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#17 | Posted by rstybeach11 at 2024-07-21 09:50 PM
This pattern doesn't always hold true...

Was also a case with Dukakis... hence, only "a semblance of a pattern" - circumstances are always different, but the odds are better, or as Hugh Keough used to say:
"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that's the way to bet"
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#15 | Posted by Killjoy at 2024-07-21 09:10 PM |
A fun fact, Donald Trump is now the oldest person to have ever been the official nominee for a major political party for the office of President of the United States.

Kennedy, Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama... not Mondale, [Dukakis,] Kerry, Hillary Clinton...

Anyone see a semblance of a pattern?
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#12 | Posted by LampLighter at 2024-07-21 08:32 PM
It has not [yet?] become an all-out war among Democrats regarding the Pres/VP slate.

It was / is in the background, on the campaigns levels - it's not in the open media who are still digesting and regurgitating "this momentous day" - give them a day or two to get over the "shock" and immerse themselves in the "contest sport" full time.
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#6 | Posted by LampLighter at 2024-07-21 06:22 PM
Michigan's Whitmer Said to Stand Down From Presidential Run

She may be positioning for VP, but no one will challenge Kamala. Obamas will have to give their blessing... relatively shortly.
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#4 | Posted by censored at 2024-07-21 05:07 PM
Randy "Macho Man" Savage

Not familiar, just looked him up. Was never interested in scripred wrestling, and before my time.

Familiar with "Hulk" Hogan, because of "Gawker lawsuit" engineered by Peter Thiel - that's direct connection to Thiel's once-"protege" JD Vance, who got initial $15M to run for Senate.

Maybe get some of the wrestlers into Dem convention... if can find some who may be interested? Unless it will look too much like Idiocracy?
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So, the theme / meme of the Dem convention will be same as GOP... UNITY! (Isn't it always?)

With the right VP against "extreme" JD Vance and "ABT / anybody but Trump" vote in the right states she should be able to pull this off. For example, Gov. Josh Shapiro as VP can give her Pennsylvania, and probably make a + difference in some other states.
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#10 | Posted by rstybeach11 at 2024-07-18 05:02 PM
In 2021 and 2022, the murder rate in red states was 33% higher than in blue states...

Even after removing the county with the largest city from red states (but not from blue states), red-state murder rates were still 20% higher in 2021 and 16% higher in 2022.

The study debunks the notion that higher crime rates in red states are solely due to their urban centers. It shows that the trend persists even when controlling for large cities, suggesting that state-level factors, including gun laws and social policies, play a significant role in these disparities.

This so-called "study" is not only cherry-picked, it actually debunks itself.

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Maxim Marchenko (52) participated in an overseas illicit procurement network on behalf of Russia that illegally procured military-grade dual-use items with significant military applications

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... by introducing two new elements into the negotiations, sources told The Jerusalem Post.

"Sources" are from the opposing parties. It's been 2 months since Hamas was given the "final terms" of the "cease-fire agreement" that would free all hostages... and there was no real response, except Hamas, just like before keeps changing them and our State Dept keeps going along... Netanyahu even agreed to partial hostages release / exchange (there's that "introducing two new elements into the negotiations") yet... so far crickets from Hamas, while IDF is picking off some of their leaders...

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#19 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2024-07-17 10:01 PM
Regarding the Palestinians and al-Qaida, immediately below is a photograph of Yasser Arafat donating blood to American victims on 9/11

Ah, the phony "sympathy" symbolism (in English) in the front, reality in the back, outside of camera view (in Arabic, less than a year after Arafat ordered the Second Intifada **):

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Cannon's Ruling has Nothing to do with the Law

Obviously. If she thought the appointment of special council was "unconstitutional" she should have thrown the case out on Day One, without even getting into the merits of the case. It's not like this is a "new evidence" that has just been discovered.

But then, the case would be quickly reinstated on appeal and reassigned, possibly to competent and impartial judge. So, instead she kept trying to find flaws with it and undermine or throw out all or parts of it "on the merits" or "on the law" and, most importantly, she was doing Trump bidding in slowing the process down, playing for time.

She should've been censured, removed from office and disbarred long ago for blatant judicial misconduct.
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Every one of those was established via legislation.

Yes, they were, and I don't complain about their existence or regulatory authority - it's just that 'Chevron' made that authority and the "remedies" they seek (fines, other "resolutions") nearly absolute, essentially unquestionable - that is not how the rest of society works and shouldn't exist, as it leads to corruption, both personal and ideological.

Every one of those agencies generates and promulgates rules INTERPRETING and implementing the laws that Congress passes. The essential nature of any agency is to interpret the laws that created it.

'Chevron' created the presumption that regulators' "interpretation" of legislations is "infallible" and thereby removed / significantly reduced the authority of "judicial review" - that is/was blatantly unconstitutional to the "balance of power" of three branches in favor of executive.

If Congress agrees with the "interpretation" of regulators and not judicial "interpretation" of their laws, they can make the laws more specific.

And you are very wrong on who the law benefits more - "deep pockets" can finance and wait for courts to resolve their lawsuits; most complains about capricious or stupid regulations come from small businesses and/or farms who have no financial or legal recourse against rules made by lawyers who don't know and don't care about their specific issues.

You can keep bringing few judicial cases you disagree with, they can keep bringing thousands of cases of "regulatory abuse" they disagree with and we can keep going in circles on this - but it's really the case of people / businesses "having their day in court," something that 'Chevron' denied most except those with "deep pockets."

It is patently absurd to expect a nation to rely solely on the Legislative Branch to interpret every aspect of an issue when those issues are complicated,

It is also patently absurd to claim that each and every rule and regulation, i.e., "law" is fair and takes into account needs of constituents, yet 'Chevron' made it nearly impossible and extremely expensive to argue otherwise, IOW, only "deep pockets" could afford to bring them to court... if they hadn't already participated and got what they needed in those regulations that would make it easier for them and more difficult for the "little guys."

Is it going to be more "inconvenient" and expensive for regulators? You bet, but again, "inconvenience" is no reason to deny legitimate judicial power and grant executive essentially exclusive air of "infallibility" and unaccountable power of making and enforcing "rules," including levying fines and shutting down businesses, effectively without reasonable legal recourse. And maybe, just maybe, it will make regulators more careful in how they make rules and seek input from a wider and more knowledgeable 'experts.'
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... it absolutely clear that judges will be legislating from the bench.

Yes, it happens, and "both sides" have accused the "other side" of "venue shopping" - you just brought up the decisions "your side" doesn't agree with, they keep bringing up the decisions "their side" doesn't agree with.

That is not a good reason to keep all the power of "legislating by the regulations" with [whoever at the moment runs] the executive branch - care to revisit "Project 2025"? Again, that's irrelevant to how things should be - the agencies (when one or the other side's party is holding executive power) shouldn't be "judge, jury and executioner" of the rules/regulations/"laws" of their own making.

So, I am not confident that the judges will be humble enough to properly adjudicate to the benefit of the American people.

Is the judicial system perfect? No, but the more and more partisan and capricious executive branch shouldn't hold more and more / all the power, as I have described above, the more we need a potential respite from "executive" tyranny.

You only disagree with this now because at the moment "your side" is holding executive power. When the "other side" holds that power and dismisses and rewrites the "laws" you agree with, you will hold a different opinion, just like when SCOTUS was making 5:4 decisions "your side" agreed with you thought that SCOTUS "legislating from the bench" was just fine.

Want to see a "sweet summer child"? Remind yourself of "Project 2025" and look in the mirror.
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#9 | Posted by truthhurts at 2024-07-13 12:09 AM
And fwiw I know more than a little on this subject as my career involves interpretation of agency rules and regulations and how lawsuits impact them, iow I know of which I speak.

Then you know that overturning original 'Chevron' decision changed only one thing - the presumption of "infallible omniscience expertise" and deference of courts/judges to "unaccountable" and potentially biased bureaucrats from whatever [current] government agency is setting regulations and imposes fines, administrative actions, or takes to courts the entities it may deem "noncompliant"... which may and often leads to personal or ideological corruption - "Power corrupts and 'absolute' power tend to corrupt absolutely."

IOW, 'Chevron' decision effectively took away judicial branch independence and authority over regulators - whatever they want, they get - and "You can't fight City Hall." Agencies shouldn't be the sole entities "interpreting" the laws (essentially writing them) and "judging" them and "enforcing" them - IOW, "judge, jury and executioner."

Overturning 'Chevron' only took some of that unconstrained power from bureaucrats at executive branch and returned it to judicial branch, where it belongs. People, small businesses, corporations should have the right to challenge authorities in court, and not just internal "administrative appeals" which are usually a waste of time with predetermined result. Just as there should be no presumption of "infallibility" of law enforcement agencies or DAs in criminal cases.

So while, as you noted, there have been some lawsuits against the regulations, due to original 'Chevron' decision/doctrine they were mostly doomed to failure in courts, as courts would almost automatically side with agencies on deference alone. It will still be expensive to file lawsuit, but the chances of proving your case "on the merits" will be substantially better.

So, of course, more lawsuits could be filed because of this, from "both" sides, but the agencies may no longer have essentially unlimited, unaccountable power, simply because the courts were hamstrung by 'Chevron' - hopefully, this will make bureaucrats less capricious or ideological when crafting rules and regulations and take other opinions and input more seriously.
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#1 | Posted by BellRinger at 2024-07-12 01:04 PM
I'm amazed by how bipartisan this bill is:

Not surprising at all, and about time. All countries are finally moving in this direction, after they learned about the real costs / TCO, including integration, maintenance, waste, ecological/environmental impact etc. of "intermittent renewables" / VRE, which were known years ago.

#2 | Posted by LauraMohr at 2024-07-12 01:08 PM
This is asinine. Have they come up with a solution to the nuclear waste problem?? It's nuts I tell you.

Most new reactor designs are safe and thorium MSR or fast "breeder" reactors can actually reduce [old] nuclear waste by reusing fissile material like recycled plutonium, and they are also much more efficient in converting fuel to energy than "conventional" LWRs.
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#2 | Posted by censored at 2024-07-11 10:14 PM
Reminds me of something Trevor Noah (?) said back in 2016 before the election. That Trump and Hillary were the only ones who could possibly lose to the other.

IIRC, at the end of primaries in 2016 the only other option was Bernie Sanders, who would be [beaten] even worse. At least, Trump and Hillary! had a parity of awfulness.

We may be ending up with "Weekend at Bernie's II" anyway, with Kamala in the wings being a "lead balloon" for many voters... but at this point she probably cannot be replaced on the ticket, without even bigger calamity.
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Trump and Biden make each others candidacies possible
Neither would be viable contenders for office in the absence of such a disliked opponent.

This sad state of affairs "has been made possible" since 2016... and "brought to you by" the Republican and Democratic parties.

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#16 | Posted by Tor at 2024-07-10 06:40 PM
Texans want the spoils system to come back why should we allow those who hate Biden Or democrats in general to get any federal support?

Really! If Texans / Republicans want "the spoils system to come back" they will have to take it from "Biden Or democrats" cold dead hands! -- "Notorious" RBG, on her last breath.
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#17 | Posted by donnerboy at 2024-07-08 11:23 AM
The polls all leaned toward a right wing landslide. Guess what? All the polls were wrong. Again.

Not really. The pre-election polls were actually quite correct, before the creation of New Popular Front (NPF/NFP), an alliance of far-left parties, Greens and organized labor (radical-left La France Insoumise, Communist Party, Socialist Party, Ecologists, Generation.s, Place Publique, and other left-wing parties) into one party bloc on June 10 2024, just weeks before first round of elections, specifically to outvote the Le Pen's National Rally.

According to those pre-first-round polls, NR was going to (and did) get the most seats they've ever taken and possibly beat the fractured center-left but not enough for majority, which proved entirely correct. IOW, there was never a chance for NR to actually govern. Bur the fear of NR "winning" pushed voters to abandon center (for now) and move to extremes, particularly extreme left - also not nearly enough to govern. Like many recent elections, it was not a vote "for" the left to govern, it was a "Non" vote against the far-right.

This was the estimated poll before the second round, and it was spot on:

French Left Win Big; Right Comes in Third

Also not really what happened. NR did come in third, but NPF didn't "win big" - the bloc and two major parties each got less than a third of National Assembly seats, far less than the majority required (289 seats) and none of them has any chance of forming a majority coalition, though NR can form a larger plurality coalition with center-right Republicans... which is unlikely.

It's a mess, but that's how some parliamentary systems work... or don't. Belgium was without elected government for almost 22 months in 2020, which beat their own record of almost 20 months in 2011.

Oh, Les Miserables!

People are simply "flipping" governments because they are unhappy with weakening economies, deficits, loss of purchasing power and still-stubborn inflation (even though inflation rates everywhere came down recently, with both government and consumer debt are sky-high) and they are giving "other guys" and their promised "new/old solutions" a chance - "hope and change / change and hope" at least until the next elections, if "things don't work out" or the business cycle doesn't cooperate.

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#14 | Posted by john47 at 2024-07-08 12:38 PM
My favorite thing is watching climate change deniers in States of the Former Confederacy getting their stuff washed away in the storm surges. The scramble for property insurance down there will be very amusing!

Amusing? Will it be more or less "amusing" in "red" states like, e.g., TX and FL that have been prone to hurricane floodings even before "climate change/global warming" entered our vocabulary than the fires and huge increases in insurance rates in "blue" states like, e.g., CA and OR?

Or do you think that the "natural disasters" only affect the states with supposedly greater number of "climate change deniers"?

Were the residents / governments of some Caribbean islands, where up to 90 percent of houses were destroyed by Beryl, "climate change deniers" and/or could do something to prevent it but didn't, or do "acts of nature" aka "acts of God" aka "natural disasters" mostly depend on geography and not the population's "beliefs"?

https://www.carinsurance.org/car-insurance-coverage-what-are-acts-of-god-and-when-are-they-covered-
829/ - What are 'Acts of God' and when are they covered? - July 6, 2024

BTW, Texas is the largest provider and consumer of wind energy, and California is largest generator of solar energy... if this is your idea of stopping / preventing climate change.

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** Ukraine - the country whose borders Russia agreed to respect and protect as per 1994 Budapest Memorandum:

On December 5, 1994 the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, UK, and the United States signed a memorandum to provide Ukraine with security assurances in connection with its accession to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state:

"1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine."
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#44 | Posted by oneironaut at 2024-07-07 10:14 AM
The media.
www.cnn.com
www.nbcnews.com

Thank you! You just confirmed exactly what I posted in #41 - these articles are from February 2024, when Ukraine was in dire straights and losing people and territory because Putin started his offensive in the time after "Trumpy" instructed his Chief Minion Mike Johnson (R-LA) to stall the Ukraine and Israel funding bills which languished in the House until the end of April 2024,

They aren't building new or better stuff, just trying to build more of the old stuff.

... to produce the munitions for the "old stuff" they sent to Ukraine in the first place.

FTA: |----- "The Pentagon has allocated roughly $3 billion alone to ... ramp up production at home. Some of that money will go toward producing what has become a staple of the war - 155 millimeter artillery shells.

... To meet that demand, the Scranton plant is undergoing a massive expansion, fueled by millions of dollars in new defense spending from the Pentagon. It's investing in new high-tech machinery, hiring a few dozen additional workers and will eventually shift to a 24/7 schedule of constant production.

"It's certainly ramped up over the last year. As we bring in more modern equipment, it'll be able to ramp up even further..."
-----|

To reiterate, money is going to the US manufacturers to upgrade and improve factories that produce whatever "old" and new "stuff" is/will be required.

...

#45 | Posted by oneironaut at 2024-07-07 10:17 AM
Lives saved, begin deterrence which would have prevented this incursion.

Ah, a humanitarian...

Another lame argument that makes no sense whatsoever.
How many lives were "saved" by 1938 Munich Agreement between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler, which gave Sudetenland, and then Czechoslovakia to Germany and directly led to WWII?

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#12 | Posted by BellRinger at 2024-07-06 03:43 AM
I am not confident "Trumpy" can fix this. What I do know is that the status quo ain't working. An endless spigot of OUR taxpayer dollars to a country that isn't even part of NATO. No real end-game, just status quo.

It wouldn't be much of a status quo if "Trumpy" and his minions in the House, led by Chief Minion Mike Johnson, didn't stall the funding bill(s) for Ukraine and Israel for 6 months... and if both wars weren't micromanaged and "red line'd" by CIC and State Dept on what they can and cannot do with the weapons and ammo.
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#25 | Posted by BellRinger at 2024-07-06 08:11 PM
Depleting military resources when we have recruitment shortages in defense of a country that isn't part of NATO ...

Who gave you an idea that we are "depleting military resources" instead of building new, better ones? And what do "military resources" have to do with "recruitment shortages"? If Ukraine were a part of NATO, it would not be attacked by Putin, as both Finland and Sweden realized - it was attacked precisely because it wasn't part of NATO and has huge land mass and resources that shouldn't become part of Greater Russian Federation... and eventually will become part of NATO and/or EU.

... while a much bigger danger, China, is sitting back and building up its military and is threatening to invade Taiwan ...

And what do you think we are doing? And what [else / different] do you want to do currently about China... that specifically involves Ukraine? How do you think China would see the US abandoning Ukraine - would it weaken or strengthen their resolve to "invade Taiwan"?

I'm just not seeing any kind of end game except for an endless spigot of resources at a time when we have bigger issues to deal with.

That's been one of the most insincere and lamest arguments for abandoning Ukraine... and/or on the other side, abandoning Israel in their war against Iran/Russia ". We always have other big issues to deal with - Putin's War, combined with Iran's proxy wars against Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East, as well as threats by China are some of the biggest there are at the moment.

You can't possibly be so naive to think that if we abandon [even parts of] Ukraine, who are not asking for much except for weapons, ammo and assistance (apparently same things "mighty" Russia is asking from its benefactors) that our "bigger" issues suddenly become smaller, unless you can specifically point out how abandoning Ukraine (as well as losing any sense of dignity, international reputation and overall security) will solve the supposedly "bigger issues."

If it's just about money, then (with annual $4T+ budget, with $1.5T+ deficit) we surely can cut somewhere on "smaller" issues, like "student loan forgiveness," "trains to nowhere" or other make-work programs, where our military and international strength is not affected, or questioned - that's how you deal with China, Iran and other potential invaders and troublemakers.

I'm not even opposed to supporting Ukraine against this act of pure aggression.

Oh, good. Then how do you suggest we should be "supporting Ukraine against this act of pure aggression"? "Emotional" support? "Trumpy" undisclosed top-secret "24-hour-to-end-the-war-solution"? Pushing Ukraine to accept Putin-Orban-Erdogan-Xi-proposed "ceasefire" aka "peace for our times" plans?

We are fighting a proxy war against a nuclear-armed country

Another old and lame argument that RT, Russia 1 TV propagandists and Russian internet trolls keep using almost daily. Does that mean that we should just give Putin whatever he wants... now... and in the future?

Putin has been warned by China and India that nukes are off the table in Ukraine or his [already limited] support will be cut off, and warned by NATO that his forces in Ukraine and elsewhere will be obliterated in days by conventional forces - so Putin himself actually understands that Ukraine is itself a "proxy" of several nuclear powers, the USA and some European NATO countries.

What is the end game? Do we have a cap?

Seriously? Cap? In a war? War elsewhere that cost us peanuts so far, and already improved our military in so many ways? What is the price of "Cold Peace" if Ukraine loses?
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