US Political News and Trump’s China visit

My local water department in Oklahoma hasn't passed an audit in years either.

Audit letter is always amusing.

Latest failed audit was blamed on the head of the water department's 86 year old aunt who passed away last fall after three years in a facility battling dementia. She was the bookkeeper.

 
Some areas have seen a $1/gallon price increase on Wednesday.


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Some areas have seen a $1/gallon price increase on Wednesday.


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With a refinery still down in Texas and the summer driving season just a few weeks away, this will be bad for the administration.
 
Not looking good for dems for mid terms
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This is yet another huge L by the Democratic party. If these court decisions were so crucial why were they never codified into law ? Courts can say one thing today and the complete opposite 50 years later.

I've posted numerous times here that Democrats ALWAYS need a hot button issue. Roe is / was such an issue. Still is but not like it was.

How many times in the past 30 or 40 years when the Democrats controlled both chambers along with the WH did they codify these hot button issues?

Now, they call for term limits for the Supreme Court and impeaching the justices along with packing the Court. What they should be calling for is term limits for themselves. They are the problem. Not the Supreme Court.
 
What really worries me every day is the absolute cognitive dissonance of our current fiscal path. I’ve been obsessed with math since I was a little kid, and as a stock investor, I watch and observe these numbers constantly. While the average guy probably doesn't give a damn about these metrics, I’m looking at them and seeing a disastrous direction for our country's well-being.

Our debt-to-GDP ratio has officially hit 137 percent. We owe way more than our entire economy actually produces in a year. This is the kind of staggering leverage we haven't seen since World War II, but the difference is we aren't winding down, we’re doubling down.

Right now, the government is staring at a 1 trillion dollar annual bill just for interest payments. That’s capital being vaporized into the ether. It doesn't build a single road or fund a single school; it’s just the exorbitant price of past overspending.

And what’s the supposedly "fiscally conservative" response to this? On one hand, you’ve got a massive push to hike defense spending from 900 billion to 1.5 trillion dollars. On the other, they’re gutting revenue by handing out massive tax breaks to big corporations and the filthy rich. Sure, they throw some crumbs at the little guy so it looks like a tax break for everyone, but anyone who can actually read a balance sheet sees the scam.

You don't have to be a genius or a mathematician to see the pincer movement here. We’re blowing out our liabilities while intentionally killing our income. Look, as a small business owner, if I ever tried to run my ledger like this, I would be bankrupt and out of business in less than a year. No question about it. Yet, we’re supposed to believe this is sound policy for a nation.

While we're told to celebrate these mythical tax breaks, the reality is the little guy is getting bled dry at the grocery store and the gas pump just to subsidize the corporate suite.
 
GOP or MAGA are not going to abandon Trump no matter what. Politics has unfortunately become a team sport for many. However the question is where do the Independents go and that faction is undoubtedly moving away from Trump and feeling buyer's remorse. Now will they show up at the polls in November and in 2028 ?

The fault for all this still lies with Mr Biden and the Democratic party for not allowing people to choose the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2024 election.
You’re absolutely right, for the MAGA core, politics is a team sport and they aren't switching jerseys. But the real story is the Independents. Since Trump’s 2024 victory, that faction has hit a wall. Between the Iran conflict and gas prices that are gutting the average worker's budget, Independents aren't just feeling "buyer's remorse" they are actively jumping ship.

We are seeing this play out in the data, not just the headlines, look at the governor races in New Jersey and Virginia. Democrats swept those because Independents prioritized pragmatism over the chaos of the current administration. Just weeks ago, Democrats flipped two legislative seats in Florida, one of which was literally in the district covering Mar-a-Lago. When you lose your own backyard, you have a math problem.

From special elections in Tennessee to local races in Pennsylvania and New York, the pattern is the same. Democrats aren't winning because their base is growing; they’re winning because Independents are rejecting Trump-allied candidates.

The GOP is clearly banking on the Supreme Court's recent redistricting victory to gerrymander their way into a 2028 majority. It’s a cynical play that will likely cost many Black Democrats their seats in the South. But here’s the thing, it can't stop a massive wave of Independents who are tired of being bled dry at the grocerys store and the pump.

I also agree with you on the Biden side of the ledger. He broke his promise to be a "transitional" candidate. By bypassing a proper primary in 2024, the Democratic party ignored the voters and missed a huge chance to build momentum with a fresh face.
 
This is yet another huge L by the Democratic party. If these court decisions were so crucial why were they never codified into law ? Courts can say one thing today and the complete opposite 50 years later.

I completely agree that codifying those rights would have been the best move, but looking back, the math was always stacked against it. It’s a common critique, but it’s helpful to see why it was such a struggle.

To pass anything that major, you need 60 votes to clear a filibuster. Because of how the Senate is set up, the GOP has a built-in advantage with smaller red states, meaning Democrats can only get a majority by winning in red states. Those "Moderate Democrats" are often in a tough spot, if they vote for a controversial federal bill, they’d likely lose their seats in the next election.

So even when it looked like the party had a majority, they never really had 60 reliable votes to get it done. It’s less of a "choice" and more of a structural trap created by the way the Senate is built. I wish it were simpler, but the numbers just never aligned.
 
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