• 4 Posts
  • 381 Comments
Joined 10 months ago
Cake day: August 20th, 2023
  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoNews@lemmy.world•Senate Republicans block bill that establishes right to IVF across the US
    12·
    9 days ago

    Presidents don’t make laws, congress does. There would have to be something in the constitution or in a law already passed that gives the executive branch the power to do that. An executive order is just an enforcement, a more specific guidance of application of already existing laws or powers. If the law the article is talking about is passed, he could issue executive orders to delineate more specific actions to help make sure it is enforced.

    If Biden just sat down in a chair one day and wrote “I declare state laws and state constitutions restricting ivf are void!” like some kind of dictator it would do literally nothing.

    Go on to the federal register and look at some executive orders. You’ll find most of them pertain to things the president directly controls, like the operations of executive department agencies. When it’s not something the president clearly controls in the constitution, it will cite the authority of which specific laws it’s basing this on.

    https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/12/03/2021-26459/the-national-space-council

    Purpose.

    The National Space Council (Council), as authorized under Title V of Public Law 100-685, advises and assists the President regarding national space policy and strategy. This order sets forth the Council’s membership, duties, and responsibilities.

    So for an example, here’s what law passed by congress this executive order is fulfilling, here are my more specific instructions about how we as the executive branch are going to fulfill that law. Clearly the authority to establish a national space council does not come from the constitution, so it’s a law passed by congress that makes this order possible.

    If congress passes a law protecting ivf and gives some power to the executive branch to enforce those protections, then maybe there would be situations where an executive order would be helpful.

    And Biden clearly supports this law, has repeatedly urged congress to pass it, and headlined the issue in his state of the union address.

    https://time.com/6898688/biden-ivf-abortion-state-of-the-union/

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•G7 agrees to loan Ukraine $50 billion from the interest on frozen Russian assetsEnglish
    13·
    9 days ago

    France, Germany and the ECB worry about Russian retaliation targeting European assets, and also the potential impact on financial stability and the euro’s status as a reserve currency. There’s concern that depositors from emerging economies may be encouraged to pull money out of western banks, fragmenting the global financial system.

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen downplayed such risks in February, arguing that “there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro, yen.” She said that if the G-7 acted together then the group would be representing half of the global economy and all of the currencies that really have the capacity at this point to serve as reserve currencies.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/why-seizing-russian-assets-to-fund-ukraine-is-fraught/ar-BB1jHeKz

    I agree with you, they should just be able to tap the assets directly. Basically some European countries are worried about the effects seizing assets could have on the Euro. Most of these assets are held in Europe as euros. The loan is actually an improvement over the original proposal though. Originally France Germany, etc were pushing only for the 3 billion in interest a year on the assets to be given to Ukraine. The loan solution was pushed by other countries who wanted to give them more cash from the Russian assets as a way to give $50 billion in cash immediately, with those yearly interest payments from Russian assets being used to pay off the loan.

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•US will send Ukraine another Patriot missile system after Kyiv's desperate calls for air defensesEnglish
    12·
    11 days ago

    Sure there’s economies of scale, but that is an absolutely ridiculous mind boggling number of a single surface to air missile system. Even Ukraine at it’s highest ask says 25 (though they estimate all major cities would be covered by 7), and you think they should make 100,000 batteries?! Every year?! What would be the point of that? Who on earth would buy that many and why?

    Even if they were manufactured at 20% of their current cost, a massive markdown, that would be $20 trillion a year dedicated to a single kind of a single weapon type, nearly as much as the entire gdp of the United States, and you still need the entire rest of your military paid for! They going to make 100,000 f35s and train 50,000 pilots too or something?

    I’m gonna stop, this must be trolling.

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoNews@lemmy.world•Hamas says it accepts UN-backed Gaza truce plan, US cites 'hopeful sign'
    7·
    12 days ago

    Context, the statement is saying technically the agreement was made with Hamas leaders outside of Gaza. Doesn’t sound like they’re in contact with the leaders actually still in Gaza. So if the proposal stalls it’s on them (Hamas currently inside Gaza, as opposed to their outside leadership who have agreed). At least that’s how I would read it with the context. There wasn’t anything in that statement to suggest he was talking about if Israel rejects the ceasefire it would be Hamas’s fault, that doesn’t even make sense.

    Blinken said the Hamas statement was “a hopeful sign” but definitive word was still needed from the Hamas leadership inside Israeli-besieged Gaza. “That’s what counts, and that’s what we don’t have yet.”

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•India under its longest-ever heatwave, with worse to comeEnglish
    19·
    12 days ago

    Millions even, we haven’t been this warm in millions of years! And same for our co2 concentrations. All done in the blink of an eye geologically speaking. We’ve reversed a natural Co2 trend in only 0.004% of the time!

    The commenter above you and anyone in doubt desperately needs to see these graphs:

    https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/

    If we follow projections and do nothing to change our behavior we’ll get to levels and temperatures not seen in hundreds of millions of years, all bascially instantly when compared to the the ability of life to evolve and adapt. Earth will survive, it’s been through worse. Gonna be rough on the humans though. We were 10c temperature above where we were then, but it would be even worse now of we got back to those co2 levels, becaue of differences in orbit and solar activity.

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoNews@lemmy.world•Biden administration sets 50 miles per gallon fuel economy standard for 2031
    28·
    15 days ago

    Light trucks aren’t exempt, but have a different standard. The article posted lacks a lot of detail. First off, 50 mpg is just the expected average given the mix of “light trucks” and cars. The actual standards are 65 mpg for cars and 45 mpg for “light trucks.”

    The new standards require American automakers to increase fuel economy so that, across their product lines, their passenger cars would average 65 miles per gallon by 2031, up from 48.7 miles today. The average mileage for light trucks, including pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, would have to reach 45 miles per gallon, up from 35.1 miles per gallon.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/climate/biden-mileage-electric-vehicles.html

    So actually the light truck standard isn’t far off of the 50 mpg figure this article inexplicably comes up with even though that’s not the standard for either cars or light trucks under the new rules.

    Heavy trucks and vans also are included in the policy with a greater percent increase than for cars and light trucks (though beginning from a lower floor).

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•House passes GOP bill to sanction ICC as it seeks arrest warrant for NetanyahuEnglish
    38·
    18 days ago

    Yes. By all means primary one of those democrats who voted for this out if you can, but if you got to the general election and the choice was between a pro Israel Republican and pro Israel Democrat, it would still be way better to pick the dem.

    100% of house Republicans voted for this, while only 20% of house Democrats did. Right now the Republicans control what bills come to the floor for a vote since they have a majority. If Democrats had the majority and controlled the speakership, this bill never would have even come up for a vote in the first place since so few in their caucus support it overall. A pro Israel dem is not ideal, but at least helps ensure the 100% pro Israel (and a bajillion other reasons for being horrible besides this issue) Republicans don’t control the agenda for what bills come up in the house and senate.