• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Cont: The Biden Presidency Part II

Status
Not open for further replies.
BobTheCoward said:
A person who shares the same views as a party is not the same as a person who derives their their views from the party.
Click to expand...
True, if you get an idea from a book, and I get it from the movie, we can claim a difference, but divergent evolution still implies a common ancestor. And anyway, we're talking about judges, aren't we, not the people you meet at the neighborhood convenience store.

I could happen to have the same views as a party, but I also don't happen to be a judge, appointed to the judiciary or nominated for election by that party using my alignment with their views as a criterion. When that happens, I'm a party judge no matter how or why I came to my views. You don't just happen to become a judge.
 
bruto said:
True, if you get an idea from a book, and I get it from the movie, we can claim a difference, but divergent evolution still implies a common ancestor. And anyway, we're talking about judges, aren't we, not the people you meet at the neighborhood convenience store.

I could happen to have the same views as a party, but I also don't happen to be a judge, appointed to the judiciary or nominated for election by that party using my alignment with their views as a criterion. When that happens, I'm a party judge no matter how or why I came to my views. You don't just happen to become a judge.
Click to expand...

Why do you become a party judge even though you don't agree with that party?

Judge: xyz is constitutional
Party: xyz is good
 
To poke at a couple things that may be of some interest...

DeJoy's at it again.

the U.S. Postal Service, under the corrupt direction of Donald Trump's still-in-his-post-for-some-reason Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, is about to spend more than $11 billion to replace the Service's mail delivery truck fleet. Based on an absurdly (and, as our guest today argues, purposely) flawed economic and environmental study, the USPS will be purchasing 165,000 new delivery trucks with just 10% of them being fully electric. The rest will burn at least 110,000 gallons of fuel each year (and likely much more), getting just over a ridiculous 8 miles per gallon -- or as much as 14 when the AC is turned off!

That means, as our guest recently wrote, the new trucks, comprising about 30% of the federal government's automotive fleet, will burn through "a jaw-dropping 2 to 4 billion gallons of fuel" over their expected 20-year lifetime. All of this in the middle of a dangerously worsening climate crisis for the planet and as President Biden is vowing to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.

Last week, the EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality wrote a letter to the USPS, objecting to the plan and essentially begging the quasi-independent Executive Branch agency to review their flawed environmental analysis to consider electrifying the entire fleet instead.

DeJoy, meanwhile, is claiming they can't afford to do that, despite being flush with more than $20 billion in pandemic cash from the federal government. And the Postal Service PR team is busy greenwashing all of this as "real sustainability" for "a cleaner world", as their website explains how they are "updating our fleet with fuel-efficient vehicles to help do our part." How do they make such an absurd claim? Well, the new fleet, as it turns out, will be 0.4 miles per gallon more efficient than the existing fleet that's been in use since the 1980s!

As if all of this isn't obscene enough, earlier this week, VICE's Aaron Gordon reported that the newly designed gasoline-powered trucks, estimated to clock in at 8,501 pounds with mail on board -- "almost double the weight of the current USPS delivery vehicle" -- means they will avoid the EPA's new fuel efficiency standards for "light duty" trucks, which are limited to, as luck would have it, 8,500 pounds! If they were just .01 pound lighter, he reports, they would likely be illegal.

Yes. It is all as outrageous -- and insane -- and corrupt -- as it sounds.

<snip>

"The environmental analysis assumes that gas will be $2.50 a gallon in 2040," he explains. "You can barely find a place in the country where it is $2.50 a gallon now! But they assume gas prices will remain low. And so what that does is it makes their calculations for the total cost of ownership of a gas-guzzling truck look better than it should be. They did this on a range of different issues and it really resulted in an analysis that was faulty and reckless, to be completely candid."
Click to expand...

Next, a downside of the Democrats actively working to help people, but leaving leeway to the states to determine how to use money.

Republican lawmakers are siphoning billions from Democrats' stimulus bills to their wealthy donors

In Utah, State Senate President Stuart Adams is calling 2022 “the year of the tax cut.” Last week a Senate committee approved a $160 million cut to income taxes in the state, and Republican House Speaker Brad Wilson expects that the chamber will add even more tax cuts to the bill.

Iowa’s Republican Governor, Senate, and Assembly have proposed three separate plansto cut taxes, and the Senate is intent on eventually eliminating the state’s income tax. In the Governor’s proposal, less than 1% of the total tax cut is directed to the bottom fifth of Iowa income tax filers and two-thirds of the cuts would go to the highest 14% of taxpayers.

The Michigan Senate Finance Committee approved a $2.3 billion tax cut that would lower the state’s corporate income tax rate by a third.

Idaho is poised to pass a record-breaking $600 million tax cut, including $250 million of permanent personal and corporate income taxes.

In Mississippi, the state House passed a bill that would both eliminate the state income tax and increase sales taxes on most items, a regressive policy that would take money out of low-income residents’ pockets.

Republican lawmakers in Arizona are going to great lengths to cut taxes against the will of their voters. In 2020, Arizona passed a ballot initiative that imposed a 3.5% tax hike on the wealthy to increase salaries for teachers and school employees. Last year, the state’s Republican lawmakers pushed through a $2 billion income tax cut that essentially erased the tax hike their voters had just instituted.

In response to this betrayal, Arizona education advocates secured enough signatures to get a referendum on the November 2022 ballot that would repeal the 2021 tax cut, thus delaying its implementation. But instead of allowing voters to weigh in, Arizona Republicans are looking to repeal last year’s tax cut and replace it with yet another version that would stop the referendum from moving ahead.

Florida is pushing more record tax cuts for the state’s biggest, most powerful corporations after a huge round of them last year — including a $31.6 million tax cut for business lunches alone.
Click to expand...

How are they justifying such? Budget surplus! Nevermind that it's due to a one-off thing, rather than something more durable. No wonder red states keep lagging behind and needing more - their Republican leaders keep sabotaging their states with thoroughly irresponsible governance.

Next...

House Republican touts 'Dignity Act' bill claiming to make path to legalization, but don't be fooled

Short version? The path made available is effectively impossible and is wrapped with a bunch of outright nasty and counterproductive stuff.

Next...

Oklahoma GOP wants to create a database of everyone who seeks an abortion. Yes, really

The headline pretty well sums that one up. What could possibly go wrong there?:rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
I've been hearing some comments today on a judicial nominee Nina Morrison. Her background includes working on the Innocence Project, and having worked the case of something like 30 innocent people getting released.

At her confirmation hearing, the GOP senators have accused her of being responsible for the increase in crime in recent years (trotting out crime stats as if she were responsible). Josh Hawley says he can't vote for her because she is "soft on crime."

Because she gets innocent people released!

The nature of the questions is that they can't believe that someone convicted of a crime could actually be innocent!

"innocent people don't belong in jail" = "soft on crime"
 
Aridas said:
Next up in current events to poke at... looks like the Florida GOP are pushing a "Don't Say Gay" bill.

Looks like we're entering the "Then they came for the gays" period of the Republican war against free speech and actual education. Oh, and with a side of proposing to put cameras and microphones in classrooms. What could possibly go badly there?
Click to expand...

To be fair, "first they came for the trans women" would be the first step.

These anti-gay bill is the direct successor of anti-trans panic that have been waged in school boards across the country. I think most queer people, including those that aren't trans, understood that it was a shot across the bow for all of them.
 
Virgin USA vs the Chad Saudia Arabia:

SAUDI ARABIA REJECTS BIDEN PLEA TO INCREASE OIL PRODUCTION AS MIDTERMS LOOM
“High gas prices will almost certainly be blamed on the party in power, so it really seems like the Saudis are using the oil weapon against Democrats here.”

President Joe Biden had a high-profile call with King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud in an effort to partially restore a relationship with Saudi Arabia. According to the White House’s readout, during the call, Biden reaffirmed the willingness of the U.S. to aid Saudi in so-called defensive operations against the Houthis in Yemen, following recent attacks by the Houthis on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Click to expand...

https://theintercept.com/2022/02/15/saudi-arabia-gas-price-oil/

Lol USA is selling SA all the weapons it needs for its lopsided war against Yemen and Biden can't even get a break on oil production.

Several days prior to Biden and King Salman’s call, Jared Kushner traveled to the Middle East, meeting with MBS and other top Saudi officials, including the CEO of Aramco, at the state oil company’s headquarters in Dhahran. It is not known what they discussed. Asked about the purpose of the meetings, neither Kushner nor his firm, Kushner Companies, responded to requests for comment.
Click to expand...
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
To be fair, "first they came for the trans women" would be the first step.

These anti-gay bill is the direct successor of anti-trans panic that have been waged in school boards across the country. I think most queer people, including those that aren't trans, understood that it was a shot across the bow for all of them.
Click to expand...

Not going to argue there and yeah, it was pretty obvious. They're also a step after the artificial CRT panic targeting black people, of course, and are using a bunch of the same justifications as CRT. I seem to recall even earlier attempts to do things like banning teaching that the US is a democracy as a direct attempt to make the Republican Party sound more patriotic and a general undertone of "Don't teach anything about the darker side of US History!" (double meaning of darker not intended, but appropriate)
 
pgwenthold said:
I've been hearing some comments today on a judicial nominee Nina Morrison. Her background includes working on the Innocence Project, and having worked the case of something like 30 innocent people getting released.

At her confirmation hearing, the GOP senators have accused her of being responsible for the increase in crime in recent years (trotting out crime stats as if she were responsible). Josh Hawley says he can't vote for her because she is "soft on crime."

Because she gets innocent people released!

The nature of the questions is that they can't believe that someone convicted of a crime could actually be innocent!

"innocent people don't belong in jail" = "soft on crime"
Click to expand...
The party claiming that people who announced their intention to overthrow the government and to murder political opponents, broke into the Capitol and defecated in its halls were peaceful demonstrators and should not be prosecuted, considers the correction of judicial error a criminal enterprise....Yup, sounds about right. You go, Hawley.
 
The UK is suffering the highest inflation rates in 30 years, too. But I'm sure that's Biden's and the Dems' fault. Amirite, Conservatives?
 
Well the entire world was willing to lie about the number of Covid cases just to get Biden elected, right?
 
The subject is "The Biden Presidency." I've moved several posts to AAH discussing a law passed in a State house that is not related to Biden and his Presidency. Please keep to the topic at hand. I may have move some responses that were ostensibly about Biden but were responses to the off-topic post and off-shoots. You may re-post those posts specifically about Biden and his Presidency here, if you like.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: xjx388
 
dudalb said:
Russia just invaded the Ukraine.
This is a make or break moment for Biden, frankly.
Click to expand...

I'm not really clear why.

Sanctions will be imposed. The US doesn't have an I
obligation to provide military response. If a country that won't be attacked is fine with being made a pariah, there is no way to stop Russia.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm not really clear why.

Sanctions will be imposed. The US doesn't have an I
obligation to provide military response. If a country that won't be attacked is fine with being made a pariah, there is no way to stop Russia.
Click to expand...
I think you're right, but it will be seen otherwise by those determined to sandbag Biden, just as the rise in gasoline prices has been.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom