All_Pro_Bills

The pattern is game "back on" as Trump's not President anymore so nobody is going to piss and moan about this or raise any concerns.

If it was only that simple as the problem is the dynamic nature of changes in business conditions. And how it impacts the people running and working in these businesses. Its about changes to the "rules", in this case the minimum amount of pay per hour you are required to pay out, and what adjustments are necessary to stay in business. So you need to adapt to the changing rules of the game. Businesses constantly face these issues. Input costs like a restaurants food costs rise and rarely fall for example. But the root of the problem isn't about what the minimum wage should be as I'll get to at the end. Although labor costs are a big component of the "costs" of running a business there are other factors. Other inputs, fixed and variable costs, taxes, regulations. specific costs and attributes of the business, along with specific costs and attributes of the market. The simplest response to raising the labor cost would be to raise prices to compensate the business for the additional costs. Or shrink the product and hold the price like make the Whopper smaller. Absent that you'd need to either increase productivity (measured in the value of output per hour) or cut costs somewhere else. A fundamental question is how do you pay somebody that generates $10 of value per hour a pay rate of $15 per hour? Over the course of a year you'll lose about $10K per employee. The more people you employ the more you lose. Its like being in business to sell a dollar for 90 cents. So the challenge is to get at or above a $15 value generating level per hours per employee. Most likely you'll try to pass on the additional cost by raising prices and if that doesn't work then you'll be left with the undesirable task of letting somebody go. Or given a rise in labor costs entertain the idea of some sort of automation which now becomes more attractive from a cost perspective. IMO the minimum wage debate is an exercise in political misdirection under the guise of helping the unfortunate minimum wage worker. A distraction because it avoids any discussion of a fatal structural problem with the US economy of today. These minimum wage jobs aren't designed to be lifetime jobs for people. But for many that is the current reality. This is entry level work to get people into the labor force to get experience and skills that can be leveraged to move up the ladder. But the rungs above minimum wage in the employment ladder have been removed by outsourcing and eliminating these opportunities through one way or another that are too detailed to go into here. So just by looking at the large number of people stuck at the bottom there's no where to go for most of them. They are stuck here without a lot of viable options. Rather than devolving into a debate about the governments plan to dictate wage levels to small employers maybe they should focus on the things that the government and their corporate master have enacted and done in order for powerful corporations and Wall Street to strip mine US workers of their jobs and dignity along with putting millions of small businesses out of existence while raising their profits and incomes to obscene levels?

You're insinuating some racial motivation to stop people of Latino decent, specifically Mexican to enter the country although most of the recent "undocumented" are from Central American countries. Countries where the US spends billions supporting unpopular and typically oppressive and corrupt regimes. Assuming they really care about human rights vs. acquiring political power by bitching about things but taking no action to stop bad policy maybe the left should focus on eliminating the dictators our government bankrolls and supports which abuse human rights and inflict suffering on their people. But what you're suggesting is that because most Canadians are white they get a free pass. The go-to move of the left. Have no proof or facts or hard data, pull out the race card. That we all know explains everything when facts are inconvenient. But I think the reason there's no talk about a norther border wall is because there is no problem to address. Unless there's some problem with a big number of Canadian street gang members sneaking across the border and politely forcing American's to watch Curling and eat donuts. I don't think so.

In principal I tend to support the idea. But I'm not really sure why a study is needed. Most likely the committee will be packed with like-minded individuals already concluding reparations are necessary and a good idea. I doubt a single voice expressing any reservations or concerns about the proposal will be heard. So with the outcome never in doubt the only reason to assemble a committee is to provide "cover" for politicians so they can say it wasn't their decision but rather that of a group of "experts" on the subject. So their recommendations need to be accepted and the country needs to move forward with the committee's recommendations. Plausible deniability in case something goes wrong one way or the other. As a skeptic I expect the most likely outcome of the government enacting the program that pays out several trillion dollars in reparations is noting much changes. After a historic spending spree by recipients of the payouts almost everyone is back at the starting line with the exception of the most industrious of the recipients that use the funds for endeavors like starting a business or pursuing higher education goals. There could be a lot of social benefit all around for targeting monies to productive outcomes like these and not some consumer buying binge. So in the end almost everyone will be no better off and they'll come back to the wishing well demanding additional handouts for perpetuity. Along with this the parties behind the "end systemic racism" movement will never admit that the goal has been achieved. Even if I am wrong and it all works out great. Never. Because achieving the goal will mean the battle has been won and therefore there is no legitimate reason for the group to continue to exist. So the group will disband and surrender all the power and influence they have built up and acquired over the course of time and call it mission accomplished? Yeah right.

I hear what you're saying and think you're on the right track here. And from the posts we don't usually agree. A distinction to our views might be you may perceive this as some type of negligence rather than how I see it as a conscious choice. In my view you get what you pay for? Right? If you want to live in a state that provides its citizen's "more freedom" from government oversight and over-reach and interference in every day life and as a result has little regulation and low/no state income taxes and a cheaper cost of living vs. liberal nanny state States and limited government authority which leaves a lot of things to the private sector to sort out and determine then you need to at least understand and acknowledge what potential risks and rewards that set up might produce. So if the residents of Texas want to pay for the "risk mitigation cost" of taking the precautions of insuring this condition never occurs again they can do that by putting up the funds in one form or another to eliminate the risks. Reminds me of what we say in project management, good, fast, or cheap. Pick 2.

Please spare us all the plug on the virtues of socialism. People help others on their own. They don't need the government to tell them or force them to do it. They do it on their own. Voluntarily. As witnessed by many charities and other non-government sponsored ways citizens help other citizens. I know people in Texas and many with power and water are taking in friends and relatives that have neither. They didn't need some government official to advise or direct them to take action. It doesn't matter that the people they help are Democrats or Republicans or Liberals or Conservative. The core principles of Socialism are not about "helping people". Its been an abysmal failure everywhere. Socialism is an economic system that in theory seeks to divide the output of society in some "equitable" fashion. In practice its a two tiered system with "insiders" are more equally treated than outsiders. Outsiders being the common people not affiliated with the ruling class. In that respect its fundamentally the same as our current system where DC insiders set all the rules we rock and roll to without much input from the peasants. The failure of the socialist system eventually falls to a fundamental problem. While it focuses on an equitable distribution of consumption or rewards it avoids any mention of an equitable distribution of production and work. Which at some point raises the question, if I work hard and produce 20 units of output then why do I only get 2 units of consumption which is the same as the guy that products 1 unit of output and gets 2 units of consumption? Why am I working so hard for nothing? I'm going to dial back my work to 2 units of output. That way I get out what I put in. Pretty soon everyone that's productive gets the same idea and the whole thing goes to hell and people have to eat zoo animals and their pets like what went down in Venezuela. So if you're really into socialism don't forget to hang on to those grill Husky recipe ideas. In a couple years you'll need them..

Based on specs I've seen an average solar panel can produce 1.5Kw per day. And in Winter the number of panels needed to produce some "base" level of power increases with a lower Sun "angle" and less daylight hours available. So far its use has been limited to supplementing base power loads or home based systems that benefit from generous subsidies and tax credits to replace a portion of power coming form the grid or even going back into the grid when surplus power is generated form these arrays. Plus a few times our power was knocked out by storms the solar panels were useless. Because they generate DC power and there is a need for an inverter which convert that power to AC. As the inverter runs off the grid when the power is out the inverter is out. In my opinion rudimentary solar and wind power is never going to replace the power produced from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants. There needs to be some big jump in efficiency. If the decision is to go that route with current technologies then some major downsizing of civilization is going to be required. Ideas like replacing the entire internal combustion fleet with EV's is a fantasy unless there's an expectation of lower levels of mobility and use. As 1 gallon of gasoline produces 44Kw of energy and 1 solar panel produces 1.5Kw of energy and we currently consume about 9.3M barrels of gasoline a day the mathematical result of how many solar panels would be needed to replace all that gasoline consumption is staggering. Along with all that petroleum and petrochemical inputs required for the manufacturing process. I don't know but do solar panel and wind turbine factories run on solar and wind generated energy or do they run on things like natural gas?

Back in the days of the Carter administration NASA and the DOE initiated a research and development project called the Solar Power Satellite System (SPSS) designed to build and deploy space-based solar collectors that would constantly beam power down to Earth based collecting stations. I was envisioned the system would be scalable and would provide uninterrupted and potentially unlimited amounts of electrical energy. The system consisted of multiple large collectors in geosynchronous orbit beaming down power to one or more collection stations that would connect to the power grid. But the Reagan administration killed the project when they took power after the 1980 election. Most likely the desire to continue with the oil based economy and multiple lobbies and special interests hastened its demise too. The biggest technical obstacle was the means of beaming down the power to the Earth based stations. Microwave, laser, some kind of Earth tethered connection like the space elevator concept. A physical constraint was the amount of lift capacity needed and the expertise and manpower needed to assemble such large structure in space. One possible solution would have been a massive expansion of the shuttle program. Budget and cost constraints also posed issues. But 40 years ago a group forward thinking "out of the box" scientists and politicians saw a long-term solution that if followed through might have had us in a good position going forward.

Central governments and powerful monopolies do fade away or get removed or replaced. History is littered with such examples. Governments, empires, corporations, whole industries. I suspect citizens of Rome or Egypt or the Spanish and British empires, the Aztecs when the conquistadors arrived, or hundreds of Monarchs throughout history had expectations of power and control into the future forever. Then the Huns showed up at the city gates or the public lost faith and looked to other arrangements. Complex systems fail. Sometimes they fail because the cost of maintaining and running them exceeds the benefit. Sometimes they fail because people just lose faith in them. What is more inefficient and ineffective than the US government? How much faith do we have in the government to get anything right? I completely agree with you regarding Electric Vehicles. But I don't see the issue of where all this power generation to "fuel" the EV fleet is going to come from being discussed a lot. Just by doing some simple math. The US consumes about 9.3 million barrels of gasoline daily. At 44 gallons per barrel. One gallon of gasoline produces 44Kw of energy output. A standard 2x4 solar panel produces 1.5Kw per day. Ignoring efficiency factors one way or the other it would take 29 solar panels to replace the output of one gallon of gasoline. If my math is right it would require 269.7 million solar panels to replace one days gasoline consumption operating at spec to 1.5Kw. And as I'm not an electrical engineer or an expert on the efficiencies or inefficiencies of EV or the internal combustion engine I'd leave it to those experts to derive an exact number. Whatever the specific number might be its a big one. As such I think the 100% EV fleet idea is a wild fantasy absent some massive amount of new uninterruptible generation capacity.

LOL. We all know the truth. The distinction is you have the courage and independence to speak it. Others pretend to believe something else. Like a friend of mine said "its okay to lie to me but don't lie to yourself". In this case believing the media is fair and unbiased is lying to yourself. The media won't even acknowledge there is any inconsistency. Or challenge anything. They will pretend contradictions don't exist, maybe rationalize it away. They have their heads so far up Biden's ass they think its always nighttime. Typical questioning - Question: "President Trump, why do you continue to support White Supremacists and racists?" Question: "President Biden, what brand are you feeding the White House dogs?" Only softball questions will be asked of Biden. No WH correspondent will challenge or question anything. Obedience and submission to the cause is necessary for continued membership to the DC insiders club.

20 years is a long time. And I'm no futurist. But I don't share some bleak and grey vision that people will simply serve no purpose other than to exist. I expect there will be enough thinking and independent individuals that will choose to make a different type of society. But in 20 years I don't think the Democratic or Republican parties will exist. I see the central government being and becoming more ineffective and losing a lot of its power so I don't see the "big brother" scenario playing out. Shopping malls will disappear. Some large scale war will have occurred or be in progress. We still won't have flying cars. Oil and gas will still be around. Green energy will be important but will not replace fossil fuel sources. A revival of nuclear power will present itself. All the social issues of today will appear unimportant and trivial relative to the challenges of the time. "Hard" skills will be a must. Globalization will give way to localization. Technology in science and medicine will continue to make progress but technology will not be revered with any God-like qualities to replace human interaction or control.

I would agree that's one potential future but I'd ask you to consider the concept that human history and evolution is not linear but rather cyclical. Civilizations rise and fall like the grandeur of Roman Empire was followed by the depths of Dark Ages and then the enlightenment of the Renaissance. Economic booms are proceeded by economic busts and so forth. War leads to destruction while the following peace leads to a rebuilding. Progress does not follow some straight line extrapolation. That's why most forecasts of the future are wrong. The forecasters are thinking in a linear fashion and their models reflect this thinking. What you're describing is an evolution in not only technology but in the amount of energy that can be made available as more efficient and abundant sources become available. From brute force human labor all the way to petroleum and nuclear leading to the "green energy" movement of present day. I'd recommend reading "The Long Emergency" by Kunstler. The premise behind most of the authors conclusions is the oil age presented the human race with a one time endowment of an abundance of energy and once that is gone none of the available alternatives will replace it much less provide more energy for future expansion. While I don't agree with all of his conclusions it does raise a lot of interesting questions.

I'm in a similar position. For context I live in an upper middle class single family home neighborhood. Most of the residents are either professionals, small business owners, or mid-level managers in one of the many corporations dotting the region. Most have advanced degrees, Masters and PhD's. The demographics of the area are diverse, white, black, Asian (Chinese & Indian mostly), Hispanics. Same for my work environment. My natural instincts now are to not categorize or label anyone in this manner. With experience you learn everyone is looking for the same thing. A decent opportunity and a good life for themselves and their families and to see their kids do well or better than they are. My grandparents were immigrants to this country. My parents were working class people that saved and sacrificed to provide their kids a better life. We grew up in a working class environment and my lifelong values and character were molding by this environment. Its impossible for me to comprehend how much different it is growing up surrounded by relative affluence. The kids think my stories about growing up are quaint but don't really understand the realities of hardship. People living in my area are completely insulated from the civil and social stiff experienced and witnessed by others on the ground. Most I expect lean to the conservative side of things. In the Summer there was a demonstration by local school aged kids protesting against injustice and inequality. it was very orderly and polite as I would expect. While I supported their efforts I wondered how they could even conceptualize of injustice and inequality. Most are truly children of privilege. But that privilege is derived from wealth and income and not race. I expect few if any have experienced any of those situations or know what it means to be poor or want for things (growing up I came to know these things). I laughed to myself as I thought it likely the biggest problem in life they've faced is something like a weak WiFi signal. In my view our social issues are not about race so much as they are about income and education. Poor people just don't get treated very well in this country or maybe anywhere no matter their skin color. The cops in my area are as unlikely to hassle affluent blacks as the are to hassle affluent whites. I think the American way of life is exemplified by you work hard and see your kids do better than you. You pull your weight and expect the same of others. I think one of the problems today is there is less and less opportunity to do that given how the economy has changed over the past 30 years. Even college graduates have less opportunity and lower expectations of income. There are a couple big demographics that don't see this way of life as possible. Most "blue collar" jobs have disappeared in manufacturing & the supporting industries and businesses decimating a lot of small towns and cities in the process. These people see little to be hopeful for. The majority of them were Trump supporters. They are not inherently bad people but rather they have lost faith in either of the major political parties to do anything for them. After all, both presided over the elimination of their livelihoods. Coastal liberals don't understand them. But coastal liberals have been beneficiaries of globalization, financialization, and the information economy. The majority are poor whites living near or below the "poverty level". For these people the better life is a fantasy. The other big disadvantaged group is the inner city poor. There have been programs and actions for 50+ years to end inner city poverty. Most of them administered by politicians claiming to be supportive of these citizens. And to this point without a lot of success. The problem with these programs is they create government dependents rather than independent people. I believe at their core people generally don't want handouts but rather a helping hand. But the current craze is more handouts. Guaranteed incomes and other things. Free stuff that requires no effort or work, just proof of your existence to qualify. This creates a lot of people that just get by but have no opportunity to reach their potential or do something great. I believe the left/right divide is creating a lot of noise but not doing much to move towards solutions. In many respects its a false conflict fighting at the margins for some meager prize. The elites control 98% of the middle while the peasants on the left or right fight for the 1 or 2 percent at the margins. For the most part the left uses the later (inner city poor) and the right uses the former (working class white) in their political efforts claiming to care but not doing much of anything for either. Meanwhile the real powers skate through the center unnoticed because of the left/right conflict and diversion they created.

The original PPE problem in early 2020 was not the result of "low" inventories or anything Obama or Trump did or didn't do. There were adequate stocks in the US in late 2019 but China simultaneously withheld evidence and information on the virus in late 2019 while importing lots of PPE from the US and curtailing Chinese exports to other countries. When the outbreak hit the rest of the world there was a lack of protective equipment here and in other countries as a result. But we're not allowed to criticize China about anything!

You're right to point out it wasn't a fiscal issue at its inception. We all lived through it so we know what happened and I'm not surprised there's some historical revisionism going on given the idea appears to be a failure. The Defund movement was launched as a result of misconduct such as the George Floyd killing. These events also brought the BLM movement to prominence. And although it got support from local government officials in many cities the idea of defunding and eliminating police didn't play to well with the citizens in the cities. Polls showed a vast majority wanted either the "same level of policing" or "more". As the BLM/activist movement expressed their ire and hate towards the police many choose to pack it in, take retirement or leave the force. This left cities shorthanded and short-shifted in patrol numbers and coverage. It seems like crime rose in proportion to those cuts. Of course the citizens in the communities the activist targeted for "their help" suffered the most (maybe a lesson to avoid activists!). A core concept behind the idea was many types of situations the police were responding to were inappropriate for law enforcement and their presence only escalated the situation. Such as domestic disputes. The idea was to substitute community and social activists for the police in these cases along with others that were equipped to handle these types of issues, It might be a good concept in theory but it doesn't seem to be getting much traction to this point.

The thing is we knew this before the House crafted the changes and voted the articles of impeachment. So if the objective is to gain a conviction on the charges and you know you can't do that then why pursue the matter in the manner it was pursued unless you've got some other objectives? It should have gone to the Federal Courts. The wheels of justice turn slowly. And taking the court route what's the rush? If justice is served in 2 weeks or 2 months in the grand scheme of things it will not matter. Also citing Constitution objections to trying former President is not a convenient rationale but a matter of law. It is based on credible and likely potentially correct interpretations of the Constitution Article I section 3. Sure the specific event happened on Jan 6 and the articles were dated before the end of his term but the charges were sent to the Senate after the Biden inauguration. Waiting until the term expired introduced this "convenient rationale" to the proceedings. It could have been avoided by presenting the charges to the Senate before Trump's term expired. But I suspect the House leadership waited until after his term expired because the new Senate gave them the majority. And it avoided another potential question. What to do if the Senate trial starts before the term ends and runs through the inauguration. Does the old Senate continue to only hear the trial they started but the new Senate handles all other matters of business? Or does the new Senate take over where the old Senate stopped? Clearly some issues without any known resolution that might drag things out further. Going to the courts avoids both the path taken and the potential issues of the path's not taken. Decisions on venue, how and when to proceed, and a lack of proper evidence killed any hope of conviction along with the political nature of the entire event.

The oldest among us might recall that before cable, satellite, streaming, other methods of communication, and 24/7 broadcasting, network TV would "sign off" at night and then "sign on" in the morning. First thing in the morning they'd play the National Anthem.

I'd rather see funds used for some form of scholarship program for low-income people to get degrees in hard sciences like engineering, computer science, and the medical sciences. That will go towards helping to solve a couple problems. Income and educational inequalities and provide financially disadvantaged individuals a more equitable chance at success while giving America the skilled graduates needed to compete.

I'll bet most Americans would like to get a $10,000 check in the mail every month so they can sit on their asses and live a comfortable life and just relax and party all day but should we do that too?

I also had advocated for holding this trial in Federal Court. And while I think that holding the trial of a former President in the Senate is unconstitutional my main reason is that would have been as fair and impartial a venue as could be possible under the circumstances. The judicial has long been the arbiter between Congress and the executive branch and as a former President a trial here would have benefited a goal of seeking the truth. Its just impossible to remove the political motivations from the legal charges in this case. And a neutral venue following standards of evidence, actual testimony from actual witnesses and actors of Jan 6th, prosecution, defense, and a jury would have served us all better. Its seems the need to rush things along as fast as possible took priority. In the end it was just a back and forth of subjective interpretations of communications and words between speaker and the audience and the ambiguity of language under specific circumstances sprinkled in with some suggestions of legal intent (or instructions to riot in this case) without the benefit of any witnesses or testimony. More like something that would pass as a psychology experiment than the justification for a trial. The law is supposed to be about objectivity and facts. From what I heard objectivity and facts from both sides were few and far between through it all. Which brings me to my final point on this entire topic. I think from the start everyone paying attention to any of this, whether pro or anti Trump or just indifferent to the whole thing, knew with close to 100% certainty that the "Yes" vote would never reach the 67 needed for a conviction. The result was pre-determined. There was no mystery or suspense about the outcome. And given the Democratic leadership must have known that too the lingering question is what was their real angle here? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Well I hope you're right. But I'll continue to expect that nothing is off the table for the wokester fanatics until events prove otherwise. Also, Mitch might suggest this would be opposed but that doesn't negate the fact they want to do it. So the intent is there. Regards..

Hitler became all powerful because he was elected chancellor of Germany in 1932. Once he came to power his party leveraged their minority position in the Reichstag to change the constructs of the countries "constitution" and to grant him unlimited political power. Then the SS and the Gestapo rounded up and murdered, imprisoned, or exiled all political opposition. So lets fast forward to present day America. As I said earlier the Democrats want to change the construct of our system by granting statehood to PR and DC and stacking the SCOTUS with "liberal activist" judges. That would most likely result in one party rule forever. Perpetual control of all three branches of government and eliminate any and all checks and balances and give one party absolute power at the Federal level. Like a dictator, like Hitler. So who is following the NAZI script? Hint: it's not Trump. A lot of people need to wake up and realize this comparison is spot on and they're following the dictators playbook to the letter before its too late.

This cap site claims his comparable market value is over $8M per season. Seems high. I don't see the Bills going anywhere near that figure. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/jon-feliciano-16854/market-value/

That kind of leads to a potential moral dilemma. Today its decided to "squash" a couple groups viewed as marginal. So whats to stop the powers ruling the system to move the fence in a little further and start squashing more groups or organizations. I'm hearing Megadeth's Symphony of Destruction in my head now. The other question is how far are you willing to go to stop them? Pass legislation making their ideas or organization illegal? Arrest people? Round them up and put them all in camps? Exterminate people? I assume they'll resist all that and fight back. Are you willing to go all in and put your life on the line to stop them? Or is the idea that law enforcement, the people the Democrats want to defund, are going to do all the dirty work? What if things get ugly and turn into an all out firefight in the streets. Are we going to enlist an Army of social justice warriors that are willing to fight and die for their cause? I know I'm taking it to an extreme but there is nothing to suggest we're not headed there without some leadership willing to compromise and openly address people's grievances from all perspectives. At this point we have none of that on either side. So I am worried.

Well for starters the desire to grant statehood to Puerto Rico and DC in order to perpetually stack the Senate. And given a conservative slant to the Supreme Court demands from the left to add 2 or more justices with liberal leanings to reverse that back. Both of these would push the political environment to a permanent Democratic majority and one party rule. So our "democracy" would devolve into something similar to Huessen in Irag where he got 99% of the vote in the presidential "election". President for life. A dictatorial democracy. Who really wants that? With no checks and balances. Truth is I grew up in a staunch Democratic union household but the leaders and objectives of this party are just unrecognizable compared to the statue and integrity of their predecessors I grew to admire. The core used to be the working man and women but now its victims and the pursuit of social grievances of all types. I could go on. I would prefer the addition of two or more political parties to give the voters some valid options vs. the pick your poison choice as presented today.