mtutiger

Does this airhead know the first thing about infrastructure and how long it takes to actually demo and replace a bridge? It's incredible... how someone can be paid so much and know so little.

It starts to make more sense when you take into account the embrace of illiberal governments who happen to align on policy by certain parts of conservative movement. Think Orban in Hungary or the PiS in Poland. Or frankly Putin in some respects. To be clear, I don't think it's a majority of the conservative movement... and Ukraine has a lot of support among elected Republicans. But it's become a lot more vocal and it's presence is outsized in conservative movement and in conservative media (ie. Tucker Carlson). I don't know that "dems" have moved much on this in general.... Biden up to the point has approached this situation about how I would have expected based on how his former boss approached Ukraine back in the mid-2010s. And the Dems, like on every other domestic issue, are a bigger tent on foreign policy as well.... the party has a mix of internationalist types, pragmatists and anti-war types.

Let me guess, is the new conspiracy theory gonna be that Biden collapsed the bridge on purpose?

CNN is fake news!* *(Except when it reports things which fit my cognitive bias)

Incredible

In b4 "it's Disney's fault that Fox News has wall to wall coverage"

I'm sure that you would find a lot of people who agree with this sentiment in terms of the provisions on race and sex as well. Either way, if this is your standard, every nominee would fail.

On the bigger point, the Constitution grants the Executive the power to select who they want for a SCOTUS appointment, and grants the Senate advice and consent. it doesn't say anything about rationale or whether those nominations meet modern labor law standards. And, in theory, if the nominee the POTUS select doesn't meet seem qualified or meet a high standard, the Senate should be able to exercise a check on that selection, as has been done a number of times in history. And, again, there is a precedent here that has been set multiple times. I'm just not surprised that only now are we hearing objections to this precedent.... and as buddha suggests, it reeks of partisanship.

From Section 2302(b), Title 5: So, basically, if that's your standard, then basically every single SCOTUS appointment in history fails it.

Just thinking a little more about this, maybe it's the fact that Biden put it out there a little more up front. But still, the same thing happened prior to O'Connor's selection. It'd be one thing if this were unprecedented, but it isn't.... I don't see the issue.

Right, this isn't exactly without precedence.

Pretty much. I won't even argue that there actually are some good economic indicators out there, such as GDP growth, but it's not going to matter if people feel like or see that they are paying more for goods. In some cases more than that growth, depending on the commodity.

Did you have a problem with Ronald Reagan selecting Sandra Day O'Connor? My understanding is that he intended to pick a woman with that selection.

Religion doesn't really factor in for me. At the end of the day, vouchers don't really cure whatever regressive tendencies that exist in public schools, they just create new forms of regression. It works out for some families, I get it. Particularly in urban/suburban areas or areas with a lot of charter school options. But there are people who end up behind as well...

1) I get it, not every pro-lifer is Ron Johnson. But I'm guessing he's not the only one who harbors those sorts of views about helping others once they do have a child. 2) He doesn't explicitly say that he doesn't care about children once they are born, correct. But taken to it's logical end, what he said is still pretty callous anyway.

Exactly. Maybe, just maybe, opinions on this conflagration shouldn't be based solely on one's domestic politics.

Yes they are. And they explicitly want to be closer to the west (ie. us) There's a fair debate to be had over the degree that we should be involved, but they are an ally by any measure of the word.

Ding Ding Ding.

Again, I understand your perspective. I just think the entire situation sucks. Ukraine shouldn't be forced to be another -stan country if they don't want to be one.

I respect and get buddha's position on Ukraine, having said that I really struggle with the fact that it really sucks for the majority of Ukrainians who may want some self determination in who they align with or what alliances they are allowed to form. The reality is that, despite all the talk about "Russia's sphere of influence", the sizable majority of Ukrainians do not want to be aligned with Russia and want closer ties with the EU. And ultimately, what we are learning is what Ukrainians want really doesn't matter. Maybe that's an unresolvable problem, but it still sucks regardless.

Or Roberts....

Good point on Graham.... he's been inconsistent on almost everything else, but the only thing he seems to remain firm on is his view on the Senates role wrt advice and consent.