US Politics: One No Trump

[Fez]

18 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

A lot of the post-Katrina refugees moved to Texas (Houston if I am not mistaken, and the hurricane that hit it in the last decade must have triggered painful memories).

At any rate, what you say may be right, although Katrina and the FEMA botch up finally tanked Bush's approval ratings, or so the story goes. It sounds weird that Louisiana voters punished local Democrats, but Americans everywhere else punished Bush.

It's not that weird, the local Democrats had plenty of their own fuckups in the response; it wasn't just federal mistakes. 

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You are missing something here: so many of the Dem vote weren't in Louisiana any longer, but had been forced to move elsewhere, and they stayed where they ended up -- better schools had a lot to do with that.  Which is why the rethugs made it, and continue to make it, as unattractive and difficult for African Americans  to move back as possible, including the loss of homes, which only began with the flooding post the hurricane, but targeted specifically the very politically organized, perfectly functional old housing projects -- bulldozed them to oblivion.

Which is exactly how TX will be dealing with the rethug political crisis that grows out of this latest failure of them --  every more repression of voting for everyone who isn't  white man.

 

I didn't miss it, it's the last paragraph of my post. But the loss of Democratic votes from the NOLA region wasn't the only cause. Jindal had been the nominee in 2003 as well, so its a pretty good apples-to-apples; and he increased his raw vote total from then to 2007. 

Also, Mary Landrieu still won re-election as senator in 2008, so it wasn't impossible yet for Democrats to win in the state; so long as they weren't tied to the Katrina response.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

Yes that was the joke, Scot.

But it isn’t funny.  I, and I hope many others, appreciate having a President who does his job for a change.

[HoodedCrow]

I see, when rich people do things like eliminate polio, it doesn’t count. They really should spend their money and time building non functional casinos or acquiring yet another car like Hannity.
 

Nah, Biden has been as good as he can be, after the Republicans raided the piggy bank, and left us to die. 
 

I wish that we could instantly solve horrible money problems. I would like to see a lot more egalitarianism, but, a lot of Americans have been indoctrinated about socialism, gender roles.

@Simonsteele, we need you. It’s going to be a long slog against the darkness. Bernie is working on the budget, women generals are getting considered again. The trans paranoia is garbage  but there are strides there, too. The racism is horrifying. The sexism is very hard to take.  If you ran for office, I would vote for you.

I have a question for the savvy. I’m going to see a specialist who I realize is trans. Just ignore, be gender blind? 
 

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

In addition, the problem isn't that Ted Cruz is doing nothing, it's that he's vacationing in Mexico while his state is suffering.  If all he was doing was nothing, he wouldn't be in the news. 

Yeah, I totally get that it's bad optics. But other than that. I mean, I'd rather ahve him in Mexico than showing his face to every camera that can't be hidden in time and sucking up oxygen. So really apart from the optics, I really don't feel it's worth spending much time on it. Abbott (and his predecessors like Perry) are more worthy targets imho. It's still three long years until Cruz is up for re-election and he most certainly will have done something worse by then again. And next year Abbott is up for reelection.

[Fragile Bird]

4 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yeah, I totally get that it's bad optics. But other than that. I mean, I'd rather ahve him in Mexico than showing his face to every camera that can't be hidden in time and sucking up oxygen. 

I don’t mean to disappoint you, but CNN is reporting that their informant says Cruz will be on a plane back to Houston today!

[DireWolfSpirit]

This is all just more evidence of how, contrary to usual history takes, we suffered a stunning defeat in the U.S./Mexican War, and as consequence we've been chained with Texas ever since.

Damn You Mexico, Damn You dirty tricksters!

 

[HoodedCrow]

Apparently Texas decided to be their own power grid. Let’s see, just suppose that the energy industry pays politician PACs money for deregulation. A politician could invest in certain companies and profit handsomely and mostly unaccountably. The energy company could make their profits higher by laying off people and running it into the ground. Yup, ask Mitt Romney how this works. It’s called vulture capitalism. And corruption. Or watch The Smartest Guys in the Room, and there’s the attitude.

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

Apparently Texas decided to be their own power grid. Let’s see, just suppose that the energy industry pays politician PACs money for deregulation. A politician could invest in certain companies and profit handsomely and mostly unaccountably. The energy company could make their profits higher by laying off people and running it into the ground. Yup, ask Mitt Romney how this works. It’s called vulture capitalism. And corruption. Or watch The Smartest Guys in the Room, and there’s the attitude.

 Nice idea, except that Texas made the decision in the 1930s, long before anyone ever dreamed of a thing like a PAC.

[Mindwalker]

Statement by Cruz:

https://twitter.com/jonlovett/status/1362465881247342597/photo/1

[GrimTuesday]

2 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

I see, when rich people do things like eliminate polio, it doesn’t count. They really should spend their money and time building non functional casinos or acquiring yet another car like Hannity.
 

Nah, Biden has been as good as he can be, after the Republicans raided the piggy bank, and left us to die. 
 

I wish that we could instantly solve horrible money problems. I would like to see a lot more egalitarianism, but, a lot of Americans have been indoctrinated about socialism, gender roles.

@Simonsteele, we need you. It’s going to be a long slog against the darkness. Bernie is working on the budget, women generals are getting considered again. The trans paranoia is garbage  but there are strides there, too. The racism is horrifying. The sexism is very hard to take.  If you ran for office, I would vote for you.

I have a question for the savvy. I’m going to see a specialist who I realize is trans. Just ignore, be gender blind?

See, rich people didn't eliminate polio, polio was wiped out because the vaccine was not patented and was available for anyone to manufacture because the guy who created it, Jonas Salk, didn't believe that something so vital to the quality of life of millions of people should patented. Rich folks on the other hand are actively finding ways to monetize every single crisis and create private organizations to subsume the public institutions that so many people rely on. Pretending that rich folks doing philanthropy is some kind of amazing thing is just buying into the propaganda. Charitable donations are tax deductions and are PR stunts that they use to shield themselves from criticism and pretend that they are somehow necessary and good. We should be taxing the living shit out of these people and using that money to more effectively distribute the money to address people's actual needs instead of funding shit like charter schools and jerking off Bill Gates for being a base level human instead of a sociopath monster like Peter Thiel is counter productive.

Also who give a shit if a general is a man or a woman? They are all part of a system built on sending the poor and disadvantaged off to die or have their lives forever changed in a negative way on behalf of American capital. A bomb dropped from a drone with an LGBT flag is still a bomb. It's the same as female cops, they are still part of an unjust institution and not to be valorized. It's like in Biden's town hall the other night when he answered a question about how to reform the police by pointing out that you now see multi-racial couples in commercials. It's this kind of pseudo progressive bullshit that capital and the ruling class use to convince the people that things are getting better while they pick our pockets.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Yeah, of course Cruz is lying in that statement, and in the end none of it will matter (although one of the great comments on Twitter was how the entire state of Texas could be warmed by his gaslighting). Still, why not make him squirm while he is in the spotlight? Things like this will ensure he will never be President, although he may comfortably be re-elected in Texas over and over again.

[IheartIheartTesla]

By the way, the story behind Salk not wanting the polio vaccine to be patented is (probably) not true, the NFIP/UPitt lawyers did take a look at the invention and deemed it unpatentable due to prior art.

I myself am agnostic about open research versus IP when it comes to producing something like a vaccine that is used for public health (not knowing enough about it). For commercial products, IP is highly useful.

[Ran]

He's not actually lying. He says I flew with them and now I'm flying back. Which is true. He just omits the whole, "I intended to stay in balmy Cancun sipping margaritas until Saturday but the backlash made me realize I fucked up" thing. (Per this, from an airline industry reporter.)

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, at least we can assume public transport in Cancun is working, as Teddy boy could easily throw his kids under the bus. And I thought they were a bit too young to get humilated by an older guy during spring break in Cancun.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Partisanship will win here too, I dont see this disaster having any consequences for the GoP in Texas.

They're already blaming it on wind turbines, therefore the Green New Deal, therefore AOC and Nancy Pelosi.

3 hours ago, Fez said:

On the other hand, we have Louisiana post-Katrina as a comparison point.

I think Katrina having any significant longterm effect on shifting partisan attitudes in Louisiana is rather clearly a post-hoc fallacy.  It was a late-stage polarization state, aye, but it seems pretty apparent that's just a regional oddity thing - tracks/aligns very closely with Arkansas.

[Mindwalker]

 

[GrimTuesday]

4 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

By the way, the story behind Salk not wanting the polio vaccine to be patented is (probably) not true, the NFIP/UPitt lawyers did take a look at the invention and deemed it unpatentable due to prior art.

I myself am agnostic about open research versus IP when it comes to producing something like a vaccine that is used for public health (not knowing enough about it). For commercial products, IP is highly useful.

It may or may not have been what he truly believed, but the fact that the vaccine was not patented is one of the major reasons that polio was wiped out. the mass availability and the inability for drug manufacturers to exclusively distribute it meant that there was no way to generate massive profits for the patent holders. Also it is good propaganda for left wing healthcare policy, and if Republicans can just outright lie, why can't we be telling half truths?

The government needs to stop funding drug research through pharmaceutical companies and just hire a whole fuck load of folks to develop them themselves, because we should all be appalled by how much of the funding for drug research comes from taxpayer dollars that we then have to pay out the nose for.

[Fez]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

I think Katrina having any significant longterm effect on shifting partisan attitudes in Louisiana is rather clearly a post-hoc fallacy.  It was a late-stage polarization state, aye, but it seems pretty apparent that's just a regional oddity thing - tracks/aligns very closely with Arkansas.

Definitely possible. My argument isn't that Katrina caused any changes, but rather that it caused them to happen much faster. In most southern states, 2010 marked when Democrats were finally wiped out, whereas in Louisiana it mostly happened in 2007, and finished up by 2010. And that's after still having a stronger than usual (for the region) state Democratic party up until then.

Basically, if not for Katrina, maybe Louisiana Democrats wouldn't have gotten wiped out until 2014; which is when Arkansas Democrats were. Which might not seem like much, but 7 years can be a long time in politics. And, if Texas' movement towards Democrats were moved up by 7 years, maybe it would actually be winnable later this decade.

[DireWolfSpirit]

It's amazing how the wind turbines run through our sub zero weather up north without a problem.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

It's amazing how the wind turbines run through our sub zero weather up north without a problem.

It's because in places with expected cold conditions, wind turbines are equipped with cold weather kits that provide things like de-icing, built-in heating, and so on. Not shocking that Texas wind turbine farms rarely if ever have them if it rarely gets much below 26F.