ComradeKayAdams

This is such an important point you’ve made, billsfan1959 (and thank you for doing so while being respectful to Margarita). I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the nature of modern American political discourse and why it’s apparently collapsing all around us. I could list many reasons, but two that I’ll mention have to do specifically with how we use language. We all seem to be talking over and around each other because of our propensity for making sweeping and hasty generalizations, as well as for the reason you mentioned: using words with arbitrary definitions and loose interpretations. In order to avoid confusion, we should all develop habits of specifying beforehand the meaning of a word we’re using if it differs from Webster’s dictionary, if it’s a commonly misused one, if it has multiple definitions, or if the definition has recently changed within the culture. “Defund,” “racism,” “fascism,” and even “abolish” are the most recent culprits. For me, my pet peeve has always been “socialism.”

Depends on what time of the day it is. Sundowning effects from dementia tend to begin in the late afternoon (hence the name “sundowning”). All the latest polls assembled at RealClearPolitics show Biden with a strong lead over Trump. He is doing better than Trump in virtually every vital swing state and noticeably better than what Hillary was doing in early June 2016. Having said that, I suppose everyone is free to question the accuracy of the polls or worthiness of polls taken 5 months away from an election. The most recent CNN poll, however, indicates a potentially different narrative if you read between the lines. Trump remains more trusted on the economy than Biden, which is obviously quite huge because this issue alone will probably determine the fall election (barring a second dramatic coronavirus surge or a world war). Even bigger, Trump is maintaining that tremendous supporter enthusiasm gap he has long held over Biden. In terms of the overall election outlook, none of these summer polls are nearly as relevant as the summer economic data that will be pouring in. The biggest concern should be the looming rent and mortgage crisis. We should also be tracking new unemployment claims, expirations of unemployment benefits, credit card and student loan defaults, entrepreneurship and new small business formation stats, big business employee payroll retentions, and things like that (DJIA and GDP too if you insist). But while the election should come down to the economy, economic health is not at all an objective truth with objective causes and objective prospects (proof: Dems and Reps can never seem to agree on it). The winner of the November election will ultimately be the one who best frames the October economic situation in his favor. Right now I think I’m leaning toward the high-energy master salesman guy who is always tweeting, holding rallies, working the media, and spinning information to his avail. If my sobering canvassing experiences have taught me anything, it is that electoral campaigns are first and foremost about emotional psychology and human connections, with rational policy analyses and facts and data much further behind in importance. I sort of get the logic with the Biden campaign’s strategy of concealing Joe from the public. Minimize Bidenesque gaffes. Streamline campaign machine efforts and save expenses for fall advertising. Bank on Trump self-immolating. Coast on vague feelings of voter nostalgia for a more “normal” time (2009-2016, a time which wasn’t all that great for a majority of Americans anyway...). But Hillary ran a similar playbook in 2016. Feels too much like running a prevent defense in football, no? Ya can’t hide from the people forever and then expect them to be super motivated to come out and vote for you. Hmmm…the data sample seems too small for my tastes, and Biden’s numbers are too close to Hillary’s to necessitate sounding alarms. Hispanic demographic data should also be separated by geographic region to get more meaningful trends. Hispanics overall loved Bernie as of a few months ago. They will still come out to vote for Biden if he puts in a genuine effort to visit their communities, speak to them, listen to them, and not challenge them to fights or pushups. Texas becoming a swing state in 2020 could force a 2024 political realignment in the post-Trump world. Who knows how the power vacuum would be filled…maybe a left-right populism alliance versus a left-right establishment alliance?

TLDR Summary: I expect the progressive left voters from the Democratic primaries to stick with Biden at about 85%, which would be a little lower than Hillary’s approximate 90% in 2016. Tracking the African American turnout, the Trump voter defections, and the roughly 40% of apolitical independent voters in the general election will likely be far more relevant and interesting to our election analyses moving forward. Ok so now I’m going to delve a little deeper into the loyalty landscape of the particular demographic I’m most familiar with: the progressive left wing. At this point in time, I think Biden has already secured as much of this voting bloc as he can from the Democratic presidential primaries. I know the Warren suburban liberal female base is firmly in his camp. Same with the supporters of Beto, Castro, and de Blasio if you want to call these fellas progressive. Basically, any progressive who is big on social justice issues or is a believer in Russiagate has already aligned with Biden. Last I checked, the Yang Gang populist faction have mostly dissolved and will be either voting third party or staying home. The Tulsi anti-establishment crowd already defected from the Democratic Party way back in mid-March and are equally dispersed in every direction so as not to be a factor in the election. Marianne Williamson’s people have all gone Green. The much much bigger Bernie crowd appears to be falling in line with Biden at a 4-to-1 ratio right now, based on personal anecdotes and internal Bernie campaign canvassing polls and social media surveys. The emerging consensus among the “4” people is that Trump is an existential threat to the country, the Democratic Party can be reformed from within, and that incremental progress is the most realistic option. The “1” people do not believe Biden is necessarily the lesser of two evils from a long-term point of view, are done with selling out to centrists, believe the DNC is structurally incapable of reform, and feel that the Democratic Party must be burned to the ground from the outside by either voting third party or staying home. This 4-to-1 Bernie schism also seems to be reflected in the civil war within the top rungs of Bernie’s staff: the Jeff Weaver DC political careerist types happy to compromise with the establishment, versus the grassroots-based types who demand public policy purity. I figure this approximate 4-to-1 Bernie base ratio will hold into November, which means that I expect Biden to hold a very substantial portion of the overall progressive base (around 85%?) and maybe only a little worse than what Hillary rallied in 2016 (about 5% worse?). So I don’t think progressive loyalty to the Dems will be nearly as relevant to November 3 as the black turnout, the possible cadre of post-pandemic/post-protest Trump deserters, or the ever-mysterious voter pool of 40+% politically disengaged/disgusted Americans. The primaries showed me that the progressive left is likely a much smaller subset of Dems than I had initially hoped. I had also hoped that my fellow lefties would have distanced themselves from the rioting aspect of the otherwise beautiful Floyd protests. Nope! Instead at a nearly unanimous percentage, they are doubling down with calls for poorly articulated police defunding/abolition plans, downplaying property destruction, conspiracy theorizing the non-existence of Antifa, and outright lying about some of the basic realities of the crime data compiled by the DOJ. These attitudes are going to DESTROY much of the political progress I thought us Bernie folk were making with moderates, Boomers, and the country at large for the past five years. So when you situate the progressive left’s relatively small size and their unruly behavior in conjunction with their ease in bending the knee to Biden, then I believe it’s fair to say that my team conceded all relevance and power leverage in the November election (anyone who mentions the words “unity task force” in my vicinity shall receive a very intimidating scowl from me). In other words, the progressive left is in complete shambles and has been effectively subsumed as the DNC originally intended. Way to go, guys.

I am now instituting a “too long didn’t read” (TLDR) feature at the top of my super lengthy posts. You’ll love it! I don’t quite understand your people-centered proposal. We both agree that one should first get their own affairs in order before hypocritically judging other’s affairs. I bet we also share way more in common than you think concerning authoritarian governments stepping over individual liberty. But I’m asking from a very practical perspective here: how effective can a lone individual’s actions really be on solving systemic problems at the level of large and complex societies? You might be impressed to know that I always score very highly on those sustainability quizzes and questionnaires! My biggest weakness is my water usage in the kitchen and bathroom. I could also make do with a lot fewer clothes. Sure, happy to do so. My detailed step-by-step rationale for the statement you’re challenging: 1. I defined the Republican Party by Trump’s policies and the Democratic Party by Biden’s historical policies. 2. I divided all public policy issues into 3 categories of domestic economic rights, foreign policy, and social/personal rights. 3. For each issue, I gave each political party’s stance a numerical grade on a scale ranging from most libertarian to most authoritarian. Note that this was all done intuitively in my head. I never actually sat down and methodically wrote assigned number values for every issue. That would be insane. 4. I mapped these grades to a 1-dimensional line of left versus right, with the left section being defined as economically authoritarian, non-interventionist on foreign policy, and libertarian on social/personal freedom issues. I defined the right section as having the polar opposite position for these 3 categories: economically libertarian, interventionist on foreign policy, and authoritarian on social/personal freedoms. Again, note that this was all done intuitively in my head. I did not actually draw a line on graph paper with dozens and dozens of blue and red dots. Eek! 5. I then subtracted all the personal freedom/SJW issues in my analysis. I did so partly to match up with the OP’s characterization of the two parties, since I feel the Democrats HAVE successfully shifted the Overton window left for both parties on the culture war issues, following the height of the Moral Majority/Christian Coalition and the Just Say No drug wars of the 80’s. I also eliminated this entire set of personal freedom issues because I don’t feel that a left-wing position on social issues these days so easily equates to the “less government intrusion into personal freedoms” definition on this left-right line (chief example: PC policing of free speech). 6. I then averaged all the grades out for each party, with certain issues weighted more than others depending on perceived importance, and then I mentally placed a final mark on my left-right line for both parties. Notice the high level of subjectivity here and the obvious potential for discrepancy between final grades from different graders. Your political party grades for each individual policy issue will likely be different than mine, and this is especially true for the weights given to these issues. Example: I probably place a much higher value on left-wing positions for health care, education, the environment, progressive taxation policies, and foreign non-interventionism than most other PPP members. This will skew my final assessment of the two parties to the right of the left-right line compared to others here. 7. Ok, so having acknowledged the inherent subjectivity in our grading scale on the left-right political spectrum, it’s best to normalize the two dots for context. Using the exact same grading standard from earlier, I re-centered the left-right line for all of the many different major political parties of the Western world (US, Canada, all of the EU countries, Australia, New Zealand, also Japan and South Korea and Singapore because why not). When you do this, you’ll find that the Democrats are right of center and the Republicans are far right compared to everyone else mentioned. This international context was the argument I made in my original post and isn’t at all controversial if you talk to citizens from these other countries I listed. This assessment actually still holds when you put the various social policy issues back into the equation, since the cultural grip of Judeo-Christian religious morality is comparably weaker in much of the rest of the more secularized West. If you were to include all of the countries of the world, however, then yes our Republican and Democratic parties would both shift leftward on the line and back around the center. If you’re referring to UBI, it’s often considered a peripheral GND component and is not included in a majority of GND proposals. I’m personally not in favor of any permanent form of UBI, though more on the grounds of economic inflationary technicalities instead of this idea that it will make all these people not want to work. For the vast majority of humans, work gives one’s life meaning and nobility (in addition to the increased opportunity and financial security). This is what I don’t think Andrew Yang fully appreciates, even though I’m grateful for him having brought the idea to the political fore. Dunno. I interpreted the Enlightenment moral lens comment to mean he approaches public policy issues from a classical liberal point of view. That is, he believes what a modern-day American political libertarian would believe on negative rights, positive rights, property, labor, the individual, the collective, and the social contract. But I’ll let TakeYouToTasker take us both to task(er) on what he meant.

The Green New Deal proposal is driven completely by the progressive left wing of the Democratic Party. The moderate establishment wing of the party only mentions it in rhetoric so to rally the base and make everyone feel good and feel like they’re actually on the path to doing something that is nebulously positive. The moderate establishment wing is far more powerful and sets the agenda for the entire party. Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer have ZERO plans to make a Green New Deal ever happen. None at all.

Did AOC say we need another party?! If so, great. She can start by cutting ties with the Democratic Party immediately and running as an independent. She has always been excellent at making impassioned speeches, but some of her behavior and her voting record this year belies her progressive credentials. I won’t go so far as to call her a sell-out like Bernie and Warren, but…I have my reservations…because she has been getting way too cozy with “Mama Bear” Pelosi recently. Some might say she’s a practical girl building her political career from within the Democratic Party establishment, so that she can later reform it down the line and use them as a vehicle to eventually become president. Cynics would say that she only cares about upgrading those bartender tips into a stable six-figure political salary. RealKayAdams will say, “don’t know about her motives, don’t care about her strategies, just deliver some mother bleeping RESULTS for the people.” JetsFan20, I do agree with you that the Dems are center-right and the Reps are far-right. Or rather, the Dems are center right if you focus on the Dem establishment’s domestic economic agenda and foreign policy record, while ignoring the social justice warrior red meat they promulgate for the base. Most of continental Europe and the West at large would agree with this characterization of American politics. But if you truly align yourself in accordance with many of AOC’s comments, then I would seriously consider making like Frank Gore this year and ditching the Red and Blue for Gang Green. Vote Green Party on November 3.

This doesn’t sound right to me. What about Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996? Or George Wallace in 1968? And if you go by percentages of total votes instead of overall third-party voting numbers, then this narrative quickly falters. Also, voting for third parties isn’t throwing your vote away. Third parties have historically played a critical role in forcing major changes with the policy platforms and internal composition of the two major American parties, even if they have rarely supplanted them. And finally, are you looking at any polling evidence that suggests people are less likely to vote third party than in 2016? Anything that I’ve seen so far implies the opposite: people in 2020 have only grown more disenchanted with the two-party duopoly. I should mention that there is still a small chance that Jesse Ventura will run as the Green Party candidate. This would be an absolute game changer to the Trump-Biden paradigm if it happens. Think 1992 Ross Perot, but less predictable because Jesse could potentially draw as many Never Trumpers and libertarians as he could progressive lefties. Most likely, however, Howie Hawkins will be the guy and will beat out Dario Hunter. Hawkins has been sharply criticized for a bunch of things like his involvement with internal Green Party corruption, his dubious campaign staff choices, and his neo-McCarthyism Russiagating. But I don’t really know if any of this will affect the Green nomination outcome and, in turn, the general November election in any pronounced way. I won’t challenge the rest of your post. You could easily be right or wrong, depending on so many variables that have yet to play out. Just look at how radically different the political landscape is now compared to a couple months ago! Trump’s pandemic response has definitely strained his older voting base, especially female Boomers and Silenters. Trump’s heavy-handed riot/protest response has also placed undue pressure on his libertarian base. From Biden’s perspective, the black vote turnout is way too chaotic to predict right now. You have to consider a host of factors like Biden’s Charlamagne tha God interview, all of his other ridiculous race-related comments, his old alliances with segregationists, his criminal law voting record, the BLM current events, his Obama friendship, and his VP choice (I’ve long suspected Kamala Harris). I also wouldn’t rely on the Millenials and Zoomers to come out for Biden. It’s a small mystery as to where Latinos will go or if they bother to come out to vote at all this time. I assume the white working class will go heavy for Trump, but I’ve also seen polling data indicating trends running in the other direction. Later I think I’ll talk more about the party loyalty status of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. I like your thread’s potential! Now that Biden clinched the primary, it should supersede some of the other threads and become the marquee November 2020 presidential election thread. I hope it doesn’t get lost among the dozen or so ones discussing the same bleeping topic of police protests…

Oops! Thanks for the advice, SoCal Deek. I was responding to 4 different people in that last post, but yes I should be more mindful of the audience whenever I sacrifice brevity for content overload. I partly blame my high caffeine sensitivity and my early morning coffee. It fires me up for PPP like a Kyle Williams locker room speech for Bills games. Instead of summarizing my last post in a few sentences, can I try summarizing the entirety of my global warming posts? That way everyone who is not interested in going back and reading my global warming novella can get on the same page. It could be a good reset and a launch point for future discussion. It’s gonna get INTENSE, so buckle up and just please let me know if y’all think I need to pare it down further… My summary of the science behind man-made global warming (MMGW): 1. It has become very difficult in 2020 to find a credible scientist or scientific paper that can debunk the fundamental scientific reasoning, the data quality, or the fidelity of the mainstream feedback control system climate models that support the MMGW consensus. 2. A good starting point for climate change skeptics would be to explain the relatively sudden atmospheric increase of carbon dioxide from 280 ppm to 415 ppm between 1750 and 2019 (with similar spikes seen in methane and nitrous oxide), using only non-anthropogenic mechanisms, when the 280 ppm number remained approximately steady for many thousands of years before. 3. The best remaining place for climate change skeptics to challenge the MMGW consensus may be the complicated heat and gas transfer dynamics at the interface between the ocean and the atmosphere. My summary of what is going wrong with our search for MMGW solutions: 1. The climate/environment portions of the Green New Deal (GND), in its present form under the banner of either the Democratic Party or even the Green Party, is woefully lacking in details for renewable energy choices, carbon market legislation, transition processes from fossil fuels, and practically everything else. 2. Corrupt Democratic Party leaders, the corrupt/incompetent mainstream media, and hypocritical/oblivious environmental lefties deserve as much of the blame for the state of the nation’s MMGW discourse as do fossil fuel corporate lobbyists, Trump, the Republican Party, and the right-wing voting base. 3. The American economic market is very much structurally biased in favor of fossil fuels and against renewable energy, with regards to subsidies and foreign policy and civil infrastructure currently in place. My own general outline of what a MMGW solution set would look like: 1. Make solar and nuclear the foundational basis of the future US energy infrastructure, with wind/hydro/geothermal added where appropriate, and with certain limited types of biofuels incorporated as necessary. 2. Implement some federal subsidies for private renewable energy industries and substantially increase spending on fundamental scientific research at American universities/government labs that is focused on renewable energy tech, civil engineering, agricultural engineering, replacements for internal combustion engines, replacements for jet engines, planetary terraforming, and carbon sequestration tech. 3. Enact a transition process for displaced workers in an old energy economy that would be centered around similar ideas which have been proposed for workers replaced by automation, such as job retraining programs and sunset UBI’s. 4. Public works projects to facilitate widespread upgrading of the US civil infrastructure, with an emphasis on public transportation and on the reduction of urban/suburban sprawl (I know I know…controversial after the pandemic and the riots, but whatevs…). 5. Reforestation up to at least 90% of the total forest land coverage that existed in the US prior to 1620, as well as essentially 100% preservation of current remaining old growth forests. 6. Carbon market legislation…so the economics are way too nuanced to summarize in a sentence, but I will describe my opinion later this summer, based on what’s working and not working in Europe and elsewhere. 7. Related environmental conservation of air, water, ecosystem flora, and ecosystem fauna by generally more strict regulations, greater EPA oversight, and public works waste cleanup programs. 8. Promote vegan diets that reduce the environmental stress from cattle and their pastoral land requirements, as well as promote the minimization of food waste practices in restaurants, grocery stores, and homes. 9. Educate people to reconsider their capitalist consumption habits, to buy less of stuff they don’t need, to challenge the mantra of “keeping up with the Joneses,” and to increase various sustainability efforts like recycling. 10. Encourage people to not have children if they’re not fully committed to being parents, discourage the “barren spinster” stigma for women, encourage adoption options, promote birth control education, and increase birth control access. And for my beloved TLDR audience: 1. Man-made global warming doesn’t look to be a hoax. 2. All of our politicians suck balls. 3. I have an eco-socialist wish list that is the stuff of hippy dreams (or of authoritarian nightmares, depending on the point of view). 4. Moving forward, we can discuss the MMGW science, GND politics, GND pecuniary matters, wherever y’all wanna go…

Lots of info here. I’ll unpack my responses in the order that the info was presented: 1. Yes, the Sun obviously has the largest influence on Earth’s climate, but it’s also extremely easy for climatologists to model. By “easy,” I am referring strictly to a focus on the energy that leaves the Sun and reaches the Earth, while ignoring the plasma physics details of all the solar atmospheric commotion. 2. There’s actually plenty of evidence in the scientific literature indicating that the Earth’s magnetic field and its fluctuations have a negligible impact on climate. The Earth’s magnetosphere will steer solar winds, but it has no practical impact on solar energy transfer, which consists of light photons that inherently have no electric charge to respond to these magnetic fields. 3. Carbon dioxide is most definitely a greenhouse gas in the same physical way that water, ozone, methane, and nitrous oxide behave after absorbing sunlight energy. Sources or explanation contradicting this?? 4. Agree 100% with the problem of hypocritical environmentalists unwilling to alter their own behavior for a greater good and/or unaware of the full effects their behavior has on the environment. 5. A transition to renewable energies doesn’t necessarily lead to increased taxes. The big devil is in the vast budgetary and legislative details as well as in the allotted timeframes for fixing problems. Plus you have to factor in all of the long-term financial damages from global warming that would burden taxpayers: increased destruction from wildfires and hurricanes, urban coastline civil infrastructure damage, massive agricultural industry alterations, etc. 6. I’d definitely like to see more public discussion on industrial chemical poisoning. It’s best done by case studies. These discussions rarely happen for the reasons you probably already figure: potential subtraction of jobs, inconveniences to people’s way of life, and intentional information suppression from chemical industries. 7. Unfortunately we can’t photosynthesis our way out of the global warming crisis. There’s not enough land on Earth that can support forest growth for all the trees we’d need, and this viable land percentage is constantly shrinking with desertification and climate change effects in progress and competition with our constantly increasing international agricultural needs (biggest culprit by far: cattle pastures for the meat and dairy industries). Additionally, old forests have soil that is better for carbon sequestration than newly planted ones. Yes, absolutely. The carbon neutrality math that I’ve seen works out well if you include second/third generation nuclear reactors. This is the foundational model of France’s national energy policy which I have spoken highly of here. For America’s unique energy needs, at this very moment I’m supportive of solar and nuclear as the bulk of our twenty-first century energy infrastructure, with a mix of other renewables sprinkled in when sensible (wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, certain types of biofuels). It’s a shame that most fellow environmental lefties are against anything related to nuclear energy. They bring up major safety disasters (Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island) or storage concerns (Hanford, Kyshtym, Yucca Mountain) to me without the proper perspective that all known nuclear-related disasters came from entirely obsolete technology and ridiculous safety standards. Sort of akin to refusing to fly on a standard commercial jet plane in 2020 because a few WWI airplanes experienced mechanical failure and crashed. On an international scale, no other modern energy technology scores better on safety and reliability metrics over its entire life cycle than nuclear (this is actually thanks to the heavy government regulations it now faces as a historical legacy of the few aforementioned disasters). For many of the next-generation reactor designs in development, the issues of nuclear waste storage and safety look even better than the current designs being used. To clarify the narrative: it is that we’re not doing enough in magnitude and speed to address climate change that is commensurate with its severity, when considering even the most conservative estimates of the progression of man-made global warming. If you were to do a survey of all the private sector workers in the sustainability industry (renewable energy engineers, scientists, civil engineers, agricultural engineers), you’d probably find that a large majority of them are politically left-leaning. Solutions will mostly come from the private sector, but I believe (as do all now but the most ardent economic libertarians??) that the private market will need significant assistance from the government. Looking throughout the entire history of capitalism going back to the late Middle Ages, the free market has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be insufficient on its own for solving problems similar to MMGW, where negative impacts are dispersed throughout the entire collection of market participants over ranges of time close to a human lifespan or longer. Sorry Azalin, I wasn’t intending to be so flippant or dismissive with my response. But the way I see it, anything related to science that calls for direct public funding or government intervention of the economy will, to some extent, ALWAYS become politicized. Example: even the most esoteric science of fundamental particle physics was politicized during the 1993 Texas particle accelerator project proposal, which was ultimately cancelled. So in my head, I always assume some degree of this inevitable politicization and then work to come up with practical solutions within this constraint. Current example: maybe appeal to Trump’s ego of wanting to beat China economically and be the best at everything when trying to promote the merits of US renewable energy technology?? If we were to remove all politics and notions of the economy with the MMGW topic and go purely by the science, then I think calls for drastic immediate change would be pretty strong (and just as a starting point for the remaining doubtful, MMGW deniers would first need to explain the rise of carbon dioxide in parts-per-million from 280 in 1750 to 415 last year by non-anthropogenic mechanisms, given that the number remained basically steady at 280 for the thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution). For the purposes of this thread’s discussion when thinking about the Green New Deal, I’ll focus on the stuff related to climate change and the environment and ignore all the rest (better for another thread…maybe The Trump Economy one). On one hand, I can fully understand not supporting the GND in its current form when it is somehow still devoid of any agreed-upon details on the changes to be implemented or on the transition process for the fossil fuel industries being replaced. It’s pathetic how little the GND was even discussed during the Democratic Party primary debates, though maybe the Dems would have had more of an incentive to do so if Trump hadn’t removed the topic from the American political table of discussion altogether and if the Republicans didn’t choose to be the only major political party in the world to call MMGW a hoax…but I digress. What I really aim to do here is to challenge how “free” our free market economy actually is when you consider three areas: 1. annual collective fossil fuel subsidies. 2. a post-WW2 foreign policy centered on maintaining cheap oil supplies in the Middle East and now also in Venezuela. 3. an energy-inefficient US transportation system, built with steady supplies of cheap oil in mind, which has been firmly in place since WW2 (especially since the 1956 Highway Act). So we should at least acknowledge that the economic game is already rigged to some extent in favor of fossil fuels and against renewables. But even if we are okay with that and prefer maintaining the economic status quo for whatever reasons, we also have to acknowledge that change may be imminent and may be urgently forced upon us. The pandemic has created a shaky economy that threatens the US petrodollar system we’ve been running since the 1970’s. And if the economic recovery continues as sluggishly as I fear, I can’t think of a more perfect time to upgrade our long-rotted civil infrastructure system and call for FDR-style GND public works projects for the throngs of unemployed. Ouch my fingers hurt from all this typing. Good topics I think I’ll leave for another day: 1. carbon taxes, carbon credits, carbon offset, cap-and-trade emissions program. 2. advances this century in solar technology, including what Michael Moore may have gotten wrong in his “Planet of the Humans” film. Y’all have a good weekend!

I’ve been reading many pages of this thread with a deep sense of sadness over what’s happening to our country. A lot of good points are being made, but I wanted to add another perspective here that hasn’t been mentioned: the leadership void within the progressive left wing of the Democratic Party. Specifically Bernie Sanders, who is still the de facto leader of the movement. The youth and various left-leaning movements like antifa and possibly BLM are predominantly instigating the rioting, the looting, and the violence. In this way, Bernie may have a larger influence on controlling the direction of the unrest than any other politician right now, including Trump and Biden. What I would like Sanders to do is to publicly praise all of the PEACEFUL protesting in honor of George Floyd while simultaneously condemning parts of the left for their destructive behavior. Additionally, I’d like Bernie to call for new national legislation in the following 5 areas: police conduct reform, mandatory oversight of law enforcement institutions from neutral third parties, increased mental health services for police officers, an end to the war on drugs (or at least marijuana) that disproportionately hampers blacks, and broad changes to the pipeline that connects our interventionist foreign policy and the increasing militarization of our domestic police force. An aside on antifa: I ran into a few of these folks during my 2016+2020 Bernie campaign volunteering efforts (and also during some of my animal rights activism activities). Or at least I think I did, judging by their clothes, tattoos, and conversations. They were not very helpful, to put it mildly, when it came to canvassing. They didn’t come across as interested in the political process very much. Violence and delegitimizing American institutions are known to be their primary focus. There is no uniform political philosophy that they subscribe to, beyond anything that is “anti-fascist.” Most are either communists, hard socialists, anarchists, or short-term social democrats with long-term goals of pushing the country beyond capitalism. I suppose that would be a unifying political philosophy of theirs if they actually have one: anti-capitalism. They are politically to the extreme left and much further left than Bernie’s platform of mainstream European-style social democracy. I don’t personally know much at all about their organizational structure, though I do hear rumors from sources close to the scene that they are well-connected at the local level and have contact with other local cells around the country. It is not a top-down organization, but I would not be surprised at all to later learn they were being funded by higher-up Soros types and that they had been nationally coordinating for these riots all along. So here is my message for my left-leaning friends on this message board: it’s well past time for some deep self-reflection and impositions of quality control on our political side. Are we advancing public policy? Are we helping to defeat Donald Trump by persuading independents and energizing the base? Are we changing the hearts and minds of those that fuel American institutional racism? “No,” “no,” and “no” would be my answers at this very moment. How can we change course? Well for starters, let’s start acting rationally again. Emphatically call out the looting and the rioting. Castigate antifa. Stop suspecting Russia for everything. Stop fixating on the random annoying minutiae of Trump’s speeches or behavior and start focusing on the deeper issues that plague the country. I’d also stop apologizing for Biden’s shortcomings and demand he step up to the plate as a leader during these recent crises (or step aside at the convention). That’s all I have to say on this subject for now. I think I need a small break from news and politics. I originally figured this type of violence and senseless destruction could erupt around the Democratic convention if Bernie lost or following the November election if Trump won. But with the pandemic quarantine restlessness, deep economic anxieties from the pandemic fallout and from failed neoliberal policies, the rising pre-summer heat, and of course George Floyd’s murder…here we are. It may likely get much worse, too, before things eventually get much better. Please stay safe, everyone.

Yeah that’s how I look at it too. Targeted, short-term, government emergency stimulus measures shouldn’t be conflated with long-term Keynesian economic policies. We are in an acute economic situation where our government has forced its citizens to not work for a period of time. Therefore, the government should have an obligation to financially support its citizens for the period of time they are not allowed to work. When I say short-term government stimulus measures, I’m referring to stimulus checks/sunset UBI’s, pandemic universal health care, student loan deferments, rent/mortgage deferments, and alterations to unemployment benefits. Stuff like that. It’s a shame that our country creates so much pushback for basic emergency government relief that so many other civilized countries assume as givens. Take Germany for example. Their government successfully froze their economy during the lockdown and kept their citizens on business payrolls, rather than allow everyone to get laid off like what has happened here in the US. Granted, Germany is still facing an almost inevitable recession like the rest of Europe, but to me they look to be much more equipped to handle it than the US. By the way, Germany is handling the health crisis aspect to the COVID-19 pandemic equally well with their universal health care system for all 85 million citizens…thought I’d throw that out there and provoke the board a little this afternoon… You’ve noted in this thread a couple reasons for possible optimism in a v-shaped economic recovery: increased activity in the housing market and recent stock market surges. I don’t see the housing sales data as anything more than a reflection of the lingering pre-pandemic economy, if we are to glean anything from it at all. The people purchasing homes are probably merely carrying out their life plans before this mess began, and these are probably the people whose jobs weren’t negatively impacted from the pandemic. There are way too many variables that have yet to play out in the housing market. A third of Americans didn’t pay rent or mortgage in May. Similarly, stock market Pollyannas need to remember that it is only a quantitative prediction of future economic activity and only reflects the current collective psychology among investors. At some eventual point in time, these companies with publicly traded stocks will inevitably require a sufficient demand pool for their goods and services. With something reported like 75-80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck before the pandemic, this demand pool is looking terrible at the moment. A non-trivial portion of the American economy depends on the purchase of non-essential goods and services, but the people subsisting on unemployment benefits or reduced income are much less likely to consider buying stuff they want until they can first pay for all the things they need. So we’re 2.5 months into the pandemic response, with hardly anyone fully reopened, most places opening gradually, and with our two most economically important cities (NYC and LA) still closed. The longer this carries on, the worse our prospects will be for a v-shaped recovery WITHOUT significant federal government stimulus. Sorry for being such a wet blanket! Hopefully someone will poke holes in my negativity??? If Zubaz pants become popular again, then all of this will have been totally worth it.

Don’t worry, I’ll try to avoid mentioning anything related to fluid mechanics and thermodynamics in the future. l just want to briefly emphasize one more time the importance of the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. It can’t be overstated. The ocean is obviously big (covering 70% or so of Earth’s surface area), deep, complex, and can store very large amounts of heat and greenhouse gases with potentially very delayed large-scale transfer rates. So if scientists end up learning that the observed global warming wasn’t man-made all this time, then far and away the most probable explanation (in my opinion) will be because there was something major and potentially fundamental that they got wrong with their understanding of this specific component of Earth’s climate system. Similarly, if global warming somehow ends up stabilizing or reversing course in spite of the continued pace we’re on with our fossil fuel use, then by far the most probable cause (in my opinion) will be because scientists missed something very critical with the atmosphere-ocean feedback control system. This all seems unlikely to me, however, given how much scientists now know about the ocean and all the accumulated oceanic evidence and how accurate their predictions have been matching the data so far. But I wanted to float this idea out there for the skeptics interested in looking for places where climatologists messed up. Ok, this concludes my ocean talk! I agree that it would be unfair and inaccurate to label you a MMGW denier. There is absolutely a difference between a skeptic and a denier. I’m equally frustrated over the politicization of this subject, but it is what it is, yeah? I guess the best we can do is maintain an awareness of all the bad faith actors and cognitive biases on both sides of the debate and be willing to call everyone out on both sides when necessary, especially our own. I’ll start calling them out here because I’m filled with sass and that’s how I roll. First and foremost, the fossil fuel industries manage to play the game effectively by purchasing politicians on both sides and promoting media disinformation campaigns. I’d also say some right-wing voters have turned what was once a healthy classical American skepticism of experts, authority figures, government power, and government program inefficiencies into a counterproductive Alex Jones-style pathology. On the left, we have our hordes of hypocritical voters who throw the word “green” around to virtue signal about saving Mother Earth and who make fun of those Alex Jones-style conservatives online, meanwhile doing absolutely nothing in their own private lives to improve global sustainability. Then there was Michael Moore’s most recent film that launched a wonderful salvo at the possible bad faith actors operating on the left, the ones who are shilling for select renewable energy industries or co-opting the green movement for purely self-promotional reasons. Last but not least, we get to my favorite political enemy: the entire Democratic party establishment, which effectively operates as one giant bad faith actor working for a variety of neoliberalism-inclined corporatists dependent on maintaining the energy status quo. It’s why I think so little has been achieved for the American green movement this century, while our European counterparts have moved light-years ahead of us in green politics. Even when facing a looming economic depression and an important election, these so-called Dem party “leaders” can’t even cobble together something like a Green New Deal-esque basic public works plan to energize the voting base and score easy political points. Oh I should also mention a major political fissure emerging on the left: mainstream leftists inclined to be content enough with the given panoply of renewable energy alternatives versus the eco-socialists (my wonderful people) who prefer exploring all the hard questions first like technical difficulties with achieving carbon neutrality on solar/wind alone, the nature of human consumption, overpopulation, land rights and resource claims, public transportation and urban/suburban sprawl, blah blah blah. That’s certainly one way of looking at it. I’m starting to respect more and more the politicians who can somehow find ways to actually achieve deliverables for their constituencies, especially deliverables with strong moral imperatives. My only counterpoint is to be mindful of all the prospective political blowback and be confident enough in the quality of your ideas. Forceful political action to finally clean up the Zone Rouge, for example, would probably work out okay. But forceful action for something as seemingly innocuous as a slight increase in fuel taxes could lead to a large, sweeping Yellow Vest movement and an abrupt end to many French political careers. I love France’s national energy policy, by the way. It’s my favorite one in the world right now.

All of this plus the upgrade of Gore to Moss. During the last half of last season, this offense would have looked so much better if you had added just an extra 1-2 yards on many of Gore's runs.

1960's: Daryle Lamonica (Raiders) 1970's: Ahmad Rashad (Vikings) 1980's: Art Still (Chiefs) 1990's: Chris Spielman (Lions) 2000's: Jason Peters (Eagles) 2010's: Stephon Gilmore (Patriots) candidates for 2020's: Cole Beasley (Cowboys), Mario Addison (Panthers), Josh Norman (Panthers) honorable mention: James Lofton (Packers) dishonorable mention: Ronnie Harmon (Chargers)

I’d feel more comfortable verifying my response with a friend of mine who happens to be a professional oceanographer. But until I hear back from her, my best attempt at an answer is that the climate data going back to about 1900 is acceptably accurate, partly because old analog measuring equipment for climate metrics (temperature, precipitation, atmospheric pressure, humidity, maybe also wind) can still be used today without losing practically anything in accuracy. Also, the data HAD to meet high accuracy thresholds in order to make early twentieth century technology (particularly airplanes) possible and agricultural businesses able to run effectively. Now whether or not they still use this climate data for making calculations? I want to say yes because I remember reading popular science articles in the past that referenced changes from early twentieth century climates. For a given location on earth, I believe they take temperature and rainfall averages for about a generation’s length (25 years or so) to determine the climate. Then they increment these averages forward in time and plot the trend. The “normal” climate can then either be defined as the original average (i.e. the least anthropogenically perturbed) or arbitrarily chosen at a later date in time, depending on what is considered acceptable for civilization in terms of its civil and agricultural infrastructure. I haven’t said much about ocean data, which is super important to climate because the oceans are a major heat sink and greenhouse gas sink for the atmosphere. I want to say that the temperature and pressure data was equally accurate back then as it was for the atmosphere, but probably WAY less complete because we hadn’t explored nearly as much of it back then as we have since World War 2. Because submarine technology depends on good temperature and pressure data, the range of our ocean data in the early twentieth century possibly varied in direct proportion to the depths and geographic locations which these designs evolved to handle. This was a really good question you raised. Global warming skepticism is healthy and should be encouraged, given the huge economic stakes. My only concern is when people hold strong opinions but aren’t intellectually curious enough to seek the knowledge that better informs these opinions (I’m not including you or most anyone reading this thread). It’s also crucial to establish in one’s own mind a standard of new facts or evidence or scientific insight that would cause one to completely reverse their old opinion. This goes for everybody on both sides of the debate. I myself have a pretty good idea of what I need to see to join the side of global warming deniers. Hopefully I’m there in about 5 years…

Fair enough. I can agree with most of Mr. Allen’s points and shrug my shoulders at a few others, but the inner left-wing snowflake in me was heavily triggered from the Venezuela remark, so I am compelled to respond without expectations of an answer. What exactly does socialism have to do with that particular crisis?! The causes were: a horribly unbalanced economy singularly dependent on oil exports, over-the-top internal corruption within Chavez and Maduro regimes, extremely reckless spending over budget, extremely reckless printing of money to solve the budget crisis, and stupid price control policies. Then came Trump’s severe and inhumane economic sanctions within the past few years that have made any attempts at recovery impossible. All of these contributing factors could, in theory, be found in capitalist systems (minus the price control policies). None of these contributing factors are necessary for socialist systems (minus price control policies for specific types of proven failed socialist systems). There is an entire continent filled with socialist countries with healthy GDP’s per capita, high living standards, and happy citizens. In practice, there’s no such thing as a purely “socialist” country (Cuba I think is the closest) or a purely “capitalist” country (maybe Somalia is one?). All are essentially variations of what we would call a mixed economy. My reply to Tim Allen would be that criticism of socialism is absolutely fair game, but just make sure to specify which of the many different types you are referring to when doing so. Someone from Singapore might look down at the United States as a failing socialist country, for example. 1. Defense budget and interventionism: yep it looks like we agree on everything here. Is this a PPP first?! I’d streamline our post-Cold War military with a heavy emphasis away from soldier numbers and toward high-tech capabilities…and with a wary eye on China…which I basically think we’re trying to do already but not fast enough for my liking. 2. Iran: I probably need to think harder about the historical nature of political revolutions. The successes and failures, the causes, the character traits and backgrounds of its leaders, the violence, and the peaceful protest strategies. In the end, though, I will likely stick with my stance against economic sanctions on purely ethical grounds. 3. Solutions for the current economic crisis: I won’t resist any of your supply-side solutions like tax cuts and deregulations because they will help to some extent. What I want to highlight are the people falling through the cracks on the demand side. The pre-pandemic long-term unemployed, recent college grads, people who were already on financial thin ice with debts or health issues or exorbitant bills before the pandemic, the already homeless, everyone whose unemployment benefits will eventually run out, etc… The Paycheck Protection Program can only do so much for a limited amount of time. It’s too late already for a number of small businesses and their employees. I’m proposing sunset UBI’s, mandatory rent and mortgage deferments, and variations of a temporary M4A for the unemployed. I also want enforced oversight of the big corporations that were bailed out to make sure they’re maintaining payrolls and not doing stock buybacks. There are time constraints and windows of opportunity for many of these options, so someone on this message board should tweet Trump as soon as we collectively come up with a solution… 4. Amazon company: oh, actually I wasn’t even thinking about monopolies and labor rights and trillionaires and tax evasions when I made that remark (but those are important too). I’ve been having issues with shoes that I ordered. Some economic goods are better off purchased in person at physical stores out in the real world. I hope no Bernie Bros are reading this and judging me for my bourgeoisie fashion priorities? 5. Keynesian philosophy: over at the President Trump’s Re-Election Campaign thread, I stumbled my way into a Keynesian econ mini-discussion. Feel free to check over my reasoning if you have the time. Good point. I’d only add that devotion to one’s own party isn’t a virtue. Country before party. Party loyalty among Democrats caused Trump and will lead to future Trumps. Hmmm…so maybe it’s winning the popular vote while losing the electoral college that drives my side into such a frenzy? I’ve seen an argument put forth that the breakdown in our national political discourse began with the 1987 Robert Bork Supreme Court rejection. I wasn’t around then, so maybe someone who was wants to comment? Does the over-the-top partisan bickering go back even further? Or was it always this way? My left-leaning suspicion has been that it began with the rise of Limbaugh and cable TV news plus the Lewinsky scandal in the 90’s.

Fair question. We’re really moving outside my purview here because I’m not a practicing climate scientist, as you know and a few others love to emphasize. But I’ll try my best: Without looking through the published climatology scientific literature to tell you exactly how “normal climates” are being determined, I would say that it’s perfectly possible and maybe likely that they are truncating the chronological weather/ocean data somewhere around the middle twentieth century. They could do this without losing any understanding of the climate trends, and then they could extrapolate backward in time and compare with the older data for accuracy. I also don’t necessarily believe the older data from the first half of the twentieth century is bad. Modern measuring equipment is going to be more precise, but how much is really lost in accuracy? For example, even the most basic mercury thermometer is very reliable, even if you can’t discern between hundredths of a degree like you could with a digital thermometer. I do know that NACA, the predecessor to NASA, had somehow been compiling extremely accurate (and precise) atmospheric temperature and pressure data soon after the Wright brothers. They needed highly reliable data to design even remotely reliable airplanes for the world wars and for commerce. Civil engineers, farmers, naval architects, and the military also needed fairly reliable weather and ocean data in the early twentieth century in order to have success at their jobs. Hope this helps? Maybe we should e-mail a real expert like Greta Thunberg for answers lol?!

A fraud with respect to the 3 classes of public policy issues I outlined. Obama initially ran as a wide-eyed optimistic progressive and left office 8 years later as a neoliberal corporatist sell-out. He presented himself as a clear alternative to the neocon, voodoo-economics-loving, climate-change-denying Dubya in 2008. He talked such a good progressive left game that his election victory sparked an entire Tea Party countermovement to stop the scary socialist. He had a Senate Democratic majority for his first 6 years and a Dem House majority for his first 2 years, so I expected him to get more done. Was “complete fraud” a little much? Maybe. But I have fallen head over heels too many times with Democrat politicians, only to get my heart broken over and over again, so apologies for my acerbity. If I stick with the Dems any longer, I will die a political spinster, with no one but my apolitical emotional support companion cats to console me before eventually feeding on my corpse. That is why I’m taking a good long look at that grizzled casanova hunk known as Howie Hawkins. Look more closely at my post in the Democratic 2020 Presidential Primary Thread. I only argued that Trump CAN win, not that he WILL win. I reasoned that the unemployment benefits could potentially buttress the national economy through the November election and thereby mask the underlying crises. Don’t get so worked up over my prognostications. I acknowledge that I’m no better at predicting these things than anyone else here. If the tenuous rent and mortgage payment situation were to blow up and do so earlier than I predict (as early as this summer), I would then agree with you that Trump loses in a landslide. I’ll respond in my typical numerical format since I think it’s a bit easier to read: 1. MIC and interventionism: you are correct that these are technically separate issues. I usually link the two because interventionist policies are often the justification for requiring such a bloated defense budget. 2. Iran: let’s ignore the entirety of the ethical and human rights debate and focus solely on strategy. I suppose we can just contain the Iranian regime indefinitely, but we all ultimately want them to go away for good. We all want the country of Iran to cooperate internationally, to stop thinking about nuclear weapons, and to stop threatening Israel. Should we overthrow them by military force? No, way too costly for us. So then they must be overthrown internally. Should we do so by a CIA-organized coup? Nah, too much messy blowback and we already tried that before. Should we do so by economic sanctions? Maybe, but then the Iranian government can simply redirect all the blame towards the US as the sole reason for the Iranian people’s suffering (as they are doing now). Here’s the thing about the Iranian people: they are not at all brainwashed like the people of North Korea. They are a fairly modern society that is actually fairly well-informed of the world around them. There is the typical Middle Eastern disdain for American imperialism that is omnipresent, but there are also deeper undercurrents of disdain for their own theocratic overlords, especially among the more culturally liberal younger people. I would argue that the conditions for effective internal rebellion are best if the standard of living for Iranians increases by lifting US sanctions. Think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Less time worrying about the basics of food, clothing, and shelter. More time freed up to focus on Rouhani’s autocratic awfulness and on planning well-coordinated strikes and targeted non-violent resistances, as opposed to violent insurrections which historically tend to be much less successful. 3. Solutions for this economic crisis: I’m not necessarily against tax cuts right now, but I don’t think they will have nearly the impact that some on the political right are hoping. Tax cuts won’t help the impoverished Americans without jobs. A lot of Americans who still have jobs will probably just save/hoard a lot of the tax savings for a rainier day instead of spending it on goods and services (probably the wisest decision on their part, actually). Tax cuts for the wealthy are probably not going to help the economy much either right now, since excess capital isn’t likely to be diverted into new business enterprises if the anticipated consumer demand is in such bad shape. Same reason why I think deregulatory practices won’t be as impactful at the moment: poor consumer demand for new or expanding businesses. We also don’t need to be worried about the Fed printing money for temporary UBI’s like inflationary mad men. Normally we would, but in this specific crisis we should be more concerned with combating a deflationary freefall due to the sudden widespread collapse in consumer demand. Finally, the national debt is a concern as I mentioned, but a long-term one. A well-behaved modern monetary theorist would tell us to focus on the immediate crisis now and deal with the debt in a couple years. 4. Miscellaneous clarifications on my economic philosophy: we probably agree on much of the pork barrel legislation and wasteful government spending that occurs. Most of Pelosi’s coronavirus pork barrel insertions were purely political gambits and completely inappropriate during a time of crisis. I also strive to avoid appending moral labels like “evil” onto entities like corporations (except Amazon…). If you catch me doing so, it’s probably being done to highlight a key point, but feel free to call me out on it. I view big corporations, billionaires, Wall Street, capitalist systems, and the like as I view cars or airplanes: extremely useful and necessary, but also potentially dangerous in certain instances. I see many government institutions in a somewhat analogous way. Finally, I consider myself way more pragmatic than dogmatic. There are certain macroeconomic scenarios where the set of Chicago school economic philosophies are probably more appropriate, and certain scenarios where Keynesian solutions are more helpful. The difference between me and a libertarian here would be that the number of macroeconomic scenarios that call for Keynesian solutions is a lot larger for me than for a libertarian (typically around zero for them). 5. Environment/global warming: I have a habit of triggering y’all whenever I arrange the words “deal,” “new,” and “green” in a specific order, don’t I?! Later into the summer, I’ll talk more about this stuff in the GW thread. Minds will be BLOWN AWAY from all the great ideas. Great discussion as always, KRC. Don’t pull punches. Keep me challenged!

I think Trump. My reasons: 1. The national spotlight will begin to shift more equally toward Biden after the convention. I think Biden will mentally wither under this spotlight, especially at the debates. He also just doesn’t have the energy levels that Trump has, and this matters in a national crisis. Additionally, I’d say that Trump is much better at working the media than Biden. 2. The American conservative base is intrinsically more loyal and unified than America’s liberal base. Plus there’s too much accumulated left-wing scar tissue from the DNC chicanery in 2016 and 2020. 3. From a health perspective, I believe the worst is behind us even when accounting for the possibility of a second coronavirus wave in the fall. I can see the collective national psychology of this perceived “victory” easily working in the incumbent’s favor. 4. I certainly think we are facing a new economic depression, one that will permanently transform America on a political, economic, social, and international level. However, I don’t think the true misery will begin to be felt until after November when unemployment benefits start running out in large numbers. I think he has a chance, yes. See point #4 above. However, I would not bet any of my money on it. Too many variables and too much chaos between now and November.

I’m surprised that you’re surprised at the reaction! It was a provocative thread title that cuts to the visceral core of PPP. Since everyone else is airing their various Trump grievances, I will give your original question a shot as well: Hate is too strong of a word. I do not hate Trump. I strongly dislike many of his public policies. If I’m being honest with myself, I would probably forgive many of Trump’s “personality peccadillos” if he believed in the same policies that I do. I may be a far-left social democracy kind of girl, but believe it or not we are on the same page regarding Russiagate and Obamagate. I also do not care about defending Obama’s legacy, even though I voted for him in the past, because with the benefit of hindsight I see him now as a complete fraud. But getting back to why I dislike Trump…it boils down to 3 big-picture classes of public policy issues for me: 1. Continuation of America’s post-WW2 interventionist foreign policy: Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2016, which I greatly respected. And as it turns out, I see him as our greatest 21st century president on foreign policy so far, overcoming a very low bar set by Dubya (Iraq, Afghanistan) and Obama (add Syria, Libya). But what I have also seen is only a continued budgetary expansion of the already out-of-control military-industrial complex under Trump’s watch. There has also been no real large-scale reduction of our country’s military presence as the world police. This is probably not financially sustainable for us, especially given the most recent additions to the now $25.5 trillion national debt. Of course, there’s also the deeply troubling ethical quandaries to the Trumpian foreign policy such as dramatically increasing drone strikes in countries like Somalia, enforcing hard sanctions on the Iranian people, undermining Venezuelan sovereignty by propping up Juan Guaido, and supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen. 2. Rebranded supply-side economics from 1980: Trump ran as an economic nationalist in 2016, fighting for all these working-class manufacturing jobs lost to globalism. That was nice, but Trump’s highly touted USMCA is seen by most economists as little more than a slight variation of NAFTA. Trump also has never been one to support labor unions. Then we have all of Trump’s tax cuts to the very rich while wage growth continues to lag behind all the cost of living metrics for a majority of Americans. Then came the collective coronavirus coup de grace: massive corporate socialism without oversight in the first bailout bill, sweeping federal deregulation measures without any clarification of what regulations are considered frivolous and what aren’t (so we can avoid something like a repeat of the causes of the 2008 Great Recession), and grossly insufficient government-mandated protections for the most financially vulnerable Americans (basically, people outside the professional and managerial classes) compared to how most other Western countries responded to COVID-19 (yes, both Reps and Dems in Congress deserve blame here too). Trump now has a historically dire economic situation in his hands, with skyrocketing unemployment numbers and seemingly innumerable small businesses whose goods and services (restaurants, sports, etc.) may not return to normal consumption levels for a long while, if ever. So many Americans need money to spend but don’t have the money anymore to do so. To an amateur economist like myself, it seems to me that these are unusual times where Friedman dogma should be discarded in favor of good old-fashioned Keynesian stimulation for the lower and middle classes. If Trump is interested in a speedy economic recovery, he will need a large majority of Americans to return to their previous economic consumption levels as soon as possible, and this will require some level of government intervention in order to jumpstart an abruptly flatlined economy. But based on everything Trump has said and done to date, as well as based on all the advisors he surrounds himself with, I seriously doubt he will break away from conventional Republican economic wisdom. 3. Environmental protections and global warming: see my posts in the global warming thread for a complete description (if anyone is still reading this and cares about my opinions lol…). Basically, I think Trump is far and away the worst president in modern American history (i.e., since Nixon) on this set of issues. I find myself vehemently disapproving of just about everything he does when it comes to the environment. Ok I'm done. Sorry for the long post!!

Agreed. All these polls definitely matter, even if they are merely snapshots in time and the only time that truly matters is early November. Current polls indicate that Americans have a distinct problem with how Trump is handling COVID-19 at this moment. This is a very real national sentiment that we are quantifying. We are still 6.5 months away from the big day, however, which is a long time for Joe’s rapidly deteriorating brain. While some of these recent polls are interesting, I still can’t get over that Washington Post supporter enthusiasm poll in late March where Trump had such an enormous lead over Biden. The gap I believe was 29 percentage points. 53% to 24% or something like that. The enthusiasm polls are what I care about the most since we only count who cares enough to put in the effort to vote by the time early November arrives. So the two key demographics to track this summer are the Bernie base (working-class, Millenials, Latinos) and the over-65 crowd: The latter have been ditching Trump recently and coming over to Biden in droves, likely due to Trump’s callous handling of the coronavirus which has struck this demographic the hardest. Because old people are super reliable when it comes to actually voting, this new development is a potential game changer. The former are way more cynical in 2020 than they were in 2016. I don’t think Biden’s “unity task forces” will be enough to persuade them to stick with the Dems at anything close to the percentage level that Hillary maintained. Choosing a textbook neoliberal corporatist for VP like Klobuchar won’t help. If Biden cares at all about the support from the party’s progressive wing and seeks serious rapprochement, then for starters he needs to boldly support Medicare for All right now in the middle of this pandemic. I have seen recent polls showing M4A support up to 90% among Democrats and 70% among the overall US population, so this is no longer a fringe policy in America. I’m also following developments on the creation of the People’s Party. This seems like nothing more than a rebranding of the Green Party to me, but the amount of support they have by August may offer insight into just how much of the Democratic Party’s progressive left is jumping ship.

Qualitatively, many people refer to a “normal” climate as that which existed right before the start of the Industrial Revolution, with slight adjustments for any non-anthropogenic changes that have occurred since then. But for the purposes of science and energy policy, in most cases “normal” is a quantitative reference to averages of atmosphere and ocean climate data taken over the past 125 years or so and compiled by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Any scientific paper referencing “normal” climates will provide a more detailed description of how these numbers were calculated. When research gets interpreted and summarized by the mass media for the public, little details and annotations like these tend to get omitted. But I don’t think there is any deliberate dishonesty in play here. Note that the “normal” climate reference that is commonly in use does account for some man-made global warming. The concept of normality is about what’s acceptable and what’s not. The vast majority of the world’s modern farming system and civil infrastructure was put together with these twentieth-century climate averages in mind. There is no denial that climate is a dynamic entity, independent of man. The issue is how to explain the unprecedentedly sudden and stark changes (by geologic time scale standards) that have occurred curiously since the late 1800’s, but without the benefit of explanation from factors like large-scale volcanic activity or meteorite strikes. Anyone with a better explanation than man-induced greenhouse gas emissions will become a scientific legend. Assuming the $185 million in annual savings is accurate, that’s only 22 cents annually per NYC resident. Why not find other ways to balance the budget? And why not implement basic coronavirus protections for recycling facility workers instead of scrapping the whole enterprise altogether? Can’t the private US market find ways to pick up the slack of what China used to do for our recyclables? Won’t sending recyclables to landfills only speed up the need for additional landfills to be created? Doesn’t the use of recyclable materials instead of making new ones lower the overall manufacturing costs for companies? These are just some of the questions I have from this article. I appreciate creative ideas and outside-the-box thinking, but sometimes I’m amused by all the mental gymnastics that conservatives and neoliberals perform to avoid raising taxes ever so slightly on the uber-rich (especially on the financial elite here in Manhattan that continually receive government bailouts and clever tax evasion options).

The depth question is a tough one to answer. How many here are familiar with all 60 Buffalo Bills rosters from the past? I can say that this roster's depth is as good as any in the NFL right now. How many previous Bills teams could have ever said that? Maybe the early 90's and mid-60's rosters. The talent question is also tough. Are we referring to pure physical talent? If so, the Rex Ryan teams should be part of the discussion. If we are talking about actualized talent, I would say there's potential for skipping over 1999 and 1995 and moving right into 1993 territory. A lot will depend on the development and production of 6 players: Allen (year 3), Singletary (year 2), Diggs (year 6), Oliver (year 2), Edmunds (year 3), and White (year 4). I'm highlighting these 6 because I think they have the most potential on the roster to become Hall of Famers one day. And please note that I used the word "potential."

But general pollution and greenhouse gas pollution are two distinct classes of problems, both of which are too important to ignore. General pollution is much easier to explain to the public because the safety thresholds for heavy metals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals are comparatively tiny and easily demonstrable. Greenhouse gases are much more difficult to explain because of their “boiling-frog-slowly” effects and because the big names (water, carbon dioxide) are still completely harmless in incredibly large amounts. Hence the motivation for all the global warming histrionics to capture the public’s attention. But we agree that Bill Nye climate alarmist types are only embarrassing themselves with the “OMG we have 12 years before we all die!!” talk. I prefer a more stoic and intellectually honest strategy like “X ppm of carbon dioxide will lead to Y degrees Celsius temperature rise and Z meters of sea level rise that will create an estimated D dollars of global damage and an estimated N number of related human deaths within an estimated T years of time.” Or something like that. The scientists are there answering hard questions, but “there” is almost always a science conference or a scientific journal article. Between the jargon-laden scientists and the public is supposed to be this amazingly efficacious pipeline of communication consisting of popular science journalists, mainstream media personnel, public science promoters, and politicians. Something has gone awry among these communication middlemen. I believe the cause is a combination of widespread scientific illiteracy and the corruptible influence of money. Computer models are ubiquitous throughout every subject of science and engineering these days, so it is not unusual or suspicious for climatologists to lean heavily on them. Even if we all agreed that global warming (man-made or natural) is both occurring and unavoidable, it still leads us into a similarly contentious conversation of what role government has in helping our country adapt to a new Earth. As it turns out, I was in agreement with many of Moore’s takes on the subject before watching the documentary: 1. Renewable energies like solar and wind are overrated when you look at their entire energy life cycle (beginning from material production) and including their location limitations, gross energy production, and deleterious impact on certain aspects of the environment. 2. Biomass fuels are no good, for the most part, especially when the biomasses are forests. 3. Overpopulation, overconsumption, and unrestrained capitalism are the true problems. 4. Prominent environmental activists and organizations are corrupt and hypocritical in many instances (surprised by Bill McKibben though…). My biggest complaints with the documentary: 1. No countervailing references to the many more ways that government and the media are corrupted by fossil fuel industry money (as opposed to the ways that renewable energy industries are shown in the documentary to be favored). 2. Ridiculously superficial coverage of Green New Deal progress made in Europe. 3. Did not really address potential solutions. Just off the top of my head: nuclear energy industry investments, research into thorium-based nuclear power plants, research into nuclear fusion reactors, latest research into replacements for the internal combustion engine and the jet engine, terraforming possibilities, and the impact of veganism. Moore could have left the documentary on a more hopeful note by spending 15-30 additional minutes on solutions. Or maybe Moore’s intention was to leave the viewers on a pessimistic note so to galvanize them into action? 4. This seemed to be more of a polemic directed within the internal environmental left community. I would have reframed the movie’s content with the general American public as the intended audience. Seems like a major lost opportunity here. FWIW, this is a very controversial documentary that is already getting viciously attacked for inaccuracies. Something to keep in mind.

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! To clarify, the NFL roster numbers for the 2020 season are 48 active, 53 total, and 12 practice squad, with any 2 from the practice squad eligible as part of the active 48 on gameday. I made two minor changes to my OP: Fromm in place of Yeldon and Hodgins in place of McKenzie. Full comments below: K (1): Hauschka...coronavirus may drastically shorten training camp and preseason, so it's generally safer to stick with the vet initially and store Bass on the PS as one of the potential 2 gameday call-ups. Is Bass safe on the PS? I think so. Not sure. We'll know more by August. P (1): Bojorquez...same plan as above. Send Vedvik to the PS and plan to start the season with the guy more familiar with the winds at RWS. LS (1): Ferguson...no change. QB (3): Allen, Barkley, Fromm...gotta keep the vet who's been in Daboll's system for 2 years. Fromm isn't safe on the PS. RB (3): Singletary, Moss, Jones...I'm cutting Yeldon because I believe both Singletary and Moss are fully capable of splitting his third-down duties as a receiving outlet and as a pass blocker. Wade will be a great injury call-up from the PS and might even be able to steal Taiwan's job in preseason? FB (1): DiMarco...Gilliam to bide his time on the PS. WR (6): Diggs, Brown, Beasley, Davis, Hodgins, Roberts...the toughest position group for me to predict. I agree that Hodgins can't be stored on the PS. Davis and Hodgins are likely upgrades over Duke Williams. Davis can also take Foster's gunner spot. Foster hasn't developed enough as a WR. I think McKenzie's gadget plays can go to Tawian Jones instead? Ray-Ray go bye-bye. What a difference from 2018's group! TE (3): Kroft, Knox, Sweeney...while all 3 need to work on their blocking technique, Lee Smith is too limited on the field to stick around. Also, Smith just committed 2 more penalties as I typed this sentence. T (4): Dawkins, Williams, Nsekhe, Ford...Adams is ideal PS material. G (3): Spain, Feliciano, Boehm...Bates is still eligible for PS, right? C (2): Morse, Long...my theme for the OL is to stick with the vets. It is critical that Allen remains healthy and happy in his third year of development. DT (5): Oliver, Butler, Jefferson, Lotulelei, Phillips...I think y'all are going to be pleasantly surprised with Butler. I think he wins the 1-tech starting job. DE (5): Hughes, Epenesa, Addison, Murphy, D. Johnson...a bit surprised by all the Murphy hate. He's an excellent backup. The salary cap savings should be irrelevant this year. Johnson has too much potential not to be stored on the roster as one of the 5 inactives to start the season. LB (6): Edmunds, Milano, Klein, Thompson, Matakevich, Joseph...huge dropoff from Edmunds if he gets injured. Can Klein and Matakevich handle emergency inside duties?? S (4): Hyde, Poyer, Neal, J. Johnson...Neal and Johnson are very underrated backups. CB (5): White, Wallace, T. Johnson, Norman, Gaines...store Jackson on the PS until Gaines inevitably injures himself. A bit rude, no? My user name is “RealKayAdams,” not “FakeKayAdams.” Q.E.D. I would never question whether or not you are the real Will Ferrell character from the Step Brothers movie. Probably not even as a distant relative. Trey is officially listed as 6’8” 330 lb. I officially list myself as 5’5” 115 lb before all the quarantine delivery food.