Wow. So little support showed up today after Don called for massive protests that he claimed the police had closed the streets around the courthouse, but they had not, the street was open, there was ONE pro trump protester there. That’s it, all that showed up to support the disgraced ex president…no fans, no supporters, no family. Even Jeffry Dahmer’s parents showed up for him in court! No one is there for poor little DJ that he isn’t paying to be there.
Bonus- After their disastrous performance at the contempt hearing where their arguments were laughable (like claiming that if Trump adds “maga” to any post it becomes a political statement and that magically invalidates the gag order, or that retweeting statements doesn’t violate the gag order even when he edits them, the judge has said he, Trump’s only real attorney, has lost all credibility in this court…Trump already had none, now his lawyers won’t be believed and the judge will instruct the jury to that effect. The keystone cops of lawyers! You get what you deserve sometimes. 😂

Today’s testimony….

“PECKER SCREWS TRUMP”

“[Pecker] Outlines Trump election conspiracy and reveals Trump’s constant cheating on wife Melania in damning testimony” Hilariously describing the then long time married Trump as “well known as the most eligible bachelor”.
Walt Nada has said under oath that he was promised a pardon when Trump wins if he lied to the FBI. 😂
Interviews from person 16 with corroborating evidence show Trump and his family were warned repeatedly that stealing documents from the whitehouse was a crime and they needed to return every page. They also reported under oath that there was never a standing “declassification order”, and could not be because it would be highly illegal. (Handling whitehouse records and preserving them was part of their job). Just more evidence that the treason wasn’t an accident, he stole those highly sensitive classified documents intentionally knowing full well it was criminal when he did it, and criminal to retain them. We still have no idea who he may have shown them to, but we know at the least that both Chinese and Russian agents have been free to roam Mar a Lago while they were there unguarded. You can’t say the same about the personal notes Biden accidentally retained and returned when they were discovered.

We got an answer to “who is next” already… Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she’s likely to switch parties because she won’t vote for or with Pervert Hoover. Too bad she’s a senator and not a house representative.
Only one more representative and we get Speaker Jeffries…maybe not even one more, we might be there already. Real Republicans are finally realizing their party has been annexed by a criminal fascist cult and they want out.

Wow. MAGA is going down HARD.
Another Republican, Congressman Mike Gallagher announced he will resign from Congress on April 19th, screwing his party over and leaving them with a mere one-seat majority without the ability to fill his empty seat until the general election in November.
This on the day Ken Buck left in disgust and outrage over the horrific state of the MAGA party.
Also on the day of another MAGA call to replace the MAGA speaker of the house, throwing the entire house in complete disarray with childish infighting paralyzing the majority because some of them are outraged the majority leader actually led and got a minimal short term spending bill passed…the absolute bare minimum he could do as speaker.
There’s a actual good chance Jeffries could be nominated and voted in as speaker despite being in the minority. 😂

Who’s next? The next one out gets a free hat!

Gym Jordan and MAGA failed a third time to elect a speaker. Gym lost the first, second, and third vote to Hakeem Jeffries. Every vote he lost worse.

MORE evidence that MAGA cannot even work with itself, much less others. You people are just fucking children….and you ARE children.

Good job at being a total laughing stock. If it didn’t paralyze our government, it would be hilarious, instead it’s horrifically bad for our economy, international standing, our allies, and our future.

Oh shit….Judge Engoron is prepared to put Trump in prison for intentionally not complying with the gag order by not removing the post accusing his clerk of having an affair with Chuck Schumer from his campaign website. Ruling later today….gonna be great. Bye Donny.

Bwaaaahahahahaaaa!!! Too fucking good.

Democrat Jeffries got more votes to be the Republican speaker than MAGA child molester accomplice Gym Jordan!!! 212-200 only 6 non-votes short of Democrats crushing your tiny majority and taking your lunch every day for the next year or longer. Let’s try this again, Boebert might go to a show and miss voting again. 😂

Even republicans are done with MAGA morons. I love it…but I’m not one bit surprised. Every one of your people are 3 year olds that think they run the show and hates anyone who thinks differently, but they all have no clue what to do when given the opportunity to run things. What astonishing failures MAGgots are. 😂

Uh oh….Jeffry Clark’s home was just raided by federal agents looking for Jan 6 coup related documents. In case you forgot, Clark is the lackey that sent fake fraudulent letters to Georgia telling their election officials the outright lie that the DOJ was investigating voter fraud in Georgia and they shouldn’t certify their results, and the guy Trump tried to install as the head of the DOJ when AG Jeff Rosen refused to help with the coup.

He was an environmental lawyer with little experience when tapped by Trump to lead the DOJ civil division (in an effort to shield Trump from civil cases).

I like Jim Jeffries, but this is so much better than his usual stuff. Even if half the fun is in the editing, *promote the insanity.

From YouTube:


Martin Jeffries
2 days ago
Hi Tom, I'm a merchant navy officer who used to work around there, although I never came across this particular light... Sector Lights and Leading lights (parallax) are the internationally recognised marine signals for this sort of use (white light centre, with red and green lights either side to guide you to a safe channel, which i'm sure you've researched and are aware of), but one thing that doesn't come up too often is lines to specifically avoid, and as such there isn't an internationally recognised means of transmitting this with lights. The signal is pointing towards the danger, which is unusual in maritime practice, but it's certainly not a common light and isn't in the IALA buoyage system used for identifying marine hazards.

If it's in a marina, which i think you mentioned, it'll be specifically to stop boats dropping anchor on the submerged cable within the marina's jurisdiction, and it'll be specifically referenced in the marina's or the solent by-laws as an anomalous regulation. (I don't have time to go and hunt it down, but it'll be there as a local reg.) As far as i'm aware, that's the only possible reason for it. It's an unusual solution to an unusual problem. I could of course be wrong...i bring no hard evidence to the table!
Hope it helps

@MilkmanDan, excellent points all round.

I'm not a gun owner, and I have no interest in buying one for self-defence, but I have fired guns a few times (at shooting ranges or clay pigeon shoots) and it's an undeniably fun activity. I could also see myself going hunting for food at some point.

Jim Jeffries makes an excellent point in his gun control rant.
"fuck off, I like guns" is actually a reasonable argument. If you like something and you're not harming anyone with it, why should it be taken from you? After all, many "anti-gun" (or more accurately "pro-gun control") people will make the same argument FOR drugs. "I'm just smoking some weed/having a beer in my house. I'm not hurting anyone, just leave me alone".

But the thing is unless you're a hardcore libertarian, almost everyone agrees that there should be some sensible limits on drugs. Even for legal drugs like alcohol, we mandate that you must be a certain age (older than you have to be to buy a gun, which is lunacy to me) and that you can't drive drunk, etc.

The sad thing is, there's near universal agreement on this, even in the US. The vast majority of people are in favour of the kind of simple, common-sense regulations you mention.

It's just that the politicians are in the pocket of the NRA. As one of shooting survivors pointed out "We should change the names of AR-15s to “Marco Rubio” because they are so easy to buy", and I cannot say how much I want to stand up and applaud that epic burn.

Did she steal this from Jim Jeffries, or did he steal it from her?

@newtboy,

No, it's about law. Warren Jeffries people did all that, on a smaller scale. They weren't their own country, even though they got away with it for decades. Law.

Forgive my lack of familiarity with him, but your telling me he (on a smaller scale than Texas), stopped paying taxes, and instead collecting them. Started up his own legal and justice system. He created his own borders within which the police would not dare set foot because it would be a death sentence for them. And after he'd done all this the US military itself failed to remove him as well?

Or are you meaning not just scale, but severity and all the other rather meaningful extremes of sovereignty that the Taliban and Al Qaida achieved? It's the same then in the sense that me punching you is violent just me killing ten people is violent, but in another sense they are nothing alike...

No, but they couldn't indiscriminately bomb Houston and any large gatherings either....not even if Spencer might be there. The first American civilian they kill will start a war...a real, legitimate war.

Your not embracing the analogy. Spencer's terrorists are still killing American civilians every week, outside of Texas borders. The American military is just corrupt enough that as long as its democrats/republicans dying,(whomever we choose to not be in power) they let it slide because it shows the need for the military to 'protect' the country.

You need to take a harder look at Pakistani politics to see just how powerful Al Qaida and the Taliban's control over the tribal areas has been.

More over, all of the above definitions of state within a state violence and jihad doesn't require war as the response to acts of war. To invade Afghanistan to prevent another 9/11 is dubious at best. Even the Kissinger's of the world wouldn't count the value of that trade off, losing a couple thousand Americans to an attack each decade or so is 'acceptable' loses.
Call it the price of freedom and carry on. The real trick was that if the Taliban and Al Qaida were so tight with Pakistan's military and intelligence services, how concerned should America be that the Pakistani proxies in their tribal regions and Afghanistan are so keen to target Americans. That lead directly to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal being a big enough concern with that pairing that maybe it was time to tell Pakistan they had to end their little dance with terrorists hitting Americans and they had better make a choice who they are going to side with in the Jihad that was already being waged for 2 decades.

No, it's about law.
Warren Jeffries (EDIT: that's Warren Jeffs) people did all that, on a smaller scale. They weren't their own country, even though they got away with it for decades.
Law.
No, but they couldn't indiscriminately bomb Houston and any large gatherings either....not even if Spencer might be there. The first American civilian they kill will start a war...a real, legitimate war.

P.S.. Holy Crap, you might be interested to know that Trump threatened the Mexican president with exactly that logic, your army can't get the bad hombres, so he might send ours there to do it. Lucky us, Mexico decided to not be a nuclear power.

I'm quite pro gun rights generally, but to me it seems insane that "self defense" is the #1 stated reason for owning a gun in the US now.

Jim Jeffries' bit on self defense covers my concerns in a pretty funny but honest way. In your home, keeping your guns in an accessible place where they could easily be used in a self-defense situation makes them not safe. Much more likely to have accidents, or have a criminal end up with them and using them on you. Securely storing them away from ammo to prevent those issues precludes using them for self defense. Catch-22.

For concealed carry, that's a bit different. With the right kind of setup, I suppose that I must admit that the risks of accidents could be low, the chances of needing to use the weapon low, but some real potential for situations where some people would be better off having a weapon than not.

...There are some *major* caveats to that, though. For example, if I was black, I'd never concealed carry because that seems like a recipe for disaster. Is that fair, or reasonable? Fuck no. But it is reality.

I think personally as a white country-bumpkin dude, if I was going to carry semi-frequently, I'd go with the old redneck standby of a shotgun or hunting rifle on a rack in the back window of my pickup. Lock it to the rack with a combination lock, and keep ammo separately in a glove compartment or something with another combination lock. If I actually needed it, it would be there.


One thing I do agree with @Mordhaus 100% on is that suicides should NOT be considered, or at the very least should be specifically denoted as suicides, when showing numbers for "gun violence" or "gun crimes".

@SDGundamX, first up, it was a throwaway line, you're reading way too much into it.

I'm not going to go over Jim Jeffries joke (it's been discussed to death already), except to say that, yeah, I got what he was trying to do and no, it still wasn't that funny or clever.

Besides, I wasn't trying to compare the two. Mine was a throwaway line, his was an extended sketch by a touring professional comedian. My point was simply that taste is in the eye of the beholder.

And would you please do me the courtesy of not telling me what I'm thinking. I'm not angry about ignorance, I'm angry about woolly thinking (specifically, lack of critical thinking).

If you're ignorant, then you just need to be taught. I'm not angry at ignorant people, I'm sorry for them and I want to help them.

My problem is with people (like the guy in the video) who have been presented with evidence, but ignore it because it doesn't fit their worldview.

200 years ago, if you believed that disease was a result of demonic possession, that's unfortunate. If you believe that today, you're deliberately ignoring knowledge.

As far as viewing people who reject evidence as a dangerous "other", I'm ok with that. As I've said before, I don't believe in "tolerance" as a virtue. If someone isn't bothering me, or someone is doing something I don't like, but it doesn't harm anyone, then I'm fine with them; I have no need to "tolerate" them.

But if people are doing something that causes harm (racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc), I don't tolerate that at all, and will speak out against it.


As for your torture example, it is flawed. You're saying that you wouldn't reconsider the ethics of torture, even if evidence of its efficacy was available. Do you see the problem?

You proposition was that torture is unethical, and your hypothetical evidence states that it is effective. The two are orthogonal properties. It is possible to be both effective and unethical.

Besides, I didn't say you had to change your position, I said you had to reconsider. If someone presented you with a philosophical argument arguing for the ethics of torture, are you saying you wouldn't even hear it out?

I hold positions like that myself. Despite everything, I believe that one day, people will overcome their petty differences and venture out into the stars. That doesn't mean I don't question it..

@ChaosEngine

Comparing your joke to Jim Jeffries joke is a bit unfair, I think. @Chairman_woo gave an excellent analysis of why Jeffries's joke was masterfully crafted, with multiple levels of irony that all orchestrate beatifully together to subvert the listeners' expectations--even if you disagree with the subject matter of the joke.

Your joke, on the other hand, has none of that. It belongs in the same category as Dave Tosh's joke to the female heckler in the audience:

“Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now? Like right now?”

Tosh said that in anger and frustration. I see yours and newtboy's comments coming from the same place. Both are jokes filled with malice and lacking cleverness, and therefore I find them to be wholly unfunny and in fact disturbing. Of course, YMMV.

Now, as far as the rest of your post goes, I think you might have missed the point of my previous post: your anger is misguided because the gentleman who made the comment that outraged you said what he said because he was put under pressure to make a statement that opposes his own party's rhetoric at his party's national convention during a Presidential election year!

It's pretty easy to see how someone, knowing they were likely going to be on TV and seen by millions, might make an overzealous statement to show support for their party that in hindsight turns out to be asinine. In fact I'm sure that's what the show's producers were banking on when they originally came up with the idea for the segment. Whether this particular person--or really any person--will ignore evidence that is contrary to their beliefs is unknown no matter what they may say in public. And their statement is especially suspect when being asked to give an unrehearsed response to a question on TV.

You say your are angry at "woolly thinking" but I think what you really mean is you are angry at ignorance. Personally, I agree with you that feigned ignorance is something to be angry at--politicians who know the facts but continue to say despicable things (i.e. Trump) that they know their people want to hear in order to further their own careers are most certainly deserving of our anger and possibly some form of appropriate punishment, such as being removed from office, if it can proven that they were being dishonest with the public.

But I can't be angry at actual ignorance--people don't know what they don't know. Or even worse, people who think they know when in fact they only have some (but not all) of the facts. Not everyone is lucky enough to grow up in an environment that values education, critical thinking, and seeking out multiple opinions. And even growing up in such an environment is no guarantee that a person is going take advantage of the priviledges presented and become a reasonable and reasoned adult. But my own personal belief is that all of us who are healthy individuals have the capacity to learn, grow, and change our minds given the proper environment and time, regardless of the current state of our knowledge or beliefs. All those things you mentioned--slavery, homophobia, the drug war, etc.--it's pretty clear we are in fact learning and moving on. The transition may be painful but it is happening.

One thing I find interesting about your thinking on this matter is how it exactly mirrors that of the Republicans presented in the video. You see "wholly thinkers" or ignorant people or whatever you'd like to call them exactly as these Republicans see Black Lives Matter activists--as some nefarious and dangerous group of "others" that should be distrusted. I prefer to see them as human beings who are, admittedly, flawed... as am I in a great many ways. I guess it just comes down to having a more optomistic view of humanity.

EDIT: "Would you reconsider in the face of new evidence?" is not a simple question at all. For example, I don't believe torture is an acceptable method of intelligence gathering. You could show me study after study "proving" its effectiveness and I still would never approve of it. On the other hand, if you showed me a study that found a competing laundry detergent got stains out better than the one I was using, I'd probably switch detergents the next time I went shopping.