Voluntarist
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James Carville was on Bill Maher's show last week saying that unless the Democratic candidate was up by at least 3 points in national-level polling then she was actually behind (due to the weighting of large population states in the national polling). Still though, you've posted other polls recently that showed Kamster polling better than Trumpsky in most all of the tossup states (which is where the battles leading to victory lie).

Catch-22. The guys from the sixties can't deal with 2020 electronics and 2020 software methodologies. So you tell them it'll be OK to build it with the 1960's electronics and software; except the 1960's electronics are no longer being built (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were designed before the first microprocessor). The DOD is having to start from ground zero on designing replacements for cruise missiles designed in the seventies because they can no longer get the parts to build them to the old blueprints. And software in the sixties? For embedded systems, it consisted of Program Array Logic for semiconductors, which you could only burn once (they weren't rewritable). You could keep time to the clock rates by tapping your foot (OK, I made that one up). 1960: most homes still had black and white TVs that sat in wooden cabinets. When you took your electronics in for repair, vacuum tubes were the things they tended to replace.

Tell that to France - they didn't get the memo. RPF has a thread on it. Basically, the New Popular Front (an alliance of four far left parties) won Parliament with a plurality of votes; But Macron can't nominate their choice for Prime Minister because it'll result in an immediate vote of non-confidence. I don't know what that would mean for French government - whether it means they go straight to another round of voting for Parliament, or if they have to wait a specified period before they can do that again. But if anyone could demonstrate that Democracy doesn't work, it's the French. They just aren't using guillotines this time around.

A majority of the 577 seats in Parliament would be 289 seats. The far-left coalition NPF, while holding a plurality, holds far less than a majority (the same with the right wing National Rally party and Macron's left-center Renaissance party). If Macron were to nominate Lucie Castets (from the NPF), Castets would face an immediate vote of no confidence. Macron has been negotiating with three of the NPF parties (Socialists, Ecologists and Communists ... ignoring La France Insoumise) to compromise with the other parties to come up with a candidate for Prime Minister who could survive a no confidence vote - Castets can't. The far-right National Rally party has already stated they would immediately call a no-confidence vote against any leftist prime minister to prevent them from forming a government. That means the three NPF parties previously mentioned have to compromise with Macron's Renaissance party if a government is to be formed. Macron rules out naming left-wing PM, extends talks to end deadlock French left backs protests after Macron rejects PM choice

Both articles source through the Daily Mail article ... so no, not well vetted at all (it's all in the right wing echo chamber - not that such echo chambers are confined to the right wing). Typically, "Clown World" demands two independent corroborating sources. And one of the things that bothers me about the Daily Mail article is that it wasn't written up until two to three years following the event (which tends to be a sign of ulterior motives). I haven't seen any links to the actual litigation that was filed. I haven't even seen a second news source that didn't source back to the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail has kept all involved parties anonymous, save for the Chaplain (the non-gendered Lavender Kelley) - which makes it seem like a hit piece. Naming the accused without naming the accusers is textbook character assassination. The Daily Mail states that, "Lavender Kelley is believed to be currently caring for the child" ... note that's there's no confirmation of that, yet they went ahead and named her anyway. The "child" turned 18 over a year ago, so there's no underage individual to shield from the world's prying eye. If the family was really interested in protecting the child's privacy, then they wouldn't have spoken to the Daily Mail. *** Added *** On the other hand, I haven't seen any of the fact-checking sites disputing it yet. But it seems like the story only started making the circuit about a month ago; so give it time.

Well, it is a story out of "The Daily Mail" - and I always like to get a second independent source for Daily Mail articles before I invest too much credence in them; and I haven't been able to find another source for the story that isn't derived from the Daily Mail article. Checking that story, though, you find that the kid is now 19 - so I'm wondering what caused the story to surface now rather than three years ago when it started (or at any other time since then). If he's 19 now, I'm also wondering why he's still in foster care. Pictured above is hospital Chaplain Lavender Kelley, who is believed to be currently caring for the child. The individual says online that they do not have a gender

Don't mess with the #KHive ... jeesh

I'll give Harris's full quote below. In the particular instance that Harris was referring to (drug innovation), it wasn't private innovation she was talking about. The real Marxism started with government investing in the development of the drugs for which patents were issued to private companies. So yeah, I pragmatically agree with what you're saying about patents to protect private innovation (with some idealistic reservations), what I don't want to see is government, itself, becoming the banker for that private innovation - because it ceases to be private innovation once government sticks its heavy hand into the marketplace. I mean, once government becomes one of the "Shark Tank" sharks (for the good of the people ... rolls eyes) it can pretty much set the terms of its participation. Where are my reservations, you ask? Patents require government force to be enforceable. Plus, they can actually restrict innovation that improves upon the patented concept. Then you also get into the "right to repair" issues. But idealistically, if an innovation is really private property (which the patent protects), then why doesn't it remain private property in perpetuity; why does the patent protection run out after X years? In actuality, the patent is an acknowledgement that the state owns the innovation (the product of an innovator's mind) and is permitting the private innovator to profit from it for as long as the state deems appropriate. Pragmatically, since government exists, the patent system is probably the best we can hope for.

You can almost hear the ghost of Hunter Thompson saying, "It ain't a protest at a DNC convention in Chicago until the police are drawing blood with batons!" ... and the ghost of Richard Daley granting his wish. Pffft! They call that a demonstration? Isn't there supposed to be tear gas reaching the hotel suites of the delegates?

Well, I did wonder what was going to take the place of the "The Queeerest Olympics Ever!" thread.

Andy Beshear was on "Face The Nation" this morning trying to explain that this wasn't "price fixing" (transcript here) If they exist in state law, then why do we need them at the federal level? Has ol' Andy boy been able to stem inflation in Kentucky by using them? Or is Kammy proposing federal statutes that are more stringent than what you find at the state level (in which case his statement that they already exist in state law really isn't a very good comparison, is it?).

I think she's correct when she says that Stein could cause problems for the Dems if she nominates someone from the Arab community as her vice-presidential candidate. By the same token, though, Harris is going to come back with, "Would you prefer that Trump be elected?" Don't ask Kam to help you Cuz she'll turn the other ear Won't you please come to Chicago Or else join the other side

Yes, it does. Do you really think that's what the law does? It took me all of 20 seconds to find out it doesn't. It's easy enough to debunk; all you have to do is find one Minnesota school district that doesn't put period products in all-boys bathrooms. There's a number of news portals that have done that work for you. It's actually more difficult to find a school district that DOES put period products in boys-only bathrooms (I haven't yet - gave up trying - you'd think the people putting the memes together would come up with a list; but I haven't found one). But the meme won't go away despite that. Claims like this go over well with the socially conservative faithful (who aren't going to vote for any Democrat, anyway). And I'll admit that there's a portion of the "undecided" voters that can be swayed by gender arguments like this. That is until those claims are debunked, which tends to push those voters away from the charlatans making the claims. I suppose the hope, on the part of GOP strategists, is that those undecided voters are too stupid to check out the reality of the situation. There's a lot of people who will believe lies if you repeat them enough. Just one more reason to be against voting - the party with the greatest appeal to stupid voters is the one which will prevail (I'm pretty sure we've already got that one on our list PAF) CNN reports:

I've got two reactions to that: 1) I'm very much a fiscal conservative. If I haven't heard that played up, then do you think most social security recipients have? The trump campaign needs to play that up - get it published in the monthly AARP rag. 2) Why didn't he do it in the first two years of his first term when he had control of both Houses of Congress?

Unlikely. But if candidates are going to be offering income tax cuts around the edges, why not start with social security? The money confiscated from workers which goes into social security is taxed before it goes in (at least the part confiscated from workers). When it's taxed as it's paid out to retirees, it's income that's being double-taxed. Have Trump commit to those cuts so that he's got the retiree vote locked up. Then Kamela will make the same commitment - and maybe it'll actually happen.

The rich and middle class have to pay their fair share - the poor have to receive their fair share

I wasn't saying that the voters hold allegiance to political parties (though even among voters, there's 30-40% of voters on the left and another 30-40% of voters on the right who do). But the candidates do hold such allegiance. In the case of the Libertarian Party (recall that I labelled third parties as birth defects on the two-party system - they're rare and have little to no chance of winning) ... I don't think there's much allegiance on the part of candidates or voters to the birth defect parties; most voters see them as protest votes against the two major parties. But as a thought experiment, suppose Tom Massie or Rand Paul had originally run as Independents (laying out their positions, and stating where they disagreed with the Democratic and Republican candidates); do you think they would have been elected? When running as GOP candidates, they both defeated their GOP primary opposition - would they still beat those same opposition candidates if those candidates had the backing of the GOP and Massie/Rand were running as Independents? All the candidates are still the very same people with the same political positions, the only difference being that now Massie/Rand don't have that little "(R)" next to their names on the ballots - some other candidates do. === Edited to add === If you really wanted to screw with the US electoral process, then forbid ballots from listing the political party affiliation of each candidate and make sure that the order of names on the ballot gave no clues to party affiliation.

The Democrats will tell you the United States is a democracy. The GOP will counter with, "No, the US is a republic, if you can keep it." Both are full of bullsiht. What the US has is a two party system of governance; despite the founders never intending that (naivety at its most naive - George Washington railed against political parties, but the system the founders set up guarantees that two such parties would control the government). The candidates elected to office originate from one of the two major parties with an occasional third party candidate being elected (think of them as rare birth defects). Once in office, they represent their parties, not their constituents. The dominant parties in each legislative body control the chairpersonships of the committees in their respective houses. The party that controls the imperial presidency exerts control over the bureaucracies that run the federal government. You can think of the judiciary (the Supreme Court) as the long-term political party climate when compared to the political party weather that passes through the other two branches of federal government. The people that hold these offices don't hold allegiance to their constituents but rather to the political parties they belong to - their political survival (and long-term employment and under the table wealth) depend upon "allegiance to the Party" (thank goodness people in the US have two to choose from, the people in the Soviet Union only had one ... at least having two choices allows all the bases to be covered). Each party in the legislative branch has a 'Chief Whip', a senior party member whose job is to ensure discipline within their party (that's in Article something or other in the Constitution, right?). They make sure their members vote the right way; though occasionally they'll allow a divergence if one member's vote is not absolutely required, and that member's dissenting (though losing) vote will help assure that member's re-election. And if a member happens to develop a conscience, the Whip books them into surgery to get the filthy thing removed.

When that comes up, I immediately think of Nicholson and Sanders

I'm betting that this is just a London magistrate shooting his mouth off; but it does leave me wondering about just what it would entail. I'm trying to think about this from a strictly legal perspective - which leaves me at a disadvantage because I spent my career in science and engineering rather than law. It strikes me that for the Brits to prosecute non-Brits in this fashion: - The non-Brits would have to be posting from British soil to a webpage that was visible to people on British soil. When in Rome, you ought to be doing as the Romans" do. If someone violate local laws, it's easy to prosecute them because the Brits can lay their hands on them. - or - The non-Brits, if posting from non-British soil, would have to be posting to a webpage that was behind some type of British boundary (inside of which exists a virtual internet space that the British government claims governance over). In other words, if you were posting comments to the website of the London Times, they might have a case to make ... but if you were posting comments to the Denver Post, then not so much. I'm fairly certain that the only way the non-Brit could be prosecuted would be for that non-Brit to travel to British soil, after which the Brits would nab him.

There's already a cottage industry developing with respect to internet defamation (see law firm here, for example). It's a target rich environment. Small time websites probably don't have much to worry about; but high-traffic sites or sites and individuals with heavy traffic will probably be singled out. And anyone with deep pockets would be well advised to be as bland in their internet posting as possible.

Post moved to its own thread: Khelif files complaint for online harassment

UGLY TheTexan???

From Newsweek: National Guard Disputes Tim Walz's Military Biography

For grins, I did a search on Democratic Underground so I could taste the tears, but sentiment there seems to be going about 3 or 4 to 1 that they're happy she won't be their candidate in November, or in Congress following the end of the current term.

I live across the brook from STL, so I've heard some of the drama. If you're interested read Bell's wikipedia section for "Campaign for U.S. Congress". Bell was originally going to run against Hawley for Senate, but dropped out to run for the St. Louis congressional seat despite having assured Bush that he wouldn't. The Republican primary hasn't been called yet (AFAIK). Five candidates and four of them are somewhat evenly split. Another of the opposition candidates is Libertarian Rochelle Riggins.