Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

crazytown

crazytown's Journal
crazytown's Journal
August 28, 2019

NBC: The next debate will go to 10: What we learned from this week's polls.

1. Tom Steyer didn’t hit two percent in either poll — in fact, he was below one percent in both — which means there will be just 10 participants next month: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Andrew Yang, Amy Klobuchar and Julian Castro.

2. Because only 10 qualified — instead of 11 — there will be just one debate night in Houston, on Sept. 12, which means Biden, Bernie and Warren will all share the same stage.

3. The higher threshold to make September’s debate (130,000 donors, hitting 2 percent in at least four polls) winnowed a field with some 20 candidates in half — to 10.

4. Money doesn’t buy you love or participation in a presidential debate: Steyer has spent nearly $12 million for an opportunity to make the debate stage, while Kirsten Gillibrand (who also didn’t make it) has spent more than $2 million.

5. Steyer and others still have a shot to make the October debate, since the qualifying polling period lasts from June 28 to two weeks before the debate — which gives them more time to make that debate stage.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/next-debate-will-go-ten-what-we-learned-week-s-n1047141?cid=public-rss_20190828

August 28, 2019

Quinnipiac 18-34 yrs: BS 31, EW 25, JB 10, Yang 8.

65+ yrs: JB 48, EW 20, PB 6, BS 4.

August 28, 2019

Trump complains about media coverage of Warren's crowd sizes

Trump complains about media coverage of Warren's crowd sizes

President Trump on Tuesday complained about press coverage of the crowds at Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) campaign events, bemoaning that his own rallies don't get the same treatment.

"They do stories so big on Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren’s crowd sizes, adding many more people than are actually there, and yet my crowds, which are far bigger, get no coverage at all," Trump tweeted, deploying his derisive nickname for the Democratic presidential hopeful.

Warren, who has steadily risen in polls of the Democratic presidential race in recent months, has attracted impressive crowds at some of her latest campaign events.

Her team said roughly 15,000 people attended her rally in Seattle on Sunday night, and her campaign said she drew 12,000 people at a St. Paul, Minn., event the week before.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/459051-trump-complains-about-media-coverage-of-warrens-crowd-sizes

Crowd sizes? Compensating for something Donald?




August 28, 2019

Immigration 'Take the land': President Trump wants a border wall. He wants it black. And he wants

Source: Washington Post

Immigration:'Take the land': President Trump wants a border wall. He wants it black. And he wants it by Election Day.

President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars' worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.

He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly, those officials said.

(snip) The president has told senior aides that a failure to deliver on the signature promise of his 2016 campaign would be a letdown to his supporters and an embarrassing defeat. With the election 14 months away and hundreds of miles of fencing plans still in blueprint form, Trump has held regular meetings at the White House to receive progress updates and hasten the pace, according to several people involved in the discussions.

When aides have suggested that some of his orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said. He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying "take the land," according to officials present at the meetings.

Read more: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/immigration/take-the-land-president-trump-wants-a-border-wall-he-wants-it-black-and-he-wants-it-by-election-day/2019/08/27/37b80018-c821-11e9-a4f3-c081a126de70_story.html



Once agin, aides are saying the orders are illegal. Expect this to wind up in a Texas court.
August 27, 2019

Scorched Earth? "I don't think there's a limit on what (Tom Steyer) will do"

You underestimate my brother at your peril ... People like Gavin and Kamala, they were always afraid of Tom. Jim Steyer

A Tom Steyer Debate Spot Is in Limbo. His Money Is Poised to Upend 2020 Anyway.

(snip) “Most of the insiders, they don’t have a clue how much money he can spend. They just don’t,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist who has seen Mr. Steyer’s spending up close in California, where Mr. Steyer has bankrolled ballot measures against the oil and tobacco industries.

(snip) One big unknown is whether Mr. Steyer will use his financial might to obliterate his opponents with negative ads. Those who have worked with Mr. Steyer describe him as a fiercely competitive man used to getting his way.

“He’s been thinking about this for a long time,” said Gil Duran, a former Steyer adviser. “I don’t think there’s a limit on what he’ll do to try to reach this goal.”

Mr. Steyer himself said he would not rule out negative ads, regardless of criticism he might face from the party. “Look, there’s something I really care about doing and I’m going to try really hard to do it,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/us/politics/tom-steyer-debate.html

We had to raze the village in order to save it. EDIT: Sarcasm, obviously -referencing the insanity of the Vietnam war.
August 27, 2019

World's Largest Nuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor Clears Milestone


The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is set to launch operations in 2025

(snip)The world’s first commercial-scale fusion reactor project is on track to officially launch operations at the end of 2025, said spokeswoman Sabina Griffith, but it will take at least a decade to fully power up the facility.

“The date for First Plasma is set; we will push the button in December 2025,” Griffith said. “It will take another 10 years until we reach full deuterium-tritium operations.”

Thirty-five nations are cooperating on the project to bring fusion power to the masses.

Achieving controlled fusion reactions that net more power than they take to generate, and at commercial scale, is seen as a potential answer to climate change. Fusion energy would eliminate the need for fossil fuels and solve the intermittency and reliability concerns inherent with renewable energy sources. The energy would be generated without the dangerous amounts of radiation that raises concerns about fission nuclear energy.

Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-nuclear-fusion-experiment-clears-milestone/
August 27, 2019

Vox: Yang wants to bet big on nuclear power.

Thorium and Fusion reactors. There are no working prototypes on the books (yet).

Andrew Yang wants to bet big on nontraditional nuclear power

By now, most (but not all) environmentalists have accepted that nuclear power, at least in existing plants, has to be part of the solution to climate change. It’s less deadly than coal or natural gas, and produces no greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike solar or wind, it’s low-variability, meaning it could provide ongoing power even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. But nuclear has major drawbacks, not least of which are that it produces long-lived radioactive waste that has to be safely stored for thousands of years.

So Yang proposes massive subsidies for two somewhat speculative alternatives to traditional nuclear reactors. The first, nuclear fusion, involves crashing hydrogen isotopes together at high speeds so that they fuse together, releasing energy; this is the same process through which the sun produces heat. The radioactive materials involved in fusion stay dangerous for a matter of decades, not thousands of years, but after decades of effort, no one has figured out how to make a fusion reactor that “breaks even”: that produces more energy than is needed to heat the reactor up to 100 million degrees Kelvin to cause the fusion reaction in the first place.

That said, there are a number of physicists and private companies around the world trying to make fusion power economically viable, and Yang’s plan is designed in hopes that additional subsidies would get them closer.

Yang’s plan is even higher on the prospects of thorium power. Thorium is a more common element than uranium (and, according to its proponents, easier to mine) but decays into uranium-233, meaning thorium can be used as initial fuel for a nuclear reactor. Advocates of thorium (and there are many in futurist circles) argue that thorium reactors will produce far less waste than traditional uranium reactors, and waste that is radioactive for hundreds rather than thousands of years.

Thorium power is less speculative than fusion, but still in its infancy as a technology. The US briefly ran an experimental reactor using uranium-233 in the 1960s, and both China and India have thorium reactors in development. Yang’s plan to invest $50 billion to have thorium and/or fusion reactors coming online by 2027 may be optimistic but would arguably help the US keep pace with those countries.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/8/26/20833263/andrew-yang-climate-plan

August 26, 2019

H-e-l-l-o N-e-v-a-d-a !!

I love Elizabeth Warren's goofy. From that big goofy wave that kicks off her stump speech to the sprinkles of Mom-humor throughout, Elizabeth is the happy warrior, at ease with herself, her message and her mission.

Profile Information

Gender: Do not display
Hometown: Whitehall, OH
Home country: USA
Current location: Australia
Member since: Thu Sep 27, 2018, 06:37 PM
Number of posts: 7,277

About crazytown

gone fishing
Latest Discussions»crazytown's Journal