If Florida flips, as the polls are suggesting, then Trump is doomed – politicalbetting.com

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Stocky said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

Snapshot of real life on food vouchers - my Instagram index shows no action on it, no WhatsApp chatter either. Only seen one person in real life talk about it and they weren't 100% supportive, said that only people still on furlough should still get vouchers during holiday time.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/10/16/d4e21/3

The polling suggests that it's a popular policy.

I'm sure but my point is more that it hasn't made it into the voluntary conversation like last time which means the government won't take a big hit by saying no.

There is a lot more news around right now which is probably washing it out. But I can't help but feel the government is just horribly in the wrong on this.

I like my friend's idea of helping those who are still on 80% or 67% of their wages, but beyond that the government shouldn't erode parental responsibility. I mean when does it stop, do we start giving out dinner vouchers as well because that's another, much more important meal and food poverty doesn't just stop at lunchtime.

I think it's sort of immoral when a family is so poor they have to decide whether to heat the house or give kids food. That is a parental responsibility that shouldn't ever have to happen, and frankly it's not because parents are feckless or on drugs. It's because they're losing their jobs thanks to COVID and the cratering economy. It is entirely reasonable for this Christmas, in a national emergency, to agree to keep the free school meals going.

Yes, which is why the compromise of keeping the additional support for people who are on the various jobs support schemes makes sense. Otherwise the state is taking responsibility away from parents.

I disagree. Help is not removing responsibility. Responsibility can only be discharged with capability. If you are incapable of supplying food for your children because you have no money, no job (or worse, a job that does not pay enough to support your family in the area where you live) then I don't hold that you can be held responsible for your children. By supplying some supplementary benefit (in this case school meals) to ameliorate that you are returning that responsibility to someone by giving them the capacity to discharge it. The only entity with the clout to do that is the state, and since children do not thrive in poverty it is contingent on the state to minimise that with short and long term measures. Therefore I believe the state should act.

But people in that situation already get a whole load of child related benefits for that reason. Child tax credits, child benefit, working tax credit and other forms of income support already exist as well as housing benefit. Those benefits are also extremely generous, it's that the parents haven't got the right spending priorities. I'm sure all of them have a fairly new iPhone and Sky TV but still claim poverty when it comes to keeping their own kids fed properly.

It is why I have always had concerns about UBI...it sounds good in theory, then we will get stories from the real world of hardship and before you know it new additional benefits schemes will be setup to try to help those and the process starts again.

There are other issues with Universal Benefit as well. A little-reported fact is that UB, unlike Tax Credits, is assessed against savings. You start to lose it at £6k and completely lose entitlement at £16k.

Parents who have taken advantage of the government`s initiative to invest for children via a Child Trust Fund (now Junior ISA) find out that their child reaches 18 and becomes old enough to claim Universal Benefit (if he/she, like many, especially after Covid, starts on minimum wage) is not eligible to claim UB because their parents took out CTF/JISA for him/her which the child, perhaps, didn`t even know about.

You may argue that if that person has £16k in savings they shouldn`t get UB anyway, which is fair enough and obviously what the government thinks, but my point is that this has not been well published and shows UB to be a different beast to tax credits. It was never supposed to be, they said, a tax-saving change.

Many adults have been caught out by this wealth assessment as well - going from tax credits to UB only to realise they have fallen into a trap. They find they no longer qualify for any benefit as they have over £16k and discover, furthermore, that it is impossible to move back onto tax credits once you`ve gone on to UB. So they lose their tax credits and gain no UB even though their circumstances are identical.

You mean UC not UB I assume?

The above is the entire reason to move to a UBI.

The problem comes when an army of people arrive with "Yes, but we need a special x to deal with y"

Before you know it, you have the complexity, inefficiency, stupidity and general waste of time equal to the American income tax system multiple by American health care.

Some truth in that. Straightaway I am thinking: disability benefits.

Poll averager strongly believes in use of poll averages

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1319009812504547336

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Interesting that Amy Coney Barrett is winning over Democrats.

https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/21/supreme-court-hearings-barrett-confirmation-polling/

The Dems keep falling into the same trap of saying "worst thing ever in history" and then whatever it is just turns out to be merely rubbish and people think "well it's not as bad as we were being told".

I think after Kavanagh, she has shown herself to be impressive under fire and of the right temperament. And even if you disagree with her religious beliefs, she is clearly an impressive jurist who said the right things about the separation of those beliefs from the interpretation of laws within the context of the constitution and precedent.

So would she have been a liberal's pick? No. But, as you said, she's come across nowhere near as bad as the initial descriptions of her.

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1318898345029570560

Evening all

A midweek miasma of polling from the US as the Presidential election enters its penultimate week.

Starting with the national polls of which there are six and they can be divided into batches. First are the three showing a narrow Biden lead - IBD/TIPP and Rasmussen have Biden ahead 49-46 while The Hill/Harris X has a four point Biden lead 46-42 but a much larger group of Undecided - it may be The Hill polls don't count "leaners" as supporters for either candidate so they may not be too far removed from Rasmussen and IBD/TIPP.

The other three pollsters tell a very different story - Change Research for CNBC has Biden ahead 52-42 but this is a pollster with a known Democrat bias. Survey USA has a 10-point Biden lead (53-43):

https://cheddar.com/media/cheddar-poll-biden-leads-trump-as-covid-edges-economy-as-voters-top-issue

Interesting to see Trump polling at 40% among Hispanics which will encourage Republican hopes of holding Arizona, Texas and Florida but that is in my view more than offset by Trump's slump among seniors which may hurt him in Arizona and Florida in particular. It may explain despite some American conservative bloggers and analysts claiming the Hispanic vote will get Trump home, the negative ratings among seniors may do much to dilute any improvement.

Finally, my favourite pollster, YouGov for the Economist, which has Biden ahead 52-43among Likely voters so remarkably similar to previous week suggesting for all the noise not much as changed:

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/hxop5lpnlj/econTabReport.pdf

Trump leads by just a point among men so that's a 5% swing since 2016 while the swing among women voters is almost nil so contrary to popular analysis Trump has lost support among men and that's converted a small Democrat lead into a near double-digit lead.

As a note of caution, the Cheddar poll claims Independents are backing Biden 52-36 but YouGov has them breaking for Trump 42-39. Make of that what you will.

Geographically, Trump leads by four in the South but is well behind elsewhere.

Foxy said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Gary_Burton said:

Florida is an extremely weird state.

Biden should narrowly flip Duval county but strangely the real bellwether of whether Biden can narrowly flip Florida or not is if Biden can push Trump down towards 60% in Sumter county to offset potential increased Latino turnout for Trump places like Miami-Dade, Palm Beach etc

Bloomberg is really pouring in the money and it will be interesting to see if Biden can win it on the narrowly win it on the night or not if only by the same margin as 2012 or if Trump's home state advantage is too strong.

I'm leaning towards the former but I'm not so confident.

Yes, that's very much my take on Florida, although I would qualify it in one important respect. It is the Cuban-Americans who are crucial. They are generally (and understandably) hostile to anything they perceive as left-wing and although Biden is no Socialist it's easy for the GoP to portray him as such to these CAs.

I wish I knew how many of them there are, what's their voting record and just how fanatically pro-Trump they are. Absent such information, I would be wary of betting on Florida, even though the current odds (about evens) look attractive.

I think in Florida about 30% of Hispanics are Cuban, and notoriously right wing. There is also a Venezuelan group that is much the same. Against that 30% are Puerto Ricans not impressed by Trump after Hurricane Maria.

I think it pretty much evens out, and Latinos cancel out.

I think Trump will scrape Florida, but it will be tight.

The Cuban vote in Florida is nowhere near as monolithic for the GOP as it once was - the younger generation does not have the same reflexive anti-left reactions as their parents.

stodge said:

Evening all
Survey USA has a 10-point Biden lead (53-43):

https://cheddar.com/media/cheddar-poll-biden-leads-trump-as-covid-edges-economy-as-voters-top-issue

With Survey USA commissioned polls you can link direct to their full tables

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d92742eb-77f8-468c-815a-6823765a2ed8


Waaaay better

alex_ said:

Malmesbury said:

alex_ said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

I guarantee that if this free holiday meals is extended while we have Covid, it will be with us for the next 10-15 years and probably expanded to basically everybody.

After covid, the reason will be high unemployment, then it will another reason and then it won't cost much more just to give to every kid

Now you might say it is a good idea anyway, but it is dishonest to claim it will just be for another couple of holidays.

We still have most of the Brown freebies despite supposed of nearly 10 years of austerity.

How about introducing food vouchers - but only to be spent on health food. Would probably pay for itself in the long term.

Vouchers have already been used in the past - for asylum seekers IIRC. Challenged and got rid of as inhumane....

There's a difference though, isn't there? Food vouchers in this case would be a bonus. For asylum seekers it's their only way to obtain food because they're not allowed to earn money.

Anyway, a similar scheme ("Healthy Start") already exists for preschoolers in needy families (though you have to wonder how far £3.10 a week goes).

Turning to the matter in hand, there's obviously a dollop of partisan politics in this, and forcing the consciences of Conservative backbenchers to shrivel a bit more. Most of them didn't run for public office to keep food away from children. But there are two things which do look anomalous about the current situation;

The idea that the taxpayer should pick up the tab for school meals in termtime for children in needy families is pretty much accepted. That covers 39 weeks a year- what are families meant to do for the other 13? Budgeting to deal with that degree of lumpiness while on benefits doesn't seem right.

The government has just spent lots (I've seen £500 million quoted) on Eat Out to Help Out. Subsidising nice meals out then claiming that we can't afford to be more generous to kids on FSM can be justified, but it's awfully hard work.

rottenborough said:

TimT said:

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Interesting that Amy Coney Barrett is winning over Democrats.

https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/21/supreme-court-hearings-barrett-confirmation-polling/

The Dems keep falling into the same trap of saying "worst thing ever in history" and then whatever it is just turns out to be merely rubbish and people think "well it's not as bad as we were being told".

I think after Kavanagh, she has shown herself to be impressive under fire and of the right temperament. And even if you disagree with her religious beliefs, she is clearly an impressive jurist who said the right things about the separation of those beliefs from the interpretation of laws within the context of the constitution and precedent.

So would she have been a liberal's pick? No. But, as you said, she's come across nowhere near as bad as the initial descriptions of her.

Apparently she is an "originalist", which the NYTimes outlines as:

"Originalists believe that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it was adopted and that it can change only by constitutional amendment. Under this view, the First Amendment means the same thing as when it was adopted in 1791"

This is a new term to me. Interesting legal arguments about all this.

Her mentor, Justice Scalia, was an originalist. She has strongly indicated that she is not a mini-me Scalia clone, and will think and decide for herself, albeit from an Originalist starting point.

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1319006937636360198

Biden goes from +5 amongst Registered Voters to +10 amongst Likely Voters in that Pennsylvania poll

Alistair said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

Question: is that $8.3bn better going to the US taxpayer or to the arts? (Sackler Library, Sackler Gallery etc)

Absolutely incredible.

You have outdone yourself to a degree that I did not think possible.

Just bravo.

The estimated costs of dealing with the opiate addiction crisis in the US, primarily created by the Sacklers, runs into the $100s billions, not 8

Barnesian said:

MikeSmithson said:

Barnesian said:

I'm beginning to plan for the US election night.
I'm going to be home alone in Tier 2.
I'll have PB for company and I'm idly thinking about setting up a Zoom meeting for anyone interested.
We'd need to rename ourselves with our PB handle in the waiting room.
What do you think?

Good idea

OK I'll set it up. I'll post the link here on the night.

I have a premium Zoom account so it won't run out of time.

I'll just leave it running. Come and go with your drinks and popcorn and betting tips.

Sounds great! I've been wondering what to do with some of my unspent leave and decided to take Nov 4-6 off so I can stay up on Nov 3 and then have a relaxing time celebrating or just sleeping it off. If you post a link on the night I'll definitely join in.

rottenborough said:

Some interesting points on how the military are turning against Trump in this piece.

Plus Trump campaign is totally skint, but managed to spend $100K on Trump Jr's new book.

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/trump-got-scammed-by-his-own-campaign?r=1emko&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=twitter

That's a great article.

This struck me from section 2...

Could Biden beat Obama's 2008 vote count to become the most voted for President ever?

"No candidate has ever received more votes that Barack Obama did in 2008, when he won 69,498,516 votes.

Looking at the polling averages it is likely that Joe Biden is going to eclipse that number. If Biden gets ≥ 51 percent of the vote and turnout is over 136 million—which is the most likely scenario—then he will wind up winning more votes than anyone to ever have run for president."

Alistair said:

TimT said:

Alistair said:

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1318978457448185857

Will still vote for his SC nominee though.

Romney is a genuine conservative, both politically and religiously. Why would he not vote for Coney Barrett? Indeed, if Romney were president, she is precisely the sort of candidate he would have picked.

She wouldn't answer the question as to whether a defeated president should peacefully handover power.

She followed a long-standing tradition of not answering questions about how she would rule on issues that might come before the Court, of which that would be one if Trump refused to step down. This is not something new nor limited to GOP nominees.

NickPalmer said:

Barnesian said:

MikeSmithson said:

Barnesian said:

I'm beginning to plan for the US election night.
I'm going to be home alone in Tier 2.
I'll have PB for company and I'm idly thinking about setting up a Zoom meeting for anyone interested.
We'd need to rename ourselves with our PB handle in the waiting room.
What do you think?

Good idea

OK I'll set it up. I'll post the link here on the night.

I have a premium Zoom account so it won't run out of time.

I'll just leave it running. Come and go with your drinks and popcorn and betting tips.

Sounds great! I've been wondering what to do with some of my unspent leave and decided to take Nov 4-6 off so I can stay up on Nov 3 and then have a relaxing time celebrating or just sleeping it off. If you post a link on the night I'll definitely join in.

The problem is that states are still voting when we get up in the morning on the west coast. The time differences means that we get hours and hours of filler by the tv channels saying nothing.

Alistair said:

stodge said:

Evening all
Survey USA has a 10-point Biden lead (53-43):

https://cheddar.com/media/cheddar-poll-biden-leads-trump-as-covid-edges-economy-as-voters-top-issue

With Survey USA commissioned polls you can link direct to their full tables

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d92742eb-77f8-468c-815a-6823765a2ed8


Waaaay better

Thank you, my friend. Trump won Whites by 21 last time and he is now up by just 3 so that's a 9% swing in the largest voting bloc. I'm slightly dubious of 40% support among Hispanics if I'm being honest.

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1319018999825530888

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1319018898344300550

Benpointer said:

rottenborough said:

Some interesting points on how the military are turning against Trump in this piece.

Plus Trump campaign is totally skint, but managed to spend $100K on Trump Jr's new book.

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/trump-got-scammed-by-his-own-campaign?r=1emko&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=twitter

That's a great article.

This struck me from section 2...

Could Biden beat Obama's 2008 vote count to become the most voted for President ever?

"No candidate has ever received more votes that Barack Obama did in 2008, when he won 69,498,516 votes.

Looking at the polling averages it is likely that Joe Biden is going to eclipse that number. If Biden gets ≥ 51 percent of the vote and turnout is over 136 million—which is the most likely scenario—then he will wind up winning more votes than anyone to ever have run for president."

Loving the snippet about £1.6m spent on ads in Washington DC!

TimT said:

Foxy said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Gary_Burton said:

Florida is an extremely weird state.

Biden should narrowly flip Duval county but strangely the real bellwether of whether Biden can narrowly flip Florida or not is if Biden can push Trump down towards 60% in Sumter county to offset potential increased Latino turnout for Trump places like Miami-Dade, Palm Beach etc

Bloomberg is really pouring in the money and it will be interesting to see if Biden can win it on the narrowly win it on the night or not if only by the same margin as 2012 or if Trump's home state advantage is too strong.

I'm leaning towards the former but I'm not so confident.

Yes, that's very much my take on Florida, although I would qualify it in one important respect. It is the Cuban-Americans who are crucial. They are generally (and understandably) hostile to anything they perceive as left-wing and although Biden is no Socialist it's easy for the GoP to portray him as such to these CAs.

I wish I knew how many of them there are, what's their voting record and just how fanatically pro-Trump they are. Absent such information, I would be wary of betting on Florida, even though the current odds (about evens) look attractive.

I think in Florida about 30% of Hispanics are Cuban, and notoriously right wing. There is also a Venezuelan group that is much the same. Against that 30% are Puerto Ricans not impressed by Trump after Hurricane Maria.

I think it pretty much evens out, and Latinos cancel out.

I think Trump will scrape Florida, but it will be tight.

The Cuban vote in Florida is nowhere near as monolithic for the GOP as it once was - the younger generation does not have the same reflexive anti-left reactions as their parents.

True enough, the original refugees from Castro left 60 years ago. Most must be pushing up the daisies by now.

kle4 said:

TimT said:

rottenborough said:

TimT said:

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Interesting that Amy Coney Barrett is winning over Democrats.

https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/21/supreme-court-hearings-barrett-confirmation-polling/

The Dems keep falling into the same trap of saying "worst thing ever in history" and then whatever it is just turns out to be merely rubbish and people think "well it's not as bad as we were being told".

I think after Kavanagh, she has shown herself to be impressive under fire and of the right temperament. And even if you disagree with her religious beliefs, she is clearly an impressive jurist who said the right things about the separation of those beliefs from the interpretation of laws within the context of the constitution and precedent.

So would she have been a liberal's pick? No. But, as you said, she's come across nowhere near as bad as the initial descriptions of her.

Apparently she is an "originalist", which the NYTimes outlines as:

"Originalists believe that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it was adopted and that it can change only by constitutional amendment. Under this view, the First Amendment means the same thing as when it was adopted in 1791"

This is a new term to me. Interesting legal arguments about all this.

Her mentor, Justice Scalia, was an originalist. She has strongly indicated that she is not a mini-me Scalia clone, and will think and decide for herself, albeit from an Originalist starting point.

If people disagree about what the original meaning was (and therefore how they might respond on specific issues) despite both being originalists the position doesn't even seem to have the virtue of consistency.

I am not a constitutional lawyer, or even a lawyer, but two people making a prima facie reading of the same text need not necessarily come to the same interpretation, and even more so if they do so within the context of precedents set after text was written.

I guess that is why courts have odd numbers of judges, and dissenting views - because it is highly unlikely that all jurists will interpret the same facts in relation to the same laws the same way, even if they were all originalists.

Benpointer said:

rottenborough said:

Some interesting points on how the military are turning against Trump in this piece.

Plus Trump campaign is totally skint, but managed to spend $100K on Trump Jr's new book.

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/trump-got-scammed-by-his-own-campaign?r=1emko&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=twitter

That's a great article.

This struck me from section 2...

Could Biden beat Obama's 2008 vote count to become the most voted for President ever?

"No candidate has ever received more votes that Barack Obama did in 2008, when he won 69,498,516 votes.

Looking at the polling averages it is likely that Joe Biden is going to eclipse that number. If Biden gets ≥ 51 percent of the vote and turnout is over 136 million—which is the most likely scenario—then he will wind up winning more votes than anyone to ever have run for president."

It's a fun point, though I'm getting unintended flashbacks of Corbynistas angrily pointing to number of votes he received at the 2017 GE compared to other elections.

TimT said:

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Interesting that Amy Coney Barrett is winning over Democrats.

https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/21/supreme-court-hearings-barrett-confirmation-polling/

The Dems keep falling into the same trap of saying "worst thing ever in history" and then whatever it is just turns out to be merely rubbish and people think "well it's not as bad as we were being told".

I think after Kavanagh, she has shown herself to be impressive under fire and of the right temperament. And even if you disagree with her religious beliefs, she is clearly an impressive jurist who said the right things about the separation of those beliefs from the interpretation of laws within the context of the constitution and precedent.

So would she have been a liberal's pick? No. But, as you said, she's come across nowhere near as bad as the initial descriptions of her.

Kavanagh was ghastly. Couldn't believe how a guy like that could make the SC.

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

Alistair said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

Question: is that $8.3bn better going to the US taxpayer or to the arts? (Sackler Library, Sackler Gallery etc)

Absolutely incredible.

You have outdone yourself to a degree that I did not think possible.

Just bravo.

The estimated costs of dealing with the opiate addiction crisis in the US, primarily created by the Sacklers, runs into the $100s billions, not 8

It takes several million to tango, though. The Sacklers seem pretty unpleasant people, but they forced nobody at gunpoint to prescribe or take this stuff, and if them why not go after Smith and Wesson, and Diageo?

They lied and they bribed. They knew their product was addictive and paid physicians to prescribe it. If you deliberately get people hooked on a drug by lying to them, you think that is the same as selling someone a gun?

A huge chunk of the people affected are not recreational junkies - they are people who had sports injuries, work accidents or prangs in their cars whom doctors prescribed drugs that got them hooked, while telling the poor sods that the drugs were safe and non-addictive.

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

rottenborough said:

TimT said:

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Interesting that Amy Coney Barrett is winning over Democrats.

https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/21/supreme-court-hearings-barrett-confirmation-polling/

The Dems keep falling into the same trap of saying "worst thing ever in history" and then whatever it is just turns out to be merely rubbish and people think "well it's not as bad as we were being told".

I think after Kavanagh, she has shown herself to be impressive under fire and of the right temperament. And even if you disagree with her religious beliefs, she is clearly an impressive jurist who said the right things about the separation of those beliefs from the interpretation of laws within the context of the constitution and precedent.

So would she have been a liberal's pick? No. But, as you said, she's come across nowhere near as bad as the initial descriptions of her.

Apparently she is an "originalist", which the NYTimes outlines as:

"Originalists believe that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it was adopted and that it can change only by constitutional amendment. Under this view, the First Amendment means the same thing as when it was adopted in 1791"

This is a new term to me. Interesting legal arguments about all this.

Her mentor, Justice Scalia, was an originalist. She has strongly indicated that she is not a mini-me Scalia clone, and will think and decide for herself, albeit from an Originalist starting point.

If people disagree about what the original meaning was (and therefore how they might respond on specific issues) despite both being originalists the position doesn't even seem to have the virtue of consistency.

I am not a constitutional lawyer, or even a lawyer, but two people making a prima facie reading of the same text need not necessarily come to the same interpretation, and even more so if they do so within the context of precedents set after text was written.

I guess that is why courts have odd numbers of judges, and dissenting views - because it is highly unlikely that all jurists will interpret the same facts in relation to the same laws the same way, even if they were all originalists.

I suppose that makes sense, but it still seems to me to somewhat undermine a bit of the righteousness of seeking to take an originalist interpretation as if it is not still coming down to a modern interpretation of the original text in the context of other precedents and so on.

For what it's worth I do think one need not be a total originalist to think interpreting the intention of older texts can be taken way too far even in pursuit of a noble aim, particularly when deciding what the writer's meant in a way which would seem pretty implausible for the time.

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

Alistair said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

Question: is that $8.3bn better going to the US taxpayer or to the arts? (Sackler Library, Sackler Gallery etc)

Absolutely incredible.

You have outdone yourself to a degree that I did not think possible.

Just bravo.

The estimated costs of dealing with the opiate addiction crisis in the US, primarily created by the Sacklers, runs into the $100s billions, not 8

It takes several million to tango, though. The Sacklers seem pretty unpleasant people, but they forced nobody at gunpoint to prescribe or take this stuff, and if them why not go after Smith and Wesson, and Diageo?

That seems to gloss over the rather relevant point that that the company has just pled guilty to at least some charges on this matter. Ok they didn't force people to take it at literal gunpoint, but the company did behave criminally in how they encouraged people to prescribe and take it. So it is not the same as companies in what others may regard as a disreputable business but who behaved legally.

Alistair said:

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1319006937636360198

Biden goes from +5 amongst Registered Voters to +10 amongst Likely Voters in that Pennsylvania poll

That’s quite unusual , it could be partly down to the amount of actual votes already cast , so because more Dems have already voted they then count as certain to vote so you end up overall with higher turnout .

kle4 said:

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

rottenborough said:

TimT said:

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Interesting that Amy Coney Barrett is winning over Democrats.

https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/21/supreme-court-hearings-barrett-confirmation-polling/

The Dems keep falling into the same trap of saying "worst thing ever in history" and then whatever it is just turns out to be merely rubbish and people think "well it's not as bad as we were being told".

I think after Kavanagh, she has shown herself to be impressive under fire and of the right temperament. And even if you disagree with her religious beliefs, she is clearly an impressive jurist who said the right things about the separation of those beliefs from the interpretation of laws within the context of the constitution and precedent.

So would she have been a liberal's pick? No. But, as you said, she's come across nowhere near as bad as the initial descriptions of her.

Apparently she is an "originalist", which the NYTimes outlines as:

"Originalists believe that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it was adopted and that it can change only by constitutional amendment. Under this view, the First Amendment means the same thing as when it was adopted in 1791"

This is a new term to me. Interesting legal arguments about all this.

Her mentor, Justice Scalia, was an originalist. She has strongly indicated that she is not a mini-me Scalia clone, and will think and decide for herself, albeit from an Originalist starting point.

If people disagree about what the original meaning was (and therefore how they might respond on specific issues) despite both being originalists the position doesn't even seem to have the virtue of consistency.

I am not a constitutional lawyer, or even a lawyer, but two people making a prima facie reading of the same text need not necessarily come to the same interpretation, and even more so if they do so within the context of precedents set after text was written.

I guess that is why courts have odd numbers of judges, and dissenting views - because it is highly unlikely that all jurists will interpret the same facts in relation to the same laws the same way, even if they were all originalists.

I suppose that makes sense, but it still seems to me to somewhat undermine a bit of the righteousness of seeking to take an originalist interpretation as if it is not still coming down to a modern interpretation of the original text in the context of other precedents and so on.

For what it's worth I do think one need not be a total originalist to think interpreting the intention of older texts can be taken way too far even in pursuit of a noble aim, particularly when deciding what the writer's meant in a way which would seem pretty implausible for the time.

Were I a jurist, I think I would always start from a prima facie reading of the text and avoid guessing the intent of the drafters, unless there were well documented travaux explaining the intentions of the drafters in writing the text in that manner.

But that initial prima facie reading would of course be coloured by precedent and modern life. So, by instinct I would be an Originalist, but not absolutely so.

*travaux préparatoires

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

Alistair said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

Question: is that $8.3bn better going to the US taxpayer or to the arts? (Sackler Library, Sackler Gallery etc)

Absolutely incredible.

You have outdone yourself to a degree that I did not think possible.

Just bravo.

The estimated costs of dealing with the opiate addiction crisis in the US, primarily created by the Sacklers, runs into the $100s billions, not 8

It takes several million to tango, though. The Sacklers seem pretty unpleasant people, but they forced nobody at gunpoint to prescribe or take this stuff, and if them why not go after Smith and Wesson, and Diageo?

Misleading push marketing. This book covers the tragedy of Americas drug epidemic. Currently killing as many as guns and motor vehicles combined.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1620402505/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_xokKFbAM9X0NH

nico679 said:

Alistair said:

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1319006937636360198

Biden goes from +5 amongst Registered Voters to +10 amongst Likely Voters in that Pennsylvania poll

That’s quite unusual , it could be partly down to the amount of actual votes already cast , so because more Dems have already voted they then count as certain to vote so you end up overall with higher turnout .

Or maybe mainstream Rep voters just cannot get enthusiatic about voting for the ORange idiot?

Benpointer said:

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Stocky said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

Snapshot of real life on food vouchers - my Instagram index shows no action on it, no WhatsApp chatter either. Only seen one person in real life talk about it and they weren't 100% supportive, said that only people still on furlough should still get vouchers during holiday time.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/10/16/d4e21/3

The polling suggests that it's a popular policy.

I'm sure but my point is more that it hasn't made it into the voluntary conversation like last time which means the government won't take a big hit by saying no.

There is a lot more news around right now which is probably washing it out. But I can't help but feel the government is just horribly in the wrong on this.

I like my friend's idea of helping those who are still on 80% or 67% of their wages, but beyond that the government shouldn't erode parental responsibility. I mean when does it stop, do we start giving out dinner vouchers as well because that's another, much more important meal and food poverty doesn't just stop at lunchtime.

I think it's sort of immoral when a family is so poor they have to decide whether to heat the house or give kids food. That is a parental responsibility that shouldn't ever have to happen, and frankly it's not because parents are feckless or on drugs. It's because they're losing their jobs thanks to COVID and the cratering economy. It is entirely reasonable for this Christmas, in a national emergency, to agree to keep the free school meals going.

Yes, which is why the compromise of keeping the additional support for people who are on the various jobs support schemes makes sense. Otherwise the state is taking responsibility away from parents.

I disagree. Help is not removing responsibility. Responsibility can only be discharged with capability. If you are incapable of supplying food for your children because you have no money, no job (or worse, a job that does not pay enough to support your family in the area where you live) then I don't hold that you can be held responsible for your children. By supplying some supplementary benefit (in this case school meals) to ameliorate that you are returning that responsibility to someone by giving them the capacity to discharge it. The only entity with the clout to do that is the state, and since children do not thrive in poverty it is contingent on the state to minimise that with short and long term measures. Therefore I believe the state should act.

But people in that situation already get a whole load of child related benefits for that reason. Child tax credits, child benefit, working tax credit and other forms of income support already exist as well as housing benefit. Those benefits are also extremely generous, it's that the parents haven't got the right spending priorities. I'm sure all of them have a fairly new iPhone and Sky TV but still claim poverty when it comes to keeping their own kids fed properly.

It is why I have always had concerns about UBI...it sounds good in theory, then we will get stories from the real world of hardship and before you know it new additional benefits schemes will be setup to try to help those and the process starts again.

There are other issues with Universal Benefit as well. A little-reported fact is that UB, unlike Tax Credits, is assessed against savings. You start to lose it at £6k and completely lose entitlement at £16k.

Parents who have taken advantage of the government`s initiative to invest for children via a Child Trust Fund (now Junior ISA) find out that their child reaches 18 and becomes old enough to claim Universal Benefit (if he/she, like many, especially after Covid, starts on minimum wage) is not eligible to claim UB because their parents took out CTF/JISA for him/her which the child, perhaps, didn`t even know about.

You may argue that if that person has £16k in savings they shouldn`t get UB anyway, which is fair enough and obviously what the government thinks, but my point is that this has not been well published and shows UB to be a different beast to tax credits. It was never supposed to be, they said, a tax-saving change.

Many adults have been caught out by this wealth assessment as well - going from tax credits to UB only to realise they have fallen into a trap. They find they no longer qualify for any benefit as they have over £16k and discover, furthermore, that it is impossible to move back onto tax credits once you`ve gone on to UB. So they lose their tax credits and gain no UB even though their circumstances are identical.

You mean UC not UB I assume?

The above is the entire reason to move to a UBI.

The problem comes when an army of people arrive with "Yes, but we need a special x to deal with y"

Before you know it, you have the complexity, inefficiency, stupidity and general waste of time equal to the American income tax system multiple by American health care.

Some truth in that. Straightaway I am thinking: disability benefits.

Housing modification and equipment via NHS....

You really have no idea do you?

The idea is to separate the basic costs of living from other issues.

Otherwise you end up with the same old game of a bit here, a bit there, and if you use the right kind of spherical trigonometry at the moment of the winter solstice, congratulations - here's 50p. Oh, and because we gave you 50p we are cutting your other benefits by 51p.

Sure, it will screw over some people. But it will screw over less people than the current system. And it might just be understandable.

kle4 said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

Alistair said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

Question: is that $8.3bn better going to the US taxpayer or to the arts? (Sackler Library, Sackler Gallery etc)

Absolutely incredible.

You have outdone yourself to a degree that I did not think possible.

Just bravo.

The estimated costs of dealing with the opiate addiction crisis in the US, primarily created by the Sacklers, runs into the $100s billions, not 8

It takes several million to tango, though. The Sacklers seem pretty unpleasant people, but they forced nobody at gunpoint to prescribe or take this stuff, and if them why not go after Smith and Wesson, and Diageo?

That seems to gloss over the rather relevant point that that the company has just pled guilty to at least some charges on this matter. Ok they didn't force people to take it at literal gunpoint, but the company did behave criminally in how they encouraged people to prescribe and take it. So it is not the same as companies in what others may regard as a disreputable business but who behaved legally.

Quite exactly and literally - They lied. People died.

They are now desperately trying to avoid court. Because that would end up with fines in excess of their assets and prison sentences.

Tier 3 for Nottingham says the i paper.

Yet cases are falling. 7 day average now back to what it was at beginning of the month.

Benpointer said:

rottenborough said:

Some interesting points on how the military are turning against Trump in this piece.

Plus Trump campaign is totally skint, but managed to spend $100K on Trump Jr's new book.

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/trump-got-scammed-by-his-own-campaign?r=1emko&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=twitter

That's a great article.

This struck me from section 2...

Could Biden beat Obama's 2008 vote count to become the most voted for President ever?

"No candidate has ever received more votes that Barack Obama did in 2008, when he won 69,498,516 votes.

Looking at the polling averages it is likely that Joe Biden is going to eclipse that number. If Biden gets ≥ 51 percent of the vote and turnout is over 136 million—which is the most likely scenario—then he will wind up winning more votes than anyone to ever have run for president."

He's now odds on to exceed 75m.

YBarddCwsc said:

Theuniondivvie said:

OnboardG1 said:

Alistair said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

They engaged in a vast network of Bribery.

8 billion and under a half dozen offences admitted is probably a good deal for them.

They and the Sacklers both should have been crushed out of existence. They've immiserated millions, cost the US taxpayer billions and profited immensely off of it. Break up Purdue, and hit the Sacklers personally with a big fuckoff fine. That might well be what happens when the civil litigation comes through, but if a company is this malfeasant it shouldn't exist.

I recall that there's a PBer who thinks the Sacklers should be given a bit of leeway due to good works for the Arts/charidee. Perhaps he'll be along shortly..

You just missed him -- singing the same old story -- at 9.31 pm.

It's weird, I thought the selling of indulgences for mortal sins went out of style centuries ago.

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Stocky said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

Snapshot of real life on food vouchers - my Instagram index shows no action on it, no WhatsApp chatter either. Only seen one person in real life talk about it and they weren't 100% supportive, said that only people still on furlough should still get vouchers during holiday time.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/10/16/d4e21/3

The polling suggests that it's a popular policy.

I'm sure but my point is more that it hasn't made it into the voluntary conversation like last time which means the government won't take a big hit by saying no.

There is a lot more news around right now which is probably washing it out. But I can't help but feel the government is just horribly in the wrong on this.

I like my friend's idea of helping those who are still on 80% or 67% of their wages, but beyond that the government shouldn't erode parental responsibility. I mean when does it stop, do we start giving out dinner vouchers as well because that's another, much more important meal and food poverty doesn't just stop at lunchtime.

I think it's sort of immoral when a family is so poor they have to decide whether to heat the house or give kids food. That is a parental responsibility that shouldn't ever have to happen, and frankly it's not because parents are feckless or on drugs. It's because they're losing their jobs thanks to COVID and the cratering economy. It is entirely reasonable for this Christmas, in a national emergency, to agree to keep the free school meals going.

Yes, which is why the compromise of keeping the additional support for people who are on the various jobs support schemes makes sense. Otherwise the state is taking responsibility away from parents.

I disagree. Help is not removing responsibility. Responsibility can only be discharged with capability. If you are incapable of supplying food for your children because you have no money, no job (or worse, a job that does not pay enough to support your family in the area where you live) then I don't hold that you can be held responsible for your children. By supplying some supplementary benefit (in this case school meals) to ameliorate that you are returning that responsibility to someone by giving them the capacity to discharge it. The only entity with the clout to do that is the state, and since children do not thrive in poverty it is contingent on the state to minimise that with short and long term measures. Therefore I believe the state should act.

But people in that situation already get a whole load of child related benefits for that reason. Child tax credits, child benefit, working tax credit and other forms of income support already exist as well as housing benefit. Those benefits are also extremely generous, it's that the parents haven't got the right spending priorities. I'm sure all of them have a fairly new iPhone and Sky TV but still claim poverty when it comes to keeping their own kids fed properly.

It is why I have always had concerns about UBI...it sounds good in theory, then we will get stories from the real world of hardship and before you know it new additional benefits schemes will be setup to try to help those and the process starts again.

There are other issues with Universal Benefit as well. A little-reported fact is that UB, unlike Tax Credits, is assessed against savings. You start to lose it at £6k and completely lose entitlement at £16k.

Parents who have taken advantage of the government`s initiative to invest for children via a Child Trust Fund (now Junior ISA) find out that their child reaches 18 and becomes old enough to claim Universal Benefit (if he/she, like many, especially after Covid, starts on minimum wage) is not eligible to claim UB because their parents took out CTF/JISA for him/her which the child, perhaps, didn`t even know about.

You may argue that if that person has £16k in savings they shouldn`t get UB anyway, which is fair enough and obviously what the government thinks, but my point is that this has not been well published and shows UB to be a different beast to tax credits. It was never supposed to be, they said, a tax-saving change.

Many adults have been caught out by this wealth assessment as well - going from tax credits to UB only to realise they have fallen into a trap. They find they no longer qualify for any benefit as they have over £16k and discover, furthermore, that it is impossible to move back onto tax credits once you`ve gone on to UB. So they lose their tax credits and gain no UB even though their circumstances are identical.

You mean UC not UB I assume?

The above is the entire reason to move to a UBI.

The problem comes when an army of people arrive with "Yes, but we need a special x to deal with y"

Before you know it, you have the complexity, inefficiency, stupidity and general waste of time equal to the American income tax system multiple by American health care.

Some truth in that. Straightaway I am thinking: disability benefits.

Housing modification and equipment via NHS....

You really have no idea do you?

The idea is to separate the basic costs of living from other issues.

Otherwise you end up with the same old game of a bit here, a bit there, and if you use the right kind of spherical trigonometry at the moment of the winter solstice, congratulations - here's 50p. Oh, and because we gave you 50p we are cutting your other benefits by 51p.

Sure, it will screw over some people. But it will screw over less people than the current system. And it might just be understandable.

It also has an underrrated effect of increasing worker bargaining power against businesses that want to employ them on the worst possible terms. If you know you can live, not well but live at least then the gun pointed at your head with "Work at an outsourced cleaning firm on a zero-hours contract for minimum wage" is unloaded. I'm not entirely convinced by a UBI yet, but to the extent that it removes power from dreadful employers... that's definitely an advantage.

No_Offence_Alan said:

Benpointer said:

No_Offence_Alan said:

alex_ said:

Malmesbury said:

alex_ said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

I guarantee that if this free holiday meals is extended while we have Covid, it will be with us for the next 10-15 years and probably expanded to basically everybody.

After covid, the reason will be high unemployment, then it will another reason and then it won't cost much more just to give to every kid

Now you might say it is a good idea anyway, but it is dishonest to claim it will just be for another couple of holidays.

We still have most of the Brown freebies despite supposed of nearly 10 years of austerity.

How about introducing food vouchers - but only to be spent on health food. Would probably pay for itself in the long term.

Vouchers have already been used in the past - for asylum seekers IIRC. Challenged and got rid of as inhumane....

There's a difference though, isn't there? Food vouchers in this case would be a bonus. For asylum seekers it's their only way to obtain food because they're not allowed to earn money.

if the DWP can't pay people on time, which is the root cause of a lot of this, why would they be any more efficient issuing vouchers?

No offence Alan, but it's bollocks to say the DWP can't pay people on time.

The issue is the government programmed in a 5 week delay to paying UC and also decided to pay it monthly, which causes all kinds of issues to people who are living hand to mouth and who are used to being paid weekly.

Both can be true. People I knew on benefits regularly complained about money not being paid when promised.

Well, maybe the situation has improved since the start of UC I never see it in the work I do for Citizens Advice, except where the claimant has not adhered to the UC process correctly*.

(*That in itself is an issue because a LOT of people are not comfortable using computers or the internet and UC more or less requires that. But that's not the DWP being unable to pay on time.)

Foxy said:

Barnesian said:

NickPalmer said:

Barnesian said:

MikeSmithson said:

Barnesian said:

I'm beginning to plan for the US election night.
I'm going to be home alone in Tier 2.
I'll have PB for company and I'm idly thinking about setting up a Zoom meeting for anyone interested.
We'd need to rename ourselves with our PB handle in the waiting room.
What do you think?

Good idea

OK I'll set it up. I'll post the link here on the night.

I have a premium Zoom account so it won't run out of time.

I'll just leave it running. Come and go with your drinks and popcorn and betting tips.

Sounds great! I've been wondering what to do with some of my unspent leave and decided to take Nov 4-6 off so I can stay up on Nov 3 and then have a relaxing time celebrating or just sleeping it off. If you post a link on the night I'll definitely join in.

Terrific. See you on the night.

I am in. Have booked the morning off.

Great. That's at least four of us.

IshmaelZ said:

Foxy said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

Alistair said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

Question: is that $8.3bn better going to the US taxpayer or to the arts? (Sackler Library, Sackler Gallery etc)

Absolutely incredible.

You have outdone yourself to a degree that I did not think possible.

Just bravo.

The estimated costs of dealing with the opiate addiction crisis in the US, primarily created by the Sacklers, runs into the $100s billions, not 8

It takes several million to tango, though. The Sacklers seem pretty unpleasant people, but they forced nobody at gunpoint to prescribe or take this stuff, and if them why not go after Smith and Wesson, and Diageo?

Misleading push marketing. This book covers the tragedy of Americas drug epidemic. Currently killing as many as guns and motor vehicles combined.

Yes, sure, the guys were complete shits. OTOH doctors are assumed to have a basic level of integrity, intelligence and medical knowledge, and if someone tried to sell me a non-addictive opioid I would suggest we moved straight on to negotiating over the bridge sale. Even if I didn't know the history of heroin. Plus I popped my way through 100 oxycontin last year (legitimate prescription) and whatever anyone tells you, it is pretty bloody obvious when you start creeping from purely analgesic to partly recreational use. The Sacklers were tangoing but not on their own, any more than it is purely a handful of evil overlords at BP and RDS who are responsible for global warming.

Pill Mill prescibers have been sentenced to long prison terms, such as...

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/pill-mill-doctors-prosecuted-amid-opioid-epidemic

Finally had a chance to look at the details of the case numbers, I stand by my original hypothesis that the R has stabilised and is inching downwards in some parts of the country. I don't think the R is lower than 1 nationally, though. I think it is in England, or at least in the majority of the country.

As I said earlier today, my major worry is that it has taken this high level of restrictions and fear to get to somewhere near 1 and this life is not socially or economically sustainable.

The current leadership don't have what it takes to put in place a testing system and follow up policies, to get the R below 1 without completely destroying the economy. The politicians and scientists in charge are bereft of ideas and until they are all summarily dumped from positions of power, we're stuck in this half life.

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Stocky said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

OnboardG1 said:

MaxPB said:

Snapshot of real life on food vouchers - my Instagram index shows no action on it, no WhatsApp chatter either. Only seen one person in real life talk about it and they weren't 100% supportive, said that only people still on furlough should still get vouchers during holiday time.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/10/16/d4e21/3

The polling suggests that it's a popular policy.

I'm sure but my point is more that it hasn't made it into the voluntary conversation like last time which means the government won't take a big hit by saying no.

There is a lot more news around right now which is probably washing it out. But I can't help but feel the government is just horribly in the wrong on this.

I like my friend's idea of helping those who are still on 80% or 67% of their wages, but beyond that the government shouldn't erode parental responsibility. I mean when does it stop, do we start giving out dinner vouchers as well because that's another, much more important meal and food poverty doesn't just stop at lunchtime.

I think it's sort of immoral when a family is so poor they have to decide whether to heat the house or give kids food. That is a parental responsibility that shouldn't ever have to happen, and frankly it's not because parents are feckless or on drugs. It's because they're losing their jobs thanks to COVID and the cratering economy. It is entirely reasonable for this Christmas, in a national emergency, to agree to keep the free school meals going.

Yes, which is why the compromise of keeping the additional support for people who are on the various jobs support schemes makes sense. Otherwise the state is taking responsibility away from parents.

I disagree. Help is not removing responsibility. Responsibility can only be discharged with capability. If you are incapable of supplying food for your children because you have no money, no job (or worse, a job that does not pay enough to support your family in the area where you live) then I don't hold that you can be held responsible for your children. By supplying some supplementary benefit (in this case school meals) to ameliorate that you are returning that responsibility to someone by giving them the capacity to discharge it. The only entity with the clout to do that is the state, and since children do not thrive in poverty it is contingent on the state to minimise that with short and long term measures. Therefore I believe the state should act.

But people in that situation already get a whole load of child related benefits for that reason. Child tax credits, child benefit, working tax credit and other forms of income support already exist as well as housing benefit. Those benefits are also extremely generous, it's that the parents haven't got the right spending priorities. I'm sure all of them have a fairly new iPhone and Sky TV but still claim poverty when it comes to keeping their own kids fed properly.

It is why I have always had concerns about UBI...it sounds good in theory, then we will get stories from the real world of hardship and before you know it new additional benefits schemes will be setup to try to help those and the process starts again.

There are other issues with Universal Benefit as well. A little-reported fact is that UB, unlike Tax Credits, is assessed against savings. You start to lose it at £6k and completely lose entitlement at £16k.

Parents who have taken advantage of the government`s initiative to invest for children via a Child Trust Fund (now Junior ISA) find out that their child reaches 18 and becomes old enough to claim Universal Benefit (if he/she, like many, especially after Covid, starts on minimum wage) is not eligible to claim UB because their parents took out CTF/JISA for him/her which the child, perhaps, didn`t even know about.

You may argue that if that person has £16k in savings they shouldn`t get UB anyway, which is fair enough and obviously what the government thinks, but my point is that this has not been well published and shows UB to be a different beast to tax credits. It was never supposed to be, they said, a tax-saving change.

Many adults have been caught out by this wealth assessment as well - going from tax credits to UB only to realise they have fallen into a trap. They find they no longer qualify for any benefit as they have over £16k and discover, furthermore, that it is impossible to move back onto tax credits once you`ve gone on to UB. So they lose their tax credits and gain no UB even though their circumstances are identical.

You mean UC not UB I assume?

The above is the entire reason to move to a UBI.

The problem comes when an army of people arrive with "Yes, but we need a special x to deal with y"

Before you know it, you have the complexity, inefficiency, stupidity and general waste of time equal to the American income tax system multiple by American health care.

Some truth in that. Straightaway I am thinking: disability benefits.

Housing modification and equipment via NHS....

You really have no idea do you?

The idea is to separate the basic costs of living from other issues.

Otherwise you end up with the same old game of a bit here, a bit there, and if you use the right kind of spherical trigonometry at the moment of the winter solstice, congratulations - here's 50p. Oh, and because we gave you 50p we are cutting your other benefits by 51p.

Sure, it will screw over some people. But it will screw over less people than the current system. And it might just be understandable.

I agree with you on that.

It was your "Housing modification and equipment via NHS" comment in relation to disability, I objected to. There are a lot of hidden costs related to disability.

Now you could argue: that's just hard luck - tough, but I think there is an acceptance in this country that someone who has lost all their limbs due to meningitis (to quote an extreme example) is going to need extra financial support to live a decent life.

So some sort of disability benefit would be required on top of a UI.

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

rottenborough said:

TimT said:

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Interesting that Amy Coney Barrett is winning over Democrats.

https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/21/supreme-court-hearings-barrett-confirmation-polling/

The Dems keep falling into the same trap of saying "worst thing ever in history" and then whatever it is just turns out to be merely rubbish and people think "well it's not as bad as we were being told".

I think after Kavanagh, she has shown herself to be impressive under fire and of the right temperament. And even if you disagree with her religious beliefs, she is clearly an impressive jurist who said the right things about the separation of those beliefs from the interpretation of laws within the context of the constitution and precedent.

So would she have been a liberal's pick? No. But, as you said, she's come across nowhere near as bad as the initial descriptions of her.

Apparently she is an "originalist", which the NYTimes outlines as:

"Originalists believe that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it was adopted and that it can change only by constitutional amendment. Under this view, the First Amendment means the same thing as when it was adopted in 1791"

This is a new term to me. Interesting legal arguments about all this.

Her mentor, Justice Scalia, was an originalist. She has strongly indicated that she is not a mini-me Scalia clone, and will think and decide for herself, albeit from an Originalist starting point.

If people disagree about what the original meaning was (and therefore how they might respond on specific issues) despite both being originalists the position doesn't even seem to have the virtue of consistency.

I am not a constitutional lawyer, or even a lawyer, but two people making a prima facie reading of the same text need not necessarily come to the same interpretation, and even more so if they do so within the context of precedents set after text was written.

I guess that is why courts have odd numbers of judges, and dissenting views - because it is highly unlikely that all jurists will interpret the same facts in relation to the same laws the same way, even if they were all originalists.

I suppose that makes sense, but it still seems to me to somewhat undermine a bit of the righteousness of seeking to take an originalist interpretation as if it is not still coming down to a modern interpretation of the original text in the context of other precedents and so on.

For what it's worth I do think one need not be a total originalist to think interpreting the intention of older texts can be taken way too far even in pursuit of a noble aim, particularly when deciding what the writer's meant in a way which would seem pretty implausible for the time.

Were I a jurist, I think I would always start from a prima facie reading of the text and avoid guessing the intent of the drafters, unless there were well documented travaux explaining the intentions of the drafters in writing the text in that manner.

But that initial prima facie reading would of course be coloured by precedent and modern life. So, by instinct I would be an Originalist, but not absolutely so.

*travaux préparatoires

That would make you a Textualist, whom Scalia held in contempt.

The power of Originalism is being able to devine the exact intention of the constitution, rather than just a boring old reading of what the constitution says.

That's how you get how Scalia just knew the 14th amendment was supposed to apply only to the freed slaves in the 1800s and not to be seriously considered for resolving disputes today.

Benpointer said:

stodge said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Thanks once again, Stodge, for your thoughtful analysis.

I'm glad you mention your concerns about Quinnipiac. I share them. They have a decent rating but have leaned heavily towards Biden throughout the contest and I suspect they have an inbuilt bias somehow.

The National and State polls seem to be converging somewhat. I find that reassuring. It suggests to me that the overall position remains stable and that Biden remains on course for a comfortable win.

Thank you, my friend. I can't believe it'll be an empty house for a Lingfield jump meeting tomorrow. My friend watched Plumpton last Sunday from the station bridge.

We are now seeing clear signs of panic from within American conservatism. They are presumably paying for polls which purport to show Trump still having a chance to try to galvanise what's left of their base and to de-stabilise the Biden campaign.

As part of this, out come any number of tweets claiming the Biden campaign is in trouble and they aren't getting the votes in the swing states and so on and so forth while the tone of opinion articles is becoming increasingly vitriolic and desperate.

I don't know where American conservatism goes if Biden wins and the Democrats take the Senate as well. It will be the first shut out since 2008 but that didn't last long. I'm far from convinced Trump-ism will outlive Trump and the GOP will revert in the next 12-18 months to a more traditional conservative outlook which may resonate against Biden's more progressive outlook in 2022.

A major split between the Trumpists and the traditional Republicans would be my dream outcome

Are the Tea Party going to go quietly back to old-style Reps? Are the rust belt non-college white males?

For different reasons, my dream scenario too. The GOP need to be humiliated, not just beaten. Otherwise, they won't learn and improve.

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

Alistair said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

You know how often companies pay huge fines without admitting wrongdoing (which of course is the reason they pay the fine), well I see that Purdue, the makers of OxyContin, are paying $8.3bn and pleading guilty to at least some criminal charges.

Just how hugely guilty must they have been to pay up and actually admit some wrongdoing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54636002

Question: is that $8.3bn better going to the US taxpayer or to the arts? (Sackler Library, Sackler Gallery etc)

Absolutely incredible.

You have outdone yourself to a degree that I did not think possible.

Just bravo.

The estimated costs of dealing with the opiate addiction crisis in the US, primarily created by the Sacklers, runs into the $100s billions, not 8

It takes several million to tango, though. The Sacklers seem pretty unpleasant people, but they forced nobody at gunpoint to prescribe or take this stuff, and if them why not go after Smith and Wesson, and Diageo?

They bribed doctors to prescribe people opioids.

MaxPB said:

Finally had a chance to look at the details of the case numbers, I stand by my original hypothesis that the R has stabilised and is inching downwards in some parts of the country. I don't think the R is lower than 1 nationally, though. I think it is in England, or at least in the majority of the country.

As I said earlier today, my major worry is that it has taken this high level of restrictions and fear to get to somewhere near 1 and this life is not socially or economically sustainable.

The current leadership don't have what it takes to put in place a testing system and follow up policies, to get the R below 1 without completely destroying the economy. The politicians and scientists in charge are bereft of ideas and until they are all summarily dumped from positions of power, we're stuck in this half life.

Some of us more stuck than others. I gather Johnson toured the Commons tea room today, joshing and blustering with his cronies whilst some of us up North have to meet our friends in cold back gardens.

One Rule and all that...

What if: the pollsters have overreacted to underestimating Trump in 2016?

If they have over-tweaked their models we might not see a Biden landslide coming.