Bob o Bob o Bobby bob....
All 3 of those issues are caused by Republicans....Trump specifically.
Not one is technically voter fraud, although the point is to deny as many citizens their right to vote. If you call that cheating, and I agree it is, it's more Republicans cheating, not Democrats.

Trump and his crony he installed as postmaster have intentionally hobbled the usps, removed sorting machines around the country, and cut overtime to zero among other mail slowdown techniques in preparation for the massive mailings of the election. This is causing a backlog of mail nationwide, and is why so many ballots arrived late in NY....many weren't sent to voters until the day before the election, thousands more simply weren't postmarked at all. Our post office is filling up with undelivered mail NOW because of Trump's scheme to deny votes by deconstructing the mail service....very Trumpian to destroy an essential service for his own personal gain, just like he didn't mind the military wasting tens upon tens of millions per year on foreign fuels and foreign airport fees to stay at his expensive failing hotel in Ireland (Scottland?) instead of American military bases like they did before Trump because it made HIM money.

The post office requested $3 billion for election preparations, Trump refuses to give them a dime, and actually said publicly that he won't so they can't help with mail in voting, because it's bad for Republicans.

Now, wanna try again?
You said you know cases of Democrats committing vote fraud...cheating. This ain't one. These are three articles about how Trump is already cheating this election by denying most Americans a safe way to vote, and since polling places will be largely closed or under staffed, that means the entire election is defunct by Trump's design.
I get why you refused to answer if it's all you could produce after two months, one Republican ploy to deny millions of Americans their right to vote. Jesus Fucking Christ.
🤦‍♂️

Liar. That was Ben Carson's order. That one piece of furniture cost over 6 times the budget allowed by law to refurnish his office, and wasn't his only purchase.

Now explain this one too....
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/06/air-force-trump-scottish-retreat-1484337

$11 million wasted in extra fuel alone paid to foreign fuel companies instead of using American airports and American fuels purely to give Trump $7.5 million per year and save his failing club....that's $18.5 million per year for this one scheme to personally enrich himself on taxpayer money, laws against EXACTLY that be damned.

When are you going to stop making yourself look like a worthless piece of shit and stop making up easily debunked lies to try to defend Trump? It's within your control, but you insist on insulting yourself by being not just a constant liar, but a really really bad one. You're better than this, aren't you?

Don't pretend to be so oblivious.
The gallery is one person making decisions on who to allow to hold private rallies in secret at her establishment, and she chooses Nazis and white power personalities. I thought you support taking individual responsibility.
The Nation of Islam, and I'm no fan at all, is a huge, multinational organization of millions I assume lead by some form of committee and encompassing a wide range of views and opposing extremes....They did not all choose to be associated with that one extremists nor did they all agree with him by far, then or now, only some did. That's similar to the same question but changing "nation of Islam" to "America". Obviously that's comparing apples to the president's drag queen makeup.

I won't comment much on Canada blm because I don't know them and don't choose to take the time needed to sleuth out some truths about them, but assuming what you say is correct it sounds like they have some racism in their midst that they should weed out before they become the monster they wish to destroy.

Brett Stevens, did you read any of the links? Or my quotes from them? Did you visit America.com, his website, or his blog amerika? (i won't) Do you have a clue who he is and the racist mass murderer he celebrates?

They have a right to speak, the crowd has a right to protest and take any civil legal action they choose to remove the soapbox from their neighborhood. I never said different. You must have confused me with the protesters.
They don't have a right to shout or hold their signs emblazoned with their stupid wrong things intended to provoke at a protest and attempt to spark violence, even if they cleverly camouflage it so on the surface their message seems agreeable, which is what I think was his intent. If successful, he would gain more fuel for the argument that the racists and Nazis planning a violent race war aren't the problem, it's the fascist liberal grandma shovers and sign thieves we should really be worried about....just like the boogaloos in America that caused many if not most of the riots, shot cops, and planned multiple mass murders and bombings all of which they intended to pin on blm.

They don't actually need any place to speak today, there's a soapbox in every cellphone.

But

This facility was holding their alt-right events in secret, hiding their speech itself. They wanted it hidden. You can't bemoan their voices being silenced while also defending their secret rallies which no one who might confront or correct them was told happened, can you?

And side note
The government isn't stopping them, so it's not censorship before that idea crops up.

Again, your bar for crying violence in this instance is subterranean. No one would ever be prosecuted for the level of violence without injury that he suffered, nor compensated for his miniscule loss of cardboard. Do you see him hit, kicked, punched, shoved hard, anything? Time stamp please. I'll change my tune if he was actually injured, I didn't see it anywhere, just his sign yanked after being slowly shoved away from one specific spot.

Could you honestly say ANY right wing event, especially any alt-right event infiltrated by a fairly quiet blm activist with a sign bemoaning police corruption would be as gentle and non violent? Edit: I doubt it.

The point of this video as presented is to pretend that's the case, that the shove from grandma is societies downfall, a direct attack on freedom not a rejection of a defender and facilitator of racists and Nazis (if he's not one himself). The Nazis and racists resurfacing and arming themselves (happening here in America) are nothing to be upset about or oppose....they're good people, not like disgusting anti free speech granny and those other freedom haters.
I'm astonished I'm apparently the only one willing to object to that long ago debbunked distortion of reality.

Keep in mind even if he loses in November he has quite a while to add fuel to the dumpster fire.

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

Congratulations! Your video, Girl Can't Find Fuel Cap At Gas Station, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

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Kinda lost me when he claimed wind creates 11g CO² per kwh with no reference, calculations, or explanation.
Wind energy production is zero emission.
Are they including every gram produced by every step of construction and estimating a short lifespan, but not doing the same for nuclear, which takes exponentially more resources to build, run, fuel, store waste, and dismantle?
I also have a problem with him saying more expensive, higher profit natural gas plants have better prices because they're much HIGHER than nuclear prices per kwh.
He seems to ignore the spent fuel disposal/storage costs, which are significant in both cases, but while the natural gas plants don't pay for their waste (massive amounts of CO² and methane), nuclear has no choice.
Diablo canyon refurbishing was canned after Fukashima, because it's got all the same dangerous issues of being in an active earthquake/tsunami zone right on the coast with no way to shield itself from tsunamis. Before Fukashima, they totally planned to revamp and continue operations.
His levelized cost of electricity slide conveniently ignores the cost of environmental damage caused by fuel production/use.
Include all costs, coal is worst, followed by natural gas, then nuke, hydro, wind, and solar cheapest. Geothermal is great, but only in areas where it can be easily tapped, which are few and far between.

In short, his vast oversimplification and inconsistencies in what's included in his cost basis make his conclusions relatively meaningless, imo.

From the YT description:
Launch to orbit in real time Fuel Burn and Staging of the
1) Saturn V
2) Space Shuttle
3) Falcon Heavy
4) Space Launch System (SLS)
Launching from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39

Red = Kerosene RP-1
Orange = Liquid Hydrogen LH2
Blue = Liquid Oxygen LOX

I don't get it. 20 minute charges with regular battery swaps? How could you ever get enough foam/water on the fire? and that water stream doesn't seem like it would reach very far into the building where the fuel (office papers, furniture, etc) are...

Why not just power the drones of a power umbilical paired with the hose (yes, it would have to be really light) Why bother with a battery pack?

No. It would take years for the undergrowth to become a significant fuel source again. That is the least of the issues with using goats as a realistic method of fuel management. It might be suitable for creating firebreaks on private land but it's useless in the wilderness.

Yes, California could export more solar and wind power, but would be forced to stop removing fossil fuel plants, stop creating new renewable energy generation, and would have to buy dirty electricity from it's neighbors. We also would, as mentioned, lose all control over our energy production to the federal government, which is owned by the oil industries.
If it was as simple as selling our excess electricity, it would be great, but it's simply not. Joining an RTO would mean California would not be able to go 100% renewable ever, because our neighbors don't and the Fed doesn't want to.
If our neighbors want to make an agreement outside of the Fed to share our cleaner power, we would likely jump at it, especially if we could insist they agree to strive for 100% clean renewable energy production. If the Fed is involved, it's a non starter. We've spent billions on making our state cleaner, fighting the federal government tooth and nail the whole way. There's no way in hell California is going to toss that investment and the freedom to regulate our own energy production in the toilet just to sell our excess to our dirty neighbors. We would rather secede.

*promote

Funny, but would've really tickled me fully if it ended with them helping him out or at least maybe yelling out the window an offer to assist, human to human.

Reminds me of that lady who was at a gas station trying to figure out how to fuel up her Tesla. The guys filmed and laughed and laughed and filmed... but finally they got out and explained her folly, and that tiny bit of kindness is really what allowed me to enjoy that video.

Maybe for average cars, but that's not true when it comes to old Broncos or Jeeps. In the early 70's, they built them like tanks (heavy and slow), especially with the roll bar option properly installed, Broncos even had a thick full tube frame, not just a C channel, not unibody, and definitely no plastic.

Granted, the safety systems were lap belts and nothing more and the steering column would spear through your chest in a head on crash while the bare metal dash cracks your passenger's head, even stock they tend to roll, the fuel economy is non existent, and top speed is well under 2/3 what modern cars can produce (good thing since the brakes are sub par), but the cars themselves are nearly indestructible (I have one of each). I've dropped my jeep frame 3+ ft onto solid rock, it chipped the rock (and maybe my spine). ;-)
Late 70's early 80's that all changed, mostly for the worst.

I was thinking about car safety and how the biggest variable is likely the driver...how specific cars are driven on average, and it struck me that the best way to promote public safety would be to make your maximum speed limit variable based on gvw (gross vehicle weight). This is already done for vehicles with more than two axles or those towing trailers because it's obvious they take longer to stop. The same logic should apply to every car. It's a no brainer that a Humvee takes longer to stop than a Miata, and is far less controllable under emergency braking. For the safety of both those in such larger vehicles and the general public, they should not be allowed to go as fast as cars weighing 1/4 their weight with better brakes.
A side benefit of such a system would be greater average fuel economy, because bigger cars have greater wind resistance (on average) so become less efficient at higher speeds.
Of course, I wouldn't expect that kind of reason to ever fly in America where the most popular car is a heavy truck that's never used for hauling and could be replaced with a Honda Civic with no loss of functionality for >75% of owners....but everyone wants to drive a tank so they're safer, with no thought about what that means for the other cars on the road.

*quality explanation of why crash testing is only a tiny part of real life safety in cars
*promote