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Post by epaul on Jun 28, 2024 20:35:37 GMT -5
"[T]he greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election....If the race comes down to a choice between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, the sitting president would be this board’s unequivocal pick. That is how much of a danger Mr. Trump poses. But given that very danger, the stakes for the country and the uneven abilities of Mr. Biden, the United States needs a stronger opponent to the presumptive Republican nominee." There are four main reasons I still believe the 2020 election was fixed. This is perhaps the biggest. But, John, this editorial wasn't written in 2016. Nor was it written in 2020. It was written yesterday in response to Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his refusal to say he would honor the result of the upcoming election. It was written yesterday in response to Trump's four years of continually insisting our election was fixed; written in response to his claims that our citizen-run elections, our local oversight mechanisms, and our judicial system that ruled on his election charges and found them empty, are all fraudulent and crooked. To many, it can, and does, appear that Trump is attacking our democratic processes, in short, our democracy. I think your argument has put the cart before the horse. This Times editorial isn't a time machine call to commit election fraud in 2020. It is a real time response in 2024 to the last four years of Trump's persistent claims of election fraud and systemic corruption in our democratic electoral institutions at every level they exist. |
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Post by epaul on Jun 28, 2024 18:54:18 GMT -5
Anyway, that’s what started business.
The boat owners didn’t object to having a monitor on board. They objected to having pay for the monitor out of their own pocket. So they sued Feds. Their argument was that if the Feds wanted to put a monitor on their boat to check up on them, then the Feds should pay for him.
They lost in court. Appealed and lost again. The courts in each case said the fishermen’s case was reasonable, but since it wasn’t clear in the relevant legislation who should pay for the monitor, they, the court, had to pull a Chevron and defer to the interpretation of the unclear law as offered by the Fisheries Department as their interpretation of the unclear law also had basis. With Chevron, tie goes to the Feds… and they start with a 20 point cushion.
Somehow, the herring fishers' appeal made it to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court ruled that in situations left unclear by the relevant law, the Chevron precedence required the courts to give too much deference to the decisions made by a federal agency in a legal action challenging the ruling of that same federal agency (no more 20 point cushion). So they dumped it.
All the noise aside, I’m glad the Fishermen won their case. Of course, they’ve all gone broke and the monitor program has been scrapped. So it goes.
How this ruling will affect cases going forward is unclear. There is reason to believe that Chevron was becoming less and less relevant in cases both present and future*. Chevron was on its way out the window as a judicial factor prior to this ruling. I believe both sides are over-reacting. There is less to celebrate, less to fear.
*Chevron only applied when the court accepted that the agency in question had a reasonable basis in making their ruling. If the court believes the regulatory agency’s interpretation to be unreasonable, then there is no judicial deference to the agency and Chevron isn’t in play. Courts have been overruling regulatory agencies whenever they wanted to for some time now.
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Post by epaul on Jun 28, 2024 18:35:37 GMT -5
Lots of talk about Chevron. But, the actual case that started the whole business, and the actual case the Supreme Court decided, was about a couple groups of fishermen who made their living catching herring. And the actual case itself should matter and should be part of the discussion.
In 2020 a Federal agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service, required that every herring boat that went to sea, regardless of size, had to have a Federal Monitor on board to inspect their catch AND, based on their interpretation of a 1976 law, the agency required the operators of the fishing boats to pay for the cost of having this monitor on their boat.
WTH? This Federal Agency not only decreed that the fishermen had to have a monitor taking up on space on their boat to keep an eye on them, they had pay for the guy out of their own pocket. Average cost to a herring boat for this federally required monitor? $700 a day per boat.
These are small boats; small independent owner operators barely getting by in many cases (we’re talking herring here, they aren’t rolling in dough). And not only has the Feds made them put some extra guy on their boat who’s taking up space and not working, but they have to pay the government $700 every time they put to sea for the pleasure of his useless to them company.
Try get your head around that. At least when the Kremlin puts one of their political officers on a boat, they don’t ask the boat's crew to pay for his training and salary.
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Post by epaul on Jun 28, 2024 11:33:42 GMT -5
I was just thinking maybe the garden could use a little water. I held off to see what the evening would bring. And the evening brought an inch of nice, slow, wonderful rain. The entire eastern half of North Dakota and a huge chunk of NW Minnesota got the same nice rain... just about the time they were thinking maybe a shot of rain would be nice.
For NW Minnesota and all of North Dakota, this year continues to be weather perfect. Oh, and that includes a huge fertile chunk of Canada just to the north of us. Western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan (home of the chicken) is a really big chunk of fertile ground.
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Post by epaul on Jun 27, 2024 23:07:05 GMT -5
But, for now, Trump supporters are elated and Democrats are despondent.
As for me...OPEN CONVENTION. WITH POPCORN.
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Post by epaul on Jun 27, 2024 23:00:58 GMT -5
A disaster for Biden. I've never seen anything like it. Usually the post-debate spin is: "My guy won." "No, my guy won.
Not this time. The post-debate talk from Democrats wasn't "My guy won". It was "OMG, what are we going to do? That was disaster." The mics weren't even cold and there was talk of an "Open Convention".
I expect by tomorrow there will be organized spin in place, but the immediate, unscripted reaction after the debate was telling, and there isn't any "day after" spin that can fix it... only time.
And if time leads to reflection, reflection will lead to an understanding that there is difference between (A) having the ability to confidently churn out a thousand words a minute under bright lights regardless of whether there is any sense or truth to them and (B) having the experience and judgement to make a measured and tempered decision when given the time to consider and examine the question.
Biden may or may not be losing his marbles, but all this debate told us is that he can't talk under pressure and that he can get rattled by a machinegunning stream of bullshit. And we learned that Trump can talk a mile a minute with confidence... as can a salesman selling timeshares in a Florida swamp or explaining all the wonderful financing options for that car of your dreams. But, we knew that.
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Post by epaul on Jun 27, 2024 20:11:53 GMT -5
9:00 EDT start? What the heck were they thinking? That's past their bedtimes. Both of them will be nodding off.
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Post by epaul on Jun 27, 2024 19:51:44 GMT -5
Indy Shorts? Hmm. They make movies about everything nowadays. What kind of shorts will you be wearing?
(Let's have a contest. I pick paisley. John will be wearing loud paisley shorts.)
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Post by epaul on Jun 27, 2024 10:20:48 GMT -5
I gots me a Cardinal!
Haven't seen him yet, but he has been singing somewhere in or just outside of the yard for the last three days! Common in many places, special for me. Off to Menards for suet and safflower seed. I think our Cherry trees are of interest. We can share. We have far, far more than we can use (and we do use).
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Post by epaul on Jun 27, 2024 10:14:41 GMT -5
Maybe it's just a North Dakota thing, but we usually keep the AC set at 62 in the summer. Usually, it's not needed.
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Post by epaul on Jun 26, 2024 13:48:35 GMT -5
It wasn't mentioned in the article, but "Top the Tater" spread is also a great all purpose lubricant for anything from rusty hinges to those personal moments.
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Post by epaul on Jun 26, 2024 12:24:21 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Jun 26, 2024 9:40:28 GMT -5
Morning!
Cool and cloudy morning. Good weather for my peas. And wheat. Took a drive up to the farm yesterday, and Holy Molly does the wheat look good. The whole drive up. The best I have ever seen. You could not design a better year for wheat. Row crops could use some heat, but, come July and August, I expect they will get it.
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Post by epaul on Jun 26, 2024 9:19:36 GMT -5
www.startribune.com/minnesotas-quirkiest-condiment-has-a-cult-following/600376284/Just read about it in StarTribune. According to the article, this Minnesota-made condiment, "Top the Tater", spread has a devoted group of fans in the state who will put it on nearly anything. As it is only available regionally, some devotees (who have had the misfortune of needing to leave the state) will even make trips back to Minnesota just to load up on the stuff. New to me, but I will look for it up here. Anyway, fun article. And extremely well edited, by the way!
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Post by epaul on Jun 25, 2024 22:37:58 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Jun 25, 2024 16:00:50 GMT -5
 Isn't he the guy that played the demented defrocked priest in "Damien 12: The Devil's return. Again. This time as a demented defrocked priest." ? |
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Post by epaul on Jun 25, 2024 12:40:35 GMT -5
... Are you familiar with Steve Thayer, another MN author? I'm guessing you are. No, I am not. I just found out about William Kent Krueger a couple weeks ago, and his Cork O'Conner series was started 25 years ago. Prior to, I had been reduced to reading "The Lincoln Lawyer" series for the third time. (still good, getting old has its benefits). Anyway, back to topic, as it turns out, "The Wheatfield" by Steve Thayer is free on my not-yet-cancelled Kindle Unlimited account. Has to be a worthwhile read if there is something about a wheatfield in it. So, it's on its way. (probably already here, it's for my Kindle, without which I would no longer read... as much.) |
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Post by epaul on Jun 25, 2024 8:21:19 GMT -5
Yikes!
Some storms rumbled through the north last night, as well. But all the action was east of here. It's getting pretty wet in the Arrowhead. But, rain is good there. It's all lakes and trees. Docks can be raised and there won't be any forest fires for a while.
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Post by epaul on Jun 25, 2024 8:06:54 GMT -5
The first five Cork O'Conner books are free if you have Kindle Unlimited. Unfortunately, Kindle Unlimited isn't free. But there is a free three-month trial period if you have Prime. Otherwise, you could sign up for one month ($12), read like a sun of gun, then cancel... I keep meaning to cancel. It's been a year. I got to get around to cancelling.
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Post by epaul on Jun 24, 2024 23:09:11 GMT -5
This is a timely thread. I am reading a series that is so good I was going to start my own thread to trumpet it.
The author is William Kent Krueger and the series is "The Cork O'Conner Mystery Series". Krueger is a Minnesota author and his stories take place in Aurora, Mn, a small town in the Arrowhead region of northeast Minnesota, a land of pine trees, lakes, state forests, Indian reservations, and the Boundary Waters Area Wilderness.
Great mysteries. And the stories and people ring true as bell. The books are very much in the vein of the Longmire Series by Craig Johnson and the Tony Hillerman books. Every bit as good. Maybe even better. But, I'll leave it as every bit as good. They are damn good!
And the plum in the pudding, like the Hillerman and Johnson books, there are a lot of them. If you like Cork O'Conner book one, you are in for a long treat. So far, there are 20 of them, and I don't think William Kent Krueger is done.
I recommend without reservation.
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