2026 Mid-Term Elections

[Derec]

Presidents do not legislate.

Do tell.

Despite current Congress’s cowardice in allowing Trump to “legislate” by fiat or executive order as they used to be called.

It's not like Trump invented the concept. EO's have been used a lot by Biden and Obama as well. They have limited scope though - for example a lefty president could use an EO to ban fracking on federal lands.
And while "presidents do not legislate", they do have an influence over the legislative agenda. That's why Republican Congress passed the Big Beautiful Bill and why the Democratic Congress almost passed the Build Back Better Spendapalooza. This only failed because of a slim majority and a few holdouts, and not because Biden was not able to whip the vast majority of the Democratic Caucus into shape.

Note that Kamala Harris is aware of the distinction too. When she promised to ban fracking and offshore drilling she made a distinction between the overall plan - where she needs Congress to go along - and what she can do on Day 1 via an executive order.

That does not change that the president, as the de-facto leader of his or her party, has a huge influence over the legislative agenda when his party has the majority.

Btw, I was not a fan of Obama issuing so many executive orders, either, both on principle and because I was certain that the next GOP POTUS would also do so and take it steps further. An instance in which I wish I had been wrong.

Exactly!

 

[Derec]

None of which proves Jimmy, laughing dog, and I live under rocks.

It's a proverbial rock. A metaphor.

 

[Toni]

They do actually know, and do not care, who their allies are so long as they get what they want.

Increasingly that is also true with Democrats, as their embrace of the likes of Platner and Piker shows.

Increasingly?! Fucking fuck man.

Yes, they are increasingly embracing highly problematic allies like Hasan "US deserved 9/11" Piker and candidates like Graham "are we the baddies?" Platner. That is exactly what Politesse was talking about re Republicans, but these days it also applies to Democrats.

Platner is a newb in Maine. He is also isn't leading with "CRAZY".

He may be a "newb", but he is right now the uncontested nominee for US Senate. And is a Nazi tattoo and praise of Hamas not bad enough for you?

Also, who the heck Piker?

I think you are missing a verb here.

In any case, as Politesse said, he is a far left/fauxgressive streamer. He is also a tankie, an antisemite, a Hamas supporter, and is very popular with Gen Z. So much so that he has been dubbed "the Joe Rogan of the Left", although "Nick Fuentes of the Left" might be more appropriate.
He is also doing more than just endorsing "progressive" candidates. Many are kissing the ring by going on his stream. He is also campaigning with leftist candidates like Abdul El-Sayed. I posted a photo from his campaign rally in post #185.
All this bolsters my point that the below statement applies to many Dems as well.

They do actually know, and do not care, who their allies are so long as they get what they want.

FWIW, the Democratic party is not in charge of who attempts to latch on and make themselves famous by being the new idiot on the web. I'm certain that you are aware that their 'stances' have nothing to do with actual beliefs and more about $$.

As far as Platner goes, we really really really need to keep influencers out of politics. It's still all about money for them, although it is tempting to believe that anyone is an improvement over Susan Collins.

 

[Derec]

You forgot the initial plea deal had no jail time (credit for the one day in jail already served) which was rejected by the presiding judge.

I did not want to get bogged down in details. The important point is that the state prosecuted the felony case initially, and failed to get a conviction.

And that this creep does not have to register as a sex offender.

Why are you so certain that he is guilty? That the jury deadlocked suggests that the case was not cut and dried.

 

[Derec]

FWIW, the Democratic party is not in charge of who attempts to latch on and make themselves famous by being the new idiot on the web. I'm certain that you are aware that their 'stances' have nothing to do with actual beliefs and more about $$.

But Democratic politicians are charge of their own behavior. They can choose who they campaign with and on whose streams they appear.
And DNC could technically withdraw all support from anybody associating with Piker.

although it is tempting to believe that anyone is an improvement over Susan Collins.

I disagree. Collins is a moderate Republican.

 

[laughing dog]

Never heard of either. So certainly not in the main stream media I read .

Which media to you consume? There have been articles about him in many outlets across the political spectrum. Including NY Times and NPR among many others.

Mainstream Dems dismiss the danger coming from him at their peril.

He hasn’t made the Economist or any midwestern papers I read. Don’t listen to NPR much.

 

[Jarhyn]

I don't live under a rock either. I think for the most part influencers are morons.

That does not change the fact that they have influence over people, especially Gen Z and younger Millennials.
If Hasan Piker didn't, El-Sayed would not be campaigning with him. If he didn't, all these Dem candidates would not be appearing on his stream.

None of which proves Jimmy, laughing dog, and I live under rocks.

I wonder if I'm sufficiently "under a rock"?

I've never heard of him either.

It looks for all intents and purposes like the interest in him by the right is to buoy him to recognition as a straw man candidate because he is easy to attack and while attacking him does not actually address the positions of more sane candidates, the fact that they have named him an adversary despite the fact that nobody really takes him seriously will somehow lead into crowing about a mandate against his policies.

 

[laughing dog]

You forgot the initial plea deal had no jail time (credit for the one day in jail already served) which was rejected by the presiding judge.

I did not want to get bogged down in details. The important point is that the state prosecuted the felony case initially, and failed to get a conviction.

And then came up with such a sweet plea bargain that the judge rejected it. Which suggests perhaps he received special consideration.

And that this creep does not have to register as a sex offender.

Why are you so certain that he is guilty? That the jury deadlocked suggests that the case was not cut and dried.

I didn’t say he was guilty. I said he was a creep.

 

[Derec]

Whatever the cause? A better question to ask is why did the oil markets panic like that with the Russian invasion of Ukraine...

I think it has to do with proximity to the Pandemic. Pandemic destroyed a lot of demand for a time, which tanked oil prices (futures were even in the negatives for a brief time). That led to production being reduced and new projects being delayed, which made the market more vulnerabnle to shocks.

meanwhile show a decent amount of restraint over the Pandora's box that is the Strait of Hormuz that Netanyahu and Trump opened with Iran.

It is not Trump and Netanyahu who opened this Pandora's box. While I think that a war with Iran has been inevitable ever since the theocrats took power in 1979, this current conflict has its origin in Gaza's invasion of Israel on 10/7/2023. No 10/7, I do not think we would be in a war with Iran right now.

Are we even fracking that much these days?

We are. Otherwise US production of oil and natural gas could not be sustained at these levels. More than half of our oil and gas comes from fracked wells.

Can you imagine the disruption to the economy had Sanders, Warren or Harris been elected in 2020 and implemented their fracking ban?

Oil needs to be above a certain level to justify the cost of fracking.

Sure, but it's not like the oil price has crashed below the profitability threshold. And while that threshold varies, even reducing fracking by half would take at least 3 Mbbl/d off the market. Oil prices would have to be very low indeed (indicating either soft demand or supply glut) for that to be viable.

The fracking boom took foot during the Obama Administration,

Just because something happened during an administration does not mean it happened because of an administration. It was a private sector development.
And in fact, despite his lip service to "all of the above" energy policy, Obama tried to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline just to appease the unhinged far left protesters and rioters. The DAPL is necessary to bring fracked oil from the Bakken formation to market.

continued through Trump, but it certainly has lightened up.

New drilling may have slowed down, but there is still a lot of fracked oil and gas production.

 

[Jarhyn]

You forgot the initial plea deal had no jail time (credit for the one day in jail already served) which was rejected by the presiding judge.

I did not want to get bogged down in details. The important point is that the state prosecuted the felony case initially, and failed to get a conviction.

And then came up with such a sweet plea bargain that the judge rejected it. Which suggests perhaps he received special consideration.

And that this creep does not have to register as a sex offender.

Why are you so certain that he is guilty? That the jury deadlocked suggests that the case was not cut and dried.

I didn’t say he was guilty. I said he was a creep.

[removed]
Derec is defending this creep, when despite no court having found Martin of Floyd guilty of anything, he's all too ready to impugn character based on much thinner mere claims and emotional arguments.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

None of which proves Jimmy, laughing dog, and I live under rocks.

It's a proverbial rock. A metaphor.

You assumed I was literal. Again, I do not live under a _figurative_ rock. Nor do others here.

 

[Jarhyn]

None of which proves Jimmy, laughing dog, and I live under rocks.

It's a proverbial rock. A metaphor.

You assumed I was literal. Again, I do not live under a _figurative_ rock. Nor do others here.

I mean, I kind of do and do not? For all some folks lie about not really being on much of the internet, I have no more than 5-7 websites I regularly visit.

While I check Reddit for new stuff occasionally, it's reddit, this place, a few different art porn sites, a couple web comics, kinky BlueSky, the Wandering Inn website, and then YouTube/Disney+/Hulu/Amazon.

Maybe a few websites for various projects components?

If anyone lives under a rock, it's going to be me probably... But I'm also one of the more active "leftist" voices around here, and I tend to know at least a little bit about "leftist" candidates in various races.

That said, if I hear a name of a "leftist" politician for the first time from a Republican, the conclusions I almost invariably reach are: the candidate does not matter in the least to a race; some other candidate the Republican did not name scares the everliving shit out of them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Where does Derec hear about these people, False Equivalence Weekly?

I do not know what rock you have been hiding behind not to hear about Hasan Piker's influence on fauxgressive Dems. He has been in the news a lot.

I watch CBC and/or Reuters in the morning. I listen to NPR, read NPR, SCOTUS Blog, Electoral-Vote.com, WashPo, NY Times, and BBC.

He has never been reported on any of those things in any of the things I've read or listened to. Though in doing a search he has published Op-Eds in NY Times and NPR has done a piece of two on him. I don't Twitch, TikTok, Instagram. I barely Facebook. So, I'm far from hip when it comes to who are the influencers.

Also, I fail to see how this is "false equivalence".

I'm not surprised.

 

[Toni]

FWIW, the Democratic party is not in charge of who attempts to latch on and make themselves famous by being the new idiot on the web. I'm certain that you are aware that their 'stances' have nothing to do with actual beliefs and more about $$.

But Democratic politicians are charge of their own behavior. They can choose who they campaign with and on whose streams they appear.
And DNC could technically withdraw all support from anybody associating with Piker.

although it is tempting to believe that anyone is an improvement over Susan Collins.

I disagree. Collins is a moderate Republican.

Collins likes to play will she or won’t she for as long as she can get the attention. Since she reliably ends up voting for the Republicans, it always puzzles me that she continues to get any attention.

 

[Toni]

None of which proves Jimmy, laughing dog, and I live under rocks.

It's a proverbial rock. A metaphor.

You assumed I was literal. Again, I do not live under a _figurative_ rock. Nor do others here.

I mean, I kind of do and do not? For all some folks lie about not really being on much of the internet, I have no more than 5-7 websites I regularly visit.

While I check Reddit for new stuff occasionally, it's reddit, this place, a few different art porn sites, a couple web comics, kinky BlueSky, the Wandering Inn website, and then YouTube/Disney+/Hulu/Amazon.

Maybe a few websites for various projects components?

If anyone lives under a rock, it's going to be me probably... But I'm also one of the more active "leftist" voices around here, and I tend to know at least a little bit about "leftist" candidates in various races.

That said, if I hear a name of a "leftist" politician for the first time from a Republican, the conclusions I almost invariably reach are: the candidate does not matter in the least to a race; some other candidate the Republican did not name scares the everliving shit out of them.

I think I’m not on the internet very much but my phone regularly informs me otherwise…

I have been reading WaPo for decades but in recent years haven’t bothered with the Opinions pages. I did today and omg. We need to eliminate all billionaires by taxing them down to size.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

FWIW, the Democratic party is not in charge of who attempts to latch on and make themselves famous by being the new idiot on the web. I'm certain that you are aware that their 'stances' have nothing to do with actual beliefs and more about $$.

But Democratic politicians are charge of their own behavior. They can choose who they campaign with and on whose streams they appear.
And DNC could technically withdraw all support from anybody associating with Piker.

although it is tempting to believe that anyone is an improvement over Susan Collins.

I disagree. Collins is a moderate Republican.

Collins likes to play will she or won’t she for as long as she can get the attention. Since she reliably ends up voting for the Republicans, it always puzzles me that she continues to get any attention.

Collins is one main reason the ACA still exists. She also helped kill Roe v Wade. Wish the damn stakes weren't so high.

 

[Toni]

FWIW, the Democratic party is not in charge of who attempts to latch on and make themselves famous by being the new idiot on the web. I'm certain that you are aware that their 'stances' have nothing to do with actual beliefs and more about $$.

But Democratic politicians are charge of their own behavior. They can choose who they campaign with and on whose streams they appear.
And DNC could technically withdraw all support from anybody associating with Piker.

although it is tempting to believe that anyone is an improvement over Susan Collins.

I disagree. Collins is a moderate Republican.

Collins likes to play will she or won’t she for as long as she can get the attention. Since she reliably ends up voting for the Republicans, it always puzzles me that she continues to get any attention.

Collins is one main reason the ACA still exists. She also helped kill Roe v Wade. Wish the damn stakes weren't so high.

Yeah, she throws us a bone once in a while, I suppose trying to stay relevant.

I think it’s all about $$.

 

[scombrid]

Project 2025 is fake nothing burger but this Piker guy is yuuuggggeee!

 

[bilby]

None of which proves Jimmy, laughing dog, and I live under rocks.

It's a proverbial rock. A metaphor.

You assumed I was literal. Again, I do not live under a _figurative_ rock. Nor do others here.

I live (down)under the third rock from the Sun, and had never heard of Piker until I read this thread.

 

[Jarhyn]

None of which proves Jimmy, laughing dog, and I live under rocks.

It's a proverbial rock. A metaphor.

You assumed I was literal. Again, I do not live under a _figurative_ rock. Nor do others here.

I live (down)under the third rock from the Sun, and had never heard of Piker until I read this thread.

See, this utterly reeks of a selected opposition. They would prefer Piker be the candidate because they think he is defeatable, so they are blasting his name everywhere.

In some respects, I think any time we hear a name first from Republicans, we should ask ourselves WHY we are hearing a name from Republicans.