Callmeishmael

It's interesting that the article above says that the information was in files from the Durham investigation. So, why didn't Durham make these charges? Was he really just 'another deep state stooge'?

I'm pretty sure that driving the smaller shops out of business is the actual intent of the bill!

Let's take a good look at those predictions: 1. In 1960 all oil was pumped in temperate or desert areas, there was no fracking or offshore oil wells. If we look at oil production from on-shore non-arctic oil wells, production did peak in 1975 and has been going down since then. The increase in oil production has all come from offshore wells, arctic wells and fracking. 2. Was anyone actually saying that? 3. Acid rain in Europe and N. America (the world's biggest crop producing areas) has been greatly reduced due to the retiring of coal-fired plants and the shift to cleaner-burning natural gas. 4. In the late 1980's CFCs were banned. Since then the ozone layer depletion has stopped and it has actually begun to repair itself. 5. The amount of sea ice in the Arctic has declined to the point were major shipping companies are starting to use the sea routes that go north of Canada & Russia. Routes that would have been unthinkable 3 years ago. These disasters have been avoided or put off because of laws passed due to 'woke climate alarmism', or technological advancements by oil or shipping companies. If we had simple ignored them, the world would be much worse off than it is today.

I really don't think that they will move the capital, and even if they do, there are many businesses based in Bangkok that could not be easily moved. They seem to be implementing the Dutch solution. There are already extensive dykes along the riverside they will almost certainly be extended around the city to create what is called a polder. The real question is what will happen to the outlying areas that will not be enclosed. Will they just have to live with seasonal flooding? Or will they become a de facto green zone around the empoldered capital?

Look at the top 5 Republican Conspiracies: Covid, Birther, Global Warming, Mueller, Soros Verses the top Democratic Conspiracies: Trump Symptoms, GOP Elections, Trump/Putin, Trump/Russian, Trump Covid. The Republicans are mostly Anti-Science or Anti-Reality. The Democrats are arguing about political conspiracies. One side may be paranoid, but the other side is not "reality based!". The conclusions of this research paper are a false equivalence.

Here is a quote from that research paper: researchers have identified numerous conspiracy theories that garner more support among the right than left, including those calling into question the scientific consensus on climate change (Miller et al., 2016), the authenticity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate (Pasek et al., 2014), COVID-19 (Miller, 2020), and the election of Joe Biden (Pennycook & Rand, 2021). Second, some researchers show that conservatives display higher levels of generalized conspiracy thinking than liberals (van der Linden et al., 2021); similarly, others show that “extreme” conservatives are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than “extreme” liberals (Imhoff et al., 2022; van Prooijen et al., 2015). Third, conspiracy theory beliefs are sometimes found to be associated with psychological tendencies more prevalent among conservatives, such as authoritarianism, need for cognitive closure, and threat perception (e.g., Dyrendal et al., 2021). Finally, several studies find evidence that those on the right are more likely than the left to engage with fake news and misinformation online (Garrett & Bond, 2021; Grinberg et al., 2019; Guess et al., 2019). But the abstract then claims the exact opposite!

While 'Non-Fact Based Reporting' occurs on both the left and the right, the number and degree of non-fact based right-wing media outlets outnumber the left-wing ones in both number and in the degree that they simply make up facts. Here is the source for the chart: https://adfontesmedia.com/methodology/

I always wondered what would be the issue to turn MAGAs against Trump? Would it be the massive expansion of executive power? Would it be the expansion of heavily armed police (ICE)? Would it be the attack on the US's already inadequate healthcare system? NOOO... it's Epstein's client list! 🤣

My wife has applied for, and received, two tourist visas for trips to visit my family in the US. The first was back in 2005 and the second was in 2019 (a 10 year visa that we haven't actually used yet). She doesn't have a job, but she does own land and has a history of international travel - Laos, Japan, Singapore - without overstaying or misusing her visa. Also I have a job in Thailand and we just visited the US during school breaks. The process of applying was not easy, but I did it all myself and she was granted the visas without any problem. I believe that the fact that our marriage is long term - from 2003 to now - helped.

Possibly because 'assisted suicide' is a bit more common in Russia than it is in the US!

Does anyone notice who's missing from this thread? Or maybe he just has a new new name!

Third parties in US politics almost always act as spoilers. A conservative 3rd party will help the Democrats, a liberal 3rd party will help the Republicans. Right now the only one talking about a 3rd party is Musk, who will probably be more conservative than liberal. Musk's party will probably appeal to "tech bros" who are not classic conservatives on all issues. Right now the only liberal 3rd party is the Greens, who don't have much of a voter base in the US.

Although people are asking why there weren't adequate weather warnings, there is another factor that no-one seems to mention. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-efforts-predict-weather-hit-133342621.html For those of you who don't like to click links or read complete articles, here is the relevant quote: "The Trump administration has axed thousands of jobs from NOAA, the National Weather Service's parent agency, leaving many weather offices understaffed," also: "A lot of the weather forecast offices now are not operating at full complement of staff, which means that you're really putting an extra burden on these folks. I don't know how much that was a factor in what happened in Texas this weekend."

It's true though. With the exception of Rand Paul all of the deficit hawks have simply put aside their principles and voted for the biggest deficit spending bill ever.

Most of the 'painful' provisions of the BBB won't take effect until the end of 2026 - after the midterm elections. So the Republicans will be insulated from the consequences of the bill. Also the fiscal ill effects - the increased deficit - won't be felt until there is another president. The BBB is basically an economic time bomb that will hit the US hard in the coming years.