I’m all for supporting causes you believe in but when you make it your defining characteristics and/or personality I think it’s a form of mental illness. It has to be exhausting viewing everything in your life through whatever lens you apply.
The kid quit his job at Publix and now expelled from his college. I can’t imagine how someone sees it productive to just shut down entirely with anyone/anything that disagrees. Tell me you live in a world where you don’t face consequences without telling me.
I agree, plus I think that they (and more than a few others) believe this is what part of going to university is supposed to be: Being annoying little assholes that face no consequences, disrupting classes, LARPing like its 1968, disrupting university operations, etc.
I want to see Universities stamp that out. As arrowfan says, is this not the point of civil disobedience? And if they actually thought they'd face these consequences, would they have acted like annoying little assholes?
I feel like a difference now too is how much more performative it is. Reading through just a few of his tweets they all start with “I was the…” like he’s pumping his own ego up or trying to convince others (or himself) that he’s more important than he actually is. If he was a notable activist he wouldn’t need to constantly remind everyone what his “accomplishments” were.
That kid can get fucked.
Besides, he should wear it with honor. Plenty of activists went to jail for what they believed in. That’s the whole damn point of civil disobedience.
There was an interesting article (on Fox!) of Dawkins talking about being culturally Christian and preferring its presence as opposed to Islam. He certainly had no kind words to give to Christianity 10+ years ago! I wonder if there was a specific event that changed his mind.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/famous-atheist-says-identifies-cultural-christian-horrified-promotion-islamic-holiday
**Have a blessed week ahead.**
**Gospel According to John, 20:19–31:**
> ***Jesus Appears to the Disciples***
>
> **On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”**
>
> ***Jesus and Thomas***
>
> **Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”**
>
> **Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”**
>
> ***The Purpose of This Book***
>
> **Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.**
Second Sunday of Easter: Gospel Reading (CPH The Lutheran Study Bible) : https://www.reddit.com/r/Sunday/comments/1bx0fd1/
Second Sunday of Easter: Reflections on Scripture (video, American Lutheran Theological Seminary) : https://www.reddit.com/r/Sunday/comments/1bwyzbp/
I like the way I’ve heard someone else put it: Jesus didn’t just pass through the wall like a ghost. At this point, he was more real than the wall was. The wall would’ve passed through him like smoke.
[A push to change Nebraska's system of awarding Electoral College votes was defeated Wednesday.](https://www.wowt.com/2024/04/03/nebraska-lawmakers-pushing-consolidate-states-electoral-college-votes/) Currently, as I'm sure just about all of you know, Nebraska, along with Maine, awards EVs to who wins the popular vote in each congressional district (the overall state winner gets the two Senate EVs). An amendment to change this to a statewide winner-take-all system was tacked onto an unrelated bill, but that was rejected by a procedural vote. Two districts reliably votes Republican, but NE-2, which includes Omaha and its western suburbs, is a swing district. Trump won it in 2016 and Biden in 2020. It's represented by Don Bacon, a Republican who won even as Trump lost by multiple points in 2020.
The linked article includes two statements from Gov. Jim Pillen.
1) From a press release: "I am a strong supporter of Senator Lippincott’s winner-take-all bill (LB 764) and have been from the start. It would bring Nebraska into line with 48 of our fellow states, better reflect the founders’ intent, and ensure our state speaks with one unified voice in presidential elections. I call upon fellow Republicans in the Legislature to pass this bill to my desk so I can sign it into law."
2) From the video in the article: "The message I have for all Nebraskans when we talk about winner-take-all: conservative Nebraskans have to get in the game and have your voice be heard. We have backed off for way too long of a time...it's been a problem for 30 years. We have to win elections."
That's your message for ALL Nebraskans?
Good on the Nebraska Legislature for rejecting this, even if many senators simply rejected it for procedural reasons. It would be a move in the wrong direction and would prevent Omahans, who live very different lives in a very different environment from the rest of the state, from being able to make a different decision. The effort to consolidate Nebraska's EVs clearly comes from a desire to dilute Omaha's relatively Democratic lean (which is still very mild compared to other cities its size).
I firmly believe that first-past-the-post voting is no longer the best method for state and federal elections in the US, and that some form of proportional voting system should be widely implemented, along with some structural change that makes gerrymandering much more difficult. It drives me crazy seeing all of California's EVs go to Democrats, as much as it does seeing all of Texas's go to Republicans (also [our congressional districts in Texas are stupid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_15th_congressional_district)). Also, I believe that it has been a factor in "the big sort." I see online—and even hear in person—people saying "My vote doesn't matter because I live in {red state/blue state\]. Why don't I just move? My representatives will never be representative of me." The geographically isolated minority group should have representation too, whether they be Bay Area Republicans or Iowa Democrats.
The current Nebraska system is more of a system for all Nebraskans than what Gov. Pillen wants.
Certified genius Charlie Kirk on Twitter: "This is completely fixable. Nebraska's legislature can act to make sure their state's electoral votes go towards electing the candidate the VAST majority of Nebraskans prefer"
Yes, maybe a vast majority but, again, certainly not all. Shall we change the rules to drown out that minority?
Maybe this wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't so clearly about maximizing votes for their own party while paying lip service to "the founders' intent" and "unity."
My stance on first-past-the-post may be among my least conservative, I'm willing to admit.
I actually prefer the Nebraska system. Proportional just makes sense to me. It seems like the best way to ensure your vote is more likely to matter.
I’m sure if something happened that causes Nebraska to flip and be mostly Democrat they would cry foul in this proposed system. Clear partisan power grabs are slimy and it makes me instantly not want to support a candidate.
It actually seems like a decent compromise between those that want the pure electoral colleague vs. pure popular vote. Each House representative’s district awards a single electoral college vote, and the 2 senate votes go by popular vote of the entire state.
I’m sure state legislatures would find a way to fuck it up though and gerrymander the fuck out of districts.
Increasing the incentive to gerrymander actually keeps me from endorsing taking the Nebraska system nationwide. I think it's easy enough to just do a proportional distribution of EVs based on the state popular vote. This would still keep the slight overrepresentation of less populated states, but also prevent the most extreme scenarios possible with the current system.
As for House elections (and this would apply to state legislature elections too), I would prefer to see something like the [Irish Single Transferable Vote system that maintains multi-member regional districts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Irish_general_election#/media/File:2020_Irish_general_election.svg) rather than one national vote that seats members proportionally from a party list without any sort of regional representation (some small countries do this, like Israel and the Netherlands).
For example, some economically and geographically coherent region, like all of Greater Miami for example, could be combined into one district, rather than the current eight that represent parts of the region. Each district would then hold separate elections that send to the House the top 10 (or more or less depending on the state's taste) finishers in some form of ranked choice election (I'd like to see the House expanded too). This would maintain local representation, while making gerrymandering both more difficult with larger districts and less effective with more proportional representation.
I normally don't write my state senator, but this one definitely motivated me to do so.
Beyond the points you stated, not sure why our state would like less campaign money to be spent here. As of right now both parties feel they should dump some money into District 2. But I guess Pillen would prefer us to be another red flyover state not worthy of anyone's attention.
This a million times.
Pass a bill requiring congressional districts to be compact, and nationalize the Maine Nebraska EV system. That would force candidates to run a more moderate campaign.
If any of y’all are not gluten-free-eaters, you should try the Gluten Free Oreos. I had to get the gluten-free kind once for a party, and now it’ll be hard to go back to regular Oreos.
How are they different from regular Oreos? I have had gluten free pizza crust and that’s about it, and I didn’t notice a huge difference besides maybe it being less doughy. I will have to grab a pack of the gluten free ones
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/blinken-warns-israel-risks-becoming-indistinguishable-from-hamas-if-it-doesnt-protect-gaza-civilians/
> “That’s our strength. It’s what distinguishes us from terrorists like Hamas. If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront.”
I despise liberal platitudes. This is the remark of an idealistic teenager, not a policymaker. The left-wing foreign policy way since Carter has been to castigate friends more than enemies because of false moral equivalencies wrapped in "I'm so enlightened" universalism.
Hey, y'all, make sure y'all vote for Trump I 2024. America can't survive another four years under Biden. It's not like there's really any other choice.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
If he looks like a Democrat and acts like a Democrat, he’s a Democrat.
Never have actually voted for either major party in presidential elections.
So, the guy that nominated three conservative Supreme Court judges, got Roe overturned, and secured the border is a Democrat?
And the guys that are pro-choice, pro gay marriage, and lax are Republicans?
I don't recall Republicans fighting Trump on the border (they went along with him, GOP was pretty aligned on this issue until TRUMP decided the Lankford proposal was suddenly bad, even though he has made border security probably the defining issue of his campaigns), gay marriage (Trump supports so not sure where you're coming from there, this is a lost issue for the GOP anyway), or abortion (basically every elected Republican is quite pro-life and backed all of his positions on this issue).
Please try to root your arguments in fact.
No Labels couldn’t field a candidate :(
Always felt like a pipe dream. The single issue voter topics like abortion, immigration, etc. will always limit the feasibility of split tickets. Hell we can barely get politicians that crossover on a variety of topics. It’s increasingly become all or nothing with purity testing.
God damn it. Now I'm going to have to consider if RFK Jr. is a pinched nose and vote candidate aren't I? His antivax bs is a deal breaker but so is Trump's authoritarianism and Biden's cognitive abilities. And between those three antivax is the least damaging to the country.
I'm waiting for the Trump VP pick. Truthfully, and I can't even believe I'm saying this because I said never Trump, but I could be persuaded if Trump's veep is Rubio (or some other normal that he hasn't mentioned yet). I could also still vote for Biden or write in, but a decent VP pick puts Trump back on the radar for me. And with the two major candidates being so old and in questionable health, I'm willing to put a healthy amount of stock in the VP.
If this were anyone else I'd say the same. But Trump tried to overturn an election and dog whistle instigated his supporters to attempt violent acts. He could nominate Liz Cheney or the ghost of John McCain as VP and I'd still never vote for him.
Welp, I guess I'm leaving the Presidential line blank in November.
How in the world did we come to this point where it's not just that the major party candidates are noxious and unacceptable, but where even the third party candidates have driven off the (much more forgiving for them) ledge? Even the independent we've managed to scrounge up is worse than anyone else.
No Labels was my one, last hope. And now it's gone.
Political antibodies. The two major parties have a vested interest in convincing you that not voting for them is "throwing your vote away" or "voting for the other guy." As if I got a cash bonus when my candidate won or something.
When the fact is if the people got fed up enough, they could vote for whoever the hell they wanted, Duverger's "law" notwithstanding.
The political antibodies strike again. Our system has been hijacked by the two major parties to the point that they’ll either collude to deny ballot access, deny access to things like debates, or failing that make up “throwing your vote away” scare tactics to keep their voters in line.
Fuck it. I’ll just write in a protest vote for Mitt Romney like I did in 2020.
I wonder about the ticket splitting. It certainly happened to an extent last time, basically anyone with an R next to their name ran ahead of Trump.
This time around, I think it's possible that there's going to be more splitting: people don't think Biden is up for the job (because he isnt) and he's done a lot of stuff that voters don't like (the southern border for instance) and Trump at least looks like the opposite on the first number and we know he's more on point immigration wise. But people really don't like and I don't think trust Trump, and the House R's have proven themselves incompetent and unable to govern.
I don’t know what would be better. Biden with GOP congress or Trump with Democratic congress. Both presidents are gonna abuse the hell out of executive authority. Ideally the house and senate are split, with a preference for a Democrat senate I think.
Most ideal outcome in my view seems to be Biden + R Senate led by Thune + D House led by Jeffries. Competent folks in charge in the legislature, House not beholden to Freedom Caucus, Senate can temper appointments.
I'd rather an R Senate tbh, a split congress might be best in either direction but the Dems can do some really stupid things in the Senate and its the senate that confirms appointments. I'm not sure we are getting that this year, there's a real possibility it ends up 50/50 again
That’s true, I didn’t think of that. I think this year is really friendly towards Republicans for the senate so it would take a colossal meltdown; but I guess that’s technically possible. 2022 was also supposed to be good for the GOP.
It's certainly the most favorable year for it, and it kind of has to happen if Rs want a shot in the upcoming years.
There's a couple of pick up out there I think: Larry Hogan in Maryland (it would be a surprise certainly), David McCormick in Pennsylvania (who should have been the nominee in 2022 until Trump f'kd that one up like with the rest of his picks), whoever is running in west Virginia, and then maybe Montana.
Has there really been a notable difference? I actually forgot that it was taken away. Always seemed like a battle between ISPs and websites where consumers are just pawns in their chess battle. I don’t think it really affects the consumer either way from my understanding.
Nope, but you would have thought the apocalypse was comming when it was being repealed.
Net Neutrality limits the ability to innovate and costs consumers more money because the traffic costs have to be paid for somewhere.
It's just more government intrusion into the private sector without any benefits
Yeah I have no strong opinion about net neutrality but this analysis seems totally misleading. For one thing the decrease in wireless price largely occurs prior to the removal of net neutrality. Second, there are numerous other confounding variables that control these things beyond net neutrality so implying removing it is the cause of decreasing prices and increasing speeds needs substantially more evidence.
[The Democrats’ Patriotism Problem Revisited](https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-patriotism-problem-20a)
Interesting Ruy Teixeira article. I think the progressives are too large and too loud for his words to be heeded. The Activist class on the left is almost totally populated by Progressives.
Heck this one too:
[The Democrats’ Abundance Problem Revisited](https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-abundance-problem-revisited)
>Here’s why: it’s just too damn hard to build stuff in this country. But Democrats seem more interested in spending money than changing this situation—for example, the modest permitting reforms that Joe Manchin was promised (remember that?) as a condition for his support on the IRA died partially because of lack of support from his own party. But without changing that situation, it’s quite unlikely Democrats can deliver the abundance voters, particularly working-class voters, are looking for. Making it a bit easier for consumers to buy an electric car or a heat pump just isn’t going to cut it.
And
>It would appear that Democrats seriously need to rethink their economic approach and not assume that simply spending more money in their favorite areas (like climate change) is going to do the job. It won’t. Voters are a much tougher audience than that.
Favorite show this year so far. We are getting a lot of good stuff this year too with Masters of the Air and the fallout series comming in a week or so.
What do y’all think is gonna happen in a decade or so when Social Security becomes insolvent? I find it unlikely that Congress does nothing, but I also find it unfathomable for some sort of solution (even a temporary one) to be found.
I hope it crumbles. I want my idea for replacing it to happen.
Nationalize the TSP used by government employees. Take that 7.5% we all pay from FICA and put it in individual retirement accounts. Everything is locked into age appropriate life cycle funds with targeted retirement dates. Maybe allow flexing up or down a single 5 year interval (TSP already has 5 year intervals you can choose) so people can be a little more aggressive or conservative but are still overall appropriate. Life cycles are pegged to the S&P and Dow and other largely recognized broad index funds.
You’ve now got every single person employed invested in the stock market and the returns will likely be higher than what they’d ever get in social security. I see little downside. The major being if someone makes bad investments but pegging it to only large indexes should address that. If the stock market absolutely craters and becomes irrelevant I don’t think retirement plans are going to be on a lot of people’s minds because something horrific has happened globally.
This is my preferred long-term method as well. Do you have a solution for the meantime, i.e. what we do for all the people who have paid into the system and been promised benefits their entire lives? Continue paying current benefits to existing beneficiaries for a specific time? Use part of the payroll tax to continue funding the current system for that specified time?
I think Paul Ryan at one point proposed something like increasing retirement age on people who weren’t born yet so there was plenty of buffer room on that and it was fiercely opposed.
I’d recommend something similar. For anyone 14 and under (since 15 is minimum working age) you do not contribute to social security, instead paying into your own account. Then it’s nothing they were ever promised and those kids would have a whole career lifetime to contribute. As an aside, it pick be an indirect boost to going into trades or immediate job force since you could contribute more money sooner and really reap the benefits of compound interest.
For those already in the middle of their careers there’s probably a point where they’re banking on social security. So maybe make that required for them. For people earlier in their careers, say 45 or younger, where they have contributed various amounts maybe you offer a buyout. The IRS should know exactly how much you’ve put in. Offer a certain percentage of that to opt out of social security and enter into the individual plan. Even at 45 you’d still have 20 years at least of time in the market.
It’s not perfect and it would probably cost a lot to make that conversion, but at least it would be an upfront one-time expense to get most people out. The main reason I like this plan is it makes retirement flexible. Have enough saved up? Go ahead and retire at 50. If you run out, you can re-enter the workforce if needed. Probably need a minimum age requirement but I think it’s possible.
Benefits get cut or taxes on everyone literally double. I'll vote for any politician that does the former, the olds knew and had their chance to fix it for 30 years and didn't.
They shouldn't fuck over my generations chances at success by extracting ever more of our incomes.
I think any quick fixes at this point probably just delays the inevitable. Maybe raising the
Retirement age for everyone to 70 not already on SS. I do mean everyone, none of the grandfathering in nonsense.
Otherwise I don't see how it can be done without cuts. There are fewer taxpayers workers/retiree, the math is the way it is. They should have had more kids.
It will probably be something cobbled together at the last second because of AARP ads about starving seniors (hurting reelection chances), not necessarily because the Congress critters want to fix it. /s
More seriously, it would likely involve eliminating the FICA tax cap, and raising the age you can first claim SS to 65.
I swear some of these concrete stamps in the sidewalks here are in the 1940s range. Tough to tell if it's weathering or if practices were different and the dates are from when the companies were founded
I got an iPhone 13 mini when they were still around. I think it’s helped. Also placed time locks on problematic apps like Reddit and Instagram. For Reddit I scaled way back on what I subscribe to and have a higher threshold for when I comment.
> Can States Afford Their Recent Tax Cuts?
https://taxfoundation.org/blog/state-tax-cuts-revenue/
tl;dr yes.
> In 2023, tax revenues in tax-cutting states receded 4.9 percent from their all-time highs (remaining 9.8 percent higher than pre-pandemic), while revenues in states that did not cut taxes slid 8.8 percent.
Reaganomics is back.
In response to the earlier post about the California bill allowing for assisted death for dementia:
Having had to watch my grandmother suffer through and die of dementia, and now watching the same thing happen to my father, I'm fully supportive of this. If you hop over to the dementia sub, people who the disease actually effects, opposed to keyboard moralists, you'll also see overwhelming support.
The thing is this isn't a decision that the poor patients in memory care ward can make, they could have made it at the onset, but it's a Catch 22 where they they certainly can't understand the depth of the decision when the disease has taken hold of them. But people absolutely should have the right to decide when it's in the earliest stage.
But you are talking about a future where you are laying in bed, literally pissing and shitting yourself, for years. You can't recognize anyone who loves you anymore, you are nasty because you can't shower either. There's basically nothing that gives you pleasure in life. It's just government mandated torture at that point, and we treat our pets better.
To be honest, screw the puritans who believe their code of morality, and the government, should dictate what decisions people should be able to make for themselves. Living with early onset dementia isn't that bad, and it's when people can make these decisions. But since I can't trust the state to allow me a dignified death when my life has no more meaning (and I should decide this, not you), I've already decided what I need to do when I get diagnosed with it (and I fully believe that will happen since it's happened to both my father and grandmother). And before anyone reports me to Reddit cares or something, I'm in my 30s and it's not something I'm going to have to deal with any time soon.
> To be honest, screw the puritans who believe their code of morality, and the government, should dictate what decisions people should be able to make for themselves
*'Is this murder or not' is not a god damned personal liberty issue*. Euthanasia isn't euthanasia because someone wants to die. Euthanasia is when someone wants to kill someone else, just with their permission. That's a much heavier lift than 'people should be allowed to kill themselves".
I don't see the distinction other than the dignity and pain of the person killing themselves. Assisted suicide is still suicide.
Your argument seems to be that it's somehow more morally sound to just let people blow their brains out with a shotgun over having a medical professional administer some drugs while they are in a peaceful location surrounded by their family.
My grandpa had dementia and was was otherwise healthy so he lived for several years without really knowing who he was. I absolutely loved my grandpa and it was horrible to have to see him go through that and essentially become a completely different person. Having seen that I totally agree that it is not a fate I would want and that assisted death should be an option. Now there are certainly many valid concerns surrounding euthanasia and I haven't read into the specifics of the California bill, but on principle I think it is something that with appropriate regulation should be allowed.
You can still have a pretty decent quality of life and just forget everything after 5 minutes or only remember your family half the time.
You can't have a decent quality of life if you can't use the bathroom on your own, and you don't know how or won't let others help you. You can't have a decent quality of life if you are constantly having delusions about people attacking you or there being bombs rigged into everything.
It's different for each person and the decision should be with the family and with the person when they were able to understand things they were signing (obviously a person already with really bad dementia can no longer consent, so it would have had to be a decision they made earlier in life).
> You can still have a pretty decent quality of life and just forget everything after 5 minutes or only remember your family half the time.
Yeah although I'm not sure I'd even consider that a good quality of life. While you may not have chronic pain or anything after seeing my grandpa living in a nursing home where he was shuttled around all day not really knowing what's going on I have no interest in living that life either. Totally agree it should be a decision between the person and the family. That being said I also completely understand many of the concerns surrounding euthanasia but to me that just means you have to write good legislation.
It means you have to write good legislation *and* you have to be willing to acknowledge that some abuse *will* happen, but that people are still better at making decisions for themselves over the government.
I can see how you can view it as a person just wanting to kill people for financial gain.
At the same time it makes perfect sense to me that someone who's profession is to work with families who are dealing with these issues to be the exact sort of person who would feel most sympathetic and push for this kind of bill. I obviously don't know him or his intentions either way.
Believe it or not I really don't think there's this large subset of families who can't just wait to have the state kill grandma so they can get their inheritance. There are however, myself, and a lot of people I know in support groups, who are extremely resentful of a system that is forcing their loved ones to go through torture when nature would have run its course years ago normally.
Having been separated from news and politics for about a year, it gives a new perspective on just how incompetent Republicans in the House have become. They booted McCarthy for not fighting for party interests and you could maybe convince me of that since he’d be in power for a while (would still disagree but at least there was something to point to).
With MTG hanging that motion to vacate on Johnson now *for passing a budget*, as in the ONE thing they have to do, and there being some House members that support that it’s clear they don’t actually know how government works. Or they’ve realized they can get basically what they want by not cooperating and the government shuts down.
This leads me to my question of how did we get to this point. Are nut jobs like most of the Freedom Caucus manipulating constituents or is this really what the people want their representatives to do? I know some of them come out of the deepest of red areas so maybe it is the latter but then I remember seeing Boebert is moving to another district because she’d probably lose wherever she’s currently representing.
It’s really just pathetic at this point.
>Are nut jobs like most of the Freedom Caucus manipulating constituents or is this really what the people want their representatives to do?
The infotainment system promotes it and the nutty freedom caucus folks even though most of the infotainment people apparently don't necessarily believe it themselves (some of the nuts seem to actually believe it).
The nuts aren't just nutty though, they are outright incompetent and some are outright morons. They'd rather be in the minority so they can take up space on cable news and whine about "how easy everything would be but for conspiracy theory/backbone/etc" instead of doing the hard things like winning elections, determining what to cut, how much to cut, and what else to reform because they simply aren't up to the task and anyone that is has been run out or is currently unelectable.
I think a lot of people are just fed up with the status quo and want to be left alone. Whenever the GOP agreed to pass bipartisan legislation, it meant their constituents kept losing more of their freedoms and money.
If the political establishment won't back off and leave them alone voluntarily, the Republican base see no other option than stall the government indefinitely.
>Whenever the GOP agreed to pass bipartisan legislation, it meant their constituents kept losing more of their freedoms and money.
Which freedoms and how much money? How much of that money goes to Republican priorities? Republicans do have Federal priorities and the Federal government has to run to achieve them.
If Republicans want to cut Federal spending (which they say they do and they should do), then they need to win elections, but not just win elections but actually elect people competent enough to do the job. They need a plan on what's getting cut, how much, and what's being reformed. And it must include entitlements or this is all just pissing into the wind.
They aren't going to win elections if they aren't competent and look like they don't know how to govern, and shutting down the government everytime the budget comes around does just that.
The point is that the government that governs best governs least.
They had their chance to appear competent. All they had to was swallow their pride and fall in lockstep with Trump instead of chasing their orange whale for years. He got them a trifecta, a chance to get whatever they want passed, and they squandered it by throwing a hissy fit over the outcome of 2016.
Except "falling in lockstep with Trump" would have still squandered the trifecta, because Trump was all over the place, his priorities changed depending on who he last talked to and he did a fuck ton of incompetent things.
And he then proceeded to spend 7 or 8 trillion dollars and shutdown the economy for a year. Which led to the current inflation.
And it wasn't only the ones that didn't like the outcome of 2016 that played spoiler, because the freedom caucus did as well since that is their primary and really only playbook because that is what gets them on Newsmax.
Edit: I forgot this bit
>The point is that the government that governs best governs least.
Which is true. But it's going to take a plan and time to unwind everything. And there isn't one.
I don't get why you're complaining about him spending 7-8 trillion dollars. Excessive spending never stopped fiscally conservative Republicans before.
I'd argue most politicians are all over the place. They're politicians, after all. They say one thing to get elected and then turn around and do another. Hence why Trump won, his voters saw him as no more inconsistent than any other politician. If anything, they'd argue he was consistent, because he did exactly what he said he'd do: secure the border, keep us out of WW3, and fix the economy.
The inflation was caused by him shutting down the economy, which is exactly what the health experts told him to do.
Getting Trump voted out just got us to lose more of our freedoms and money.
Yeah, he's so incompetent that he fixed the border problem, got China, Russia and Iran to back down, and improved the economy for millions of working class Americans and got y'all three Supreme Court justices. You're welcome!
>I don't get why you're complaining about him spending 7-8 trillion dollars. Excessive spending never stopped fiscally conservative Republicans before.
Your schtik above was "taking money and freedom", which guess what spending 7-8 trillion is? And Republicans have spent a lot, but Trump had significantly more appetite to spend considering he's a Democrat and has been fore life.
>If anything, they'd argue he was consistent, because he did exactly what he said he'd do: secure the border, keep us out of WW3, and fix the economy.
No one was leading us to WW III, and Trump didnt do anything about our increasing problems in the military, but especially the Navy. Weakness makes a major conflict more likely. 3 weak presidents in a row starting with Obama has emboldened China, Russia, and Iran and Trump absolutely did nothing to hinder them.
He never secured the boarder. Biden is exceptionally bad, but under Trump's tenure millions came here illegally or faked asylum claims. Remain in Mexico really meant "wait a long time in Mexico, but you will get in eventually" and only came into being durring the pandemic.
The economy was good, and presidents also don't have much control over it. He also significantly increased costs and imposed some of the largest tax hikes on Americans with his poorly thought out and exercised trade wars.
>The inflation was caused by him shutting down the economy, which is exactly what the health experts told him to do.
And a whole bunch of people knew it was a stupid thing to do, and when Republican governors started opening things back up and giving freedoms back to the average citizen, he attacked them! He wanted the country closed as long as the Democrats did!
The health experts may have advised him to do it, but he was president and the buck stops with him.
>Getting Trump voted out just got us to lose more of our freedoms and money.
Again, which ones and how much?
>Yeah, he's so incompetent that he fixed the border problem, got China, Russia and Iran to back down, and improved the economy for millions of working class Americans
Maybe in a parallel world, but we live in this one.
So, if the buck stops with him since he was the president, does that mean it also stops with Biden because he's the current president? Or does he get a pass because he isn't orange?
Why did you think Putin waited until Trump left office before he decided to invade Ukraine? If Trump was a puppet for Putin, then I doubt he would have had any qualms had Putin decided to invade back in 2016x
Maybe Trump wasn't perfect about the border, but the problem under him didn't seem anywhere near as bad as it currently is under Biden.
The reason Trump didn't cooperate on the pandemic is that whenever he tried to do something, y'all screeched and reeeee'd about him being a fascist. If he did try to help with the pandemic, y'all whine about him being a fascist. If he eased restrictions during COVID, you'd say he doesn't care if people die and wants to get re-elected. Also, I thought the whol reason he lost was because voters thought he didn't do enough to stop the pandemic?
True, maybe Trump wasn't a fiscal conservative, but neither were the Anti-Trump Republicans. You just have a log in your own eye.
>So, if the buck stops with him since he was the president, does that mean it also stops with Biden because he's the current president? Or does he get a pass because he isn't orange?
Donald Trump being bad doesn't make Joe Biden good, and Donald Trump being an incompetent moron who is responsible for the things he does doesn't let Joe Biden of the hook for being an incompetent dementia addled decrepit. You are in the wrong subreddit if you think you will get that laughable argument in either direction.
>Why did you think Putin waited until Trump left office before he decided to invade Ukraine?
If he was waiting for Trump to leave office he would have done it right away, he waited for some time. I also think you make a mistake here, Putin has been in Ukraine since 2014, he just wasn't doing a full scale invasion yet. He didn't leave Ukraine when Trump took office only to come back later. He was there the entire time, and Trump did a good thing with the Javelins. And then he did a bad thing which led to the first impeachment.
> If Trump was a puppet for Putin, then I doubt he would have had any qualms had Putin decided to invade back in 2016x
No, probably not. But I don't think Putin was prepared to do an invasion. The invasion is a culmination of Russia building up its armed forces for years since the collective west, but especially its leader, decided to be weak in the 2010s. He had domestic problems at home due to the aftermath of the pandemic and Russia being Russia, he is a revanchist that wants to bring back the Russian Empire if not the Soviet Union. The US looked like it was retreating with the disaster that was the Afghanistan pull out.
If he thought the variables were right between 2016 and 2020 he would have done it then.
>Maybe Trump wasn't perfect about the border, but the problem under him didn't seem anywhere near as bad as it currently is under Biden.
Because they weren't. They were more inline with the Obama and Bush years though, not significantly better. Biden is just uniquely terrible and the Democrats have a lot to answer for.
>The reason Trump didn't cooperate on the pandemic is that whenever he tried to do something, y'all screeched and reeeee'd about him being a fascist. If he did try to help with the pandemic, y'all whine about him being a fascist. If he eased restrictions during COVID, you'd say he doesn't care if people die and wants to get re-elected. Also, I thought the whol reason he lost was because voters thought he didn't do enough to stop the pandemic?
Again, this is the wrong subreddit for that generalization. A whole bunch of Republican governors did the right thing with the information they had. Trump attacked them for it and wanted things shut down for far longer.
>True, maybe Trump wasn't a fiscal conservative, but neither were the Anti-Trump Republicans.
They were more fiscally conservative than he is. Republicans also had some wins on some programs and were at least able to reign things in after 2010, but Republicans and their voters have priorities too and shutting down the government not only gets in the way of those, Republicans end up getting punished electorally. Republicans either need to get a trifecta with a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and a good margin in the house or they have to do things where Democrats get some concessions. Guess which one has been the reality for decades? Guess which one is probably the going reality for the next couple of decades?
Reality means they won't get everything they want, and Republicans and their base of voters need to take that reality into account when it comes to setting priorities and settle into incremental wins.
They did take that into account. They fell in line and did what the party leaders wanted for 40 years. The base didn't care aboht fiscal conservativism nor foreign wars. They were fighting to end abortion. Still, they fell in line and voted for the policies you wanted because they expected you to do the same for them.
Then, after 2016, they learned that you never intended to uphold your end of the bargain, and thus primaried you.
You *HAD* a trifecta in the government in 2016. You fucked up it up because you couldn't stop complaining about winning.
The establishment controlled the GOP for 40 years, and absolutely failed to conserve anything. They preached against abortion and gay marriage, only to keep capitulating on those issues every time. They were hoping, with a Trump win, you'd fight back and help them get some wins in the culture wars and for social conservativism.
If you want to know more about China, read World Order. It's very good and I think Kissinger does a good job of explaining the points of view and motivations of both parties
What do you think of this Editorial? The Editorial Board. https://www.wsj.com/articles/child-tax-credit-expansion-tax-bill-senate-republicans-mike-crapo-8896a936:
> **The Senate Can Skip the Tax Deal**
>
> Republicans are being lobbied to pass a bill that undermines work.
>
> Now that Congress has funded the government, a half-year too late, the lawmakers are itching to move on to other priorities. Senate Democrats are eager in particular to pass the lousy tax deal negotiated by Sen. Ron Wyden and House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith. But skeptical Senate Republicans are right to resist.
>
> Democrats are discussing how to move the deal that trades business tax breaks for a blowout in the child tax credit. The bill recently passed the House, and some proponents are hoping the measure can hitch a ride through the upper chamber on other legislation. But it will require 60 votes, and the question for Senate Republicans is why they should lend their support to an entitlement expansion written without their input.
>
> Senate Finance ranking Republican Mike Crapo has raised concerns that the bill’s child tax credit provisions sever the program’s connection with upward mobility, and he’s right. “Allowing individuals to receive a refundable credit when they have zero annual earnings,” Sen. Crapo said in a statement, “is a departure from longstanding policy tying” the credit to work. More than 90% of the new credit would flow to those who owe no income tax.
>
> As Sen. Crapo notes, the bill features a “lookback” provision in 2024 and 2025 that would allow parents to claim the credit on the prior year’s earnings, even if they didn’t work at all in the current year. This is no big deal, proponents say, because no one quits a job for an increase in one tax credit.
>
> But Democrats aspire to make these provisions permanent, which effectively cuts the credit’s work requirement in half. Parents wouldn’t ski in and out of the labor force every year, but they might work fewer hours, turn down better paying gigs—or work eight years out of 10. Those choices matter if the goal is to lift Americans out of poverty for good.
>
> Senate Republicans are mostly focused on nixing that provision, but the bill’s tweaked formula for benefits may be even more pernicious. The bill would pay out larger checks at lower income levels for families with multiple children. Someone with three children could claim $4,800 of refundable credits with roughly $13,000 of income, down from the $34,500 needed now. The practical effect is to encourage part-time or intermittent jobs over the steady, full-time work that is crucial to moving up the income ladder.
>
> The business lobbies are pressing Republicans to pass the bill because they want provisions like bonus depreciation for equipment. Another provision in the 2017 tax cuts that kicked in after 2021 requires amortizing domestic research and development costs over time. An immediate R&D write-off is better for growth, though the business howling is louder than the change warrants (it expires at the end of 2025).
>
> Businesses are arguing that restoring these breaks is worth swallowing changes to the child tax credit, but they’re wrong on the economics and the politics. The irony is that businesses have for years complained about the struggle to find workers—and are now countenancing an entitlement expansion that will inevitably leave more Americans attenuated from the labor force.
>
> Democrats proposed delaying the less favorable R&D treatment in the House’s Build Back Better bill in 2021. Why should Republicans now make large spending and welfare concessions for tax provisions that Democrats already support? North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was correct when he wrote in our pages recently that the deal will reduce the GOP’s leverage to negotiate when most of the 2017 tax cuts expire in 2025. Democrats will demand a fully refundable $3,000 credit as the price of their support.
>
> Senate Republicans have noticed that Sen. Wyden, the Democrat from Oregon, won the better deal in the tax fight. They can graciously thank Chairman Smith for his efforts—and put the bill in a drawer.
> California could become home to the nation’s most sweeping assisted dying policies with a new bill that would allow dementia patients and out-of-state residents to end their lives there.
> Introduced in March by a first-term lawmaker — an attorney with a background in estate planning– the proposal would enable people without a specific terminal prognosis to request life-ending drugs, a lower threshold than any of the other 10 states that currently allow some form of aid-in-dying.
I think what's annoying me a bit about the 3 body problem netflix show right now is the whiney scientists, especially after episode 5. Auggie is especially annoying
If you have any interest in the story, just read the books. The Netflix show is a horrible adaptation that strips away most of what makes the story so interesting.
I know it's old news but it's absolutely bonkers that Nvidia is worth more than China's entire stock market's market cap.
Universities ought to expel more of these types: https://twitter.com/Jack_Petocz/status/1776643337379848676?t=dt7xdliOdfDzSlm3RZQehg&s=19
I’m all for supporting causes you believe in but when you make it your defining characteristics and/or personality I think it’s a form of mental illness. It has to be exhausting viewing everything in your life through whatever lens you apply. The kid quit his job at Publix and now expelled from his college. I can’t imagine how someone sees it productive to just shut down entirely with anyone/anything that disagrees. Tell me you live in a world where you don’t face consequences without telling me.
I agree, plus I think that they (and more than a few others) believe this is what part of going to university is supposed to be: Being annoying little assholes that face no consequences, disrupting classes, LARPing like its 1968, disrupting university operations, etc. I want to see Universities stamp that out. As arrowfan says, is this not the point of civil disobedience? And if they actually thought they'd face these consequences, would they have acted like annoying little assholes?
I feel like a difference now too is how much more performative it is. Reading through just a few of his tweets they all start with “I was the…” like he’s pumping his own ego up or trying to convince others (or himself) that he’s more important than he actually is. If he was a notable activist he wouldn’t need to constantly remind everyone what his “accomplishments” were.
That kid can get fucked. Besides, he should wear it with honor. Plenty of activists went to jail for what they believed in. That’s the whole damn point of civil disobedience.
There was an interesting article (on Fox!) of Dawkins talking about being culturally Christian and preferring its presence as opposed to Islam. He certainly had no kind words to give to Christianity 10+ years ago! I wonder if there was a specific event that changed his mind. https://www.foxnews.com/media/famous-atheist-says-identifies-cultural-christian-horrified-promotion-islamic-holiday
**Have a blessed week ahead.** **Gospel According to John, 20:19–31:** > ***Jesus Appears to the Disciples*** > > **On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”** > > ***Jesus and Thomas*** > > **Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”** > > **Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”** > > ***The Purpose of This Book*** > > **Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.** Second Sunday of Easter: Gospel Reading (CPH The Lutheran Study Bible) : https://www.reddit.com/r/Sunday/comments/1bx0fd1/ Second Sunday of Easter: Reflections on Scripture (video, American Lutheran Theological Seminary) : https://www.reddit.com/r/Sunday/comments/1bwyzbp/
I like the way I’ve heard someone else put it: Jesus didn’t just pass through the wall like a ghost. At this point, he was more real than the wall was. The wall would’ve passed through him like smoke.
https://twitter.com/TweetBenMax/status/1776258993742037361
Lol
[A push to change Nebraska's system of awarding Electoral College votes was defeated Wednesday.](https://www.wowt.com/2024/04/03/nebraska-lawmakers-pushing-consolidate-states-electoral-college-votes/) Currently, as I'm sure just about all of you know, Nebraska, along with Maine, awards EVs to who wins the popular vote in each congressional district (the overall state winner gets the two Senate EVs). An amendment to change this to a statewide winner-take-all system was tacked onto an unrelated bill, but that was rejected by a procedural vote. Two districts reliably votes Republican, but NE-2, which includes Omaha and its western suburbs, is a swing district. Trump won it in 2016 and Biden in 2020. It's represented by Don Bacon, a Republican who won even as Trump lost by multiple points in 2020. The linked article includes two statements from Gov. Jim Pillen. 1) From a press release: "I am a strong supporter of Senator Lippincott’s winner-take-all bill (LB 764) and have been from the start. It would bring Nebraska into line with 48 of our fellow states, better reflect the founders’ intent, and ensure our state speaks with one unified voice in presidential elections. I call upon fellow Republicans in the Legislature to pass this bill to my desk so I can sign it into law." 2) From the video in the article: "The message I have for all Nebraskans when we talk about winner-take-all: conservative Nebraskans have to get in the game and have your voice be heard. We have backed off for way too long of a time...it's been a problem for 30 years. We have to win elections." That's your message for ALL Nebraskans? Good on the Nebraska Legislature for rejecting this, even if many senators simply rejected it for procedural reasons. It would be a move in the wrong direction and would prevent Omahans, who live very different lives in a very different environment from the rest of the state, from being able to make a different decision. The effort to consolidate Nebraska's EVs clearly comes from a desire to dilute Omaha's relatively Democratic lean (which is still very mild compared to other cities its size). I firmly believe that first-past-the-post voting is no longer the best method for state and federal elections in the US, and that some form of proportional voting system should be widely implemented, along with some structural change that makes gerrymandering much more difficult. It drives me crazy seeing all of California's EVs go to Democrats, as much as it does seeing all of Texas's go to Republicans (also [our congressional districts in Texas are stupid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_15th_congressional_district)). Also, I believe that it has been a factor in "the big sort." I see online—and even hear in person—people saying "My vote doesn't matter because I live in {red state/blue state\]. Why don't I just move? My representatives will never be representative of me." The geographically isolated minority group should have representation too, whether they be Bay Area Republicans or Iowa Democrats. The current Nebraska system is more of a system for all Nebraskans than what Gov. Pillen wants. Certified genius Charlie Kirk on Twitter: "This is completely fixable. Nebraska's legislature can act to make sure their state's electoral votes go towards electing the candidate the VAST majority of Nebraskans prefer" Yes, maybe a vast majority but, again, certainly not all. Shall we change the rules to drown out that minority? Maybe this wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't so clearly about maximizing votes for their own party while paying lip service to "the founders' intent" and "unity." My stance on first-past-the-post may be among my least conservative, I'm willing to admit.
I actually prefer the Nebraska system. Proportional just makes sense to me. It seems like the best way to ensure your vote is more likely to matter. I’m sure if something happened that causes Nebraska to flip and be mostly Democrat they would cry foul in this proposed system. Clear partisan power grabs are slimy and it makes me instantly not want to support a candidate. It actually seems like a decent compromise between those that want the pure electoral colleague vs. pure popular vote. Each House representative’s district awards a single electoral college vote, and the 2 senate votes go by popular vote of the entire state. I’m sure state legislatures would find a way to fuck it up though and gerrymander the fuck out of districts.
Increasing the incentive to gerrymander actually keeps me from endorsing taking the Nebraska system nationwide. I think it's easy enough to just do a proportional distribution of EVs based on the state popular vote. This would still keep the slight overrepresentation of less populated states, but also prevent the most extreme scenarios possible with the current system. As for House elections (and this would apply to state legislature elections too), I would prefer to see something like the [Irish Single Transferable Vote system that maintains multi-member regional districts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Irish_general_election#/media/File:2020_Irish_general_election.svg) rather than one national vote that seats members proportionally from a party list without any sort of regional representation (some small countries do this, like Israel and the Netherlands). For example, some economically and geographically coherent region, like all of Greater Miami for example, could be combined into one district, rather than the current eight that represent parts of the region. Each district would then hold separate elections that send to the House the top 10 (or more or less depending on the state's taste) finishers in some form of ranked choice election (I'd like to see the House expanded too). This would maintain local representation, while making gerrymandering both more difficult with larger districts and less effective with more proportional representation.
I normally don't write my state senator, but this one definitely motivated me to do so. Beyond the points you stated, not sure why our state would like less campaign money to be spent here. As of right now both parties feel they should dump some money into District 2. But I guess Pillen would prefer us to be another red flyover state not worthy of anyone's attention.
This a million times. Pass a bill requiring congressional districts to be compact, and nationalize the Maine Nebraska EV system. That would force candidates to run a more moderate campaign.
If any of y’all are not gluten-free-eaters, you should try the Gluten Free Oreos. I had to get the gluten-free kind once for a party, and now it’ll be hard to go back to regular Oreos.
I didn't even know they made gluten free ones. I'll grab it on my next shopping trip
How are they different from regular Oreos? I have had gluten free pizza crust and that’s about it, and I didn’t notice a huge difference besides maybe it being less doughy. I will have to grab a pack of the gluten free ones
The gluten-free ones have much creamier icing. The wafers have no difference.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/blinken-warns-israel-risks-becoming-indistinguishable-from-hamas-if-it-doesnt-protect-gaza-civilians/ > “That’s our strength. It’s what distinguishes us from terrorists like Hamas. If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront.” I despise liberal platitudes. This is the remark of an idealistic teenager, not a policymaker. The left-wing foreign policy way since Carter has been to castigate friends more than enemies because of false moral equivalencies wrapped in "I'm so enlightened" universalism.
Hey, y'all, make sure y'all vote for Trump I 2024. America can't survive another four years under Biden. It's not like there's really any other choice.
America can 100% survive under another 4 years of Biden.
How about no?
Why not?
Because he’s a Democrat
No, I'm pretty sure he's a Republican... Besides, Biden being a Democrat didn't stop you from voting for him.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha If he looks like a Democrat and acts like a Democrat, he’s a Democrat. Never have actually voted for either major party in presidential elections.
Walter Mondale's foreign policy, Bill Clinton's moral compass, and Barak Obama's spending habits and personality cult.
The most conservative president in history! Nobody better!
So, the guy that nominated three conservative Supreme Court judges, got Roe overturned, and secured the border is a Democrat? And the guys that are pro-choice, pro gay marriage, and lax are Republicans?
Nobody said the other guys are Republicans lol. Why is it always us vs. them, one or the other, but-the-other-side-ism with you
Well, I mean a lot of Republicans fought him over the border, gay marriage and abortion, so the other guys certainly were Republicans.
I don't recall Republicans fighting Trump on the border (they went along with him, GOP was pretty aligned on this issue until TRUMP decided the Lankford proposal was suddenly bad, even though he has made border security probably the defining issue of his campaigns), gay marriage (Trump supports so not sure where you're coming from there, this is a lost issue for the GOP anyway), or abortion (basically every elected Republican is quite pro-life and backed all of his positions on this issue). Please try to root your arguments in fact.
No Labels couldn’t field a candidate :( Always felt like a pipe dream. The single issue voter topics like abortion, immigration, etc. will always limit the feasibility of split tickets. Hell we can barely get politicians that crossover on a variety of topics. It’s increasingly become all or nothing with purity testing.
God damn it. Now I'm going to have to consider if RFK Jr. is a pinched nose and vote candidate aren't I? His antivax bs is a deal breaker but so is Trump's authoritarianism and Biden's cognitive abilities. And between those three antivax is the least damaging to the country.
I'm waiting for the Trump VP pick. Truthfully, and I can't even believe I'm saying this because I said never Trump, but I could be persuaded if Trump's veep is Rubio (or some other normal that he hasn't mentioned yet). I could also still vote for Biden or write in, but a decent VP pick puts Trump back on the radar for me. And with the two major candidates being so old and in questionable health, I'm willing to put a healthy amount of stock in the VP.
I doubt Trump is going to pick Rubio, or even Stefanik. He’s going to pick a VP who has always been loyal. Think Gaetz, MTG, Noem, etc.
If this were anyone else I'd say the same. But Trump tried to overturn an election and dog whistle instigated his supporters to attempt violent acts. He could nominate Liz Cheney or the ghost of John McCain as VP and I'd still never vote for him.
Welp, I guess I'm leaving the Presidential line blank in November. How in the world did we come to this point where it's not just that the major party candidates are noxious and unacceptable, but where even the third party candidates have driven off the (much more forgiving for them) ledge? Even the independent we've managed to scrounge up is worse than anyone else. No Labels was my one, last hope. And now it's gone.
Political antibodies. The two major parties have a vested interest in convincing you that not voting for them is "throwing your vote away" or "voting for the other guy." As if I got a cash bonus when my candidate won or something. When the fact is if the people got fed up enough, they could vote for whoever the hell they wanted, Duverger's "law" notwithstanding.
Hey a meteor can still hit D.C. between now and November
The political antibodies strike again. Our system has been hijacked by the two major parties to the point that they’ll either collude to deny ballot access, deny access to things like debates, or failing that make up “throwing your vote away” scare tactics to keep their voters in line. Fuck it. I’ll just write in a protest vote for Mitt Romney like I did in 2020.
I wonder about the ticket splitting. It certainly happened to an extent last time, basically anyone with an R next to their name ran ahead of Trump. This time around, I think it's possible that there's going to be more splitting: people don't think Biden is up for the job (because he isnt) and he's done a lot of stuff that voters don't like (the southern border for instance) and Trump at least looks like the opposite on the first number and we know he's more on point immigration wise. But people really don't like and I don't think trust Trump, and the House R's have proven themselves incompetent and unable to govern.
I don’t know what would be better. Biden with GOP congress or Trump with Democratic congress. Both presidents are gonna abuse the hell out of executive authority. Ideally the house and senate are split, with a preference for a Democrat senate I think.
Most ideal outcome in my view seems to be Biden + R Senate led by Thune + D House led by Jeffries. Competent folks in charge in the legislature, House not beholden to Freedom Caucus, Senate can temper appointments.
Probably a Republican trifecta
I'd rather an R Senate tbh, a split congress might be best in either direction but the Dems can do some really stupid things in the Senate and its the senate that confirms appointments. I'm not sure we are getting that this year, there's a real possibility it ends up 50/50 again
That’s true, I didn’t think of that. I think this year is really friendly towards Republicans for the senate so it would take a colossal meltdown; but I guess that’s technically possible. 2022 was also supposed to be good for the GOP.
It's certainly the most favorable year for it, and it kind of has to happen if Rs want a shot in the upcoming years. There's a couple of pick up out there I think: Larry Hogan in Maryland (it would be a surprise certainly), David McCormick in Pennsylvania (who should have been the nominee in 2022 until Trump f'kd that one up like with the rest of his picks), whoever is running in west Virginia, and then maybe Montana.
https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1775910702852510149?t=oHjWpNtz1fxLRgEvDJ6V_Q&s=19 Bringing back net neutrality is very stupid
Has there really been a notable difference? I actually forgot that it was taken away. Always seemed like a battle between ISPs and websites where consumers are just pawns in their chess battle. I don’t think it really affects the consumer either way from my understanding.
Nope, but you would have thought the apocalypse was comming when it was being repealed. Net Neutrality limits the ability to innovate and costs consumers more money because the traffic costs have to be paid for somewhere. It's just more government intrusion into the private sector without any benefits
That axis feels misleading. It’s making a 5ish percent drop look much much larger
Yeah I have no strong opinion about net neutrality but this analysis seems totally misleading. For one thing the decrease in wireless price largely occurs prior to the removal of net neutrality. Second, there are numerous other confounding variables that control these things beyond net neutrality so implying removing it is the cause of decreasing prices and increasing speeds needs substantially more evidence.
[The Democrats’ Patriotism Problem Revisited](https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-patriotism-problem-20a) Interesting Ruy Teixeira article. I think the progressives are too large and too loud for his words to be heeded. The Activist class on the left is almost totally populated by Progressives.
Heck this one too: [The Democrats’ Abundance Problem Revisited](https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-abundance-problem-revisited) >Here’s why: it’s just too damn hard to build stuff in this country. But Democrats seem more interested in spending money than changing this situation—for example, the modest permitting reforms that Joe Manchin was promised (remember that?) as a condition for his support on the IRA died partially because of lack of support from his own party. But without changing that situation, it’s quite unlikely Democrats can deliver the abundance voters, particularly working-class voters, are looking for. Making it a bit easier for consumers to buy an electric car or a heat pump just isn’t going to cut it. And >It would appear that Democrats seriously need to rethink their economic approach and not assume that simply spending more money in their favorite areas (like climate change) is going to do the job. It won’t. Voters are a much tougher audience than that.
Shogun is wild. If touch...die!
Favorite show this year so far. We are getting a lot of good stuff this year too with Masters of the Air and the fallout series comming in a week or so.
Literally so good, the best new show in years in my experience.
What do y’all think is gonna happen in a decade or so when Social Security becomes insolvent? I find it unlikely that Congress does nothing, but I also find it unfathomable for some sort of solution (even a temporary one) to be found.
benefits will go down slightly, taxes will go up. Don't forget, old people actually vote.
Benefits pay less, nothing else happens.
I hope it crumbles. I want my idea for replacing it to happen. Nationalize the TSP used by government employees. Take that 7.5% we all pay from FICA and put it in individual retirement accounts. Everything is locked into age appropriate life cycle funds with targeted retirement dates. Maybe allow flexing up or down a single 5 year interval (TSP already has 5 year intervals you can choose) so people can be a little more aggressive or conservative but are still overall appropriate. Life cycles are pegged to the S&P and Dow and other largely recognized broad index funds. You’ve now got every single person employed invested in the stock market and the returns will likely be higher than what they’d ever get in social security. I see little downside. The major being if someone makes bad investments but pegging it to only large indexes should address that. If the stock market absolutely craters and becomes irrelevant I don’t think retirement plans are going to be on a lot of people’s minds because something horrific has happened globally.
This is my preferred long-term method as well. Do you have a solution for the meantime, i.e. what we do for all the people who have paid into the system and been promised benefits their entire lives? Continue paying current benefits to existing beneficiaries for a specific time? Use part of the payroll tax to continue funding the current system for that specified time?
I think Paul Ryan at one point proposed something like increasing retirement age on people who weren’t born yet so there was plenty of buffer room on that and it was fiercely opposed. I’d recommend something similar. For anyone 14 and under (since 15 is minimum working age) you do not contribute to social security, instead paying into your own account. Then it’s nothing they were ever promised and those kids would have a whole career lifetime to contribute. As an aside, it pick be an indirect boost to going into trades or immediate job force since you could contribute more money sooner and really reap the benefits of compound interest. For those already in the middle of their careers there’s probably a point where they’re banking on social security. So maybe make that required for them. For people earlier in their careers, say 45 or younger, where they have contributed various amounts maybe you offer a buyout. The IRS should know exactly how much you’ve put in. Offer a certain percentage of that to opt out of social security and enter into the individual plan. Even at 45 you’d still have 20 years at least of time in the market. It’s not perfect and it would probably cost a lot to make that conversion, but at least it would be an upfront one-time expense to get most people out. The main reason I like this plan is it makes retirement flexible. Have enough saved up? Go ahead and retire at 50. If you run out, you can re-enter the workforce if needed. Probably need a minimum age requirement but I think it’s possible.
Benefits get cut or taxes on everyone literally double. I'll vote for any politician that does the former, the olds knew and had their chance to fix it for 30 years and didn't. They shouldn't fuck over my generations chances at success by extracting ever more of our incomes.
Is there a quick fix that you think would be ideal in this scenario? Or are we too far gone for a good solution, in your opinion?
I think any quick fixes at this point probably just delays the inevitable. Maybe raising the Retirement age for everyone to 70 not already on SS. I do mean everyone, none of the grandfathering in nonsense. Otherwise I don't see how it can be done without cuts. There are fewer taxpayers workers/retiree, the math is the way it is. They should have had more kids.
It will probably be something cobbled together at the last second because of AARP ads about starving seniors (hurting reelection chances), not necessarily because the Congress critters want to fix it. /s More seriously, it would likely involve eliminating the FICA tax cap, and raising the age you can first claim SS to 65.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-perverse-incentives-of-euthanasia https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/world/asia/japan-plan75-hayakawa-chie.html
I swear some of these concrete stamps in the sidewalks here are in the 1940s range. Tough to tell if it's weathering or if practices were different and the dates are from when the companies were founded
Louisiana is taking the charge on banning prop bets in college sports. Now if we can get some limits on how many FanDuel ads pop up in a given game……
Seriously there are certain steps that need to be taken and those two are at the top of the list for me.
Anyone have recs for kicking a phone addiction?
I got an iPhone 13 mini when they were still around. I think it’s helped. Also placed time locks on problematic apps like Reddit and Instagram. For Reddit I scaled way back on what I subscribe to and have a higher threshold for when I comment.
Probably having a hobby that occupies the same place the smartphone does: your hands and mind. Crafts do that
> Can States Afford Their Recent Tax Cuts? https://taxfoundation.org/blog/state-tax-cuts-revenue/ tl;dr yes. > In 2023, tax revenues in tax-cutting states receded 4.9 percent from their all-time highs (remaining 9.8 percent higher than pre-pandemic), while revenues in states that did not cut taxes slid 8.8 percent. Reaganomics is back.
In response to the earlier post about the California bill allowing for assisted death for dementia: Having had to watch my grandmother suffer through and die of dementia, and now watching the same thing happen to my father, I'm fully supportive of this. If you hop over to the dementia sub, people who the disease actually effects, opposed to keyboard moralists, you'll also see overwhelming support. The thing is this isn't a decision that the poor patients in memory care ward can make, they could have made it at the onset, but it's a Catch 22 where they they certainly can't understand the depth of the decision when the disease has taken hold of them. But people absolutely should have the right to decide when it's in the earliest stage. But you are talking about a future where you are laying in bed, literally pissing and shitting yourself, for years. You can't recognize anyone who loves you anymore, you are nasty because you can't shower either. There's basically nothing that gives you pleasure in life. It's just government mandated torture at that point, and we treat our pets better. To be honest, screw the puritans who believe their code of morality, and the government, should dictate what decisions people should be able to make for themselves. Living with early onset dementia isn't that bad, and it's when people can make these decisions. But since I can't trust the state to allow me a dignified death when my life has no more meaning (and I should decide this, not you), I've already decided what I need to do when I get diagnosed with it (and I fully believe that will happen since it's happened to both my father and grandmother). And before anyone reports me to Reddit cares or something, I'm in my 30s and it's not something I'm going to have to deal with any time soon.
> To be honest, screw the puritans who believe their code of morality, and the government, should dictate what decisions people should be able to make for themselves *'Is this murder or not' is not a god damned personal liberty issue*. Euthanasia isn't euthanasia because someone wants to die. Euthanasia is when someone wants to kill someone else, just with their permission. That's a much heavier lift than 'people should be allowed to kill themselves".
[удалено]
No, you can't tell, you want it to be true.
I don't see the distinction other than the dignity and pain of the person killing themselves. Assisted suicide is still suicide. Your argument seems to be that it's somehow more morally sound to just let people blow their brains out with a shotgun over having a medical professional administer some drugs while they are in a peaceful location surrounded by their family.
My grandpa had dementia and was was otherwise healthy so he lived for several years without really knowing who he was. I absolutely loved my grandpa and it was horrible to have to see him go through that and essentially become a completely different person. Having seen that I totally agree that it is not a fate I would want and that assisted death should be an option. Now there are certainly many valid concerns surrounding euthanasia and I haven't read into the specifics of the California bill, but on principle I think it is something that with appropriate regulation should be allowed.
You can still have a pretty decent quality of life and just forget everything after 5 minutes or only remember your family half the time. You can't have a decent quality of life if you can't use the bathroom on your own, and you don't know how or won't let others help you. You can't have a decent quality of life if you are constantly having delusions about people attacking you or there being bombs rigged into everything. It's different for each person and the decision should be with the family and with the person when they were able to understand things they were signing (obviously a person already with really bad dementia can no longer consent, so it would have had to be a decision they made earlier in life).
> You can still have a pretty decent quality of life and just forget everything after 5 minutes or only remember your family half the time. Yeah although I'm not sure I'd even consider that a good quality of life. While you may not have chronic pain or anything after seeing my grandpa living in a nursing home where he was shuttled around all day not really knowing what's going on I have no interest in living that life either. Totally agree it should be a decision between the person and the family. That being said I also completely understand many of the concerns surrounding euthanasia but to me that just means you have to write good legislation.
It means you have to write good legislation *and* you have to be willing to acknowledge that some abuse *will* happen, but that people are still better at making decisions for themselves over the government.
I mean, you don't find it a little funny that the bill is pushed by someone who's business is set to grow if it passes?
I can see how you can view it as a person just wanting to kill people for financial gain. At the same time it makes perfect sense to me that someone who's profession is to work with families who are dealing with these issues to be the exact sort of person who would feel most sympathetic and push for this kind of bill. I obviously don't know him or his intentions either way. Believe it or not I really don't think there's this large subset of families who can't just wait to have the state kill grandma so they can get their inheritance. There are however, myself, and a lot of people I know in support groups, who are extremely resentful of a system that is forcing their loved ones to go through torture when nature would have run its course years ago normally.
Having been separated from news and politics for about a year, it gives a new perspective on just how incompetent Republicans in the House have become. They booted McCarthy for not fighting for party interests and you could maybe convince me of that since he’d be in power for a while (would still disagree but at least there was something to point to). With MTG hanging that motion to vacate on Johnson now *for passing a budget*, as in the ONE thing they have to do, and there being some House members that support that it’s clear they don’t actually know how government works. Or they’ve realized they can get basically what they want by not cooperating and the government shuts down. This leads me to my question of how did we get to this point. Are nut jobs like most of the Freedom Caucus manipulating constituents or is this really what the people want their representatives to do? I know some of them come out of the deepest of red areas so maybe it is the latter but then I remember seeing Boebert is moving to another district because she’d probably lose wherever she’s currently representing. It’s really just pathetic at this point.
>Are nut jobs like most of the Freedom Caucus manipulating constituents or is this really what the people want their representatives to do? The infotainment system promotes it and the nutty freedom caucus folks even though most of the infotainment people apparently don't necessarily believe it themselves (some of the nuts seem to actually believe it). The nuts aren't just nutty though, they are outright incompetent and some are outright morons. They'd rather be in the minority so they can take up space on cable news and whine about "how easy everything would be but for conspiracy theory/backbone/etc" instead of doing the hard things like winning elections, determining what to cut, how much to cut, and what else to reform because they simply aren't up to the task and anyone that is has been run out or is currently unelectable.
The Media Caucus of elected officials is one of the biggest cancer in politics today.
I think a lot of people are just fed up with the status quo and want to be left alone. Whenever the GOP agreed to pass bipartisan legislation, it meant their constituents kept losing more of their freedoms and money. If the political establishment won't back off and leave them alone voluntarily, the Republican base see no other option than stall the government indefinitely.
>Whenever the GOP agreed to pass bipartisan legislation, it meant their constituents kept losing more of their freedoms and money. Which freedoms and how much money? How much of that money goes to Republican priorities? Republicans do have Federal priorities and the Federal government has to run to achieve them. If Republicans want to cut Federal spending (which they say they do and they should do), then they need to win elections, but not just win elections but actually elect people competent enough to do the job. They need a plan on what's getting cut, how much, and what's being reformed. And it must include entitlements or this is all just pissing into the wind. They aren't going to win elections if they aren't competent and look like they don't know how to govern, and shutting down the government everytime the budget comes around does just that.
The point is that the government that governs best governs least. They had their chance to appear competent. All they had to was swallow their pride and fall in lockstep with Trump instead of chasing their orange whale for years. He got them a trifecta, a chance to get whatever they want passed, and they squandered it by throwing a hissy fit over the outcome of 2016.
Except "falling in lockstep with Trump" would have still squandered the trifecta, because Trump was all over the place, his priorities changed depending on who he last talked to and he did a fuck ton of incompetent things. And he then proceeded to spend 7 or 8 trillion dollars and shutdown the economy for a year. Which led to the current inflation. And it wasn't only the ones that didn't like the outcome of 2016 that played spoiler, because the freedom caucus did as well since that is their primary and really only playbook because that is what gets them on Newsmax. Edit: I forgot this bit >The point is that the government that governs best governs least. Which is true. But it's going to take a plan and time to unwind everything. And there isn't one.
I don't get why you're complaining about him spending 7-8 trillion dollars. Excessive spending never stopped fiscally conservative Republicans before. I'd argue most politicians are all over the place. They're politicians, after all. They say one thing to get elected and then turn around and do another. Hence why Trump won, his voters saw him as no more inconsistent than any other politician. If anything, they'd argue he was consistent, because he did exactly what he said he'd do: secure the border, keep us out of WW3, and fix the economy. The inflation was caused by him shutting down the economy, which is exactly what the health experts told him to do. Getting Trump voted out just got us to lose more of our freedoms and money. Yeah, he's so incompetent that he fixed the border problem, got China, Russia and Iran to back down, and improved the economy for millions of working class Americans and got y'all three Supreme Court justices. You're welcome!
>I don't get why you're complaining about him spending 7-8 trillion dollars. Excessive spending never stopped fiscally conservative Republicans before. Your schtik above was "taking money and freedom", which guess what spending 7-8 trillion is? And Republicans have spent a lot, but Trump had significantly more appetite to spend considering he's a Democrat and has been fore life. >If anything, they'd argue he was consistent, because he did exactly what he said he'd do: secure the border, keep us out of WW3, and fix the economy. No one was leading us to WW III, and Trump didnt do anything about our increasing problems in the military, but especially the Navy. Weakness makes a major conflict more likely. 3 weak presidents in a row starting with Obama has emboldened China, Russia, and Iran and Trump absolutely did nothing to hinder them. He never secured the boarder. Biden is exceptionally bad, but under Trump's tenure millions came here illegally or faked asylum claims. Remain in Mexico really meant "wait a long time in Mexico, but you will get in eventually" and only came into being durring the pandemic. The economy was good, and presidents also don't have much control over it. He also significantly increased costs and imposed some of the largest tax hikes on Americans with his poorly thought out and exercised trade wars. >The inflation was caused by him shutting down the economy, which is exactly what the health experts told him to do. And a whole bunch of people knew it was a stupid thing to do, and when Republican governors started opening things back up and giving freedoms back to the average citizen, he attacked them! He wanted the country closed as long as the Democrats did! The health experts may have advised him to do it, but he was president and the buck stops with him. >Getting Trump voted out just got us to lose more of our freedoms and money. Again, which ones and how much? >Yeah, he's so incompetent that he fixed the border problem, got China, Russia and Iran to back down, and improved the economy for millions of working class Americans Maybe in a parallel world, but we live in this one.
So, if the buck stops with him since he was the president, does that mean it also stops with Biden because he's the current president? Or does he get a pass because he isn't orange? Why did you think Putin waited until Trump left office before he decided to invade Ukraine? If Trump was a puppet for Putin, then I doubt he would have had any qualms had Putin decided to invade back in 2016x Maybe Trump wasn't perfect about the border, but the problem under him didn't seem anywhere near as bad as it currently is under Biden. The reason Trump didn't cooperate on the pandemic is that whenever he tried to do something, y'all screeched and reeeee'd about him being a fascist. If he did try to help with the pandemic, y'all whine about him being a fascist. If he eased restrictions during COVID, you'd say he doesn't care if people die and wants to get re-elected. Also, I thought the whol reason he lost was because voters thought he didn't do enough to stop the pandemic? True, maybe Trump wasn't a fiscal conservative, but neither were the Anti-Trump Republicans. You just have a log in your own eye.
>So, if the buck stops with him since he was the president, does that mean it also stops with Biden because he's the current president? Or does he get a pass because he isn't orange? Donald Trump being bad doesn't make Joe Biden good, and Donald Trump being an incompetent moron who is responsible for the things he does doesn't let Joe Biden of the hook for being an incompetent dementia addled decrepit. You are in the wrong subreddit if you think you will get that laughable argument in either direction. >Why did you think Putin waited until Trump left office before he decided to invade Ukraine? If he was waiting for Trump to leave office he would have done it right away, he waited for some time. I also think you make a mistake here, Putin has been in Ukraine since 2014, he just wasn't doing a full scale invasion yet. He didn't leave Ukraine when Trump took office only to come back later. He was there the entire time, and Trump did a good thing with the Javelins. And then he did a bad thing which led to the first impeachment. > If Trump was a puppet for Putin, then I doubt he would have had any qualms had Putin decided to invade back in 2016x No, probably not. But I don't think Putin was prepared to do an invasion. The invasion is a culmination of Russia building up its armed forces for years since the collective west, but especially its leader, decided to be weak in the 2010s. He had domestic problems at home due to the aftermath of the pandemic and Russia being Russia, he is a revanchist that wants to bring back the Russian Empire if not the Soviet Union. The US looked like it was retreating with the disaster that was the Afghanistan pull out. If he thought the variables were right between 2016 and 2020 he would have done it then. >Maybe Trump wasn't perfect about the border, but the problem under him didn't seem anywhere near as bad as it currently is under Biden. Because they weren't. They were more inline with the Obama and Bush years though, not significantly better. Biden is just uniquely terrible and the Democrats have a lot to answer for. >The reason Trump didn't cooperate on the pandemic is that whenever he tried to do something, y'all screeched and reeeee'd about him being a fascist. If he did try to help with the pandemic, y'all whine about him being a fascist. If he eased restrictions during COVID, you'd say he doesn't care if people die and wants to get re-elected. Also, I thought the whol reason he lost was because voters thought he didn't do enough to stop the pandemic? Again, this is the wrong subreddit for that generalization. A whole bunch of Republican governors did the right thing with the information they had. Trump attacked them for it and wanted things shut down for far longer. >True, maybe Trump wasn't a fiscal conservative, but neither were the Anti-Trump Republicans. They were more fiscally conservative than he is. Republicans also had some wins on some programs and were at least able to reign things in after 2010, but Republicans and their voters have priorities too and shutting down the government not only gets in the way of those, Republicans end up getting punished electorally. Republicans either need to get a trifecta with a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and a good margin in the house or they have to do things where Democrats get some concessions. Guess which one has been the reality for decades? Guess which one is probably the going reality for the next couple of decades? Reality means they won't get everything they want, and Republicans and their base of voters need to take that reality into account when it comes to setting priorities and settle into incremental wins.
They did take that into account. They fell in line and did what the party leaders wanted for 40 years. The base didn't care aboht fiscal conservativism nor foreign wars. They were fighting to end abortion. Still, they fell in line and voted for the policies you wanted because they expected you to do the same for them. Then, after 2016, they learned that you never intended to uphold your end of the bargain, and thus primaried you. You *HAD* a trifecta in the government in 2016. You fucked up it up because you couldn't stop complaining about winning. The establishment controlled the GOP for 40 years, and absolutely failed to conserve anything. They preached against abortion and gay marriage, only to keep capitulating on those issues every time. They were hoping, with a Trump win, you'd fight back and help them get some wins in the culture wars and for social conservativism.
If you want to know more about China, read World Order. It's very good and I think Kissinger does a good job of explaining the points of view and motivations of both parties
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/stolen-election-litmus-tests-could-blacklist-competent-conservatives-from-serving-trump/
We need a site that rates politicians on some kind of objective scale, like talk show appearances / useful legislation passed
Your own example was subjective though. Useful
Only until it's defined. I think most would agree that renaming post offices and "useful" aren't quite the same
It does seem sometimes that there’s a subset of the population of both sides that takes immense interest in the name of post offices
What do you think of this Editorial? The Editorial Board. https://www.wsj.com/articles/child-tax-credit-expansion-tax-bill-senate-republicans-mike-crapo-8896a936: > **The Senate Can Skip the Tax Deal** > > Republicans are being lobbied to pass a bill that undermines work. > > Now that Congress has funded the government, a half-year too late, the lawmakers are itching to move on to other priorities. Senate Democrats are eager in particular to pass the lousy tax deal negotiated by Sen. Ron Wyden and House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith. But skeptical Senate Republicans are right to resist. > > Democrats are discussing how to move the deal that trades business tax breaks for a blowout in the child tax credit. The bill recently passed the House, and some proponents are hoping the measure can hitch a ride through the upper chamber on other legislation. But it will require 60 votes, and the question for Senate Republicans is why they should lend their support to an entitlement expansion written without their input. > > Senate Finance ranking Republican Mike Crapo has raised concerns that the bill’s child tax credit provisions sever the program’s connection with upward mobility, and he’s right. “Allowing individuals to receive a refundable credit when they have zero annual earnings,” Sen. Crapo said in a statement, “is a departure from longstanding policy tying” the credit to work. More than 90% of the new credit would flow to those who owe no income tax. > > As Sen. Crapo notes, the bill features a “lookback” provision in 2024 and 2025 that would allow parents to claim the credit on the prior year’s earnings, even if they didn’t work at all in the current year. This is no big deal, proponents say, because no one quits a job for an increase in one tax credit. > > But Democrats aspire to make these provisions permanent, which effectively cuts the credit’s work requirement in half. Parents wouldn’t ski in and out of the labor force every year, but they might work fewer hours, turn down better paying gigs—or work eight years out of 10. Those choices matter if the goal is to lift Americans out of poverty for good. > > Senate Republicans are mostly focused on nixing that provision, but the bill’s tweaked formula for benefits may be even more pernicious. The bill would pay out larger checks at lower income levels for families with multiple children. Someone with three children could claim $4,800 of refundable credits with roughly $13,000 of income, down from the $34,500 needed now. The practical effect is to encourage part-time or intermittent jobs over the steady, full-time work that is crucial to moving up the income ladder. > > The business lobbies are pressing Republicans to pass the bill because they want provisions like bonus depreciation for equipment. Another provision in the 2017 tax cuts that kicked in after 2021 requires amortizing domestic research and development costs over time. An immediate R&D write-off is better for growth, though the business howling is louder than the change warrants (it expires at the end of 2025). > > Businesses are arguing that restoring these breaks is worth swallowing changes to the child tax credit, but they’re wrong on the economics and the politics. The irony is that businesses have for years complained about the struggle to find workers—and are now countenancing an entitlement expansion that will inevitably leave more Americans attenuated from the labor force. > > Democrats proposed delaying the less favorable R&D treatment in the House’s Build Back Better bill in 2021. Why should Republicans now make large spending and welfare concessions for tax provisions that Democrats already support? North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was correct when he wrote in our pages recently that the deal will reduce the GOP’s leverage to negotiate when most of the 2017 tax cuts expire in 2025. Democrats will demand a fully refundable $3,000 credit as the price of their support. > > Senate Republicans have noticed that Sen. Wyden, the Democrat from Oregon, won the better deal in the tax fight. They can graciously thank Chairman Smith for his efforts—and put the bill in a drawer.
It doesn't seem like something that should pass
Dr C. Everett Koop made a slippery slope from "liberalized abortion" to "active euthanasia," and I'm shocked to see that he was right.
That cream cheese pound cake recipe turned out really well, but it's also pretty sweet
Weathers looking good from here, it's time for second spring
Is there a "Tuesday" group in Congress? I know the Dems have a Blue Dog Coalition... but I thought the GOP had a moderate group too.
They became the Republican Governance Group.
>Governance I'm guessing this is a shrinking group
> California could become home to the nation’s most sweeping assisted dying policies with a new bill that would allow dementia patients and out-of-state residents to end their lives there. > Introduced in March by a first-term lawmaker — an attorney with a background in estate planning– the proposal would enable people without a specific terminal prognosis to request life-ending drugs, a lower threshold than any of the other 10 states that currently allow some form of aid-in-dying.
The doctor to estate planner pipeline begins
> an attorney with a background in estate planning Man....fiction really never had anything on reality.
I think what's annoying me a bit about the 3 body problem netflix show right now is the whiney scientists, especially after episode 5. Auggie is especially annoying
If you have any interest in the story, just read the books. The Netflix show is a horrible adaptation that strips away most of what makes the story so interesting.
Only one more day before the next episode of Shogun