djsunyc wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

djsunyc wrote:

martin wrote:American can be a good country

i think it's too late.

the country is on a downward slope that can't be stopped. part of it is capitalism about to collapse onto itself but most of it comes down to one simple thing, whites and non-whites.

that will be a socioeconomic war that will continue to divide the country until the demographics completely change and non-whites are no longer the majority. but that will take generations.

meanwhile, trump emboldening white supremecists have set back racial progress and few decades. he is the worst thing to happen to this country in a long time in terms of human rights and race relations.

The us will be just fine. Life will go on

maybe, but definitely not for the tens of thousands that have died this year b/c of trump's handling of covid.

tens of thousands? it will be hundreds of thousands minimum (already at at least 140,000). Could go into the millions depending on action taken (or not taken) in the next few months.

Then we have climate change to look forward to! And if politicians and voters refused to believe a pandemic was happening while it was actually happening, good luck on getting them to believe climate change is a serious threat and we need to take huge action now.

BigDaddyG wrote:Welcome to the new arms race. Honestly, I think I'm too excited to be disturbed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53518238

The US State Department described the recent use of "what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry" as concerning.

Russia's defence ministry earlier said it was using new technology to perform checks on Russian space equipment.

The US has previously raised concerns about new Russian satellite activity.

But it is the first time the UK has made accusations about Russian test-firing in space. They come just days after an inquiry said the UK government "badly underestimated" the threat posed by Russia.

Pandemic, climate change, now space weapons- great how we spend so much time and energy on trying to mass kill ourselves rather than just taking preventative action!

Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles.

The reshuffling threatens to heighten tensions between postal officials and lawmakers, who are troubled by delivery delays — the Postal Service banned employees from working overtime and making extra trips to deliver mail — and wary of the Trump administration’s influence on the Postal Service as the coronaviruspandemic rages and November’s election draws near.

ESOMKnicks wrote:

BigDaddyG wrote:NPR: New York Attorney General Moves To Dissolve The NRA After Fraud Investigation.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/899712823/new-york-attorney-general-moves-to-dissolve-the-nra-after-fraud-investigation?ft=nprml&f=1001

spent more than $3.6 million on luxury black car services and travel consultants in the past two years

Not to contradict the AG's claims, but how is it even physically possible to spend $1.8m per year on luxury black car services? That's $5,000 per day! Even assuming they have been helping themselves to the limo's alco bar every time, there is no liver in the world that could have taken such abuse.

Embezzlement of such proportions is a serious crime that deserves thorough investigation and severe punishment for the specific culprits involved. But is it justifiable grounds for completely dissolving what has been one of the most storied organizations protecting civil rights in the US?

BigDaddyG wrote:

ESOMKnicks wrote:
Embezzlement of such proportions is a serious crime that deserves thorough investigation and severe punishment for the specific culprits involved. But is it justifiable grounds for completely dissolving what has been one of the most storied organizations protecting civil rights in the US?

What would you like to see? An internal reshuffling? Once upon a time, the NRA may have an organization that protected the rights of citizens to carry arms. But there have a number of former members, white and black, that have questioned the direction the group has veered of too. And that was before this investigation. I don't care either way, but maybe a new organization rises from the ashes.

I would like to see the culprits in prison after they are properly tried and convicted in a court of law. Why try to dissolve the entire organization and screw its millions of members, who are, by the way, the main victims of the embezzlement?

As the last month has driven home, the lack of attention distorts not only the public perception of the court but also our understanding of the ways in which the justices’ “shadow docket” rulings can affect our lives. Just since the beginning of July, the justices have issued rulings on the “shadow docket” that

• cleared the way for the first three federal executions in 17 years after lower courts had repeatedly halted them;
• refused to disturb a Nevada COVID-related emergency order that treated churches more harshly than casinos;
• blocked a grassroots effort in Idaho to increase funding for K–12 education;
• allowed President Donald Trump to finish using military construction funds to complete his controversial border wall—even though every lower court to consider the issue has ruled that such repurposing of funds is unlawful;
• pushed back resolution of a dispute between the House of Representatives and the Justice Department over the Mueller report in a way that will ensure that the Justice Department prevails;
• prevented potentially hundreds of thousands of eligible voters in Florida from voting this November by refusing to freeze Florida’s “pay to vote” law, which requires felons to clear any claimed outstanding judgments before voting, and which the lower court had struck down as flagrantly unconstitutional; and
• froze a district court order that had required an Orange County jail to take measures its own policies already required to protect inmates from an outbreak of COVID-19.

What’s more, we know that at least seven of the nine orders in these cases were decided 5–4. And although it’s hard to account for every ruling on the shadow docket, two slices of the data underscore the uptick in both the frequency of such rulings and their divisiveness: First, in the Trump administration’s 3½ years in office, the justices have granted (in whole or in part) 22 stay requests from the federal government (including 10 during the current term alone)—compared with a total of four grants of such requests in the 16 years of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations combined. (Trump has submitted 34 applications, versus 16 from Bush and Obama combined.)

Second, the shadow docket is quickly crowding out the merits docket. During the October 2017 term (Justice Anthony Kennedy’s last on the court), only two stay applications provoked four justices to publicly note their dissents. In the not quite two terms since, there have been 20 separate orders from which four justices publicly dissented—including 11 so far this term (and six since the beginning of July). By contrast, there were only 12 meritsdecisions during the current term that split the court 5–4 (the SCOTUSblog list of 14 includes two “shadow docket” rulings). With two months to go, it seems likely that the shadow docket will produce more 5–4 splits than the merits docket—for the first time, well, ever.

Not only are these shadow docket rulings decided by narrow margins, but they’re also more strictly partisan. Unlike the unusual lineups we sometimes see in cases that receive full briefing and argument, the 5–4 splits in stay cases have all featured the same two voting alignments: Chief Justice John Roberts joining the other conservative justices to form a majority, or joining the progressives to form a majority.

BigDaddyG wrote:Let's make America great by dismantling all the things that made America great in the first place!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/usps-states-delayed-mail-in-ballots/2020/08/14/64bf3c3c-dcc7-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html

The Postal Service’s warnings of potential disenfranchisement came as the agency undergoes a sweeping organizational and policy overhaul amid dire financial conditions. Cost-cutting moves have already delayed mail delivery by as much as a week in some places, and a new decision to decommission 10 percent of the Postal Service’s sorting machines sparked widespread concern the slowdowns will only worsen. Rank-and-file postal workers say the move is ill-timed and could sharply diminish the speedy processing of flat mail, including letters and ballots.

The sad truth is that in return for being racist and xenophobic, many US voters will happily support and vote for a politician no matter how inept, corrupt or destructive. It really is ridiculous.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/HeathMayo/status/1296470244094074880

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08/31/as-trumps-popularity-slips-in-latest-military-times-poll-more-troops-say-theyll-vote-for-biden/

Among active-duty service members surveyed in the poll, 41 percent said they would vote for Biden, the Democratic nominee, if the election was held today. Only 37 percent said they plan to vote to re-elect Trump.

Another 13 percent said they plan to vote for a third-party candidate, and nearly 9 percent said they plan on skipping the election altogether. About 40 percent of troops surveyed identified as Republican or Libertarian, 16 percent Democrats, and 44 percent independent or another party.

“It’s fair to say that Trump is not as popular as Republican nominees have been in the past among this group,” said Peter Feaver, a White House adviser to former President George W. Bush who now works as a political science professor at Duke University. “The bottom line is that in 2020, Trump can’t be claiming to have overwhelming support in the military.”