Vise President
 

From The Nation:
[url]https://www.thenation.com/[/url]

If at first you don't succeed,...
 

As mentioned in [url=https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=522510&postcount=3]this post[/url] around the end of July 2019, [i]Il Duce[/i] nominated one of his most servile toadies, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas as Director of National Intelligence.

His lack of qualifications, padding of his resume, and political servility led to the withdrawal of his nomination.

However, [i]Il Duce[/i] simply re-nominated him, and now, by the simple expedient of his [strike]committing perjury[/strike] [url=https://apnews.com/7f2d3fcdf052af6843c310e068570d93]denying he would politicize intelligence[/url], his approval by the Senate seems assured.

McTurtle is determined to ram through every nomination he can, judicial and otherwise. :censored:

The silence from those hereabouts who were prominent and at-the-time-strident Russiagaters is palpable on this subject of late. [i]Consortium News[/i] explains the sudden shift in tactics of prominent MSM peddlers of said toxic 3-year-plus fairytale to "fine, but right now the country is facing a real existential crisis in form of [Covid-19|Trump|halitosis], so we really need to move on"-ism, lapses into "yeah, but [AG William] Barr is, like, a total *partisan*" ad hominems and similar rhetorical evasions:

[url=https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/11/patrick-lawrence-the-see-no-evil-phase-of-russiagate/]PATRICK LAWRENCE: The 'See-No-Evil' Phase of Russiagate[/url] | Consortium News: [i]The media spinfest following the collapse of this conspiracy theory suggests our troubled republic simply cannot accept its errors, leaving us unable to learn from them.[/i]
[quote]The long, destructive conspiracy theory known as Russiagate, the mother of them all, at last evaporates into thin air. No shred of it remains as of back-to-back disclosures over the past couple of weeks. Where does this leave us? What is to come of this momentous turn of events?

Among those not inclined toward hysteria or copious quaffs of Democratic Party Kool–Aid, it has long been a question how those who concocted and sustained the tales of Russian “meddling,” “collusion,” and mail hackery would manage their embarrassment — not to mention their potential legal liabilities — once their edifice-built-on-sand collapsed, as it was destined from the first to do.

The early signs are as some predicted: They will slither quietly off the stage without comment, they will deny their incessant, ever-vehement accusations, they will profess to weariness, they will insist there are more important things to think about now.

Here is a tweet from one Bob F published Saturday. Our Bob touches nearly all of the above-noted bases. His mentions of Matt Taibbi, Aaron Maté, and Jimmy Dore reference two journalists and a talk-show host who identified the fraud from the first and had the scruples not to surrender to the liberal totalitarianism we have suffered these past three years:
[i]
ok ok ok ok @aaronjmate and @jimmy_dore got one thing right in their lives. Can we move on from this shiny object that is Russiagate? Trump and the Republicans are looting this country. We could be very close to armed revolt. But let's talk more about Russia Russia Russia.

— Bob F (@BobF_666) May 9, 2020
[/i]
Yes, Bob, lets. This is a brilliant specimen of the flaccid cowardice we’re now to witness many times over. Reassuringly enough, a modest twitter storm followed. Here is a reply from Kathy Woods, a consistently insightful commentator in Twitterland:
[i]
Move on? Hell no! I can’t stand Trump, but the Dems used the levers of the security state to perpetrate a fraud. They buried progressive momentum and brought us to the brink w/ Russia. It’s essential we completely expose this.

— Kathy Woods (@woods_kathy) May 10, 2020
[/i]
For good measure, here is another response to Big Bob, this one addressing his implicit assertion of Democratic Party virtue in the Age of Trump:
[i]
A) liberals never stopped russiagating so obviously it needs to continue to be debunked.

B) if you think the Democrats are not equally to blame for the looting, I got a bridge to sell you.

— David Warschauer???? (@rogersmithbigo) May 9, 2020
[/i]
There is anger abroad as Russiagate finally unwinds, plainly. This is an excellent thing. And Ms. Woods is right: It is important to make the sun shine on what became, before the end, a scandal of historic proportions. There is a chance of achieving the “complete exposure” Woods asks for, but it remains a question, as of now, whether this will come to pass.

Two weeks ago the Justice Department made public documents showing that when, in January 2017, prosecutors wanted to close the collusion case against Michael Flynn, who briefly served as President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, because they found “no derogatory information” against him, Peter Strzok, the philandering F.B.I. agent later found to be shaping an “insurance policy” against a Trump victory in the 2016 election, cajoled them into keeping it open — absence of evidence be damned.

[b]Two Other Developments [/b]

The Strzok revelations turned out to be prelude to the two other developments further demolishing the Russiagate narrative. Last Thursday Justice finally dropped its case against Flynn altogether. We now know he was the victim of a perjury trap when questioned about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington in 2016. “Get him to lie so we can prosecute him,” was the FBI’s directive.

Yet worse, Flynn’s guilty plea was in response to prosecutors’ threats to indict his son if he pled otherwise. Tell me the difference, please, between this kind of stuff and the treatment of the accused in the postwar show trials in Eastern Europe.

On the same day the Justice Department dropped the charges against Flynn, the House Intelligence Committee released documents showing that the FBI had no evidence that Russia pilfered the Democratic National Committee’s email archives by hacking into its servers in mid–2016. The FBI had none because CrowdStrike, the patently corrupt cyber-security firm on which it (inexplicably) relied, never gave it any: It had none, either — contrary to its many claims otherwise.

The taker of cake here is that the documents also show that the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by the inimitable (thank goodness) Adam Schiff, knew there were no grounds to allege Russian involvement in what wasn’t a hack by anyone, but a leak, probably by someone with direct access to the DNC’s servers.

My Consortium News colleague Ray McGovern has just detailed the collapse of the “Russians-hacked-it” ruse.

No evidence anywhere along the line of collusion, none of Russians stealing mail. There is a simpler way to put this: No Russiagate.

In truth, there has been evidence aplenty of the Russiagate fraud for some time, due in part to the researches of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, VIPS, of which McGovern is a principal. The problem has been to secure official acknowledgement of three years’ worth of wrongdoing. We now have it, even if it arrives with no admission whatsoever of responsibility.

[b]Enter Perception Management[/b]

Now come the lies, the dissembling, and the media’s “perception management.” Tucker Carlson, the Fox News presenter, offered a funny-but-not-funny catalog of the liars who now stand exposed, none more thoroughly than the egregious Schiff, who ought to resign over this, and Evelyn Farkas, another Obama-era holdover with absolutely no regard for the truth. Loretta Lynch, Obama’s A–G, will also have things to answer for, assuming answers for her misconduct are required of her.

Among the press and broadcasters, it has been a spinfest this past week — led, naturally, by The New York Times, given no one in the media dares venture a syllable for which the Times has not signaled prior approval. The paper’s report on the dismissal of the Flynn case marked the judgment down as “the latest example of Attorney General William P. Barr’s efforts to chisel away at the results of the Russia investigation.” I lost count of the mentions of Flynn’s “lying” and “guilty plea” after nine. No reference to the perjury trap set for Flynn, or the threat to indict his son.

The Times ran two further pieces hatcheting Flynn and Barr in Saturday’s editions, here and here, and a straight-out character assassination of Flynn on Sunday, casting him as some kind of pathological split personality. The Gray Lady doth protest too much, in my view.

The press vastly over-invested in the Russiagate narrative from the first, and now appears set to throw yet more money after all the bad. This is not a good sign. It suggests that our troubled republic simply cannot accept its errors, leaving us unable to learn from them. This is why America in its post-democratic phase cannot self-correct. It is why we have no assurance that another Russiagate, in whatever form, will not be visited upon us.[/quote]

tRump's Stable Genius son
 

[URL]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-trump-confuses-cliches-reaction_n_5ebcf01dc5b628279b41e292[/URL]
Eric Trump Confuses Cliches And Becomes A Twitter Laughingstock[QUOTE]“Eric speaks near fluent Donald,” one person pointed out.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

[URL="https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/eric-trump"]Eric Trump[/URL] this week proved he is a chip off the old block after he confused his cliches while attacking [URL="https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/democratic-party"]Democrats[/URL] on Twitter.

“The chips are starting to crumble,” the son of President [URL="https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/donald-trump"]Donald Trump[/URL] perplexingly tweeted on Tuesday:

Dozens of people on Twitter pointed out that there appears to be no such saying. Others slapped Trump with botched idioms of their own:[INDENT][URL="https://twitter.com/darren_cullen"]Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives @darren_cullen
[/URL] [URL="https://twitter.com/_/status/1260201200173101062"]Replying to @EricTrump [/URL]
No use crying over pissed milk
[/INDENT][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;545468][URL]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-trump-confuses-cliches-reaction_n_5ebcf01dc5b628279b41e292[/URL]
Eric Trump Confuses Cliches And Becomes A Twitter Laughingstock[/QUOTE]

I prefer to say "chip off the old blockhead".

[QUOTE=rogue;545473]I prefer to say "chip off the old blockhead".[/QUOTE]
Accepted and commended!
Could he have meant: "The dominoes are starting to tumble"?

Probably mixed up chips are down/on the table and that's the way the cookie crumbles. And maybe a bit of the case crumbling.

But who knows really what goes on in that void.

[QUOTE=garo;545492]Probably mixed up chips are down/on the table and that's the way the cookie crumbles. And maybe a bit of the case crumbling.

[U]But who knows really what goes on in that void.[/U][/QUOTE]
That is a good question, but not one I would really care to know the answer to. :drama:

My all-time favorite regarding the mangling of a stock phrase (The United Negro College Fund's slogan "A mind is a terrible thing to waste"):[quote]What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

--Dan Quayle in a speech to the United Negro College Fund, May, 1989[/quote]

I can't remember my next-favorite precisely, but it was in the Rodney King - Reginald Denny PSA on [i]In Living Color[/i] which would have been... I guess 1992. A not-entirely-coherent Denny (Portrayed by Jim Carrey) says something like, "You can lead a horse to water, but the early bird gets the worm!"

In regard to Eric Trump's blinker on Twitter, my guess is that [strike]his ward attendant[/strike] he meant "The [i]walls[/i] are starting to crumble"

As to what goes on in that void, I don't know; but physics offers the theory of "quantum fluctuations."

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;545518]My all-time favorite regarding the mangling of a stock phrase (The United Negro College Fund's slogan "A mind is a terrible thing to waste"):

[U]What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.[/U]
--Dan Quayle in a speech to the United Negro College Fund, May, 1989

In regard to Eric Trump's blinker on Twitter, my guess is that [strike]his ward attendant[/strike] he meant "The [I]walls[/I] are starting to crumble"

As to what goes on in that void, I don't know; but physics offers the theory of "[U]quantum fluctuations[/U]."[/QUOTE]
@all of the above: :missingteeth:

I had forgotten what a complete nincompoop Quayle was/is. :picard:

[QUOTE=kladner;545522]@all of the above: :missingteeth:

I had forgotten what a complete nincompoop Quayle was/is. :picard:[/QUOTE]Hey, I'd almost forgotten Mr Potatoe Head!

[url=https://nypost.com/2020/05/15/joe-biden-mixes-up-number-of-jobs-lost-coronavirus-deaths/]Joe Biden mixes up number of jobs lost, coronavirus deaths[/url] | NY Post[quote]In his latest blunder, self-proclaimed “gaffe machine” Joe Biden claimed “millions” of Americans have died of the coronavirus and 85,000 jobs have been lost as a result of the pandemic, according to a report.

“This is not a moment for excuses or deflections or blame game. We’re — we’re in the middle of a pandemic that has cost us more than 85,000 jobs as of today,” the presumptive Democratic nominee said during a virtual roundtable with three governors, according to Real Clear Politics.

“Lives of millions of people. Millions of people. Millions of jobs,” he said, possibly realizing his faux pas about the number of jobs after flipping the numbers.

“You know, and we’re in a position where we just got new unemployment insurance, this morning, numbers, 36.5 million claims since this crisis began,” Biden added in the roundtable with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont that was livestreamed on PBS.

In other pandemic-related foot-in-mouth moments, Biden has referred to the disease as COVID-9 rather than COVID-19, and called the Chinese city where the pathogen emerged “Luhan,” not Wuhan, according to the Sun.[/quote]
W.r.to the latter gaffe, I wonder what the late Marshall McWuhan would've thought of the message that is the medium of Joe "nobody home" Biden and his elevation to Team D frontrunner status. Whenevr I see interviews where Mrs. Biden seems to be physically supporting Joe I think of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his puppet Charlie McCarthy - Joe simply should not be allowed to speak without a firm hand-up-the-back from Jill.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;545550]Whenevr I see interviews where Mrs. Biden seems to be physically supporting Joe I think of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his puppet Charlie McCarthy - Joe simply should not be allowed to speak without a firm hand-up-the-back from Jill.[/QUOTE]

And this is the presumed Democratic presidential candidate! :ick:

It seems that many Americans will once again will vote for short term goals (re stock market) instead of long term goals (environment). It seems that the only way for Trump to lose is for the stock market to crash. His supporters certainly don't seem to care about his lies, his avoidance of any responsibility, his dictatorial nature, or his desire to not be help accountable to anyone.

[QUOTE=rogue;545555]And this is the presumed Democratic presidential candidate! :ick:

It seems that many Americans will once again will vote for short term goals (re stock market) instead of long term goals (environment). It seems that the only way for Trump to lose is for the stock market to crash. His supporters certainly don't seem to care about his lies, his avoidance of any responsibility, his dictatorial nature, or his desire to not be help accountable to anyone.[/QUOTE]

And the DNC seems intent on doing everything in its power to help him win re-election ... they would rather lose with a horrid brain-addled establishment crook and neoliberal warmonger like Biden than let anyone with a shred of a progressive tendency near the nomination. So our not-really-a-choice is once again between Horrowshow #1 or Horrowshow #2. At this point it's beyond clear that the corrupt party duopoly must be smashed for there to be a glimmer of hope for the nation. None of this vote-for-the-lesser-evil phoney-choice BS.

Class Traitors, Welcome to the Revolution
 

The title is original, at least in the In These Times publication.

"Many liberal professionals who supported Elizabeth Warren took their votes to Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders. But they may still join a future left electoral coalition if they can face their own precarity."
[URL]http://inthesetimes.com/article/22509/ally-working-class-liberal-professionals-2020-elections-sanders-warren[/URL]
[QUOTE][I]This is a response to Zeeshan Aleem's piece, [URL="http://inthesetimes.com/article/22532/"]“To Win Elections, Should the Left Be Nicer on the Internet?”[/URL], [/I][I]and part of a roundtable on lessons from the 2020 primaries.[/I]
The 2020 Democratic primary breathed momentary life back into the promise of political alternatives for working people. Once again, that promise has been snuffed out.

For progressives and leftists, now is the time for tough questions, one of the most critical and enduring of which will be: What genuine barriers to building a winning coalition emerged from this race and what, in retrospect, was just manufactured noise designed to divide us? How much substance is there, for instance, to the charge that a “[URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/bernie-sanders-internet-supporters-2020.html"]toxic[/URL]” online culture cultivated by an ill-defined contingent of Bernie Sanders supporters on social media platforms constituted a serious (and statistically relevant) impediment to building such a coalition?

Depends on [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.html"]whom you ask[/URL].
[/QUOTE]

‘Let Them Have Eric,’ Screams Trump While Pushing Son Through Door Of Bunker
 

[URL]https://www.theonion.com/let-them-have-eric-screams-trump-while-pushing-son-t-1843831345[/URL]
[QUOTE]WASHINGTON—In an effort to placate the protesters gathered outside, President Donald Trump reportedly screamed, “Let them have Eric!” Monday as he pushed his son through the door of a White House bunker. “Please, you can take Eric, just leave me alone,”
[/QUOTE]

Putin Rejects Trump's Request for Ten Thousand Russian Troops to Guard White House
 

[url]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/63375-putin-rejects-trumps-request-for-ten-thousand-russian-troops-to-guard-white-house[/url]
“The optics would be terrible,” Putin reportedly told him. :smile:

Haha, you guys... I didn't visit The Onion nor BR for a while, it seems I missed a lot :lol:

However, be careful what you wish for! You may be granted...

As I posted recently in a [URL="https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?p=547423"]parallel thread[/URL], don't you have miners there? :razz:

[URL="https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-proposes-overruling-supreme-court-by-creating-supremer-court"]Trump proposes Supremer Court[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;548228][URL="https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-proposes-overruling-supreme-court-by-creating-supremer-court"]Trump proposes Supremer Court[/URL][/QUOTE]
Hilarious, but unfortunately not too far from the Cheeto's way of "thinking."

Trump news – live: President accused of asking China to help him win re-election
 

[URL]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-news-live-press-conference-today-speech-twitter-us-coronavirus-cases-prevents-a9571716.html[/URL]
[URL="https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/DonaldTrump"][QUOTE][/URL][URL="https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/DonaldTrump"]Donald Trump[/URL] has been accused of asking [URL="https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/China"]China[/URL] President Xi Jinping to help with his re-election efforts by purchasing more US farm products, the president's former national security adviser [URL="https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/john-bolton"]John Bolton[/URL] claimed in his new book. [/QUOTE]
See more here:
[LIST][*] [URL="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-china-2020-election-xi-jinping-bolton-a9571871.html"] Trump asked China president to help him win 2020 election, Bolton says [/URL][*] [URL="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-uighur-muslims-concentration-camps-xi-china-john-bolton-book-a9571921.html"] Trump backed Xi over concentration camps for Muslims, ex-aide says [/URL][*] [URL="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-north-korea-summit-kim-jong-un-nuclear-weapons-john-bolton-book-a9571936.html"] Trump cared little about North Korea's nuclear weapons but wanted publicity, Bolton says [/URL][/LIST]

I would take anything the Bomb Walrus says with a yuuuuuuuuuge grain of salt ... And encouraging trade because it would help one's economy, and a good economy would help one in a re-election campaign, so what? This is allegedly illegal or unethical now? Gah, Bolton - what a mass-murderous establishment creep. By way of further reading re. Bolton's new autohagiography, [i]Moon of Alabama[/i] had a new post in last few days titled "Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi", a phrase which rolls nicely off the tongue, with an interesting origin.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;548531]I would take anything the Bomb Walrus says with a yuuuuuuuuuge grain of salt ... And encouraging trade because it would help one's economy, and a good economy would help one in a re-election campaign, so what? This is allegedly illegal or unethical now? Gah, Bolton - what a mass-murderous establishment creep. By way of further reading re. Bolton's new autohagiography, [I]Moon of Alabama[/I] had a new post in last few days titled "Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi", a phrase which rolls nicely off the tongue, with an interesting origin.[/QUOTE]
As someone said in another online venue, "I am happy to watch the hyenas tear each other to pieces." Bolton is part of the gang who is now cashing in. Getting his scenario out before some of the others' increases his take..

[QUOTE=ewmayer;548531]And encouraging trade because it would help one's economy, and a good economy would help one in a re-election campaign, so what? This is allegedly illegal or unethical now? [/QUOTE]
Doesn't it count as conflict of interest?

[QUOTE=axn;548562]Doesn't it count as conflict of interest?[/QUOTE]

Huh???? So FDR should try to lose WWII because if the Allies are winning it will help him get re-elected which is a conflict of interest.

[QUOTE=Prime95;548567]Huh???? So FDR should try to lose WWII because if the Allies are winning it will help him get re-elected which is a conflict of interest.[/QUOTE]

Doing the thing because there is a legitimate reason, vs doing the thing because "I want to win re-election"? If FDR entered WW2 _only_ because of reelection prospects, then yes, it would be a giant conflict of interest.

Biden And His Ventriloquists Keep Out-Hawking Trump
 

[URL]https://consortiumnews.com/2020/06/23/biden-and-his-ventriloquists-keep-out-hawking-trump/[/URL]
[QUOTE]“Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro,” tweeted Biden Incorporated. “As President, I will stand with the Venezuelan people and for democracy.”

“Translation: if Trump retreats from his current policy of trying to sanction and suffocate Venezuelan into submission, Biden will make sure to revive it,” journalist Aaron Maté said in response.

“To be clear, Joe Biden is now attacking Donald Trump from the right on Venezuela,” said journalist Walker Bragman.[/QUOTE]

As found [u][color=blue]here[/color][/u]:

To: Donald Trump, President of the United States

Cc: Mark Meadows (Chief of Staff), Kayleigh McEnany (Communications Director), Kellyanne Conway (Counselor to the President), [i]et al[/i]

From: Jill Granat, General Counsel, Burger King (division of Restaurant Brands International)

Subject: Trademark Infringement

To whom it may concern:

It has come to our attention that numerous blatantly false statements being issued by the Administration have caused confusion regarding a valuable Burger King trademark.

We therefore respectfully request that the White House, and all executive agencies, immediately [b][size=4]cease and desist[/size][/b] from issuing such statements.

Failure to comply may result in our having to take further steps to protect the interests of Burger King and Restaurant Brands International.

It is Burger King, not the White House, that holds the trademark, "Home of the Whopper."

Thank you for your attention.

Respectfully,

Jill Granat,
General Counsel, Burger King and Restaurant Brands International

P.S. If you require an enumeration of said blatantly false statements, please make contact with our office. Regrettably, the digital version of the list was too large to be sent electronically, and we were unable to deliver a printed copy because White House security protocols did not allow for a semi to come onto the White House grounds.

Uh, except that whopper-telling is just about the the most popular sport in DC and its propaganda-transmitting MSM these days. To take a recent example, "[url=https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/07/the-latest-russiagate-bombshell-took-just-one-week-to-be-exposed-as-dud-who-had-planted-it-.html]Russia offered bounties to Taliban fighters to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan[/url]." Total, unmitigated, deliberate-falsehood bullshit, which alas got shredded so quickly by multiple independent bullshit-detectors that its promulgators are now busily slow-walking it back: Original story was splashed on front page, A-1 of the NYT, non-apology-apology walkback was buried on page A-19. Check out the raft of excuse-making euphemisms the NYT propagandists deploy, textual pretzel-contortions to avoid admitting they got caught promulgating bullshit, which was pushed out with precisely 0 fact checking:
[quote]A memo produced in recent days by the office of the nation’s top intelligence official acknowledged that the C.I.A. and top counterterrorism officials [b]have assessed[/b] that Russia [b]appears[/b] to have offered bounties to kill American and coalition troops in Afghanistan, but emphasized [b]uncertainties[/b] and [b]gaps in evidence[/b], according to three officials.
...
The memo said that the C.I.A. and the National Counterterrorism Center had [b]assessed[/b] with [b]medium confidence[/b] — meaning credibly sourced and plausible, [b]but falling short of near certainty[/b] — that a unit of the Russian military intelligence service, known as the G.R.U., offered the bounties, according to two of the officials briefed on its contents.

But other parts of the intelligence community — including the National Security Agency, which favors electronic surveillance intelligence — said they [b]did not have information to support that conclusion[/b] at the same level, therefore expressing [b]lower confidence[/b] in the conclusion, according to the two officials.[/quote]
Ah, yes "intelligence assessments" from "unnamed top officials" - we've seen that ruse before, and the problem for NYT and its ilk is they've now been caught too many times pulling this sort of nonsense, and their credibility is trending rapidly toward nil. And liying-liar lead Russiagate hoaxer Adam Schiff, as it turns out, was himself briefed on the aforementioned 'assessments' months ago but did not see them as worth doing anything about ... until end of June, just after Trump said he wants to pull remaining US troops out of that sh*thole country, to use his own descriptors:
[quote]Top committee staff for Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, were briefed in February on intelligence about Russia offering the Taliban bounties in Afghanistan, but he took no action in response to the briefing, multiple intelligence sources familiar with the briefing told The Federalist.[/quote]
Convenient timing for Schiff to suddenly wax outraged, yes?

Now can we please get back to the less-political funny? There's a reason for the existence of the "politics belongs in the Soap Box" thread in Soap Box, and I will likely shortly move the above 2 posts there, or into another more-suitable Soap Box thread. I know DrS does love himself his daily Trump-bashing, but it doesn't need to leak all over areas of the forum where politics is better avoided.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;550167]
It is Burger King, not the White House, that holds the trademark, "Home of the Whopper."

Thank you for your attention.

Respectfully,

Jill Granat,
General Counsel, Burger King and Restaurant Brands International

[/QUOTE]
:missingteeth: :goodposting:

[QUOTE=ewmayer;550219]I know DrS does love himself his daily Trump-bashing,[/QUOTE]
Talk about not checking your facts! If you'd bothered to check my postings over the last six weeks or so, you would have noticed a number of multi-day intervals between consecutive postings, with larger intervals between postings about the current occupant of the White House. In fact, I haven't been posting much about him over a longer stretch. I reckoned, there's not much point.

Lately, though, it seems even some R's are coming out of their torpor and thinking that maybe this Cult of Personality thing isn't so great after all. Adhere today, gone tomorrow...

Meanwhile, said occupant is acting so classically Bad Guy, it's pitiful. You [i]MUST[/i] re-open the schools! If you [i]don't[/i] reopen the schools, I'll cut off your Federal funding!

Never mind trying to say why it might be a Good Idea to re-open the schools. Do it because I say so, or else...

That's absolutely classic Bad Guy / Oppressor. Good Guys appeal to the listeners' sense of what is right, their sense of justice, etc. Bad Guys go straight to the threats.

What is right (as most folks think of it) and justice aren't even on our CIC's radar. Imploring that reopening the schools might be good for the kids, is left to toadies.

It seems that a major risk with schools re-opening is to teachers and other staff. That leaves aside kids passing the virus around and taking it home to the family.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;550264] Adhere today, gone tomorrow...[/QUOTE]
A nice turn of phrase. I must remember to use it myself in appropriate contexts.

[QUOTE=kladner;550460]It seems that a major risk with schools re-opening is to teachers and other staff.[/QUOTE].

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;550470].[/QUOTE]


Betsy Devos: 0.02% of children are likely to die when they go back to school, totally 14740.

This means you have something like 73.700.000 children in the US right now, is that correct?

There are projected to be (for the 2020-2021 school year) according to [URL="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_105.20.asp"]ed.gov[/URL]
76,606,000 (all students)
56,678,000 (primary and secondary)

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;550167]As found [u][color=blue]here[/color][/u]:[/QUOTE]

It looks like a hyperlink, but it is not. :razz:
Is this a joke or a real message sent?

The importance of being in context
 

[quote][QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;550167]As found [u][color=blue]here[/color][/u]:[/QUOTE]

It looks like a hyperlink, but it is not. :razz:
Is this a joke or a real message sent?[/quote]
The "link" is a joke, as the post obviously is. The reason why has been obscured.

The post was originally in the Perceptual "Funny" link thread.

Inspired by the allusions to "facts don't matter" then current in the thread, I quickly concocted the fake letter. Of course, there was no actual link, but luckily someone had altered the thread title a while back, changing the word "Perpetual" to "Perceptual." So, I created what [i]looked[/i] like a link -- a "perceptual link," if you will.

However, the post was then moved to this thread, thus removing the context of "perceptual link" in the thread title.

OK, Dr S. Now I get a fuller picture of the whole episode.

"We don't have secret courts and secret trials-without-being-able-to-defend-oneself in America" died with the creation of the FISA court system. Now it would appear that "We don't have secret police in America" has also been officially dealt the death knell, based on recent goings-on in BLM-protest-hit Portland -- check out the "Police State Watch" [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/07/links-7-18-2020.html]links in yesterday's NC Links[/url] round-up. And "in the spirit of bipartisanship", who gave the Executive Branch these frightening heretofore-unthinkable powers? Here we go:

[url]https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-suspension-of-habeas-corpus-in-america[/url]

“The National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Obama on the 31st December 2011 authorises the indefinite detention, without trial or indictment, of any US citizens designated as enemies by the executive. The individuals concerned are not only those who have been captured on the field of battle, but also those who have never left the United States or participated in any military action.”

It's as I've said, it's kind of Dark-State-Rising version of pro wrasslin: It's all choreographed, Team D are the faces (nice-guy personas), Team R the heels (bad guys), and the public-animus shtick is just kayfabe (phony 'behind the scenes reality' plotlines) dutifully peddled by the ringside shills (MSM). Except in the present instance the result is not generally-harmless entertainment, but something truly frightening, with each occupant of the White House widening and extending the abusive imperial-presidency powers ushered in by his predecessors.

I find it interesting how Trump is getting asked for help from the states to fight covid, but is saying "it is up to the states to solve their own problems" yet for Black Lives Matter protests he is sending in the troops even though states don't want them.

[QUOTE=rogue;551076]I find it interesting how Trump is getting asked for help from the states to fight covid, but is saying "it is up to the states to solve their own problems" yet for Black Lives Matter protests he is sending in the troops even though states don't want them.[/QUOTE]I am old enough to have been interested in watching the news by the time "Bloody Sunday" (March 7, 1965) became national news. In those days, it was often local and state authorities that were the forces of oppression (denying black people the right to vote or conduct peaceful protest; or fair opportunities in housing, employment, entry to places of business, etc), and the federal courts, and sometimes "federalized" National Guard troops, were used to enforce court orders and to protect black people trying to engage in peaceful protests, to enroll in school, etc from being beaten or lynched by racist mobs.

Of course, the locals mightily resented the heavy hand of the federal government then, as the folks in Oregon do now. But in that era the slogan "States' Rights" was a pretense for defending Jim Crow, as it had a century before been a pretense for defending the institution of slavery. Now, it is the locals who are defending the right of peaceful protest enumerated in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the Administration that is sending in law officers to gas them or kidnap them off the streets. The presence of these brownshirts has, according to local and state authorities, inflamed the situation.

In 1995, the NRA sent an infamous fundraising letter, and G. Gordon Liddy, speaking on his radio show, echoed a notable phrase used in reference to ATF agents. Curious that neither has spoken up about the current situation.

[haughty butler voice]The jack-booted government thugs have arrived, Sirs.[/haughty butler voice]

I find it amusing that some folks apparently now consider "Negro" a pejorative term for black people, as per a recent news item about Roger Stone. Back in the day, "Negro" was the generally accepted term. Southern racists used n:censored:r or "nigra" as well as any number of other terms which conveyed a sense of non-humanity.

March 7, 1965 became "Bloody Sunday" when Alabama law officers clubbed, beat, and gassed peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they tried to march from Selma to Montgomery. Eight days later, President Lyndon Johnson called for a voting rights act, saying [quote]Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.[/quote]

What is appropriate usage of terms shifts over time. Minority groups typically do not have much of a say in what they all called. After hundreds of years of oppression it took a lot more time for blacks and browns to provide terms for the rest of us to use when describing them. Slavery and the systemic racism following the American Civil War (and which continues to this day) are major hurdles for them to overcome. They had to accept terms like "negro" because they didn't have enough of a voice. They now have a voice and are telling the rest of us to stop using the term "negro".

[QUOTE=rogue;551076]Trump asked for help to fight covid[/QUOTE]
You (the last 2-3 posters) have to watch the last John Oliver (that about conspiracy theory, but the former are interesting too).

[QUOTE=rogue;551076]I find it interesting how Trump is getting asked for help from the states to fight covid, but is saying "it is up to the states to solve their own problems" yet for Black Lives Matter protests he is sending in the troops even though states don't want them.[/QUOTE]So the answer is to ask for help when you don't want it, and say nothing when you do want help. And Trump will do the opposite of your request just to spite you. Just like any recalcitrant 6 year-old would do.

[QUOTE=retina;551157]So the answer is to ask for help when you don't want it, and say nothing when you do want help. And Trump will do the opposite of your request just to spite you. Just like any recalcitrant 6 year-old would do.[/QUOTE]Trump is not like a recalcitrant 6 year old : at that age most people have started socialising, they understand, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes denying it, that others are also people. The problem with people suffering from "Narcissistic personality disorder" like Trump[sup]*[/sup] is that it is as if their "social" development stopped at the stage when a child doesn't yet understand that the "moving objects" around him are also people. [noparse];-)[/noparse]

Jacob

* The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder]wikipedia article about NPD[/url], speaks about meeting five of nine criteria to "qualify". I'd say that Trump, even if he has qualities, meets nine out of nine [noparse];-)[/noparse]

[url=https://apnews.com/4c521336d47c25d76d18000a3ea04511][i]Il Duce[/i]'s jack-booted government thugs -- coming soon to New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland[/url]
[quote]The Navy veteran stands passively in Portland, Oregon, amid swirling tear gas. One of the militarized federal agents deployed by President Donald Trump swings a baton at him with full force. With both hands. Five times.

Under the assault, 53-year-old Christopher David seems like a redwood tree — impervious to the blows. But in a video shot by a reporter, another officer — wearing green military camouflage, a helmet and gas mask — sprays David full in the face with what appears to be pepper gas.
<snip>
There was no talking. The federal officers, in full tactical gear, came charging out of the federal building.

"They came out in this phalanx, running, and then they plowed into a bunch of protesters in the intersection of the street and knocked them over. They came out to fight," David said. One officer pointed a semi-automatic weapon at David's chest, he said, and video shows another shoving him backwards as he tried to talk with the officers.

"I took a couple steps back, straightened up, and then just stood my ground right there, arms down by my side," David recalled.

One officer began whacking at David with the baton. When he doesn't fall or even flinch, another officer sprays him full in the face. David then retreats a few steps while making an obscene gesture.

"They are thugs and goons," David said. "I couldn't recognize anything tactically that they were attempting to do that was even remotely related to crowd control. It looked to me like a gang of guys with sticks."

David will need reconstructive surgery with pins and plates on his ring finger that was shattered. A bone in his hand was also broken.

He's not going back out to protest.

"My ex-wife and my daughter would kill me if I did that. They're so angry at me for doing it in the first place because I got beat up," he said. "I'm not a redwood tree. I'm an overweight, 53-year-old man."[/quote]

If people think that the economy is more important than the systemic racism in this country, then they need to reconsider their priorities. Systemic racism should be seen as a bigger problem as it is tied to so many other issues such as poverty, crime, lack of access to health care, etc.

[QUOTE=rogue;551186]If people think that the economy is more important than the systemic racism in this country, then they need to reconsider their priorities. Systemic racism should be seen as a bigger problem as it is tied to so many other issues such as poverty, crime, lack of access to health care, etc.[/QUOTE]
I think it's a mistake to think of racism as "systemic." The legal underpinnings of Jim Crow were dismantled by the Civil Rights Movement and related legal challenges (notably [i]Brown v. Board of Education[/i] which overturned [i]Plessy v. Ferguson[/i], the decision that had enshrined the legal farce of "separate but equal" into law). "The colorblind society" incorporates the same mistake.

The thing is, "society" is an abstraction. It's [i]people[/i] that are racist. It was a notable step forward to remove the legal bulwarks that endorsed and institutionalized racist practices. But removing them didn't get rid of racism or racists. With the evisceration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, has come a new wave of attempts to disenfranchise those who are insufficiently wealthy, white, or Republican as pent-up racism, coupled with Social Darwinism, finds a new way to the fore.

Segueing to Black Lives Matter, the reaction of one person to whom I showed the video of Christopher David getting wailed on by government thugs in Portland might be sobering because a [i]lot[/i] of folks here in the good ol' USA share similar sentiments: "They told him to move. He didn't move." Never mind that they did [i]not[/i] tell him to move. Never mind that he wasn't acting aggressive or threatening, but simply standing with his hands at his sides. Never mind that, even if they [i]had[/i] told him to move, failure to comply would not justify or even excuse an aggravated-assault level of force (the routine response by an actual law-enforcement officer would have been to arrest him). In short, he had it coming because he shouldn't have been there.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;551274]... (the routine response by an actual law-enforcement officer would have been to arrest him).[/QUOTE]Arrest him for what? Standing still?

One could put it this way "systemic colorblindness has a disproportionately negative effect on minorities". Conservatives like to use the "one size fits all approach" implying that if it works for whites, it should work for blacks under the assumption that everyone is on the same playing field.

I find today's conservatism to have a complete lack of empathy for minorities and the struggles they face.

Combine "systemic colorblindness" and "dispassionate conservatism" with racism and you create a system that makes it very difficult for minorities to improve their situation.

I'm waiting for conservatives to realize that improving urban schools has a much bigger impact on the economic health of this country than giving a tax break to the wealthy. It should be apparent with the stimulus money. The poor will spend that money to pay bills, buy essentials, and keep their home. The rich are less likely to spend that money. They will sit on it until the economy improves.

[QUOTE=retina;551275][QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;551274]... (the routine response by an actual law-enforcement officer would have been to arrest him).[/QUOTE]Arrest him for what? Standing still?[/quote]
If a law-enforcement officer tells you to leave and you don't move, you are subject to arrest for "failing to comply with a lawful order from a law-enforcement officer" (or from any person having the legal authority). It is common practice in such situations to inform uncooperative individuals that they will be arrested if they don't comply, thus giving them a chance to avoid arrest, and for the officer to avoid a bunch of paperwork.

Firefighters and other first responders also have the authority to order you to get out of their operations areas. If you don't leave, they'll probably hold you until they can summon a law officer to haul you off to jail.

But IMO the guys who clubbed and pepper-sprayed Christopher David didn't tell him to move. If they'd been interested in [i]making[/i] him move, a couple of them could have frog-marched him some distance and told him to be on his merry way.

But they obviously weren't doing law enforcement. They were doing intimidation. And now, the ranks of the protesters in Portland have swelled considerably, as indignant citizens march in the streets to express their desire that the jack-booted government thugs leave their fair city, and public officials keep trying to tell the Administration that they didn't ask for their "help," that their presence is making things worse, and it's past time to get them the heck out of their state. They've also gone to court. A federal judge -- who works in the very courthouse in Portland where the action is -- has heard their request for a restraining order. No word when a ruling might come.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;551294]If a law-enforcement officer tells you to leave and you don't move, you are subject to arrest for "failing to comply with a lawful order from a law-enforcement officer" (or from any person having the legal authority).[/QUOTE]Most other countries the police would politely say to someone please give us some space we have a job to do, and give a reason for why it has to be precisely where the person currently is. IOW it isn't just a random "we need to show our authority so f-off, or else".

All this ordering people around is why they get so much trouble directed back at them.

[QUOTE=retina;551311]Most other countries the police would politely say to someone please give us some space we have a job to do, and give a reason for why it has to be precisely where the person currently is. IOW it isn't just a random "we need to show our authority so f-off, or else".

All this ordering people around is why they get so much trouble directed back at them.[/QUOTE]It's generally that way here in the good ol' USA too. But that's with real cops, who know the low-key approach is generally the first option, especially with people who aren't overtly being troublemakers. Threats of arrest are reserved for the thick-headed, and actual arrest for the utterly refractory.

But the folks [i]Il Duce[/i] sent to Portland aren't real cops. They're designated thugs, whose mission is to intimidate people. Alas, [i]Il Duce[/i]'s ignorance of our country's history and origins may well come back to bite him.

That approach didn't work so well for the British after the "Boston Tea Party" with the "Coercive Acts" AKA the Intolerable Acts, General Gage being point man.

A former President, Jimmy Carter, wrote a fictional novel (2003) based on how our War for Independence was won in the South after the British tried a coercive approach there. The book's title is [u]The Hornet's Nest[/u].

[QUOTE=retina;551157]Just like any recalcitrant 6 year-old would do.[/QUOTE]
There's a reason I found the episode "Peter for president" from the series "Angelo Rules" so funny...:smile:

[QUOTE=mart_r;551375]"Peter for president".[/QUOTE]

For some reason that sounds like a Family Guy episode (yes, beside the obvious character name correlation).

His covid-19 update yesterday was a cross between a campaign speech (I build a wall between use and Mexico to keep the virus out) and a lot of misleading information. I understand that he wants to put a positive spin on things, but people want facts, not "guesswork" turned into facts.

I'm sure he is thinking this, but won't say it: "Think about all those people on medicare/medicaid/ssi disability/public assistance who are getting sick and dying. We're saving billions of your tax dollars." Or "Think about people who are costing their families thousands upon thousands of dollars to keep them in nursing homes. This will save them money, money that they can now use to help our economy."

Not meaning to cause offense here, but watching this from afar is just mind-blowing.

It's almost like a bad apocalyptic sci-fi novel, except that it's happing live on CNN and FOX...

[URL="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-trump-mocks-portland-mayor-who-was-gassed-by-federal-troops-20200724-ksmfznjafnfyhnjxoomdj2ko6u-story.html"]This story[/URL], for example, strikes me initially as "this can't really be happening, can it???

[QUOTE=chalsall;551490]Not meaning to cause offense here, but watching this from afar is just mind-blowing.

It's almost like a bad apocalyptic sci-fi novel, except that it's happing live on CNN and FOX...

[URL="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-trump-mocks-portland-mayor-who-was-gassed-by-federal-troops-20200724-ksmfznjafnfyhnjxoomdj2ko6u-story.html"]This story[/URL], for example, strikes me initially as "this can't really be happening, can it???[/QUOTE]Like [i]Il Duce[/i], Ted Wheeler is up for re-election this year. I guess we'll see whether getting tear-gassed is the end of Mayor Wheeler. He's been getting an earful from Black Lives Matter activists, but perhaps standing up to the tear gas from jack-booted government thugs will give him some street cred.

Meanwhile, in the "Waaait, THAT not real" category (obscure cultural reference to Gary Larson "The Far Side" cartoon), [i]Il Duce[/i] has declared that COVID-19 has made it too dangerous for R-delegates to convene in Jacksonville FL (which place he chose after he decided NC was being too restrictive about COVID-19), but continues to insist that school children should be crammed into classrooms this fall.

[QUOTE=chalsall;551490][URL="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-trump-mocks-portland-mayor-who-was-gassed-by-federal-troops-20200724-ksmfznjafnfyhnjxoomdj2ko6u-story.html"]This story[/URL], for example, strikes me initially as "this can't really be happening, can it???[/QUOTE]Not available to European viewers.

Tells me something about the NY Daily News attitude to privacy.

Here is the text of the article:

[quote]
President Trump called Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler “pathetic” after the Oregon politician was gassed by federal troops while standing among protesters outside a courthouse.

“He made a fool out of himself. He wanted to be among the people, so he went into the crowd and they knocked the hell out of him,” Trump said during a prime-time performance with Sean Hannity on Fox News Thursday. “That was the end of him. So that was pretty pathetic.”

Protesters have been regularly active in Portland since unarmed Black Minnesota man George Floyd was killed in police custody in late May. The president sent federal troops to confront demonstrators, which Wheeler referred to as “an unconstitutional occupation.”

Federal officers in camouflage fatigues have been apprehending citizens and using unmarked vans in recent days. Protesters have complained about not knowing why they were being detained or who their captors were.

Wheeler, whose role as mayor makes him the commissioner of the Portland Police Bureau, has been taking it from both sides. Some critics fault him for restraining law enforcement. Other politicians blame him for what they believe to be strong-arm tactics by Portland’s police force. Wheeler told protesters Wednesday he was literally and figuratively standing beside them as he was tear-gassed.

“It stings. It’s hard to breathe. I can tell you with 100% honesty I saw nothing that provoked this response,” Wheeler told the New York Times of the incident early Thursday. “I’m not afraid but I am pissed off.”

During his video chat on “Hannity,” the president said “we want to go in and help the cities” where peaceful protests as well as violence and vandalism have occurred.

“We’ll put in 50,000-60,000 people who really know what they’re doing,” Trump said. “They’re strong, they’re tough, and we could solve these problems so fast.”

An executive order signed by Trump last month allows him to deploy federal troops to protect historic monuments and federal facilities.

The president noted that he would like for the politicians who run cities like Chicago and Detroit to ask for his help, but warned, “At some point we’re going to have to do something that’s much stronger than being invited in.”

Trump also boasted to Hannity about how well he had been doing as president before the pandemic spun out of control, the economy crashed and protests erupted from coast to coast.

Hannity praised the president for his work with the African-American community and claimed Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive opponent in the November election, is “adopting the position that police are the enemies.”
[/quote]

[i]Il Duce[/i]'s recent "economic relief" executive orders bring to mind an old George C. Scott movie, [i]The Flim-Flam Man[/i].

The payroll tax deferral is a classic. Being only a deferral, it is at most an interest-free loan -- the government can demand that money later on. But the Con Man-in-Chief has that covered, too. He promises that, if he wins the election, he will make the cut permanent. Never mind the fact that the President doesn't have the authority to do that -- only Congress can. And never mind the obvious question -- if he [i]could[/i] do that, why wouldn't he do it [i]now[/i]?

Also never mind: The deferral of the payroll tax would cut off something to the tune of 40 billion dollars a month that funds Social Security and Medicare.

Or that, if the cut [i]were[/i] made permanent, everybody could kiss any prospect of Social Security or Medicare benefits goodbye.

Oh, wait, WH economic adviser Larry Kudlow says the government would simply [i]borrow[/i] the money to make up for any shortfall in Social Security.

The payroll tax cut is being pushed by campaign advisor Stephen Moore, co-founder of the "Club for Growth," an [strike]anarchist[/strike] anti-tax organization.

It isn't clear to me if Trump's goal is to kill Social Security and Medicare or if it is to help bankrupt the US so that it doesn't have to fulfill its debt obligations. The latter seems more likely since he has declared bankruptcy six times. It would be his crowning achievement. Actually, his crowning achievement would be a constitutional amendment to overturn the 22nd amendment on term limits, thus allowing him to become a de facto king.

[QUOTE=rogue;553526]<snip>
Actually, his crowning achievement would be a constitutional amendment to overturn the 22nd amendment on term limits, thus allowing him to become a de facto king.[/QUOTE]
I would rate the chances of this happening as slim to none.

Amending the Constitution requires

1) Either a two-thirds vote in [i]both[/i] the US Senate and the US House of Representatives, or application by the legislatures of two-thirds of the States (at least 34 states);

and then,

2) Ratification by three-fourths of the State Legislatures or by conventions in three-fourths of the States (at least 38 states).

If the 28[sup]th[/sup] Amendment, repealing the 22[sup]nd[/sup] [i]were[/i] enacted, it would IMO signal the complete subversion of our democratic institutions, and that subversion would be [i]Il Duce[/i]'s crowning achievement.

I note that the Equal Rights Amendment proposed in 1972 failed because (1) there was a deadline (seven years) for its ratification, and (2) some states which had ratified it withdrew their ratification before the deadline. At the time the deadline passed, it had the approval of 37 states, one fewer than required.

The prime mover in the STOP ERA movement was Phyllis Schlafly, who had previously been instrumental in scuttling Nelson Rockefeller's 1964 presidential campaign.

With regard to 1964, it is an oft-told tale that it was Rockefeller's divorce and remarriage that did in his candidacy. However, a convincing case can be made that it was, rather, his support for civil rights, and Barry Goldwater's opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that propelled the latter to the nomination.

In 2016, Phyllis Schlafly endorsed [i]Il Duce[/i] for president. Then she died of cancer.

[URL="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/13/902362014/trump-and-his-campaign-amplify-birther-conspiracy-against-kamala-harris"]Trump And His Campaign Amplify Untrue 'Birther' Conspiracy Against Kamala Harris[/URL]
[QUOTE]"I heard it today that she doesn't meet the requirements," Trump said. "I have no idea if that's right. I would have assumed that the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice president."

Officials from Joe Biden's campaign quickly denounced the remarks. Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for Biden, responded, calling Trump "the national leader of the grotesque, racist birther movement with respect to President Obama and has sought to fuel racism and tear our nation apart on every single day of his presidency."

"So it's unsurprising, but no less abhorrent," Bates said, "that as Trump makes a fool of himself straining to distract the American people from the horrific toll of his failed coronavirus response that his campaign and their allies would resort to wretched, demonstrably false lies in their pathetic desperation."

"This is what racism sounds like," Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders tweeted.
[/QUOTE]

Trump continues to feed Qanon.

Does Kamala Harris meet the requirements to be President? Let's see: Natural born citizen? Born in Oakland, California. Check. At least thirty-five years old? Born October 20, 1964, so is 55 going on 56. Check. Resident in the US at least fourteen years? Has been serving in public office in the US since at least 2003. Check.

I guess she doesn't meet the requirements for the same reason [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syGz4h0MyPQ]the SA consular offical didn't think "Alphonse" (Officer Murtaugh) really wanted to go to South Africa[/url].

If might be simpler than that. Both Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are black. Maybe the thinking is that they are not eligible because they are not white.

Trump hates the Postal Service?
 

Evening all. I've had a very productive day today.

So, based on the data streams, your Commander in Chief doesn't like the Postal Service because they:

1. Allowed someone who insulted him once to build a huge business.

2. Will allow mail-in-ballots (for safety reasons during CV19).

Am I understanding this correctly?

IMHO (respectfully), if shopped as a sci-fi novel this wouldn't even be seriously considered because the characters are too stupid to be believable.

[QUOTE=chalsall;553686]
IMHO (respectfully), if shopped as a sci-fi novel this wouldn't even be seriously considered because the characters are too stupid to be believable.[/QUOTE]

Characters too stupid to be believable is probably a defining characteristic of authoritarian states.

[QUOTE=masser;553689]Characters too stupid to be believable is probably a defining characteristic of authoritarian states.[/QUOTE]

Putin isn't stupid. Nor is Xi.

They both listen to their advisors, rather than immediately making their own "gut" decisions.

BTW, the "original act of sabotage", if you will, of the USPS, happened in 2006, and like most truly toxic acts of US government, was bipartisan:

[url=https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/]How Congress Manufactured a Postal Crisis — And How to Fix it[/url] - Institute for Policy Studies
[quote]In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.

In its December 2018 report, President Trump’s Task Force on the United States Postal Service reaffirmed current rules related to postal retiree health benefits, calling it “part of a mandate for postal self-sustainability.” However, the Task Force also recognized that the aggressive and accelerated timetable for funding the mandate has proved unworkable. They call for past deficits to be “restructured with the payments re-amortized with new actuarial calculation based on the population of employees at or near retirement age.”

While this would have a modest positive effect by spreading payments over a longer period of time, it does little to address the underlying problem caused by USPS being burdened with a mandate that no other federal agency or private corporation faces...[/quote]
Dianne Feinstein's hubby, RE developer Richard Blum, has made a shit-ton of money from long-running post-office privatization scammery, to cite another example of "reaching across the aisle to rob the American taxpayer."

Trump's latest outrage is just him doing what Rs are masters at, voter suppression - and [url=https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/08/whats-really-going-postal-service/167700/]in fact[/url], this may just be Trump engaging in one of his regular bits of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting]gaslighting[/url] (both of the 1940s noir films are great, BTW, though I prefer the 1940 one). Actually, I should amend that - Ds are also masters of voter suppression, but their preferred means is to nominate horribly uninspiring candidates for office, as well as [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/07/uncounted-the-true-story-of-the-california-primary.html]other means[/url].

Spotted on the web: "Dems, aghast at Trump's assault on USPS, go on August vacation."

I just received my official vote by mail application from the County Clerk. (I can also apply on line to vote by mail.)

Some places have been doing voting by mail for some time, and have an alternative to mailing in the marked ballots: drop-off locations where they can be placed in metal bins. One obvious location is outside the County Clerk's office. There can be additional drop-off locations.

In any case, there should IMO be a way for mailed-out ballots which have been marked and sealed, to be brought directly to the County Clerk's office.

People have traditionally organized transportation to get eligible voters to the polls, who would otherwise not be able to get there. If [i]Il Duce[/i] and the R's want to play games with the USPS to prevent ballots from being returned by mail in a timely fashion, I think an appropriate response would be to organize transportation to pick up peoples' marked ballots and get them to the County Clerk's office in time to be counted.

[QUOTE]organize transportation to pick up peoples' marked ballots and get them to the County Clerk's office in time to be counted. [/QUOTE]GASP!!! BALLOT HARVESTING!!!!! Who knows what evil perversions might be imposed on those poor, innocent ballots. Those ballots Might even be rescued from rotting in one of the only 5 postal drop boxes left in the country, and get delivered to the Board of Elections! :rolleyes: :shock: :rant: :furious::help::max:
EDIT: I just remembered what I initially came here for.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;553694]BTW, the "original act of sabotage", if you will, of the USPS, happened in 2006, and like most truly toxic acts of US government, was bipartisan:

[url=https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/]How Congress Manufactured a Postal Crisis — And How to Fix it[/url] - Institute for Policy Studies
[quote]In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.[/quote][/QUOTE]
Right on the head.
:wombatman:

[url=https://politics.theonion.com/candidate-profile-democratic-vp-nominee-kamala-harris-1844704193]Candidate Profile: Democratic VP Nominee Kamala Harris[/url]

I would add: current SecTreas Steve [strike]Munchkin[/strike] Mnuchin (I can never get that spelling right with just 1 try, and I confess I've no clue how to pronounce the latter, correct spelling of the name without making a [i]Mr. Bean[/i]-style twisty-nose face) [url=thttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-has-to-answer-for-not-prosecuting-steve_b_5980d18ee4b09d231a518205]is a big fan[/url] ... so there would be the opportunity for some continuity-of-crookery at that vital-for-representing-Ponzi-finance's-interests cabinet post. To be fair, though, it is quite possible that she simply had her hands full prosecuting that much more socially destructive class of criminal, school truants. (Cf. #26 in the list linked below).

Also a bit disappointed that [i]Politico[/i] placed what it perhaps her most important political-career move way down at #14 in their [url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/11/kamala-harris-vp-background-bio-biden-running-mate-2020-393885]55 Things You Need T Know About Kamala Harris[/url], namely that she slept her way into high state office with CA political mover, shaker and kingmaker, 30-years older Willie Brown. One of my brother-in-law's contractor buddies used to moonlight as a limo driver for Willie, and boy does he have some stories about that gig, including a particular "ditch the bitch" incident (Willie's words, not mine) one night from the years of the aforementioned hooking-up.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;553940][url=https://politics.theonion.com/candidate-profile-democratic-vp-nominee-kamala-harris-1844704193]Candidate Profile: Democratic VP Nominee Kamala Harris[/url]
Also a bit disappointed that [i]Politico[/i] placed what it perhaps her most important political-career move way down at #14 in their [url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/11/kamala-harris-vp-background-bio-biden-running-mate-2020-393885]55 Things You Need T Know About Kamala Harris[/url], namely that she slept her way into high state office with CA political mover, shaker and kingmaker, 30-years older Willie Brown. One of my brother-in-law's contractor buddies used to moonlight as a limo driver for Willie, and boy does he have some stories about that gig, including a particular "ditch the bitch" incident (Willie's words, not mine) one night from the years of the aforementioned hooking-up.[/QUOTE]

I have a story of my own. In 1995 I attended a dinner in a private dining room at the North Beach Restaurant in San Francisco with our company's labor attorney. After a visit to the restroom, I turned left instead of right into the wrong private room, and walked in on Willie and Kamala making out. She was dressed to the nines and I apologized profusely, but I saw how she was making her way up the political ladder.

Would you like her for 4 (or 8) years or 4 more years of the DT's.

I figure if Biden wins, she will be declared President under the 25th Amendment due to senility shortly after he sworn in. So as a resident of California having experienced Kamala, I'd prefer Trump for the next four years.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;553940]Also a bit disappointed that [i]Politico[/i] placed what it perhaps her most important political-career move way down at #14 in their [url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/11/kamala-harris-vp-background-bio-biden-running-mate-2020-393885]55 Things You Need T Know About Kamala Harris[/url], namely that she slept her way into high state office with CA political mover, shaker and kingmaker, 30-years older Willie Brown.[/QUOTE]
I wonder how any [i]male[/i] California politicians had to get on their knees before the kingmaker.

Reminds me of a scene in the movie [i]Gone With the Wind[/i].
[indent][b]MAMMY[/b]: Ah kain go buyin' no paint! Ah die of shame, eve'ybody knowin' it wud fer mah chile! Miss Scarlett, you is so sweet an' pretty lookin' you doan need no paint. Honey, doan nobody but bad womens use dat stuff.

[b]SCARLETT[/b]: Well, they get results, don't they?[/indent]
Perhaps if Ms Harris bestows her favors on [i]Il Duce[/i], he will drop out of the race and campaign for the Biden-Harris ticket.

[QUOTE=richs;553965]I figure if Biden wins, she will be declared President under the 25th Amendment due to senility shortly after he sworn in. So as a resident of California having experienced Kamala, I'd prefer Trump for the next four years.[/QUOTE]

As a resident of the US having experienced Trump, I'd prefer Biden for the next four years.

[url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/17/pers-a17.html]The Biden/Harris campaign and the dead-end of “lesser evil” politics[/url] | WSWS
[quote]...enormous pressure is being brought to bear to convince workers and young people to support the campaign of Biden and Harris. Whatever reservations they may have over the right-wing character of the Democratic Party and its candidates, the argument goes, this is the only way to get rid of Trump. Everything else must be subordinated to this electoral outcome.

This is hardly the first election in which such “lesser evil” arguments were advanced. In 1988, it was a matter of voting for Dukakis, the right-wing governor from Massachusetts, to finally put an end to the Reagan years. After Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush, the following election in 1992 became a matter of putting an end to the Bush years by electing Bill Clinton, whose right-wing policies cleared the path for Bush II in 2000. In 2008, the argument became the need to elect Obama, the “candidate of hope and change,” in order to end the disaster produced by Bush II, above all, the war in Iraq.

Obama continued the most right-wing policies of George W. Bush (with whom, by the way, he has established a close personal friendship), including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the overseeing of the Wall Street bailout following the 2008 financial collapse. It was the right-wing policies of Obama and the nomination of Hillary Clinton on the basis of a prowar program, glossed over with identity politics, that created the conditions for the election of Trump in 2016.

This act, in other words, has been played out before, and each time the result is a further shift to the right of the entire political establishment.

In this case, amidst all the hoopla over the “historic” character of the Biden-Harris ticket, attributed entirely to the race and gender of Harris, the nominees have been selected through the machinations of the Democratic Party against the candidacy of Bernie Sanders and even Elizabeth Warren.

That is, the Democratic Party’s campaign is founded on a repudiation of any suggestion that it will carry out a policy of social reform. The Democrats are not even making the pretense of providing a program to address the catastrophe unfolding in the United States.

Sanders himself is now playing the central role in convincing his previous supporters that, despite everything, Biden’s election must be the overriding aim. This was his basic theme in speaking on several of the morning talk shows yesterday.

A particularly revealing exchange came on CNN, when moderator Jake Tapper cited a comment in the Wall Street Journal stating that Wall Street breathed a “sigh of relief” at the nomination of the right-wing ex-prosecutor Harris as vice president. He then asked, “If Wall Street breathes a sigh of relief with Kamala Harris being named to the ticket, what does Bernie Sanders do?”

To this, Sanders replied, “Well, Bernie Sanders does everything that he can to defeat Donald Trump... Donald Trump must be defeated. Biden must be elected.” Sanders continued, “And after the Democrats have control of the Senate and the House, and Joe is the president, we’re going to do all that we can to mobilize people for a progressive agenda.”

In fact, the same arguments used to insist that everything must be subordinated to Biden will be re-employed to argue that nothing can be done to destabilize a future Biden administration, because that will only strengthen the right. As always, it is an argument against any mobilization of the working class against the entire policy of the ruling elites, represented by both the Democrats and Republicans...[/quote]

[QUOTE=CNN][B][SIZE=2]Steve Bannon, three others, charged with fraud in border wall fundraising campaign.[/SIZE][/B]

(CNN) New York federal prosecutors on Thursday charged President Donald Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon and three others with defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump's border wall.[/QUOTE]It might be interesting to see how all this plays out, if it gets an opportunity.

We hope it has the Orange Menace drenching his Depends®.

Steve Bannon, Former Senior Trump Advisor, Arrested For Defrauding Trump Voters -By Moon Of Alabama
 

[url]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55480.htm[/url]
[QUOTE]It is likely that U.S. President Donald Trump will soon says that he hardly knew his former campaign manager and senior advisor Steve Bannon and that he had always suspected that Bannon was a crook.[/QUOTE]
Moon of Alabama weighs in. Hilarious opening sentence!

Will Nov-Jan be[URL="https://youtu.be/M11SvDtPBhA?t=62"] pardon season in the USA[/URL]?

[QUOTE=kladner;554423][url]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55480.htm[/url]

Moon of Alabama weighs in. Hilarious opening sentence![/QUOTE]

Just curious, why post the link to ICH, rather than [url=https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/08/steve-bannon-former-senior-advisor-arrested-for-defrauding-trump-voters.html]the original MoA piece[/url]? The ICH piece says "By Moon Of Alabama" under the title, but then follows with a link-to-itself, which is self-referential BS in my book ... link to the MoA piece is not until the very bottom. Anyway, please use original-source-links whenever possible. The ICH copy-paste also lacks the reader comments section of the original - MoA comments are always a mixed bag, but #1 to this one is pretty good:
[quote]A non-profit that "did not pay him" actually paid for services that benefited him. There was just a nominal cut out between him and the payment by his non-profit.

Bannon said this was wrong when the Clinton's did it. That is how the money got from their non-profit Foundation to them, and in much larger amounts than what Bannon took.

Bannon said it was wrong then when the Clinton's did it. Democrats say it is wrong now when Bannon did it. They are both correct.

And they are all hopeless hypocrites.

Posted by: Mark Thomason | Aug 20 2020 16:12 utc | 1[/quote]

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;554426]Will Nov-Jan be[URL="https://youtu.be/M11SvDtPBhA?t=62"] pardon season in the USA[/URL]?[/QUOTE]
It does seem rather likely, especially if #45 is shown the door.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;554426]Will Nov-Jan be[URL="https://youtu.be/M11SvDtPBhA?t=62"] pardon season in the USA[/URL]?[/QUOTE]

Could he possibly be worse than Bill Clinton? Alas, one shouldn't challenge Trump to be worse than a previous President. He usually is up for such a challenge.

I don't know how much of the 25 million dollars raised by "Build the Wall" has actually been spent. Assuming, purely for the sake of discussion, that it's [i]all[/i] been spent, and the organizers only siphoned off a million, and the other 24 million went to fulfilling the organization's purpose, that would mean 96% of donations were spent for the organization's program, which would be quite impressive; it would far exceed the 87.2% of the Clinton Foundation's spending for its programs.

But it's not modestly dipping into the till that has Brian Kolfage, Stephen Bannon, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea in trouble with the law. Their problem is, they [i]promised[/i] to spend 100% of the donated money on the project. And because they made that promise [i]online[/i], and then (the indictment alleges) broke it, in Count 1 they are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The indictment also alleges that they conspired to hide their fraudulent dipping into the till, resulting in Count 2, conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The maximum penalty for conspiracy to commit wire fraud or money laundering is the same as for the crime itself.

The maximum penalty for wire fraud is 20 years in prison and a fine of a quarter of a million dollars.

The penalty for money laundering depends on the amount of money involved. If it's over a million dollars, the maximum prison sentence is twenty years (assuming it's not to fund terrorism or steal from federal disaster relief funds, in which case it's thirty years). The maximum fine is half a million dollars (or, in the case of actual money laundering, twice the value of the property involved if that is greater.)

I'm sure the current occupant of the White House is thinking something like, "So they made a promise and reneged on it. What's wrong with that? I've done that my whole life."

[QUOTE=Prime95;554452]Could he possibly be worse than Bill Clinton? Alas, one shouldn't challenge Trump to be worse than a previous President. He usually is up for such a challenge.[/QUOTE]

I could certainly see DJT one-upping Clinton's last-day-of-office pardon of Marc Rich by pardoning himself. For those unfamiliar with the unique power of the presidential pardon enshrined in the US Constitution, such pardons need not be for any crime for which the person has been indicted or of which the person has been convicted - they may also be prospective in the sense of pre-empting future prosecution for any (alleged) crimes committed up to the time of the pardon. Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was of such a sort.

The only thing not covered by a pardon, sensibly enough, is crimes committed *after* the pardon.

For those of us interested by the history & evolution of Constitutional law [cf. my recent post on the wacky history of the 27th Amendment, the most-recent one, in the Lounge 'U.S. Presidential 2020 Polls and Predictions' thread] it would be fascinating to follow the inevitable legal wrangling that would follow a presidential self-pardon. From what I've read the general consensus is that would be deemed legal, but its actual exercise, especially by a - to put it politely - polarizing figure like Trump, might well lead to an effort to amend the Constitution to prevent future self-pardons.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;554538]Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was of such a sort.
..
From what I've read the general consensus is that would be deemed legal, but its actual exercise, especially by a - to put it politely - polarizing figure like Trump, might well lead to an effort to amend the Constitution to prevent future self-pardons.[/QUOTE]
The pathway in the first example could also be taken by Our Dear Leader. Although pride might get in the way.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;554541]The pathway in the first example could also be taken by Our Dear Leader. Although pride might get in the way.[/QUOTE]

Big difference, though - Ford was Nixon's VP. Biden, OTOH, was veep of the administration which illegally spied on the Trump campaign via a FISA warrant based on the pack-of-lies Steele dossier, and a leader of the same party which subsequently brought impeachment charges based on highly dubious obstruction of justice charges [note: don't want to start another debate on those issues, just setting the if-I-was-Trump scene]. If I were Trump and I had lost the 2020 election, I would not assume for one second that a pardon was coming from my successor.

My idea was for Pence to do the deed. After DJT abdicates around Jan 19.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;554546]My idea was for Pence to do the deed. After DJT abdicates around Jan 19.[/QUOTE]
:goodposting:

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;554546]My idea was for Pence to do the deed. After DJT abdicates around Jan 19.[/QUOTE]

Many would prefer a forced future abdication, of them both, in the wee hours of November 4th.