On 8/4/2026 8:30 AM, Paul S Person wrote:to
On Mon, 3 Aug 2026 10:49:15 -0700, BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> wrote:
On 8/3/26 09:10, Paul S Person wrote:
On Sun, 02 Aug 2026 16:17:22 -0400, WolfFan <akwolffan@zoho.com>
wrote:
[stuff deleted]
And, of course, the only poll that counts is coming up in 3 months.
It should be about time for the Courts to put a lid on all attempts
tochange how the election is to be conducted until after it is over,
avoid confusing the voters.
I am concerned that the scum bucket in charge and/or his handlers are
going to try their very, very best to make sure the next election
doesn't happen or is so deeply "questioned" that the results will be
ignored. In other words, either cancel or discredit the results.
I have no doubt they will try, that is clearly consistent with past
recent behavior.
OTOH, given Congress' general proclivity for doing /nothing
whatsoever/ regardless of which Party is in control -- would anybody
notice?
Yes, people would notice there are no more elections being held.
On 8/4/26 08:57, Paul S Person wrote:addition to the
On Mon, 3 Aug 2026 17:47:40 -0700, BobbieSellers
<bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.invalid> wrote:
On 8/3/26 15:30, Lynn McGuire wrote:
<snippo>
Medicare for All (tm) would require a 12% employee tax and a 12%
employer tax.? The populace would freak out.? That is in
D,$400 per month that my wife and I each pay for our Medicare part B,
$600 perand G supplemental insurances.? My 85 year old mother is paying
USAmonth due to her age.? Do the math, the cost of health care in the
ideais simply amazing, IIRC it is now 19% of the USA GDP.? I have no
how to fix the cost.
https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/
national-health-expenditure-data/historical
Why do you think your Medicare would go up in price?
Parts D and other supplemental insurances would go away.
Those were only put in place to offer subsidies to the
Insurance companies.
Because everything always goes up in price.
And, BTW, my understanding is that a major driver of increasing
medical expenses is the cost of equipment. Which apparently goes up
each and every year, regardless of whether the new one is any
different (never mind better) than the old one.
But, yeah, medical insurance is a nightmare. The ACA and related
changes was intended to help people with no other insurance available
to them, either because their employer (if any) didn't offer it, or
they had a pre-existing condition.
The real story there, though, is that, after six years of telling
everyone how they were going to end "Obamacare" when they got back in
charge, the Republicans turned out to have /no plan at all/ to do so.
I mean, really, after six they should have had a bill ready for the
House (which they controlled) to pass and send to the Senate, and then
the Senate (which they controlled) to be passed and sent to Trump on
his 2017 inaguaration, for him to sign immediately.
That they did not shows the gap between /what Republicans say they
will do/ and /what they actually do/. It is quite large. And saying
the Dems aren't any better (which may well be the case) doesn't help
because it would just show that /neither/ Party is actually interested
in doing its job when it is in charge. Indolence and laziness -- that
is the real problem here.
That the Democrats do nothing when they are in charge is baseless.
Under the last Democrat the Congress passed numerous bills
intended to help the economy. Of course the present administration
did all they could to prevent the execution of those programs.
But generally when the Democratic party is running things
the economy improves despite the damage the Republican party and
now MAGA do to the economy.
Damage = Tariffs, Denial of appropriated funds to the States
for a wide variety of programs which help support the people of the
various states currently to the Blue states exclusively and it is
largely the Blue states such as California, the North-Eastern states
which are prosperous and pay the taxes which support the Red states.
Democratic Presidents have never exerted that sort of behavior
to states which have not supported them in National Elections.
On 8/4/2026 1:43 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:to
On 8/4/2026 9:03 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
On Mon, 3 Aug 2026 22:35:20 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 8/3/2026 9:10 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
It should be about time for the Courts to put a lid on all attempts
tochange how the election is to be conducted until after it is over,
mindsavoid confusing the voters.
And why would the Orange One's chosen Six suddenly change their
and stop assisting him in rigging the election?
In case you haven't noticed 6-3 splits, while quite common, are not
the only splits observed. Odd majorities with unexpected memberships
pop up from time to time.
Indeed, I have seen analyses suggesting there are three groups: 3
conservatives, 3 liberals, and 3 that vary depending on the case.
And the Supremes are not elected. What they decide would not affect
them directly.
It's also traditional not to change the rules too close to an
election.
Yet they have already done so this year.
The Orange one is dead set on disenfranchising as many lower
income people as he can this year. The "SAFE" bill is
effectively a poll tax, and places many structural barriers
between poor working people and the ballot box.
He's trying to get this in in the next 3 months.
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:and
The Orange one is dead set on disenfranchising as many lower
income people as he can this year. The "SAFE" bill is
effectively a poll tax, and places many structural barriers
between poor working people and the ballot box.
If you mean the Save America Act, it puts barriers between all people
the ballot box. It does some things that make it more difficult for the
poor because it costs money to get a passport or a copy of a birth certificate.to
But it can also make it more difficult everyone, because it takes time
get a passport or a copy of a birth certificate.skeptical
He's trying to get this in in the next 3 months.
Yes, the closer to the election he can get it in, the more chaos will
result, and his secondary goal is to stir up chaos to make people
about the election outcome. He isn't the first one to try this sort of >thing, but he's been the first one in the US in a good while.but
I think if it's passed even the current supreme court will reject it,
it'll likely take months of chaos after the election before they do soand
then where do we wind up?
The Republican senate primary yesterday here had four candidates, and myplan
was to vote for whichever one was sane and not pushing the Trump agenda. >Unfortunately looking at their websites, all of them were aggressively >promoting the SAVE act. It can be hard to find the lesser of evils whenthe
baseline is so low.
Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
The cost of Health Care in the USA is largely due
to the Insurance companies and their inefficiencies.
A lot of people say this, but I disagree. Health care costs in the USA >have been increasing at twice the rate of GNP growth since WWII (at >least). There are health systems that had very little to do with the >health insurance industry (for example Group Health of Seattle, perhaps >the Kaiser system as well) and their costs increased just as much as >everybody else (otherwise, they would be a less expensive than everybody >else).
This is entirely true, because there are certainly other factors involved. But some of those other factors are tied in with insurance overhead. My
GP's office has one doctor, one nurse, one phlebotomist, and 14 people who
do nothing but fill out paperwork. Not all of that is insurance paperwork, it's true. But all of those people are getting paid.
"The Diplomacy of the Great War" by Arthur Bullard reads
almost like a contemporaneous report rather than
something written about events 120+ years ago.
Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
"The Diplomacy of the Great War" by Arthur Bullard reads
almost like a contemporaneous report rather than
something written about events 120+ years ago.
I bought this book on your recommendation and I highly recommend it. I have >in the past said that our current president's concept of diplomacy was that >of relationships between people rather than countries and that this went out >with WWI, but now I see that it really started to go out after the Congress >of Berlin.
I will say that the copy I bought for $3 on Amazon is one of the worst PoD >layout jobs I have ever seen and the font is not very readable while the >columns are far too wide for good readability. Buy a better edition.
I picked up a copy at an antique store - the
1917 printing. To channel Lynn, it's bound well and well printed.
WolfFan <akwolffan@zoho.com> wrote:
Intriguing. Perhaps you could give a pointer towards where I could find out >> about communists, as in actual commies, not socialists or dems, who are
currently standing for election in Texas? How about in the entire US? Please >> be very clear about this.
We actually have two vaguely-active communist parties in the US which run candidates for major office. The CPUSA was established with help from the Comintern and for many years basically followed the Soviet line no matter what it was. They were more of a "pro-Russian" party than real communists and HUAC pretty much destroyed them, but there is a little bit left. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the death of Gus Hall and the loss of their newspapers there isn't really much left of them. They do occasionally run candidates for office but I don't think they have run anyone for president
in over a decade.
The RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party) is an independent and sort of Maoist party that came out of California in the 1970s, run by Bob Avakian and they do run Avakian for president every time. They promote Avakian more than they actually promote communism.
Both of these parties (as well as the Socialists) tend to run candidates for president without going for local offices. It could be argued that they are not serious about getting elected (as one would expect revolutionaries to be).
Very distinct philosophy compared with some of the other small parties like the Greens which run people for local elections with the intention of working upward.
--scott
When I was younger and was able to keep up with the
publications we had a distinctly communist group in California
which beat the drums against the landlords, police and the bankers.
Each issue of the rag that they published was full of hatred for
all who had power. That is the wrong tack to take with most of
the youth/hippies of the time.
Meanwhile in the USSR of my youth while Stalin and his Communist
successors ran the Government in a distinctly fascist way much like
Putin and his crew does today. Stalin murdered a lot of people to
stay in power, but he probably killed more who were no threat at
all to his position.
The disease of Power is unlimited paranoia.
BobbieSellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.invalid> wrote:as
When I was younger and was able to keep up with the
publications we had a distinctly communist group in California
which beat the drums against the landlords, police and the bankers.
Each issue of the rag that they published was full of hatred for
all who had power. That is the wrong tack to take with most of
the youth/hippies of the time.
That sounds like the RCP. If they put up posters everywhere saying
"Bite the Hand That Feeds You Shit," that would have been the Avakian
crew.
Meanwhile in the USSR of my youth while Stalin and his Communist >>successors ran the Government in a distinctly fascist way much like
Putin and his crew does today. Stalin murdered a lot of people to
stay in power, but he probably killed more who were no threat at
all to his position.
The Soviets tried communism for a couple years but then brought in the
NEP when they couldn't make it work. Then "All Power to the Soviets"
turned into "All Power to Comrade Stalin" and it didn't turn back.
The soviets were still effective locally, though, even until the end of
the USSR.
So they went from a czar running an agrarian land to a new kind of czar >running a planned economy. This was a step sideways. Putin just wants
to be like Czar Nicholas. He hates Lenin for what Lenin tried to do in
terms of empowering people and not unifying the republics.
The disease of Power is unlimited paranoia.
This is why a republic is a good idea; the power is distributed rather
than centrallized. This makes it a lot harder to get anything done, and
this is a good thing because it makes it harder to get bad things done
well as good ones. I hope I continue to live in one.
My preference is to have no Party in control of more than two of the
White House, the Senate and the House. I am reluctant to add the
Supreme Court to this list for some reason.
When this works, it forces them to talk to each other, which is a
whole lot more likely then allowing them to talk only to themselves.
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
My preference is to have no Party in control of more than two of the
White House, the Senate and the House. I am reluctant to add the
Supreme Court to this list for some reason.
The Supreme Court should not be controlled by any party, that's part of
the point of it. It doesn't always work that way unfortunately.
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
My preference is to have no Party in control of more than two of the
White House, the Senate and the House. I am reluctant to add the
Supreme Court to this list for some reason.
The Supreme Court should not be controlled by any party, that's part of
the point of it. It doesn't always work that way unfortunately.
Thanks to fools like kaintucky mitch.
On Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:58:40 -0400 (EDT), kludge@panix.com (Scott
Dorsey) wrote:
BobbieSellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.invalid> wrote:
When I was younger and was able to keep up with the
publications we had a distinctly communist group in California
which beat the drums against the landlords, police and the bankers.
Each issue of the rag that they published was full of hatred for
all who had power. That is the wrong tack to take with most of
the youth/hippies of the time.
That sounds like the RCP. If they put up posters everywhere saying
"Bite the Hand That Feeds You Shit," that would have been the Avakian
crew.
Meanwhile in the USSR of my youth while Stalin and his Communist
successors ran the Government in a distinctly fascist way much like
Putin and his crew does today. Stalin murdered a lot of people to
stay in power, but he probably killed more who were no threat at
all to his position.
The Soviets tried communism for a couple years but then brought in the
NEP when they couldn't make it work. Then "All Power to the Soviets"
turned into "All Power to Comrade Stalin" and it didn't turn back.
The soviets were still effective locally, though, even until the end of
the USSR.
So they went from a czar running an agrarian land to a new kind of czar
running a planned economy. This was a step sideways. Putin just wants
to be like Czar Nicholas. He hates Lenin for what Lenin tried to do in
terms of empowering people and not unifying the republics.
The disease of Power is unlimited paranoia.
This is why a republic is a good idea; the power is distributed rather
than centrallized. This makes it a lot harder to get anything done, and
this is a good thing because it makes it harder to get bad things done as
well as good ones. I hope I continue to live in one.
My preference is to have no Party in control of more than two of the
White House, the Senate and the House. I am reluctant to add the
Supreme Court to this list for some reason.
When this works, it forces them to talk to each other, which is a
whole lot more likely then allowing them to talk only to themselves.
When it fails, the government fails. Creating /real/ problems for
everybody.
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