Political Posts

[changegonnacome]

Medicaid & medicare fraud is widespread.....various rackets have been in existence in various states and perpetrated by surprisingly interconnected ethnic and religious communities for decades....the nature of medicaid/medicare frauds requires Valeant levels of unrelated related entities & parties....patients, providers and labyrinth LLC's in cahoots....they naturally propagate in highly interconnected communities...sometimes those communities are Somali's, sometimes those communities are White protestants.......the Somali one is perfectly packaged for the MAGA base cause it involves immigrants (who should all be deported if found guilty & not American citizens).....but this podcast was an eye opener for me on the subject really worth a listen:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-fraudsters-are-bilking-the-government-out/id1056200096?i=1000677298171&l=fr-FR

[Marco Van Basten]

1 hour ago, RichardGibbons said:

I guess the other dimension of it is that "bad guys" have degrees of badness.

 

Organized crime associates will have always have guns, regardless of the law. But, if guns are restricted, every corner drug pusher or petty criminal drug addict won't. And there's much more of the latter, so giving them guns makes a huge difference in bad gun outcomes.

They will have a knife, so what's the difference?  At least with a gun you can protect yourself and your family during a riot.  In the USSR, murder rate was sky high and yet you were not allowed to own, let alone carry handguns.   In Switzerland and Israel, almost every male has or had a gun at home, and crime rates were very low.   

[bizaro86]

8 hours ago, Marco Van Basten said:

I cannot speak for the entire US.  In NYC and its suburbs, people would laugh at your sister's salary and benefits package.  NYC public school teachers contribute zero to their health care coverage, salary for 1st year teachers = USD 68,902 for those with bachelor degrees and USD 77,455 for those with masters.  Teachers with experience earn more.  For instance a teacher with 8 years of experience and masters earns $103,291 USD and $124K with 15 years of experience.  Oh, and as for pensions, an acquaintance retired after 40 years of teaching at 65, receives a $150K per year pension.  

 

Sure, NYC is more, but you'd want to compare to places with a similar cost of living. Her 3br townhouse cost less than a Manhattan parking stall - her lifestyle is almost certainly better than a nyc teacher.

 

And the straight dollars comparison is much more favorable if you took somewhere actually similar - in Denver public she'd be making $78k USD/year, so slightly less.

[Gregmal]

1 hour ago, changegonnacome said:

Medicaid & medicare fraud is widespread.....various rackets have been in existence in various states and perpetrated by surprisingly interconnected ethnic and religious communities for decades....the nature of medicaid/medicare frauds requires Valeant levels of unrelated related entities & parties....patients, providers and labyrinth LLC's in cahoots....they naturally propagate in highly interconnected communities...sometimes those communities are Somali's, sometimes those communities are White protestants.......the Somali one is perfectly packaged for the MAGA base cause it involves immigrants (who should all be deported if found guilty & not American citizens).....but this podcast was an eye opener for me on the subject really worth a listen:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-fraudsters-are-bilking-the-government-out/id1056200096?i=1000677298171&l=fr-FR

See what I don’t understand, is that whenever stuff like this comes up, there is always a very large faction of folks and particularly the media whom try to push the perpetrators to the side, undermine efforts to villainize the perpetrators, even excusing their conduct, and making it more about the people whom find this sort of thing appalling. It’s amusing as hell watching the Minnesota politicians and government agencies more or less colluding with some of these criminals to try and explain their way out of this thing… Tim Walz has to be one of the biggest laughingstocks we ve ever seen, and yet, there’s outfits wanting to point the finger here at things that have nothing to do with the Somali fraud. 
 

In a way it’s very similar to the whole episode at Michigan where the head coach is criminally charged for some wild and dangerous behavior, and then it’s revealed he was out there trying to fuck anything and everything that he could(while employed at a school!), and you have folks saying there’s only an issue for some with his behavior cuz he’s black lmfao….

Edited December 31, 2025 by Gregmal

[cwericb]

Have four friends that teach in the public school system and all retiring within the next year. Two are in Nova Scotia and two are in South Carolina.

 

The two in NS are making a little over $100k/year each. I don't know their incomes, but the two in SC do Door Dash deliveries in their spare time to supplement their incomes. 

[Parsad]

6 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Only those not prepared to use it.

 

I think what Richard is trying to say is that if you draw your weapon, chances are the perp will not only draw his (if not already pointed at you), but fire a number of rounds until all of the blood in your body has seeped onto your carpet or floor.  You may get lucky and he may hesitate, but generally he's got the drop on you if his weapon is already drawn.  Not to mention one or both of you may shoot innocent bystanders including your own family or friends!

 

That being said, if I was in your shoes, I probably would want that opportunity to get the drop on the perp if he looks away or gets distracted.  One to protect my family, two to protect myself or anyone else around me.  But that's the difference between Canada and the U.S.  We have very few non-targeted (targeted meaning gang related) shootings.  Whereas you guys have a shit load!

 

Now many of us ascribe that to your gun culture and crime rates, but the fact is that many of our cities have high crime rates, and far fewer shootings.  I don't mean less...I mean negligible compared to many U.S. cities on a per capita basis.  So either American's and their criminal counterparts are excessively violent while possessing guns, or the access to guns and oversight is extremely lax!  I'm pretty sure its the latter!  Cheers! 

[Mephistopheles]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

See what I don’t understand, is that whenever stuff like this comes up, there is always a very large faction of folks and particularly the media whom try to push the perpetrators to the side, undermine efforts to villainize the perpetrators, even excusing their conduct, and making it more about the people whom find this sort of thing appalling. It’s amusing as hell watching the Minnesota politicians and government agencies more or less colluding with some of these criminals to try and explain their way out of this thing… Tim Walz has to be one of the biggest laughingstocks we ve ever seen, and yet, there’s outfits wanting to point the finger here at things that have nothing to do with the Somali fraud. 
 

In a way it’s very similar to the whole episode at Michigan where the head coach is criminally charged for some wild and dangerous behavior, and then it’s revealed he was out there trying to fuck anything and everything that he could(while employed at a school!), and you have folks saying there’s only an issue for some with his behavior cuz he’s black lmfao….

Walz is such a clown. Too bad Kamala didn’t choose Josh Shapiro due to him being Jewish to appeal to the left wing antisemites. Probably could have won Pennsylvania

[Parsad]

5 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

You're leaving out the racial components.  Black men account for 6% of the population, but 60+% of the murders by shooting. Most of those are inner city - Chicago has the toughest gun laws in America - but most have illegal hand guns.  White males die from guns too - 80% are suicides. 

 

@73 Reds has it correct - Americans need protection against criminals that could care less what guns laws are in place.  Heck, in Chicago, if a black is caught with a gun, they just take it away.

 

Yeah, but where the hell are the illegal guns coming from?  Out of state, and generally those states with lax gun regulations!  If it's not federal and enforced, it doesn't matter what any state does.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

5 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Hard to respond to that(!)  So I won't.  But guns don't kill; people do.  Restricting guns only helps the bad guys.  There are countries like Israel where literally everyone born and raised there owns or owned a gun.  You can't walk down the street for 5 minutes without seeing someone carrying an oozie. Yet almost no gun deaths except in Arab villages.  So like I said before, I don't criticize you or anyone for not owning a gun or wanting to be prepared to use one.  But don't blame those of us who do.

 

That just such a stupid phrase...I get sick of hearing it from every NRA member! 

 

How about "Nukes don't kill; people do"...every fucking country should have nukes.  Hell, every citizen in the U.S. should be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

 

That's the logic you are using!  Cheers!  

[Parsad]

3 hours ago, bizaro86 said:

 

Sure, NYC is more, but you'd want to compare to places with a similar cost of living. Her 3br townhouse cost less than a Manhattan parking stall - her lifestyle is almost certainly better than a nyc teacher.

 

And the straight dollars comparison is much more favorable if you took somewhere actually similar - in Denver public she'd be making $78k USD/year, so slightly less.

 

Yes.  If you want an apples to apples comparison, my cousin who has been teaching for 20 years and has a masters makes about the same in Vancouver as Marco's example in NYC...she will have a similar pension as well when you include school pension/CPP/OAS.  Toronto would be comparable.  But probably lower in Calgary and other cities.  So salaries are dependent on cost of living in which city you work/teach.  On top of that...you don't have to carry a gun!  Cheers!

[Parsad]

By the way, I'm merging this thread into the Political thread, since it is so fucked up now.  Cheers!

[Gregmal]

15 minutes ago, Mephistopheles said:

Walz is such a clown. Too bad Kamala didn’t choose Josh Shapiro due to him being Jewish to appeal to the left wing antisemites. Probably could have won Pennsylvania

Blessing in disguise though. You need guys like Shapiro and DeSantis staying home and doing their thing locally. Gotta protect the few remaining places where normal people can thrive. If I didn’t move to FL, I’d either be in the Carolinas or Pennsylvania. 

[changegonnacome]

2 hours ago, Gregmal said:

See what I don’t understand, is that whenever stuff like this comes up, there is always a very large faction of folks and particularly the media whom try to push the perpetrators to the side

 

For sure - nobody here should be excused and punishment should be meated out with vigor....Tim Waltz, the Somali medicaid pirates etc.......but what I would say is the MSM on the right and twitter-right are acting like there's never been or they've never seen what looks like pretty standard medicaid fraud like this before......I mean with all the same hallmarks of kind of network/community collusion to make it work.....maybe it will turn out to be the biggest medicaid fraud scheme ever uncovered but right now it looks alot like a run of the mill one in $$$ terms.......alot of inflated DOGE-esque fraud numbers being thrown around like confetti to get clicks....

 

lets see if it turns out to be Philip Esformes Florida nursing home level care fraud of about $1.3bn in medicare............you might remeber Trump pardoned him in 2020 as he left office - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/health-care-fraudster-philip-esformes-latest-trump-clemency-recipient-rcna175681

 

"Philip Esformes, who had owned Florida nursing homes, was convicted at trial in 2019 of 20 criminal counts related to what the Department of Justice at the time said was the largest health-care fraud scheme ever prosecuted by the department.

The DOJ said that Esformes and co-conspirators for more than two decades cycled thousands of Medicare and Medicaid patients through a network of nursing and assisted living facilities despite the fact they did not qualify for such care."

 

But to be clear Philip Esformes & his co-conspirators deserved prison.......and so do these Somali scumbags. No excuses for those defrauding government funded healthcare directed at those that need it most...and that is slowly sending us bankrupt!

 

Edited December 31, 2025 by changegonnacome

[RichardGibbons]

4 hours ago, Marco Van Basten said:

They will have a knife, so what's the difference?  At least with a gun you can protect yourself and your family during a riot.  In the USSR, murder rate was sky high and yet you were not allowed to own, let alone carry handguns.   In Switzerland and Israel, almost every male has or had a gun at home, and crime rates were very low.   

 

Oh, if there's no difference between a gun and a knife, surely then a knife should be sufficient for your self defence needs.

 

Strangely, Canada's per capita knife death aren't comparable to USA's per capita gun deaths. And even more oddly, the number of knife homicides in Canada is still below the number of gun homicides in Canada.

 

The evidence is pretty convincing that more legal guns in society results in more gun deaths (and you'd probably actually agree with me if I changed the word "guns" to "drugs"). I could argue your other points, but they're not good points for pretty obvious reasons, and I don't think you really care to have a good-faith discussion. So feel free to feel great about how you're completely right, that the massive number of gun deaths in the USA is completely unrelated to the fact that it's easy to own guns there.

 

I think Kirk actually had the right argument, the one that's actually plausible: that the benefits of guns outweighs the excess gun deaths. It just seems silly when people try to argue that gun deaths are uncorrelated to the degree that guns are legal in a country.

Edited December 31, 2025 by RichardGibbons
Deleted a phrase that was bordering on ad hominem

[Gregmal]

1 hour ago, changegonnacome said:

lets see if it turns out to be Philip Esformes Florida nursing home level care fraud of about $1.3bn in medicare............you might remeber Trump pardoned him in 2020 as he left office - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/health-care-fraudster-philip-esformes-latest-trump-clemency-recipient-rcna175681

Hold on! #whataboutism???

[SharperDingaan]

Maybe the US has so many automatic weapons 'cause they can't shoot strait  Every cop show ... lots of bullets flying everywhere, few actually hitting the target.

 

Whereas in an Israel, etc where every 18 year old is drafted and walking the streets with an Usi ... there's very little that is similar. Maybe 'cause they CAN shoot straight, and don't miss when someone goes nuts 

 

SD

Edited December 31, 2025 by SharperDingaan

[changegonnacome]

30 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Hold on! #whataboutism???

 

Kind of.....true whataboutism...like that practised by the hardcore Trumpers....involves not admitting that Trump has done anything wrong...they just pivot to saying whatabout Joe Biden......I've clearly said that Tim Waltz should go to prison if he covered it up.....that they should all go to prison Tim and the Somalis.......whataboutists never say that..........so close-ish but no true whataboutism cigar I'm afraid!

 

 

Edited December 31, 2025 by changegonnacome

[Gregmal]

13 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

Kind of.....true whataboutism...like that practised by the hardcore Trumpers....involves not admitting that Trump has done anything wrong...they just pivot to saying whatabout Joe Biden......I've clearly said that Tim Waltz should go to prison if he covered it up.....that they should all go to prison Tim and the Somalis.......whataboutists never say that..........so close-ish but no true whataboutism cigar I'm afraid!

 

 

[changegonnacome]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

 

...now there's a good Somali....very hard to commit medicaid fraud off the coast of Africa though I'm sure its been tried!

Edited December 31, 2025 by changegonnacome

[Sweet]

9 hours ago, Parsad said:

By the way, I'm merging this thread into the Political thread, since it is so fucked up now.  Cheers!

What thread was this?  Lol

[73 Reds]

11 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

That just such a stupid phrase...I get sick of hearing it from every NRA member! 

 

How about "Nukes don't kill; people do"...every fucking country should have nukes.  Hell, every citizen in the U.S. should be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

 

That's the logic you are using!  Cheers!  

Wrong.  Nukes are intentionally built as weapons of mass destruction.  And you think my logic is off?

[73 Reds]

11 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

I think what Richard is trying to say is that if you draw your weapon, chances are the perp will not only draw his (if not already pointed at you), but fire a number of rounds until all of the blood in your body has seeped onto your carpet or floor.  You may get lucky and he may hesitate, but generally he's got the drop on you if his weapon is already drawn.  Not to mention one or both of you may shoot innocent bystanders including your own family or friends!

 

That being said, if I was in your shoes, I probably would want that opportunity to get the drop on the perp if he looks away or gets distracted.  One to protect my family, two to protect myself or anyone else around me.  But that's the difference between Canada and the U.S.  We have very few non-targeted (targeted meaning gang related) shootings.  Whereas you guys have a shit load!

 

Now many of us ascribe that to your gun culture and crime rates, but the fact is that many of our cities have high crime rates, and far fewer shootings.  I don't mean less...I mean negligible compared to many U.S. cities on a per capita basis.  So either American's and their criminal counterparts are excessively violent while possessing guns, or the access to guns and oversight is extremely lax!  I'm pretty sure its the latter!  Cheers! 

My theory is there are more extremes in the U.S. than in Canada, on both sides for nearly everything, be it behavior, acceptance, risk-taking, etc.. These extremes work both ways,  providing opportunity for positive and negative consequences.  So culturally we  are much more willing to take the bad with the good.  Doesn't make one country better than the other.

[Parsad]

4 hours ago, Sweet said:

What thread was this?  Lol

 

Canada thread.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

3 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Wrong.  Nukes are intentionally built as weapons of mass destruction.  And you think my logic is off?

 

Nukes are just guns on steroids!  The whole intent is for both of them to kill and to act as a deterrent. 

 

The days of guns were for protection and hunting are long gone...the Wild West died out a long time ago!  And the majority of gun owners in the U.S. are not hunters.  Cheers!

[Gregmal]

You cant make this shit up...now this worthless dipshit wants DOGE......as long as it means taking more money from people!

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/30/ro-khanna-calls-for-fraud-probe-after-california-wealth-tax-firestorm.html