Polls: Society & Politics

This week, CA Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that classifies carrying a gun at a polling place as an unlawful "act of intimidation." Supervisors in Shasta County, which was cited in the text of the measure as a hotbed of voter intimidation, responded by voting to draft a letter denouncing the law. Patrick Jones, the board chair and manager of a firearm shop in Redding, said the law brands gun owners as extremists. "So, I take offense to this," he said.

ttps://news.yahoo.com/news/shasta-supervisors-far-majority-says-212152618.html

You know, the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty? Doesn't that let all sorts of guilty criminals off the hook? Shouldn't we change this so people don't get away with terrible crimes? What about those child molesters with victims too young to speak? I think people with certain political views have the right idea about this terrible problem.

It is forecast that the $1.3 trillion estimated cost of annual foregone revenue from Trump's tax reduction plans (out of a total revenue intake of $6.3 trillion annually) is a shortfall of 20.1% which would be offset by $5.9% increase in revenue from Trump's tariff plan.
In sum, a total loss of $14.2% of federal revenue with no plans for how to make up the shortfall. He has suggested giving the President control over the Fed to set interest rates as well as control of the money supply (printing money). He has also suggested to eliminate the debt ceiling. Economists & the Congressional Budget Office have derided both of these ideas as leading to precipitous rises and consumer prices and dangerously inflationary.

More detailed breakdown:
Donald Trump's proposed tariffs to make up this revenue loss from his tax cuts (which include a 10% worldwide tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods paid for by the American consumer - so in effect a hidden tax), are estimated to generate approximately $280 billion annually.
If the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Trump legislations provisions are made permanent, it is estimated that the federal government would experience a reduction in revenues of approximately $400 billion annually.
Additionally, the long-term fiscal impact would increase the national debt by $16.5 trillion over the next 75 years. This revenue loss primarily arises from the continuation of foregone income tax introduced by the TCJA.
Regarding the image above, Trump has NO ability to influence insurance rates as they are set at the state level, Congress has signaled that they have no plans to restore the state and local tax deduction (SALT), the president has no ability to mandate coverage of IVF treatment and the president has no ability to set credit card interest rates.

Trump demanded that Republicans shut down the government unless the continuing resolution contained a measure requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and the measure was widely seen as an attempt to suppress voting. Trump was unable to command Republican loyalty on this issue as he did earlier this year when he insisted Republicans kill the bipartisan border bill.

That recognition of his slipping power might have been behind his hastily announced press conference this afternoon at Trump Tower in New York, a press conference best described as the September 10 presidential debate 2.0.

Trump reiterated his vision of the United States as a hellscape. He insisted that the nation’s booming economy is actually hemorrhaging jobs, that the FBI statistics showing crime falling are all lies, and that inflation, which has fallen close enough to the target of 2% that the Fed recently began to lower interest rates, is at an all-time high.

Trump reserved his greatest rage for the ABC debate moderators who, he complained, fact-checked him after agreeing not to—“I want an apology,” he said—and for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. To her he attributed what he insists is a flood of undocumented immigrants drowning states in a welter of crime, although we know immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native born Americans. He recounted in some detail a number of horrific rapes he claimed were committed by immigrants. He did so apparently with no self-consciousness about his own liability for sexual assault that the presiding judge said would commonly be understood as rape, although his focus on rape could have been an attempt to push back on the the recent spate of ads by conservative lawyer George Conway’s Anti-Psychopath PAC featuring woman who claim Trump sexually assaulted them.

Are these signs of obvious desperation the beginning of the end for trump?

"In particular, there's evidence that the car seat rules that we've imposed, which of course I want kids to drive in car seats, have driven down the number of babies born in this country by over 100,000. So as we think about how to make kids safe here, I think we should do it in a way that's accommodating to American families."

When there's a school shooting, the right says we need to stop making school gun free zones where only authorized people can have guns, so since someone was killed at a Trump rally, shouldn't he have had the chance to defend himself?

Same court. Different political party.

It's an idea being bandied about recently. Should it be eliminated or preserved? Why or why not?

Many on the right, such as JD Vance, are saying Ukraine should give land to Russia to end the war.

hmmm i think so

Seriously, why are some conversations "privileged"?

Isn't the greater good prosecution of criminal acts?

Why does this privilege not extend to law breaking for civil matters?

Wouldn't it be easier to have a neutral panel or ombudsman familiar with the law to have the ability to waive privilege after hearing the testimony that they are not allowed to divulge but only their decision to waive it or not? Wouldn't that get us closer to Justice?

In 2004 a senior advisor to President George W. Bush famously told journalist Ron Suskind that people like Suskind lived in “the reality-based community.” They believed people could find solutions to problems through careful study of discernible reality. But, the aide continued, Suskind’s worldview was obsolete. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” the aide said. “We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality— judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

We are in a moment when the reality-based community is challenging the ability of the MAGA Republicans to create their own reality.

Central to the worldview of MAGA Republicans is that Democrats are socialists who have destroyed the American economy. Trump calls Harris a “radical-left. Marxist, communist, fascist” and insists the economy is failing.

In Pittsburgh Harris laid out her plan for an “opportunity economy.” She explained that she would lower costs by cutting taxes for the middle class, cutting the red tape that stops housing construction, take on corporate landlords who are hiking rental prices, work with builders and developers to construct 3 million new homes and rentals, help first-time homebuyers with $25,000 down payment assistance, enact a federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries, invest in innovation by raising the deduction for startup businesses to $50,000, and provide low- or no-interest loans to small businesses that want to expand. "Kamala Harris, Reagan Democrat!” conservative pundit Bill Kristol said after her speech

For his part, Trump has promised an across-the-board tariff of 10% to 20% that billionaire Mark Cuban on the Fox News Channel called “insane” and Quin Hillyer of the Washington Examiner warned would "wreck the economy"

Pregnancy is around 40 weeks.

1 trimester 13 weeks, 2nd 14 to 27 weeks midpoint 20 weeks during 2nd trimester. What about after half developed in week 22?

Note: after 31st week most agreed change laws to ban, it should be a crime.

now i ask: earlier in development?

Ben Franklin once wrote "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

But he was referring to the gov of the colony of Pennsylvania accepting money from the British Penns to not raise taxes on the Penny family colonial holdings in order to raise money to defend its borders during the French & Indian (Seven Years) War.

But can you really say you're free if you're in danger from crime, for example? If kids have to go to school in de facto prisons with armed guards, bullet proof glass, etc, churches need armed guards, some people saying they only feel safe if they're armed in public, etc are we really free?

Isn't freedom from such fear we need to be armed everywhere and turning schools into fortresses and churches protected by guns true freedom?

Should Bosnia and Herzegovina become a member of the European Union?