The GTP Unofficial 2020 US Elections Thread

GTPlanet Exit Poll - Which Presidential Ticket Did You Vote For?

  • Trump/Pence

    Votes: 16 27.1%

  • Biden/Harris

    Votes: 20 33.9%

  • Jorgensen/Cohen

    Votes: 7 11.9%

  • Hawkins/Walker

    Votes: 1 1.7%

  • La Riva/Freeman

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • De La Fuente/Richardson

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Blankenship/Mohr

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Carroll/Patel

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Simmons/Roze

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Charles/Wallace

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 15 25.4%
  • Total voters
    59
  • Poll closed .
Keef
She was California's AG before that which is where most criticisms of her come from.
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Okay so I knew she was AG but not that she was California's, at least not until I dug a little deeper. She was apparently junior senator to Diane Feinstein's senior, which I suppose I knew.

And let's be honest here, her service as AG may have been a subject of criticism, but it's certainly not why the right is critical of her.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
This merits another thread I think. I'll say this though, good architecture (and planning) is what makes good cities good. It's also what makes crap cities crap. It's also kind a measure of the question, who do we want to be? Good architecture can also drive economic activity and provide net gains for cities. The city of Dallas, for instance, has completely transformed its downtown area over a deeply focused 30-year arts district building boom. It hasn't been cheap and the roster of star architects is long, but the downtown Dallas arts district is now a place people go and spend money. It wasn't anything like that before. The Seattle public library has become one of it's defacto public squares and tourist meccas, something that wouldn't have been remotely possible if not for it's dramatic architecture. What symbol would people associate with Paris if not for the Eiffel tower's prominence? The Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco didn't need to be as pretty as it is - they could have saved quite a bit on architectural detailing, but it is a major tourism draw because it is. I'd argue that it is utterly reckless to not build good civic architecture, because it is just a race to the bottom otherwise, and that outcome is rarely good. I should mention that the price difference between good buildings and not good building isn't dramatic. Design fees may be higher, but they are only a small portion of construction cost. And while there may be marginal construction cost increases due to complexity (and even that isn't a given), a good, well coordinated team can provide a smoother construction process with less headaches and less surprise costs and deliver a building that works for the user for many years. In other words, if you hire a B-list architect and a B-list builder, you're going to get an ugly crap building that will likely cause you problems down the line.
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I understand what your saying, but as someone who’s been in construction for over 20 years now, a basic square box is much cheaper than some fancy details. It’s amazing how much time it adds to a project to add in the silly little details that 90% of the people will never notice anyways. For private buildings, sure, go nuts. But if the gov is spending my hard earned tax dollars on it, I’d rather a basic building, so the money goes farther, they waste enough money as it is. I don’t really care about tourism either, I’d rather a city where I can drive into when I need to, rather than one full of annoying tourists that causes traffic jams for hours. But obviously, that’s just my opinion. I like function over form, make the buildings super useful, instead of pretty. :)
 
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TexRex
Okay so I knew she was AG but not that she was California's, at least not until I dug a little deeper. She was apparently junior senator to Diane Feinstein's senior, which I suppose I knew.

And let's be honest here, her service as AG may have been a subject of criticism, but it's certainly not why the right is critical of her.
Click to expand...

I firmly believe that Biden won the Presidency in spite of Kamala, not because of her. What did she deliver for Biden? Black voters? No way, if anything Biden himself does better with black voters. California? Ha, like it would make any difference at all. Women? Eh, Trump did more for women supporting Biden than Harris did. Progressives? Well they don't like Harris really to begin with, and it's not as if Progressives were going to sit this one out. I genuinely do not understand what she brought to the ticket that Biden already didn't have locked down. He should have picked a moderate mid western white lady or a Texan, IMO. A Texan with any kind of popularity in the state honestly could have pushed Biden over the top there without losing ground in the midwest, it could have been a blowout with 340+ electoral votes.

Pigems
I understand what your saying, but as someone who’s been in construction for over 20 years now, a basic square box is much cheaper than some fancy details. It’s amazing how much time it adds to a project to add in the silly little details that 90% of the people will never notice anyways. For private buildings, sure, go nuts. But if the gov is spending my hard earned tax dollars on it, I’d rather a basic building, so the money goes farther, they waste enough money as it is. I don’t really care about tourism either, I’d rather a city where I can drive into when I need to, rather than one full of annoying tourists that causes traffic jams for hours. But obviously, that’s just my opinion. I like function over form, make the buildings super useful, instead of pretty. :)
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Right but public building budgets are decided long before the design is, and they are typically 'use it or lose it' earmarks. I think your problem is with the budget allocations, not the building design itself. If you budget $50M for a new library, you'll get a $50M building (well, ideally) regardless of the design. I design public & civic & government buildings for a living, so I'm naturally going to disagree with you. And don't you dare send me an RFI. :lol::cheers:
 
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Eunos_Cosmo
I firmly believe that Biden won the Presidency in spite of Kamala, not because of her. What did she deliver for Biden? Black voters? No way, if anything Biden himself does better with black voters. California? Ha, like it would make any difference at all. Women? Eh, Trump did more for women supporting Biden than Harris did. Progressives? Well they don't like Harris really to begin with, and it's not as if Progressives were going to sit this one out. I genuinely do not understand what she brought to the ticket that Biden already didn't have locked down. He should have picked a moderate mid western white lady or a Texan, IMO.
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I'm of the belief that Biden was largely the beneficiary of Trump's abysmal performance over the last four years, which was his primary opposition. Biden's pretty safe, so he had that going for him. He also has a good idea of what the job ahead of him requires.

I don't particularly care that he picked Harris. She was probably seen as convenient because she was a recognizable face from the primaries and the lead-up to them. I can't think of a running mate that would have compelled me to bite the bullet and vote for him. From a strictly observational standpoint, I think it would have been fun for him to pick a Latino; someone that's also safe would be good, but then play around a bit by seeking someone born in the country but to immigrant parents, perhaps even someone whose citizenship came by way of birthright just to set the Birthers on edge.
 
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Eunos_Cosmo
Right but public building budgets are decided long before the design is, and they are typically 'use it or lose it' earmarks. I think your problem is with the budget allocations, not the building design itself. If you budget $50M for a new library, you'll get a $50M building (well, ideally) regardless of the design. I design public & civic & government buildings for a living, so I'm naturally going to disagree with you. And don't you dare send me an RFI. :lol::cheers:
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That’s a really good point, I agree, thanks for pointing that out. :cheers: You’re right about the use it or lose it too, I worked for a moving company just out of high school for a while, I remember doing an office move for Immigration Canada. They had us come in at the end of the year to move stuff from one end of the building to the other, literally just to use up the remaining money in their budget(the lady working there flat out told us so), because if they didn’t spend it, they didn’t get it back next year. Such a waste of money, and if they do it, I’d imagine most other gov organizations probably all do the same, or similar things. :banghead:
 
So I'm beginning to think that Trump's final act may be to sabotage the GOP. It hinges on two enabling factors and a few correlated motivations.

Enablers:
1. Trump doesn't care about anything but Trump. Any nationalistic pretensions feed into to the core Trump brand-building as their core purpose. He cares about America as much as he perceives it to benefit him. This isn't necessarily a motivation for sabotaging the GOP, but this fundamental principle is what enables it.

2. He has an immensely narcissistic & fragile ego. Again, not motivation, but the second aspect that enables it.

Motivations:
1. Trump is a sore loser. Really sore. I'm absolutely certain that he is taking the fact that he underperformed the broader GOP very personally. If he doesn't care about the party, or even the country, and he has a fragile ego, it's totally plausible that Trump would have the attitude, "if I can't win, then nobody (in the GOP) can!"

2. Revenge. I'm all but certain that Trump perceives the GOP as not doing enough to support him, and I'm pretty sure his grievance grows by the day.

3. Trump's Brand. If the GOP does well after Trump loses, that's no good for Trump. It's better for Trump if the GOP does poorly, IMO, as it possibly enables him to fracture his base out of it. Granted, I don't think this base is going to get bigger, but he's too much of a megalomaniac to see it's ceiling.

4. He can focus the attention on himself, which is basically all he cares about.
 
Pigems
That’s a really good point, I agree, thanks for pointing that out. :cheers: You’re right about the use it or lose it too, I worked for a moving company just out of high school for a while, I remember doing an office move for Immigration Canada. They had us come in at the end of the year to move stuff from one end of the building to the other, literally just to use up the remaining money in their budget(the lady working there flat out told us so), because if they didn’t spend it, they didn’t get it back next year. Such a waste of money, and if they do it, I’d imagine most other gov organizations probably all do the same, or similar things. :banghead:
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The town I live in painted all of its bus lanes red to use up its budget one year, to ensure it would get it back the next year.
 
Liquid
Same reason you get random roadworks for no apparent reason. Council budgeting motto is use it or lose it.
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While true, not all the money goes to the project. I can tell you from my time in construction, timeline, profits and bonuses are all they(private/non government) care about and the same can't be said for the DoT(government)...
That said the I-85 bridge collapse here in GA can be a perfect example of getting roadwork done in a timely fashion with a bonus incentive(give it a Google). They(private contractor) built a bridge in months. The GA 400/I-285 interchange is going on year 7. They've been "almost done" for 2 years...regardless of the ETA being 3 years ago...
Waste much money they will.
 
ryzno
While true, not all the money goes to the project. I can tell you from my time in construction, timeline, profits and bonuses are all they(private/non government) care about and the same can't be said for the DoT(government)...
That said the I-85 bridge collapse here in GA can be a perfect example of getting roadwork done in a timely fashion with a bonus incentive(give it a Google). They(private contractor) built a bridge in months. The GA 400/I-285 interchange is going on year 7. They've been "almost done" for 2 years...regardless of the ETA being 3 years ago...
Waste much money they will.
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I googled. There is an enormous difference in scale between those two projects. The I-85 work consisted of a singe 95' long bridge section being replaced. It's likely the engineering was already done or in the very least very straight forward and it was an emergency repair. The GA 400/I-285 interchange is like 10 miles worth of road improvement - so that's like 500 times more scope, at least. I'm not saying government-managed projects always, or even usually go smoothly, but lets try not to be cynical. There's a wooden bridge in my town that was given this inspection in 2017:

Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Critical (2 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Imminent Failure (1 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 16.3 (out of 100)

It was immediately closed after this inspection (for obvious reasons). They are just now beginning to replace it, 3 years later.

Wow this thread has gotten off topic. :lol:
 
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Eunos_Cosmo
I googled. There is an enormous difference in scale between those two projects. The I-85 work consisted of a singe 95' long bridge section being replaced. It's likely the engineering was already done or in the very least very straight forward and it was an emergency repair. The GA 400/I-285 interchange is like 10 miles worth of road improvement - so that's like 500 times more scope, at least. I'm not saying government-managed projects always, or even usually go smoothly, but lets try not to be cynical. There's a wooden bridge in my town that was given this inspection in 2017:

Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Critical (2 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Imminent Failure (1 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 16.3 (out of 100)

It was immediately closed after this inspection (for obvious reasons). They are just now beginning to replace it, 3 years later.

Wow this thread has gotten off topic. :lol:
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Clearly this is a topic for the America thread, as we have gone off the roads here.
 
Liquid
Same reason you get random roadworks for no apparent reason. Council budgeting motto is use it or lose it.
Click to expand...

Same motto regarding budgets is uttered in a lot of large companies too.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
So I'm beginning to think that Trump's final act may be to sabotage the GOP. It hinges on two enabling factors and a few correlated motivations.

Enablers:
1. Trump doesn't care about anything but Trump. Any nationalistic pretensions feed into to the core Trump brand-building as their core purpose. He cares about America as much as he perceives it to benefit him. This isn't necessarily a motivation for sabotaging the GOP, but this fundamental principle is what enables it.

2. He has an immensely narcissistic & fragile ego. Again, not motivation, but the second aspect that enables it.

Motivations:
1. Trump is a sore loser. Really sore. I'm absolutely certain that he is taking the fact that he underperformed the broader GOP very personally. If he doesn't care about the party, or even the country, and he has a fragile ego, it's totally plausible that Trump would have the attitude, "if I can't win, then nobody (in the GOP) can!"

2. Revenge. I'm all but certain that Trump perceives the GOP as not doing enough to support him, and I'm pretty sure his grievance grows by the day.

3. Trump's Brand. If the GOP does well after Trump loses, that's no good for Trump. It's better for Trump if the GOP does poorly, IMO, as it possibly enables him to fracture his base out of it. Granted, I don't think this base is going to get bigger, but he's too much of a megalomaniac to see it's ceiling.

4. He can focus the attention on himself, which is basically all he cares about.
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So basically he is a Republican in name only? ;)
 
Don't forget:

The bigger the stimuli, the more money suckers can give back to Trump by donation.

Another method of defraud.
 
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Scaff
The town I live in painted all of its bus lanes red to use up its budget one year, to ensure it would get it back the next year.
Click to expand...

Private companies do this too. Internal budgets get yanked and reallocated from one department to the next if they don't use it up - so they gush at the end of the FY if they have surplus.
 
It may seem a bit pointless to comment on this after everything that has gone on but ... I think that it's clear that the idea of "voter fraud" exists firmly in Trump's mind. The "evidence" for it is primarily that so many people think he's an awesome President & flocked to his rallies. He's in a bubble of his own creation - no amount of logic or facts, or legal rulings will shake him out of it.
 
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Biggles
It may seem a bit pointless to comment on this after everything that has gone on but ... I think theist's clear that the idea of "voter fraud" exists firmly in Trump's mind. The "evidence" for it is primarily that so many people think he's an awesome President & flocked to his rallies. He's in a bubble of his one creation - no amount of logic or facts, or legal rulings will shake him out of it.
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Everything he loses he claims is rigged against him. It's not a new phenomenon.

The Apprentice losing at The Emmys? Rigged.
Losing in a Republican primary? Rigged.
Losing the popular vote in 2016? Rigged.

Etc..

It's been clear for a long, long time that he simply cannot accept losing fair and square. Whenever he does, he cries foul.
 
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GTFan24
For the love of god do they realize the Electoral College already wrapped up?
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Your first mistake was thinking they cared in the first place.

Honestly, I fully support Trump doing this solely because it exposes the farce U.S. politics has become. If this isn’t a wake up call for all voters than I really can’t feel bad for my fellow citizens when crap keeps getting worse.
 
Northstar
Your first mistake was thinking they cared in the first place.

Honestly, I fully support Trump doing this solely because it exposes the farce U.S. politics has become. If this isn’t a wake up call for all voters than I really can’t feel bad for my fellow citizens when crap keeps getting worse.
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They will keep doing this until 2024, when they will state that he is looking to re-enter the White House after losing the prior election (if he doesn't do that, then his fantasy that the election was stolen from him would mean he is no longer eligible to be president).
 

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