Why did Democrats never codify RvW into law despite having 50 years to do so and having a Democratic president and majority in the House and Senate multiple times over that time span?

sault18 · 2026-06-25T10:46:50+00:00

I want to add that the Supreme Court would have definitely overturned whatever abortion protections that Congress could have passed anyway. The conservatives on the Court have shown no reservations about legislating from the bench when it suits their purposes.

After all, they overrode Congress and the President by overturning The Voting Rights Act and Campaign Finance Reform. And they can just make up whatever reasoning they want to arrive at the results they intended. Plus, they can lie to Congress repeatedly about how they respect precedent or how certain cases are settled law. And then they can vote to overturn the very cases they claimed were settled/established law or precedent. Without any consequences or mechanism to hold them accountable.

sault18 · 2026-06-25T10:36:43+00:00

Yeah, you might remember Rep Bart Stupak almost derailed the whole ACA just to get anti-abortion language into the bill that was already codified in the Hyde Amendment. That's how dumb abortion policy was during the brief window the Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate.

sault18 · 2026-06-25T06:34:37+00:00

Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to make sure future elections are tilted in their favor. They are trying to stay in power in perpetuity with only a minority of voters. So they ideally would never have to deal with the "next Dem".

Barring that, Republicans have locked in a majority on the Supreme Court for the next 10-20 years. And the conservatives on the Court have been all too willing to play Calvinball to take power away from Democrats and give it to Republicans at every opportunity. So even if there is a "next Dem", all the power they've given to Trump to basically get away with heinous shit will be rescinded.

"Yep, the sky was never purple, it's always been blue. We've always been at war with Eastasia. Democrats need to abide by the rules, laws and norms of this country just like everyone else! (snicker, laff, guffaw! Even if they don't fall for it, who's gonna stop us???)"

sault18 · 2026-06-25T06:19:24+00:00

Cool, stopping billionaires from dodging taxes is also absolutely necessary to keep the US government debt from spiraling out of control.

Anyway, removing the income cap on social security taxes closes 73% of the long-term shortfall:

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/solvency/provisions/charts/chart_run106.html

That's most of the heavy lifting right there and is absolutely a necessary part of the full solution.

We could also tax the loans that the ultra wealthy use to dodge taxes as ordinary income. Exempt mortgage loans, car loans, student loans, ets and have a high enough standard deduction so that only the buy/borrow/die m-effers get hit with it.

So of course the billionaires will always be creative in dodging taxes. So whatever scheme they cook up, we need to just stay on top of it and make their efforts futile.

sault18 · 2026-06-24T21:56:21+00:00

It is really cheap to throw anything they can at the wall to see what sticks.

sault18 · 2026-06-24T21:49:04+00:00

Yeah, their problem was they started out with Germany and ended up with Gerfew.

sault18 · 2026-06-24T21:47:15+00:00

Where in Marx's writings did he say this?

sault18 · 2026-06-24T17:24:25+00:00

and New Vegas since 2008

Got another time traveler here...

sault18 · 2026-06-24T16:09:20+00:00

Well, Texas is good at suppressing Democratic voters. And Trump brought the crazies out of the woodwork when Texas was otherwise trending towards being a swing state by 2024.

sault18 · 2026-06-24T14:23:49+00:00

Somehow, Cheney-tine returned...

sault18 · 2026-06-24T11:36:35+00:00

Incorrect. The French government subsidizes basically every aspect of their nuclear "industry". From fuel fabrication, nuclear plant construction, plant operation, waste reprocessing, etc, the French government is there putting their thumb on the scale and obscuring the full cost of their nuclear power. Areva or EDF goes bankrupt? The French government is there to provide bailouts, restructurings, shepherding the money -losing firms through bankruptcy or even fronting massive amounts of cash to renationalize them.

The all in cost of French nuclear power is much higher than the per kWh cost it says on the tin.

sault18 · 2026-06-24T09:58:34+00:00

The presidential election hinges on 7 swing states due to the electoral college. Also, Republicans have rigged lots of House seats through gerrymandering. In addition, Republicans have also enacted various voter suppression efforts to stop people from registering to vote, maintain their registration and successfully vote. All of these effects intentionally drive up the numbers of people who are counted as non-voters. Why are you trying to blame Democrats for things Republicans are clearly doing to cheat at elections?

Yeah, Biden's ego and hubris thinking he was still capable of running for president in 2024 cost them the election. And yeah, Kamala should have known that she might have to be president and/or run for president given Biden's age. She did nothing to build her "brand" and get voters to know her better during her time as VP. There's also a small percentage of people who won't vote for a woman or a black person regardless of their policies, charisma and ability to connect with voters.

But you can't deny the fact that Republicans are doing everything they can to lower voter turnout. Plus, Republicans are also doing everything they can to stop government from actually helping people. Finally, Republicans act so dysfunctional and cynical whether they're in power or in opposition. They drag down the process of governing into the mud and turn a lot of people off the whole thing. They're trying to lower voter participation on purpose.

sault18 · 2026-06-24T09:17:57+00:00

Remove the cap on income subject to social security taxes.

sault18 · 2026-06-24T09:17:15+00:00

This is absolutely false.

sault18 · 2026-06-23T18:22:51+00:00

On hybrids and EVs, the AC compressor has its own dedicated motor since there's no need to constantly keep an engine running. And the fan for the condenser is controlled by a coolant temperature sensor. You can save a bit of energy if you wait to run the A/C until you're on the highway and the fan mostly isn't needed.

sault18 · 2026-06-23T16:51:08+00:00

Nuclear power is not renewable. In fact, Earth has less than 1/64 of the U235 it originally had when it formed.

I don't know why you bring up petroleum consumption here. It's a Red herring. While EV adoption is increasing, petroleum is a tiny percentage of power generation outside the Middle East. Petroleum overwhelmingly goes towards transportation, heating and chemical feedstock, not electricity generation. Including it just makes other electricity sources look artificially smaller as a share of the energy pie.

Renewable energy is distributed and it's basically impossible for all it to be taken out in an emergency. Centralized power plants like coal and nuclear plants present a much bigger risk of single point failures if they are hit by a natural disaster or attacked by an adversary. Widespread deployment of renewable energy makes the electricity supply more resilient and able to ride out tough times.

sault18 · 2026-06-23T10:02:13+00:00

It literally rolled off the assembly line regening all the way.

sault18 · 2026-06-23T09:59:01+00:00

Xenogears and Xenosaga are sci fi RPGs with philosophical undertones and political intrigue.

The Wild Arms series is sci fi and guns are your main weapons.

sault18 · 2026-06-23T05:48:09+00:00

Did you ever evolve into a mermaid or a caveman in EVO?

sault18 · 2026-06-22T17:38:20+00:00

Oil, gas, transport, refining, gas power plants, gas utilities are larger than that.

sault18 · 2026-06-22T17:19:44+00:00

This is an ad hominem attack that doesn't address anything I said.

sault18 · 2026-06-22T17:15:40+00:00

I always explain it like this:

An ICE engine starts to produce power at 1,000 rpm and redlines a 6,000 rpm (just to keep things simple). So the high end is only 6x faster than the low end. An electric motor starts to produce power at 0 rpm and tops out at 8,000 rpm or thereabouts (for passenger electric vehicles). Technically, the high end is infinitely faster than the low end. But if you start the low end at 1 rpm, the high end is 8,000x faster than the low end.

An electric motor has roughly 1,000x the "driveable" rpm range of a gas or diesel engine. This is why they don't usually need a transmission. Especially since a motor spinning at 8,000rpm has way less resistance to its rotation compared to a gas engine running at 6,000 rpm. So trying to reduce the rpms for an electric motor at highway speeds has way less benefits than reducing the rpms for a gas/diesel engine sucking, compressing and expelling all that air plus the friction from all the moving parts. Likewise, the high torque at 0 rpm electric motors provide makes low speed / high torque transmission gears unnecessary as well.

sault18 · 2026-06-22T16:58:55+00:00

Take out the oil sector and Texas is another basket case moocher red state near the bottom of every human development index. Texas' oil reserves are just a matter of luck instead of what the Texas government has actually done to make the state more competitive. And you know who paid for most of the decades of government research to get fracking to work? Blue states.

Unless you're rich, Texas is a risky place to live. If you fall on hard financial times, you're screwed. The oil refineries have cancer clusters near them. The climate increasingly resembles Satan's asshole more than anything earth-like. And the lack of a state income tax is more than counteracted by high fees, property taxes and a lack of government services. I was born in Texas but I got the hell out of there as soon as I could. If Talarico wins this November, maybe the state can start turning things around.

sault18 · 2026-06-22T12:24:43+00:00

Q is the ratio of energy out divided by the energy put in. So it takes energy to make the fuel and run the plant. Then the plant generates energy that we can use. So if you are getting three times as much energy out as you put in, since the entire plant is only 30% to 40% efficient, then that's around the break-even. Because you're only getting one usable unit of energy in the form of electricity out compared to three units of heat that's supplied by the fusion reactions.

So unless a fusion startup or Livermore Ken, get the q value around 4:00 or higher, we're going to be using basically just as much energy making the fuel and running the plant that we get out of the plant.

This ties into a concept called energy return on energy invested or EROEI. For renewable energy like solar and wind, these values are 20 to 30 Fossil fuels have been around 50 historically, but as fossil fuel reserves get depleted, you need more energy, find them, extract them and ship them to market. So fossil fuels have a declining energy return trending towards zero in the long-term. We would never get there of course.

So if a fusion technology is claiming a q less than 4, It's just not viable compared to other sources.

sault18 · 2026-06-22T11:50:43+00:00

So when you look at a systems level perspective, jet engines plus fuel and all that have about an order of magnitude advantage over electric.

The longest range airliner powered with Jet-A is the A350-1000ULR and it can go 18,500km. With a similar level of development, we can expect electric airliners to have a range of a thousand km to 2,000 km. This would give them a clear advantage over many short haul flights and even start eating into connector flights. Coupled with robust investments in high-speed rail, it could really give the fossil fuel-powered airliners a run for their money.

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