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Then Don't Give an Inch Newt Gingrich came along and, pretty much, shut all of that down. What the Republicans need to do, to fix it is to have a leader who puts an end to it and not a one of them has the spine for the job. Its a shame. When you have both sides willing to talk, and settle on that which they can live with stuff gets done. We have now reached a point where the Republicans are not only not giving an inch but have, pretty much, shut down the Congress of the United States. The only times something happens its because, if they didn't, they would shut down government and then they would have to own it.

If you are interested in numbers this one might be of interest:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics

I didn't realize it but apparently I am a red beans and rice expert and no one makes em like I do.
I dunno, I got a bunch of compliments about it and I can burn water, so that's a surprise.

Yeah, that little dimple smile on her face? If she gives you that special smile it means you're aces in her book - - ya done good!
I live for that little dimpled smile.

South Carolina has finished its redistricting, bring us back up to 34 states with new maps. South Carolina’s map basically matches its old one. Thus, In the gerrymandering wars, the democrats retain their 6 seat or district advantage. We now have 278 newly drawn districts; 157 districts remain to be redrawn. Two big states are remaining, New York and Florida. Several medium sized states, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Missouri and Washington. The remaining are the smaller states which have less than 10 electoral votes.

Out of the 278 newly drawn districts, there are 25 competitive, switchable districts. Currently held by 17 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Safe seats as of 27 Jan 2022, 128 Democratic, 125 Republican.

States in litigation that will probably change the above listed safe and competitive seats depending on the outcome of the lawsuits. I’ve also listed whether a political party gained or didn’t on the redistricting, old maps vs. new maps.

Georgia – Neither party gained
Maryland – Neither party gained
Michigan -Neither party gained
Nevada – Democrats gained
New Jersey – Democrats gained
North Carolina – Republicans gained
Texas – Neither party gained

You realize your views similar to Desantis, they just differ in form?
Desantis is playing to his base and your advocating for the PMC base play.

I read recently that the US spend a little over 3% of overall healthcare spending on public health. The number was predicted to fall just under 3% in the next couple of years.

While you downplay the notion of public health mitigation efforts, insisting that vax and MAB’s are the only way to go, I don’t recall you having much support for little else. The whizbang mRNA vaccines were sold as being quickly tailored to variants in the beginning but, for various reasons, there hasn’t been any adjustments for delta or the Cron. Breakthru’s aplenty with each of those variants, having been extremely lucky that the Cron didn’t go into the lower RT and turn lung tissue into bloody tar like Delta.

MAB’s have a similar story line.

We can play the ‘with/from’ game of the death totals but I think you miss the point that both rightwing political parties have not covered themselves in glory in handling the pandemic. At the moment, I give the edge in effectiveness to the previous administration. Operation warp speed, lock downs, halting air traffic, more financial assistance, etc..

I don’t see what the current dominant right wing government has down to top that list in order to mitigate infections structurally.

Crickets….

What with the demographic shifts, it's pretty obvious to anybody with their head out of the sand that Republicans are doomed. This is their last stand. As one of them said recently: If we let everybody vote, we will never win an election again. So this is their final attempt to keep control.

Fortunately for them as a shrinking minority Party, Democrats tend to be inclusive, protect the rights of the minority, respect the Constitution, etc. So their return to minority Party status won't be all that bad. Nobody gets locked up for just being a sociopathic a-hole. They have to actually commit a crime for that, like insurrection.

I was counting Sanders and King, but they are not running until 2024. My mistake. Not highly improbable, but impossible unless some Democratic Senators retired or died in states run by Republican governors. People do die in office, you know.

Now that the special grand jury has been approved, Raffensperger will be compelled to give documents and testify. Up until now, he's refused to comply with the Fulton Country DAs requests.

Yes. Most people are aware of nuclear winter.
Some people are also aware of wars starting without intention. Raising the chances for a miscalculation in a created adversary, Russia, that has possession of hypersonic missiles as well as short and medium range conventional and nuclear warheads arrayed in a tense geographic area with limited assessment and response times, may prove to be conditions leading to an accidental conflict brought on by a misread of the room.

We’re not talking bombing brown people in the third world anymore.

Exactly my point. During this interview the reporter did not address the facts of Taliban misogyny, until asked. The original post said only that the reporter was missing (or ignoring) the facts on the ground.

I’m glad you have Muslim friends. The misogyny in Afghanistan originates with the Taliban; it would be a serious mistake to attribute it to Muslims in general.


Richard Nixon had an “Enemies List.” When the list was released, Daniel Shorr read it on camera and was clearly surprised when one of the names he read out was his own. He didn’t have access to Nixon but that didn’t keep him from being a good reporter. If the reality was that Shorr didn’t write anything bad about Nixon because he was afraid he’d be added to the list, he wouldn’t have been a great newsman; he’d have been a toady.

We passed Idiocracy in 2016.
The writer/director even commented on how shocked he was at how quickly idiocracy became something of a "documentary".


“I’m no prophet,” Judge told me. “I was off by 490 years.”

TIME: "We Have Become An Idiocracy"

Of little interest?? That film is a cult favorite with an enormous following.

She’s the current Jeopardy television game show champion. And she is amazingly good. In fact I don’t see how she could lose a game. I suppose eventually she is going to lose but her run has been nothing short of extraordinary.

But she apparently at one time was a man so that brings up my inquiry.

That, or something like it, is most likely to be what happened. But I had a teacher once who said (I’m paraphrasing) that a situation can be interpreted in many different ways, most of which will be wrong. It depends on the facts, and where we’re standing when we interpret them.

My initial question on this thread was how did the man die - was he shot, or was it self-inflicted. I have a real bugaboo about the right to trial. Even though he was shot in the middle of a crime, he didn’t shoot or kill any hostages, and there’s no way of knowing what he intended. It’s almost as though the police (FBI) killed him in self defense. And because it happened just a few minutes after the hostages were released, I wonder if there was any intent to capture him.

As I said, my original question has been answered. I do have a knee-jerk reaction when someone is executed before arrest/trial. I wish the press would ask more questions about that. And just to repeat: I have little or no sympathy for this guy - and what little I have is not based on his actions or beliefs, but on his mental state, nothing more.

Lindsey Graham just drew an orange line in the sand and dared Mitch McConnell to step over it.

Lindsey bitchslaps Mitch

Stay tuned!

Shotcrete??

for what its worth I was dead wrong about that speech. After seeing some reviews I listened to the whole thing. Perhaps he has finally come to the point where he understands that the Republicans are not the same as they were and will not give an inch. Its strange, it took Obama about this much time to reach the same conclusion. One would have thought that Biden would have understood that one.

Of course, after this one he gave another where he started promising tests. I really wish he would stop with the promises based on the future. By the time it happens nobody really cares and the response is, usually, "about time".

Rick - sorry I didn’t get to this earlier. But yes, love songs sung by guys tend to have some serious ownership issues. If you wanna surprise yourself, think for two seconds about stalking, and then listen to Elvis’ “Return to Sender.” 😏

Since I have come of age, the only conservatives that I know of are "Reagan Conservatives" and "Trump Conservatives." Neither group are appealing.

I "hear" that "true" conservatives are "Birch Society Conservatives." They don't sound very appealing either.

I know we're a democratic republic. I'm sick and tired of not having nice things because of Conservatives.