Bob, as much as this'll surprise you, I totally agree with what you're saying. The distribution of the stimulus money to couples making up to $150,000 is friggen ridiculous -- and I'm in that category. I will do what I did with the last two checks: give to local charities helping the homeless and communities of color (as much as I hate that term).

The worst part of this is that it sets up a liquidity trap. The Fed can't reduce buying crap debt (that BBB dogshit is at 4% should terrify anyone who understands how debt and the rating agencies work), nor can they allow rates to rise (thus totally screwing responsible savers). This is the cusp of a financial disaster that blew past 1929 on 9/17/19 and is now approaching the cataclysm of the South Seas Company collapsing. As far as I can see, this is a total melt-up in the markets because there's no stable returns and everyone is now in speculation mode.

Were it my call, I would scale the money along income (or non-income) lines: $10k for the lowest incomes, sliding scale from there. I'd also set up government-backed savings accounts that pay 10% for those people and only those people. I'd also pay off/down student debt along the same income scales.

I do not begrudge the wealthy for their wealth. But capitalism can't be a winner-take-all system. We live in a society, and society will always have winners and losers. The least we can do is ease the burden for those at the bottom by taking some from the top. I'm tired of the homeless camps and mentally-ill people wandering the streets of Seattle. They are the least of us and thus should be the ones who get the most help.

Hard to say, due to the current laws on 'camping' in Austin, the police and other services have been hands off on the homeless.

Have you ever seen footage of base camp being hit on Everest? It was like a hurricane hit right before the snow.

*doublepromote *quality

@bobknight33 , how are you going to spin this treason at Trump’s specific direction to be Democrats fault? I hope you were there, every person who can be identified is an accomplice to murder (the woman who died is on your hands), a treasonous traitor who attacked America, and a person guilty of vandalizing federal property which Trump claims he made a minimum 10 years by itself. Your party went from anti American to enemies of the state yesterday, you might want to burn all that MAGA crap you own before they enter your home and drag you off if you ever want out of prison....granted most of these terrorists deserve the firing squad, their supporters just deserve a decade in Guantanamo.

That goes for the capitol police too, they were at least in part complicit, not deploying ahead of the well advertised riot, not using force when they were beaten, pepper sprayed, and threatened at gunpoint. Compared to their BLM response they were cheering on this attack on democracy and showing the kind of restraint that doesn’t border on being complicit, it dives over the line into the deep end of the treason pool.

Trump himself is guilty of directly instigating these riots. How do you like the way he lied to you, saying he’s going to be there then slinking off home instead to watch his mob do their thing? Don’t think for a second that not going excuses his leading of the group, instructing them where and when to attack, or his self serving lies he’s told you to rile them up into a murderous rage. He’s going to be prosecuted over this, maybe removed from office too.

Enjoy, the world now agrees, Trump leads a terroristic, unpatriotic mob of morons willing to commit violence against police and the federal government if they can’t have their way. You should all be put in re-education camps like China did with the uighers with Trump’s explicit support....since you’re incapable of being educated, that’s for life.

Traitor.

Perhaps you're unaware that according to multiple sources including Trump's translator and Woodward, Trump told Xi that building massive concentration/reeducation camps for them was "exactly the right thing to do".

No, the Falun Gong, is like the American yoga class + Buddhism. Regardless, it's unclear what their motivations are and if even the Falun Gong business is just a front of some kind for the Chinese Gov.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs = (Turkish + Mongol + Chinese) + Muslim faith + Being in forced labor/brainwashing camps + organs stolen + why isn't the current president helping them?

(and newt is right, work on that spelling)

Yah might like the symbol they use tho https://imgbin.com/png/PA5YvLmC/teachings-of-falun-gong-symbol-dharmachakra-png

If I'm on the other side with a net, does that constitute spawn camping?

I've never kept track of TV hosts much, and haven't generally been interested in the 'driving cars with celebs' genre, but I was impressed by Leno's comments in the interview I posted above, his plea from the basic, ordinary "no big deal, but let's just be decent" camp in US politics.

I did read about 'doxxing' those artists but the owner of the Gallery is also quoted as saying she did NOT send it to Amerika, but published the list for everyone, and sounded like it was what she always did.

I am a skeptic, and I've too often seen people just lumping others into camps of either friend/foe, and then accelerating the process by identifying anyone that associates with a foe is obviously now a foe too.

I'm sorry, but evidence against the gallery and the guy in the video here looks pretty limited. Might be right, but also might be wrong and I've seen too much witch hunting in Canada where anyone not on board is automatically alt-right, and alt-right is really just code for nazi, and if you've called them alt-right long enough then you can just start calling them a nazi.

It's dishonest, divisive and dangerous.

Looks like a Roland Emmerich movie without the camp and special effects, which doesn't leave much.

The problem with "Defund the Police" is right there in the name, and its name only. It's understandable that those who lost hope on reforms felt the need to escalate into using the term "Defund."

But uninformed people that don't understand nuance nor care about policies and enforcement would likely judge that's extreme and leads to anarchy immediately, and dismiss its merits. And let's be honest, would you bet there're more informed people in the USA or uninformed ones? If there's ONE thing that USA does better than any other countries, it's politicizing the hell out of complex issues into sound bites. Pushing people into all-or-nothing For or Against camps. In the end, little gets done, but even more divisions & hate.

I watched on the news here in Canada (with its fair share of racial injustices in its policing not that far behind the USA, ) that the mayor of Toronto (our largest city in the country) picked up and used the term "Detask the Police"... I think that's a much better term to advance the cause.

Which party just had another 88 paid adds online pulled today for using hate group insignia, specifically for using Nazi symbology AGAIN, this time using the inverted red triangle used to identify political prisoners, Communists, Social Democrats, liberals, Freemasons, people accused of helping Jews, and other members of opposition parties in concentration camps now being used by Trump and Pence to paint Antifa as social democrats- the enemy and instigators of violence, contrary to the actual arrest records that indicates Antifa involvement in riots and vandalism is minimal at most, but right wing hate groups have been repeatedly caught being the real dangerous instigators, with multiple instances of shootings, arson, repeatedly caught with bombs and written plans to instigate riots then blame BLM in their possession (because they are that stupid)? One guess.

Which party has gladly taken well over $40 million from the Mellons, who repeatedly make public, overtly and blatantly racist and derogatory comments about black and brown people? One guess.

Again I ask, how many civil rights leaders are Republicans today, or in this century?
Because I know you're too embarrassed to answer, I'll do it for you, ZERO.

It's undeniably clear during my lifetime which party is the best for unity and which is divisive, which strives for equality and which denies inequality exists, and which pushed and pushed equality more.
If you wipe the orange meconium from your eyes you can tell just by looking at their representatives, one party is full of non white men and is outraged by racism, one party is almost exclusively white men and claims racism and inequality doesn't exist, it's fake news.
*facepalm

Newt, you've already lost.

You didn't lose with Trump in 2016, but with California's Prop 13 in 1978.

The goal of the Neocon movement was to decimate American public education because they knew that an educated population would never vote for the kind of shit they were selling, and because teachers (being educated and all) were a powerful Democratic voting block. Defunding public education was a win/win for them.

It worked beautifully.

The teacher's unions were starved. Public schooling imploded. We went from the most educated populace in the world to the point where 50% of the population can't find their own country on a map.

Then the real screw-job started with the wealth transfer. Unions were busted, jobs were moved overseas. The safety net that kept millions from abject poverty was dissolved ("welfare queens", "food-stamp cheats"). The Middle Class began to evaporate with about 10% climbing up the ladder and the rest being dumped into the street.

For people like me -- people with high-end skills and a college degree -- that shit worked out great. But people who aren't as lucky? Kinda sucks being them. So they got madder and madder. Luckily, there were dark-skinned people that this rage could be directed at. That good ol' American racism? That shit pays dividends if you play it the right way.

Now you have an increasing number of poorly educated people living in poverty with grievances. Hey, guess what -- we have a new tool to focus all that anger and it's called FOX News! They can show you whose dastardly plan it was to keep your poor, white self down on the farm while those FUCKING LIBERALS live it up in the cities!

Lather, rinse, repeat.

See Newt, people like Bob aren't an anomaly, they're the intended end result of a very well-conceived long-term plan by extraordinarily smart people who understood Chomsky, Orwell and Lasker better than you ever will. Bob is now the norm and you are the exception.

Go ahead and vote in Biden or Warren or even Sanders: it doesn't fucking matter because you can't vote out entrenched stupid. No matter who is sitting at 1600 Penn Ave, Bob is sitting in front of his computer, seething and being stupid. He's not going anywhere. He's not going to see things differently and he's damned well not going to get any smarter.

There's a shit-ton of Bobs in this country and their numbers are growing daily. What're you going to do with them? Put 'em in a camp somewhere? Shoot 'em? You cannot have Bobs and the America you want. That leaves you with exactly two choices: you pick up your gun and shoot them, or you pick up your passport and leave. It's one or the other. You might not like the taste of this shit sandwich, but you're going to eat it whether you like it or not.

Also, you think Bob's a little kooky? Go visit 4chan's /pol/, visit whatever 8chan became, visit the comments section of Zero Hedge, read the comments on FOX's YouTube videos: those motherfuckers make Bob look like a goddamn bastion of rationality. Those people, the ones who're yelling at their screens and pounding out febrile screeds? They're armed. They hate you. They want to kill you. The only reason they haven't is because they haven't reached critical mass yet. Give them a couple of years of post-Covid economic collapse and they'll get there.

I'll never forget the most important lesson a Holocaust Survivor taught me: "The smart Jews left first".

Good luck; see you in Lyon.

Some info about why....

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, was intentionally snubbed by a pallbearer, Bobby Rankin, at the late congressman Elijah Cummings' memorial service at the Capitol on Thursday. The pallbearer walked down the line of attendees and shook hands with the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, before walking past McConnell to hug the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
Mr Rankin explained that his brother, who died exactly one year before the memorial service, like numerous servicemen contracted multiple cancers directly linked to drinking (well documented) contaminated water while he was stationed at camp Lejeune, and was denied his military benefits thanks in large part to McConnell personally blocking legislation Cummings had produced with bipartisan support that would have given those poisoned by the military's negligence during their military service the benefits they earned and were promised, and he could not shake hands with a "person" (and I use that term loosely) who would throw injured servicemen into a ditch after stealing their benefits.
Bravo, sir. Bravo.

I mostly agree, however when talking about political terrorism (edit :in the U.S.) there's little choice. Either ignore there are two different main camps and just call it domestic terrorism (something the right would never do with left wing extremist terrorism, and they shouldn't imo), or note it so you can better identify and target the problem.
We're all Americans, so there really is no "other guy"...but I take your point.

If you heard some of the ridiculous reasons I've heard for not voting Democrat, you would know your example is perfectly reasonable and logical by comparison. One spouted hatred for John Kerry because they preferred Hunts over Heinz ketchup so hated his wife. Seriously.