Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

I've got CNBC on and their energy guy is at the OPEC meeting. An announcement expected soon. He's suggesting the 2 Million barrels is overblown because that includes Russia's net decrease to world supply because of sanctions. Forgetting Russia the "real cuts" are still expected to be 1M barrels a day, possibly even less. So that's not good but not the way worse than expected 2M figure.

[iam416]

The Chairman working his magic!

[Dr. Strangelove]

It seems like it might be a good idea to be fully committed to energy independence. But, hey, that's just me.

Or at least make North America energy independent. Canada and Mexico are way more important to us than OPEC is but OPEC can fuck over our European and East Asia allies bigtime. They leverage us through them more than anything.

[iam416]

I would say "more broadly make North American independent" -- but, yes. Sure.

It seems to me that the Ds have a real problem on climage change and cheap energy. The problem being that climate change deems present costs irrelevant because of an existential future threat while voters deem present costs pretty damn relevant.

And, of course, China is, by far and away, the world's leading greenhouse gas emitter, so even if the US would go to ZERO we're still no where near the global 50% reduction by 2030 we apparently need to hit to avoid existential calamity or whatever.

It's just a tough issue for the Ds and they don't have much of backbone to tell the Prog wing to settle the fuck down.

[iam416]

DJT and the Tumpian Rs demand fealty on the January 6 nonsense. It's damaging to the American political system, to be sure, but it's not policy. The Progs or "lefty Ds" demand fealty to a host of actual policies that, IMO, will have far more wide-reaching and damaging implications.

It's not a particularly good or even marginally bad choice. But, it's my choice, at least as I view it. Now, if you agree with the "left" then it's an easy choice.

[THE_WIZARD_]

It was Wiz.

That has never really been substantiated...

[Tom W]

My point yesterday is that if a Supreme Court Justice or a Clerk leaked it or gave it to someone else to leak, I'm not sure that's a crime. It's probably not. For it to be a crime someone with no normal access would've had to have taken the draft without permission.

The leaker chose to leak to Politico which is an interesting choice. IMO possibly picked to hide their partisan bias. A liberal might be expected to leak to the Post or NY Times, a conservative to Fox or the Washington Examiner.

You do realize that LEGALITY was a secondary point, don't you?

[Mike]

It seems like it might be a good idea to be fully committed to energy independence. But, hey, that's just me.

Oh, so you want to bring about the end of human existence!? MURDERER

[Mike]

That has never really been substantiated...

You needn't worry about that, my friend. We can "substantiate" damn near anything.

[THE_WIZARD_]

That's what worries me. That and picturing Talent and DSL in a bathhouse.

[Dr. Strangelove]

You do realize that LEGALITY was a secondary point, don't you?

Well you said crimes had been committed and it's definitely not at all clear that any crimes actually were committed.

Putting that aside what should Congress be doing? There's not much precedent for Congress investigating the Supreme Court unlike with the Executive Branch. If they try to assert the authority to conduct oversight I'm sure the Court itself will challenge that. When Republican control the House next year, I'm sure other investigations into Biden, Hunter, his entire Cabinet, Hillary Clinton, Russiagate, will all be prioritized FAR above the SC Leaker.

The media? I don't know, why isn't conservative media writing more stories about this? Why haven't they tracked down the leaker? Even if liberal media was ignoring the story, that's no reason rightwing media can't be talking about it every single day. It's probably because there's nothing new to say and frankly, fewer and fewer people care.

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[Dr. Strangelove]

Kinda crazy...for the second election in a row in Minnesota's 2nd District, the candidate running for the "Legal Marijuana Party" has died just weeks before the election. Two years ago the Republican running tried to sue and get the dead person removed from the ballot and have a special election held in February instead, but they lost and the election went ahead as planned.

Paula Overby, Legal Marijuana Now Party candidate in 2nd District, dies (cbsnews.com)

[Tom W]

Well you said crimes had been committed and it's definitely not at all clear that any crimes actually were committed.
.

How about using that leak as an excuse for attempting to intimidate the SC judges? Sure, you can argue all you want that it wasn't exactly interfering with the judicial process- at least until a bunch of assholes start harassing YOU, your family and your neighbors when you are trying to go about routine activities (like going to dinner or taking your kids to school) for trying to do YOUR job.

So, yeah, the leak itself wasn't "illegal" - even though I never explicitly said that it was.. And maybe token arrests or citations were made (AOC in fake handcuffs?). So what? Nobody actually got in REAL trouble - because, hey they're really heroes to the cause.

It's all in line with the ends justifying the Prog means.

[iam416]

OPEC goes for the 2M per day cut. The Chairman is, again, shat upon.