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US Politics: Ted Cruz - A Tale of two Snowflakes


A Horse Named Stranger

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With respect to what is happening in Texas.  Given that the power companies have seen this happen before, given that that there was the Federal report setting out the failures and what needed to be done ...

 

Can the company executives be charged with manslaughter? 

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4 minutes ago, ants said:

With respect to what is happening in Texas.  Given that the power companies have seen this happen before, given that that there was the Federal report setting out the failures and what needed to be done ...

 

Can the company executives be charged with manslaughter? 

Of course not, don't be ridiculous.. Businesses are not people (except for when they are) and therefore cannot murder someone. If someone dies in the course of business, well that is a civil matter where you're either given a shut up and go away settlement or they bring in their team of high priced lawyers to destroy you.

The only death sentence I believe in is a corporate death sentence.

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51 minutes ago, ants said:

With respect to what is happening in Texas.  Given that the power companies have seen this happen before, given that that there was the Federal report setting out the failures and what needed to be done ...

 

Can the company executives be charged with manslaughter? 

This is America. What are you, some kind of communist?

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The Texas Gov. is already out giving rah rah speeches about how the Texas taxpayers will need to come up with more money for the private management of the power networks.

It's the old privatize profits, socialize losses routine. That's the whole explanation for Texas sorry utility market right now. Those managers will walk away with hefty bonuses and the Gov and his ilk will get nice crony kickbacks, Pac donations and campaign contributions.

There will be no accountability.

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No record on how they voted (this has really got to change), but SCOTUS is not blocking the NY grand jury subpoena of Trump's financial records.

 

Also, and perhaps more importantly, SCOTUS dismissed the last Pennsylvania elector case as moot. However, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito dissented from the dismissal, because they think the question of whether SCOTUS can overrule state supreme court interpretations of state constitutions needs to be addressed (and they think SCOTUS can). That's very bad thing. However, it's a good thing that none of Roberts, Kavanaugh, or Barrett think that (or, at the very least, don't think it should be considered right now).

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022221zor_2cp3.pdf

So far at least, we've avoided the worst case scenario with Barrett, as she generally has agreed with Roberts and Kavanaugh on big stuff; rather than Thomas and Alito (and Gorsuch is a YOLO who follows his judicial theory wherever it leads him). I assume she'll vote to overturn Roe v. Wade as soon as she can; but maybe she won't try to tear down our system of government.

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19 minutes ago, DMC said:

Collins is a no on Tanden.  White House still sticking by her for now, but seems it's down to Murkowski or Romney.  Guess an outside shot of Portman - he's voted for all of Biden's nominees thus far, is retiring of course, and was an OMB director himself.

If Tanden not getting confirmed is the price of getting Manchin on board for the relief bill I say great.  You throw a bone to Manchin, and honestly the [most] left wing of the Dems is going to also enjoy this.

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16 minutes ago, DMC said:

Collins is a no on Tanden.  White House still sticking by her for now, but seems it's down to Murkowski or Romney.  Guess an outside shot of Portman - he's voted for all of Biden's nominees thus far, is retiring of course, and was an OMB director himself.

Romney also a no now

I can't see any other Republican voting yes. Why would they?

Still, every President has at least one initial pick fail. If Tanden is Biden's, that's not the worst case scenario. 

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3 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

If Tanden not getting confirmed is the price of getting Manchin on board for the relief bill Is say great.  You throw a bone to Manchin, and honestly the left wing of the Dems is going to also enjoy this.

I'd definitely agree if that was the logroll, but if anything this just demonstrates how beholden Biden and the entire party are to Manchin.  Seems more likely to embolden Manchin than to get him to comply.

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Biden's approval ratings are ~55/37. Still too early to say what American President he will most resemble. I think I can make a case for Reagan, right down to the short term boost he got in his ratings followed by a dip underwater and then a steady increase. Heck, thrown in the whispers of cognitive decline for additionality.

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8 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Biden's approval ratings are ~55/37. Still too early to say what American President he will most resemble. I think I can make a case for Reagan, right down to the short term boost he got in his ratings followed by a dip underwater and then a steady increase. Heck, thrown in the whispers of cognitive decline for additionality.

It's entirely too early to say. Worst case scenario, he's Carter; a last gasp of an old system before the new (and in this case, fascist) paradigm takes over. Best case scenario, he's FDR; he leads the country out of crisis, expands his congressional majorities during the midterms, and establishes a new coalition (in this case, suburbs+inner core) that is dominant for 40 years. Or anything in between. 

Polarization is too high for any landslides, and quite a lot of red states will remain entirely red. But on the flip side, if there was rock-solid 55% support for Democrats nationwide, they'd win an awful lot for a long time.

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On 2/19/2021 at 3:02 PM, DMC said:

Manchin to vote no on Tanden as OMB director.  Still think she'll probably be fine - the Budget committee vote next week should be a clear indicator if she can get any GOP votes with Toomey and Romney as members.  But it's pretty amusing to imagine the cognitive dissonance involved with the progressive hatred having to credit Joe Manchin for taking her down.

Most progressives I've talked to see it as she that took herself down. Manchin, again, does just about the bare minimum to keep people talking about him.

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Ugh:

The anti-abortion advocacy group Students for Life is also launching digital ads this week targeting Hassan and Warnock, along with a group of eight moderate Democrats and Republicans: Sens. Joe Manchin, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Bob Casey Michael Bennet, Jon Tester, and Kyrsten Sinema. The group is also planning to hold rallies this week outside those senators’ offices.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/22/republicans-pressure-democrats-hhs-nomination-470816

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There's a lot of chatter on twitter about how FEMA money is going to be used to pay all the exorbitant gas and electric bills in Texas.  So ***if this is true***,  a freak weather event that these companies were unprepared for is going to be a major financial windfall on the backs of taxpayers?  Unfucking real considering what we all get from our government during times of crisis and who ends up just making money hand over fist.  Pitchforks!

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2 hours ago, Fez said:

No record on how they voted (this has really got to change), but SCOTUS is not blocking the NY grand jury subpoena of Trump's financial records.

 

 

So far at least, we've avoided the worst case scenario with Barrett, as she generally has agreed with Roberts and Kavanaugh on big stuff; rather than Thomas and Alito (and Gorsuch is a YOLO who follows his judicial theory wherever it leads him). I assume she'll vote to overturn Roe v. Wade as soon as she can; but maybe she won't try to tear down our system of government.

OK, explain to this old person what you personally mean by YOLO in the above. In the link I found below, it says YOLO is for "You Only LIve Once", but then seems to define it as a term used by young people for impulsive and often dangerous actions taken on the basis of spur of the moment desires. That doesn't seem like the same thing as "following one's judicial theory wherever it leads him" to me, as if one has a recognized theory, one's rulings should be more predictable than I think YOLO implies.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/08/25/what-yolo-only-teenagers-know-for-sure/Idso04FecrYzLa4KOOYpXO/story.html

 

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6 minutes ago, Ormond said:

OK, explain to this old person what you personally mean by YOLO in the above. In the link I found below, it says YOLO is for "You Only LIve Once", but then seems to define it as a term used by young people for impulsive and often dangerous actions taken on the basis of spur of the moment desires. That doesn't seem like the same thing as "following one's judicial theory wherever it leads him" to me, as if one has a recognized theory, one's rulings should be more predictable than I think YOLO implies.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/08/25/what-yolo-only-teenagers-know-for-sure/Idso04FecrYzLa4KOOYpXO/story.html

 

Both the philosophy of YOLO and Gorsuch are about having a "damn the consequences, I don't care where this leads me" attitude; whether that leads to doing too many keg stands, deciding most of Oklahoma is still tribal land, streaking, or sanctioning the overthrow of American democracy.

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Anti-Trumpers are done with the GOP. Where do they go now?
Scores of Republicans are bolting the party in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But they’re discovering there’s really no place to go.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/22/anti-trump-republicans-third-party-470783

Quote

 

When Jim Hendren, a longtime Arkansas state legislator, announced on Thursday that he was leaving the GOP, it marked the latest in a flurry of recent defections from the party.

Tens of thousands of Republicans across the country have changed their registrations in the weeks since the riot at the Capitol — many of them, like Hendren, becoming independents. Other former party officials are discussing forming a third party.


But if the Republicans’ reasons for leaving the GOP are obvious — primarily, disdain for former President Donald Trump and his stranglehold on the party — the sobering reality confronting them on the other side is that there’s really no place to go.


The Democratic Party, which continues to move leftward, isn’t a good ideological fit. Those who want to fight to recapture the GOP from within are vastly outnumbered. Building a third party from scratch requires gigantic sums of money and overcoming a thicket of daunting state laws designed in large part by the two major parties.

“Right now, everybody’s just trying to figure out how to coalesce what is a small fraction of the Republican Party — what do we do with it,” said former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. “And starting a third party is extremely difficult.”

Walsh said he and others who have left the GOP are “kind of in the wilderness.”

 

 

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2 hours ago, Fez said:

No record on how they voted (this has really got to change), but SCOTUS is not blocking the NY grand jury subpoena of Trump's financial records.

 

Also, and perhaps more importantly, SCOTUS dismissed the last Pennsylvania elector case as moot. However, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito dissented from the dismissal, because they think the question of whether SCOTUS can overrule state supreme court interpretations of state constitutions needs to be addressed (and they think SCOTUS can). That's very bad thing. However, it's a good thing that none of Roberts, Kavanaugh, or Barrett think that (or, at the very least, don't think it should be considered right now).

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022221zor_2cp3.pdf

So far at least, we've avoided the worst case scenario with Barrett, as she generally has agreed with Roberts and Kavanaugh on big stuff; rather than Thomas and Alito (and Gorsuch is a YOLO who follows his judicial theory wherever it leads him). I assume she'll vote to overturn Roe v. Wade as soon as she can; but maybe she won't try to tear down our system of government.

Gorsuch is a conservative judge, that got the SCOTUS position that McConnell stole from Obama. However, his textualist approach is at least operating in an observable legal reality, yes, it's conservative, but it's not batshit crazy. The issue are really the ouija board playing spiri... eh originalist judges. Well them, and Clarence Thomas, who just seems to intent to make the most partisan and awful decissions. Basically, you can still hope that he gets promoted to the most supreme court to sit in judgement next to Scalia.

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