Recent kwiples

Thursday 25th of April 2024

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Biden administraation It took about 50 days for US president  Joe Biden to fulfil his 100-day vow of 100m vaccinations. The trick is as simple as it is old: under-promise and over-deliver.  Yet after four years of Donald Trump doing the opposite, it feels strangely novel. The same applies to Biden’s $1.9tn recovery package. In one bill, he has provided the financial relief that Trump kept telling middle-class Americans they already had. Might America dare to hope that its days of politics as a branch of the entertainment industry are over? Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 18, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Corruption The corrupt politician is he who brings into public service the traditions of a private career. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Financial collapses There is never just one cockroach. Financial Times, April 2, 2021, quoting a leader of a financial research firm commenting on the collapse of Archegos, a multi-billion dollar family office run by Bill Hwang for his family © 2021 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations c America is behaving like the Soviet Union, and China is behaving like the United States. Kishore Mahbubani, Has China Won? © 2021 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Every day in this country, 316 people are shot. Every single day. 106 of them die. Every day. Our flags were still flying at half staff for the victims of the horrific murder of eight primarily Asian American people in  Georgia when ten more lives were taken in a mass murder in Colorado. You probably didn't hear it, but between those two incidents, less than one week apart, there were more than 850 additional shootings. 850. It took the lives of more than 250 people and left 500 injured. This is an epidemic, for God's sake. Joe Biden, April 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Hypocrites say My warning, if you will, to corporate America is to stay out of politics. It's not what you're designed for. And don't be intimidated by the Left into taking up causes that put you right in the middle of one of America's greatest political debates. Mitch McConnell, who has spent a career being the best among his Senate colleagues at attracting money from giant corporations and their CEOs, expressing his outrage that some of them stopped contributing to Republicans after the January 6, 2021, insurrection, and joined Democratic-led opposition to Republican-led efforts to pass voting suppresion laws © 2021 Kwiple.com
Immigration What is Roe vs Wade? Two ways of coming to the United States. Joe Wong, Chinese comedian © 2021 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Liberty Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty. Henry Demarest Lloyd, Wealth Against Commonwealth  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Military spending The US may account for half of global defence spending, but how much use is its military hardware in a software age? US aircraft carriers, which can cost up to $13bn to build, can be easily sunk by one of China's DF-26 missiles, costing a few hundred thousand dollars. John Thornhill, Financial Times, April 2, 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Money in politics In the election cycle of 2016, the richest one-hundredth  of 1 percent of Americans — 24,949 extraordinarily wealthy people — accounted for a record-breaking 40 percent of all campaign contributions. By contrast, in 1980, the top 0.01 percent accounted for only 15 percent of all contributions. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics throws up two sorts of leader. There are those forever reaching for an umbrella and others, far fewer in number, who set out to change the weather. Western democracies have lately boasted a superabundance of politicians sheltering from the storm. Philip Stephens, Financial Times, April 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Post-2020 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,085,414 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,336,180 people 1 state (California) 2020 population: 39,368,075 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,684,037 people 19,684,037 / 1,336,180 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's 1 state (Wyoming) 2020 population = 582,328, therefore: 1 Senator per 291,164 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 68 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Profits What we are finding is that however effective profit may have been for inaugurating modern industry, it is failing as a method of realizing its promise. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Punt returners say No, I pooped too. An old guy's response when asked, Did you just fart? © 2021 Kwiple.com
Republicans Party We are the party of Lincoln. We are not the party of QAnon or anti-Semitism or Holocaust deniers, or white supremacy or conspiracy theories. Liz Cheney, whistling past the graveyard after being censured by Wyoming Republicans for saying Donald Trump should have no role in the Party going forward © 2021 Kwiple.com
Science Righly undertood science is the culture under which people  can live forward in the midst of complexity, and trust life not as something given but as something to be shaped. Custom and authority will work in a simple and unchanging civilization, but in our world only those will conquer who can understand. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie I don't want you to rehabilitate me. Just make me interesting. Philip Roth to his Blake Bailey, his biographer © 2021 Kwiple.com
Sex I'll be obsessed when I'm eighty exactly as I was when I was eighteen. Philip Roth, when middle-aged © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Never was he able to think of himself as a man no more important than other men. Never could he involve himelf deeply in the give and take of politics. Yet neither did he choose the easy alternative of a monkish withdrawal from the world of men. He remained a detached man who sought involvement. Walter Lippmann portrayed by William E. Leuchtenburg © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Noem is Trumpism with a cowgirl face. Kristi Noem portrayed by Stephen Rodrick in Rolling Stone, March 16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I believe Matt Gaetz. He should not be removed from the Judiciary Committee. Jim Jordan © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I've decided to “identify” as Chinese. Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my “values” and I'll probably get shoes from Nike & tickets to @MLB games. Ain't America great? Mike Huckabee, 10:18 AM – Apr 3, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Take it from me rumors and headlines don't equal truth. I stand with @mattgaetz Marjorie Taylor Greene, 11:00 AM – Mar 31, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the total number of billionaires around the world rose by 412 to a record of 3,228, [Shanghai-based] Hurun [Research Institute] said. China added 259 billionaires last year, more than the rest of the world combined, according to Hurun. Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality One of the signers [of an August 2019 Business Roundtable statement proclaiming a “fundamental commitment to all  our stakeholders”] was Jeff Bezos, the multi-billionaire CEO  of Amazon and its Whole Foods subsidiary.  Just weeks after the statement appeared, Whole Foods announced it would be cutting medical benefits for its entire part-time workforce — at a total annual savings of what Bezos himself made in just two hours. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wretched excess Monogrammed made-to-measure underpants in a cashmere blend © 2021 Kwiple.com