[Revi]

It was going to be a mess whoever got us out of Afghanistan.

[vtsnowedin]

Getting out of Afghanistan was a given. It was a mess, but what did you expect? .

A competent leader would have had his forces withdraw in good order leaving no personnel or allies behind nor any equipment or weapons that could not be removed left in working condition.
What we have seen over the last few days is the perfect example of how not to withdraw "in good order".
Any second year student at West Point could have drawn up a better plan and executed it.

[Newfie]

[quote="vtsnowedin"]As bad as the Biden /Harris administration is I think the Republicans have just given them a lifeline with the stupid Texas abortion restriction law. You could not have balanced stupid left with stupid right any better if you tried.
Considering that a lot of Trump/ Republican voters will be dead by 2022 because they refused to get vaccinated ,so not voting,I have major doubts about the future of the country.[/quote]

Good observations.

Since we have been back in the USA since July 2020 our opinion has gone down hill fast.

There are lots of things we see we find disturbing. If not in a structural level at least on a personal comfort level.

We are now deeply considering selling our investment property, need to figure out where to out that money.

I am somewhat shocked that my Wife and I are in nearly complete agreement kn so many things relative to the countries decline. The good news is that we have very little disagreement on these major matters.

My Wife is a very serious lefty and progressive but has been sickened by the Lefts antics. I gave up voting back before Obama and left party affiliation behind. She is now joining me on the spectrum of discouraged voters.

We have both read a number of books about declining empires and there seem to be some pretty repetitive sequences in an empires downfall. And the USA is hitting all of them.

The USA may still remain a decent place to live, comparatively. But it will likely continue to degrade as time goes on. And that is before you figure in CC, resource depletion and the effects of an over extended global economy.

We are looking forward to returning to the islands this fall/winter, just hoping Covid dosent screw it up again.

[vtsnowedin]

Newfie:

We are looking forward to returning to the islands this fall/winter, just hoping Covid dosent screw it up again.

I assume you both have been vaccinated and will take a booster shot if that becomes the best advise. (I expect it will).
So that said I think you have a good chance of a winter in the islands much better then last.
Your chances of selling out of your Philadelphia property at a decent profit this year is in my, very narrow, view not good. Best of luck with that.

[Newfie]

Yes, we both have had 2 Moderna jabs. But the islands are far from uniform. For example the French islands are treated as part of France and follow French rules, never mind they are over 2,000 miles away.

The housing market in THIS part of Philadelphia is good for sellers. I don’t know how long it will remain so. But we are doing a nice rehab on the principal apartment and that should ease things a bit in our favor. Lots of sweat equity being invested.

A big part of what has turned us off from Philadelphia is the multi-year building boom. Every 3 car parking lot has been turned into a town house. 1 and 2 story properties razed for town homes. Light industrial areas are being turned into “luxury apartments”, old factories are “delux lofts”. Restaurants with 50!seat capacity are seating 100+ because they were permitted “temporary” outside seating. Sometimes this is a sidewalk well past the exterior if the business. Sometimes it is setting up tables in the street each day at 5pm. Many have built more or less permanent outside seating, some with each table in a personal sized and heated space.

Traffic is a mess. Lowes is about 5 miles away. The return trip took me an hour with 6 detours.

Our group of friends have devolved into a cabal of raving progressive bigots. Which is OK since they are all so afraid of Covid they only meet on Zoom to be horrified about whatever.

It is the latter more than anything that depresses us. It seems folks have lost all sense of proportion and are staring out from their campfires with sharp sticks ti jab anything that moves or squeaks. I guess the right wing is as bad, but that was notnour circle.

Wasn’t like this in NC.

The islands had fear of visitors, but that is somewhat reasonable. Not sure it will remain so.

Like you I am not happy with where the country is headed. Lots of questions.

[careinke]

As bad as the Biden /Harris administration is I think the Republicans have just given them a lifeline with the stupid Texas abortion restriction law. You could not have balanced stupid left with stupid right any better if you tried.
Considering that a lot of Trump/ Republican voters will be dead by 2022 because they refused to get vaccinated ,so not voting,I have major doubts about the future of the country.

I can agree with the first paragraph, but your second one is way off base, at least in my county.

https://www.tpchd.org/healthy-people/diseases/covid-19/covid-vaccine-data

Here is the fully vacination rate by race going from highest to lowest (as of 2 Sep):

1. American Indian/Alaska Native; 66.7 %
2. Asian; 53.1 %
3. Native Hawaiian/ Other Pacific Islanders; 51.7 %
4. White; 48.1 %
5. Black; 40.4 %
6. Hispanic; 33.8 %
7. Multiple race; 2.2 %

For an overall total of 50.7%
The link gives even more data like pop size etc.

So, at least here on the left coast, in my County (Pierce), it appears way more Bidden supporters will be dead than Trump supporters. I have not personally checked the numbers in the rest of the country, but I'm pretty sure the numbers hold up as well nation wide.

PEACE

[vtsnowedin]

First off the death rate from Covid-19 even in an unvaccinated population is not high enough to change any but the rarest and closest election results.
Second the virus does not ask party affiliation and has killed more then a few Democrats.
Third they don't ask party affiliation questions when you are vaccinated so no one has any real data on the breakdown between Republican vs. Democrat vaccination rates.
My comment was merely expressing my frustration at Trump supporters that refuse at peril to their personal lives a Vaccine produced through the efforts of their hero who has taken it himself along with other state of the art treatments.
I fully understand the reluctance of the black population to trust any free government health program but with a Democrat administration in place some 70 years after the Tuskegee horrors they need to get past it.
The white Trump supporters on the other hand have not one bit of logic behind their antivax position and their ongoing stupidity will earn some of them a "Darwin award" but probably not enough of those to swing any election in 2022 or 2024.

[Newfie]

VT,
What you are seeing is that more and kore people don’t trust government at some, or perhaps any level.

It is the social contract breaking down.

[Outcast_Searcher]

VT,
What you are seeing is that more and kore people don’t trust government at some, or perhaps any level.

It is the social contract breaking down.

From what I've read, people were resisting safety measures like masks, with plenty of political vitriol back in the 1918 flu pandemic.

With the internet, it's far easier to see the mood and more of the detail of individuals as they comment on things and blog and make arm waving Youtube videos, etc. That doesn't mean things are breaking down, it just makes the conflict more obvious, re far more voices being heard.

In the US, trust in government has only declined slightly over the past 40 years. The downtrend was HUGE compared to that from about 1965 to 1980, and not surprising with all the economic turmoil in the 70's.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... 1958-2021/

Trust is higher in the OECD countries overall, but at less than half, government isn't winning any trust prizes overall either.

https://www.oecd.org/gov/trust-in-government.htm

[vtsnowedin]

In the US, trust in government has only declined slightly over the past 40 years.

Being in High School during the end of the Vietnam war I have never had complete faith in our government. Then came Jimmy Carter and I had a lot less faith. Now with the aftermath of Trump and now Biden's complete incompetence I am now 98% sure they can't get anything right. I suppose that is only a slight decline from 1981 which was the end of the Carter period but that was a very low starting point for most conservatives. It is hard to decline past zero confidence.

[Plantagenet]

Biden is such a liar and such a big phony.

Just today he gives a big speech where he proclaims that all government workers will have to get vaccinated.

And then.......after the speech is over..........Biden quietly grants an exemption to the 600,000 federal workers in the US Postal Service.

biden-exempts-over-600000-usps-workers-federal-mandatory-vaccination-order


Biden gives a big speech ordering all Federal workers to be vaccinated ..... and then a couple of hours later he quietly exempts hundreds of thousands of federal workers from his own order. SHEESH....WHAT A LIAR THAT BIDEN IS!!!!

SHEESH!!!!

[Newfie]

Zero Hedge is not always a good source.

However in this case the original source, which ZH photocopied and pasted, was the WaPo.

[Plantagenet]

Zero Hedge is not always a good source.

However in this case the original source, which ZH photocopied and pasted, was the WaPo.

Of course.

Zerohedge is a compilation site that collects news from other sources. Every single story on Zerohedge is clearly and transparently attributed and linked back to the original news source.

And, if you know how to use Google, you can usually find dozens of independent news stories on the same topic.

Personally, I like ZH because it finds stories in the alternative media or the international media that sometimes aren't being well covered in the US mainstream media, and it has a very good track record of picking up important news days, weeks, or even months before the same news finally appears in the mainstream media. For instance, back when the Covid Pandemic was just getting started in China and it was being ignored in the US mainstream media, and idiots like Dr. Fauci were saying we can trust the Chinese when they say there is nothing to worry about, Zerohedge did a great job of linking to news from Taiwan and Hong Kong that told a different story. According to the news in ZH, covid was killing lots of people in Wuhan. Back when Fauci was saying American's didn't need to wear face masks, ZH reported that covid was spread through the air and people should wear face masks. Way back at the beginning of 2020, before Covid was being covered in the mainstream media, ZH linked to epidemiological models that predicated that Covid would escape from China and produce a worldwide pandemic with millions of deaths. And ZH was right.

You can't get better news reporting then that. That was damn good reporting.....and it came out on ZH months ahead of the mainstream media in the USA.

Based on the news in ZH I sold 100% out of my pre-covid stock portfolio in early 2020, and then I bought back in at the pandemic lows in March and April. And, even better, also based on the reporting on the stock market in ZH I bought stocks like Moderna and Zoom. And they've done very well and I've done very very well.

Personally, I think anyone interested in politics and anyone invested in stocks should read ZH. You'll be surprised how often you read a story in ZH......and then the same news dribbles out in the mainstream media weeks or even months later. And when it comes to stocks, its hard for an individual investor to learn any fact that the pros on Wall Street don't know first. But thanks to news in ZH I've gotten in on several very good stocks a bit before their price exploded upward. And that is a very very good feeling.

Just yesterday ZH reported that right after Biden made his speech about vaccine mandates, he EXEMPTED all the federal employees in the US Postal Service. Biden himself broke his own mandates in a huge way. That means if Biden gets sued over his mandates, he doesn't have a leg to stand on because he already granted a huge exemption to 600,000 workers in his own federal workforce. That is useful information......and I've yet to see it widely reported in the mainstream media.


Sometimes reading ZH is like having a time machine and getting the news a bit before most other people get it......and that can be very very useful

Cheers!

[Outcast_Searcher]

In the US, trust in government has only declined slightly over the past 40 years.

Being in High School during the end of the Vietnam war I have never had complete faith in our government. Then came Jimmy Carter and I had a lot less faith. Now with the aftermath of Trump and now Biden's complete incompetence I am now 98% sure they can't get anything right. I suppose that is only a slight decline from 1981 which was the end of the Carter period but that was a very low starting point for most conservatives. It is hard to decline past zero confidence.

If you can't see the qualitative difference between Trump and Biden, you've fallen way down the hard right GOP rabbit hole. Good luck with that.

Biden has far too much faith in government spending as the solution to problems. But he's not a BLATANT liar and reality denier like Trump.

[Outcast_Searcher]

In the US, trust in government has only declined slightly over the past 40 years.

Being in High School during the end of the Vietnam war I have never had complete faith in our government. Then came Jimmy Carter and I had a lot less faith. Now with the aftermath of Trump and now Biden's complete incompetence I am now 98% sure they can't get anything right. I suppose that is only a slight decline from 1981 which was the end of the Carter period but that was a very low starting point for most conservatives. It is hard to decline past zero confidence.

Fair enough. Now, can you be honest enough to admit that one person's anecdotal data isn't indicative of broad trends, like that of objective broad based polls of the country across decades?

When I was in college, Jimmy Carter pushed me FAR toward the right (from the middle) as well. But one data point doesn't a reliable long term trend make.

[Plantagenet]

Biden .... he's not a BLATANT liar and reality denier like Trump.

You must've missed the whole catastrophe in Afghanistan, where Biden BLATANTLY lied over and over again.

And now we've got the spectacle of Biden giving a speech say he is "mandating" vaccines for all employees .... except Biden lied when he said that because he exempted 600,000 of his own federal employees in the US postal service.

And when it comes to reality denial....what does Biden think he is doing ordering people to get vaccinated anyway?

Who elected Biden to be dictator? Since when is Biden a King? The president doesn't get to order people to do things. The President's job is to execute the laws passed by Congress. If Congress passes a law requiring everyone to get vaccinated, then Biden could use federal powers to enforce that law. But Biden doesn't get to just order people to do things....thats totally unconstitutional.

Biden is clearly "denying reality" by pretending that he has the constitutional power to order people to be vaccinated.


Biden isn't a king. Under our constitution he can't just issue orders to people

Cheers!

[Outcast_Searcher]

When far right talking points like vaccine denial, covid-19 denial, science denial, and claiming that EV batteries cause cancer have ANY meaningful credibility among educated people, be sure and get back to us.

In the mean time, facts and science exist, and google is a thing.

Oh, and when Biden's ideology re pushing more taxation and giveaway programs (which to me shouldn't be a given) are in ANY WAY nearly as egregious as the Trump program of "all lies, all the time", you'll get some relative credibility points re whining about Biden.

Oh, but wait, given your history of far right whining about ALL dems, like Obama, NO MATTER WHAT, yeah -- good luck convincing anyone left of the far right.

But I know, you have "bereft of facts" politically whining to do. And what else is new?

[Plantagenet]

This thread is entitled "The Democrat Thread".

That means that folks posting here should eschew ad homs and instead focus on discussing Democrats and their policies.

For instance, my post above concerned the question of whether it is constitutional for Joe Biden to issue mandates requiring private businesses to require vaccinations, especially when Joe Biden himself won't require vaccinations for 600,000 of his own federal employees in the U.S. Postal service. Most constitutional scholars believe that the job of a President is to enforce the laws passed by Congress.....not to issue "royal" edicts that have no force of law.

And even Joe Biden's own closest advisors admit that what Joe Biden has just done is probably grossly unconstitutional. For instance, Biden's own Chief of Staff just admitted that what Biden did isn't constitutional

white-house-chief-staff-admits-vaccine-mandate-constitutional-objections

Its very very stupid for Biden's own staff to admit these new D policies are unconstitutional. No doubt When this goes to court, the admission by Biden's own Chief of Staff that what Biden is doing is unconstitutional will be cited as evidence that the SCOTUS should overturn what Biden is doing as unconstitutional. We've already seen the SCOTUS overturn the CDC's unconstitutional attempt to obliterate centuries of contract law. Now the SCOTUS will most likely overturn Biden's mandates as unconstitutional.

So what we've got now is the Biden administration trying to ignore the constitution and instead trying to rule as a king or a dictator. The Biden administration has gone rogue. Over and over again they are flouting the constitution and undermining our country........and they even admit they are violating the constitution.


All hail Biden! He thinks he is the king! Biden thinks he doesn't have to follow the constitution! Biden think he can just give orders and everyone must obey because he is the King!

SHEESH!

[vtsnowedin]

The constitutional question was settled back in 1905.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)
By David L. Hudson, Jr.
Related cases in Rights of Religious Adherents

This illustration is from the Boston Globe, January 28, 1902 as the state moved to vaccinate its citizens for smallpox. Massachusetts law required smallpox vaccination to prevent the disease's spread. A pastor challenged the law, saying it violated his religious rights under the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1905 in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that Jacobson's religious rights had to give way to the common good, and that the emergency situation justified the government's action. (Image, public domain)

In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the Supreme Court upheld a state’s mandatory compulsory smallpox vaccination law over the challenge of a pastor who alleged that it violated his religious liberty rights.

Pastor Henning Jacobson contended that he had a right under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to avoid the mandatory vaccination law.
Court: Requiring smallpox vaccine does not violate First Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan I, ruled that the state of Massachusetts acted constitutionally within its police powers to pass a law to protect the health and safety of the public.

“According to settled principles, the police power of a State must be held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety,” Harlan wrote.

[vtsnowedin]

So perhaps the president and the federal government can't directly order mandatory vaccinations but is clear the states through legislation can and the federal government can coerce the legislatures into it by withholding funding from non compliant states just like the speed limit, drinking age and seat belt laws.