If the pressure can be sustained, there may yet be a chance he’s replaced — a much better chance than I once thought — but I’d still give the chances 1 in 5 or so. The ABC interview didn’t do much to reverse the tide.

But this has been interesting. They’re really panicking— and for good reason.

It’s a lose-lose situation now for the democrats. Even if Biden stays, which I think he will, everyone has come out against him. That damage is already locked in. Whatever effect that has, who knows. I don’t think it’ll have a huge effect.

But if he drops out, it’s another losing scenario: Kamal Harris is the person who will likely get the delegates. She’s about as popular as colonoscopies.

They have no one to blame but themselves. If they happen to pull it off, it’ll be only because Trump is that bad — which he is.

that POTUS is a "King" with Absolute Immunity from criminal prosecution for Official Acts. — 180 Proof

Absolute immunity for constitutional acts and the presumption of immunity on other official acts, and non on non-official acts.

Seemed fairly obvious they would do this. The real decision was already known: delay as much as possible so there’s no trial before the election.

Good for you. — hypericin

Yeah, good for me and the millions of others who aren’t political hobbyists that think a silly debate will be decisive and memorable.

it was too emotionally visceral, too memorable, it will stay burned into people's heads. — hypericin

I’ve already largely forgotten it. Although it was funny and cringey and sad at the time.

Yes— the fact that we have a two party system sucks, and these two candidates suck. But the president doesn’t matter that much — his cabinet does.

Trump doesn’t know anything and his decisions are stupid and based on nothing but his “instincts,” which are dogshit when it comes to policy. Biden is a weak, tired, senile old man who doesn’t have the foggiest idea about what’s happening. But some of his cabinet and administrative appointments have been surprisingly good — at the FTC, EPA, and NLRB in particular. Even Gary Gensler at the SEC has made some admirable attempts at undoing Reaganite destruction.

So administration and policy matter, not the figurehead people vote for because he’s tall or you want to have a beer with him. And honestly, the debate was the worst performance I’ve seen in my life, but in a week no one will really care.

Biden will not be replaced. The DNC won’t do anything and Biden is too egotistical to back down. So they likely lose the election — but they probably would have even without a debate. He simply didn’t do enough and the compromises appealed to no one. Despite plenty of good things coming out of this administration, and a second Trump term likely being a death knell for the environment (and therefore life as we’ve known it), perhaps it’ll wake people up again and get them organizing. Four years of Trump through 2028 will be terrible but hopefully survivable, and may lead to better days. Who knows.



I think there’s less than a 5% chance that happens. They’re sticking with Biden.

:ok: :hearts:

you voted Biden and told people to vote for Biden — NOS4A2

Yes— and they should again if the choice is between him and Trump. In fact, they should vote for a plastic bag over Trump. To those incapable of thinking outside political parties, I suppose this would mean I’m carrying water for the plastic bag — but who cares what bootlicking hacks think anyway?

So under the radar, as the media is obsessed with the silly debate, the Supreme Court just upended a 40 year precedent for corporate America, of whom they serve.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/supreme-court-pares-back-federal-regulatory-power-954a101c?mod=mhp

It wasn't me carrying water for a brain dead candidate. — NOS4A2

No, it was you. And you continue to do it. Which is why you’re a laughingstock.

But by all means carry on with your totally non-partisan views. :lol:

:rofl:

If only this weren’t coming from a Trump bootlicker. Then it wouldn’t be so cringey and hilarious.

I admire the ability to see one phenomenon clearly and totally bury one’s head in the sand with another. Way to compartmentalize!

Except that, if Trump wins in 2024, there probably won't be an election in 2028, as Trump will have declared himself President for Life. — Wayfarer

That’s not going to happen. It’s bad enough that he’ll appoint more judges and trash the environment without making things up about what he’ll do.

How many friggin times will Biden say “the idea…”

Lol Biden looks awful. What a stupid decision to let this guy run again. He’s just too old. He may still win, given his opponent is Trump— but so far in this debate he looks frail and borderline incoherent.

Not that this should matter much, but such is the way of things.

“The worst in the history of our country’s life.” — the stable genius with the best words

:lol:

Agreement is irrelevant. We could agree because you threatened my wife, or because we're family and I'm partial, or simply because I like you and not the next guy. These are merely economic transactions, not moral ones. You need to be deeply steeped in a capitalist society to equate economic transactions with moral ones, so the mistake is understandable but it's a rather simplistic and unexamined position. That's where almost everything goes wrong with most of your thinking. — Benkei

Yes indeed. An entire ideological system that has been so useful to the ruling class rests entirely on bogus notions of freedom, individuality, and human nature. Simplistic, transactional, soulless.

Proof is in the pudding: these people vote for, and endlessly defend, Donald friggin’ Trump. Tribalistic hacks to the bitter end.

Perceived probability is an interesting concept.

If you asked someone what the odds are of dying in an airplane or in a car, I imagine the majority would say the odds are higher in a plane. That’s the perception — and it’s wrong.

Ditto getting stuck by lightning. Turns out that your house getting hit is actually not that rare. Etc.

Probability is important. I feel like it’s the best we can do. But people’s perceptions will radically differ. It can be useful in gambling — like in poker — but otherwise it’s just irritating.

Interesting— I haven’t followed the news in a couple days and must have missed this. Not sure what to think about it— I hear Sanders and Markey were No votes, which gives me pause, although I’m generally pro-nuclear.

Just a reminder that this weather is indeed extreme. For anyone who can feel, and can read a graph, the pattern is alarming:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/climate/extreme-summer-heat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.000.e-Vm.9B61_NeAn8_Z&smid=url-share

RIP Willie Mays. Not on my list, but should have been.

sum, President Biden is proposing extraordinarily large tax hikes on businesses and the top 1 percent of earners that would put the U.S. in a distinctly uncompetitive international position and threaten the health of the U.S. economy.

:rofl:

Always the same stupid excuses by plutocratic apologists.

Too big to fail. Too big to jail. And too big to tax.

It’s a law of nature that 90% of profits have to go to shareholders, so naturally if more goes to taxes or workers, cuts will have to be made to maintain the status quo.

Never mind that these companies are making billions in profits off the backs of their workers. Never mind that real wages have stagnated under “trickle down” economics.

Were you a professional? — jgill

Missed this. Yes, I was.

Coal is dead. Good riddance.

The first time Donald J. Trump ran for president, he slapped on a miner’s helmet and told coal workers they would be “winning, winning, winning” when he entered the White House.

Now, as Mr. Trump campaigns for another chance at the presidency, he rarely mentions America’s coal miners and has stopped making grand promises about their future.

The shift reflects political and economic realities, experts said. Top among them: Mr. Trump oversaw coal’s decline, not its salvation. Despite the fact that Mr. Trump gutted climate regulations and appointed a coal lobbyist to lead the country’s top environmental agency, 75 coal-fired power plants closed and the industry shed about 13,000 jobs during his presidency.

“Not a single coal miner went back to work or power plant saved,” said Erin E. Bates, a spokeswoman for the United Mine Workers of America, the labor organization representing coal miners.

“I think he’s realizing those promises were not met during his term and they’re probably not going to be met now,” she said. “Politically, it probably doesn’t pay for his campaign to make more broken promises.”

Two decades ago, coal produced about half of all the electricity in the United States. Today, it accounts for just 16 percent of American power generation. The industry employed nearly 180,000 people at its peak in the 1980s, but now that figure is about 44,800, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Coal began its slide around 2005 as the fracking boom started to produce large quantities of cheap natural gas, which proved attractive to utilities. In the last few years, the cost of power generated by wind turbines and solar farms has plunged, replacing natural gas as the cheapest source of electricity. Last year, power generated from onshore wind turbines and solar farms was about one-third of the cost of the electricity produced by coal, on average.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/climate/trump-coal-politics.html

Watching the Trump cultists wiggle and squirm is amazing. :rofl:

The World Will Be Swimming in Excess Oil by End of This Decade, IEA Says

Global oil markets are headed toward a major glut this decade, a global energy watchdog forecast, citing surging supplies and slowing demand growth for crude thanks to lower-emissions energy sources.

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/global-oil-markets-to-tip-into-surplus-by-end-of-decade-iea-says-c85688fa?mod=mhp

Was a Trump judge. Whole thing was rigged. It was a perfect gun application.

Oh no and they restrain their prisoners? — BitconnectCarlos

They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.

Yes, it reeks of “humane.”

Do they also commit war crimes by using guns against Hamas? — BitconnectCarlos

10,000 dead babies and genocide apologists call them “Hamas.”

And they wonder why they’re internationally condemned and bleeding support. Oh wait, no…it’s because of antisemitism. :yawn:

Just your daily reminder that Israel is fighting a humane war against a genocidal enemy — BitconnectCarlos

Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-teiman-detention-whistleblowers-intl-cmd/index.html

Within a week of bombing two schools and killing hundreds of innocent people— yet again.

So very humane. “Just your daily IDF propaganda.”

It’s like bad satire…

:lol:

Hunter Biden found guilty! Oh no! Lol

Must all be rigged, judge was a republican, we’re a banana republic, etc.

Oh wait…no one cares. And Joe Biden says he’ll respect the ruling.

my search for my soulmate — Bob Ross

Mistake.

I wonder: are there any good ways to meet an intellectually substantive partner (viz., perhaps a philosopher)? — Bob Ross

No. There are no philosophers anymore. And if there are, you won’t find them.

Both are silly mistakes. No soulmates; no philosophers. Who would even want that?

Looks like you need a nerdy girl. They’re probably the best ones anyway, in the scheme of things.

Good luck out there.

.

Do you or do you not want to see America fall? — BitconnectCarlos

:rofl:

Because you totally know that the NYPD reporting procedures unlike those idiots (including the police themselves) who bring up this point. — BitconnectCarlos

No, nor do I care. I never once mentioned New York— not that it matters, since your feelings triumph because you see lots of stuff being under glass. So crime must be rising.

I'm serious. — BitconnectCarlos

Oh I know. Which is why it’s so hilarious.

Apparently in NYC the police won't even file a crime report for anything short of murder. — BitconnectCarlos

I already said: just go with your feelings and vibes and anecdotes.

You don't even like the US. — BitconnectCarlos

:lol:

Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden

55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

It’s prices that matter to people, apparently— the cost of living. Not inflation, despite what’s claimed.

But mostly just media consumption shaping one’s feelings.

Crime data in the US has been manipulated for years for political gain. It's an open secret. I walk into stores and see items locked up due to pervasive shoplifting. — BitconnectCarlos

Oh I see— so the stats can’t be trusted, but your anecdotes should be.

Funny — I walk into stores and almost nothing is locked up. Nothing that hasn’t been locked up since the 1990s anyway.

I don't recall it being like this a decade or two ago. But that's surely paranoia, right? — BitconnectCarlos

Yeah, basically. Because shoplifting really hasn’t increased much nationally. But Fox News runs stories every night, so I can see how your brain would be effected that way.

Violent crime has declined nationally since jumping in 2020, but trends in retail theft are more difficult to assess, in part because of varying data collection and theft reporting methods. That said, the available crime data and industry figures cut against claims of a national increase in retail theft, despite notable spikes in some cities.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth-vs-reality-trends-retail-theft

Oh wait — no stats matter, only vibes and anecdotes do. Let’s go with those I guess. In which case: stock market at all time low! America is being overrun by immigrants! Etc.

:yawn:

Good god— is this really what braindead right wingers find funny?

The crackhead jab was the only one not reliant on a stupid, nonexistent premise (crime is actually down) or Fox News bromide.

Reminds me of these polls where conservatives say the stock market is way down when it’s at record highs. Just living a fact-free existence. What can you do? Let stupid be stupid I guess.

Bill McKibben on Project 2025:

They also promise to reach back to 2009 to reverse a crucial finding from the EPA that carbon dioxide causes harm, a position that undergirds much federal environmental regulation. Their plan would even abolish the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which measures the damage we’re doing to air and water—because those findings are “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

[…]

And it’s even worse than that. The climate crisis—unlike most of our political woes—is a timed test; past a certain point, we can’t repair the damage. Once you melt the Arctic, no one knows how to freeze it back up again. And that “certain point” is approaching: Climate scientists have made it clear that emissions need to fall by half by 2030; Trump’s term would end in January of 2029, giving his successor… 11 months. Good luck.

The Planet Could Bear the Scars of a Second Trump Term… Forever

Project 2025: Roadmap to Venus.

What’s so sad is that, much like tobacco companies before them, they really don’t care about the externalities of their products. “Climate change alarm industry” :lol: