American Politics

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2760023]According to a slew of evironmental scientists and economists that's precisely what you are doing when you push Bjorn Lomborg, who appears as yet another dishonest, conspiracy theory peddler that panders to far right entities. Here's a pretty thorough critique on him from the London School of Economics.

[URL]https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/a-closer-examination-of-the-fantastical-numbers-in-bjorn-lomborgs-new-book/[/URL][/QUOTE]A conspiracy theory peddler who panders to far right entities? That's ridiculous. He recognizes that global warming is occurring and believes steps should be taken to mitigate it. He does not believe we should let carbon mitigation efforts crowd out other worthwhile endeavors to improve health and the lot of the poor. Or that we should get into a situation like Europe's in right now, as a result of the Ukraine / Russia situation.

I’m tired of playing whac a mole with you guys. You throw out a link to a biased source, like to Bob Ward's piece, and think you have a "gotcha" moment. That said, if you believe that there are currently net deaths from temperature changes as a result of global warming, or if you disagree with my beliefs about a carbon tax and aid to developing countries to reduce usage of fossil fuels, particularly coal, I’d be interested in what you have to say.

Just scanning the article, the section on fossil fuel subsidies is very misleading. The real fossil fuel subsidies are mostly provided by places like Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India, not by developed countries. How would Mr. Ward propose we strong arm them so they'll end their subsidies?

Ward quotes an IMF publication that puts the cost of fossil fuel subsidies in 2016 dollars at $5.2 trillion. Based on a little research, this is per year. You must have to engage in a lot of mental masturbation to come up with that number. For example, Ward says almost half is from deaths and illness caused through air pollution. I addressed this in the post you're replying to, and, again, the deaths and illnesses are mostly in third world countries.

The belief that the USA heavily subsidizes its fossil fuels industry is a fallacy. See Table 3 on page 17 of this EIA publication:

[URL]https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf[/URL]

In 2017, subsidies for renewables were 6.7 billion dollars. (For better or worse, this number will go up a lot as a result of the "Inflation Reduction Act.") For oil and gas they were [B]negative[/B] 773 million. Tax code provisions are the largest component of the subsidies.

Spending the time to debunk or agree with Ward's other points would take more time than I'm willing to spend. Contrary to what you wrote, I don't have a lot of time on my hands.

Ill note that the Economist and Foreign Policy have praised Lomborg, and Lomborg has written a rebuttal to some of Ward's claims, here.

[URL]https://www.lomborg.com/response-to-bob-ward[/URL]


Btw, when I was a kid the London School of Economics was considered Commie. And the left's solution to all this is to spend massive amounts of money to get to carbon neutral in the USA and Europe, which will not come close to solving the problem if countries like China, India, Indonesia, Russia, etc. don't follow along.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760088]TK, I have been reading and watching a lot of Peter Zeihan. He predicted the Ukraine war but thought Russia was going to do a lot better than it did.
But be careful what you wish for. If we pull in our navy, the rest of the world including you is going to be paying a lot more for traded goods.[/QUOTE]I don't think you watched the video, did you?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760106]Your theory is the Republican Congress has been worthless with the passing of laws while the Democrats have been great.
[/QUOTE]Even Anna Kasparian has given up on the Dems and is asking for a viable 3rd party.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bu9dal2rcU[/URL]

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760106]No, Tooms, you make a stupid conjecture and no one calls you on it and then you declare victory. Your theory is the Republican Congress has been worthless with the passing of laws while the Democrats have been great. In truth, there never was partisan voting to the extent it goes on today.

So your first dumb claim is that if a bill passes into law with a large number of Republicans voting for it, the only people who should get credit for it are the Democratic majority. That is just stupid and binary.

And who made the abortion law and then took it away? Yeah, that was the Supreme Court. Congress had nothing to do with it.

And who made up the laws with masks and travel during Covid? The CDC, a private company, run by executive branch appointees. Again, Congress did nothing there.

Let's take a great law, the Securities Act of 1933, the first law regulating the stock market and the law that created the SEC. You want to give all the credit to the Democrats for this one right? But it is not enough to pass the law. The executive branch often under control of Republicans has to regulate the market and decide how to enforce the law. Then you have the courts that may step in if the SEC goes too far. It takes all three branches of government to make sure the law runs smoothly, and it takes good people in both parties to make sure that it does.

But in your stupid binary brain all good laws are created by Democrats and all bad ones by Republicans, and I repeat that POV is so fucking stupid no one wants to respond to it. This whole binary bullshit splits the country apart.

With you, everything good is Democrat and everything bad is Republican. Most important things in life are not due to politics, and it is obnoxious and childish to take credit for the random good and blame others for the random bad. It is to the point where things are so bad I want you stupid credit hounding Democratic douches to go live in your own country and we will split things in half.

But we have seen what one party Democratic rule is. We have California and New York, and we all know that if things were so fucking great there, people and businesses would not be flooding into Texas and Florida, and they are.

And look at you. You moved to Thailand. You are the typical Californian. You screw up your state with your dumb excessive and expensive regulations, leave it because it is too expensive, and then lecture everyone else on how to govern. You and all the other Californians who have left that state but are political know-it-alls are complete hypocrites.

Why should anyone listen to you and your California political POV when you left that state for somewhere cheaper?[/QUOTE]Elvis, Like I said before, Tooms is a good guy, he's just been brainwashed. It's nothing that a week or two in one of those deprogramming camps wouldn't fix. I really don't think he's a lost cause. If Joe Biden asked him to drink cyanide-flavored Kool Aid or die in a fire, I don't think he'd do it. Yeah the requests for lists of great Republican legislation are getting old. Being from the anarcho capitalist / Libertarian wing of the party, and viewing the federal government as inherently evil, I judge the Republicans based on the legislation they DIDN'T pass. I do revere parts of the tax cut bills passed during the Reagan, Bush and Trump administrations, but I'm too lazy to look up the names of the bills.

Excellent points about state government. Why do blue states elect Republican governors like Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan and Glenn Youngkin? Because Republicans like them are good executives. They have business experience. They aren't lawyers and community activists like so many blue state governors.

And I will defend the right of Californians to grow their welfare states to epic levels, regulate out the gazoo, tax their most productive citizens at extortionate rates, and ban internal combustion engines. I do however get pissed off when the bastards go to Washington and try to inflict that agenda on the rest of us.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2760314]I don't think you watched the video, did you?[/QUOTE]I did whenever you posted it and had mixed feelings about the message. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between what he's saying and what you hear in the main stream media. He has a point that Russia could have wiped Ukraine off the map by now if it had wanted to. They seem to be holding back, versus what they did in Syria. Or perhaps what the main stream media tells us they did in Syria.

I'm disappointed with the USA and Europe. They should be pressing both sides to end this conflict. Nobody's going to come out a winner.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2760314]I don't think you watched the video, did you?[/QUOTE]No, but I just did. There was no new information there. I knew about American and European abuses. Putin's invasion was undoubtedly provoked. The Democrats have had some weird fetish with Russia and Ukraine. The Democratic NGOs really run the country and we saw in Ukrainegate that Ukraine was as Democratically dominated as California. With Russia, apparently, the Dems think Russia cost them the 2016 election. From my POV, the USA should really, really be pushing peace for economic reasons. Russia and Belarus dominate the fertilizer market and other parts of the world (not the USA) may see famine if those do not come back on line. Europe may have some freezing deaths and for the life of me I do not understand what economic interests we have in Ukraine.

What this guy and everyone else has said about Russia is that it wants to go back to the borders of the old USSR. I have NEVER seen that. I thought this war was about securing the safety of the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine who this speaker rightly says were being terrorized. That is what Russia has said this war is about.

And I think this guy's cheerleading about the Russian army was just as bad as the Democratic senators going to Ukraine and saying we stand with you until you achieve victory. WTF does that mean? Did we achieve "victory" in Afghanistan or Iran? In the old days you would take out the government and the fighting was done. It is not like that now.

That famed 40 mile long parade of tanks and trucks that was supposed to invade Kiev ran out of gas, and the soldiers did not even have food. There are so many Russians surrendering right now the Ukrainians have a 1-800 number, and the Russians are so desperate for munitions they are buying these POS Iranian drones that you can only use on unguarded targets. And the notion the West is going to let Ukraine fall is BS too.

And this notion that the Russians were just playing before but are now just serious? Give me a fucking break. They have committed a shit load of atrocities. Both sides have.

There have been so many dumb things said about this war like Putin is Hitler. Hitler said he wanted to invade all of Europe. Putin has said the opposite and if Putin does invade a NATO nation, we are not going to launch nukes? Since when?

Given how shitty their battlefield munitions are, I am not sure the Russians even have all that many nukes that work. It would be suicide for Putin to invade a NATO country in Europe and these fools are saying he is like Hitler and wants to do it. What is the upside?

I agree with the guy the Russians in Eastern Ukraine were being treated like shit by the Ukrainians, and they should have had that region taken from them. If not, it will be like Israel and Palestine.

So you negotiate a peace based on that and stop this stupid fucking war and enough with all these dummies who have visions of victory in their head on either side. Hasn't everyone learned by now that the only winners in war these days are the weapons makers?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760106]No, Tooms, you make a stupid conjecture and no one calls you on it and then you declare victory. Your theory is the Republican Congress has been worthless with the passing of laws while the Democrats have been great. In truth, there never was partisan voting to the extent it goes on today.

So your first dumb claim is that if a bill passes into law with a large number of Republicans voting for it, the only people who should get credit for it are the Democratic majority. That is just stupid and binary.

And who made the abortion law and then took it away? Yeah, that was the Supreme Court. Congress had nothing to do with it.

And who made up the laws with masks and travel during Covid? The CDC, a private company, run by executive branch appointees. Again, Congress did nothing there.

Let's take a great law, the Securities Act of 1933, the first law regulating the stock market and the law that created the SEC. You want to give all the credit to the Democrats for this one right? But it is not enough to pass the law. The executive branch often under control of Republicans has to regulate the market and decide how to enforce the law. Then you have the courts that may step in if the SEC goes too far. It takes all three branches of government to make sure the law runs smoothly, and it takes good people in both parties to make sure that it does.

But in your stupid binary brain all good laws are created by Democrats and all bad ones by Republicans, and I repeat that POV is so fucking stupid no one wants to respond to it. This whole binary bullshit splits the country apart.[/QUOTE]That was a long, round about post to finally have it land smack on the "Gee, you're right. I've got nothing but easily debunked opinions I pulled out of my butt" Repub reply list.

Sorry. A law passed in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal when [B]Democrats[/B] held the White House and the Majority in Both Houses of Congress does not count as a merciful citation of at least one single meaningful and now revered legislation promoted, fought for and passed when [B]Republicans[/B] held the White House and the Majority in Both Houses of Congress.

I mean, Elvis, I see you put a lot of time in writing that post and I wish I had a "participation" trophy to give you for it.

But, hey, it was way off the mark. In fact, it missed the entire wall, much less the target, even less the bullseye. Surely, you can understand why it missed the mark so horribly, right?

Or, rather, Don't. Mess. With. Sleepy Joe Brandon.

A few random thoughts, more later after the dust settles:

- Had pro Repub Bothsiders like Bill Maher and others in typically pro Mainstream Media not worked so hard to suppress the Dem vote right up until hours before election day, the House and Senate seats still on a knife's edge would have gone to the Dems easily.

- Worst case scenario with the remaining races to be determined, Biden will still be one of the winningest, most successful Presidents of all time legislatively and now with his first term midterm elections.

- The generic, consensus polls for control of Congress were right, as those polls usually are, within a normal +/-MoE.

- Aside from those two or three 2016 battleground state EC catastrophes, the skyrocketing deficits added every year into the Trillions with absolutely nothing positive to show for it, near zero legislative accomplishments, the two Bear Market Crashes in the broad market including his 2020 Mega Bear, his creation of Trump's Pandemic and all the worldwide deaths, serious sicknesses, the massive jobs destruction, the global economic and supply-chain collapse and the inevitable hyper-inflation that followed and we are currently still dealing with, Donald J. Trump has actually been the gift to Dem electoral victories that keeps on giving.

[B]The red wave that wasnt: 5 takeaways from a disappointing night for the GOP.
Donald Trumps favored candidates prove a drag to Republicans, running well behind others in their party.[/B]

[URL]https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/2022-election-results-analysis-and-takeaways-00065878[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2760354]I did whenever you posted it and had mixed feelings about the message.
I'm disappointed with the USA and Europe. They should be pressing both sides to end this conflict. Nobody's going to come out a winner.[/QUOTE]You must be getting a fine collection in your interesting video library by now then. Hehe. At least your mind is open enough to listen to the "other side".

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760379]
So you negotiate a peace based on that and stop this stupid fucking war and enough with all these dummies who have visions of victory in their head on either side. Hasn't everyone learned by now that the only winners in war these days are the weapons makers?[/QUOTE]So I think we have found some agreement that we all believe the West is acting wrong and needs to stop this 'endless war' stance. Everyone needs peace now.

And I think we can also agree that the worst liars in the public domain are the mainstream media. They always shovel their agenda on viewers, to such an extent that the news is worthless apart from to propagandise. No left or right. Just a statement of fact.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2760454]That was a long, round about post to finally have it land smack on the "Gee, you're right. I've got nothing but easily debunked opinions I pulled out of my butt" Repub reply list.

Sorry. A law passed in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal when [B]Democrats[/B] held the White House and the Majority in Both Houses of Congress does not count as a merciful citation of at least one single meaningful and now revered legislation promoted, fought for and passed when [B]Republicans[/B] held the White House and the Majority in Both Houses of Congress.

I mean, Elvis, I see you put a lot of time in writing that post and I wish I had a "participation" trophy to give you for it.

But, hey, it was way off the mark. In fact, it missed the entire wall, much less the target, even less the bullseye. Surely, you can understand why it missed the mark so horribly, right?[/QUOTE]This challenge is a great challenge and exemplifies the very essence of what the Repubs have NOT DONE w/r to helping all Americans in any meaningful way, other than lower taxes for the rich and corporate cronies.

But true to form, they do love to take credit for the laws / bills Dems have passed, and make it their own, through twisted right-wing lies.

Great Challenge!

PS: Perhaps, more of these challenges should be posted?

[QUOTE=Spidy;2760587]This challenge is a great challenge and exemplifies the very essence of what the Repubs have NOT DONE w/r to helping all Americans in any meaningful way, other than lower taxes for the rich and corporate cronies.

But true to form, they do love to take credit for the laws / bills Dems have passed, and make it their own, through twisted right-wing lies.

Great Challenge!

PS: Perhaps, more of these challenges should be posted?[/QUOTE]Yes, they seem to be confusing "bipartisan" legislation that Repubs might have grudgingly voted Yes on for the sake of expedience, "me too" political advantage or perhaps, quite credibly, because they were honestly too dumb to understand what they voting for after the Dems wrote it and put it up for a vote.

When a Political Party holds the White House, the Majority in the House AND the Majority in the Senate, its time has come to step up and DO whatever the basic purpose is of that Party. That is, IF that Party has any purpose at all other than to simply gain power.

The Democratic Party has several major, meaningful and now revered pieces of legislation that they passed when they controlled all three of those elements in the Federal Government. I listed a few of them before such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, etc, etc, etc. Hell, I'll even add the legislation Elvis mistakenly thought qualified for the challenge, the FDR New Deal-introduced Securities Act of 1933 as another Dem-produced meaningful and now revered (amended in subsequent years, of course) legislation promoted, fought for and passed when, sure enough, Dems and not Repubs held the WH and Majorities in Both Houses of Congress. Why not, as long as Elvis is impressed enough to praise it.

But Repubs didn't promote, fight for and pass that legislation in the decade prior to 1933 when THEY held the WH and Majorities in Both Houses of Congress. Oh no. Their only across-the-board contribution to it in the previous decade was crapping all over the USA economy and leading America into the Great Repub Crash and Depression that REQUIRED the Dems to produce and pass that Securities Act of 1933 in order to save American Capitalism from horrific Repub economic stewardship and results.

Again.

Now, American history would have tracked a whole helluva lot rosier over the past 100 years if the purpose of the Repub Party was ONLY to gain power. I mean, since there is zero evidence of them producing so much as a single piece of meaningful and now revered legislation when they controlled the three key elements mentioned. Sure, if they had only accepted the position of power they were blessed with when the American electorate was stupid enough to hand all of it to them and simply spend their time in power Doing Nothing, which they are highly skilled at doing.

Unfortunately, when they DO anything with that trio of legislative powers, it winds up strongly suggesting their Party's sole purpose is to produce chaos, horrific economic results, wipe out millions of USA jobs and worse.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2759766]For those of you that never access "the other side" - thru choice or ignorance, here is the alternative story of Russian atrocities.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyXhwbj6_yA[/URL]

You might think, [b]why believe this BS?[/b] My media is so much more trustworthy. But when you say that you should know that you sound like a Christian arguing that your god is more beleiveable than any other god.[/QUOTE]Why indeed!

Who wouldn't trust Paul Ritter, a sex-offender and frequent feature on Sputnik and RT who's claimed (among other absurdities) that the massacre in Bucha was organized by the Ukrainians, while it was occupied by the Russians?

Great find!

They expected the wave and they gave them a trickle.

[QUOTE]Kremlin Cronies Sent Reeling on Live TV Over U.S. Midterm Elections

The midterm elections in the United States were a hot topic in Moscow. Convinced that the red wave was coming, Russian propagandists rushed to take credit for the anticipated landslide victory that would ensure Republican majority in Congress and Senate.

On Tuesday, Russias Tucker Carlson, top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, greeted his audience by wishing them a Happy Interference in the U.S. Election Day. Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as Putin's chef, who was indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference, likewise decided to publicly fess up to the allegations he previously denied.

This plan to discredit the U.S. elections and convince the Republicans that the mighty Kremlin hand covertly helped push them to victory had backfired. On Wednesday, state TV propagandists were scratching their heads about the wave that turned out to be but a trickle. [b]During the broadcast of 60 Minutes, host Olga Skabeeva asked an expert: How are our guys in America? Political scientist Vladimir Kornilov clarified with a chuckle: Our Republicans.[/b]

Skabeeva exclaimed: Come out, Americans! You are being lied to! Abzalov pointed out that at least January should be fun, predicting that Republicans would attempt to impeach U.S. President Joe Biden. Skabeeva complained: They will impeach but wont be able to overthrow him. Weve seen how it went down with our friend, our comrade Donaldand it happened more than once.

[b]Skabeeva went on: We keep worrying about our guys, their results should have been better than this..."[/b]

In addition to Russias mounting disappointments in the electoral battles of the United States, their invasion of Ukraine keeps going from bad to worse. During Tuesdays broadcast of 60 Minutes, host Olga Skabeeva said, Things are difficult. Nonetheless, we have to win on our ownits official. Republicans can hardly help us to retain the Kherson region or the city of Kherson. On Wednesday, Russian troops retreated from the area.

Host Vladimir Solovyov started Wednesdays broadcast of The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov by grimly noting: Weve been planning an entirely different program tonight. We were going to talk about American elections, but then we got the news from Kherson.

Nonetheless, in the minds of the Kremlins propagandists, its all connected. Solovyov speculated that if the withdrawal was announced just one day earlier, it might have helped Biden and the Democrats: [b]The withdrawal was announced after Nov. 8, on Nov. 9, so it wouldnt influence the U.S. elections.[/b][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2760512]Or, rather, Don't. Mess. With. Sleepy Joe Brandon.

A few random thoughts, more later after the dust settles:

- Had pro Repub Bothsiders like Bill Maher and others in typically pro Mainstream Media not worked so hard to suppress the Dem vote right up until hours before election day, the House and Senate seats still on a knife's edge would have gone to the Dems easily.

- Worst case scenario with the remaining races to be determined, Biden will still be one of the winningest, most successful Presidents of all time legislatively and now with his first term midterm elections.

- The generic, consensus polls for control of Congress were right, as those polls usually are, within a normal +/-MoE.

- Aside from those two or three 2016 battleground state EC catastrophes, the skyrocketing deficits added every year into the Trillions with absolutely nothing positive to show for it, near zero legislative accomplishments, the two Bear Market Crashes in the broad market including his 2020 Mega Bear, his creation of Trump's Pandemic and all the worldwide deaths, serious sicknesses, the massive jobs destruction, the global economic and supply-chain collapse and the inevitable hyper-inflation that followed and we are currently still dealing with, Donald J. Trump has actually been the gift to Dem electoral victories that keeps on giving.

[B]The red wave that wasn't: 5 takeaways from a disappointing night for the GOP.
Donald Trumps favored candidates prove a drag to Republicans, running well behind others in their party.[/B]

[URL]https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/2022-election-results-analysis-and-takeaways-00065878[/URL][/QUOTE]I responded to some bozo on FB who asked (and I am paraphrasing) "How could it have gone so badly for Repubs?

My answer was, in effect, "Because you kept breathing your own exhaust". The Repubs wanted a "red wave". All of their pollsters predicted a "red wave". They were too stupid to know the difference between calm, measured leadership (Biden) and chaos (Donnie the Dumbass and the rest of the Republican party).

The Repubs found out, thankfully, that the majority of Americans [B]don't want[/B] to turn the clock back to the 1850's. The Repubs found out that the majority of Americans [B]do not believe[/B] that anything further left than shooting people of color for sport is "socialist".

Intelligent discussion about new evidence that COVID was a lab leak, and more evidence that the state controlled media and science community buries the truth bcos it is too painful to confront.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5gNn5c9kzo[/URL]