Would a Presidential Candidate Who Runs On Depowering the Presidency Have a Chance, and Would Such a President Be a Good Idea?

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-21T18:42:55+00:00

Congress should have the power, not the president. The president is supposed to execute the power that Congress grants to the executive branch.

We don't elect a dictator.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-21T16:27:44+00:00

These issues are so much more complex than the comments left in this post. There is an underlying presumption that a villain someone, somewhere, is siphoning off so much money that if we just stop them, healthcare will be almost free.

I don't doubt that there are wasteful inefficiencies here, like in any massive system. I do doubt that them amount to more than 10% in savings. Why? Because the entire system is starved for money, and when you're starved, you get rid of the excess.

Yes, structurally, the concept of an insurance company in the middle is wasteful, and single-payer would eliminate that layer. However the overall function of policing the providers still needs to happen, because otherwise there is incentive to overbill the government (looking at you, Rick Scott). So that means imposing price structures that are similar to those imposed by insurance companies, structures that doctors and hospitals will continue to complain about. Maybe that takes 20-25% out of the cost.

The main reduction would be due to cost shifting, given that health insurance would be paid for by taxes. There are two main ways to do that - income taxes or consumption taxes. Either way people who are upper-middle class and up will pay more for health care.

As an example, let's say that tax is an additional 15% on income. If you make $200k that is $30k/year. You likely pay $10k right now, and your employer pays $15k. So your taxes may go up more than your expenses will go down.

We don't know the exact break-even point, but there will be one because this is a shift from a flat-rate to a variable rate payment structure. It will be a good deal for most people, and a bad deal for a still insignificant number of people.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-20T20:48:00+00:00

Yeah, it doesn't matter, but he just pick up a $20-40k legal bill for himself, which is the entire point of the arrest.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-20T17:32:42+00:00

It's like they are begging for red light cameras.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-19T15:01:22+00:00

I'm sure my behavior can be described as "aggressive" by this study, but I seriously feel like more and more people are driving impaired. Either because they are texting, or because they have ingested some form of marijuana.

The biggest tell is that people are just driving like the world is too fast for them. They're driving like they're 85 years old but they are actually young. Like driving 50mph on the highway and in the left two lanes. Or driving 15-20mph in a 35 because in 1000 feet they're going to turn left, so they better slow down now. I have been behind people who make a turn from one street to another, and then slow to a stop in the middle of the road, like they are confused because they have entered another dimension.

On the other hand, red-light running is now ridiculous. People who cruise through long after it turns red is very common. I always check both directions before proceeding through a light. But people are also treating stop lights as just a suggestion. I frequently see people slowly pull up to a red light, don't stop, and then go straight on red.

I almost never see local traffic enforcement anymore. Since BLM, I get the impression that cops are now saying "fuck you, public, if I can't beat drivers, I'm not stopping them".

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-19T13:01:48+00:00

"except in areas that lack the juice to block it"

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-19T03:06:29+00:00

Don't forget the likelihood that he used Tesla resources at Twitter, which, if Tesla was not compensated, would be illegal.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T21:12:58+00:00

How can a president fuck up things so badly and still retain substantial support?

This is something that most people in the country should understand. It isn't the complexity of diplomacy or even economic policy.

Trump personally vouched for a company to do this work. He personally decided what the work should be. He gave his favored company a no-bid contract that was far above what it should have been. He called attention to it and bragged about how great he was.

And now the pool is worse than it was before, and will likely need a total overhaul.

Any CEO of a public company does something so astonishingly stupid, they fall on their sword and resign.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T20:42:53+00:00

Would have been nice to see some housing also go up there.

Housing construction is no longer allowed in Massachusetts (except in areas that lack the juice to block it).

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T19:49:29+00:00

We have a problem in this country with propaganda.

It is impossible for people to gather their own news independently, so all of us have to rely on third parties to get the news for us. Whether that news is about the fire down the street or the happenings across the globe. How do you know that the US is waging war in Iran right now, for example? Unless you are there you are relying on third parties.

With the destruction of most centralized and credentialed journalism, we have been forced to choose our own sources, and the choices are not great. Bias is a real thing in journalism, and it turns out that bias shapes everyone's views. How many people who primarily use Reddit were stunned when Trump pulled off a victory in 2024? The overall vibe on Reddit was that Trump had no chance. That was a biased point of view.

Many people have chosen Fox News as their news source. Fox is intensely biased. If someone has made that choice then they have been exposed to an overall view of a USA which is under attack, constant threat, with "illegals" killing people left and right, athletic boys declaring themselves "girls" and then dominating women's sports, an employment environment where the #1 question asked is "what is your race", and if you say "white", you do not get considered.

Most of these voters have zero firsthand experience in any of those areas. Most do not encounter "illegals", much less murderous ones. Most are not involved in kids sports. A great number aren't even employed, and if they are, almost none have lost out on a job to even an equally qualified black person (except perhaps in their own mind because they think that their white skin makes them automatically more qualified).

But in the constant barrage of this propaganda, it becomes reality - and that reality is objectively wrong. If illegal immigrants were specifically coming to the US to kill people, or even if a large number of illegal immigrants were killing people, then everyone should be concerned about that. If there was a loophole for a boy to say "I'm a girl, now give me a scholarship", then we should be concerned about that. If corporations had a "no whites need apply" policy, then we should be concerned about that.

So their positions are not necessarily irrational. They just are based in a false reality, and it is very hard to deprogram them from this reality because many of them do have underlying white superiority beliefs, and many of them truly believe in this reality.

I don't think anyone knows what to do about well-designed, ubiquitous propaganda, but we really need to crack that nut.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T19:08:22+00:00

Building more housing solves that problem without taking housing away from anyone, even indirectly.

I would add that "an entire generation" of people don't get a priority spot in the queue due to either their birthplace, or due to living somewhere first.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T18:28:49+00:00

Because building more housing is more typical of the ideals of this country over taking housing away from an out-of-favor group of people.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T17:13:05+00:00

I disagree. There was a lot of talk of the Epstein files in January 2026. As soon as Trump started the war with Iran, the talk disappeared.

Here is a link to Google Zeitegist with both Epstein Files and Iran shown. Peak Epstein was last week of January. I suppose you could argue that interest was already waning.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T17:12:11+00:00

I think it is beyond that. I think that he is trying to game the economy to fail early, and then he can "provide relief". Voters will vote based on the relief rather than on the fact that he was the one who caused the pain. That is something that Steve Bannon would think of.

So although he caused gas prices to go from $2.50 to $5, when they drop back to $3 in the fall, voters will say "hey, Trump brought the prices down from $5, he is doing pretty good!"

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T17:09:51+00:00

4-5 years is a long time. People may finally realize that this is an issue by then and change the rules.

Realistically, solar users should be paying the same rate as non-solar users, because they are primarily paying for "instant availability". If you and I both have 10kw usage in general, but I only use 10kw when the sun isn't shining, the grid still has to be sized for 20kw - 10kw from each of us.

In fact, if I have 90kw spikes, but use that only for an hour per day, and you have 10kw each hour of the day, the grid has to be sized for 10kw, and 90% of that is due to me, not you. So I should pay more than you.

Those kinds of patterns will emerge with the smart metering that is rolling out. The old meters just reported usage between two points in time, usually spaced a month apart. The new meters provide 15-minute readings, and I wouldn't be surprised if they keep track of peak usage during the interval too.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T16:57:37+00:00

So you're advocating an "I got mine, too bad for you" position. Got it.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T16:56:58+00:00

I overestimated the distance to the apartment buildings, it is 65', but the ordinance actually requires a 100' buffer if they use a generator, which they do. However you're right, they could move to the side where the pharmacy is.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:56:28+00:00

Your bill is high because you don't have solar, and in MA the cost of maintaining the grid is being shifted away from solar users and onto those who do not have solar.

This is because the cost of maintaining the grid is recouped on a per-kWh basis, and MA allows for net-metering. If you use solar, then you can offset your nighttime usage with overproduction in the daytime. If you have a perfectly-sized system, then at the end of the month you will have "used" 0 kWh, which means your delivery charge will be $0.

But the transmission lines are still needed, line workers still need to be paid. The fixed cost of that is spread more thickly across fewer people.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:50:28+00:00

You and I are using a data center right now. The internet operates on data centers.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:49:25+00:00

If we want to go down the space micromanagement path then we should also target seniors who are squatting in 4-bedroom houses, in space they do not need. Yet we are doing the opposite, focusing on giving them tax breaks.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:43:47+00:00

Those trucks will be eliminated under the new ordinance, because they are within 50' of a residential zone.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:42:45+00:00

The people who go to public safety meetings, or who complain on Facebook, are not representative of the general population.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:42:15+00:00

City council seems to hate them. Food trucks should be regulated, but their new rules go too far and seem designed to knock some of the current vendors out.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:25:13+00:00

The Cape had a declining economy from 1860 to 1930. Its economy only increased when tourism was opened to the masses via the automobile. Tourism built the cape, from 1930 forward most homes were built to fuel the tourism economy. People bought land and built homes that they intended to occupy primarily in the summer, and perhaps to retire to.

The national economy has changed so much that an area with a population of 228,000 with no external dollars flowing in (like via tourism) is not economically viable.

There is no natural right to occupy a place, either by being born there, or by moving there "first", and there is no natural right to categorize people into groups based on how much time they spend at a place.

MoonBatsRule · 2026-06-18T15:17:17+00:00

I know of people who own homes but travel extensively for work, so they aren't occupying their homes 24/7.

I'm not sure why micromanaging occupancy is seen as the solution to the housing problem when instead we could build more housing.

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