How much return would the taxpayers get on that $2B investment when similar jobs are coming anyway?

she was intentionally misleading people into believing NY was paying amazon to move here.

Jobs would be pushed out because of Amazon, plus Amazon jobs that are coming anyway.. Those tax breaks most definitely were NY paying amazon cause they cost revenue. Not counting the tax credits which are straight up paid out. I could have sworn I’ve read you say you can’t get anything for free. Who’s paying for all the shit the city will have to do for amazon and their employees if they aren’t?

Hubert, while I am not deeply knowledgable about politics, I know more about Amazon than anyone on the board, and I can tell you she isn’t wrong about them. Their goals and methods have been written about in depth in many places, so I won’t bother linking to them, but you are 100% wrong on this one.

Her opposition had nothing to do with their methods. She either doesn’t understand how a tax break works (like Ntilikilla) or she was intentionally misleading people into believing NY was paying amazon to move here.

And even if you do, in fact, have some inside proof that Amazon has bad practices…. so what? You’re going to find a squeaky clean multinational to move in? I spent 18 years working for Citigroup and UBS. They’re terrible companies who have some awful practices. Should we kick them out of NYC, too? How many companies do you want to get rid of?

The Amazon to LIC deal was worth it just on the basis of redirecting subway traffic to lighten the load on a decaying system. That’s what’s going to redirect funds from the people in the city who need it. Not leveling NYC taxes with the rest of the country’s.

the truth is most ppl like their coverage…. ppl just want to pay lower costs….

djphan, I disagree that

responding to an extreme right movement by going extreme left will lead to the status quo

because every example I can think of when it comes to social progress shows that without a more vocal, even violent opposition (Malcolm X), “centrist” positions (MLK) such as “black people shouldn’t have to sit in the back of the bus” is impossible to advance. But I’m not a political expert.

I do, however, run a business, and both in paying exorbitant amounts for healthcare and then seeing how unbelievably BAD that healthcare is, I can directly speak to “people just want to pay lower costs.” Yes, they do, but beyond that, the options are simply put, terrible. Do I want to pay $3000 a month for my family (wife + 2 kids) just so that when my kid needs an annual endoscopy (because of celiac disease) I can also pay $2600 for that, since our deductible is $5000? And then get random bills from anesthesiologists for another $400 because they don’t take our insurance, which there is no way to know before the procedure?

At this point most people have insurance in case of catastrophe – car accident, cancer, etc. It’s there for when things go really wrong and you have bills in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because I am pretty sure my family isn’t otherwise going to use anything like $35,000 of healthcare in a given year – which makes paying another $5,000 when we need fairly basic services enraging.

AOC fucked over her whole district and the city that she’s supposed to serve with her anti-amazon misinformation campaign.

Hubert, while I am not deeply knowledgable about politics, I know more about Amazon than anyone on the board, and I can tell you she isn’t wrong about them. Their goals and methods have been written about in depth in many places, so I won’t bother linking to them, but you are 100% wrong on this one.

You’re also wrong that the HQ wasn’t going to be in her district, and that she wasn’t the only or even the main antagonist, but the larger point is that it is a good thing Amazon isn’t coming to LIC.

their leaders can justify paying Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, $120,000 per one minimum wage job he brings to their city.

You are very well read and yet you understand so little.

let’s pick the most idiotic representation of our opponent and hold it up against the best possible iteration of ourselves to highlight how superior we are to them.

[… 3 posts earlier …]

Wait til you can’t build a deck in your backyard bc the EPA has assumed jurisdiction of your home since it’s adjacent to a puddle and then tell me that only the right is crazy.

Yes, Mike. That was an intentional example of executing the same practice, written to demonstrate that it can be done from the other side. Glad you caught it.

Anyway, your politics are centrist. Literally every position you argued for is a centrist position, not a left position.

What you really seem to be arguing for, in my opinion, is simply for the democratic candidates to adopt more aggressive methods of fighting the Republicans. You want the Dems to stop getting pushed around, and I agree with you.

The problem is the people who are good at that are currently the worst people in the Democratic Party, and their ideas are very far to the left of the ones you posted. The person in the Republican Party we need to develop an adequate adversary to is Mitch McConnell, not Donald Trump.

On the border issue I think their are bigger, albeit less photogenic, issues than the sleeping conditions of people that traveled hundreds of miles on foot.

STATEMENT ON DOJ AND DHS RULE BARRING IMMIGRANTS FROM APPLYING FOR ASYLUM AT THE SOUTHERN U.S.
BORDER

The interim final rule being issued tomorrow by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security will bar asylum for everyone approaching the southern border, with few exceptions. The rule will be applied at the screening stage at the border as well as in immigration courts. Families, unaccompanied children, survivors of violence – all will be prohibited from obtaining asylum. The standard for obtaining asylum has always been high, and
the requirements stringent. Now, people will be barred before they can even demonstrate their need for protection.