That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://garbi.online/forum/
I don't think this is the thread you were looking for.Octavious wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:42 am I really hope someone drops a bunt on them in the 9th inning of a no hitter. He will burst into flames.Seriously that dude needs to go. I've seen people get less crap for getting a DWI. Oh wait...
Both involve poor umpiring by at least one person...Octavious wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:57 am LOL I meant to put that in the MLB thread. I have no idea how I did that. Not even the same section.
I'm sorry to hear that, Kraken. So, no one took care of your cat after you died?Kraken wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:18 am On the bright side, I'll be dead. But I do want to ensure that my cat is provided for, and so we're meeting with a lawyer tomorrow. We did this once before and it ended badly, but that's a different thread.
I am not oblivious. I'm not going to explain what I found humorous. I'll leave that up to the viewers at home who have been watching what's up with the White Sox, and the populace watching.stimpy wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 10:38 am I love how LM is totally oblivious to what is being posted and where.
Everything fits everywhere in his world.
I envy him.
My comment was geared towards Octavious meaning to put his post in the MLB thread, not in R&P.LordMortis wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 11:12 amI am not oblivious. I'm not going to explain what I found humorous. I'll leave that up to the viewers at home who have been watching what's up with the White Sox, and the populace watching.stimpy wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 10:38 am I love how LM is totally oblivious to what is being posted and where.
Everything fits everywhere in his world.
I envy him.
Oh man. Can you imagine the coverage on Fox News if Biden swung at a 3-0 pitch with a big lead?
Honestly though now I kind of want to call into Fox & Friends and complain about Biden violating the unwritten rules of baseball, and see if I can get them to bite.Octavious wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:18 pm I still have no clue how I did that but at least it led to some good laughs.
"can"? You're suggesting calling into Fox & Friends to complain about Biden. It isn't a matter of if it is simply a matter of how far your prank spreads through right wing media.El Guapo wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:23 pmHonestly though now I kind of want to call into Fox & Friends and complain about Biden violating the unwritten rules of baseball, and see if I can get them to bite.Octavious wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:18 pm I still have no clue how I did that but at least it led to some good laughs.
I don't think it is. Biden wants the best bipartisan deal on nuts-and-bolts infrastructure he can get. Whatever he can't get, including the tax hikes, can go into a follow-on "human infrastructure" reconciliation bill. The more he gets in the former, the less he has to add to the latter.Zaxxon wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 6:08 pm Thankfully that performative exercise is now behind us. Get the shit moving now.
He's not going to get anything significant. A bipartisan bill is a mirage.Kraken wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:41 pmI don't think it is. Biden wants the best bipartisan deal on nuts-and-bolts infrastructure he can get. Whatever he can't get, including the tax hikes, can go into a follow-on "human infrastructure" reconciliation bill. The more he gets in the former, the less he has to add to the latter.Zaxxon wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 6:08 pm Thankfully that performative exercise is now behind us. Get the shit moving now.
I agree. Manchin is 73 now. He is up for re-election in 2025. If he throws in with the Democrats he can go “Boom! Peace out and Legacy Muthafukas!” For the rest of his term before retiring.ImLawBoy wrote:He's old and reelection odds are pretty long for him anyway (he barely won last time, and his constituency is not moving to the left). He can move on to a cushy consulting job or join the media or something.Carpet_pissr wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 2:51 pmFOX, OAN and others whom very likely have the most West Virginian eyeballs, would like a word with you.ImLawBoy wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 2:48 pmA fawning media extolling his bravery and virtue.Carpet_pissr wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 2:06 pmWhy in the world would he do that? What’s in it for him?ImLawBoy wrote:This is really the perfect opportunity for Manchin and Sinema to board the dump the filibuster train.
Please. There's plenty of upside. There might not be enough upside to outweigh the downside, but that doesn't mean there's no upside. You could argue there's no net upside, but that's a different thing and is highly dependent on what he sees/expects with his next election.malchior wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:08 pm Also let's be real if Manchin or Sinema signed on they'd have a parade of select VSP people quoted across most of MSM talking about how they're throwing tradition in the bin. There is no upside.
Yep. The gap is $1.5B. Either they do it alone or they don't do it at all. What's crazy is that they have a golden political opportunity to say bipartisanship is practically "impossible". Point at all the failings of bipartisanship just this year including the 1/6 commission discussion. If the shoe was on the other foot would any of us believe 1) that the GOP would sit around in a knitting circle negotiating against themselves and instead just get it done and 2) beat on the Democrats to great effect in the process?Zaxxon wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:10 amHe's not going to get anything significant. A bipartisan bill is a mirage.Kraken wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 9:41 pmI don't think it is. Biden wants the best bipartisan deal on nuts-and-bolts infrastructure he can get. Whatever he can't get, including the tax hikes, can go into a follow-on "human infrastructure" reconciliation bill. The more he gets in the former, the less he has to add to the latter.Zaxxon wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 6:08 pm Thankfully that performative exercise is now behind us. Get the shit moving now.
Arise old comments. Figured I'd swing back around to this now that we are nearly 3 months further down the road. We're probably not completely overdue on when we should have seen Biden pivot to something more forceful but its pretty close. I'm becoming very concerned he is going to lose all his momentum. I have been feeling it for a week or two as they negotiated against themselves on infrastructure. But some of the comments today I saw really cemented it. You are hearing a lot of professional pundit class starting to recognize how bad the situation is. Yet the Democrats keep on keeping on while the Republicans are already back on the attack chopping at Biden's policies and Democratic legislative priorities. Hope is fading fast.El Guapo wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 11:14 amIt's also a little weird because it seems like OMB Director is one of the stronger cabinet positions for deferring to the President's pick, especially since the OMB Director isn't promulgating regulations or the like. Honestly I'm not 100% sure why OMB Director is a position that has to be Senate confirmed.malchior wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 10:55 amThis is my problem. I don't blame Biden for nominating her. She is qualified. I don't think anyone could have anticipated this nonsense line or that it'd actually stick. I also don't blame Biden from reaching out to moderate Republicans since he said he'd do that.El Guapo wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 10:50 amI think that she's eminently qualified, and seems like a general person of talent. I'm ok with her not getting confirmed too, and it's not like there aren't other talented people to fill the position with.
Mainly I just wish the 'official' reason for her getting rejected made at least a little sense.
I think however that mid-last week it was clear this nomination was dead. This stretched on and somehow got to the point that Murkowski thought to try to see if ANWR was in play? That sounds like the Republicans judged that Biden was really stretching to get her in the door. It would have been a disaster if that succeeded so I'm glad it didn't. My only real hope out of this is that maybe Biden is starting to realize how bad the situation in Congress is. His rose-colored glasses ought to be coming off soon.
As for why he kept it going that long...I'm sure part of it is they probably felt if they pulled her too soon that they would look weak. Part of it is why not kick the tires and see if there's anyone that they can get to go along. And to see (for example) does Murkowski want something minor and face-saving, or does she want something big and substantive?
Honestly overall I'm pretty satisfied with how Biden and Democratic leadership has responded to GOP intransigence...not too much tilting at windmills at this point. The big test is going to be how they respond to the GOP filibustering the essential HR1 / voting rights bills - that's the stuff that it's essential that they play full hardball on.
In a normal functioning democracy this would make sense but it quickly breaks down.Despite President Biden’s pledge to aggressively cut the pollution from fossil fuels that is driving climate change, his administration has quietly taken actions this month that will guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades to come.
The clash between Mr. Biden’s pledges and some of his recent decisions illustrates the political, technical and legal difficulties of disentangling the country from the oil, gas and coal that have underpinned its economy for more than a century.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration defended in federal court the Willow project, a huge oil drilling operation proposed on Alaska’s North Slope that was approved by the Trump administration and is being fought by environmentalists. Weeks earlier, it backed former President Donald J. Trump’s decision to grant oil and gas leases on federal land in Wyoming. Also this month, it declined to act when it had an opportunity to stop crude oil from continuing to flow through the bitterly contested, 2,700-mile Dakota Access pipeline, which lacks a federal permit.
The three decisions suggest the jagged road that Mr. Biden is following as he tries to balance his climate agenda against practical and political pressures.
Mr. Biden “can’t afford to take a pure position on the climate” because he lacks strong majorities in Congress, said William A. Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “That is the backdrop against which this president and the administration will be making trade-offs on every single issue.”
Where is the support in return? It's all a one-way street. When do they wake up and smell the delusion? To be a little fair, Murkowski at least went outside yesterday and made noise about the 1/6 commission and will likely vote for it. However, is that alone worth 20-years of oil/natural gas drilling? It'd be a really poor tradeoff even if it paid off with an infrastructure vote but the reality is it very likely won't. I'm just baffled by the decision making processes at play. The fantasy thinking is just unreal to me. This isn't fighting. This is playing the game by the rules from 30 years ago.The decision on the Willow project was made as the Biden administration is trying to win Republican support for its infrastructure package and other policies, said Gerald Torres, a professor of law and environmental justice at Yale University. “He is going to need Murkowski’s vote for some things,” he said. “These are political calculations.”
AFTER 100 DAYS in office, Joe Biden looked ruthless and Rooseveltian. He had just passed a $1.9trn rescue package despite painfully narrow majorities; his administration was triumphantly preparing future plans to spend trillions more on climate, infrastructure and safety-net expansions. Since then, however, little has happened, and the prognosis looks murky.
When mathematicians confront a system of equations, they sometimes find that there is no solution set—the equations are simply inconsistent and cannot be resolved. The various constraints on governance—Democratic squabbles over the importance of bipartisanship, the brutal mathematics of thin margins, unrelenting opposition from Republicans—are starting to resemble such a system. What seemed merely like a risk at the start of Mr Biden’s term now looks increasingly like reality: the president’s ambitious legislative agenda could be rendered a largely theoretical exercise.
The dominant constraint on Mr Biden’s aspirations has always been the filibuster—an arcane rule in the Senate that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Democrats hold 50 Senate seats; assuming party unanimity, the administration thus needs ten Republican votes. Mr Biden will be hard-pressed to find them for his plans to spend more than $4trn and raise taxes on businesses and the wealthy.
That leaves three plausible options. The first is to negotiate his proposals down to nubs of their initial incarnations, which risks losing the support of Democrats’ left flank. The second is to squeeze the agenda into a “reconciliation” bill that is primarily budgetary, and immune to a filibuster. That would probably require excising some important regulatory provisions, such as a clean-electricity standard or a minimum-wage rise. It also risks losing moderate Democratic senators hopelessly bent on bipartisanship. The third option—abolishing the filibuster through a simple majority vote—is hostage to moderates’ unshakeable belief that ending the filibuster would somehow destroy the Senate.
When it comes to navigating the tricky ethical issues that may arise around Hunter Biden’s budding career as an artist, he is going about it in exactly the wrong way. What this situation calls for is transparency — the more of it, the better.
As The Post has reported, the president’s son, who has no professional training and has never before sold art on the commercial market, has struck an arrangement with a New York gallery owner under which Biden’s art — described as paintings, drawings and collages — will go on sale this fall for asking prices that are expected to reach as high as $500,000 for a single piece.
However, under terms negotiated by parties described as “officials close to President Biden,” the gallery owner, Georges Bergès, will withhold all records of the transactions, including final sales and the identities of buyers and bidders. Bergès, The Post reported, “has also agreed to reject any offer that he deems suspicious or that comes in over the asking price.”
Got that? To insulate these purchases from the obvious potential for conflict-of-interest violations, we are counting on the sole judgment of a gallery owner who stands to make a profit on the deal. And we are relying on the assumption that the details can remain confidential in a political world in which pretty much nothing does.
It is also worth noting that high-value art is a business in which it is not unheard of for foreign buyers and sketchy parties to disguise their identities by using others to make their purchases.
I have no problem with Hunter Biden’s learning who is buying his art, and how much they are paying.
In fact, I think we all should know.
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Yeah, I can't figure out why your posts are addressed differently than anyone else on the forum.
This is the meat of the matter to me. Hunter is putting the administration in a bad spot. They could have said that, distanced themselves, and kept their pledge to maintain high ethical standards after Trump. Instead they did this. It's gross.LawBeefaroni wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 12:11 pmSometimes when you take the job you/yours forfeit certain sources of income. Well, it used to be that way. Now? We are so obsessed with making money. Can't take away Hunter's right to sell art at bullshit prices. It may be buying access to the White House but Hunter's rights!
Trump was a symptom, not the disease.
President Biden has been in office for six months. Despite right-wing media’s effort to portray him as a doddering socialist (if he is so feeble, is there really a socialist threat?), his approval ratings remain strong (58 percent in the most recent CBS/YouGov poll). There is good reason for the high marks.
Biden has exceeded expectations among progressives, more centrist Democrats and many non-MAGA Republicans on several fronts. Despite the emergence of the delta variant, his management of the vaccination program was commendable and arguably the most “whole of government” response to a crisis outside wartime in decades. We are now mostly down to the willfully unvaccinated. That success in turn has allowed the economy to begin roaring back, albeit with a flash of inflation.
His Cabinet is diverse, competent and capable of advancing his robust domestic agenda. His judicial nominees are impressive and also remarkably diverse (in gender, race and background).
He has arguably made more progress by getting both the American Rescue Plan and the $250 billion Innovation and Competition Act than one would have expected with a 50-50 partisan split in the Senate. If he gets through his bipartisan infrastructure bill and reconciliation package — both of which are chock-full of popular measures, including tax increases for the super-rich and an end to corporate tax gamesmanship — he will have accomplished more in his first year in office than any president since perhaps Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
On foreign policy, he has succeeded in reaffirming and repairing, especially with regard to the U.S. relationship with the European Union and NATO. He has begun to rebuild the defense of universal human rights, a strong pillar of our national security. He restored America’s international stature by rejoining the Paris accord and the World Health Organization. And he sanctioned Russia and called out China for cyberattacks. (Critics argue he could have been tougher on both, but the groveling before dictators has ended, thankfully.)
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Nevertheless, there are worrying developments. Many of these are works-in-progress, but if there is not some course correction, his agenda will suffer.
Most important, his decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan (rather than leave a small military force behind) will prove disastrous if terrorists reconstitute themselves, posing a threat to the United States and its allies, and if Afghan women’s rights are obliterated. The signs so far are not positive.
His hands-off approach to the Justice Department and selection of Attorney General Merrick Garland has, to the dismay of many law-and-order Never Trumpers and Democrats, resulted in neither prosecutions of the former president and his senior staff nor any comprehensive review of the department’s conduct over the past four years. Refusing to hold former government officials accountable is a mistake and an invitation for future abuses. Fortunately, the inspector general is looking into discrete subjects, but this is no substitute for a full review. Garland still has time to consider a range of charges against the former president and his senior advisers if the facts and the law warrant; the question is whether he has the will.
On voting rights, Biden has said the right things. Garland has filed one lawsuit against Georgia and vowed to double the Justice Department’s civil rights staff. But there has been no full-throttled attempt to pursue possible charges against those who allowed phony auditors to despoil ballots and voting machines in Arizona. Given that the Supreme Court has largely tied Garland’s hands, new legislation is the only real remedy. Still, there is no visible strategy for obtaining voting reforms or to prevent Republican schemes to flip election results. If Biden is slowly cajoling Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to work around the filibuster, then the president’s refusal to publicly address the Senate procedure may be understandable. But if Biden fails to pass voting protections and never makes a pitch for filibuster “reform,” the backlash will be fierce and deserved.
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Finally, Biden may have been too nice. In backing off additional funding for the IRS to raise more revenue in the bipartisan infrastructure deal, he has allowed Republicans to not only break their word but defend tax cheating. That is worth a public scolding. Granted, Biden is trying to lower the temperature and return to bipartisan dealmaking, but he should not permit Republicans to escape vocal condemnation at critical moments.
On balance, the positive certainly outweighs the negative. And compared with a hypothetical second term for his predecessor, his performance is magnificent. Nevertheless, there is room for improvement — and only so much time before the midterm election cycle.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... s-n1275291A major infrastructure package passed a key test vote Wednesday in the Senate, just hours after a bipartisan working group announced a deal after more than a month of negotiating.
The Senate voted 67 to 32 to begin debate on the measure, getting 17 Republicans to sign on, more than the 10 needed to break a filibuster.