Let him apply for his own unemployment. Pull himself up by his bootstraps (of other people’s money). Maybe he should even pull the old “as a black man …” while he’s at it and see how it goes there.

I think “plotting” doesn’t see a ton of use in that more neutral sense outside of a few idiomatic cases like “plotting a course”. I definitely did not naturally associate a presidential run with that navigational sense of “plotting”, but instead the “plotting an evil scheme” connotation jumped out. I’d think of planning a presidential run to be more similar in activity to plotting a scheme, another literal plan of actions to achieve a goal, than to plotting a course as a figurative map of those actions. That’s why I interpreted pretty sharply that way, at least.

Regardless of whether unconsciousness is actually the peak, if the claim is that D’s are at fault for not sacrificing more of other aspects of their lives to achieve a better outcome in their jobs, better outcomes for their constituents, needs some other line to be drawn to avoid applying it all the way to the extremes. It may technically be a tool at their disposal, but that doesn’t automatically make it a reasonable expectation; devoting every moment of their lives to their job is also technically at their disposal, but that can’t be reasonably expected of anyone, regardless of how important the job is. I posit that whatever line one draws there is what the real issue is, not their failure to do better.

I don’t disagree that they didn’t actually accomplish anything here, and it’s fair to say that deserves no accolades, but there is still a gap between actually helping and being at fault. They are less to blame than, and any rebuke should come after, any of the millions who voted for the R’s pushing this plan, even accounting for being elected reps vs voters.

Was “live in exile from your home and state” in the job description or something they campaigned on? It’s pretty clear that the D reps could have done more and that Texans need better outcomes from the legislature, but to blame the Dems for not doing more per se is overly reductive. Otherwise, anything less than continuously working to unconsciousness until nothing more is physically possible would still put them at fault, and that’s hardly a fair expectation to be placed on any job, even an elected representative.

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here. Are you suggesting that lab-grown meat wouldn’t be controlled by existing laws on what can be in food and will contain some chemical with unknown effects on the human body (outside of those in natural meat)? And that we know all about the effects of whatever contaminants or bio-accumulants may end up in natural meat? I don’t believe either of those. If we went further and listed everything that went into the animal and the culture that grew the meat, for which we would know more about the effect on the human body?

To reiterate, I bet the lab folks could tell you the effect of their product on your body much better than ranchers and meat processing factories (or anyone else) ever could of theirs.

I bet the lab folks could tell you what’s in their product much better than ranchers and meat processing factories ever could. A lot of science goes into it though and some people seem to be allergic to that, at least based on the sorts of claims they make.