archer

What killed bipartisan compromise was the end of congressional earmarks.
 
Formerly, congressmen were allowed to designate money to go to specific projects which were near and dear to their hearts. The way that deals were cut between the two political parties was that money, which was going to be spent anyway, was assigned to specific projects in exchange for a particular legislator's vote on a bill.
 
That system did cause problems.
 
A congressman were allowed to add those earmarks to legislation without his identity being known. So if a legislator wanted to be completely irresponsible with money, he could designate money be spent on useless projects, usually within his district and for the benefit of a friend or campaign contributor. And it would never be discovered who was at fault because it could have been any of them who added that earmark to the legislation.
 
Worse, former staffers of congressmen came forward and revealed that it was common practice to not bother a legislator with details of what was going on and that staffers would write and add earmarks to bills. 
 
It was much easier to add an earmark than it was to remove it. And many times earmarks were added to bills almost literally at the last possible moment, long after any other legislator or staffer would have read the bill. So bills were being voted on without the congressmen in either party knowing everything which was in the legislation.
 
They could have fixed the problem by forcing specific congressmen to take credit for the earmarks they put in legislation (so the voters could hold them responsible for their actions) and by not allowing earmarks to be added at the last moment (so each legislator could know what he was voting for and couldn't claim that he had no idea what had been added to the bill at the last moment).
 
Instead Congress fixed the earmark problem by banning all earmarks.
 
Formerly, bipartisan legislation could be passed because the last votes needed could be gotten by allowing individual legislators on each side to earmark something. Congressmen who were concerned about US ground troops dying could earmark part of the Air Force budget to saving the A-10 Warthog aircraft, which the Air Force hates because the Warthog's mission is to fly low level missions to support ground troops (while the Air Force institutionally loves fighter planes rather than bombers or ground support aircraft). Another congressman might want highways fixed in some part of his state and earmark federal highway funds for that. But earmarks would be allowed on both sides in order to get enough votes to put legislation across the finish line.
 
With no earmarks, there's no way to get legislators from different parties to work together unless the legislators from both parties genuinely like all the parts of the proposed bill. So partisan bills repeatedly get passed out of the House then die in the Senate because the bills aren't bipartisan.
 
House party leaders can put pressure on their own members in order to get them to back particular bills. But one side has no lever to use to gain cooperation from the other party so that a bill gets passed with apparent widespread support from both parties.

Personally, I pull for the channel switching button on my remote during Tom and Jerry cartoons.

What killed bipartisan compromise was the end of congressional earmarks.
 
Formerly, congressmen were allowed to designate money to go to specific projects which were near and dear to their hearts. The way that deals were cut between the two political parties was that money, which was going to be spent anyway, was assigned to specific projects in exchange for a particular legislator's vote on a bill.
 
That system did cause problems.
 
A congressman were allowed to add those earmarks to legislation without his identity being known. So if a legislator wanted to be completely irresponsible with money, he could designate money be spent on useless projects, usually within his district and for the benefit of a friend or campaign contributor. And it would never be discovered who was at fault because it could have been any of them who added that earmark to the legislation.
 
Worse, former staffers of congressmen came forward and revealed that it was common practice to not bother a legislator with details of what was going on and that staffers would write and add earmarks to bills. 
 
It was much easier to add an earmark than it was to remove it. And many times earmarks were added to bills almost literally at the last possible moment, long after any other legislator or staffer would have read the bill. So bills were being voted on without the congressmen in either party knowing everything which was in the legislation.
 
They could have fixed the problem by forcing specific congressmen to take credit for the earmarks they put in legislation (so the voters could hold them responsible for their actions) and by not allowing earmarks to be added at the last moment (so each legislator could know what he was voting for and couldn't claim that he had no idea what had been added to the bill at the last moment).
 
Instead Congress fixed the earmark problem by banning all earmarks.
 
Formerly, bipartisan legislation could be passed because the last votes needed could be gotten by allowing individual legislators on each side to earmark something. Congressmen who were concerned about US ground troops dying could earmark part of the Air Force budget to saving the A-10 Warthog aircraft, which the Air Force hates because the Warthog's mission is to fly low level missions to support ground troops (while the Air Force institutionally loves fighter planes rather than bombers or ground support aircraft). Another congressman might want highways fixed in some part of his state and earmark federal highway funds for that. But earmarks would be allowed on both sides in order to get enough votes to put legislation across the finish line.
 
With no earmarks, there's no way to get legislators from different parties to work together unless the legislators from both parties genuinely like all the parts of the proposed bill. So partisan bills repeatedly get passed out of the House then die in the Senate because the bills aren't bipartisan.
 
House party leaders can put pressure on their own members in order to get them to back particular bills. But one side has no lever to use to gain cooperation from the other party so that a bill gets passed with apparent widespread support from both parties.

If Trump hadn't politicized the wearing of protective masks, the pinheads would never have gotten so worked up about it. In fact if their Dear Leader had told them at the start to wear them, we wouldn't hear a peep about it now.

I only played Battletech once, at a tiny con in about 86 or 87. The people running the game gave us like a 10-20 minute orientation then threw 40 mostly inexperienced players and their mechs to protect a convoy against...Godzilla.
 
It was a real blast.
 
I've been reluctant to buy the Battletech online game because I'm afraid I'd get addicted and disappear down a rabbit hole for the next 10 months.

Ironically, the filibuster as it is now, was largely thanks to Harry Reid.
Did forget that. Though Reid still paved the way.

Here's a state-by-state listing of the earliest you can vote in each state. Some states have already started voting so if you're planning on voting at all, you might as well vote soon to avoid the rush.
 
However, don't follow the president's advice of "vote early, vote often" (which is a crime). 
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/515162-heres-the-earliest-you-can-vote-in-each-state
 
If any of you aren't sure about the rules of your state and can't find the details you need in order to vote (whether in person on election day, early, by mail, or absentee), feel free to message me.
 
I'm willing to up the rules, explain them, and give you a link to your state's website.

I would like complete silence from national Democrats on speculations about who a President Biden would nominate to replace Ginsburg.
 
There's not a name which could be brought up by them for discussion which wouldn't be twisted to Trump's benefit.

For comparison purposes during the coming political fights:
 
Scalia died Feb 13, 2016 which was 11 months and a couple of weeks before the next president was to be sworn in. Most Republicans argued the Senate didn't have enough time to adequately consider and vote on a nominee.
 
Ginsburg died Sep 18, 2020 which is 4 months and a couple of weeks before the next president will be sworn in. Some Republicans have already stepped forward claiming there's plenty of time to consider and vote on a nominee, despite the country being in the middle of multiple national emergencies which should already be placing a hell of a lot of burden on the Senate's time.

I didn't say I expected complete silence from national Republicans.
 
I said I didn't want national Democrats to mention names for Republicans to take potshots at.
 
If by some miracle the Democrats manage to stop Trump from getting a nominee confirmed before the end of January, Biden deserves to be able to come up with his own list of potentials and his own nominee without giving the Republicans four months of free reign smearing those people.
 
A president can use his office and his administration to help defend the reputation of a nominee.
 
With Biden not being the president, not having an administration, and not having a press corps stationed a few feet from his office, he's not in any position to defend anyone. And particularly not now when he has to focus on getting elected rather than defending the reputations of random judges and law professors.

I would like complete silence from national Democrats on speculations about who a President Biden would nominate to replace Ginsburg.
 
There's not a name which could be brought up by them for discussion which wouldn't be twisted to Trump's benefit.

I think NGAD holds a lot of promise as a much better way to design and deploy airplanes. The way the US has been doing it, they're almost obsolete before the first one rolls off the assembly line.
 
I've been reading about it obsessively over the last couple of days.
 
https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/the-us-air-force-has-built-and-flown-a-mysterious-full-scale-prototype-of-its-future-fighter-jet/
 
I really hate the "one fighter plane as a Swiss army knife that's supposed to do everything" mentality which took over the joint strike fighter program. And NGAD seems to be a HUGE step away from that.
 

Well if they're only exo-skeleton STR enhancers, that wouldn't seem to cause a problem.
 
I was picturing something like a BattleTech mech which has machine guns, explosive rockets, lasers, and flamethrowers.
 
An O'Neill cylinder space station, for example, has large interior dirt inner surface strips which alternate with large window strips which let in sunlight in order to grow crops and allow people to have a normal life.
 
Even if the window strips are transparent aluminum, I wouldn't count on them hold up to stray 50 caliber bullets and rocket impacts from mech battles.

I'm skeptical about having mechs on space stations and not regularly punching holes in them or setting them on fire.
 
To me, mechs means playing with lots of firepower. Sometimes literal fire power.

That's so cool

I wouldn't trust the current administration's FDA-approved vaccine anytime in the next couple of years. There's just been too much political pressure on the health bureaucracy for comfort.
 
I might trust one from the EU or Japan.
 
Or Canada.

https://matsne.gov.ge/en/document/download/16978/7/en/pdf#:~:text=No medical care shall be,in the legislation of Georgia.
 
LAW OF GEORGIA ON PATIENT RIGHTS
 
Chapter IV - Consent
 
Article 22
 
1. In order to provide medical care to a patient, it shall be required to obtain the informed consent from the patient or from a relative or a legal representative of the patient if the patient is a minor or unable to make a conscious decision. Informed consent shall precede the medical care.
 
2. A written informed consent shall be necessary for the following medical services:
 
a) any surgical operation, except for small surgical procedures
b) abortion
c) surgical contraception – sterilisation
d) catheterisation of great vessels
e) haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis
f) extracorporeal fertilisation
g) genetic testing
h) gene therapy
i) radiation therapy
j) chemotherapy of malignant tumours
k) in all other cases when medical care providers consider that written informed consent is necessary.
 
3. It shall be necessary to obtain the written informed consent when providing medical care to a patient who is a minor or unable to make a conscious decision. Law of Georgia No 3379 of 20 March 201
 
Article 23
 
1. Patients who are incapacitated or unable to make conscious decisions may refuse medical care at any stage, and also terminate medical care that is in process. Patients shall be fully informed about the expected consequences if they refuse to receive or they terminate medical care.
 
2. No medical care shall be carried out against the will of a patient who is competent and able to make conscious decisions, except for cases defined in the legislation of Georgia.
 
.
.
.
So basically unless the provider can point to a specific law passed by the Georgia state legislature saying that "doctors can perform forced sterilizations without the consent of the woman", the doctor and that facility have been breaking Georgia state law by not getting consent from the patient in writing.

But not among a subsection that has no clue about the environment, and views everything like this through rose-colored blinders.  Wild Areas Must Be WIld!!!!  <sigh>  They go ballistic because...yeah, going on in, thinning trees and undergrowth, maybe even doing a controlled burn (PROPERLY, let me specify...controlled burns have gone out of control) will disturb all the little creatures that are there!  They don't even consider the consequence down the line.
 
I still remember...rather a LONG time ago...pine beetles took out a fairly large chunk of trees that happened to be on public lands, technically.  Nothing was done...so there was...gosh, I don't remember...probably few thousand square foot chunk of dead trees, with dried out needes, with pine sap pushed forward because that's how the trees fought back.  The branches would've been bone dry too;  the trunks would go up like an inverted matchstick from the sap.  So several households got together and cleared them all out...before a major fire did, one that would've practically...probably even literally...have exploded within minutes to cover the entire area.  And then spread.
 
I believe several of Colorado's fires have similar stories;  getting in to clear out what NEEDS to get cleared out, is often made much more difficult than it should be.
 
 

< chanting >
 
We're number one!
We're number one!
We're number one!
 
< /chanting >

https://matsne.gov.ge/en/document/download/16978/7/en/pdf#:~:text=No medical care shall be,in the legislation of Georgia.
 
LAW OF GEORGIA ON PATIENT RIGHTS
 
Chapter IV - Consent
 
Article 22
 
1. In order to provide medical care to a patient, it shall be required to obtain the informed consent from the patient or from a relative or a legal representative of the patient if the patient is a minor or unable to make a conscious decision. Informed consent shall precede the medical care.
 
2. A written informed consent shall be necessary for the following medical services:
 
a) any surgical operation, except for small surgical procedures
b) abortion
c) surgical contraception – sterilisation
d) catheterisation of great vessels
e) haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis
f) extracorporeal fertilisation
g) genetic testing
h) gene therapy
i) radiation therapy
j) chemotherapy of malignant tumours
k) in all other cases when medical care providers consider that written informed consent is necessary.
 
3. It shall be necessary to obtain the written informed consent when providing medical care to a patient who is a minor or unable to make a conscious decision. Law of Georgia No 3379 of 20 March 201
 
Article 23
 
1. Patients who are incapacitated or unable to make conscious decisions may refuse medical care at any stage, and also terminate medical care that is in process. Patients shall be fully informed about the expected consequences if they refuse to receive or they terminate medical care.
 
2. No medical care shall be carried out against the will of a patient who is competent and able to make conscious decisions, except for cases defined in the legislation of Georgia.
 
.
.
.
So basically unless the provider can point to a specific law passed by the Georgia state legislature saying that "doctors can perform forced sterilizations without the consent of the woman", the doctor and that facility have been breaking Georgia state law by not getting consent from the patient in writing.

Given that you feel safe enough to make posts like this, yes.
 
Dean Shomshak

https://matsne.gov.ge/en/document/download/16978/7/en/pdf#:~:text=No medical care shall be,in the legislation of Georgia.
 
LAW OF GEORGIA ON PATIENT RIGHTS
 
Chapter IV - Consent
 
Article 22
 
1. In order to provide medical care to a patient, it shall be required to obtain the informed consent from the patient or from a relative or a legal representative of the patient if the patient is a minor or unable to make a conscious decision. Informed consent shall precede the medical care.
 
2. A written informed consent shall be necessary for the following medical services:
 
a) any surgical operation, except for small surgical procedures
b) abortion
c) surgical contraception – sterilisation
d) catheterisation of great vessels
e) haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis
f) extracorporeal fertilisation
g) genetic testing
h) gene therapy
i) radiation therapy
j) chemotherapy of malignant tumours
k) in all other cases when medical care providers consider that written informed consent is necessary.
 
3. It shall be necessary to obtain the written informed consent when providing medical care to a patient who is a minor or unable to make a conscious decision. Law of Georgia No 3379 of 20 March 201
 
Article 23
 
1. Patients who are incapacitated or unable to make conscious decisions may refuse medical care at any stage, and also terminate medical care that is in process. Patients shall be fully informed about the expected consequences if they refuse to receive or they terminate medical care.
 
2. No medical care shall be carried out against the will of a patient who is competent and able to make conscious decisions, except for cases defined in the legislation of Georgia.
 
.
.
.
So basically unless the provider can point to a specific law passed by the Georgia state legislature saying that "doctors can perform forced sterilizations without the consent of the woman", the doctor and that facility have been breaking Georgia state law by not getting consent from the patient in writing.

Jim with Shapeshifting which alters his form: people who see him think to themselves, "Gee, I wonder who this is?"
 
Jim with a power whose special effect alters his shape: people who see him think to themselves, "Gee, Jim is using his superpower today."
 
Jim while wearing a domino mask and using  a power whose special effect alters his shape: people who see him think to themselves, "Gee, who is that masked man?"
 
 

I can picture them tying up a Nazgul, unmasking him, and saying in unison, "Old Man Smithers??!!"

I wouldn't trust the current administration's FDA-approved vaccine anytime in the next couple of years. There's just been too much political pressure on the health bureaucracy for comfort.
 
I might trust one from the EU or Japan.
 
Or Canada.