US Politics: One No Trump

[DanteGabriel]

Oh look, Texas politicians are now demanding federal government help. I guess sometimes you need socialism after all.

[Mindwalker]

9 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Oh look, Texas politicians are now demanding federal government help. I guess sometimes you need socialism after all.

Welfare queens!

[Lollygag]

Red State bailout.

[Maithanet]

12 hours ago, Week said:

One addendum to add, which links standard GOP to Trumpism is "own the libs" as an ethos. As raison d'etre even.

Going further, the Bush Administration at least paid lip service to "compassionate conservatism".  Trumpism not only doesn't do this, they actively seek conflict and dominance, rather than compassion.  The Trump administration made it explicit that they will never back down, never apologize, and never let facts get in the way.  While the lie that Iraq had WMDs was undeniably more dangerous than lying about the inauguration crowd size, it nonetheless demonstrated that the Trump administration was willing to lie about anything, even in the face of easily accessible counter-evidence. 

In many ways, Trumpism is about a constant conflict with the truth itself.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

32 minutes ago, Week said:

It makes sense ... If you actually invest in it. There's definitely risk/reward in terms of a national grid - strong protections and control at scale wouldn't be as expensive as allowing smaller grids. I.e. AWS security and standards are much stronger than your typical data center. Much of the "hacking" of AWS are a result of mismanagement by AWS customers.

I'd be curious to see a link that provides more data. I'm only looking at philosophically. I have little understanding at best about the technical side. 

[maarsen]

54 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Texas grid is deregulated, no deep insight into how that impacts prices although I assume the price is more prone to supply-demand variances than other states (albeit, it does have ERCOT as the overarching 'supplier' as noted in one of the links).

The last time Texas had significant cold weather, many of the power generators failed because of frozen water intakes (they needed water to operate). Might be part of the cause here too.

If I was the engineer designing a power station that required water cooling, and was aware that below freezing temps would freeze the intakes, wouldn't a heater cable wrapped around the intake be a justifiable expense? I am used to working with equipment that has backups to the backups as a hospital without heating or cooling, or power is an empty building.

[IheartIheartTesla]

This kind of thinking wouldn't enter into the way most southern states operate, since below freezing temperatures probably didn't occur all that frequently when most of the plants were designed. The same applies to insulation around water pipes in most homes etc.. too.

Now we all agree mostly that extreme temperatures are a consequence of climate change, but in the 60s and 70s this would not be a consideration. In general I'll agree that generation was poor at planning, you can also see it in the way they totally ignored any life cycle thinking in the way products were designed, meant to be used and disposed.

[maarsen]

1 minute ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

This kind of thinking wouldn't enter into the way most southern states operate, since below freezing temperatures probably didn't occur all that frequently when most of the plants were designed. The same applies to insulation around water pipes in most homes etc.. too.

Now we all agree mostly that extreme temperatures are a consequence of climate change, but in the 60s and 70s this would not be a consideration. In general I'll agree that generation was poor at planning, you can also see it in the way they totally ignored any life cycle thinking in the way products were designed, meant to be used and disposed.

Here in Ontario, I think the rule is to plan for once in a hundred year events.  I know our hospitals now being built are designed to withstand a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. This part of the world has not had any such quake in 4 or 5 hundred years. Floods, power outages, and such are also planned for with multiple redundancies. With climate change once in a hundred year events come  a lot more regularly.

[Week]

42 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'd be curious to see a link that provides more data. I'm only looking at philosophically. I have little understanding at best about the technical side. 

Cheaper on a rate basis that is - same concept as single payer healthcare would deliver healthcare more cheaply than the current byzantine system of insurance and privatized care delivery.

That said - healthcare might be a better example, or somewhere in the middle, because you aren't looking at a greensky deployment (i.e. AWS building out a brand new service in the 2000s vs retrofitting an existing morass of independent fiefdoms).

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Lollygag said:

the Capitol riots were people acting like children rather than behaving like adults.

They were behaving like trump -- the way he wanted them to and the way they wanted to.

This is his history from the beginning, long before he went to D.C., sending goons after people who disobeyed / refused his demands.  No different now.

Quote

"Lack of witnesses at Trump’s trial is not the problem. Witness intimidation is.
The former president has a record of threatening rhetoric toward anyone who crosses him. Now there’s a record of supporters willing to back him with violence."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/15/witness-intimidation-trump-impeachment/

And this:

"

Quote

Ugly new attacks on Republicans who defied Trump hint at a dark GOP future"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/16/david-ball-toomey-pennsylvania-gop/

In the meantime Nikki Hayley who thinks Washington created the Constitution while he was President.  There is not a single word in this communication that is historically correct.  Please read the comments, filled with baffled wonderment, but as one observed, "If you can't get a good education in the history of the US from attending private xtian evangelical school in South Carolina, where can you get one?"  She is equally unfit to hold office.

 

[Lollygag]

They can't teach the actual Founding Fathers, the Constitution and Bill of Rights because that would undermine their Christian white nation narrative.

The far right is now promoting education as bad and liberal brainwashing. It's building up to turning going to college into a political thing.

What's really disturbing is that after an insurrection where folks screamed 1776, Haley really looks like she's giving them a shout out and low-key telling them to keep on. Only took her a few days to totally reverse herself...again.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

41 minutes ago, Zorral said:

They were behaving like trump -- the way he wanted them to and the way they wanted to.

This is his history from the beginning, long before he went to D.C., sending goons after people who disobeyed / refused his demands.  No different now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/15/witness-intimidation-trump-impeachment/

And this:

"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/16/david-ball-toomey-pennsylvania-gop/

In the meantime Nikki Hayley who thinks Washington created the Constitution while he was President.  There is not a single word in this communication that is historically correct.  Please read the comments, filled with baffled wonderment, but as one observed, "If you can't get a good education in the history of the US from attending private xtian evangelical school in South Carolina, where can you get one?"  She is equally unfit to hold office.

 

Since President Washington never signed the Declaration of Independence, you are still a British colony. I think you lot owe the bloody queen quite a bit of taxes. Republicans argument for a monarchy built around a time travelling George Washington is really entertaining.

 

[HoodedCrow]

I like constitutional monarchies best. There are some problems with Republicanism...( T tried to be a dictator/ king/  savor/ emperor and almost succeeded ( throws salt over shoulder).

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

21 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

It is amazing how Senators and Reps who hold actual power now are in thrall to Trump, who has no legislative power, and the nearest elections are 2 years away. As for McConnell, so what if he is less popular than QAnon Barbie? He is safe for at least 4 years (or isit 6?). Hard to purge him at this point.

Can we not with the Barbie-as-a-slur please?  

41 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

They can't teach the actual Founding Fathers, the Constitution and Bill of Rights because that would undermine their Christian white nation narrative.

The far right is now promoting education as bad and liberal brainwashing. It's building up to turning going to college into a political thing.

What's really disturbing is that after an insurrection where folks screamed 1776, Haley really looks like she's giving them a shout out and low-key telling them to keep on. Only took her a few days to totally reverse herself...again.

 

"Now?"  College and education has ALWAYS been a political thing, including who has access to it and what is taught (and the moral implications of having one kind of education or another).  This actually seems to me to be pretty much a political reality of the US since, more or less, the point at which John Harvard founded a seminary in a little village called Cambridge.

[Fez]

Heh.

If we ever get past the MAGA era, this is probably pretty smart politics. I'm not as supportive of this as I am Romney's child support proposal; but I gotta give him props for being an aggressively serious legislator these past few months.

I don't think Democrats would agree to e-verify in exchange for a minimum wage increase alone, but maybe if there was some comprehensive immigration reform as well it could be swallowed. 

[Maithanet]

6 minutes ago, Fez said:

I don't think Democrats would agree to e-verify in exchange for a minimum wage increase alone, but maybe if there was some comprehensive immigration reform as well it could be swallowed. 

Why not?  That sounds like a worthwhile trade to me. 

[Kalbear]

On the Texas power - the main issue is that the gauges and other systems used for metering are not rated for freezing temperatures, and as a result natural gas powered turbines are basically failing. Water issues might be another thing, but oddly apparently it's the gauges. 

Really, the biggest problem is that they were getting 30% more demand than they were rated for at peak levels, and their grid couldn't handle it. Some wind turbines were frozen, but the unfrozen ones were actually making up for it. More info here:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/texas-power-grid-crumples-under-the-cold/

 

[Fez]

Just now, Maithanet said:

Why not?  That sounds like a worthwhile trade to me. 

Immigration reform advocates and big agriculture companies both hate e-verify, and they'd push back real hard unless they're getting something in return. 

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

Immigration reform advocates and big agriculture companies both hate e-verify, and they'd push back real hard unless they're getting something in return. 

Ok, but that still seems like small potatoes compared to how big a win a $15 minimum wage is.  That's a big fucking deal, and one of the few Democratic accomplishments that would be hard to demonize and that people can easily understand (unlike Obamacare). 

[Fez]

8 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Ok, but that still seems like small potatoes compared to how big a win a $15 minimum wage is.  That's a big fucking deal, and one of the few Democratic accomplishments that would be hard to demonize and that people can easily understand (unlike Obamacare). 

I agree. But I still don't see there being enough Democratic votes for it. Big ag isn't that big a concern to most Democrats anymore, though it is for a few senators, but if all the major immigrations groups come out against it, that'll sink things. And I don't see there being that many Republican votes for it either, they'd want a lot more in exchange for the minimum wage bump.

Also, Romney and Cotton have not said what their increase is to; it might be $15, but it might be less. Right now the minimum wage in Arkansas is $11, so assume it's at least that amount.