Trick question. The answer is that no party has a majority in the senate. Two independents caucus with 49 democrats to form the leadership structure, but that is not a party majority - merely a ruling coalition.

There’s a lot of red in the state. Unfortunately, that’s also where much of the most beautiful (and affordable) areas are. There are blue enclaves, though. All in all it can be awesome.

This is buying into the Republican way of thinking, which is that you criticize someone’s performance for any shortcoming you feel. A progressive stance is to elevate other people (There is more than one person in Government) who are doing things correctly without tearing down the current leader. It s the difference between a collaborative government and a competitive one. Within a (generally speaking) unified political block which values diversity of opinions, a collaborative approach is much more productive than a competitive one.

The strength of a movement is in the sum of the effort.

A man commanding the largest military on the planet who is in substantial personal debt and has no moral compass of any type is, unfortunately, everyone’s problem.

But, also, this describes every response to a ML prompt.

I agree that there are statistical methods to everything, and they are quite powerful. My concern is that population sample is limited and, in many ways self-selecting, due to the ability of pollsters to access a representative cross section of the (population/voting population). I noted the impossibility of getting a representative sample using telephone polling. Online would be just as fraught - huge demographics literally don’t participate in those communication methods, by choice. Granted, actual voting is similarly inaccurate, and can be wildly so, do to voluntary non-participation; but the cross product of phone/internet poll users and voters, I would suspect, is pretty far from 1.0.

according to the polls.

Yeah, about those - I’ve been wondering who and how they’re polling. Nobody I know under 50 even has a real landline, and most of them don’t pick up calls on their cell unless it comes up as someone in their contacts. Same with SMS or any messaging. Web ads? Facebook ads (LOL)? It sure as hell isn’t email, either. It’s probably nearly impossible to get any realistic data in person since most people avoid in-person marketing even harder than online. The only people I know who do answer the telephone are old people - like over 55 or 60, and that’s a pretty skewed demographic.

If he wants to have a third party doctor give him a cognizant test, and he passes it, and he publicly notifies all of us voters of that, then I would be up for voting for him again.

Except for the fact that it’s generally military physicians who treat the President, he gets a cognitive test every year as part of his physical. Trump got one every year too, and was as proud as a toddler with a gold star sticker when he “passed” it. The white house releases the results of the President’s annual exam and, presuming you do not distrust the doctor, it is what it is.

Nobody is going to be administering some mental agility test on the President any more than they’ll be asking him to complete and pass the ACFT (Army Combat Fitness Test).

(IMO he should have stepped aside last year and let Kamala Harris take over as President to give her a chance to make her own case for re-election, making way for the next generation to lead.)

Exactly. They all have to have hardware ids and starlink already geofences the consumer versions.

This is the first half of a proper sentence. The second is personal charges against all directors or and/or major stockholders for the crimes had they been committed personally.

I’m pretty sure that middle bit is like a springform pan. The handle is not solid - you squeeze it to make it sit in the waffle maker but when you remove it, it opens a bit to release. I have no room for this in my kitchen but am intensely intrigued. I might buy a new house so I can get a bigger kitchen and have a place for this.

That puts a smile on my face.

I’ve yet to find a modern use for usenet as I’m not in the habit of downloading everything as it comes out, nor of looking for content within a few days of release. Often I’m looking for 2-5 year old content or back catalog, and usenet has been a uniform landscape of incompletes, even with two blocks on independent providers (or they were when I bought the data blocks).

If you’ve already put $2B in trust with his son in law, what’s an extra 5% to keep daddy happy. It’s just a down payment for future intelligence.

There are only 8 interstate crossings and less than a 100 crossings of 2 lane roads. People moving across the boarder is not a huge concern. We are in the second stage of Foundation conquest, and commerce is the arbiter of civilization. Cut off commerce and you have, well - just look at Cuba.

Besides, it’s not just the commerce. Block off regular transportation and revoke citizenship, and everyone left of semi-liberal in TX will leave - and with them most of the knowledge worker/white collar worker base. That’s would do more to decimate the TX economy than any other pressure.

Not even. We take what’s ours, they can keep the land and what infrastructure is left. All federal funds are frozen and all US based assets for Texans are frozen until diplomatic relations are formally established and financial treaties are in place. All power, pipelines and rail are blocked/shut off at the border. All passports in Texas names are null, along with all no cost governmental passports. Military Checkpoints at all major roads in and out of Texas with nobody allowed in or out without a valid US passport. All airport and federal airport staff are reassigned or permitted to resign with negative SF50 rehire status. All airspace on the US side is closed to any transit.

Most of this can be accomplished in a week or two with the military securing the border operations (as is appropriate). It would be fair to allow, say, a month grace period for anyone who wants to stay in the US to relocate. After they are free to leave by the gulf or, if Mexico decides to honor the defunct passports.

I got a perfect “1” - that means I go first, right?

[Raises hand]

I don’t have time to fuck with managing a seedbox to make ratios and community participation bullshit (looking at you, abt). I don’t even have time to fight incompletes on a usenet block. Let me drop a Benjamin in your “donation” box every couple of years and I’ll cover part of the server as long as I can find what I need, when I want it, in the quality I’m looking for.

I have subscriptions to a few of the big boys through legal cross-marketing deals; it’s still better to know that my shows will be waiting for me on my server if and when I ever get around to watching them.

If I spend half an hour to find an implement a workaround (because finding ways around YT’s advertising is not my hobby) then I’d have to watch 60 unskippable 30 second ads to break even, every single time they upgrade their cat-and-mouse. I don’t watch that much youtube in a month, probably not in 3 months.

A good negotiator would get at least 3/5ths.