involved I think they would have done a better job on the coverup. It’s true the shooter was spotted but it was only two minutes between when he was seen and the shots so it’s hard to know what was done about it and if the message was relayed. Just after it happened, I saw security experts saying they should have moved him sooner. I don’t know what is true. I’m sure whether or not they followed proper procedure will be part of the report. There is audio from the stage as it happened and the agents on the stage weren’t the one to make that decision.

I agree with you. The pictures of the immediate aftermath of the shooting are horrific. Trump is not that good of an actor to have faked the look on his face. I do think that Trump exaggerated the extent of his injury in the aftermath but I can’t see any evidence to show the it wasn’t a real assassination attempt. The secret service agents with him had already gotten the notification that the shooter was down before Trump stood up. At that point he knew the danger had passed.

Oh, I think he knows perfectly well who pays the tariff but he also knows that most Americans don’t. Many of his expressed policies are carefully worded to deceive. Like when he announced that he would eliminate taxes on overtime. He just neglected to mention that he also wants to change how working hours are accumulated in a way that would allow companies to effectively eliminate overtime altogether. Many people just heard they would make more money and have no clue that Trump already lowered the overtime exemption salary levels and that a judge favorable to him blocked Biden’s attempt to make more people eligible for overtime just after the election. Exactly. People think that Trump will magically revive American production and bring back high paying jobs but that ship has sailed. It’s cheaper to pay tariffs and pass off the cost to consumers than to being production back to the US. If tariffs cause companies to move their production it is because they are moving to a different foreign country.

The greatest benefit is that they generate revenue for the country. They can also be used to protect certain struggling industries from being undercut but foreign imports. Low percentage tariffs or selective tariffs can be used really effectively. From people I’ve seen who support Trump’s tariff policy (those who do actually understand what they are) think that it will lead to more people buying American made products and force companies to return the production process in the US. But that is extremely unrealistic and borderline impossible in most cases.