Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

LOL. So true.

Of course. The #GentryProg dogma way over the shark. No one is, at all, calling them on this. You want to know who else makes a shit-ton less money? The U21 team (and they have a World Cup, too). You wanna know why? Because people don't care about it as much as the real deal.

[froot loops]

[iam416]

I didn't realize (or care) that the deals were collectively bargained. LOL. What a load of shit.

[froot loops]

One of the things that article didn't mention is the USSF mandates that the Women have to be playing for USWL to be on a the national team roster costing the players some serious cash they could be earning in Europe. Horan took a big paycut for that.

[iam416]

I assume that's collectively bargained as well.

Meanwhile, Palin-Cortez is pulling out the race card against....NANCY PELOSI! LOL. Fantastic.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Below is a pay walled link to a very good (precise and concise) article from the Economist (politically a a middle of the road if not slightly left leaning rag). I don't subscribe but I signed up and can read something like 5 articles a month. I choose carefully. This article looked interesting.

The part of the article I particularly liked was the third of three reasons how/why the longest American economic expansion since 1854 could be ended by a painful recession:

A recession made in Washington?

The last (edit third)a new era of wild policy may be just beginning.

I think it is interesting that this author recognizes that the leadership, or potential leadership, of America is made up of bat-shit crazies on both sides. For one, and their are other Trump policies deserving of a jaundiced eye, Trump's tariffs and tariff threats as a means of extracting concessions form trading partners pose a huge risk to the American economy. If some good doesn't come of this tactic and, in particular, China gives Trump the middle finger, the economy will slide and down go the markets and consumer confidence (the perceived wealth factor). You want bat-shit crazy domestic policy that will absolutely kill the US economy and extend that death to global economies as well? Vote for anyone of the D candidates, saving possibly Biden and I still think he is a long-shot at this point.

The other two conditions that might produce a recession are, according to this author: (1) The fragility of big corporation's global supply chains due to their susceptibility to tit for tat tariffs. (2) ...

Financial ........as Europe has found.

If you want supporting data and facts fleshed out, sign up and read the article. If you don't have the time or the interest, I provided the Cliff Notes above.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/20.../n/NA/269943/n

[froot loops]

Europe's problem is they are fiscally deficient in trying to goose the economy. The austerity nonsense screwed their economy over. Japan resorted to negative rates to combat the lost decade and its been a near miracle..

Anything can trigger a recession nobody really knows until it hits, although from 2006-2008 the housing problems were really evident.

[Ghengis Jon]

Jeff, there is Biden, Klobuchar and Bennett as the only viable dems. All the rest are democrat versions of Trump where absurdity, nonsense and alternate reality rules. If one of those three fail to get the nod, then America as we know it ends. That four years will be worse than what we have now. The political pendulum will be pushed so far left that the Warren-AOT ticket in 2024 will be the GOP's conservative offering. The left will rule, without counter-balance, for a generation. Replacing one lunatic with another is not the answer.

But this all speaks to a deeper problem we have in this nation. 46% (!!!) voted for a thin skinned, self-centered, incompetent, inept, dysfunctional, anti-American pathological liar (as opposed to an arrogant, power hungry, holier than thou, POS that garnered more votes). When 46% of the electorate is willing to elect someone who stands against everything America stands for, well, there's a much deeper problem we aren't facing up to. We've sunk lower than tribalism, we now look for cult leaders. Marshall Applewhite currently occupies the White House, and the dems want to nominate a Jim Jones figure? The agonizing debacle that was the two 2016 candidates will be felt for many years.

Perhaps we need a 9/11 tragedy, a Great Depression, and a Spanish Flu pandemic all at once to shake off the cult mentality and get Americans to come back together and become a nation once again. I'm tired of living in a banana republic where the monkeys are atop the intellectual food chain, looking down upon our elected officials.


But on the entertainment side, is back in the news. Now that plans for gerrymandering and financially burdening urban areas based on the census is off the table, the POSOTUS is now scrambling for a face saving 'executive action' to gather citizenship data to be used.....nowhere.

https://www.apnews.com/18db0fba2743496daeb27a92915bb260

[Dr. Strangelove]

It's a complete cave by Trump. The "executive order" is only doing what the Census Bureau itself suggested doing 18 months ago. And will probably turn out to be more accurate than simply asking people "are you a citizen?"

But that said, continuing the legal fight would've been hopeless IMO. The DOJ would have had to openly admit, on so many fronts, that their previous arguments were all lies. Their previous justification? The Voting Rights Act? A total lie. Did you hear William Barr or Trump mention the Voting Rights Act even once today, when listing all the reasons the citizenship question was needed? The June 30 deadline? The sole reason given as to why these cases needed to be expedite? Continuing the cases forward would be an open admission that they've been lying to multiple federal courts for months.

What Trump did was probably the smartest play with a bad hand.

Speaking of Barr...LOL...congratulating Trump multiple times for a fine executive order, as if he'd just won the Super Bowl, and praising his remarkable judgment was a bravura performance. Was half expecting him to whip out a tiny notebook and scribble furiously

[Ghengis Jon]

6c22.jpg

[Dr. Strangelove]

Random thoughts here

Who did the Founders intend to count in the Census and who did they intend to count towards apportionment?

Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse [sic] three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

1) The Founders explicitly did NOT want only citizens counted towards the Census or how many Representatives each state got. Slaves were not citizens and could not vote, yet the southern states fought hard to get them counted towards their legislative power. That's where the infamous 3/5 compromise comes from.

2) There were four different Naturalization Acts passed by Congress between 1790 and 1802. The 1802 version, which lasted for most of the 19th century, gave citizenship to any 'free white' who had lived in the US for 5 years. They were supposed to be given certificates at port of entry when they arrived which they could show to a judge and prove how long they were here.

3) I've said it before but the concept of an 'illegal immigrant'' did not exist until the late 19th century when the first actual nation-wide restrictions on immigration began to be imposed.

4) As for drawing the districts, the individual states have a lot of power there. It's unclear to me if they can consider citizens ONLY when drawing the districts. Trump gave away part of the game today when he said that many states would like to do this. However, he went even further and said some states would like to consider only voting-eligible citizens when drawing districts. Meaning children should not be counted. That would have the practical effect of shifting voting power away from cities and suburbs to rural America instead.

[Dr. Strangelove]

6c22.jpg

lol

[Dr. Strangelove]

Donald Wrecks the Internet

[Dr. Strangelove]

A befuddled and frustrated Trump whines that China isn't living up to what he thinks they promised him. Agricultural imports have actually slowed since the G-20

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-11/trump-complains-china-hasn-t-met-g-20-promise-to-buy-farm-goods

[froot loops]

I can give this inompetent boob step one, quit with the effiing trade war sabre rattling. The US dollar is the world's reserve currency.