#2151 2024-09-29 06:58:32
I've begun to suspect that Republicans aren't interested in defending freedom.
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#2152 2024-09-29 19:57:39
According to their TV ad buys we're free to do as we're told.
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#2153 2024-09-29 20:25:19
“If you had one day — like one real, rough, nasty day with the drugstores as an example. … One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately,” Trump said, referring to allowing police to physically counter shoplifters.
Apparently, Trump wants the Purge. Between this and his constant insults (which have somehow managed to get worse over the years) he's just showing what he really is: desperate.
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#2154 2024-09-29 21:58:13
He just wants to enjoy other's pain. A true emotional vampire.
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#2155 2024-10-03 09:14:23
Pence and Trump’s frayed relationship leading up to Jan. 6 insurrection on full display in latest special counsel filing
By Jack Forrest, Tierney Sneed, Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand, CNN
Updated: 8:55 AM EDT, Thu October 3, 2024
Source: CNN
See Full Web Article
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s role in certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win over Donald Trump and his repeated refusals to help the former president overturn the results, was under a microscope in special counsel Jack Smith’s detailed court filing Wednesday.
Smith, in the 165-page document, provides the fullest accounting yet of evidence in his 2020 election conspiracy case against Trump, Pence’s former boss. Within its pages, the document provides a detailed recounting of the hours leading up to the US Capitol riot and the deterioration of the relationship between the two men that led crowds of Trump supporters to call for violence against Pence.
The filing lands in the homestretch of the 2024 presidential race, as Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign seeks to draw focus back on Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election loss.
The role that Trump’s vice president is playing in federal prosecution against him has always been one of the most remarkable things about Smith’s case. But a ruling over the summer by the Supreme Court, which granted Trump sweeping immunity for official actions but left the door open for prosecutors to pursue him for unofficial steps he took, also explains why those interactions make a hefty part of the historic new brief.
While the Supreme Court did not fully strip away allegations against Trump related to Pence from the case, the conservative majority indicated that it was skeptical that Trump’s conduct toward Pence could be prosecuted. Addressing the allegations that Trump pressured Pence to disrupt Congress’ certification, the high court deemed that conduct a “presumptively immune” official act and set a high bar for prosecutors to clear if they wanted to keep it in their case.
Smith, in an attempt to clear that hurdle, went into granular detail about the circumstances around various Trump-Pence conversations – where they occurred, who else was there and what each party said – to argue that those interactions were beyond immunity as they could serve no executive function.
At least some of that evidence came from Pence’s book, according to footnotes, while other pieces came from his contemporaneous notes and likely other non-public sources, including perhaps his own grand jury testimony.
During Tuesday evening’s vice presidential debate, Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, repeatedly pressed Trump’s current running mate, Sen. JD Vance, on the January 6, 2021, insurrection and raised Pence’s role to ask: “Where is the firewall with Donald Trump?”
“Where is the firewall if he knows he can do anything, including taking an election?” Walz asked. “Will you stand up? Will you keep your oath of office even if the president doesn’t?”
During a rally in York, Pennsylvania, Wednesday evening, Walz made clear that the Harris campaign will lean on Smith’s filing as it seeks to bolster its claims that Trump is unfit for office.
“There is a reason Mike Pence was not on that stage with me,” Walz said. “I served with Mike Pence in Congress. We disagreed on most issues, but in Congress and as a vice president, I never criticized Mike Pence’s ethics and commitment to this country, and he made the decision for the Constitution,” Walz said.
Pence tried to console Trump after election
Smith’s team in the filing attempted to cast Pence’s communications with Trump outside of his official vice presidential duties by framing a series of interactions between the two as conversations between “running mates” and friends, where Pence looked to console Trump and urged him to accept his electoral defeat in the weeks following the election.
On November 7, when many outlets called the 2020 election for Biden, Pence allegedly “tried to encourage” the defendant “as a friend,” according to prosecutors. He told Trump that he should focus on how he revived the Republican Party and “gave it a new lease on life.”
At a November 12 lunch, Pence told Trump that he didn’t have to concede but he could “recognize process is over,” prosecutors said. And four days later at another lunch, Pence again tried to get Trump to accept the results and suggested running again in 2024, the filing says. Trump, though, responded: “I don’t know, 2024 is so far off.”
And during a November 23 phone call, Trump allegedly told Pence that one of his private attorneys was skeptical about the election challenges.
During a December 21 private lunch, prosecutors say Pence “encouraged” Trump “not to look at the election ‘as a loss – just an intermission.’” Later that day, Trump asked Pence during a private discussion in the Oval Office what they should do, to which Pence said, “After we have exhausted every legal process in the courts and Congress, if we still came up short, [Trump] should ‘take a bow.’”
The file also details how Pence relayed to Trump responses from the governors of Arizona and Georgia, who told him they “did not report evidence of fraud in the elections in their states” and “could not take actions to convene their states.” Trump disregarded his running mate, prosecutors say.
Increased pressure on Pence
Trump, after Pence told him he did not have the authority to decertify the election, began to up the intensity of his request, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors cite contemporaneous notes written by Pence – that allegedly show Trump and his co-conspirators “plotted to manipulate” the then-vice president about his role in the election certification process in the lead up to January 6.
Trump personally asked one of his co-conspirators, John Eastman, to explain to Pence why he should reject the official Electoral College votes on January 6. Pence took notes during that meeting, Smith says, which allegedly memorialized Trump saying that “when there’s fraud the rules get changed” and “this whole thing is up to MP.”
“[H]as to do w/you – you can be bold,” Pence’s notes allegedly say.
While Trump began to “directly and repeatedly” pressure Pence, his co-conspirators worked to orchestrate the pressure campaign behind the scenes, Smith says.
On January 1, Trump called Pence to berate him for filing a brief opposed to a suit brought by Trump and his allies that sought to force Pence to help throw the election to Trump, prosecutors say. On the call, Trump told Pence that “hundreds of thousands” of people “are gonna hate your guts” and “people are gonna think you’re stupid,” also calling Pence “too honest,” according to the filing.
Hours before January 6
On January 5, 2021, according to the filing, Trump once again met with Pence to allegedly try to pressure him not to certify the electoral college votes. It was in that meeting that Trump threatened to criticize Pence publicly, Smith wrote, citing Pence’s book.
Smith says that Pence told someone identified in the filing only as “P8” about that comment, and that “P8” was so concerned by the prospect that he alerted Pence’s Secret Service detail.
Trump tried again to pressure Pence on the morning of January 6, shortly before driving to deliver his speech at the Ellipse, prosecutors say.
Pence, however, again refused and Trump “was incensed,” the filing states.
It was then that Trump “set into motion the last plan in furtherance of his conspiracies: if Pence would not do as he asked, [Trump] needed to find another way to prevent the certification of Biden as president,” according to the filing.
“So on January 6, [Trump] sent to the Capitol a crowd of angry supporters, whom the defendant had called to the city and inundate with false claims of outcome-determinative election fraud, to induce Pence not to certify the legitimate electoral votes and to obstruct the certification,” the filing states.
According to prosecutors, Trump also showed his “desperate conduct as a candidate rather than a President” when rioters stormed the Capitol, forcing Pence to be moved to a secure location.
An unnamed White House aide, according to the filing, ran to Trump when he received a phone call that Pence had been taken to a secure location “in hopes that [Trump] would take action to ensure Pence’s safety.”
Trump, however, according to prosecutors, looked at the aide and simply replied, “So what?”
Trump tweeted infamous attack on Pence himself, prosecutors say
Trump personally posted on Twitter as the riot unfolded at the Capitol, saying that Pence “didn’t have the courage” to overturn the election results, according to prosecutors.
At the time he posted the tweet, prosecutors say, Trump knew his request for Pence to block the Electoral College votes was illegal, knew that his supporters gathered in Washington, DC, believed his lies during his speech at the Ellipse that the election had been stolen, and knew that those supporters had now breached the Capitol building.
“It was at that point — alone, watching news in real time, and with knowledge that rioters had breached the Capitol building — that the defendant issued the 2:24 p.m. Tweet attacking Pence for refusing the defendant’s entreaties to join the conspiracy and help overturn the results of the election,” Smith wrote.
The tweet communicated “to his angry supporters that Pence had let him — and them — down,” Smith wrote, adding that it was “not a message sent to address a matter of public concern and ease unrest; it was the message of an angry candidate upon the realization that he would lose power.”
A rioter at the Capitol used a bullhorn to read out the post, according to the filing. One minute after the Tweet was posted, Smith wrote, the Secret Service was forced to evacuate Pence to a secure location in the Capitol.
Some of those inside the Capitol then later began chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!,” “Where is Pence? Bring him out!” and “Traitor Pence!”
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#2156 2024-10-03 13:22:33
Ah, Election Season!
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#2157 2024-10-03 15:41:45
Fascism as a political tool is relatively new for America.
Politics, however, have been this forever.
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#2158 2024-10-04 19:03:06
With misinformation swirling in Hurricane Helene’s wake, officials urge residents to ‘stop this conspiracy theory junk’
By Michael Williams, CNN
Updated: 5:14 PM EDT, Fri October 4, 2024
Source: CNN
See Full Web Article
Local officials and relief agencies working in communities impacted by Hurricane Helene are urging residents to verify the information they are sharing or repeating, saying a deluge of false rumors is hindering recovery efforts.
The hurricane tore a destructive path through the southeastern United States a week ago, killing more than 200 people, plunging some rural communities into isolation and leaving tens of thousands in need of aid. Like in past disasters, disrupted lines of communication and a dearth of immediately verifiable information have led some to latch onto – or invent – stories and rumors that provide explanations to questions that might not immediately be answerable, experts and officials say.
“When natural disasters hit, part of our reaction is to be fearful, and to be keen for any way to try and make sense of things,” said Dr. David Harker, a professor and chair of Philosophy and Humanities at East Tennessee State University who has studied misinformation.
As a result, Harker said, “we become hungrier for any kind of information that helps us make sense of a chaotic and frightening world.”
Some of the rumors floating around in Helene’s wake seem designed to tap into peoples’ preconceived political biases. A popular rumor, promoted by former President Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk, suggests the federal government is confiscating or otherwise diverting aid meant for Helene relief efforts as part of a political ploy
.
Presenting no evidence, Trump claimed earlier this week that the Biden administration, along with North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, is withholding or diverting relief funds because the hardest hit areas are prominently Republican, while Musk claimed in a post on X that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is “actively blocking citizens who try to help.”
Trump has also baselessly claimed that some of the diverted funds are being used to help migrants: “A billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants,” he said Friday.
Trump is actually accusing the Biden administration of an act very similar to something he did as president. In 2019, Trump’s administration moved $155 million meant for FEMA disaster relief to support immigration enforcement.
Those rumors prompted many state and local officials – including other Republicans – to push back. North Carolina state Sen. Kevin Corbin, who represents a district in the hard-hit western portion of the state, posted an exasperated plea on his Facebook page Thursday:
“Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in [Western North Carolina]?” Corbin asked his followers, adding the rumors are “just a distraction to people trying to do their job.”
“Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you or have you continually contact your elected officials to see if they are true,” Corbin said in the post.
Several state and federal agencies also posted public pleas for clearer minds. In between posts sharing tips, resources and crucial information for Helene-affected communities, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency posted a “Misinformation Alert” to its Facebook page on Wednesday explaining that state and federal agencies “are not confiscating supplies.”
The American Red Cross posted a lengthy tweet on Thursday batting down several rumors and adding that misinformation “disrupts our ability to deliver critical aid and affects the disaster workers who have put their own lives on hold to assist those in need.”
In a press conference on Friday, both Cooper and the FEMA administrator said the rumors are having a real impact on recovery efforts on the ground.
The claims that the state government is asleep at the wheel “demoralize” the hundreds of National Guard soldiers who have been assisting with recovery efforts, Cooper said: “When people talk on social media about that nothing is being done, that’s just not true, and it’s frustrating to them.”
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said at the same press conference that false information might dissuade people who actually need help from seeking it: “This level of misinformation creates the scenario where they won’t even come to us. They won’t even register, and I need people to register so they can get what they’re eligible for through our programs.”
While denying that any funds from the state or federal emergency management agencies are confiscating relief supplies, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee told a local TV station “there’s some belief and understanding” that the root of the misinformation is “foreign sources just to confuse on the ground what’s happening here.” Lee, a Republican, did not provide evidence for his claim of foreign interference, and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for information about what he meant.
But two prominent propagators of false information and outlandish conspiracies aren’t bots or shadowy foreign agents. They are elected officials who represent some of the areas most heavily impacted by the storm.
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the state’s embattled Republican gubernatorial nominee, spent much of this week lambasting his own state’s response to the storm.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Robinson claimed that “virtually every single aircraft currently running missions are privately owned. The few that aren’t are owned by states other than North Carolina.” That statement is directly contradicted by an earlier tweet from the North Carolina National Guard, which reported it had conducted 57 air missions and rescued more than 400 people.
“Our Soldiers and Airmen are working 24 hours a day across a dozen counties to get North Carolinians the help they need,” the state guard commander, Maj. Gen. Todd Hunt, said in a Wednesday tweet.
Robinson on Tuesday also thanked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for sending relief to his state, saying, “Florida is going to rebuild the roads in North Carolina.” The executive director of the union representing state employees in North Carolina disputed that notion, saying crews “have been busting butt for days.”
“Our folks at DOT will appreciate the help from neighbors but how dare you want to lead them as a cabinet agency and say something like this!” State Employees Association of North Carolina executive director Ardis Watkins said in response.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents a district in North Georgia that was also hit by the storm, suggested without evidence that a vague, shadowy force “can control the weather” in a tweet that draws comparisons to her suggestion before she became a congresswoman that deadly California wildfires were caused by space lasers.
Spokespeople for Greene and Robinson did not immediately respond to a request for clarification of their comments on Friday.
Local media outlets have been working around the clock to counter some of the more outlandish rumors, theories and AI-generated imagery that’s emerged from the storm. But almost as quickly as one rumor is debunked, another pops up, sending callers streaming to their elected officials and creating a logjam that might hinder folks from requesting and receiving desperately needed aid, experts told CNN.
While social media has helped connect storm victims to aid, enabled them to check in with their loved ones and connected them to vital resources, it’s also exacerbated and magnified the spread of the false information that officials say hinder recovery efforts, Harker, the East Tennessee State professor, pointed out.
“I think as a society we’re very much trying to figure out how to approach this balance and of course some social media companies have put in their own fact checking systems which have mixed success,” Harker said. “I think what makes it particularly frustrating is clearly, in these times, social media could be an invaluable source of reliable information.”
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#2159 2024-10-06 12:13:28
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#2160 2024-10-09 18:09:08
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#2161 2024-10-10 17:38:46
My Last Posting On This POS. 
Comments are worth your time.
https://imgur.com/gallery/circumstantia … ng-IzScyw4
In Buddhism, there is the idea of The Hungry Ghost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost Never satiated, never happy, empty beings. Just talking about this POS gives him energy. I am done.
Last edited by DmtDusty (2024-10-10 17:39:24)
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#2162 2024-10-11 22:43:28
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#2163 2024-10-12 10:47:08
Sweet! someone did their research and asked Alexa the right questions.
"There's been people out there, if they have an Alexa, and they've asked, 'What caused Milton?' You can go on Alexa now, it's already predicted the numbers of deaths. It's already predicted it!" she says. "On a Google it won't do that."
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#2164 2024-10-12 15:59:18
Johnny_Rotten wrote:
Sweet! someone did their research and asked Alexa the right questions.
"There's been people out there, if they have an Alexa, and they've asked, 'What caused Milton?' You can go on Alexa now, it's already predicted the numbers of deaths. It's already predicted it!" she says. "On a Google it won't do that."
How does one survive to that age being that fucking stupid?
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#2165 2024-10-15 12:03:10
Fact check: Vance falsely claims Trump did not ‘go after his political opponents’ as president
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Updated: 11:41 AM EDT, Tue October 15, 2024
Source: CNN
See Full Web Article
Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, falsely claimed Sunday that former President Donald Trump “didn’t go after his political opponents” during his presidency – an assertion that is contradicted by a mountain of evidence.
Vance, who said Friday that the attorney general would be the most important government official other than the president in a second Trump administration, was asked by ABC News host Martha Raddatz in an interview on Sunday if Trump would go after his political opponents. Vance said no, then added, “Martha, he was president for four years and he didn’t go after his political opponents.”
Facts First: Vance’s claim is false. As president, Trump publicly and privately pressured the Justice Department, and others in his administration, to investigate or prosecute numerous political opponents.
Trump made extensive behind-the-scenes efforts to get his political opponents charged with crimes. But you don’t have to rely on investigative reporting or the memoirs of former administration officials to know that Trump went after political opponents as president.
He often went after them in public, too.
As CNN reporter Marshall Cohen has noted, there is a long list of political opponents whom Trump publicly called for the Justice Department and others to investigate or prosecute. The list includes not only 2016 election opponent Hillary Clinton and 2020 election opponent Joe Biden but also Biden’s son Hunter Biden, Democratic former Secretary of State John Kerry, Trump’s former national security advisor turned critic John Bolton, Democratic former President Barack Obama, unspecified Obama administration officials, the anonymous author of a New York Times op-ed by a Trump administration official critical of Trump, MSNBC host and Trump critic Joe Scarborough, former FBI director turned Trump critic James Comey, other former FBI officials, former British spy Christopher Steele (the author of a controversial dossier of allegations against Trump), and various congressional Democrats – including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia.
Asked for comment for this article on Monday, Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk accused the media of having a biased “double standard” and said “it is indisputable that under Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s DOJ, the Republican nominee for president was targeted and indicted, while under President Trump, nothing like that ever transpired against either of the Democrats he faced off with in 2016 or 2020.”
But that wasn’t for a lack of Trump trying.
Trump repeatedly pressured the Justice Department as president to prosecute both Clinton and Biden, in addition to trying to get foreign countries to investigate Biden. That the Trump-era Justice Department declined to charge Clinton and Biden doesn’t mean it’s true that Trump didn’t “go after” them or others. (In fact, Trump literally said in 2017 that he wanted the department to be “going after” Clinton.)
John Kelly, whom Trump appointed as Secretary of Homeland Security and then White House chief of staff, told The New York Times in 2023 of Trump: “He was always telling me that we need to use the FBI and IRS to go after people – it was constant and obsessive and is just what he’s claiming is being done to him now.”
And contrary to Vance’s claim to Raddatz that Harris has herself tried to arrest political opponents, which Van Kirk echoed in her Monday statement to CNN, there is no public evidence that Harris pressured the Justice Department to prosecute Trump or her other opponents. The decision to bring two criminal cases against Trump – one over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and one over his post-presidency retention of classified documents – was made by a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Trump made many public calls for investigations and prosecutions of political opponents
On some occasions, Trump’s calls for investigations, arrests or prosecutions of his political opponents sounded more like vague gripes than sincere attempts to prompt official action. On numerous occasions, though, Trump applied explicit, sustained public pressure on the Justice Department in general or his attorney general to pursue his opponents.
For example, in 2017 and 2018, Trump frequently harangued then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in tweets and public remarks to investigate various allegations against Clinton.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” he wrote in one tweet. “So where is the investigation A.G.,” he wrote in another tweet. “So many people are asking why isn’t the A.G. or Special Council (sic) looking at the many Hillary Clinton or Comey crimes,” he wrote in another tweet. In yet another tweet, he noted allegations about Clinton, then wrote that “at some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper.”
Trump made a direct public request in 2019 for Ukraine and China to launch investigations into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden – after he was already facing criticism for privately pressuring Ukraine to investigate them. And in 2020, Trump publicly demanded that then-Attorney General William Barr indict Joe Biden, Obama and unspecified others over their supposed roles in the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s links to Russia.
“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’re going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we’ll just have to go – because I won’t forget it. But these people should be indicted. This was the greatest political crime in the history of our country. And that includes Obama and it includes Biden,” Trump said.
Trump privately pressured the Justice Department
Trump suggested in that Fox News interview that he might have raised the subject of Biden and Obama indictments with Barr, saying, “I’ll be honest with you, he’s got all the information he needs. They want to get more, more, more, they keep getting more. I said, ‘You don’t need any more. You’ve got more stuff than anybody’s ever had.’”
Trump privately pressured the Justice Department and Trump administration officials to go after other political opponents, according to former officials and news reports. And it appears he was sometimes successful, though it’s impossible to definitively prove a direct relationship between his demands and the department’s actions.
Sessions told special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump pressured him in 2017 to abandon his recusal from investigations related to the 2016 election in order to prosecute Clinton, according to the Mueller report. Sessions did not do that, but he announced in March 2018 that he had (in November 2017) appointed a federal prosecutor to look into a variety of allegations against Clinton. She was never charged.
The New York Times reported this year that in April 2018, Trump told aides that if Sessions didn’t prosecute Clinton and Comey, Trump would prosecute them himself – prompting his White House counsel to write him a memo outlining the limits of the president’s powers.
Bolton wrote in a 2020 book that Trump was “obsessed” with having Kerry prosecuted for supposedly breaking a rarely enforced old law by remaining in contact with Iranian officials after leaving office to try to preserve the nuclear agreement Kerry helped to negotiate. Bolton wrote that “in meeting after meeting in the Oval (Office), Trump would ask Attorney General William Barr or anybody listening to launch a prosecution.”
The same week in 2018 that Trump tweeted that Kerry might have broken the law, the Justice Department assigned federal prosecutors to investigate Kerry, according to a book by former federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman, who was ousted by Trump in 2020. Then, the same day Trump tweeted about Kerry in 2019, a Justice Department official called one of the prosecutors to apply more pressure over the case, Berman wrote. Kerry was never charged.
In 2019, Barr satisfied Trump’s investigate-the-investigators demand by tasking a federal prosecutor to help investigate the origins of the FBI’s probe related to Russia and the 2016 election. In late 2020, with about three months left in Trump’s presidency, Barr gave that prosecutor, John Durham, the status of special counsel.
And in early 2020, Barr tasked a different federal prosecutor with taking in information from members of the public, notably including then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, related to allegations about the Bidens and Ukraine, which had been a subject of Trump’s public and private focus.
Last edited by Baywolfe (2024-10-15 12:03:29)
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#2166 2024-10-17 17:51:22
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#2167 2024-10-17 20:26:48
Made in USA, my ass!
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#2168 2024-10-18 07:39:21
Baywolfe wrote:
Made in USA, my ass!
CNN tracked the "company" selling the "Swiss-made" Trump watches to a shopping mall in East Bumfuck, Wyoming. Scamming people is about all he's good at.
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#2169 2024-10-21 09:10:47
I don't think I'll ever drink an Arnold Palmer again. Just sayin'.
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#2170 2024-10-21 12:27:33
Fled wrote:
I don't think I'll ever drink an Arnold Palmer again. Just sayin'.
My grandma in Tennessee called it "Russian Tea" and it was dreadful. What's the political reason for not drinking it?
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#2171 2024-10-21 16:26:33
Baywolfe wrote:
Fled wrote:
I don't think I'll ever drink an Arnold Palmer again. Just sayin'.
My grandma in Tennessee called it "Russian Tea" and it was dreadful. What's the political reason for not drinking it?
One of the candidates in a stunningly "too-close-to-call" Presidential election was just making comments regarding the size of a certain dead golfer's penis.
I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess which one.
(On a side note, I think in my fatigued state I accidentally reported your comment instead of quoting it. If the powers that be could just ignore that, please...?)
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#2172 2024-10-21 17:58:22
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#2173 2024-10-21 19:13:20
Baywolfe wrote:
My grandma in Tennessee called it "Russian Tea" and it was dreadful. What's the political reason for not drinking it?
Gag me with a spoon, vile stuff that. Somehow Trump seems overly focused on Arnold Palmer as a folk cure for toadstool disorder.
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#2174 2024-10-21 23:52:34
BorderCount wrote:
(On a side note, I think in my fatigued state I accidentally reported your comment instead of quoting it. If the powers that be could just ignore that, please...?)
Sure, no problem. I'm being hammered into unconsciousness by political ads here in PA so I know exactly how you're feeling.
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#2175 2024-10-22 11:05:24
square wrote:
BorderCount wrote:
(On a side note, I think in my fatigued state I accidentally reported your comment instead of quoting it. If the powers that be could just ignore that, please...?)
Sure, no problem. I'm being hammered into unconsciousness by political ads here in PA so I know exactly how you're feeling.
LOL. I am encouraged that the ads are about 50/50 and I've heard that Harris' financial war chest is bigger than Donald's. I'm also willing to go on record to state that her penis is probably bigger than Donald's too.
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#2176 2024-10-22 17:11:07
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#2177 2024-10-23 09:54:18
From our "No Shit, Sherlock!" bureau.
23 Nobel Prize-winning economists call Harris’ economic plan ‘vastly superior’ to Trump’s
By Phil Mattingly, CNN
Updated: 5:01 AM EDT, Wed October 23, 2024
Source: CNN
See Full Web Article
More than half of the living US recipients of the Nobel Prize for economics signed a letter that called Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic agenda “vastly superior” to the plans laid out by former President Donald Trump.
Twenty-three Nobel Prize-winning economists signed onto the letter, including two of the three most recent recipients.
“While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we believe that, overall, Harris’ economic agenda will improve our nation’s health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness and be vastly superior to the counterproductive economic agenda of Donald Trump,” the economists write in the letter obtained by CNN.
The letter serves as a stamp of approval for Harris less than two weeks from Election Day on the issue voters consistently rank as the most important in surveys: the economy. Voter struggles with inflation and an overall dour view of the state of the US economy have long served as a clear vulnerability for the Democratic candidate in the race, with incumbent President Joe Biden struggling for months to highlight his administration’s economic policy before he stepped aside and Harris coalesced party support to become the party nominee.
The letter was spearheaded by Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor and 2001 winner of the prize, and marks the second major foray into the campaign by a group of Nobel laureates.
Stiglitz also led an effort in June, with 15 fellow Nobel winners, to highlight what the signatories said would be a “destabilizing effect” of a second Trump term on the US economy. The group said at the time that then-candidate Biden’s economic agenda was also “vastly superior.”
Trump dismissed the group’s letter at the time, and his campaign slammed those who signed on as “worthless out of touch” economists.
But the new letter, which began to come together after Harris detailed her economic vision late last month, includes seven new signatories and represents a wide cross-section in the field in terms of areas of expertise and approach to economics.
The expanded group includes two of the three most recent laureates – Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They received the prize, along with James Robinson of the University of Chicago, last week for their research into how institutions shape which countries become wealthy and prosperous.
The letter is intentionally brief at just 228 words, which reflects both an effort to secure consensus across a broader spectrum of economists and a desire to elevate that consensus with precision, according to a person familiar with the process. The letter was drafted to incorporate feedback from the initial effort.
It also marked an effort in the final days of the campaign to elevate what those involved viewed as an acute risk posed by Trump both in his economic proposals, but also, in their view, of the potential instability he would pose in an area where certainty and stability are paramount.
The letter points to Trump’s tariff and tax policies as inflationary and likely to balloon the federal deficit – a widely held view among economists. But it also issues a stark warning.
“Among the most important determinants of economic success are the rule of law and economic and political certainty, and Trump threatens all of these,” the economists write.
Despite the warnings and forecasts from economists across the political spectrum, Trump has been steadfast in his pledge to wield threats of sweeping tariffs as a cornerstone of his economic agenda.
Trump, in a recent Bloomberg interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, said his tariff plans would “have a massive effect, a positive effect.”
“The most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff,” Trump said. “It’s my favorite word.”
Trump has promised broad tax cuts beyond his 2017 tax law and promised to abolish taxes on tips, overtime and social security benefits, which analysts say would cost trillions, all as he pointed to tariffs and economic growth as the way to pay for the loss in revenue.
Economists view tariffs as effectively a tax on consumers who buy imported goods.
He has pledged large-scale de-regulation and, as part of the effort, unleash a surge in oil and gas drilling. He has also pledged to deport all illegal immigrants in the US in the “largest deportation operation” in the country’s history.
Trump has long held an edge when it comes to which candidate voters believe would best handle the economy as voters grapple with widespread discontent over the state and direction of the US economy.
Trump and his allies have sought to press that advantage in campaign events and in their advertising with a specific focus on the high prices that have weighed down American consumers for much of the last few years.
But Harris has steadily chipped away at Trump’s advantage on the issue in recent weeks, according to polling, and Harris campaign advisers see an opening to cut into Trump’s strength on the issue in the closing days of the campaign.
Those efforts have been bolstered by a steady stream of economic data that has boosted the confidence among US economic policy makers that they have successfully tamed inflation without pushing the broader economy into a recession.
The Federal Reserve has started cutting interest rates. Employment data for September showed hiring picked up, a dropping unemployment rate and strong wage growth.
Retails sales also remain durable.
The economic picture, at least based on the macroeconomic data, is one that appears robust.
Harris, as part of her economic agenda, has moved to address voter concerns about prices, the cost of housing, the cost of child and elder care and pushed for tax cuts targeting middle-and lower-income Americans.
She has also signaled support for the industrial policies championed by Biden designed to bolster US manufacturing for critical industries.
The contrast between the two candidates on the economy is central to the messages both campaigns are pushing in the final days of the race.
For the signatories of the letter, Harris’ message is the clear preference.
“Simply put, Harris’s policies will result in a stronger economic performance, with economic growth that is more robust, more sustainable, and more equitable,” the economists write.
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#2179 2024-11-03 19:54:14
Perfection....
This is a 78 year old man playing edge lord.
https://preview.redd.it/jxgrdh12gfyd1.g … 15d96c0ca2
He was tutored after all by Roy Cohn...
Last edited by SpacePuppy (2024-11-03 19:57:32)
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#2180 2024-11-03 21:24:49
On the other hand, he was just musing about how he wouldn't mind if ' the Media' got shot during (another!) attempt on his life. I'm almost starting to feel bad for Steven Cheung, who's tasked with spinning shit to gold.
...almost. He did choose to work for Trump, after all.
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#2181 2024-11-04 08:19:38
Let's not forget the nine person firing squad he's going to order up for Liz Chaney.
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#2182 2024-11-04 17:06:15
Or his, "...whether the women want it or not," comment, which sounds exactly like the sort of a thing a rapist would say.
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#2183 2024-11-06 09:42:14
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#2184 2024-11-11 20:16:31
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#2185 2024-11-13 19:52:12
At last, the pendulum has swung. We finally have a top law enforcement official who truly appreciates the values of hookers and blow. I definitely did not have this on my bingo card in the Nancy Reagan Just Say No era.
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#2186 2024-11-13 20:42:51
Feels like Trump is fully committed to his plan of 'no fucks to give'.
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#2187 2024-11-14 13:15:41
Johnny_Rotten wrote:
At last, the pendulum has swung. We finally have a top law enforcement official who truly appreciates the values of hookers and blow. I definitely did not have this on my bingo card in the Nancy Reagan Just Say No era.
To paraphrase a bit from The National Lampoon, "This is Attorney General Matt Gaetz. I know I’m in there. If I don’t come out with my hands up, I’m coming in after me.”
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#2188 2024-11-14 22:09:21
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#2189 2024-11-15 08:09:27
Perhaps the reason for my state of constant disappointment is that I wake up each morning hoping that he didn't.
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#2190 2024-11-15 10:01:30
BorderCount wrote:
Perhaps the reason for my state of constant disappointment is that I wake up each morning hoping that he didn't.
Yeah, who knows what that fuckwad James David Vance would do if he were President. The devil you know, and all that.
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#2191 2024-11-15 14:46:37
A True Nation of Rubes...
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#2192 2024-11-15 15:52:34
Baywolfe wrote:
BorderCount wrote:
Perhaps the reason for my state of constant disappointment is that I wake up each morning hoping that he didn't.
Yeah, who knows what that fuckwad James David Vance would do if he were President. The devil you know, and all that.
But sometimes, the devil you don't know is almost certainly better than the one you do. For example, I'd be willing to bet the couch-fucker isn't being blackmailed by Putin. Vance might be morally bankrupt, but I have to believe he's at least somewhat stable.
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#2193 2024-11-17 12:15:26
More cheerful projections.
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#2194 2024-11-23 12:42:22
Clickie the Orange Prickie for more...
Clickie the Sickie
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#2195 2024-11-30 19:07:57
Let them eat cake!
Take that Frenchie.
From Pardon to Paris: Trump Names Charles Kushner Ambassador to France
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#2196 2024-11-30 22:53:47
I've made my peace with all of this. Of course he did, just another sycophant waste of space joining his team. And, besides, fuck France just on general principle; they don't deserve to have a good American ambassador. There's no point in getting angry with anything that Diaper Don does, we lost that war. The Evangelicals, however, are still in our crosshairs. I think I'll actually be disappointed unless at least one Evangelical church building either burns down or blows up in the next two years. I don't need a body count but I want my property damage!
Donald did, indeed, finally drain the swamp. At the last count there is five different factions in the Republican party and three in the Democratic party. The two party system is dead, although they'll say it's on life support until the carcasses start to stink.
“The point is, you see," said Ford, "that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything
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#2197 2024-12-01 22:11:35
Baywolfe wrote:
“The point is, you see," said Ford, "that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything
Great Quote.
Yeah it's best to develop a thick skin and not fall prey to the shock you nature of news media. Sunlight being shined in though, should not be allowed to be obscured or ignored. The awesome size of the American government is such a vast cash machine for those who can curry favor, it's a self replicating organism, and lurks behind any policy or political party. Like so many pernicious species that abhor exposure, corruption thrives in darkness. Don't allow it to operate out of view, insulated from accountability. No matter how inured we become with Bush-Obama-Biden-Trump 2.0.
Private prisons in US stand to cash in from Trump’s mass deportation plan.
...unleashing something approaching euphoria among senior executives, who talk of increasing capacity to millions of inmates if necessary. “GEO Group was created for this unique moment in our country’s history and the opportunities it will bring,” said George Zoley, the firm’s chief executive, as an offer to Trump.
...The explosion came: shares in the two companies shot up, closing the first post-election session with gains of 42% and 29% respectively.
...Those numbers, which are very unusual for a single day, have continued since,
Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2024-12-01 22:12:37)
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#2198 Yesterday 14:47:05
I figured I had better read this. Wow, what a way to become highly qualified to run the FBI.
The Plot Against The King
The former lawyer is also on the board of Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the president-elect’s social media platform Truth Social. He also reportedly had a consulting contract with the company paying him $120,000 a year.
Earlier this year, Patel promoted pills that claim to reverse the effects of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Marketed under the trademark “Nocovidium,” the pills from a company called Warrior Essentials actually simply contain common dietary supplement ingredients including turmeric extract, green tea extract and vitamin D.
“Spike the Vax, order this homerun kit to rid your body of the harms of the vax,” Patel said in a Truth Social post promoting the pills in February.
In April, he shared another advert on Truth Social reading: “You were immune to the propaganda, but are you immune to the shedders.”
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#2199 Yesterday 15:13:15
Well, it won't cause any damage the way some of the other "cures" could. A brilliant marketing plan, it doesn't protect you from COVID, it protects you from the vaccines and all the vaccinated "shedders". Way to take herd immunity and turn it into a bad thing!
If they were actually manufactured correctly, Turmeric helps with joint pain, Green Tea is a wonderful anti-oxidant, and vitamin D3 is necessary if you don't go outside and get much sunshine. So, again, doesn't do anything to cure it's supposed target, but won't hurt and could possibly help. Except these horse thieves will charge more per pill than Viagra.
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#2200 Yesterday 17:13:05
If I were evil, I'd find a way to tap into this market and make a shit-ton of money off MAGA idiots.
But I'm not, so I should probably find a way to tap into this market, make a shit-ton of money off MAGA idiots, and then donate the proceeds to groups like Planned Parenthood, the HRC, the ACLU, the Satanic Temple...
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