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The transport discussion is interesting. Australia is very similar to the US, huge distances but big cities built in the era of house-and-yard-and-two-cars. It's changing slowly, particularly in the inner cities, but it's an uphill battle.
As an individual, it's difficult to get by without a car. Inter-town transport is abysmal and nearly everyone has family in some random little town 300km away. Even within the cities, public transport is fine if you're going towards the hub, but God help you if you want to cross the spokes - which is where a lot of schools/childcare centres tend to be - and it's extremely expensive.
The upshot is that everyone has a car anyway, even if they don't really want one, and if people all have cars there's hundreds of little micro-decisions that get made that make it hard to change that. It will happen, eventually, but it's a very slow process.
My personal slice of life is that I bike to work every day, but drive for just about every other errand, and my wife takes the car to work. Her commute is about 30 minutes, which would be an hour and a half by bus due to dumb connections. It's above 30 C / 90% regularly for about half the year, but I've found biking fine so long as there's a shower on the other end.
We walk/ride a lot for fun, and within the immediate area, but will drive for things like the grocery store 1km away to save walking with a week's groceries. Travelling around the city, so long as we can park for less than about 10 USD, and legally drive home, it's cheaper and twice as fast to drive than catch buses. In practice, that means we drive everywhere except the middle of the highrise district, and most other people do the same. A lot of weekends we would drive 200+km between towns, and there's no non-car alternative on most of those trips.
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On August 22 2018 06:30 Velr wrote:
Why is your president doing rallies?
WHY?
seriously... is america just one big reality tv show or what is wrong with you?
mostly it's this president. Normal presidents don't do rallies like this so extensively. He does it to feel good about himself or something; or to help protect him from the rightful consequences of his conduct; and cuz he's irresponsible.
That said, in america some mild level of campaigning occurs near constantly. And the midterm elections are 3 months away.
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On August 22 2018 06:30 Velr wrote:
Why is your president doing rallies?
WHY?
seriously... is america just one big reality tv show or what is wrong with you? Doing it near election season is not unusual. The President is the public head of the party.
Trump however has been doing rallies since before his first month as President was over.
Trump likes rallies. He gets to talk, people listen, people cheer and no one tells him he's a complete idiot.
Remember the guy is a massive narcissist. He needs the ego boost from rallies to keep going.
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yea it’s been pretty clear since well before the election that our president is first and foremost interested in how things look on tv. whether it’s himself literally or anything else about his excellency presidency.
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On August 22 2018 06:26 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2018 06:08 Plansix wrote:The campaign finance violation is a thousand times more serious that lying under oath about a BJ; that got Billy impeached and censured. And that is a whole separate crime from the whole obstruction case. Which is a whole separate crime from receiving material support from a foreign goverment to win an election. Mueller be like "Folks this isn't even my final form." On August 22 2018 06:06 Doodsmack wrote:On August 22 2018 05:57 Plansix wrote:Cohen just plead guilty to making illegal payments at direction of candidate to influence election in his plea deal. It's raining good news today. SourceDetails are incoming, but I think we all know what this is pertaining to. Big day for the career criminals Trump chooses to surround himself with. Interesting that Cohen pleaded guilty to a crime that necessarily means Trump committed the same crime (assuming you accept the legitimacy of the charge and the truth of Cohen's plea). Edit: It appears there is no plea agreement to assist prosecutors, he is just pleading guilty. His master plan escapes me, beyond taking a shot at Trump on his way down. It would seem that the campaign finance charge against Cohen is equally valid against Trump. I'm not sure what it means for trump though.
Cant be good. Cohen said under oath that he did it at the direction of Trump. This is the first charge that directly implicates Trump iirc.
Source:
Also relevant: this tweet from Cohen's lawyer. The campaign finance violation pieces are moving.
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This was the second Republican Congressman indicted this month, and the second Republican Congressman who endorsed Trump's campaign. I really have to give credit to Trump for his promise to drain the swamp, though I never realized this is what he meant.
Pretty busy day in the news with this, Manafort, and Cohen. You have to wonder how Trump will react at his rally tonight.
Also today: Apparently Larry Kudlow, one of Trump's advisors, has been spending a lot of time with the white nationalist crowd.
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On August 22 2018 04:32 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2018 04:15 JimmiC wrote:On August 22 2018 04:10 Plansix wrote:On August 22 2018 04:01 JimmiC wrote:On August 22 2018 03:57 Plansix wrote:On August 22 2018 03:36 JimmiC wrote:On August 22 2018 03:35 Plansix wrote:On August 22 2018 03:33 JimmiC wrote:On August 22 2018 01:39 Plansix wrote:On August 22 2018 01:16 Furikawari wrote:[quote] Didnt know you have meters of snow across all the US during the whole year. Didnt know that you had to travel across your whole state everyday. Cars have their used obviously, but nothing justifies to use them as much as you do in NA. Also, Grenoble is quite close to the Alps  I have a 16 mile commute every day, it takes an hour because of traffic. There is no way to get their by public transportation and never will be. My parents live 70 miles away and the only way to get there is by car. Without a car, it is hard to live in any part of the US that isn’t a major city. It is also the reason we don’t bike everywhere. But do you bike anywhere? I don't and my family has 2 cars, and some around us have 3-4 cars. Where I live if there was better bike pathing we could easily go down to one car. Would we? I doubt it we can afford it and it is the lifestyle we are used too. The amount of Cars needed in the US could easily be cut in half. My wife and I work in two separate cities that are literally in opposite directions, so we need two cars. And biking is fine, I do it all the time. Are you suggesting that, that is the norm? My next door neighbors are a nurse and an engineer, they do not work in the same city. Our close friends we visit weekly are an esthetician and bread delivery man. They do not work in the same town either. I don’t know any couple that has one car and lives in the suburbs. It is the norm. I know it is not the norm to have 1 car, that is basically the whole point of the discussion. LOL I was simply answering the question you asked. I would love to take public transportation to work every day, but there is no direct line into the city where I work. And I don’t think there would be enough people from my area to justify one. The suburbs around major cities are so dispersed that public transportation isn’t viable. Yes! And this why this started with better city planning! My issue with that line of reasoning is that people are assuming this was planning at all. The town I live in was never really a suburb of Boston, it serves as one simply due to the sprawl and high living costs of the city and surrounding area. It is outside of what would be traditionally known as the suburbs of Boston(outside highway 95) by a good distance. But as Boston continues to sprawl outwards, the surrounding towns grew on their own. The working class residents moved farther out of those areas and into towns like mine. Now those towns have people comminuting both into Boston and the towns that surround Boston that never had infrastructure built around them for the 60 or so years since we created the Mass Pike. When you say the US needs better city planning, I think it missing a larger problem that we are devoid of any large scale projects like the ones from the 1950s through the 1970s. We just stopped building out our cities and planning in any holistic fashion. So you are right that we need better city planning, because anything is better than nothing.
That's called urban sprawl. It's not something you can't combat with better planning. 2 things that work to combat urban sprawl? Public transport and mixing residential, business and shopping districts up. Two things you have thrown up your hands about repeatedly and said "can't be done".
E: just to be clear, urban sprawl is not easy to reverse, but it can be. It's generally better to plan cities in a way to avoid the sprawl in the first place, tho.
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What if Trump is rusing actually playing the republicans and sacrificing himself for the greater good? That drain the swamp comment from Saryph seems really poignant. So what will we all do when Trump is actually a genius, so genius in fact, that he's able to troll the entire world and lays bare all the political bullshit (jailing all of those involved in the process) that has been put in place.
EDIT: today I learned that "to ruse" doesn't exist and that it's only a noun. I know what the noun means, but I thought it transposed freely to a verb, roughly meaning: to make a trap/scheming/...
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On August 22 2018 07:31 Saryph wrote:https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1032029380317536257This was the second Republican Congressman indicted this month, and the second Republican Congressman who endorsed Trump's campaign. I really have to give credit to Trump for his promise to drain the swamp, though I never realized this is what he meant. Pretty busy day in the news with this, Manafort, and Cohen. You have to wonder how Trump will react at his rally tonight. Also today: Apparently Larry Kudlow, one of Trump's advisors, has been spending a lot of time with the white nationalist crowd.
The guy dumped a ton of money into Steam sales, which are part of the indictment. So this is the third best news of the day.
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On August 22 2018 06:30 Velr wrote:
Why is your president doing rallies?
WHY?
seriously... is america just one big reality tv show or what is wrong with you?
Obama held rallies, Trump saw them, and now he's doing them to a much greater extent.
If your whole schtick is "The Media won't tell you the truth of all these great things I'm doing as President," then touring the country speaking directly to the people is directly in that vein.
Now, this one is close enough to the midterm elections 2018 to be less in the vein of his previous post-presidency rallies, and more a legitimate act of the de-facto head of the Republican Party to get additional congressional support for his policies.
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Obama held rallies in the middle of his term?
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On August 22 2018 05:35 Artisreal wrote:
Bikers slowing down traffic significantly has to be the biggest joke of the last 50 pages. Especially in a US based context. That's gonna need more than a personal opinion to substantiate.
A bike lane with a fast and a slow lane, i.e. Dedicated space for the cyclist as well as minimal integration of cyclists' needs into planning procedures do go a very long way.
And you're entirely right that no concept fits all cases but in not even trying to think out of the box the US is gonna stay behind in modern urban living and mobility concepts.
For longer distances and older folks ebikes can mean a significant change of perspective on mobility.
Even if your employer doesn't offer showers, with an ebike cycling in some summer conditions can be manageable.
The status quo shouldn't be used as an argument for the restriction of future planning. While it is sensible to take it into account, some mistakes are just costly to rectify.
The average commute in the U.S. is long enough (in distance) to make biking impractical for a huge swath of the population.
It would take me just under 2 hours to bike to work on an average pace. That is quadruple my current commuting time and is absolutely impossible with my schedule.
This is not a rare occurrence either.
Thinking of biking as a magical solution is the fantasy of 1) students and 2) the privileged.
Coincidentally, you know who commutes the longest distance/time in the U.S. per day? The working class.
That's called urban sprawl. It's not something you can't combat with better planning. 2 things that work to combat urban sprawl? Public transport and mixing residential, business and shopping districts up. Two things you have thrown up your hands about repeatedly and said "can't be done".
E: just to be clear, urban sprawl is not easy to reverse, but it can be. It's generally better to plan cities in a way to avoid the sprawl in the first place, tho.
No one is saying "can't be done".
The problem is that Europeans (and others) love to just tell Americans that they are too lazy, fat, or attached to their car.
The reality is that this problem for our communities started far, far before we were ever of voting age, and the solution takes massive political will and a significant budget sink.
Again, let's take the Twin Cities as an example. It's one of the friendlist biking cities in the country. Every time a new discussion comes up about making more biking infrastructure, people absolutely lose their minds. And don't even get started on the Light Rail. Fantastic new additional to public transportation, but it only connects downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul and directly into the south-central suburbs at the Mall of America. They've had an ongoing project to add a 3rd line that goes directly into the southwest suburbs, and it is taking way, way longer than expected and the cost is over $2 billion. It's another massive political flash point. They've also been talking about trying to connect Rochester (in southeastern Minnesota, almost a 2 hour drive to the Cities) to the Cities with another light rail line, and you can imagine how difficult that is to push through.
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United States24475 Posts
To be fair, there are a lot of people who would bike to work more in the usa if the infrastructure supported it. I am close enough to work that I'd be happy to bike in halfway decent weather, but the only way to get to work is to bicycle on busy streets that don't have good bike lanes. Screw that.
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On August 22 2018 08:23 Plansix wrote:
Obama held rallies in the middle of his term?
He held a few. Those were not "pro-Obama" rallies, they were either ACA rallies or rallies definitively in support of specific people. Trump's rallies are just campaign rallies, with one or two endorsements thrown in; I think they're even funded directly through his re-election campaign (when it isn't being used to pay off fired individuals, anyway).
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5930 Posts
On August 22 2018 08:23 Plansix wrote:
Obama held rallies in the middle of his term?
He theoretically did when he was trying to push the ACA but Danglers is being super disingenuous here by equating public appearances to push/educate the public on a huge healthcare bill and the Trump 2020 re-election rallies he’s been doing since the start of his presidency.
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On August 10 2018 15:30 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +(Reuters) - Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) board has not yet received a detailed financing plan from CEO Elon Musk, and is seeking more information about how he will take the U.S. electric car maker private in a proposed deal worth $72 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
While Tesla’s board has held multiple discussions about Musk’s proposal, which first became public on Tuesday, it has not yet received specific information on who will provide the funding, one of the sources said.
Tesla declined to comment.
Musk, a 47-year-old investor and engineer, stunned financial markets on Tuesday, when he revealed on Twitter he was considering a take-private deal for Tesla, an auto manufacturing pioneer that developed the world’s first ever premium all-electric sedan car.
The move came after months of Musk battling investors, journalists and analysts over whether Tesla could turn a profit and produce enough of the mass market model of is flagship electric car to meet demand.
Musk said in a tweet on Tuesday that he had secured financing for the deal, but he did not publicly provide further details.
Speculation has swirled among shareholders and investment bankers about who could fund a deal of that size, especially given that the company’s bonds are already rated junk by credit rating agencies.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has contacted Tesla to ask about Musk’s assertion on Twitter that funding for his proposed deal was “secured”, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The revelation that the board is seeking more details from Musk could raise new questions about how he plans to finance the deal at his proposed price of $420 per share.
After jumping to close at $379.57 on Tuesday, Tesla shares have since fallen about 7 percent to end trading at $352.45 on Thursday, amid investor skepticism over the deal’s prospects.
In a statement on Wednesday, Tesla’s board said its discussion with Musk “addressed the funding” for the deal, without offering more details.
The board expects to make a decision on whether to launch a formal review of Musk’s proposal in the coming days, and is speaking to investment bankers about hiring financial advisers to assist it in its review in such scenario, the sources said.
If the board launches a formal review of Musk’s bid, he would have to recuse himself, or a special board committee would have to be formed, according to the sources, who requested anonymity because the deliberations are confidential.
The exact information that Musk communicated to the board about his plan could not be learned uk.reuters.comThis doesn't look good at all. If the board doesn't even know funding isn't secured it probably isn't. Not to mention that he'd have to recuse himself.
Now Azealia Banks says Elon was acid tripping and pot smoking around the time that he made that tweet, and that Elon('s lawyer) took her phone to destroy evidence of the goings on inside the Musk Mansion. The story just keeps getting crazier
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On August 22 2018 09:23 Womwomwom wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2018 08:23 Plansix wrote:
Obama held rallies in the middle of his term? He theoretically did when he was trying to push the ACA but Danglers is being super disingenuous here by equating public appearances to push/educate the public on a huge healthcare bill and the Trump 2020 re-election rallies he’s been doing since the start of his presidency.
Is Obama In Permanent Campaign Mode?
It was the closest thing to a Freudian slip for the almost-always focused and disciplined President Obama. Twice during his nationally broadcast news conference, Mr. Obama reinforced the notion of a permanent campaign by referring to "this race."
Asked what surprised him the most about his first 100 days, Mr. Obama responded, "I am surprised compared to where I started, when we first announced for this race, by the number of critical issues that appear to be coming to a head all at the same time. You know, when I first started this race, Iraq was a central issue, but the economy appeared on the surface to still be relatively strong. There were underlying problems that I was seeing with health care for families and our education system and college affordability and so forth, but obviously, I didn't anticipate the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."
It was just an aside, of course. But it was something of a telling one coming during substantive comments on issues that included swine flu, troubled automakers, terror suspect torture and the other pressing items on the crowded Obama agenda.
As Mr. Obama framed "this race," he derided the politics of Washington. Like many of his predecessors, the president complained about "political posturing and bickering even when we're in the middle of really big crises." He even suggested a "time-out on some of the political games." Referring to the next congressional election cycle, he suggested the need for a pause to "focus our attention for at least this year and then we can start running for something next year."
There are other signs that the campaign after the campaign is continuing.
Parts of the Obama White House look to be in campaign mode. The press office resembles a campaign war room. Young aides work shoulder to shoulder answering phone calls, sending e-mails and dealing with in-person questions from reporters. In some cases, two staffers sit at desks built for one person.
The seemingly permanent Obama campaign continues beyond the White House too Hoping to keep millions of supporters energized, Obama '08 campaign manager David Plouffe has sent out a steady stream of e-mails promoting the president's agenda.
CBS
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank reports on President Obama's embrace of the permanent campaign:
According to statistics compiled for a book to be published this summer, the president has already set a record for total first-term fundraisers — 191 — and that’s only through March 6. Measured in terms of events that benefit his reelection bid, Obama’s total (inflated in part by relaxed fundraising rules) exceeds the combined total of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
It’s not just the gatherings officially categorized as campaign events. To a greater extent than his predecessors, Obama has used the trappings of his office to promote his reelection prospects even while handling taxpayer-funded business.
According to the same book, “The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign,” by Naval Academy political scientist Brendan Doherty, Obama was the first commander in chief in at least 32 years to visit all of the presidential battleground states during his first year in office. He has kept that pace, devoting nearly half of his travel to 15 swing states that account for just over a third of the population.
The White House, which gets pressed on these questions weekly, likes to point out that Obama travels often to non-swing states with recent appearances in Oklahoma and Kansas, to name two.
"It is simply not something we accept that the President should not be able to travel all around the country, should not be able to travel to talk about his agenda with the American people that he represents. And if you took seriously all the maps that show states that are battleground states, and therefore would be somehow inappropriate for a incumbent President to visit in a reelection year, he would be severely restricting his ability," White House press secretary Jay Carney said last week.
Politico
His campaigns and their tone and focus is history I lived through. If you don't remember the rallies, I can believe that you vaguely recall pro-ACA and impute specific purposes above Obama-brand support. I'm posting a couple articles to see if they jog memories. It was reported and talked about both favorably and unfavorably at the time. Frankly, some speeches sounded like he was campaigning against his own government ... playing up difficulties with the system he was running as if he was some outsider not in charge.
Now, I'll confirm two things that are true. Trump is doing this to a much greater extent. Trump also puts his brand front and center to a much greater extent than Obama, who let the cult of personality take on more of the backdrop to speeches. But further than that is just choice or ignorance with regards to the past to make current day seem worse.
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Neither of those articles even contain the word rally?
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Obama was out in public a lot that is true, but some of those articles are a bit reaching. Visiting populated states 50% of the time and having a hard working staff isn’t proof campaigning.
The Trump style is a far cry from the push for the ACA, on that we agree. It is all about his ego and firing up is base.
Edit: Obama did a lot of town halls if I remember.
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5930 Posts
Do presidents run "permanent campaigns" in United States politics? Yes, they've done this since arguably Johnson because the president can directly influence policy and upcoming state elections. Do they directly campaign for the 2020 elections four years in advance? No they do not, Clinton, Bush, Obama didn't file their re-election paperwork until the third year. Trump did so the day he took office. This obviously has implications when it comes to fundraising.
That's why you're being disingenuous.
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EPT
