I don't expect much from Pelosi. She fought to prevent impeachment until her hand was forced by more progressive, restless house members. She does despise Trump and will follow up now that the impeachment band wagon is rolling.
But the reality is she's a corporate Democrat who fights to enrich the rich and will fight any healthcare plan that may hurt the hospital and insurance industries. She's for Obamacare but that's not decent paid for healthcare considering the average Obamacare deductible is 4,000 per year (the amount you put in before they pay) and the Bronze plan copays are 40% (after you pay the 4,000 then they will pay 60% of medical expense, you pay 40%). If anyone tried to apply Obamacare to Europeans there would be riots. Medical bankruptcies are 2/3 of U.S. bankruptcies where most filing have medical insurance. We're told we are the richest country in the world but then we are also told we cannot afford a healthcare system that is in place in most of the rest of first world countries.
Oh, she'll bleat about progressiveness, helping the middle and working class, etc. But even when Democrats like her are in power we see tax laws that primarily benefit corporations and the very rich. Which is why we have seen tax rates for the very rich of 90% in 1950's go to the much lower rates we see now.
Remember before the French presidential elections there were investigations of some candidates, one causing Fillon to drop out? No one in France stopped the investigations because it could be seen a political. Here the U.S. government had evidence of illegal Russian manipulation but the investigation was prevented. The Attorney General prevented it with Obama's concurrence on advice of Pelosi because McConnell threatened that Republicans will make it seen to be political. So, so much for Pelosi's political smarts.
Yes, instead of impeachment, she'd rather spend time on the social circuit. The many embassy parties, corporate parties, social events, fund raisers. Events where she can wear her 5 or 10 thousand dollar designer outfit and hobnob with the social elite, the business elite and politicians of both parties. Where they pat each other on their backs on how wonderful and deserving they are. That is the reality.
And I always thought the real definition of kg was, as the article said, the mass of a litre of distilled water at its freezing point, and the etalon was just some secondary thing. Turns out the etalon was primary for some reason.
At about 4 °C. That definition was not very practical or precise, and error-prone. The Paris metal door-stop was klugey, but more usable.
I believe the "freezing point liter mass " was the original definition. Difficult and error prone. Later, desiring more accuracy and precision, the door stop was created with its six primary copies.
The UN has not been able to take advances against such important matter because...
Quote
The countries that took the strongest stances against a LAWS ban at the recent UN meeting were the United States, Russia, South Korea, and Israel.
I wonder who is wagging what tail. Generally, the United States will do as directed by Israel.
At the State Department we used to predict that if Israel's prime minister should announce that the world is flat, within 24 hours Congress would pass a resolution congratulating him on the discovery."- A CHANGING IMAGE, Richard H. Curtiss Foreign Service Officer
According to the book, Fear, Mattis and Tillerson tried to clue Trump in. They took Trump to the Pentagon tank where Mattison explained the 70 years of agreements and alliances after WW 2 that gave us domination. Tillerson added that's how the peace was kept. Pax Americana. Trump blew up, screaming its all bs. A fit similar to what Hitler was known for near the end of WW 2.
Naturally the real reason is that we had the world in our hands with third world countries being our cheap manufacturing base or industrial countries supplying goods at reasonable prices, But mostly a low cost labor base, dedicated to the comfort Americans via consumer goods. The real advantage was always tailored to advantage America, to keep our consumer goods living standard high. Similar to what England did mid 19th century.
We still see that with the advantages most Americans have in consumer goods, imported goods. Compare that to domestic products and services many of which are overpriced and not that good. The healthcare industry and Internet services come to mind. We are still good in agriculture, farming, even if they are highly subsidized such as with the Ethanol boondoggle.
Well I am afraid Jochie YOUR country duly elected him...........
The country did. Not the people, they elected Clinton. The Electoral College, the vote that counts, elected Trump. Geographic Math from the 18th Century.
The Electoral College was supposed to be composed of upstanding citizens, to be a brake against the election of stupid or horrid.
Not so. Supreme Court Justice Jackson wrote: "Electors, although often personally eminent, independent, and respectable, official became voluntary party lackeys and intellectual nonentities to who whose memory we might justly paraphrase a tuneful satire: 'They always voted at their Party's call. And never thought of thinking for themselves at all.' As an institution the Electoral College suffered atrophy almost indistinguishable from rigor mortis."
Idiots like Trump think 19th and 20th Century, military and coal energy. We're in the 21st Century. A century of global deals, information, new energy and economics. The future that determines world power will be economic global alliances.
China will make the deals, make the rules of the road while the U.S. draws into its shell of isolation. A world power that does not make, instead irrelevance.
See pictures of China President Xi with Trump. See him smiling. See him happy. The U.S. is now handing world leadership to him on a silver platter. Something they thought would take another 20 years.
And if we should ever get a decent president who tries to reverse what Trump did, good luck. Don't be surprised then when many will say "Why should we make a deal with the U.S.? How can we be guaranteed that the deals will not be dishonored?"
Wonder if I'm the only one who finds the Wikipedia input for Vivaldi funny.
Quote
The browser is aimed at staunch technologists, heavy Internet users, and previous Opera web browser users disgruntled by Opera's transition from the Presto layout engine to the Blink layout engine
And the below at the end of the article:
Quote
Vivaldi uses the Blink rendering engine, as Google Chrome and Opera do.
I wish the others (Vivaldi, Opera) would get away from Chrome. Won't happen. It saves devel effort/cost.
I like the many built in customizations available Vivaldi. Vivaldi requires far fewer extensions to get what I want than on Firefox.
I saw mr Trump saying that his wall between Mexico and the USA will have solar panels to produce energy and pay it for itself (oops, since Mexicans whants him to fuck, now the Sun will pay the wall....) . He added that the higher the wall more the panels will produce energy. Closer to the sun, of course.... Than he started laughing a lot - Am I not a genius??
I think Hitler was a much more serious person. Americans elected The Joker.
Nonsense.
Why deal with Mexicans when you can make a deal with the Sun.
What a deal maker. He told us he was one and here's the proof. He's getting the Sun to pay for our wall.
Trust me. Mr President Trump astounds and will continue to astound the whole world. We are truly living in amazing times.
Another Trump hypocrisy is his Buy American mantra. This he recently announced his Made in America Week week. Not that he walks the talk. But, then like Trump, talk is cheap.
The products Trump companies sell are almost all imported. The steel in Trump buildings came from China. Just about only the MAGA hats worn by his morons is supposedly made in the USA.
Let Europe pick a new leader of the "Free World".... Trump believes that the title is over rated, if there's nothing in it for America.
The Free Lunch is no longer there for the World's ravenous appetite.
Actually, the free lunch is what America has experienced for the last 50 years. We're an opioid nation that hardly manufactures anything. Yet, we have pretty high standard of living as far as consumer goods and housing is concerned.
Why is that? Because America has a low income, at almost slave labor level, world supporting its consumer needs. This didn't happen by magic. Its due to trade deals and the projection of American power and diplomacy that has put us in such a favorable position. We're the ones who created the trade rules that favors us, the world banking system that gives us preferment.
Now Trump is throwing away what generations of Americans have worked hard to get us.
For years, Beijing has listened to the Obama administration say the 12-nation regional trade deal was a way of bolstering American leadership in Asia.
China was not included in the deal, and President Barack Obama went out of his way to remind the region that this was no accident. TPP allows America - and not countries like China - to write the rules of the road in the 21st Century, which is especially important in a region as dynamic as the Asia-Pacific.
Nor was this ever just about the rules on trade. TPP was a core part of the Obama administration's strategic "pivot to Asia". US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said that alongside boosting US exports, it would strengthen Washington's key relationships in the Asia-Pacific, signal US commitment to the region and promote American values.
"Passing TPP is as important to me as another aircraft carrier," he insisted.
No wonder then that Beijing saw the US pivot to Asia, and the TPP within that, as a thinly disguised plan to contain China's growing might. Just this weekend, the official Chinese news agency described TPP as "the economic arm of the Obama administration's geopolitical strategy to make sure that Washington rules supreme in the region".
... As Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned bluntly on a visit to Washington in August, TPP put America's "reputation on the line" with its partners in the region.
"Each one of them has overcome some domestic political objection, some sensitivity, some political cost to come to the table and make this deal," Mr Lee said.
"If at the end, waiting at the altar, the bride doesn't arrive, I think that people are going to be very hurt."
Today US diplomats can't have it both ways in Asia. After telling partners that pushing through TPP was bolstering American leadership in the region, the obvious conclusion must be that reversing TPP is undermining US leadership. And into this perceived leadership vacuum, China itself is ready to move. ...
My dear chap, the British Donald Drumpf (his proper Scottish name, mind you ), is the one who is going to be in charge of negotiating trade deals with the rest of Europe when and IF May invokes Article 50
I read Boris will have limited say on trade and the EU exit negotiations. Not his remit. Ms. May assigned that to others.
It's a game of chicken. By forcing a speedy decision from the UK there's a chance they'll back out of it. Europe is united; the UK is internally divided. EU leadership couldn't have responded any better, which is a hopeful state of affairs no matter the outcome.
How can the EU force the UK government to invoke Article 50 quickly?
Full strength? No wonder this man never published an academic paper in his field — constitutional law!
I'm not impressed with Obama's constitutional law credentials.
The reality is that he was a "Senior Lecturer". A position given to the elite, like politicians, judges, artists (Senior Lecturer in the Humanities). Its like the giving of honorary degrees.
Its the "elite" taking care of each other. A real professor is expected to do academic research, submit academic papers and have them published. You won't see any under Obama's name.
Its like when his wife was taken care of. Before he became US senator Michelle was paid $122,000 a year. Two months after Obama elevation to US senator Michelle was promoted and her salary bumped to $317,000. Such coincidental timing and such a large bump.
How many of you here had your salary almost tripled with one promotion?
Well Oakdale you lot wrote down a Constitution and have been fighting over the damn thing since then and still doing so. Your Gestapo, oops, giant security apparatus ignores it when suits. Get some fresh air.
Sadly, that's too often true. The constitution is helpful if you have the money to hire good lawyers and to initiate and afford to fight for your rights in court.
If some lone hacker stole the Pentagon papers then I'm sure the result would have been different. It was the NY Times which had the $$$ resources to fight up the judicial ladder.
Law enforcement through civil forfeitures took more stuff from people than burglars did last year. Civil forfeiture lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted or not even charged with wrongdoing.
Imagine that. The police taking more money from the American public than burglars and not even having to justify it by charging the individual with a crime and or a judicial trial.
Sadly, Amtrak does suck. Even on the highly traveled and maintained NE corridor between Boston and NY.
Our kid had to go to Boston from NY. The train is scheduled for 5hr 20min, the bus for 4 hr 30 min. The cost of the bus was 1/2 the train price. Even though we like trains, he took the bus.
The bus seating was wide with WIFI support and power outlets. I don't know if you get that on Amtrak coach.
He could have taken Amtrak's acela but that would have raised the train price by 50%, triple the bus price. The Acela time is 3hr 45 minutes.
We have reached a major milestone. Gun deaths and motor vehicle deaths in America have converged. We now manage to kill as many with guns as get killed by motor vehicle accidents.
Japan has an extremely modern and well serving railway
and is smaller than California. Honshu, the island where Tokyo is located, is 88,997 mi² while California is 163,000 mi². Train service in Japan's islands doesn't exist because Japan consists of a series of islands. My guess is that extended travel in California largely consists of cross border travel.
Yet, China which is 3.7 million sq miles is building a pretty nice high speed train system.
Unlike the tides, we can pass laws and implement policies that seriously reduce our carbon emissions. I'll believe that when I actually see that.
Will that stop global warning? I'm not sure. We may be too late. The world is heating up and the added heat is causing the release of stored carbon from ice sheets and the deep ocean. We may have gotten a carbon release cycle that feeds upon itself.
Its like a runaway train, where locomotive power is applied on an uphill slope and finally after passing the top of the slope the engine power is cut and everyone hopes the train will be stopped while racing downhill laking brakes.
