USA Politics (redux)

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Just for the record here, about another day at the office, #45 wanted to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities last Thursday, however top officials including Pence and Pompeo talked him from it

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-considered-attacking-iran-main-nuclear-site-2020-11?r=US&IR=T

MT,

Breaking news on CNN:  apparently they are going ahead with dropping troop level numbers to 2,500 each in Afghanistan and Iraq by Jan. 15th.  Not certain how this news is different from earlier one?  More finalized?

PD

[drogulus]

     Only about 23% of Repubs support M4A. For a Bidenesque public option plan support rises to 47%. For a Marxist Communistic Socialist transgender plan support is a little lower.

     This is typical. People want the good stuff without the very bad no good label.

[drogulus]

MT,

Breaking news on CNN:  apparently they are going ahead with dropping troop level numbers to 2,500 each in Afghanistan and Iraq by Jan. 15th.  Not certain how this news is different from earlier one?  More finalized?

PD

    The lowest troop level that permits withdrawing troops to defend themselves is where we are now. That's what the military tried to explain to Trump.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

    The lowest troop level that permits withdrawing troops to defend themselves is where we are now. That's what the military tried to explain to Trump.

But also, the withdrawal (a full one) is supposed to be contingent upon the Taliban keeping up their end of the deal; which it doesn't appear that they are doing, so to put our troops at further risk of being attacked by having even less people there is crazy.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/520303-trump-throws-curveball-on-afghan-troop-levels

PD

[71 dB]

     Only about 23% of Repubs support M4A. For a Bidenesque public option plan support rises to 47%. For a Marxist Communistic Socialist transgender plan support is a little lower.

     This is typical. People want the good stuff without the very bad no good label.

This varies between polls according to how single payer healthcare is being framed. Some polls purposedly try to frame single payer healthcare as scary as possible. In some other polls the framing is less scary (more honest) and the overall support is higher. At one poll at least half of Republicans supported Medicare for all. Also, lets face it: The Republicans in particular are sceptical about public option and medicare for all because right wing MSM keeps fearmongering about them non-stop. If single payer healthcare was talked about in the media honestly, it's support would be overhelming.

[71 dB]

Just for the record here, about another day at the office, #45 wanted to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities last Thursday, however top officials including Pence and Pompeo talked him from it

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-considered-attacking-iran-main-nuclear-site-2020-11?r=US&IR=T

Trump's overlords in Israel and Saudi-Arabia want war with Iran.

[Todd]

Yes, I agree with this, but the Republicans and the (corporate) Democrats in general do NOT agree with this. Progressives agree with us. Trump seems to agree with us in this issue.

So?

So we can agree with Trump OR the Republicans. Not both.

Incorrect.

[drogulus]

This varies between polls according to how single payer healthcare is being framed. Some polls purposedly try to frame single payer healthcare as scary as possible. In some other polls the framing is less scary (more honest) and the overall support is higher. At one poll at least half of Republicans supported Medicare for all. Also, lets face it: The Republicans in particular are sceptical about public option and medicare for all because right wing MSM keeps fearmongering about them non-stop. If single payer healthcare was talked about in the media honestly, it's support would be overhelming.

     Certainly people can be influenced by diatribes about how radical it would be if people agreed with themselves about what they want.

[krummholz]

     The Lincoln Project did a great job of promoting the Lincoln Project. What Dem program should they oppose?

     I noticed something interesting among the NeverTrumpers. Once they cut their tribal affiliation they discovered that their reasons to oppose programs Dems favor didn't look so good. It's as though they felt free to make judgments on the basis of merit. It may not last, but I do appreciate the uniqueness of "free radicals" in the politisphere.

     Fighting Leftism among the Dems can be safely left to Dems. The Lincoln Project has no role in that.

No one said that the Lincoln Project should get involved with Democratic Party politics. They are a collection of Republicans with a number of different points of view.

I said only that Stuart Stevens, a Lincoln Project member (founding member? not sure) may not have been the fool that I thought he was to jump ship from the GOP, as they are unlikely to abandon the nationalist, even nativist stance they have been leaning toward ever since Trump's hostile takeover of the party. Basically, Stevens said he was going to become a Dem, so it sounds like you shouldn't have a problem with his fighting Dem Leftism.

As far as what Dem programs he might oppose, you would have to ask him. My top picks for now would be the Green New Deal (because powering our society entirely on renewable energy sources is not yet achievable, and may not even be desirable - e.g. consider the land use footprint for solar) and Medicare For All (on the basis of cost). But both are for the future, as neither will be an agenda item under the Biden administration.

[drogulus]

No one said that the Lincoln Project should get involved with Democratic Party politics. They are a collection of Republicans with a number of different points of view.

I said only that Stuart Stevens, a Lincoln Project member (founding member? not sure) may not have been the fool that I thought he was to jump ship from the GOP, as they are unlikely to abandon the nationalist, even nativist stance they have been leaning toward ever since Trump's hostile takeover of the party. Basically, Stevens said he was going to become a Dem, so it sounds like you shouldn't have a problem with his fighting Dem Leftism.

As far as what Dem programs he might oppose, you would have to ask him. My top picks for now would be the Green New Deal (because powering our society entirely on renewable energy sources is not yet achievable, and may not even be desirable - e.g. consider the land use footprint for solar) and Medicare For All (on the basis of cost). But both are for the future, as neither will be an agenda item under the Biden administration.

     The Deal that is Green will arrive more gradually than I would like. That's unfortunate but it will be the case. The up front costs for renewable energy have been paid for some forms, now they pay for themselves. That's how it will work in the future for further steps like geothermal.

     

[krummholz]

     The Deal that is Green will arrive more gradually than I would like. That's unfortunate but it will be the case. The up front costs for renewable energy have been paid for some forms, now they pay for themselves. That's how it will work in the future for further steps like geothermal.

   

It's not just a question of cost. It's a question of available technology. We do not yet have the battery technology to make fully renewable energy a reality, given the fact that the main sources (solar and wind) are intermittent. As far as I know the technology to make geothermal a major part of the equation does not yet exist, either.

Then there is the land use footprint. I calculated a while back that at our current need for energy, to power the U.S. entirely on solar power would require devoting something close to 1% of the entire land area of the country to energy production. That may not sound like a lot, but it is at least a couple orders of magnitude larger than the land use footprint of fossil fuel extraction and production. And the land use footprint of wind is even worse.

Also, I don't think this country is ready to accept fully electric powered cars as the only widely available personal means of long distance travel. Americans have long been in love with "muscle cars", with fast acceleration, with the convenience of being able to go 300+ miles and then refuel in 5 minutes. I don't see that changing in my lifetime. Electric cars are fine for getting around town, but the average citizen is not going to want to use them for traveling to the cottage or favorite vacation spot several hundred miles away. I think we are stuck with petroleum products for auto and aviation fuel for a good many years to come. Hopefully we won't run out of oil before we find a way to make electric vehicles as practical as internal combustion-powered ones, or are able to develop hydrogen or some other fuel cell technology into a practical reality.

What we need to get away from ASAP is using fossil fuels for electricity generation. That's where renewables can play a major role, but in my opinion we need more, not fewer, nuclear power plants and a concerted, moonshot effort to making fusion energy a reality.

[MusicTurner]

There are already relatively ordinary electric cars going 350 miles, though most on the European market currently go between 175 - 275 miles. Speedier upload, longer range, better upload facilities, and less expensiveness will surely be a fact here, say within a decade.

Whether there'll be political will in the US is another matter.

[Karl Henning]

Meanwhile, Trump's TV lawyer, Rudy "Is my shirt tucked?" Giuliani is representing his client faithfully in court:

'For the past half-hour, attorney Mark Aronchick – representing PA counties being sued by Trump – has loudly torn into Rudy G., saying he is ignorant of the law, living in "some fantasy world" and pushing wild allegations that are "disgraceful in an American courtroom."'

[drogulus]

It's not just a question of cost. It's a question of available technology. We do not yet have the battery technology to make fully renewable energy a reality, given the fact that the main sources (solar and wind) are intermittent. As far as I know the technology to make geothermal a major part of the equation does not yet exist, either.

Then there is the land use footprint. I calculated a while back that at our current need for energy, to power the U.S. entirely on solar power would require devoting something close to 1% of the entire land area of the country to energy production. That may not sound like a lot, but it is at least a couple orders of magnitude larger than the land use footprint of fossil fuel extraction and production. And the land use footprint of wind is even worse.

Also, I don't think this country is ready to accept fully electric powered cars as the only widely available personal means of long distance travel. Americans have long been in love with "muscle cars", with fast acceleration, with the convenience of being able to go 300+ miles and then refuel in 5 minutes. I don't see that changing in my lifetime. Electric cars are fine for getting around town, but the average citizen is not going to want to use them for traveling to the cottage or favorite vacation spot several hundred miles away. I think we are stuck with petroleum products for auto and aviation fuel for a good many years to come. Hopefully we won't run out of oil before we find a way to make electric vehicles as practical as internal combustion-powered ones, or are able to develop hydrogen or some other fuel cell technology into a practical reality.

What we need to get away from ASAP is using fossil fuels for electricity generation. That's where renewables can play a major role, but in my opinion we need more, not fewer, nuclear power plants and a concerted, moonshot effort to making fusion energy a reality.

     We'll work through these problems faster if we accept the challenge and invest in them than if we wait around for them to solve themselves. Either way, we will solve them. We might as well get going.

[T. D.]

Meanwhile, Trump's TV lawyer, Rudy "Is my shirt tucked?" Giuliani is representing his client faithfully in court:

'For the past half-hour, attorney Mark Aronchick – representing PA counties being sued by Trump – has loudly torn into Rudy G., saying he is ignorant of the law, living in "some fantasy world" and pushing wild allegations that are "disgraceful in an American courtroom."'

Ghouliani doesn't seem to be covering himself in glory:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/17/trump-lawyer-rudy-giuliani-asks-to-join-pennsylvania-vote-case.html
...
Giuliani earlier in the day adamantly denied a report in The New York Times that he had asked Trump's campaign to pay him a whopping $20,000 per day for his legal work.

"I never asked for $20,000," Giuliani told The Times, saying that Trump offered to "work ... out" any payment to him at the end of the legal process.

The Wall Street Journal later matched The Times story about Giuliani's request, which the newspaper noted was "an unusually high fee." The Journal reported that the Trump campaign did not agree to Giuliani's request, but noted that it could not be determined whether the campaign will pay Giuliani at all.
...
The slapdash nature of the Trump campaign's case in Pennsylvania was underscored by Giuliani's statement to Brann on Tuesday that a claim made in the originally filed lawsuit, which alleged a violation of due process, was mistakenly removed from an amended lawsuit.


A former New York City mayor and federal prosecutor, Giuliani is not admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania federal court, so he needed permission from Brann to appear in the case.

Giuliani's application said that he is "currently a member in good standing" of a number of state and federal courts, and of the District of Columbia Bar.

However, a check of the DC Bar's registry shows that Giuliani's admission there is administratively suspended because of nonpayment of fees. That suspension likely would have no affect (sic) on his admission to the Pennsylvania case.

On the same day that Biden was projected as winner of the election, Giuliani led a widely derided news conference about the vote-counting process outside of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a small business in Philadelphia located between a crematorium and a sex shop.

[flyingdutchman]

Incorrect.
[/quote]

There is nothing separating Trumpists and the GOP. They are one and the same.

[drogulus]

There are already relatively ordinary electric cars going 350 miles, though most on the European market currently go between 175 - 275 miles. Speedier upload, longer range, better upload facilities, and less expensiveness will surely be a fact here, say within a decade.

Whether there'll be political will in the US is another matter.

     There is no faster way to solve technological problems than a big effort starting now. You don't bend down the cost curve by imagining how hard it will be to do.

     Mitch says there's no political will to do whatever it is he's paid to have the political will to do. Along those lines I predict I won't get up from this chair. I'm still here, sitting in the chair. I seem to lack the will to get up. Polls say I won't get up. On the plus side, running out of dollars to get up saves them somewhere.

[Daverz]

In other news, the nation narrowly avoided (by 3 votes in the Senate) the appointment of a goldbug to the Fed.

47 Republican senators voted for the goldbug.

[Karl Henning]

Because it's what wannabe autocrats do:

President Trump on Tuesday said in a tweet that Chris Krebs, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director, has been "terminated." The president, who has continued to refuse to accept that he lost the election, said a recent statement by Krebs, in which he called the Nov. 3 election "the most secure in American history," was "highly inaccurate." There is no evidence to back Trump's claims.

[Karl Henning]

In other news, the nation narrowly avoided (by 3 votes in the Senate) the appointment of a goldbug to the Fed.

47 Republican senators voted for the goldbug.

Nope, still no sign of a spine!