Politics And Current Events

[shafnutz05]

Kamala Harris says she smoked marijuana in college while listening to music that didn’t exist yet.

#stevebuscemihowdoyoudofellowkids.png

https://twitter.com/WashTimes/status/10 ... 3113475073

Good lord.... Trying to bolster those black credentials I see.

[Guinness]

There's really no question that there is a growing, vocal segment of the Democratic party which is pushing HARD left; the difference in the relationship (in my opinion) between that openly socialist faction vis-a-vis the Democrats and the Tea Party vis-a-vis the Republicans is that the R establishment largely fenced off and marginalized the Tea Party movement; whereas it appears the D establishment is looking like it's going to embrace the socialist faction, given the major candidate endorsement of this resolution which is I think a considerable step left-ward from the D establishment.

Fenced off and marginalized? Can't say I agree with that.

If you're referring to the election of Trump, I wouldn't say that was due to the effort of the Tea Party... partly it was, but honestly it was due more to blue-collar folks who felt - and continue to feel, I would say - abandoned by the Democratic party.

Otherwise, I don't see much that the Tea Party accomplished, legislatively. McConnell and Ryan saw to that.

No, more that the GOP has adopted the stance of obstruction and refusal to compromise with Democrats.

I'm just not sure how anyone other than a blind partisan could see it that way. There isn't a single policy objective that the R's have stood in the way of in a meaningful way; and, moreover, there isn't a single policy objective the R's achieved in spite of the D's.

The only thing I'm aware of that R's could point to is the Garland/Gorsuch obstruction.

And keep in mind this isn't me looking at it as an R... this is me wishing the R's would actually act as an obstructionist/refusenik opposition to the overt leftist agenda of the D's.

[Freddy Rumsen]

It seems like a lot of people on here are mad that AOC is a lot hotter than what they have at home. Just sayyyyyinnnn

[Freddy Rumsen]

Former Attorney General Eric Holder is nearing a decision on whether he will run for president in 2020.

NPR has learned hes' expected to decide in the next two weeks.

\

https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/ ... 8713569280

[Guinness]

If you're referring to the election of Trump, I wouldn't say that was due to the effort of the Tea Party... partly it was, but honestly it was due more to blue-collar folks who felt - and continue to feel, I would say - abandoned by the Democratic party.

I think the marginalization of the Tea Party stirred the anger among Rs who felt like they needed to fight to change the status quo. Trump saw that building and reinvented himself into a "Conservative" hero who could fix all their ills, call out the Muslim faux-President, keep out the job stealing illegals, etc. That's why he dominated traditional candidates in the R primary. He used anger that had been building within the party, manipulating it to the point where he could literally insult war heroes - something that would have been a death knell for any other R pol - and the R's cheered him on because they were so wrapped up in their hatred of the swamp/career pols/etc.

Yes, blue collar Dems pushed him over the top, but that was as much due to the awfulness of Clinton as anything else.

And I think the D's moving further to the left is a terrible, terrible move.

I may be misinterpreting you, but it seems like you're saying that it was as simple as Trump recognizing and capitalizing upon a hard-core nativist-cum-racist element on the quote-unquote conservative side and Hillary Clinton being a not-good candidate...?

If so, I don't think that's quite accurate. It's not too far off... I think it over-emphasizes the nativist/racist angle, but under-emphasizes the movement of the Democratic party to the hard-left (and you do allude to that in your last sentence...). Clinton was awful - yes, but the party as a whole has really abandoned the blue-collar middle class, and again as you hint in your last sentence, it's entirely likely that it will cost them in 2020. This move to (for lack of a better term) the SJW element/coastal liberal, hard-left social policies (e.g., late-term abortion, barrier-less borders, welfare for the "unwilling") doesn't play among that crowd.

[Factorial]

And keep in mind this isn't me looking at it as an R...

[Guinness]

And keep in mind this isn't me looking at it as an R...

Yeah you know me. Always towing that GOP line, Factorial.

[Viva la Ben]

Unconfirmed if she also referred to Trump as “Lily-Livered”
Coulter calls border agreement Trump's 'Yellow New Deal'

"Trump talks a good game on the border wall but it's increasingly clear he's afraid to fight for it," Coulter tweeted to her 2.13 million followers. "Call this his 'Yellow New Deal.'"

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4296 ... w-new-deal

[Factorial]

Unconfirmed if she also referred to Trump as “Lily-Livered”
Coulter calls border agreement Trump's 'Yellow New Deal'

"Trump talks a good game on the border wall but it's increasingly clear he's afraid to fight for it," Coulter tweeted to her 2.13 million followers. "Call this his 'Yellow New Deal.'"

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4296 ... w-new-deal

Trump was taking questions at noon today and he didn't sound like he was going to accept the deal they are working on.

[Troy Loney]

There's really no question that there is a growing, vocal segment of the Democratic party which is pushing HARD left; the difference in the relationship (in my opinion) between that openly socialist faction vis-a-vis the Democrats and the Tea Party vis-a-vis the Republicans is that the R establishment largely fenced off and marginalized the Tea Party movement; whereas it appears the D establishment is looking like it's going to embrace the socialist faction, given the major candidate endorsement of this resolution which is I think a considerable step left-ward from the D establishment.

Fenced off and marginalized? Can't say I agree with that.

If you're referring to the election of Trump, I wouldn't say that was due to the effort of the Tea Party... partly it was, but honestly it was due more to blue-collar folks who felt - and continue to feel, I would say - abandoned by the Democratic party.

Otherwise, I don't see much that the Tea Party accomplished, legislatively. McConnell and Ryan saw to that.

No, more that the GOP has adopted the stance of obstruction and refusal to compromise with Democrats.

I'm just not sure how anyone other than a blind partisan could see it that way. There isn't a single policy objective that the R's have stood in the way of in a meaningful way; and, moreover, there isn't a single policy objective the R's achieved in spite of the D's.

The only thing I'm aware of that R's could point to is the Garland/Gorsuch obstruction.

And keep in mind this isn't me looking at it as an R... this is me wishing the R's would actually act as an obstructionist/refusenik opposition to the overt leftist agenda of the D's.

Obama had no policy achievements after Obamacare, which is contrived to be a compromise solution to the health insurance problem. It ultimately only ended up passing because the democrats had 60 senators. Obamacare is a liberal achievement and was done with the buy in from the private market. As soon as the GOP took the house, they refused to pass anything that wasn't DOA.

The only GOP policy agenda is to cut taxes and deregulate. Which they've done very successfully since they took the three branches of government. They have no healthcare solution and that's why their attempt to ax the ACA failed. The only thing more unpopular than obamacare is no obamacare.

[tifosi77]

And Nickelback. Nickelback is also very unpopular.

[Freddy Rumsen]

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/ ... 8007713793

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom abandoning plan for high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, says too costly.

[Factorial]

A record 7 million Americans are 3 months behind on their car payments, a red flag for the economy:

A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday, even more than during the wake of the financial crisis.

Economists warn that this is a red flag. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment rate, many Americans are struggling to pay their bills.

“The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market,” economists at the New York Fed wrote in a blog post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... 99ce29881b

[Dickie Dunn]

A record 7 million Americans are 3 months behind on their car payments, a red flag for the economy:

A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday, even more than during the wake of the financial crisis.

Economists warn that this is a red flag. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment rate, many Americans are struggling to pay their bills.

“The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market,” economists at the New York Fed wrote in a blog post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... 99ce29881b

In general, our economy is a house of cards built by people buying **** they can't afford.

[Morkle]

I'd be curious, of those cars - how many people bought exceeding their means.

I know people who've spent $60k on a truck and done a 7-8 year loan to make it "affordable".

[Dickie Dunn]

I'd be curious, of those cars - how many people bought exceeding their means.

I know people who've spent $60k on a truck and done a 7-8 year loan to make it "affordable".

I'd would guess the majority.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Buying a new car off the lot is for dumb people.

[count2infinity]

No way I ever buy a new car. Hell, I drove my '07 Pontiac Vibe to work today so my wife could have the subaru in the snow. It ain't broke, I ain't replacing it.

[grunthy]

We got zero percent interest for our cars and our loan to value only after 8 months was positive. What’s dumb is getting a new car with a long term and ridiculous interest rate.

[Morkle]

Yea I disagree with the buying a new car off the lot thing too. There are times where it makes sense when done in an affordable manner. I buy off the lot with the intention that I'm going to drive that vehicle into the ground, so buying used shortens that life span for me.

I will say though, there are a lot of times where people shouldn't be buying new off the lot, and do because of various vanity reasons.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

There was actually a very timely article in the WSJ today talking about how truck prices have increased by 64% or something like that over the past decade compared to a ~15% increase in car prices overall

[Shyster]

One thing I don't understand logistically is what makes air travel more damaging to the environment than the massive amount of dirt work and right-of-way construction for all these trains?

There's that. And there's also the track record (ahem) of previous attempts at rail transportation throughout the country and including Amtrak.

It's clear that AOC and the other folks who support such clap have no idea of the scale of construction they're proposing. You could rip of every single mile of shinkansen track in Japan and move it to the United States, and you'd still be a thousand miles short of connecting just New York City and Los Angeles. High-speed trains cannot run on existing track in the US, which was designed and built for (relatively) low-speed freight trains. It would take tens of thousands of new miles of track to provide a comprehensive nationwide high-speed rail network that actually connects all of the significant cities. The cost would be in the trillions. And for all of that that, a current top-of-the-line shinkansen running from NYC to Los Angeles at a constant max speed with no stops (which of course is not realistic) would take something like four hours longer to make the trip than would an Airbus A321 or Boeing 737-900ER.

Aircraft technology isn't standing still, either. Today's turbofan engines like the CFM LEAP, General Electric GEnx, RR Trent, and P&W PW1000 are vastly cleaner and fuel-efficient than prior engines, and technologies like hybrid-electric and all-electric aircraft are under active development. At the pace that battery technology is improving, we could maybe in the next 20 years see short-range flights (say like DC to NYC or Boston) be handed by all-electric regional aircraft with swappable battery packs.

[Guinness]

One thing I don't understand logistically is what makes air travel more damaging to the environment than the massive amount of dirt work and right-of-way construction for all these trains?

There's that. And there's also the track record (ahem) of previous attempts at rail transportation throughout the country and including Amtrak.

It's clear that AOC and the other folks who support such clap have no idea of the scale of construction they're proposing. You could rip of every single mile of shinkansen track in Japan and move it to the United States, and you'd still be a thousand miles short of connecting just New York City and Los Angeles. High-speed trains cannot run on existing track in the US, which was designed and built for (relatively) low-speed freight trains. It would take tens of thousands of new miles of track to provide a comprehensive nationwide high-speed rail network that actually connects all of the significant cities. The cost would be in the trillions. And for all of that that, a current top-of-the-line shinkansen running from NYC to Los Angeles at a constant max speed with no stops (which of course is not realistic) would take something like four hours longer to make the trip than would an Airbus A321 or Boeing 737-900ER.

Aircraft technology isn't standing still, either. Today's turbofan engines like the CFM LEAP, General Electric GEnx, RR Trent, and P&W PW1000 are vastly cleaner and fuel-efficient than prior engines, and technologies like hybrid-electric and all-electric aircraft are under active development. At the pace that battery technology is improving, we could maybe in the next 20 years see short-range flights (say like DC to NYC or Boston) be handed by all-electric regional aircraft with swappable battery packs.

Obviously you're discounting the emergence of a high-tech, lightweight yet super strong steel capable of handling such weights and speeds, which under the auspices of the Fair Share law, fedgov would be entitled to confiscate, aren't you?

[Guinness]

In general, our economy is a house of cards built people buying **** they can't afford.

[Morkle]

There was actually a very timely article in the WSJ today talking about how truck prices have increased by 64% or something like that over the past decade compared to a ~15% increase in car prices overall

That's a vehicle I will never buy new, well - unless it's the new Jeep, again - because I'd keep it forever like my wrangler now.