US Politics

nimic said:
Of course, Santorum is absolutely correct when he says that the Constitution was set up to protect minority rights. Specifically rich, white landowners. The Revolution was never about democracy, equality, or anything like that.
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Byron Donalds, the guy in the middle of the video, is quite a piece of work.

 
Raoul said:
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ngl, watching "moderate dems" trying to justify this as "Manchin and Sinema have their hands tied it's so unfair" and "omg the GOP are actually stupid enough to celebrate Dems" has got to be my favourite popcorn moment of the weekend.
 
one down, so many more to go. This one was the launching point of the infamous Charlottesville ("good people on both sides") incident.

 
It really does pay to be a billionaire. Article describes how billionaire sports owners use loopholes that permit them to deduct franchise purchase costs which lessens their taxable income. They can use operating costs such as player wages to offset income. Madness. And on top of taxpayers and junk bonds paying for those expensive playgrounds.

The article is longer than what I have pasted below.

https://sports.yahoo.com/report-le-...les-clippers-billionaire-owner-165320954.html
Report: LeBron James' 2018 federal tax rate was triple that of Los Angeles Clippers' billionaire owner

James reported $124 million in income three years ago and paid a federal tax rate of 35.9%. Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO, told the IRS that he made $656 million. He paid $78 million in federal taxes, a rate of 12%.

James, meanwhile, paid over $44 million in taxes on reported income that was $532 million less than Ballmer's reported income.

How did Ballmer get away with paying far less in taxes relative to James? An accounting trick that many other professional sports team owners use. From ProPublica:
Ballmer pays such a low rate, in part, because of a provision of the U.S. tax code. When someone buys a business, they’re often able to deduct almost the entire sale price against their income during the ensuing years. That allows them to pay less in taxes. The underlying logic is that the purchase price was composed of assets — buildings, equipment, patents and more — that degrade over time and should be counted as expenses.
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Are there any good billionaires? Buffet is okay now, I guess. Honestly, billionaires have no room in a just society, let alone the mega billionaires like Balmer. Imagine the evil you have to do to make a hundred billion?
 
They are a death cult. It is no longer a meme, they would rather die, and let kids die (but only if they have exited a vagina), as long as they get to own the libs. Insanity.



Edit: They also fired the head of their health department for the crime of promoting vaccination.
 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-democrats-are-fighting-for-democracywhy-wont-washingtons
Texas Dems Are Fighting for Democracy—Why Won’t Washington’s?
They’re in the minority, but they’re doing what’s necessary to protect voting rights. Democratic U.S. senators, who have the majority, need to finally muster up the same courage.

--So these free-range Texas House Dems may be fugitives soon, but their bold act in defense of voting rights has activists asking when U.S. Senate Democrats, who control that chamber, will pack up the bipartisanship and start acting with the same boldness. The national party can and should learn a valuable lesson from their colleagues in Texas.--
 
Biden: "Nothing will fundamentally change". When he said that to a room of rich donors, believe it.
 
WI_Red said:
They are a death cult. It is no longer a meme, they would rather die, and let kids die (but only if they have exited a vagina), as long as they get to own the libs. Insanity.



Edit: They also fired the head of their health department for the crime of promoting vaccination.
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That's shocking. Enjoy the return of polio, Tennessee.
 
A sheriff’s deputy was wrapping up a routine traffic stop at a Utah gas station last week when he saw a teen take a “back the blue” sign — which urged support for police officers — and stomp on it after her friend was pulled over.

The teen, identified in court documents as 19-year-old Lauren Gibson, then allegedly crumpled it up in a “destructive manner” and threw it in a trash can, Garfield County Sheriff’s Deputy Cree Carter wrote in an affidavit. The officer, who accused Gibson of allegedly “smirking” at him “in an intimidating manner,” arrested her.

Now, in addition to disorderly conduct, Gibson has been charged with “criminal mischief” with a hate-crime enhancement. The latter crime, county prosecutors allege, was committed with “the intent to intimidate or terrorize another person” in violation of Utah’s 2019 hate-crime law.


The college student does not appear to be the only person Utah prosecutors have charged with a law enforcement-related hate crime. In August 2020, the Garfield County sheriff’s office arrested 32-year-old Joseph Dawson for pulling down a similar “back the blue” sign and spray-painting in pink letters the word “bisexual” over the word “blue,” the Daily Beast reported.

Dawson was charged with a hate crime in that incident. He was convicted and sentenced to two days in jail and a year of probation, the Daily Beast reported.
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more anti-free-speech cancel culture from those pink-haired SJWs

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/14/pro-police-hate-crime-charges-utah/
 
'They're not going to f**king succeed': Top generals feared Trump would attempt a coup after election, according to new book


The top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, was so shaken that then-President Donald Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures after the November election that Milley and other top officials informally planned for different ways to stop Trump, according to excerpts of an upcoming book obtained by CNN.

The book, from Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, describes how Milley and the other Joint Chiefs discussed a plan to resign, one-by-one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/politics/donald-trump-election-coup-new-book-excerpt/index.html
 
Carolina Red said:
'They're not going to f**king succeed': Top generals feared Trump would attempt a coup after election, according to new book


The top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, was so shaken that then-President Donald Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures after the November election that Milley and other top officials informally planned for different ways to stop Trump, according to excerpts of an upcoming book obtained by CNN.

The book, from Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, describes how Milley and the other Joint Chiefs discussed a plan to resign, one-by-one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/politics/donald-trump-election-coup-new-book-excerpt/index.html
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that one is in my queue, as is Landslide by Michael Wolfe
 
That’s some weak ass shit. So in the event of a coup, your big brain move as the top commander of US military is to...resign?

Edwin Stanton rolls in his grave at this pathetic notion.
 
Carolina Red said:
What exactly would your solution be? A military junta?
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I guess the fear is that if they resign, it gives Trump the opportunity to maybe find some generals to replace them that a) are willing to do as he says and b) will be listened to. If they really, genuinely believe it is a coup, then that is the sort of action which might succeed, but if it doesn't then they've done nothing more than weakly stepped aside to secure their own legacy.
 
nimic said:
I guess the fear is that if they resign, it gives Trump the opportunity to maybe find some generals to replace them that a) are willing to do as he says and b) will be listened to. If they really, genuinely believe it is a coup, then that is the sort of action which might succeed, but if it doesn't then they've done nothing more than weakly stepped aside to secure their own legacy.
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You gotta understand though, Milley isn’t talking about just himself in that article. He’s talking about the top brass across the board. If they all resign and declare what’s happening unlawful, the chance of the military doing anything to back a coup is nil.
 
On paper at least for a coup to happen, it would be to have a few generals that's willing to enforce Washington DC or at least let him run rampart for a time window, force a military curfew and emergency senate meeting and declare the election rigged and took control. It's a coup, but officially it's legitimate.

After that if the CIA / FBI plays along they can trump (pun intended) any sort of bogus charge on the democrats for election tampering etc.

At least probably that's what Trump probably thought.

Not really sure on US laws and details, but I'd suspect that's mostly how a coup is done. Although being a state country it'll be a civil war guaranteed.
 
Carolina Red said:
What exactly would your solution be? A military junta?
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notify Congress/Cabinet for impeachment and/or invoking the 25th, while staying in command just to prevent any order be carried out?

If you are that afraid of a coup, shouldn’t ensuring that it has no chance of happening even at the cost of your title, pension and what not be the top priority?
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
notify Congress/Cabinet for impeachment and/or invoking the 25th, while staying in command just to prevent any order be carried out?

If you are that afraid of a coup, shouldn’t ensuring that it has no chance of happening even at the cost of your title, pension and what not be the top priority?
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And you don’t think the entire top brass of the United States military resigning in open protest would accomplish that?

I think it would.
 
Carolina Red said:
And you don’t think the entire top brass of the United States military resigning in open protest would accomplish that?

I think it would.
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So you are counting on a lot of people with different priorities and interests to all pull in the same direction in the face of crisis, while having the authority and power to prevent it yourself.

No one is asking him to roll tanks into DC and arrest the conspirators, but that just screams self-preservation.
 
Carolina Red said:
'They're not going to f**king succeed': Top generals feared Trump would attempt a coup after election, according to new book


The top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, was so shaken that then-President Donald Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures after the November election that Milley and other top officials informally planned for different ways to stop Trump, according to excerpts of an upcoming book obtained by CNN.

The book, from Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, describes how Milley and the other Joint Chiefs discussed a plan to resign, one-by-one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/politics/donald-trump-election-coup-new-book-excerpt/index.html
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"It can't happen here" was moments away from happening. Milley even suggests Trump could've had a Reichstag moment. All those times people warned about the potential and were just laughed at. Now we are seeing the damn Chairman of the Joint Chiefs contemplating how to maintain control of the military.

You feckers got so lucky that Trump was as dumb as a bag of hammers. I doubt we are having this conversation today if any fascist with two neurons firing was in Trump's position
 
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WPMUFC said:
"It can't happen here" was moments away from happening. Milley even suggests Trump could've had a Reichstag moment. All those times people warned about the potential and were just laughed at. Now we are seeing the damn Chairman of the Joint Chiefs contemplating how to maintain control of the military.

You feckers got so lucky that Trump was as dumb as a bag of hammers. I doubt we are having this conversation today if any fascist with two neurons firing was in Trump's position
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It's not that Trump is dumb. As Milley said, they needed the military, CIA and FBI and they didn't have that. It looks like that had some people in the National Guard leadership but even those weren't committed enough to do anything more than delay the deployment of NG troops as long as they could.

Because they lacked the support required to stage a real coup all they could do was try and intimidate Pence and/or Congress to not certify the election. They failed and they likely knew it would fail but thought it was worth the chance. This is why no one from Trump's side led that march on the capitol or did anything that could concretely be said to have influenced the events of January 6th. Had they done so they'd have been arrested for treason.

It appears that the system did its job.
 
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/15/politics/kfile-pac-trump-robocall-operation/index.html
Porsches, Gucci rings and billions of robocalls: Inside the PAC operation that raised millions by impersonating Donald Trump

--Tunstall's operation is so egregious, it "could almost be construed as a performance art piece designed to showcase the FEC's fecklessness," said Rob Pyers, a campaign finance researcher who tracks scam PACs on Twitter.

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash-on-hand have vanished off the ledger from one reporting period to the next," said Pyers. "None of the expenditures during their first year of operation are accounted for, and about a third of the operating expenditures they have deigned to report have gone to enrich the PAC's founder."--
 
WI_Red said:
They are a death cult. It is no longer a meme, they would rather die, and let kids die (but only if they have exited a vagina), as long as they get to own the libs. Insanity.



Edit: They also fired the head of their health department for the crime of promoting vaccination.
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I feel very confused on the future directions of the GOP.
When you are talking about creating more jobs in good 'ole factories in America, America is perhaps the strongest country in manufacturing vaccines and other medical products, and how many good jobs will be created if Moderna and Pfizer set up another factory in Missouri and pump a few millions of vaccines for the world population. They should be more concerned if people refuse the vaccine and request government support for medical bills when they get covid.
It seems like they are going more and more for the radical voters.
 
Pretty shocking stat here about US drug overdoses :(

The death toll from Covid-19 surpassed 375,000 last year, the largest American mortality event in a century, but drug deaths were experienced disproportionately among the young. In total, the 93,000 deaths cost Americans about 3.5 million years of life, according to a New York Times analysis. By comparison, coronavirus deaths in 2020 were responsible for about 5.5 million years of life.
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Wonder how long it'll take to turn around that trend...

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Brwned said:
Pretty shocking stat here about US drug overdoses :(



Wonder how long it'll take to turn around that trend...

09fdmCv.png
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Both HIV and car accidents had their peaks in those years because it was the years immediately preceding them that government (finally) took them seriously and enacted legislation. I worry that drug deaths are going to to go the way of gun deaths.
 
Fox News and Rupert Murdoch Funded PAC Backs Joe Manchin With Political Donation


Fox Corp. PAC, a political action committee for Fox News parent Fox Corporation, has donated to Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-West Virginia) re-election campaign, according to a recent filing uncovered by CNBC.

The PAC, according to OpenSecrets, is funded largely by Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News, and other Fox Corporation and Fox News executives such as Murdoch’s son. The PAC in June gave $1,500 to Manchin, the conservative Democrat who has been under fire by progressives for his ties to right-wing interest groups.

According to CNBC, the donation was the PAC’s first to Manchin, which would indicate that conservative groups are taking more interest in the lawmaker. Indeed, dark money groups with ties to other right-wing figures like the Kochs have launched pressure campaigns to influence the West Virginia senator as he continues to uphold conservative policy in his role.

Koch advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, for instance, has encouraged followers to cheer Senator Manchin for standing against key Democratic proposals like voting rights and election finance transparency. Meanwhile, far right figures like former president Donald Trump have heaped praise on Manchin for standing up for the filibuster, which acts as the single largest roadblock to the Democrats’ agenda.

Manchin’s motivations are unclear, but Republicans have made their goals extremely transparent: to obstruct Democrats in Washington while reaping chaos and spreading fascism across the country. To that end, Manchin’s opposition to filibuster abolition strengthens the GOP.

But Manchin may not be so clear-minded. He continually insists upon pursuing an obsolete notion of bipartisanship with Republicans who have, in no uncertain terms, stated that they’re uninterested in partnering with Democrats.

The most recent iteration of Manchin’s bipartisan obsession came as the lawmaker has again asserted that he wants to water down the Democrats’ landmark voting rights and campaign transparency bill, the For the People Act or S. 1.

Texas Democrats, who recently fled the state to block GOP-led voter suppression efforts, travelled to Washington to plead with Congress to pass bills that protect voting rights in the country. They met with Manchin, who on Thursday said that, despite his meeting with the Texas lawmakers, he still wants to water down S. 1 to only address voting procedures and voting rights. Why? Because, as he told CNN, he somehow thinks Republicans would support such legislation, even though they are leading the charge across the U.S. to suppress voters so that they never lose an election again.

Manchin also said Thursday that he doesn’t want to carve out an exception to the filibuster for S. 1, which advocates and fellow Democrats have suggested.

In recent months, Manchin has proposed his own changes to the For the People Act. His changes essentially gut some of the most important parts of the bill — most notably, provisions of the bill that would overhaul election finance to reduce corruption.

S. 1 proposes creating new, strict laws regarding campaign finance disclosures. Experts have said it would greatly reduce the influence of dark money and corporations on elections by exposing corporate interests and their ties to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Manchin himself has been accused of having such ties, with praise from right-wing pressure campaigns and, as was exposed in recent bombshell reports, ties to Exxon lobbyists. A recently leaked call between Manchin and Wall Street donors, too, painted a damning picture of a give-and-take relationship between large financial interests and politicians that the lawmaker seems to champion. In other words, if the filibuster is abolished and these financial ties are severed or put under more scrutiny, Manchin’s wallet may suffer.
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