Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[lineygoblue]

Our gasoline prices here got down to about $3.53 about 3 weeks ago. Now they are back up to $3.90.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Also In-N-Out Burger is highly overrated. As much as Whataburger.

Burger was okay. Fries were straight trash. Five Guys, Shake Shack, and Smashburger all easily superior IMO as far as fast food goes.

[iam416]

An excellent blog entry on the NC case involving the State Supreme Court's usurping legislative authority re elections: https://www.nationalreview.com/bench...oore-v-harper/

The dispute is going to be very interesting. It's one thing if someone can point to a rule or law the legislature clearly violated in drawing the maps. It's another if the Supreme Court is more or less creating law to draw the districts it wants. The former is the Court's job. The latter is usupring the legislature's job. I'm not sure how the Supreme Court will view it. If, e.g., "no gerrymandering" has never existed in state law or state constitution then it seems plainly inapporiate for the Court to suddenly find it in the law and then redraw the map.

I think this certainly sums up one side of the argument:

The “independent state legislature theory” should more appropriately be called the “constitutional elections theory.” The actual grievance of its critics is the failure to achieve legislative success on either the state or the federal level.

[Mike]

Why do you care about weakening Russia? They don't have any troop transports ready to land at Miami Beach. Putin is not a Marxist ideologue who wishes to spread an evil ideology around the world. He's an asshole but he's not an enemy of the US.

Or at the very least, he's not enough of an enemy to justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prolong a proxy war.

I want Russia weakened for the same reasons I'd like to see MSU, PSU, and OSU's football programs weakened. I'm pretty sure Ukraine has said it will not pursue joining NATO and even if they did, tough shit (for Putin). They are an independent nation that can choose their own course without having a neighboring country waltz in and start blowing the place up. Putin views Ukraine as part of ancestral Russia and wants it back. It's just an old fashioned war for territory. I support the West's efforts to repel that nonsense and I don't even blink at the dollars involved because they are utterly insignificant relative the massive sums we're spending on garbage proposals in our own country.

[Da Geezer]

306160174_510177424443791_6246962968585106112_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296&_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=sibcb6QbMxoAX9IGNTF&tn=OBzq7Vkkwg0LCeMv&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=00_AT9oO6s53wZQC56UKL-Eaf3eX5DNhr7bvS0okLX
In about 10 years, the only kind of car you'll be able to buy in California will be an electric vehicle.
Don't make plans to use it very often.

I believe in 2026 the CA fleet of autos will have to be 32% EVs. It is under 10% now.

[Da Geezer]

An excellent blog entry on the NC case involving the State Supreme Court's usurping legislative authority re elections: https://www.nationalreview.com/bench...oore-v-harper/

The dispute is going to be very interesting. It's one thing if someone can point to a rule or law the legislature clearly violated in drawing the maps. It's another if the Supreme Court is more or less creating law to draw the districts it wants. The former is the Court's job. The latter is usupring the legislature's job. I'm not sure how the Supreme Court will view it. If, e.g., "no gerrymandering" has never existed in state law or state constitution then it seems plainly inapporiate for the Court to suddenly find it in the law and then redraw the map.

I think this certainly sums up one side of the argument:

Excellent article.

DSL almost quotes the fallacious arguments and disinformation that the article lists about the "Independent State Legislature Theory". And let's be clear, gerrymandering is done by both parties whenever they can. The idea that a 4-3 vote along party lines allows a 7-member court to redraw congressional lines is the antithesis of democracy.

It would be interesting for a similar case to come where the secretary of states that rewrote election laws without legislative approval in 2020 would be challenged. If the courts cannot change district lines, the Executive should not be able to change the laws governing elections without legislative approval.

[Da Geezer]

I want Russia weakened for the same reasons I'd like to see MSU, PSU, and OSU's football programs weakened. I'm pretty sure Ukraine has said it will not pursue joining NATO and even if they did, tough shit (for Putin). They are an independent nation that can choose their own course without having a neighboring country waltz in and start blowing the place up. Putin views Ukraine as part of ancestral Russia and wants it back. It's just an old fashioned war for territory. I support the West's efforts to repel that nonsense and I don't even blink at the dollars involved because they are utterly insignificant relative the massive sums we're spending on garbage proposals in our own country.

We built these weapons for the purpose of killing Russians and Chinese. If we are using them for that purpose, then fine with me.

When we start sending billions in order to achieve diversity in the Ukrainian military, then I have a problem. And I think we should acknowledge that Ukraine is a corrupt place and that its oligarchs are taking some of the money. Zelinsky has outlawed his political opposition, and he has absolute control of the media. This is not a fight for democracy. This is a proxy war between the West and Russia/China. This is the current World Order v. the totalitarian World Order.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Here's the NC Supreme Court decision that led to the Moore Case

orders.php (nccourts.org)

It specifies clauses 10, 19, 14, and 12 of the NC State Constitution's Declaration of Rights. #10 is probably the most pertinent and most broad:

Sec. 10. Free elections.
All elections shall be free.

There's a lot of room for interpretation in that one sentence since I doubt 20 people in a room would all have the exact same definition of what a "free election" is.

[Da Geezer]

Here's the NC Supreme Court decision that led to the Moore Case

orders.php (nccourts.org)

It specifies clauses 10, 19, 14, and 12 of the NC State Constitution's Declaration of Rights. #10 is probably the most pertinent and most broad:

Sec. 10. Free elections.
All elections shall be free.

There's a lot of room for interpretation in that one sentence since I doubt 20 people in a room would all have the exact same definition of what a "free election" is.

You might be right. Fortunately, we are allowed to take the whole witness of the NC constitution, the laws of NC, and of the US Constitution in order to make a judgment on the matter. This is not a close call. Only an authoritarian would take a majority of one (4-3) in the judicial branch over the votes of the entire populace for their representatives. If we allow this unconstitutional tact to prevail, then the only elections that will matter are those for the judicial branch.

You should read Talent's article.

[THE_WIZARD_]

306160174_510177424443791_6246962968585106112_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296&_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=sibcb6QbMxoAX9IGNTF&tn=OBzq7Vkkwg0LCeMv&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=00_AT9oO6s53wZQC56UKL-Eaf3eX5DNhr7bvS0okLX
In about 10 years, the only kind of car you'll be able to buy in California will be an electric vehicle.
Don't make plans to use it very often.

WELCOME TO RUSSIA CALIFORNIA

[Dr. Strangelove]

I read it. She's an activist the same way Marc Elias is.

Hypothetically speaking if the North Carolina legislature drew a gerrymander so extreme that Republicans were favored to win all 14 seats, despite being close to a 50/50 state politically, would that violate the guarantee of "free elections" or not?

EDIT: I do agree with the dissent though in the decision I posted that the majority should have better defined "extreme partisan gerrymander"

[THE_WIZARD_]

Surprisingly inflation comes in at a worse than expected at 8.3%. It actually got a little worse from last month and that's with gas prices considerably down -- about halfway back to where they were.

I fully expect The Chairman to, again, claim there's zero inflation and things going great and whatever issues there are can be blamed entirely on MAGA!!!!!! folks which, to be clear, aren't ALL Rs, just those people who vote for Rs.

[THE_WIZARD_]

DEM PLATFORM:

* JANUARY 6TH IS WORSE THAN 9/11!!
* NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!!!
* TRUMP IS EVIL!!
* SURE THINGS SUCK RIGHT NOW BUT REREAD THE ABOVE!!

R PLATFORM:
* BIDEN SUCKS

[Jeff Buchanan]

This is the current World Order v. the totalitarian World Order.

I'll start with this in defense of my position on Ukraine because this - the quote above - is what this war is about above all else. As well, weakening Russia (and China) is a key component of the strategy to win the ongoing war - a part of a greater national strategy to protect US and western interests - whose end will occur at the negotiating table. The Ukrainian battle space is the means by which leverage is gained when the time comes to start talking. If you are for gaining leverage such that Putin's aggression and his power to continue it can be mitigated, then you have to be for military and economic aid to Ukraine, even if it means aiding a historically corrupt country.

It's been said that there is no war in the history of the world that is immune from corruption and people trying to take advantage of it. I can overlook it in this particular case as has been the case historically when the US assesses it's alignment with certain governments. One has to elevate their view of the importance and justification of western support of the Zelenski government in achieving success in the pursuit of a national strategy. Success can be defined as a weakening of nuclear capable advocates of this "new world order" dictated by authoritarians that Putin has undertaken to establish. He has been very clear about this in his writing and, when he choses to publically talk about his vision for Russia and it's place on the world stage, during speeches ..... and, for the moment, I'll not present the degree of pressure applied by the US and the EU that ties aid to specific steps the Zelenski government must under take to continue to receive it - a lot of the details of it not front page news or all of it in the public domain.

The ingrediants are here in the US for authoritairan governance driven by the rise of nationalism as the legislative process fails over political polarization and the lack of civil discourse at the federal, state and local levels. Meanwhile, the role of Congress at the federal level is being subordinated to an emerging administrative state and to the rulings of the courts. Nationalists in the US and on the right, as I've argued in past posts, are as dangerous to democracy as the leftists (IMO).

There will be those who are unconvinceable about the value of the current battle that fundamentally pits the west and it's democratic values against authoritarian, ultra-nationalism, the kind of it that Putin has harnessed for his support inside Russia. While not as obvious, one can see Xi moving in the dame direction as Chinese nationalism flouishes. Nationalism and its impact is rapidly expanding on a global basis. This, nearly 80 years after the west defeated Adolph Hitler's ultra-nationalist Germany ushering in nearly 80 years of economic expansion and political freeedom. That is now threated by the rise of ultra-ntionalism (NB, not actually facism) once again.

Madeline Albright wrote a book in 2018, Fascism: A Warning, about a global trend in it. It has it's positive and negatives, the primary negative one being her misinterpretation of history and the characters that were players back then. In an article I found trying to point out that the real threat to democracy is not facism per se' but rather the rise of nationalism as it transitions to the ultranationalism. Here, there is the potential for it to become a way of governance through the persons democratic nations elect to govern the citizens. The article Ilinked to below does a great job in clearing up the distinction between facism and ultra-nationalism with the later being a real threat to democracy with fascism, wrt it's impact on democracy, being the lesser of two evils.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...er-book-review.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU