Both can be true. Democrats tend to dominate the lowest income quintile, while Republicans tend to win the second and third quintiles. So if you're only looking at the bottom quintile, Democrats would win that cohort. If you combine the bottom three quintiles, Republicans would win it.
That doesn’t make sense either. Democrats won the popular vote of the $100k+ crowd in 2024.
And of course if can be both, I said this in a separate response that this isn’t a black and white conversation, which is why I responded to begin with to the responder.
Whoever had the idea of revoking business and professional licenses of those behind on paying their kids were real geniuses. I can understand doing it after a contempt hearing where it was determined the person absolutely will not be using them to help the child.... but an administrative revocation for being delinquent is insane.
It's crazy how obsessed America is with kicking people in the teeth when they are down. Your kids are broke? Sorry, we won't help you, but how about we take away your ability to work domestically or abroad.
The first catch of Super Heavy by the chopsticks was 18 months ago. Tesla started mass production of a dedicated, steering-wheel-free robotaxi five days ago. The first flight of the new Raptor 3 engine should happen any day now.
Elon is doing amazing things on a regular basis. What would drive someone to pretend otherwise?
There is no mass production of Tesla robotaxis. The most generous interpretation of the claim of mass production is that they are no longer handcrafted by a prototype shop, and that work has moved into a Tesla facility. But that's not a production line, and that's not mass production.
Every Tesla car that hasn't got someone in the driver's seat with the steering wheel in front of them is being followed by a chase car and a remote operator.
But this is all fresh BS. How many times has Elon claimed that Tesla semi is in mass production?
This rude reddit stuff, this snarky ignorance-as-an-argument junk, is just so demeaning.
The role of the entrepreneur is to organize labor and capital in pursuit of their goals. The achievement of said goals can obviously be attributed to the entrepreneur.
Try anchoring your arguments in facts--in reality. Make assertions. Form syllogisms. Word games are for children.
The definition of usury hasn't changed in 200 years.
From Webster's 1828 Edition:
U'SURY, noun s as z. [Latin usura, from utor, to use.]
1. Formerly, interest; or a premium paid or stipulated to be paid for the use of money.
[Usury formerly denoted any legal interest, but in this sense, the word is no longer in use.]
2. In present usage, illegal interest; a premium or compensation paid or stipulated to be paid for the use of money borrowed or retained, beyond the rate of interest established by law.
There is something insidious about the state forcing a citizen to pay for its services, only turn around and insist that the use of said services entitles the state to further control of the citizen.
The power of the judiciary to "interpret" the constitution was a huge chink in the armor of the Constitutional order. A handful of unelected judges can effectively amend the constitution via simple majority, but can only be "overruled" by the people if there is extremely broad opposition (as a constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of both houses)--which is, of course, a total inversion of the democratic-republican principles which brought our country into being. The practical effect is that, while the people have some limited democratic control over the government, control of the state has been wrested away from them by the Judiciary. This was fine so long as the Judiciary saw themselves as honest arbiters of the constitutional order, but the moment the Judiciary began to see themselves as architects rather than mere arbiters, the constitutional order was at an end.
The check elected officials have on this is to pack the courts. This is what FDR threatened to do to get through (at the time unconstitutional, now magically "not") a bunch of popular legislation.
FDR is written about phenomenally in US history books for reasons that don't seem to match the reality of what happened. We can separate foreign policy wins from domestic policy losses, just like we do now.
The now-heralded New Deal was getting torn apart by the Supreme Court, program after program for half the decade. And the remaining parts of the New Deal still exist on shaky constitutional ground if you really look at how much of an abberation they are and how they survived. Spoiler alert, for things that remain its nearly impossible to get standing in Federal Courts to question them and the people that could get standing aren't interested and benefit from them.
FDR threatened to pack the courts, just like modern presidents and party constituents demand.
It was actually very partial that the FDR-era Supreme Court backed off from that threat. So to consider our current Supreme Court to be the aberration is inaccurate, it is even more autonomous.
Everything I look at gives me the opposite conclusion of the public discourse, except when I'm in very small legal circles.
Isolating yourself to small legal circles can unfortunately open yourself to the vulnerability of mistakenly appealing to the authority of legal training that has specifically been tailored for success in the system we're in, which may optimize for coming to conclusions that help you win cases rather than optimizing for some other analysis. Looking at the bigger picture is an entirely different skill set than having legal training to be a good lawyer, so I think it's folly to place in special stake in "small legal circles" for this and in the worst case, might usher you into an echo chamber built out of practical adaptation.
If I wanted a healthy view I might include those with legal backgrounds but they would only be a small selection of the landscape of ideas to draw from, I certainly wouldn't place special stock in the "legal" community.
I'll watch out for that. But ultimately I do want my view of the world to be the law of the land, which means "win cases", specifically reflecting my view and my currently obscure arguments. My observation is that populist arguments are the ones that fail because they don't understand the mechanisms and obscurity.
A now-less-obscure view is based on the observation that the New Deal used a completely novel and expansive view of the interstate commerce clause that completely subjugated the states and essentially created a parallel nation overlaying the collection of states - what was called the Federal government for practicing federalism was now only nominally federal, as Congress now only grants exceptions for state autonomy just to retain support on occasion. Despite how disruptive it would be to review this arrangement, this 100 year use of the interstate commerce clause is completely on shaky constitutional ground
The entire federal agency apparatus could be Thanos-snapped out of existence, just like the 1930s Supreme Court was doing
(I don't want that specific thing to happen, and I don't see the alternate federal authority for most of the agencies and their regulations if it were to happen, so that would be very disruptive)
I don't view the New Deal changes in constitutionality as prevailing through some from of reasoning of arguments per se, just projection of power. Projection of power is unlikely to be changed through lawfare. Usually it is not relinquished without violence. The violence that set the stage for consolidation of federal power, IMO, was in large part the civil war (removal of secession as a check on federal power, IMO the most powerful check states had) but of course also the concerns from the aftermath of WWI.
The fact the ICC was used is the least consequential part of the whole thing. That's just what was picked by the whig-gods to present legitimacy to the projection of power. Could have just as well been a proclamation from god under some other system. If the ICC expansion non-sense is struck out of some kind of convenience for some matter they are attending to, I don't think it changes much, just means the priest will utter some other magic phrase.
Only if it could be done in an apolitical way, which seems impossible in the current political climate. The legitimacy of the US Federal Government depends on the perceived continuity of the (now mythical) constitutional order. If one party or the other packs the court without bipartisan support for their nominees in the Senate, it would be denounced by the other as an authoritarian end-run around the constitution--as a revolutionary rather than a mere procedural act. IMO this would be more likely to foment disunion than it would be to restore the bygone constitutional order.
The fabrication of legitimacy is indeed the main task of the supreme court.
However violence is another way to project legitimacy. Putting someone away for life or drone striking a goat farmer provides real legitimate proof of power.
The government is much stronger than it was 100 or 200 years ago. So perhaps it can dispense with appearances of judicial legitimacy using the currency of violence. It's not clear they need to continue with the fiction of an impartial court to hold their grasp; like a space ship they can jettison that hallowed out rocket having already safely been placed into orbit.
The size of the Supreme court is not defined in the Constitution. So, packing the court is not unconstitutional. It is dishonest and shady as hell. But, the only check on the power of each branch are the other two branches that don't desire to be sidelined by one branch growing more powerful. All three branches are supposed to be in contention for power within the bounds of their interpretation of the Constitution. It is the duty of the other two branches to deem an action of the third branch as unconstitutional.
But, the system has been broken over time. Congress abdicated the majority of their power to the executive and somehow judicial became the official arbiters of constitutionality.
On being interrupted, "It's difficult to describe. Something like a physical sensation."
This is extremely relatable. I'm pretty confident that this physical sensation is related to my (rather severely) limited working memory, which I have to carefully manage at maximum capacity and which is catastrophically overwhelmed by some interruptions. A token interruption ("hey, do you have a sec"?) Doesn't tend to cause the sensation, but an interruption that contains data ("I called Greg about the plan for Wednesday and he said that Susan said...") is psychologically painful and even enraging in an oddly visceral sort of way.
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