Trump Punts On Abortion

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State by state, the majority of voters want legal abortion and euthanasia. It will be interesting if it can make the Constitution in Florida with a 60% pass mandate. Ohio tried to change that to restrict abortion access in '22, which didn't work either.

Legal IVF is now on the Republican platform so the party itself is no longer pro-life from that standpoint. It was already on shaky ground for its support of the 'pill' which can also terminate conception instead of preventing it. As it is, the evidence of a link to breast cancer is dismissed as religious hysteria, while California labels everything else with a cancer warning.

It's the economy, stupid! Biden wins easily, and based on my investments I am fine with that. The economy has bounced back from the COVID shutdown, banks are paying savers again, energy is plentiful and affordable, stock indexes which wield trillon$ are at a near record.

Trump is starting to look like a Tudor Dixon level candidate or one of the other rejects they’ve run. He’ll likely get his ass kicked.

[km1125]

Energy affordable? Power companies nationwide have raised customer bills and gas prices are above 3.55 a gallon most everywhere. What drugs are you on?

And isn't DTE floating yet another H*** increase (nearly a half BILLION dollars for just their customers!) this year on top of their increase last year? We're vying with the most expensive states in the nation for that "highest cost" patch!

[zzand]

I agree gas is about the same as pre-covid but power bills have gotten higher since covid.

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I agree gas is about the same as pre-covid but power bills have gotten higher since covid.

How much of that is related to grid improvements? I suspect some of it. In fact the DTE hikes specifically have something to do with such work. There’s a push to put the lines underground for example.

[km1125]

I agree gas is about the same as pre-covid but power bills have gotten higher since covid.

How much of that is related to grid improvements? I suspect some of it. In fact the DTE hikes specifically have something to do with such work. There’s a push to put the lines underground for example.

Sure, DTE is marketing it that way. The real facts are that we've been paying VERY HIGH rates for quite some time while at the same time getting some of the WORST reliability in the nation when it comes to electrical service. DTE SHOULD have been "improving the grid" all along!!

PLUS, many of the areas with reliability issues have been newly-built in the last 30-40 years, so there's either terrible planning or terrible implementation. You could make the "old infrastructure" arguments in the City of Detroit or within the City of Ann Arbor, but most other places it's not really a valid argument.

And it is **very expensive** to put all the lines underground. There are some places it might make sense, like new subdivisions or new industrial parks. But largely it does not make sense. You still DO have outages with underground infrastructure (although numerically less) but the repairs usually take an order of magnitude longer to resolve.