Debate & this morning

[TaKinGDeePanal]

On 7/1/2024 at 11:27 AM, TaKinGDeePanal said:

I sincerely hope that folks here remember that how you vote in November literally affects the rest of the world. If Trump wins, there will be a number of countries that won't exist by this time next year.

 

10 hours ago, topblkmale said:

 

Which countries?

 

 

5 hours ago, meetme said:

Ukraine for one, I don’t follow the Middle East but Trump will do anything Putin wants, he has been their tool since the 1980s. Trump Tower was built for Russian oligarchs to launder their stollen money, before that building real estate could not be owned by nameless entities.

Off the top of my head:

• Ukraine (obvious)
• Poland (also seen by Putin as "Russian", plus they tried to exterminate as many Polish Jews, Military Officers, Government Officials, and Intellectuals as they could in both World Wars - that's what happens when you have an official State anti-Semitic platform going back to 1881)
• Lithuania (refer Poland)
• Latvia (refer Poland)
• Estonia (refer Poland)
• Palestine (after they serve their purpose as the Second Front in Ukraine - Putin: "we will win the War by any means necessary")
• South Korea (Trump tried 4 times to unilaterally dissolve KORUS. Seoul would be eliminated in 30 minutes.)
• UK (no NATO plus un under resourced military means that Putin adds this to his list)
• Australia (the Steele Report had part of its origins in the then-Australian Ambassador's remarks over a boozy dinner, plus Trump is on record as saying the present Ambassador is ‘nasty’ and says he ‘won’t be there long’ as Australia’s ambassador to US )
• Taiwan (got to keep the Chinese happy, plus it's money that Trump would rather have spent on another golden toilet)

There again, what would I know? I've only been following Russian US and Middle Eastern Politics since the late 70s - and I'm the only one I know with a Minor in Soviet and Middle Eastern Political Science.

[BootmanLA]

21 minutes ago, TaKinGDeePanal said:

Off the top of my head:

• Ukraine (obvious)
• Poland (also seen by Putin as "Russian", plus they tried to exterminate as many Polish Jews, Military Officers, Government Officials, and Intellectuals as they could in both World Wars - that's what happens when you have an official State anti-Semitic platform going back to 1881)
• Lithuania (refer Poland)
• Latvia (refer Poland)
• Estonia (refer Poland)
• Palestine (after they serve their purpose as the Second Front in Ukraine - Putin: "we will win the War by any means necessary")
• South Korea (Trump tried 4 times to unilaterally dissolve KORUS. Seoul would be eliminated in 30 minutes.)
• UK (no NATO plus un under resourced military means that Putin adds this to his list)
• Australia (the Steele Report had part of its origins in the then-Australian Ambassador's remarks over a boozy dinner, plus Trump is on record as saying the present Ambassador is ‘nasty’ and says he ‘won’t be there long’ as Australia’s ambassador to US )
• Taiwan (got to keep the Chinese happy, plus it's money that Trump would rather have spent on another golden toilet)

There again, what would I know? I've only been following Russian US and Middle Eastern Politics since the late 70s - and I'm the only one I know with a Minor in Soviet and Middle Eastern Political Science.

I'm not so sure all of these would fall if Trump's elected (Russia might get stretched too thin trying to take them all on, and the UK does have nukes), but any of them COULD, and how many depends on how ambitious Russia tries to get. 

[TaKinGDeePanal]

2 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

I'm not so sure all of these would fall if Trump's elected (Russia might get stretched too thin trying to take them all on, and the UK does have nukes), but any of them COULD, and how many depends on how ambitious Russia tries to get. 

Provided that ECMs haven't been deployed by then, by the time that the signal from the PM (who is guaranteed to be a ditherer whatever way the election on 4 July 2024 decides) goes through the appropriate MOD channels and is then received by HMS Coulport for anything to be loaded at HMNB Clyde, the 3 or 4 SSBNs'-worth of missiles required to saturate that tiny island would already be halfway over France - and the first one to hit will most likely be right on their heads.

[hntnhole]

On 7/2/2024 at 9:33 AM, topblkmale said:

Which countries?

Ukraine, obviously.  If Pukin takes that, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Moldova would be in the most immediate danger.  Clearly, the Russian armed forces couldn't swallow all of them at once, and most (if not all) are members of NATO. 

The weasel in that woodwork though, is if his corpulence manages to get reelected, NATO itself would be on tenterhooks. With the recent right-wing victory in France,  it could easily wind up as WW2 redux .... this time with nukes.  

[PozBearWI]

There is a massive amount of tension world wide.  I imagine hunger is part of it.  Desire for more power.  More likely hundreds of individually small things assembled together in these now dangerous times.  Are we headed towards a US Civil war?  Is it imminent?  Are we headed towards World War?  Is there anyway to instill a vision of human cooperation?  Or are we so hell bent on telling everyone else what they must do that we lost our humanity?

[BootmanLA]

Earlier I listed a group of Supreme Court cases that had been decided by last Friday that will have potentially earthquake-level effects on federal law going forward. All of those still stand, but Monday's decisions are like an entire extra layer of crap spread on top of an already putrid crap cake.

Let's start with Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System - sounds boring, right?

Under long-standing jurisprudence, the rule was that if someone wanted to challenge a federal agency's rule or regulation had to do so within six years of when that rule or regulation took effect. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? In fact, in the "abortion pill" case earlier this spring, the Court noted that because FDA approval of the abortion pill was more than six years ago, the plaintiffs couldn't challenge the original approval. In other words, because the challengers only challenged whether the approval was valid, the Court said, effectively, you're too late.

Corner Post, on the other hand, specifically challenged how the 6-year rule was calculated - saying it shouldn't be from the date the regulation went into effect, but when it actually harmed the person who's suing. And the Court agreed. So what does that mean for regulations?

It means even though a regulation might be settled for decades, all a plaintiff has to do is form a new entity - an LLC, corporation, whatever - claim that ITS injury started when it was formed, and thus the six-year period to sue starts fresh for that entity. And since the GOP has seeded right-wing judges in specific districts where you're guaranteed to get that judge if you sue there, all they have to do is file the LLC paperwork in that district, and bingo! - they can sue in front of the judge that's hand-picked to overturn federal regulations.

Couple that with the fact that courts no longer have to give deference to agency decisions that I wrote about earlier, and it's open season on any and all federal regulations, no matter how long-standing they are, if the right wing doesn't like them. Sue in Amarillo, where the federal judge sitting there will rule for business no matter what; appeals go up to the right-wing Fifth Circuit, which almost always upholds him; and then even if you're one of the handful of cases that the Supreme Court is willing to hear in the next year, you stand a good shot of losing to the 6-3 conservative majority.

Even worse is Trump v. U.S., the presidential immunity case. In this case, the court held that presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution for non-official acts. However, they are presumed immune for official acts - those taken within what's called the "outer perimeter" of presidential duties; that means they assume he's immune if the action in question is something presidents "do". And here's the big one - presidents are "absolutely immune" for anything they do as part of their core constitutional role.

So: presidents, under the constitution, appoint federal judges and a lot of administration officials. Under this holding, the president could take a $20 million bribe from one of his billionaire donors to appoint John Doe to the Supreme Court, and because that appointment is a "core constitutional duty", he can't be charged with bribery. He's responsible for appointing agency heads, and they serve at the pleasure of the president, so he could order the Attorney General to bring charges against a political opponent on threat of being fired if he refuses; can't charge him with anything because it's a core responsibility to hire/fire his administrative team.

Mind you, this doesn't mean it's good news for a Democratic president - because the courts get to decide what's an "official" act and what's not, and what's a "core" act and what's not. And with the Supreme Court and over half the "numbered" circuit courts in the hands of Republicans - sometimes overwhelmingly so - you can guess how they'll rule on what a Democratic president's role is vs. what a Republican president's role is.

It's when you join up the threads in these decisions that you see just how far this right-wing Court has gone to gut the federal government - or, at least, to leave it open to gutting by lower courts that are firmly in the hands of Trumpanzees and their fans. Don't say you weren't warned.

[Trek53]

Definitely voting for Trump

[TaKinGDeePanal]

3 hours ago, Trek53 said:

Definitely voting for Trump

why? 

[PozBearWI]

Hmmm, is NOW the time the rest of us should start flying our flag UPSIDE DOWN?

[BootmanLA]

21 hours ago, Trek53 said:

Definitely voting for Trump

Shitposter who doesn't realize he'll be one of the first lined up against the wall when the right seizes power says what now?

Seriously, dude - do you think you're somehow insulated from the hell that's going to be unleashed on people of color, gays, women, etc. just because you voted for Trump? 

[topblkmale]

23 hours ago, Trek53 said:

Definitely voting for Trump

 

Biden is going night-night pretty soon.

Trump 45 47 48