ChiGoose

I don’t know much about California, but since Pritzker took over in Illinois, we have had multiple credit ratings upgrades (after the last governor intentionally took us down to one above junk), dramatically reduced the bill backlog and have rebuilt the rainy day fund. Things are actually going quite well in the state.

For one, I don’t think every single issue should be left up to the states. Should the right to contraceptives be left to the states? Should we let the states decide if they want to allow interracial marriage? If I was offered a great job opportunity in Ohio, the state where my wife and I went to school and still have friends, it would be a really difficult decision because moving to Ohio would mean losing access to important healthcare. Secondly, the whole “leave it up to the states” argument falls a little flat when the GOP is openly advocating for a nationwide ban through Congress. Ultimately, it likely won’t be left to the states one way or the other.

Government employees often have a separate phone for their work. I know a couple employees of the state who have a work-issued phone because everything they do for work is subject to FOIA. I do not know if the secret service has the same policy, but if cops and other state government employees have this, it wouldn’t surprise me if the secret service did too. However, I think the best course of action is to remain skeptical and keep an eye out for updates of an investigation into this.

He’s a troll. Between him and DR, they don’t have two brain cells to rub together. Best to ignore and let the adults talk.

Sorry I’m just seeing this, was on dinner and clean up duty. I think it’s a bad look for any government employee phone to have data deleted after an IG asks for it to be preserved. Generally, I would expect that there is a procedure to identify such devices and prevent them from undergoing regular data wipes. As far as I can tell, that leaves three likely potential scenarios: 1. There was no procedure to prevent devices from being wiped after an IG asks them to be preserved. 2. There is a procedure but it failed in this instance for some reason. 3. The data was intentionally deleted to prevent the IG from uncovering facts. I think all of those are a bad look for an agency as serious as the Secret Service. I am not going to do the PPP thing and break out my jump to conclusions mat, but if I had to guess, I think Occam’s and Hanlon’s Razors would make me more inclined to lean towards option 2. In any case, this should be investigated to get to the bottom of it.

Per The Intercept: THE SECRET SERVICE erased text messages from January 5 and January 6, 2021, according to a letter given to the January 6 committee and reviewed by The Intercept. The letter was originally sent by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to the House and Senate homeland security committees. Though the Secret Service maintains that the text messages were lost as a result of a “device-replacement program,” the letter says the erasure took place shortly after oversight officials requested the agency’s electronic communications. ... The Department of Homeland Security — the Secret Service’s parent agency — is subject to oversight from the DHS Office of Inspector General, which had requested records of electronic communications from the Secret Service between January 5 and January 6, 2021, before being informed that they had been erased. It is unclear from the letter whether all of the messages were deleted or just some. Not a great look.

My understanding is that a lot of the solutions around things like recycling simply aren't profitable, limiting their scale. Though, I will certainly defer to someone with LEED accreditation.

(citation needed)

Nice telling on yourself with that comment, but if you were really interested, here are some stats: The states with the lowest maternal mortality rate are: California (4.0 per 100k) Massachusetts (8.4 per 100k) Nevada (8.4 per 100k) Connecticut (10.5 per 100k) Colorado (11.5 per 100k) The United States as a whole has a fairly high maternal mortality rate, tied for 57th and below such countries as Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Belarus.

I was referring to the claim that there are people pushing to allow for killing babies after they are born. I do not know who is proposing that, nor would I support anyone who did. As to your point, I do live in Chicago but I have no hand in crafting laws in Illinois. Nor do I need to lobby on this issue since Illinois has a forward-thinking government that codified these rights prior to Dobbs, (since the writing was on the wall once Barrett was appointed). I do, however, have monthly donations to several senate candidates, as well as a fund to help people in less fortunate states access the care they need. Unfortunately, as we can see, that is not enough to prevent people from suffering due to Dobbs. I can pretend that "trusting the process" will fix all of this eventually, but I can also wish that the Patriots would be sold and moved out of New England. Doesn't mean a whole lot nor does it help anyone.

No idea. I’m not aware of this movement, their guidelines or proposed legislation.

I agree that there are crazies on all sides of all issues, however, comparing what some random loons say to a statement by the author of model legislation that had enough support to be passed into law by a legislative body seems like a false equivalence.

Given Iran's policy of supporting terrorist organizations, I'm less concerned about Iran launching a nuke at Israel than them giving a nuke or dirty bomb to terrorists.

What lawmaker, elected official or party leader is advocating for post-birth abortions? Is there proposed legislation on this? I don't doubt there are some nuts out there that want something like this, but I am skeptical that is a belief with enough support to be put into law.

It's just a distraction technique used by bad faith actors or (in this case) morons who actually don't realize they are being played. They want to pick one small thing and hammer it in order to avoid talking about all of the other aspects or the bigger picture. If you think about it, even if this theory about Ray Epps is true, it changes almost nothing. It doesn't change the fact that the president was told that the actions he wanted to take were illegal but he took them anyway. It doesn't change that they bilked their own supporters out of $200 million for a fund that actually didn't exist. It doesn't change the call to the Georgia Secretary of State asking him to put false numbers into the electoral tabulation. And the idea itself, that actually all of the violence was due to the FBI, would require that the Trump supporters at the capitol were brainless sheep. If the Bills win the Super Bowl this season (fingers crossed) and we all go to the parade, and someone at the parade is like "let's storm city hall!" Guess what every sane person is doing? Not storming city hall. Frankly, I mostly just avoid DR at this point to avoid feeding the trolls, but this whole Ray Epps thing is so idiotic, it's hard to avoid some times.

Oh, this is definitely true. We are a very car-centric culture and people in Europe have better access to public transit that mitigates the rising cost of fuel. I do not mean to say in anyway that the cost of fuel is immaterial or that we should be happy about it because it's more expensive elsewhere. I roll my eyes when I see my more liberal friends post about wanting gas prices to be higher to drive down car use because they completely ignore that this would greatly harm the poor and working class they claim to support so much. I mostly just wanted to point out that this isn't an issue singular to the US like we have high prices and everybody else is fine.

Note that I did not say that the US has the cheapest gas prices. Obviously there are countries with cheaper prices. Let's look at prices around the world: USD per Gallon: Venezuela 0.084 Libya 0.116 Iran 0.202 Syria 1.082 Algeria* 1.185 Kuwait* 1.291 Angola 1.41 Nigeria 1.577 Turkmenistan 1.621 Kazakhstan 1.66 Malaysia* 1.753 Iraq 1.943 Egypt* 1.954 Bahrain 2.009 Bolivia* 2.054 Colombia* 2.124 Haiti 2.154 Qatar* 2.183 Azerbaijan 2.227 Saudi Arabia* 2.349 Oman* 2.35 Ecuador* 2.4 Ethiopia 2.67 Tunisia 2.869 Kyrgyzstan* 3.015 Russia* 3.137 Benin* 3.495 Gabon 3.525 Bangladesh 3.597 Belarus* 3.616 Togo* 3.641 Uzbekistan 3.7 Afghanistan 3.723 Trinidad & Tobago 3.755 Cameroon* 3.787 Argentina* 3.803 Taiwan* 3.967 Maldives 4.081 Botswana 4.134 Suriname* 4.137 Burkina Faso* 4.165 Ivory Coast* 4.282 El Salvador* 4.31 Mexico* 4.317 DR Congo 4.433 Pakistan* 4.53 Brazil* 4.567 Grenada* 4.622 Burma* 4.631 Indonesia* 4.639 Japan* 4.647 United Arab Emirates* 4.658 Mali 4.725 Cuba 4.77 Bhutan 4.787 Swaziland 4.791 Sudan 4.8 Chile* 4.801 Puerto Rico* 4.847 Guyana* 4.867 Kenya* 4.868 Liberia 4.887 Vietnam* 4.913 USA* 4.915 India* 4.962 Thailand* 5.007 Guatemala* 5.049 Dominica 5.058 Malta* 5.093 Georgia* 5.103 Mozambique* 5.155 Nicaragua* 5.162 Senegal 5.185 Namibia* 5.186 Tanzania* 5.217 Guinea 5.22 Lebanon* 5.244 China* 5.307 Dominican Republic* 5.357 Lesotho* 5.371 Rwanda* 5.375 Nepal* 5.386 Australia* 5.408 Mongolia 5.417 Madagascar* 5.447 Paraguay 5.497 Turkey* 5.512 Saint Lucia* 5.533 Ghana* 5.544 Costa Rica* 5.59 Panama* 5.743 Sri Lanka* 5.773 Honduras* 5.793 Philippines* 5.829 Fiji* 5.839 South Africa* 5.847 Burundi 5.966 Cambodia* 5.986 Canada* 6.054 Poland* 6.12 Curacao* 6.192 Zambia* 6.192 Moldova* 6.229 Mauritius* 6.262 Peru* 6.286 Uganda 6.297 Sierra Leone* 6.323 South Korea* 6.33 Montenegro* 6.461 Ukraine* 6.475 Northern Macedonia* 6.543 Slovenia* 6.548 Cape Verde* 6.55 Bulgaria* 6.551 Jamaica* 6.553 Morocco 6.609 Jordan* 6.621 Serbia* 6.638 Romania* 6.643 Wallis and Futuna 6.735 Bosnia & Herz.* 6.76 Cayman Islands* 6.798 Luxembourg* 6.928 Cyprus* 6.943 Germany* 6.943 Andorra* 6.951 Bahamas 6.968 Liechtenstein 7.053 Laos* 7.062 Aruba* 7.07 Hungary* 7.084 Seychelles 7.176 Slovakia* 7.251 San Marino 7.255 Lithuania* 7.331 Malawi* 7.358 Czech Republic* 7.382 Albania 7.471 Mayotte* 7.487 Zimbabwe* 7.493 France* 7.533 Latvia* 7.563 Uruguay* 7.596 Croatia* 7.596 New Zealand* 7.671 Portugal* 7.673 Italy* 7.71 Spain* 7.743 Belgium* 7.878 Austria* 7.981 Sweden* 8.021 Singapore* 8.058 Ireland* 8.205 Estonia* 8.243 Switzerland* 8.466 United Kingdom* 8.58 Monaco 8.6 Netherlands* 8.707 Belize* 8.721 Central African Rep. 8.739 Finland* 8.825 Barbados* 8.838 Greece* 8.908 Denmark* 8.909 Israel* 9.007 Norway* 9.07 Iceland* 9.338 Hong Kong 11.448 So yeah, gas prices are higher in the US than normal, but we are far from having the most expensive gas.

Agreed. Pulling out of the JCPOA was a disaster.

I don't think I would do that if I were in their shoes unless my lawyer was with me and approved.

Something I've noticed lately with a lot of conservative proposals is that they are often based in common sense terms but do not adequately apply the proposed solutions to the nitty gritty real life details. Solutions like "the legislative branch should just legislate" ignores that, at the federal level, our legislature is hopelessly broken and unable to respond to the needs and wants of the American public. At the state level, legislatures vary wildly in both competence and willingness to actually address this situation (or make it worse). People like me who were worried about Roe being overturned were concerned that our legislative bodies would be unable or unwilling to properly address this in a way that protects people. Thankfully for my family, we live in Illinois with a governor who cares and a legislature that was smart enough to anticipate this and enact protections before the Dobbs decision. But tens of millions of Americans are not so lucky, and many states seem to be pushing laws that will make things even more difficult for people to get adequate healthcare and even proposing to eliminate exceptions for rape or *****. Another side of this is completely ignoring the confusion that even a well-crafted law can create. Law is complex, medicine is even more so. Laws about medicine that leave gray areas are already causing confusion about what doctors might or might not be liable for. Even if the law allows for the use of something like methotrexate for rheumatoid arthritis, the bounty aspect of some of these laws mean that a doctor who proscribed it might end up being sued for suspicion of facilitating an abortion and have to take the time, effort, and money to defend themselves. So now we are in a situation where many doctors are not sure if they can treat their patients, or if they can, worrying they might get sued anyway. Women across the country are not sure they'll be able to get needed treatment, or may have to spends hundreds or thousand of dollars to travel to get it. And the solution being offered is simply "well, let's hope that the legislatures who we deride as corrupt and incompetent on a regular basis really step up to the plate and solve all of this for us." It's just not a convincing argument unless you ignore the reality of the situation.

No, I thought throwing away 50 years of law without keeping any guardrails would lead to a ton of problems that would harm a lot of people. Seems pretty spot on prediction, honestly.

No, no, you see, we're not allowed to look at other countries for comparison. If we don't like the current president, then everything bad is 100% their fault and anything about similar problems elsewhere is non-admissible.

And in the meantime, screw anybody who has an immune disease!

Womp womp.

Did you eat paint chips as a child?