ewsieg

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-congress-votes/joe-manchin/ The closest person to Manchin in terms of how they vote under Biden is Bernie Sanders.

Not even close

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/how-gretchen-whitmer-made-michigan-a-democratic-stronghold Nice write up on Whitmer, I wonder how much is going on in the background to get her ready to run in 2024 and how much this might be a part of it. I think she gets too much credit for some of the things she's done in Michigan. It's easier to manage when you come into a budget that is under control and then get fed money thrown at you. That said, i'd take her over Biden, and definitely over Harris.

I don't think No Labels ends up running anyone, or even if they do, they drop out and endorse the Dem candidate. I think initially it'll just be a push to try and stay towards the middle with the hope that the Dem candidate makes some promises for them. I can't in a million years believe they will go into an election against Trump if it's obvious they are a spoiler.

I've been busy and out of politics a bit, pretty much nothing but the Bulwark for me lately which beat up on Comer as well, but the little I know indicates that this guy was involved in the same Chinese energy company that Hunter tried to work with where 10% was going for the 'big guy'. How does this guy being an unregistered chinese agent hurt his case? If he can prove ties to Hunter, doesn't that in fact bolster his case? (Granted i'm sure this could be a 100% plee to try and win political support because he and he alone is guilty)

i'm not sure how I feel about the cluster munitions. I hope if we gave them, Ukraine was fully briefed on how/where/ and what to expect with them. Assuming they take back the entirety of their country, they already will have a mine problem, this just exasperates the chances of livability of these lands in the near future. Definitely will help with trench warfare though.

Agreed, but I thought he said it wasn't so much freezing, but believing the shots were a result of a sniper that he suspected to be outside of the school. Obviously I don't know if he made that up after the fact or what, but if true, I would think Hogg wouldn't be pushing for prison, but rather using him as a role model for the 'good guys with guns' argument. If a trained cop can be confused when they are finally under that circumstance, how much faith do you have with a person off the street.

Last week I heard an assessment that their best trained fighters are basically waiting in the wings and right now they are just testing lines to determine the best places to strike.

Is Hogg arguing he should have been found guilty? From what i've read, some possible stark differences between Uvalde and this guy.

In theory I absolutely agree. In practice, it's just hard to give someone the power to be judge, jury, and executioner. It's one of those things where if the police department (or other security agencies) could regulate themselves to where the only time we saw some questionable bruises on a suspect, it also came with scenarios like this, I could ignore and sleep well at night. Still, doesn't make it right though. Specific to this, I still don't see any updates on this case. I'm concerned your right on the child.

Desantis had voters like my mom in his pocket. They were sympathetic to Trump and were going to vote GOP regardless, but were tired of Trump and felt his antics only made things worse. I think that's why early he setup as the clear contender or successor to Trump. That said, instead of keeping those voters and trying to pick off more voters, he's spent 2 years backing every bill in Florida that he could use to court those hard core Trump voters. He's not pulling those Trump voters and losing his original base. Too bad, so sad.

They'll be at the Magic Bag on 7/14, unfortunately i'll be prepping for my son's grad party the following day.

Actually my argument has been, using this analogy, let's focus on cancer. But the response has been that breast cancer disappropriately affects people that have always been left behind on medical issues. Additionally, people with ball cancer have never had to move because the city wanted to put in a freeway and even if they did, statistically speaking, they could afford anyway.

Alright, you folks got me. **** poor people of any other color but black. We can't do two things at once, let's just focus on blacks and once we have that corrected we can see if anyone else was left behind.

Again, i'm not saying black people haven't had it harder. But in the last 50 years, they were allowed to, but many, just like the poor white people that still live in Detroit, couldn't afford too.

True, but even in growing all white neighborhoods, decisions on zoning and city planning have always had a NIMBY attitude, which made poor white neighborhoods even less desirable. And again, i'm not discounting this or saying poor whites faced as many issues., but if we look forward on how to assist many blacks, or look behind to see how the system helped lead to today, in most cases (again certainly not all), but in most cases you can find legitimate issues and substitute 'black' with 'poor' and still be saying a true statement.

I feel like you were offended by what I said, but then fully agreed that no one cares about the poor and there is no value in them caring for the poor, so no one should be shocked about that. You're making my point...when your side refuses to listen to any issues that poor white people deal with and you immediately go to 'well you have it better than poor POC', it comes across that you don't care about legitimate issues that they have. Add in some anecdotes that support your view and you are comfortable with wiping your hands of their complaints and moving on. What does it hurt to admit they have issues too? (many that if addressed, would lift up poor black people too)

I personally feel that the left's insistence, even if there is some truth to it, that poor white people can't be compared to poor black people is what has helped lead us to Trump. I'm not going to say their hardships are equal, but I feel like there could be a lot done to support both, but politically it's better to pit them against each other as nothing gets done for either. A true merit based system, assuming we could eliminate all other factors may not be the best either though, thus why diversity is such a great thing. People are different, even people from the same race, religion, and sex. How people react, struggle, achieve things in life give a different perspective. I'm right back where I was earlier, I don't like affirmative action, but I feel like this direction isn't the best for us.

They are also doing this under marshal law and there are complaints that it's not just 'Russian elements' but rather some that are simply critical of Zelensky, albeit small complaints. Also I wouldn't so quickly assume everything bad and corrupt in that country was due to Russian influence and once they arrest those folks they'll be inundated with a surplus of completely honest brokers looking to lead Ukraine into the promised land.

Not a good outcome at all, and to clarify, my comment was said in jest while pointing to the large universities. Seems like the biggest of the big are always scrounging for more money, as their endowments continue to grow. It gets annoying. You correctly point out others aren't in the same boat.

This is important as we know colleges are struggling to make money.

I'm conflicted on this as well. Instead of just race based, is there an argument schools can make for a certain percentage to be based on financial consideration alone? For instance, X percent of students must be getting max contributions related to financial aid? I guess percentage wise that still wouldn't ensure the numbers we see under affirmative action. I don't like affirmative action, but I also don't like a scenario without it. I wish most race discussions could be talked about in terms of class discussions as I've felt making everything about race pits two groups of people, poor blacks and poor non-blacks, against each other, despite having a lot more similarities than they realize.

I don't know the whole context, but whoever she was on the show with is the one that said this was wildly taken out of context. She's a bit crazy, so i'm not going to jump to her side, but it's also only Roseanne Barr and I don't care enough to go listen to it to make my own judgement.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/23/wagner-chief-accuses-russias-military-of-attack-and-says-evil-leadership-must-be-stopped

Yup, this and a claimed quote where Prighozin said he'll march his troops to Moscow and kill anyone that gets in his way to remove Shoigu before returning to Ukraine to get the job done.