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US Politics: The Copper, Silver, and Peach hangover


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3 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

And I think they may be willing to, and I'm not really enjoying the notion of Ukraine getting fucked over by Republicans again in order to score political points. 

You could say the same thing about the debt ceiling or them going for social security or medicare cuts.  Obviously all of the above would be horrible.  But giving them enough of rope to hang themselves is not a bad thing in my book considering they always fail at these type of things and look bad doing it.

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Just now, DMC said:

You could say the same thing about the debt ceiling or them going for social security or medicare cuts.  Obviously all of the above would be horrible.  But giving them enough of rope to hang themselves is not a bad thing in my book considering they always fail at these type of things and look bad doing it.

As weird as it sounds I'm less worried about those things. I'm more concerned about the active war. That's probably naive of me, honestly; not passing a debt ceiling or doing medicare cuts would also harm a ton of folks. But at least right now I'm more concerned about the most immediate thing.

I also think that Republicans are more willing to cave on medicare/social security because there's going to be more electoral pressure for them to do so, but Ukraine not so much. 

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A judge in Georgia has overturned the state's 6 week abortion ban on the basis that when the law was passed, in 2019, it was plainly unconstitutional. And the judge finds that in Georgia, laws must be assessed at the point in which they passed: 

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“The time with reference to which the constitutionality of an act of the general assembly is to be determined is the date of its passage, and, if it is unconstitutional, then it is forever void.” Jones v. McCaskill, 112 Ga. 453, 37 S.E. 724, 725 (1900) (emphasis added)8; see also Grayson-Robinson Stores, Inc. v. Oneida, Ltd., 209 Ga. 613, 617 (1953) (same); Frankel v. Cone, 214 Ga. 733, 738 (1959), disapproved of on other grounds by Lott Invest. Corp. v. Gerbing, 242 Ga. 90 (1978); Strickland v. Newton Cnty., 244 Ga. 54, 55 (1979) (“The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute is wholly void and of no force and effect from the date it was enacted.”); Adams v. Adams, 249 Ga. 477, 478–79 (1982) (same).

If upheld, this is actually a big deal. The ban in 2019 only passed the Georgia House by 1 vote, despite Republicans having a 105-75 majority. That slightly reduced to 103-77 in 2020, and it's unclear still exactly where it is after last week. Republicans might not have the votes to pass a new ban.

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23 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It very much belongs in the politics thread, since economics is political. Given the intended effect of increasing interest rates is precisely to increase unemployment there is no reason for anyone to be surprised by these announcements / rumours. I guess the interesting bit is that it's starting to happen just after the mid-terms. If the inevitable lay-off wave started happening in October the mid-terms might have been a much better harvest for the Republican party.

Bezos was featured in articles yesterday advising consumers to build up and keep cash on hand to get through possible prolonged downturn. He went as far as to say put off any big ticket purchases like TV's and Autos.

Quite attention getting when it comes from the majority holder of Amazon.:stunned:

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26 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Bezos was featured in articles yesterday advising consumers to build up and keep cash on hand to get through possible prolonged downturn. He went as far as to say put off any big ticket purchases like TV's and Autos.

Quite attention getting when it comes from the majority holder of Amazon.:stunned:

It's totally on the govt if a private sector downturn turns into a complete disaster. If they stupidly decide austerity is the way out of recession (which a Republican House certainly might) then a lot of people will be seriously screwed and unemployment will peak at a shitload higher than the interest rate hiking Fed will have intended. There is a crapload of creaking infrastructure that govts should be spending money on to fix, rising unemployment should be the trigger for the govt to massively increase spending on infrastructure R&M.

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Idle thought here...

Republicans will likely have their House majority.

Republicans and conservatives are ALWAYS publicly complaining about 'bloated government spending.'

That makes it a near certainty that the republican House will object to ANY spending measures put forth by Biden.

In reality, though, republicans spend as much or more than democrats. Among other things, a number of Red States are pretty much dependent on Federal tax dollars.

So... instead of putting forth the usual 'certain to be killed' budget in a few months, maybe Biden should put forth a budget that incorporates what the republican House *claims* to want - a budget with automatic across the board spending cuts (effectively bringing back the sequester). With this, he makes a speech or ten stating that this is the only deal on the table and that he will veto anything else.

There is no way the republican House could accept such a budget - but when they oppose it, Biden gets to say they are not serious about 'reducing the deficit. 

Likewise, there is no prospect (?) of such a budget making it through Congress. But it would set off some fireworks as R representatives have tie themselves in knots. 

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6 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

So... instead of putting forth the usual 'certain to be killed' budget in a few months, maybe Biden should put forth a budget that incorporates what the republican House *claims* to want - a budget with automatic across the board spending cuts (effectively bringing back the sequester). With this, he makes a speech or ten stating that this is the only deal on the table and that he will veto anything else.

There is no way the republican House could accept such a budget - but when they oppose it, Biden gets to say they are not serious about 'reducing the deficit. 

No, this is just counter-intuitive to negotiating 101 - and not in a good way.  If, say, the GOP wants X and Biden wants Y, but Biden's budget proposal starts with X - then the GOP will just say "LOL dumbass" and start their proposal with X - Z.  This is roughly the very significant mistake Obama made on the 2009 stimulus, and he's regretted it ever since.

And let's be clear - a "budget," at least in the form of a CR, will eventually pass.  The longest shutdown ever was Trump's in 2018-19, and even that only lasted a little over a month.

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A very close vote. Of the two, Banks is crazier while Emmer is a McCarthy ally. Shows how little sway McCarthy actually has right now. And since Emmer won, I suspect the HFC are going to be even more demanding in seeking their pound of flesh for the Speaker's vote.

Speaking of which, McCarthy beat out Biggs 188-31 on that caucus vote today. Doesn't mean anything on its own, e.g. in 2018 in the Democratic caucus speaker vote Pelosi only won 203-32. Question is how committed (and how many) are those 31 against McCarthy? He's got until January 3 to win them over.

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While we wait for Trump to announce his campaign in yet another gaudy, tacky venue, thought I'd pass along a link that Neil deGrasse Tyson posted on FB. I recall some discussions here on COVID and how it may have affected the elections; so here are a few links on it.

First (shared by NDT):  Covid Deaths Probably Cost Republicans the Midterms (politicalwire.com)

Second (Pew Research article that goes into detail): Comparing U.S. COVID deaths by county and 2020 presidential voting preference | Pew Research Center

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“To take just one example: between January 2021 and this month, 9,400 people in Nevada died of Covid. The data suggests that the majority of these people would have been Republican voters. Keep that number in mind.”

Two caveats, I haven't read the articles in depth so I am taking everything at face value, and in close elections, it's hard to point to one singular cause that cost A the election versus B. We can probably say that COVID deaths didn't help, that's for sure.

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The prophecy is being realized … ooo, the euphoria! Overwhelming.

Now all we need is Uncle Joe — undoubtedly more confident given the midterm results — to go in for a second round!

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Theoretically every race that ends with a D winning margin less than the D:R death differential due to COVID in that district / state was at least partly due to the death differential. The death differential can also influence the voting intentions of surviving friends and family members. If the person who dies was a COVID-denier / anti-vaxx etc then surviving family members not so brainwashed will have been influenced to some extent to vote for the candidate who is least associated with conspiracy/anti-vaxx sentiment. If friends and family are as deep into those whacky notions as the person who died then they will be convinced the deaths are a deep state / Chinese conspiracy.

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2 hours ago, Fez said:

A very close vote. Of the two, Banks is crazier while Emmer is a McCarthy ally. Shows how little sway McCarthy actually has right now. And since Emmer won, I suspect the HFC are going to be even more demanding in seeking their pound of flesh for the Speaker's vote.

I feel very comfortable saying this, Tom Emmer is one of the dumbest people I've met in my life. And not surprisingly, he's a huge asshole.

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29 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Theoretically every race that ends with a D winning margin less than the D:R death differential due to COVID in that district / state was at least partly due to the death differential. The death differential can also influence the voting intentions of surviving friends and family members. If the person who dies was a COVID-denier / anti-vaxx etc then surviving family members not so brainwashed will have been influenced to some extent to vote for the candidate who is least associated with conspiracy/anti-vaxx sentiment. If friends and family are as deep into those whacky notions as the person who died then they will be convinced the deaths are a deep state / Chinese conspiracy.

Yep. Almost no one wants to talk about it, but it's true. I saw one estimate that the D:R death difference in Nevada was 9,400, that's more than the CCM's winning margin.

 

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I feel very comfortable saying this, Tom Emmer is one of the dumbest people I've met in my life. And not surprisingly, he's a huge asshole.

Lol, doesn't surprise me at all. In no way is Emmer responsible or moderate or anything, he's just a McCarthy loyalist.

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I mean, I just posted a link promoted by Neil deGrasse Tyson about this, so clearly at least some people want to talk about it (it also quotes the 9400 number you cited). I'd still be cautious about headlines like 'COVID caused Republicans to lose the midterms' though. The math is something like COVID+ Jan 6 coup + Dobbs - inflation - culture war stuff = D win.

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The "covid death rate" narrative is fairly annoying if only because it ignores the basics.  Turnout was once again very again this cycle - for a midterm - but that still means only about 47% turnout.  Second, even assuming those that died had, say, higher expected turnout like 60%, it's still faulty to assume they were overwhelming GOP voters.  Which means even if you assume a 2 to 1 margin, that means you're only talking about a 20% difference (40 to 20 of that 60%) of those deaths in any given district/state.  That's really pretty negligible.

Now, what is an interesting research question is how voting was affected in districts with higher levels of deaths and/or hospitalizations, infections, lack of vaccinations, etc.  That's an interesting research design I'd be interested in capable people exploring.

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