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Post by onlyMark on Jan 23, 2024 16:41:25 GMT
Which would of course be Trisomy 21 in spite of the French spelling.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 4, 2024 18:15:49 GMT
Even though I have a university degree in American political science, it is clearly very much out of date, because I don't understand what happened today. Each state has its own rules for allowing candidates on a ballot. Some make it very easy so that you have a multitude of candidates from weird parties, and others make it pretty hard so that only "serious" parties get the necessary signatures and can jump through all of the other hoops.
So I don't understand how the US Supreme Court can force a state to allow somebody on its ballot after flouting laws and being convicted of multiple infractions. I mean other than being completely corrupt and having no regard for democracy. So how can the Supreme Court force Colorado to allow Trump on its ballot?
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Post by Kimby on Mar 4, 2024 19:33:39 GMT
As I understand it, SCOTUS said that the 14th amendment sets conditions that prevent you from BEING POTUS, but doesn’t prevent you from running for POTUS. The Congress is the proper authority for making regulations regarding enforcement of the 14th amendment, and that has never been done.
Since POTUS is a national election, not a state election, it would not make sense for individual states to make rules that would possibly impact the ability of citizens of other states to elect the candidate of their choice, since delegates and Electors are winner take all in most states in our crazy non-democracy.
Something like that. Because it was a unanimous ruling, I trust that they got it right. But if they let a traitor run for election, I wonder who will step up and tell him he cannot take office if, horrors, he were to win.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 4, 2024 21:00:30 GMT
The little devil on my shoulder is saying I'd like to see Trump get back in if only for the entertainment value.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 4, 2024 21:11:52 GMT
Seeing the Russia/Ukraine war ended in a day would be entertaining.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 4, 2024 21:32:58 GMT
But some states have a lot more candidates on their ballot than others, even of these people get less than 1% of the vote.
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Post by fumobici on Mar 5, 2024 15:13:00 GMT
The little devil on my shoulder is saying I'd like to see Trump get back in if only for the entertainment value. Based on my life experience, I'd expect most older English men to be cheering Trump on. This is the same core demographic that powers the Tories and was behind Brexit. Radicalism masquerading as conservatism.
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Post by fumobici on Mar 5, 2024 15:16:12 GMT
My state primary ballot had a plethora of candidates, the majority of whom aren't even running any longer but did the paperwork to get on the ballot months ago before they folded up their campaign operations.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 5, 2024 16:03:44 GMT
Based on my life experience, I'd expect most older English men to be cheering Trump on. I only know one older Englishman, me, and Trump has no attraction.
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Post by htmb on Mar 5, 2024 16:13:09 GMT
I am currently traveling and the laws allow my ballot to be emailed to me. Once received, I would need to print it out (pay in a shop or impose on a local friend). Afterwards, because the state of Florida is completely backwards in so many ways, I would need to FAX my ballot, along with some other proof, to my local supervisor of elections office. FAX? Who faxes anymore? Florida is a closed state so I would only be able to vote for primary candidates running as Democrats, since that is my declared party. The good news for me is that Biden is the only presidential candidate on the Democratic ballot, and there are no other elections in March. So, I will not need to jump through all the unnecessary hoops this month. By default, Biden wins the Florida Democratic primary.
I suppose, even better news would be if a Democrat who was younger, smarter, and more able to beat the Republican candidate was running, but I will take what I can get at this point.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 5, 2024 16:22:25 GMT
Based on my life experience, I'd expect most older English men to be cheering Trump on. I only know one older Englishman, me, and Trump has no attraction. Nor me.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 5, 2024 16:44:59 GMT
I can see how it would look from outside UK...and tbh I agree with Fumobici to a certain extent (steady!)
Trump's blithering bravado and disrespect for anybody at all does remind me of certain British politicians and their views (not only tories, also some new labour). Empty promises, spin, bluster and excuses...pretty similar to BoJo & Co imo. As for Brexit..... people I respect all voted to remain in the EU. The leave voters that I know personally are all over 70 and hve been moaning about Europe since we joined! They didn't bother researching what the benefits of being a member were and seem to have been whipped into a frenzy by the tabloid press.
I acknowledge that there are some folk who vote conservative who have a brain and are still jolly nice people. I don't agree with their political views but that's up to them. We don't have much to choose from tbf.
It looks like Trump is going to get in unless something drastic happens, I can't believe that the average republican voter in the USA would choose him as their candidate if they had a good solid alternative. Abstaining is just as bad as voting for Trump imo. I hope the democrats win. For all our sakes.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 5, 2024 17:21:04 GMT
The little devil on my shoulder is saying I'd like to see Trump get back in if only for the entertainment value. Because watching a large country with a massive economy and lots of weaponry and which is an ally of pretty much all the countries where anyporters live go down the tubes in a way that would affect the whole world would be funny? I hope the democrats win. For all our sakes. (my highlighting of Cheery's sentence) PRECISELY!!! EDITED to say that a few minutes after writing the above, I came across this post from Mark. How ENTERTAINING and far reaching was that era of your history? Today is the anniversary of in 1984 the beginning of the ill fated and divisive Miner's Strike, bullied into existence by the arrogance of the shredded wheat haired tin-pot dictator Arthur Scargill that turned families against each other, destroyed the livelihood of thousand of workers, led to many areas becoming economically depressed, destroyed communities and community spirit and propped up the gloating grocer's daughter from Grantham enough to be elected for a third term.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 5, 2024 18:48:48 GMT
For a better explanation of the SCOTUS opinion, here’s Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s essay on the topic: March 4, 2024 HEATHER COX RICHARDSON MAR 5 Today the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that states cannot remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot. Colorado officials, as well as officials from other states, had challenged Trump’s ability to run for the presidency, noting that the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits those who have engaged in insurrection after taking an oath to support the Constitution from holding office. The court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment leaves the question of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment up to Congress. But the court didn’t stop there. It sidestepped the question of whether the events of January 6, 2021, were an insurrection, declining to reverse Colorado’s finding that Trump was an insurrectionist. In those decisions, the court was unanimous. But then five of the justices cast themselves off from the other four. Those five went on to “decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future controversy,” as the three dissenting liberal judges put it. The five described what they believed could disqualify from office someone who had participated in an insurrection: a specific type of legislation. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in one concurrence, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in another, note that the majority went beyond what was necessary in this expansion of its decision. “By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office,” Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson wrote. Seeming to criticize those three of her colleagues as much as the majority, Barrett wrote: “This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency…. [W]ritings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up.” Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig wrote that “in the course of unnecessarily deciding all of these questions when they were not even presented by the case, the five-Justice majority effectively decided not only that the former president will never be subject to disqualification, but that no person who ever engages in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States in the future will be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Disqualification Clause.” Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife, Ginni, participated in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, notably did not recuse himself from participating in the case. There is, perhaps, a larger story behind the majority’s musings on future congressional actions. Its decision to go beyond what was required to decide a specific question and suggest the boundaries of future legislation pushed it from judicial review into the realm of lawmaking. For years now, Republicans, especially Republican senators who have turned the previously rarely-used filibuster into a common tool, have stopped Congress from making laws and have instead thrown decision-making to the courts. Two days ago, in Slate, legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern noted that when Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was Senate majority leader, he “realized you don’t need to win elections to enact Republican policy. You don’t need to change hearts and minds. You don’t need to push ballot initiatives or win over the views of the people. All you have to do is stack the courts. You only need 51 votes in the Senate to stack the courts with far-right partisan activists… nd they will enact Republican policies under the guise of judicial review, policies that could never pass through the democratic process. And those policies will be bulletproof, because they will be called ‘law.’”
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 5, 2024 20:24:13 GMT
A big problem is that the United States is now considered a former ally by many, even under a Democratic administration.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 5, 2024 21:42:12 GMT
The little devil on my shoulder is saying I'd like to see Trump get back in if only for the entertainment value. Which means that would be the only saving grace to him doing so. A bit like watching car crashes is also. There are a million other serious reasons why I wouldn't want him to get in. He is a showman, it is part of his persona. He says things for effect. Taking that aspect in isolation and he is a good communicator, he knows what people want him to say, he can manipulate a crowd. He knows how to entertain. He is, granted, very dangerous. He also displays the seven symptoms of a Psychopath.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 6, 2024 1:53:14 GMT
As well as the 7 deadly sins, in abundance. From Wikipedia:
“The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian, particularly Catholic, teachings. According to the standard list, they are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth, which are contrary to the seven heavenly virtues.“
Biden is the opposite. Also from Wikipedia:
“In Christian tradition, the seven heavenly virtues combine the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude with the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
The seven capital virtues, also known as contrary or remedial virtues, are those opposite the seven deadly sins. They are often enumerated as chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.”
Odd and scary that so many American “christians” support Trump over Biden. Apparently, he’s their useful sinner.
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Post by bjd on Mar 6, 2024 6:37:03 GMT
Odd and scary that so many American “christians” support Trump over Biden. Apparently, he’s their useful sinner. A lot of the kind of evangelicals who support Trump are also narrow-minded, bible-thumping true believers. They like Trump, I suppose, because it means they don't have to think for themselves, just like they believe in creationism and other myths.
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Post by whatagain on Mar 6, 2024 8:48:04 GMT
A big problem is that the United States is now considered a former ally by many, even under a Democratic administration. That. NATO is learning to not trust US anymore.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 6, 2024 14:54:19 GMT
That would be more of a talking point than "a big problem" at this time. Regardless of how another country might regard the US (or any other country with which it has a formal alliance), the alliance stands. The US is an ally of the countries with which is has signed and formalized treaties.
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Post by fumobici on Mar 6, 2024 15:09:51 GMT
Odd and scary that so many American “christians” support Trump over Biden. Apparently, he’s their useful sinner. Unsurprising. Evangelicals and right-wing Christians are basically as un-Christian as it is possible to be.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 6, 2024 15:14:11 GMT
It's unfair to automatically lump Evangelicals in with right-wing Christians, although it is true that right-wing anybody is automatically being un-Christian.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 11, 2024 9:37:52 GMT
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Post by whatagain on Mar 11, 2024 11:31:54 GMT
There is a version with Scarlett Johansson.
Of course trump loves Britt.
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Post by whatagain on Mar 11, 2024 11:39:30 GMT
Today saw the 73rd mass shooting in the US. About one every day. All because of the migrants ?
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Post by whatagain on Apr 10, 2024 9:21:22 GMT
Fantastic. The Supreme Court reversed the abortion rights of the women using a law of 1868. That probably itself refers to the Bible ?
Bunch of assholes.
And then they will say Islamists states basing their law upon the Kuran are backwards. 1868. Slavery just abolished. Apartheid in place. Women with no right to vote etc.
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Post by bjd on Apr 10, 2024 10:53:03 GMT
Whatagain, it was 1864, while the civil war was still on. Obviously those old lawmakers had nothing better to do. But since Arizona was not even a state at the time, just a territory, those laws are probably not valid.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 27, 2024 22:06:19 GMT
Not sure if there’s a separate thread for this, but WHY IS THE US SO TIGHT WITH ISRAEL? What have they ever done for us?
Right now their despicable policy of killing innocent Palestinians in hopes of killing a few Hamas is killing Joe Biden’s hopes of keeping the youth vote and preventing Trump from destroying the country.
I get that there are few allies in the Middle East, an area that’s important in providing fossil fuels for our economy. I get that there are a lot of Jews in America and their votes are important to court if you want to win elections.
But what I don’t get is why we can’t condition the massive quantities of aid we give an already wealthy country on their behaving in a human manner. America’s unwavering support of Israel is alienating young voters in a way they haven’t been alienated since Vietnam!
‘Splain this thing to me!
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 28, 2024 2:24:49 GMT
Oh, Kimby! This has been my cry pretty much forever! If you want, we can hold hands and run head-first into a brick wall together, as that is my only response to this answerless question.
The bland, programmed answer is always that Israel is our (the US's) buffer between us & the "problematic" non Judeo-Christian countries. Right you are when you answer "bullshit!" to that.
I guess my simple viewpoint that the rights of Palestine's citizens be respected, that we stop arming (i.e., encouraging) Israel so it can hammer its enemies (i.e., places with territory Israel wants) into nothingness is okay as long as we drop some care packages into a population we helped murder & push into famine is all WRONG.
And please all the gods of sane discourse, can a person be allowed this viewpoint without being automatically accused of anti-Semitism?!
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Post by bjd on Apr 28, 2024 6:42:31 GMT
Interestingly, the first country to recognize Israel in 1948 was the Soviet Union. The States took their time. Now Israel can do whatever it wants: bombing the hell out of Gaza, bombing northern Lebanon, letting the crazy settlers destroy Palestinian farms and houses in the occupied West Bank and the US has their back.
As I heard a new commentator say the other day while talking about the US Congress finally passing the military aid packages, not only does Israel get over 3 billion dollars a year, they got another 26 billion in this package. It's a country of less than 10M people, and as Kimby says, it's a wealthy one. Meanwhile, Ukraine is invaded, getting bombed and destroyed and has many more people.
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