I am 6' 3", 198 lbs, and at age 68, can still dunk.

I agree with Trump. He identifies at 215. I identify as the same. 

No, he and his people provided that information to Fulton Co. Is there anyone out there that thinks he actually weighs 215lb? I mean of all the lies he has told, and continues to tell, why this lie?

Maybe he put wrenches in his pocket, like Orange County Choppers..
 
BH
 
But hey, they got him now. Nobody is above the law. Nobody gets a sweet heart deal in this country

Guess this is what we meant when we said the GOP would eat each other. jus say'IN

MyWar
If you think a Republican majority House is a sh1tshow, wait until you see another 4 years of a trump White House

Yea bruh, lower gas prices, my IRA in the green, less illegal border crossing, yup that ll be a total ****show. 

I watched some clips of the rockey / inamorato debate. He was fine. He definitely didn’t come off like one of the far right nutcases like a Matt Gaetz or MTG. But at this point I would be suspicious of anybody that identifies as a Republican given the state of the party at the national level. I would have to assume he likely voted for trump and that would be a deal breaker for me.

Inamorato is also younger and perhaps came off a bit less confident in a debate performance. I think Rockey might have more experience talking in PNC boardrooms which probably prepared him to do well in a debate setting. But good debate performances don’t necessarily translate to a good performance in that elected office.

But Rockey also has no actual political experience that I am aware of. For better or worse, I’d expect inamorato to understand the dynamics of the local political scene much better than Rockey.

MyWar
I would have to assume he likely voted for trump and that would be a deal breaker for me.

Voting for him in 2016, I'd have no real issue.  Voting in 2020 would be a strike, but Biden is a clown, so forgivable.  If he is in any way supporting Trump now, I would change my vote for her.  
 

MyWar
Inamorato is also younger and perhaps came off a bit less confident in a debate performance. I think Rockey might have more experience talking in PNC boardrooms which probably prepared him to do well in a debate setting. But good debate performances don’t necessarily translate to a good performance in that elected office.

I think with the CE position, that means a lot.  This is how you convince businesses to come here.  This is how you negotiate contracts with the police Unions, companies like UPMC, USX and others that have had some contention in the area.  Just like you said, the guy has experience doing this in front of boardrooms and important clients.  I'm not a fan of CEO/CFO, etc. being paid 400 times that of other employees, but you have to be good at certain things like this to get there.  This wasn't his Daddy's company that he took over with a $1M in 1970 (equals over $8M now).  He worked his way up from being raised on food stamps.  I don't equate that to the same thing as 90% of corporate executives that were born with spoons in their rears, didn't need to do anything in life to be handed those executive level/board positions.  I.e. Hunter Biden, Donald Trump, Don Jr., Eric Trump, etc. 
 

MyWar
Rockey also has no actual political experience that I am aware of. For better or worse, I’d expect inamorato to understand the dynamics of the local political scene much better than Rockey.

Fair point, but I have the understanding of local political dynamics as at most a wash with someone that has years of executive level experience for a political executive position.  If we are talking congress or senate, I'd agree.  Much like ex-Governors' having that sort of experience over ex-Senators' for the Presidency.  Not that those people make better Presidents, but just pure comparing resume's for the executive job they are running for.  If not a wash, edge to the executive.
 
A few things for me personally, Progressive agenda at a national level is one thing.  I don't disagree with all of it "in a perfect world", but all takes funding.  There is much more money to go around at a national level and some of the ideas are worth investing in at that level to fund the local levels.  Without that national funding, the local funds need to be used for where they are earmarked.  Yes, it would be great to get at the root of crime and have programs to prevent, but we can't take local law enforcement funding to do it unless more is raised.  If it is provided from a national level, great, I completely agree with some of it being worth a try.  None of it is proven to GREATLY reduce crime, studies show marginal reduction, which is great but then less police to go after the major violent offenders if taking from the same pot.  To raise taxes or divert from other necessary pools of local funds, I can't get behind, which is what would be needed to do so.  I could definitely get behind bringing in more industry and jobs to create funding for said programs, which should help in reduce crime in itself.  Things seemed to revitalize for a while and the area seemed to be on a good path of rebuilding, but the past 10+ years has veered from that path.  More and more crime downtown, panhandlers on just about every major intersection, homeless taking over playgrounds, strung out junkies sitting around downtown streets, these are real noticeable things, not boogeyman GOP tactics (that they definitely do).  Not really attracting families to stay or move into the city, especially downtown and the next ring or two of neighborhoods around downtown, which is then less tax dollars and more blight.  It is also keeping the suburban families with money to spend from going Downtown, the Strip District, South Side or the North Side and spending some of that cash in town to help with the tax fund raising.  Sure, they might go to Lawrenceville, Shady Side or Squirrel Hill, but only a few areas compared to many just years ago.  We are not going in the right direction IMO.  I don't know if it has to do with the local politics or not.  I do know that what helped revitalize the area was more jobs and new industries moving in.  Something that Rockey seems to be focused on.  The more industry/jobs, the more tax revenue without raising taxes for programs that could help reduce crime and other issues facing the area.  To me, this is how you turn things around.  This seems to be what Rockey is looking to do.  For national politics, MAGA is like the Nazi party and the national GOP following them like the blind sheep of Germany in the late 30s is repulsive.  For local, right now, I think he is the right guy to get this area on the correct path.

Porktown
I have an HOA in my community.  I didn't want to ever live in a community with one and still don't.  It started off as very inexpensive, funds were to pay for common items that our borough would not take ownership of (storm water retention and other common areas that needed some sort of upkeep).  The majority of my neighbors were in agreement to keep it basic and nonintrusive, a necessary fee to fix things that were community owned.  A new section of our plan was built and these neighbors wanted to more than double the HOA fee to cover "beautification" projects and other things that were not just necessities.  They added rules that you have to get approval from them for just about anything you do to your house.  Can't do this, can't do that.  They would then be offended by others that had issues by responding "if you don't like it why don't you be part of the board".  If I don't want an HOA to begin with, why would I want to be on the board?  The far right congressmen are basically that neighbor that said, you know what, I am going to get on the board and I am going to not cooperate with anything to show my disapproval of there even being an HOA.  On a local level, I am 100% behind it.  On a national level, not so much, but can at least understand where they are coming from.
 

Sure, can’t argue with this hypothetical HOA example. Totally reasonable.

But I don’t believe that’s a valid comparison to how or why Republican elected officials conduct themselves the way they do.

For a lot of elected republicans, “big government” just equates to the government doing things they don’t like. They don’t mind big government when it benefits them or does things they DO like. Same as the arguments about “too much government spending”. In my opinion this is just a disingenuous argumentative strategy employed in order to avoid debating ACTUAL ISSUES.

MyWar

Sure, can’t argue with this hypothetical HOA example. Totally reasonable.

But I don’t believe that’s a valid comparison to how or why Republican elected officials conduct themselves the way they do.

For a lot of elected republicans, “big government” just equates to the government doing things they don’t like. They don’t mind big government when it benefits them or does things they DO like. Same as the arguments about “too much government spending”. In my opinion this is just a disingenuous argumentative strategy employed in order to avoid debating ACTUAL ISSUES.

I can’t argue this at all.

Porktown
Not sure if I would include progressives. I’d say liberals, moderate liberals, independents, moderate conservatives and conservatives. The MAGAs and the progressives are activists for “their causes” and likely wouldn’t be around if primaries weren’t party only.

Are we just talking semantics here? Liberals vs progressives vs socialists vs marxists vs whatever?

All the people with the D in front of their name belonged to the caucus that actually managed to govern. That’s it.

And the republicans just embarrassed themselves. Even the “moderate republicans” who can’t distance themselves from the shadow of trump. The whole party is complicit. They are forcing out the moderates. Romney is retiring. Liz Cheney got outta Dodge. I don’t see a wide bench of moderate republicans lining up to take their places.

Now they might make trump the speaker lol? Ok, that’s gonna be interesting. Which house republicans dare vote against that? And if Trump actually winds up being speaker how’s that gonna play out?

Imagine being a house Republican right now. Not one of the self serving nutters like MTG or Boebert or gaetz, imagine being one of the “moderates”. What do you do? Playing nice with democrats is poison so they can’t form any coalition with the elected officials that actually want things to work, so all they can do is try to placate the nutters I guess? What’s the goal? What’s the endgame? Does anybody even know?

So after more than a thousand posts, I am the same person formerly known as EMitch. Let me warn you guys right now that if you ever have to change your e-mail address and/or password, be prepared for the nightmare that it is here on this forum. I gave up after more than 30 attempts to get the forum software to accept the 4 digit verification code that was asked for. I wrote down some of them but after a while, I realized it was futile. We've changed internet providers, therefore requiring a new e-mail address, so eventually I ended up opening a new membership and used my G-mail address 'cause the forum would also not accept the e-mail address of our new provider, and so, we move on.
 
There's some folks on here that are Trump supporters, not for the man himself, (a narcistic megalomanic), but for his policies that had the world respecting the US again, all of the deregulation that had America on the move again with lower taxes, higher wages, low inflation, etc. Now we have to listen to Hillary Clinton telling us that any follower of Trump or his policies belong to a "Cult", and have to be "de-programmed". In other words, if you don't follow the Progressive Doctrine & Ideology and drink the Coolade of the leftist's society, that there's something wrong with all of us. Really sad. I'll just wait for the notice telling me where to report for my deprogramming to get my mind right. NOT !! Good to be back, now, have at me, I can take it.

 

Why wouldn’t he build the wall. Mexico is paying for it, right?

Big problem on Joe buildin' the wall. Just two months ago he sold tons and tons of the wall steel to a scrap dealer. Now the taxpayer has to fork more millions out to replace that iron.

Porktown
 Presidents are mostly figureheads. Biden and Trump both need to step aside for someone new.

The biggest cause of inflation is spending. The Fed set a 0% interest rate that had not changed since '08, fifteen years! That was like the big banks getting free money all that time. I'll agree that either party will sign spending bills, we, (at least I), know that Presidents' ask for money, but Congress appropriates it. In '20 & '21, The democratically controlled House appropriated way more than Trump asked for. They blew about 3 T on relief, (and now are sayin' that hundreds of billions of that was stolen, and while they're gettin' some of it back, they'll never get it all, and it will take years to trace and prosecute. Then Joe dumped in another 2 T, (granted; spread out over a number of years), and then another 1.2 T after he rolled Manchin and came up with the IRA, which don't decrease inflation at all and they now freely admit that it was an additional Green package. Now kick in the student loan fiascos. Joe just gave college folks, (10 million students) another free 10 grand in loan reduction. So while the administration was pumping trillions into the economy, the Fed kept jacking interest rates to slow the recovery and try to get the inflation under control. Two ends working against each other. A steady rise in the price of oil continues a steady rise in the inflation rate, though we may still see a bit of decrease at the pump because now the supply is going up and usage is coming down. Why? Because the rest of the world's economies are in the tank. Normally good economies like the UK are now in the tank. Couple up the fact that after Biden lifted the sanctions on Iran, in 2 1/2 years they've gone from 850K barrels of oil exported to 730 million barrels total so far. That gave them plenty of money to back Hamas to butcher 1000 Israelis, take some hostages, some of which are Americans, and I guess I shouldn't need to mention the 1.2 billion each that Joe just paid to get back 6 hostages. Now we've got a Navy Battle Group or two headin' for the Straight, and we've got some very dark days ahead. The Democrats have been kissin' Iran's azz since the very first of the Obama Admin., and the guy who led it then is carrying the water for Joe now. You just can't deal with a countries' leadership that's still stuck in the 6th century and who will never make it to the 21st. Just part of my $0.02
BTW, Nicki Haley seems pretty impressive to me so far.