All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Zelena]

I don't think Musk is all that clever. If anything, he's proven he's just another dumb rich man.

He mostly was willing to lose enough money to fail and try again… It’s that way that he succeed to make a reusable rocket. A lot of attempts have been failed and finally… a success.

Other space agencies weren’t ready to risk that much money…

I see Elon Musk as a child with very deep pockets.

[Tendrin]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...b84c748cb84a1b

A66-year-old retired credit analyst in Marion, Pa., was caught off-guard in Pennsylvania's primary Tuesday when the Democrat was given a Republican ballot instead of one for her party.

A Franklin County elections official verified Debra Hildebrand was given the wrong ballot at the Heidelberg Fellowship Hall in Guilford Township, south of Chambersburg, and attributed it to "human error."

Hildebrand said in a phone interview Thursday that before Tuesday, she had never voted in a primary election.

She said she typically waits for general elections, but with all the issues surrounding state and federal elections in recent years, the retired Verizon worker was anxious to vote in Tuesday's primary, which featured races for a number of state and federal offices.

"Now I'm really into it. I'm paying attention," said Hildebrand, who was especially interested in U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races on the ticket.

Bet we'll hear about more incidents like this if Pennsylvania's Republican party followed Florida's lead.

[Tendrin]

**** this judge in particular.

In the middle of the pandemic, Williams cut out the cardboard babies on the front of diaper boxes and set them around the house — imaginary friends for W. when he couldn’t safely socialize. (The 19th has used only his first initial to protect his privacy.)

Two years after their son’s birth, Williams and her wife, Rebekah Wilson, had started to split.

The split was nasty, Williams said, but she wasn’t prepped for the news she would receive at the couple’s divorce hearing in Oklahoma City last January.

Williams and Wilson are legally married and decided to have W. together, according to Williams, with Wilson carrying the baby. But within 15 minutes of the hearing starting, Oklahoma County District Court Judge Lynne McGuire declared that because Williams had not adopted her son, she was not his legal parent. McGuire ordered that Williams be struck from W.’s birth certificate. In her place would go the couple’s sperm donor, who was now petitioning for custody.

“My body instantly started shaking,” Williams said. “I mean pure terror, as a queer person, to be erased.”

\
https://www.them.us/story/oklahoma-c...riage-equality

[WestPhillyPunisher]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...b84c748cb84a1b



Bet we'll hear about more incidents like this if Pennsylvania's Republican party followed Florida's lead.

Absolutely. Everyone who votes Democrat in my state needs to seriously pay attention because Qpublicans will keep on trying dirty tricks like this.

[InformationGeek]

And this is a new level of vile.

YES HE SAID THAT:

Senator Bill Cassidy on the state of Louisiana having one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation:

"We wouldn't be much of an outlier if you subtract the African American population from our numbers."

https://t.co/YCunflTaL3

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And this is a new level of vile.

Yes, a new level of vile….TODAY. Who knows what sort of abominable **** will come out of the mouths of Qpublicans tomorrow. Meanwhile, let’s face it, Cassidy wouldn’t have said what he did if he didn’t know he had supporters who believe him, and a party that won’t censure him for his hideous comments.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Yes, a new level of vile….TODAY. Who knows what sort of abominable **** will come out of the mouths of Qpublicans tomorrow. Meanwhile, let’s face it, Cassidy wouldn’t have said what he did if he didn’t know he had supporters who believe him, and a party that won’t censure him for his hideous comments.

When you play 'How low will they (GOP) go', they will always take it as a challenge.

[Kirby101]

And this is from a Senator, not an op-ed from some obscure lefty. Just in case anyone tries a "both sides" defense.

[Catlady in training]

**** this judge in particular.

\
https://www.them.us/story/oklahoma-c...riage-equality

How can a sperm donor apply for custody? Don't they have to sign something when they donate their material so that BS like this doesn't happen?

[Gray Lensman]

How can a sperm donor apply for custody? Don't they have to sign something when they donate their material so that BS like this doesn't happen?

If the in vitro stuff wasn't 100% done through a licenced clinic in many states it doesn't count. In New York a sperm donor was hit with child support payments when the lesbian couple he had donated to divorced.

And that is without getting the surprise of a bigot in black robes.

[Mister Mets]

NEW: The House has passed a bill to crack down on price gouging at gas stations by a vote of 217-207. Every single republican voted NO.

The economic argument is that price controls just don't work.

https://reason.com/2022/05/20/bannin...omic-nonsense/

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed a bill granting President Joe Biden, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and state attorneys wide-ranging and ill-defined powers to crack down on "unconscionably excessive" gas prices, supposedly in the name of protecting consumers.

What counts as "unconscionably excessive," you might be wondering? That's in the eye of the beholder apparently, as the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act contains no explanation or definition to limit the new executive powers over prices at the pump. Any seller deemed to be "exploiting the circumstances related to an energy emergency" can be targeted with civil penalties or forced to stop selling gasoline at whatever price the authorities have deemed to be excessive. The text of the bill allows the FTC to determine appropriate "benchmarks" for deciding whether some gas prices might be grossly excessive—a neat little trick that effectively allows the FTC to set prices if it chooses to do so.

Of course, price controls, even when enacted in roundabout ways, don't work. History is full of examples demonstrating this basic economic fact, but probably the most on-point example is the gasoline price controls enacted by the federal government in 1971. "The results were disastrous," Jack Rafuse, a Nixon administration energy advisor, wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 2007. "Oil exploration and domestic oil production slowed sharply. And foreign oil poured into the nation's gas tanks, filling the booming demand for price-controlled gas."

When you mess with prices, they tend to mess back. Artificially low prices signaled to consumers that they should keep filling up, but gasoline supplies couldn't keep up. Long lines and rationing were the predictable results.

No one wants to pay more than $4.50 for a gallon of gas—that's the national average right now, meaning many places are seeing even higher prices—but severing the ability of higher prices to signal to consumers that they should buy less is no solution. At best, it merely hides the problem and creates new ones.

Expanding the executive branch's power to crack down on businesses that are merely responding to market conditions is no solution either. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warns that the legislation will allow the FTC "to make supply and demand mandates for the energy sector," potentially resulting in falling domestic energy production and higher gas prices.

In other words, the 1970s all over again.

Even some Democrats who ultimately supported the bill—which passed Wednesday with a near-party-line vote in the House—seemed to recognize the danger.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D–N.Y.) told E&E News, a trade publication focused on energy and environmental issues, that the bill was "injecting a political solution into an economic problem."

That's exactly right. For months, Democrats have been trying to scapegoat rising prices throughout the economy on supposed price gouging. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) memorably and bizarrely claimed that higher prices at grocery stores were the result of greedy capitalists, despite the fact that grocery stores operate on some of the thinnest margins of any business thanks to robust competition. Warren and some of her Senate colleagues have introduced a separate bill to give the FTC similar powers over price gouging in all parts of the economy. That bill uses the same vague "unconscionably excessive" framing as the just-passed gas price control bill in the House.

These attempts to deflect blame for the highest inflation rates in 40 years are "dangerous misguided nonsense," according to none other than Jason Furman, one of the Obama administration's top economic advisors.

"The problem with this narrative is that it's just a pejorative tautology," wrote The Washington Post's Catherine Rampell about Warren's bill. "Yes, prices are going up because companies are raising prices. Okay. This is the economic equivalent of saying 'It's raining because water is falling from the sky.'"

[Mister Mets]

Yes, a new level of vile….TODAY. Who knows what sort of abominable **** will come out of the mouths of Qpublicans tomorrow. Meanwhile, let’s face it, Cassidy wouldn’t have said what he did if he didn’t know he had supporters who believe him, and a party that won’t censure him for his hideous comments.

His comments are clumsy, but Louisiana does have a high maternal mortality rate among African-American women, and it doesn't seem outrageous for anyone to believe Cassidy that this is something that should not be minimized, and should be focused on.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...b84c748cb84a1b



Bet we'll hear about more incidents like this if Pennsylvania's Republican party followed Florida's lead.

Are we sure this was done intentionally? Someone handing out a wrong ballot in a primary could easily be an honest mistake.

I think he'll have a lot more impact by splitting the conservative vote in many areas a la Ross Perot.

That could definitely happen.

The results may be unpredictable.

Here is a little History from the LOC: Creating the United States - Formation of Political Parties



This is where it leaves off.

From Wikipedia: Political parties in the United States



The Whig Party was formed in 1833 and collapsed in 1857 (24 years)

The Democratic Party was formed around 1824, after the breakup of the Democratic-Republican Party.

The Republican Party was officially formed in 1854 (though it's roots went back further).

Those are the only political parties in the US that have ever produced a President.

There are only four ways I can think of to form a new political party:

1. A President, elected as either a Republican or a Democrat, leaves that Party to start their own, taking those who are loyal enough to do the same along.
2. One of the Two Main Political Parties ceases to be, leaving a gap that is ready to be filed by another party.
3. One of the Two Main Political Parties split in half, creating a brief three party system until the dust settles and we see which ones are left standing.
4. A massive revolt by voters against both Political Parties, resulting in voting in a President who isn't aligned with either.

We have an unusual political environment right now where the most progressive Republican in congress is to the right of the most conservative Democrat, and where primary voters wouldn't want it any other way. The parties do take extreme stances, with a preference for narrow base-pleasing wins.

The scenario I described also wouldn't necessarily be someone seeking to be President, as there are ways to have a meaningful impact by winning a fraction of elections. At this point, two Senators or twelve members of the House would be enough to flip control of Congress in a coalition.

[Kirby101]

Mets, do you think posting an op-ed from someone who has opposed everything Biden has done since taking office is a convincing argument?

[Tendrin]

https://www.tiktok.com/@moreperfectu...946886?lang=en

INFLATION BRO

[skyvolt2000]

His comments are clumsy, but Louisiana does have a high maternal mortality rate among African-American women, and it doesn't seem outrageous for anyone to believe Cassidy that this is something that should not be minimized, and should be focused on.
.

If you are part of the REASON why that mortality rate is there-you should probably keep one's mouth SHUT.

What he was saying was pretty much blaming black woman for that rate instead of offering reasons WHY that was happening.

If the resources are NOT in those communities-whose fault is that?

It's once thing for them to be there and those rates are high but as we have seen way too many times those resources don't show up there.