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

[BeastieRunner]

In the lighter side of things, here's the total breakdown of Alex Jones getting screwed, play-by-play and his lawyer just sits there.

[CaptainEurope]

Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington
Rep. John Katko of New York
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming
Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina
Rep. David Valadao of California

There's your 10 Rs that the GOP will be vilifying over the next few months.

Jaime Herrera Beutler lost her primary. Voting to impeach Trump did not help her with GOP fanatics.

[CaptainEurope]

After all the talk by very serious pundits yesterday how the raid on Trump would "energize the GOP base" - Democrats seem to have massively overperformed in the MN primaries last night.

[Tendrin]

In the lighter side of things, here's the total breakdown of Alex Jones getting screwed, play-by-play and his lawyer just sits there.

Love Leagle Eagle xD

[WestPhillyPunisher]

This just makes me feel even more afraid that this country is heading for some dark times. For the life of me I can't understand this worship of Trump. I've always found him to be repulsive, long before he ever voiced any political aspirations. This man is not worthy of being dogcatcher let alone President again. Yet we have millions who blindly follow this piece of excrement. Even worse are those that know better and voiced it in the early days after January 6th. People like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell. But then they suddenly got amnesia. BTW, Mitch McConnell ever thanked the current adminstration for coming to the aid of Kentucky after all the flooding? I'm not holding my breath.

Why do people worship Trump? It's like I've said in this thread numerous times and believe with all my heart to be true: Trump gave like minded lunatics free rein to hate minorities, women, gays, immigrants, the "deep state" and anyone else their dear leader despises. That warm and glorious feeling of hatred is a heady drug that's irresistible to Trump's lemmings, and they refuse to give it up. As for Moscow Mitch and the rest of the GQP buttmunchers, they desperately need the unwavering support of Trump's deranged followers, well aware the party would never win another election without those crazies, even with all the gerrymandering, so they keep on slurping Caramel Caligula. Nothing more complicated than that.

[CaptainEurope]

Failing French Nuclear Plants Drive Up Electricity Costs as Heat Waves Cut Production

Half of the country’s reactors are closed down because of recently discovered corrosion problems or delayed routine maintenance caused by the COVID-19 epidemic.

An already serious problem is compounded by the ongoing drought and heat wave that is increasing demand for power for air conditioners and reducing the flow of the Rhone and Garonne rivers that are used to cool nuclear power plants. Water temperatures in the rivers are reaching temperatures that threaten fish life and breach licence conditions.

Nuclear power is not the solution to the climate crisis.

[CaptainEurope]

Anti-Trump GOP Collective Launches $1 Million Ad Campaign Against Herschel Walker

The Republican Accountability PAC (RAPAC), a self-identified anti-Trump GOP group, has launched a $1 million ad campaign against the Georgia Republican Senate candidate, The Hill reports. The effort is part of a $10 million initiative to “defeat anti-democracy Republicans in key battleground states.”

The treasurer of RAPAC, Sarah Longwell, said in a statement, “Herschel Walker might have been a great football player, but he doesn’t deserve to be a senator.” As HuffPost notes, a new ad by the RAPAC uses footage from Walker’s ex-wife Cindy DeAngelis Grossman speaking about his alleged abuse.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Anti-Trump GOP Collective Launches $1 Million Ad Campaign Against Herschel Walker

Well now, intraparty fighting, that’s interesting. I wonder how Moscow Mitch and the GQP bigwigs will respond to that?

[The Cool Thatguy]

Well now, intraparty fighting, that’s interesting. I wonder how Moscow Mitch and the GQP bigwigs will respond to that?

With the same bravery they've been employing against Trump, I imagine.

*cough*

[scourge]

This just makes me feel even more afraid that this country is heading for some dark times. For the life of me I can't understand this worship of Trump. I've always found him to be repulsive, long before he ever voiced any political aspirations. This man is not worthy of being dogcatcher let alone President again. Yet we have millions who blindly follow this piece of excrement. Even worse are those that know better and voiced it in the early days after January 6th. People like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell. But then they suddenly got amnesia. BTW, Mitch McConnell ever thanked the current adminstration for coming to the aid of Kentucky after all the flooding? I'm not holding my breath.

They support him because they're just as vile and repulsive as he is.

That would be a dumb idea. Trump could probably destroy some documents in the mean time. After all, some of the stuff that he did turn in was taped back together by staff members to preserve it. He also would flush things down the toilet.

Truthfully, I don't know why they don't scan this stuff in and store them on a secure server somewhere, if they don't already.

Destroying the documents is one worry but depending on what exactly they were...the orange stain selling them or just showing them off because he thinks it makes him look better to do it to people who definitely shouldn't be looking at them is probably a concern as well.

[CSTowle]

And now for comments that aren't Maralagogate.

That's a good point.

A civil war won't start with one idiot. It would have to be the sense that the idiot was able to get away with it.

It's not a protestor taking the first shot, as much as it would be local prosecutors making it clear they're on the shooter's side.

There are some ideologically consistent responses.

Those right-wingers want teachers following strict guidelines, so guns can be part of that. It's also a conservative culture signifier, which rural white people are okay with. And this kind of attitude can discourage liberal teachers from applying, which they would see as a plus, even if there is a decline.

One specific problem with Insulin is that there are some warped incentives.

It's hard to make a profit with standard competition, especially if some producers are able to sell at a loss for extended periods of time.
When most producers are driven out of the marketplace, the remaining producer can jack up prices for something that is essential.

Walmart selling insulin at $25 is a good thing, by preventing scumbags from trying to artificially increase prices. But this would be subject to change.

On education, the school choice people legitimately think they're doing the right thing. They'll often think that decisions made by Teachers Unions prioritize subpar public sector employees and political trends over education quality.

The essential argument about charter schools is that parents who can't afford private school should have less choices.

The policy incentives are different in rural areas given the lack of alternatives. It shouldn't affect rural schools, as it doesn't alter their attendance. However, different messaging is going to work in that setting. They'll be more likely to be persuaded by arguments about community control of public schools.

I can appreciate the frustration if someone's asking for commonly available information, but I have noticed here people talking past one another because they have different frames of reference, so sometimes clarity is essential.

I can understand parents wanting more choices for their children. I can understand looking at the public school system as it is today and the performance of students going through them and wanting more for their children.

But I also see and understand when a Party is taking those concerns and weaponizing them as a way to break public sector unions, privatize everything they can, funnel tax money to religious institutions, and widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots (and the fact that many of the have-nots are minorities and/or Democratic-leaning isn't just a pleasant side effect for them).

Improving public education should definitely be a priority. Even when it's doing well it should be. And yes, throwing money at the problem doesn't solve it as shown by studies and statistics out the wazoo. But can anyone with a straight face who honestly wants improvement for that system say that it will help things to remove funds from them?

[Kirby101]

Failing French Nuclear Plants Drive Up Electricity Costs as Heat Waves Cut Production



Nuclear power is not the solution to the climate crisis.

Oh nos! All are conservative friends tell us renewable energy is a pipe dream and without nuclear. we are doomed. No matter how many plants have problems that will make them dangerous for centuries.

[CaptainEurope]

Oh nos! All are conservative friends tell us renewable energy is a pipe dream and without nuclear. we are doomed. No matter how many plants have problems that will make them dangerous for centuries.

And even ignoring said risks: If rivers get too warm, they cannot cool down nuclear plants. That means that in many parts of the world, nuclear power plants will soon no longer work from June to September or so.

[Zelena]

And even ignoring said risks: If rivers get too warm, they cannot cool down nuclear plants. That means that in many parts of the world, nuclear power plants will soon no longer work from June to September or so.

Then I can see very well solar panels take over electrical production during those months… But we must built them now. The problem is the space they use… Maybe other devices could be built.

[Kirby101]

Felt this from blogger Duncan Black was pertinent to discussion here.

https://www.eschatonblog.com/2022/08...#disqus_thread

Inflation
The threat of "inflation" was used to derail all the nice things in BBB, because serious people have decided that "giving not rich people nice things" is the only inflationary fiscal policy (hint: if you think fiscal policy is inflationary, you can offset the "nice things" policies with "increasing rich people taxes" policies).

Larry Summer made 3 predictions, and after running them through his economist supercomputer (lol I mean 'vibing like Nate Silver'), gave each a 1/3 chance of happening. Amazingly the thing that did happen was not one of his predictions, but somehow Larry was proved fucking right anyway.


"Team transitory" said inflation was transitory, not spiraling out of control, and was the result of the post-Covid return to normal, supply chain problems everyone is aware of, and abuse of market power. "Team inflation" said it was going to last forever and we'd be Weimar Germany if we didn't try to start a recession. After a few months of increasing CPI, team inflation declared they were correct, and the Fed started hiking rates.

The real freakout was that there would be actual decent social policy and rising worker wages for the first time in decades. It was necessary to kill that.

They won, of course, killing the policy and getting the Fed rate hikes. Inflation numbers come out tomorrow. They'll likely show improvement, and we'll see what the next step is. But they've established that not only can we never let people get raises (consensus for decades), but giving people a few bucks a month for child care, or whatever, will destroy the economy.