The silver lining here is that even Donald Trump has his limits. He seems to acknowledge that ordering the Treasury to pay him $10B directly might go too far. Or “sort of looks bad”, as he put it.
Of course, forming a commission to hand out 1.7B to his friends is just as bad. The Courts will probably strike that down, too, and he will whine about it.
If the Democratic brand is so toxic that candidates in certain states are better off running without it, that sounds like a problem with the party itself.
I wonder if that’s the real reason why that “2024 autopsy” is not getting released: it shows that the Democrats are toxic to most average voters. (And not because they are “not progressive enough…”)
John Fetterman is a US Senator from Pennsylvania. He was already one of the more conservative Democrats, but he had a stroke during his Senate campaign, and when he got better he took a sharp right turn.
At this point, whenever there is a vote where all the Democratic Senators except one vote in a bloc, that one lone holdout is often Fetterman.
Why couldn’t the Democrats actually put Don Osborne on their primary ballot, then? Or even “None of the Above”?
It seems silly to have to recruit someone to run, just to win an election and immediately quit.
fettermaned
Haha
Trump’s lately been boasting about the number of cognitive tests his doctors ask him to complete. The test, called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), is intended to suss out dementia-linked cognitive decline.
“I’ve taken three,” Trump boasted earlier this month, two days after the first of his two unscheduled-but-scheduled offsite dentist appointments in Palm Beach. “No president, think of this, has ever taken one.”
I’ve said for years that the fact that he keeps bragging about his high performance on his cognitive tests is, itself, a sign. Yes, Donnie, there’s a reason why they give you so many, and it’s not because of your Big Brain…
It’s so weird how independants are treated here. When you think about it, the only real justification for having parties in the US is ballot access. A candidate that is not attached to any party needs to satisfy all the conditions themselves, while a candidate that works through a party has the party available to help them with that. (And in many states, I bet it has been arranged that Democrats and Republicans have ballot access “automatically” with far less process.)
Yet, here we have a candidate who is so popular in his state that he doesn’t need a party for ballot access. And instead of just changing the rules to say “Let’s endorse this guy, even though he’s an independent”, Democrats need to go through these motions to have a sham primary, and run a candidate who everyone knows will just back out if they win.
Even in this case, where most everyone agrees that backing the Independant is best for the Democrats, they still need to award a participation trophy to someone on their team.
Actually, the way that some of these recent bills have been worded is designed to be achievable without an amendment:
Justices that reach their term limit would be assigned “senior status”
they would still hold their appointment for life, but wouldnt actually serve on the Court again unless there was a vacancy
By doing it this way, they preserve the “lifetime appointment” part in the Constitution while still leaving room for a regular infusion of new people
Yeah, don’t ever call Trump bald. If he catches you doing that, there’ll be hell toupee…
Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often, and for the same reasons.
I am not a dual citizen, but know several. The benefit is that you have all the rights of a citizen in either country, the chief benefit is that you can stay in either country as long as you want to, and not worry about any visa limits.
The main drawback is that you are subject to all of the regulations in both countries, and if you get in some sort of legal trouble in one country, the other country can’t help you at all. (Of course, they may not have helped either way).
If you are a citizen of a country, you often must show that passport when entering. So these people frequently travel with both passports, and when going to a third country, use whichever one is most advantageous.
Yes, cash is still very much in use in the US. And you can pay the IRS in cash, at least for amounts less than $1000. But checks are also in use here. I’ve bought a few cars with cashier’s checks and nobody has given me a hassle about it.
However, there are certain venues now that will not accept cash at all. Theme parks, stadiums, concerts: they are mostly places where places to spend money are spread out, and the burden of physically handling the cash is a lot. I have seen theme parks with kiosks at the entrance to convert people’s cash into VISA debit card accounts just to facilitate this. I guess they think it makes it all more efficient.
I will say that while I still carry around cash, after the pandemic I refuse to carry around loose change. Why would I? I will never need to use a pay phone anymore, and most parking meters can be topped up from your phone. Anytime I buy something in cash and get change, I usually just put it in the tip jar, because there is no more room in that jar on the dresser.
DOESN’T THE GRIM REAPER TALK IN ALL CAPS?
It doesn’t matter. If he stays in power past Jan 2029, he won’t need an election (or any popularity polls) to do it.
They are in a position where they can pass legislation that will obligate the President to do something different. But I won’t hold my breath…
It is also unclear what happens if someone doesn’t have ID when they show up to vote. Do they get sent home? Do they file a provisional ballot? How is that provisional ballot eventually validated and counted?
Not all Voter ID laws are bad, but they should always be oriented toward having a path to allow the most vulnerable to vote. The right to vote should be absolute, and not subject to revocation if someone doesn’t have the correct paperwork on them. (Yes, I think felons ought to be able to vote, too.)
Nope, that is incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States
If a Presidential impeachment succeeds, that person immediately leaves office. The Constitution says that if the President were ever to leave office, the VP takes over. But if there is also no VP, what happens next depends on the Presidential Succession Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Succession_Act
Which says that the Speaker of the House becomes Acting President.
Its still a matter of debate what exactly an “acting President” can do in this context. Does the House Speaker resign from Congress and move into the White House? That is the plainest reading of it all, after all.
It doesn’t matter what they might or might not “consider”, if they impeach Trump them Vance becomes President, unless they do a twofer and impeach them both.
If they ever have the votes to impeach Trump, they would likely have the votes to impeach both of them. But, they may think it’s political suicide to do so, especially since then a (presumably Democratic) House Speaker would become President, and not by being elected, which would trigger all sorts of folks on the Reich Right
Wasn’t there also that bit about “the Disciple that Jesus loved”?
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Not necessarily, I think the courts were already making noise about the original thing:
I think the judge might have been about to start the process to throw it all out, which is why Trump (and his Justice Dept cronies) came up with this “settlement” idea