I'm a Christian, and I absolutely detest American "thoughts and prayers"-ism. It's done so much damage to America (or abroad) and not just passively let evil deeds to keep happening, it also created and justified many of those deeds. Especially on gun violence, it's downright vile and the 2nd amendment "interpretation" (more like ignoring 100% of the context and 80% of the text before & after "right to bear arms").

This toxic combo of "thoughts & prayers" and "rights to bear arms".... is this "American Exceptionalism"? It happens to no other countries, and I don't see many of their government are less "democratic" or "free," nor its citizens have less rights.

The passivity of whole "thoughts and prayers" is NOT what Jesus said, nor what Jesus wants its followers do. If people read the NT, then they'll know Jesus is more of a SJW progressive/activist than what half of the US - the right leaning people - say Jesus is.

Oh, the all-too-easy "my heart breaks for..." whatever tragedy a politician/faith leaders heard and then DON'T do anything that they can help bring legislation to minimize said tragedy? Just as bad and hypocritical.

What gives a "law abiding" citizen the right to bare mass killing machine guns? Or owning hundreds and thousands of ammo in a home? For self-defense? Is that necessary? Really it's just a twisted sense of entitlement/freedom or some kind of nihilistic fetish. You know, I have the crazy "Borat" idea that if I'm an American (I'm Canadian, so I don't have the "right" to do anything directly), I'd troll the far-right Republican cultists using my Christian "credential" to demand my right to bear ANY arms... like anything from bombs, grenades to tanks, fighter jets and nuclear missiles as a private collection as long as I can afford it (Hooray, Capitalism!). It's my freaking "God"-given right! Carry the selective 2nd amendment reading to the extreme to see how ridiculous the status quo already is! ... But the thing is, I'm not sure anymore if there already IS a critical mass of far-right crazies that really believe what I said make total sense.

😂 Trump decided Eric had done enough damage to his case under cross examination and had him not testify for the defense.
Not good when you don’t want the person who was running the company during the period in question to testify in the business’s defense…not that he would have helped. 😂

Trumps “expert” witness admitted that, if the charges that Trump’s already been found guilty of are correct (and that’s what being found guilty means), that’s massive intentional fraud. He also testified that he had absolutely no knowledge of the facts in the case besides the minimal hyper biased data Trump supplied him (like his insistence that Maralago is worth $1.5 billion despite Trump previously going to court to argue it’s worth under $20 million for taxes, and not revealing the deed that has multiple permanent conditions that severely minimize the property value to under $20 million).

He’s already lost the case, he lost before it started and now it’s all about damages, but his defense has been so ridiculous it’s likely NY will get MORE than they’ve asked for AND banks will be coming after him for $200 million+- in interest he should have paid had his loan applications been valid. I’m pretty certain Trump doesn’t have the money to pay a half billion in fines and judgements, he doesn’t have the cash to pay his own legal bills, and won’t have his businesses to make more after the Trump crime family is tossed out of New York for underhanded criminal business practices. You better send him some of that sweet sweet Tesla cash you made, he needs you. 😂

Blame:
Republicans- they will NOT defraud as they say they will ($-interests).
Democrats- playing same Republican game; won’t call them out.
Media- supporting lie of threat of defraud.
Biden- words worthless; Republican in deeds .
The people- blind acceptance

We have been here every 4 years since the 90’s, and its always the same story. So old!

That's some outdated BLASPHEMY! The current (well, more like since the late 50~early'60s) is "Thoughts and Prayers and gimme gimme gimme! My rights aren't your rights, you CP heathens!"

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Oh, and I'm a Christian. Just the left-leaning, corporatized mega-church hating, cult-busting, prosperity-gospel rejecting, only care for Jesus'-deed-as-example kind of follower. Not the wield-Jesus-as-an-oppression-stick, "I'm an Evangelical, I have ALL the Rights!"-kind of proud & loud, shameless hypocrite (at least try as damn hard not to, I do have weaknesses) that we unfortunately see waaaaay too much in American power circles.

I'm a Canadian, and I'm super glad here in the Great White North (not so much anymore...), separation of church & state is strong. I think I'm probably not a "Christian" by most American's standard...

My rule of thumb for politicians is dead simple. Those that bring out their Christianity all the time NEVER gets my vote. It simply means they have no deeds, policies, visions to speak of and most likely is using God as a shield to hide their misdeeds and inactions.

Never cared for him. Rino like Lindsey Graham, Mit Romney, Susan Collens, and about 4 others. All needed to be replaced.

His only good deed is pushing supreme Court nominees.

What Democrats in your opinion needs replacing?

At first I was annoyed that a cop, in uniform on payroll and on duty, using his official police car, was delivering food as a side hustle.
When he said the delivery driver had been arrested (I can’t make out why) my estimation went from double dipping for extra cash to doing a good deed for an uninvolved citizen.

I was a delivery driver as a teen, delivering lunch to offices in Silicon Valley, so often $200- $400 orders. I once got in a wreck on a delivery and my first thought was “how do I deliver this food before it gets cold?”. Fortunately, our company used radios and they just sent another driver to make the delivery (and get my tip). I don’t know if door dash has the ability to reassign deliveries, but it’s nice (and out of character) of the officer to drop it off for free.

And for his heroic deed, the crab was cooked alive and eaten.

what is this 'deed'?

get it straight willie. contraception isn't perfect. sex isn't a crime.

a bank? the vault of her body? she is blowing it open so she can - what - burn the money? what is a crime is that analogy.

it's personal. it's their responsibility. it's personal responibility.

Abortion is eliminating a witnesses .


It is like robbing a bank in the middle of the night.

You pick the middle of the night so there wouldn't be anyone around. Weren’t planning on killing anyone.


A bystander passing by who stopped and looked because he heard something and comes in for a closer look.

He spots you in the act you and now you there is a witness to your deed.


Now you have to kill him so you can get away with your crime.

The unborn child is your evidence that ties you to your deed.
You kill it and hence know one knows this ever occurred.

Neither supports racial supremacy like your ilk, so the leading question is a red herring non sequitur.
I am not an anarchist, not since I turned 16, so I don't support Antifa, but I enjoy watching them make your head spin immensely.
I have always supported equality under the law, so yes, I absolutely support BLM....I would if they murdered a cop every time an unarmed black person was killed by police.

You are delusional.
Do, at some time, most cops act appropriately? Yes. Are you so brain damaged you take much accusations and hear "all cops are all bad all the time"? I've never said that. Pablo Escobar, by all reports, was a quite generous man who helped the poor on many occasions....he was not a good person.
Same for cops.
If you murder one person but do your job well otherwise, you are a murderous thug. If you allow fellow officers to get away with murder but don't participate, you are a murderous thug. If you spend every waking hour tending to the invalid and elderly on your own dime and you only kidnap and rape one child, you are a disgusting child rapist. If you cover for another motherfucker who's a kiddie fucker, you're no fucking better than the motherfucking rapist. That's the norm for American police, cover for the bad ones under any circumstances.

Cops can do good at times, usually when they know they're on multiple cameras, it doesn't ever erase their crimes.

Most, I would say statistically all cops are at best accomplices if not the bad actors. Good policing includes stopping other cops from committing crimes....until BLM pushed the issue, that was absolutely not the case...It might have happen once a decade nation wide, always ending with the whistleblower fired and under threat from police. Now, thanks 100% to BLM, that's slowly changing. Maybe up to .01% of the time...and that's an improvement.

Trump said to hit them harder and more often, cops listened and cheered.

Cops wear cameras. If they followed the law, they could put out ten thousand videos of themselves doing the right thing every day, not one a month, deescalation, not shooting until threatened, stopping other cops from beating handcuffed suspects to death and arresting them, defending the accused shoplifters from the racist store owner's false accusations instead of what we do see, smashing their window and pulling them through it because a racist said they think they stole something, they just don't know what or when. Have you EVER seen one of those? No, but you can see 10 disgusting abuses recorded daily with never another cop intervening, always the entire department forming a blue wall, destroying evidence, publicly pushing lies, testifying to lies, etc. They're a gang, they only protect and serve themselves when the chips are down. This is not a media perception, it's cold hard fact buddy.

Cops went to the supreme court to guarantee their right to lie. They are all professional liars. Liars cannot be trusted. I know, you can't grasp that concept because it would mean questioning daddy Trump, but it's true. When you give people authority, the power of life and death, and the legal right to lie at all times you set up a disastrous situation....it's what we have. Racist liars who kill. No good deed erases that.

Yes, Bob. Cops admit they shoot three citizens to death daily on average, already an abject failure, but hide likely > 95% of the deaths they cause by blaming the victim, claiming suicide by somehow beating themselves to death or claiming they died in a minor wreck that caused no injury after beating them to death. Claiming a cell phone clearly visible that they are talking to 911 on looks like a gun and shooting 47 times, running them over intentionally then stopping 10 ft away but claiming they had to because they feared for their lives, kneeling on their neck for 9 minutes and later saying the people telling them they just killed the man distracted them from knowing they killed the man. Strangling boys for 17 minutes straight while beating their heads with a giant maglight.......Daily. Multiple times daily.

You are such a delusional idiot.

Sadly, fools like @bobknight33 can't understand that good policing is supposed to be the norm, not a once in a blue moon occurrence to be celebrated and rewarded in stark contrast to the daily barrage of cops gone wild, boys in blue behaving badly videos that come without repercussions....nor does he grasp that one right doesn't erase one wrong, it takes a thousand good deeds to atone for one evil deed, some might say it's a debt you can never repay.

most people saw it as a biden win.

think about it bk33. you've acknowledged don was a disaster. but no real downside to joe's behavior. any criticism of the event was ditzy don's doing. if a jackass is brought into the building, ka-ka could happen. and dj couldn't keep his tail down. you know it. we all know it. don was stumped and frustrated. joe came out standing.

no fumbles. no gaffes. he out donned, don.*

you got nothing. not in a candidate. not a savior. not in a movement. nothing in true actions, deeds, or anything a person could hold. nothing is nothing.

nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

come on bob - sing it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBlEJ0teznM


*still love that the 'bleach bit' still burns don down

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

No good deed goes unpunished.

My gripe was, as a public servant, getting paid for a personal good deed, especially if not approved so abandoning his duties.

Since it was pre-approved, my only remaining minor gripe is being labeled a super Samaritan for something he was paid to do.

Still a nice thing, no doubt, something I approve of far more than military equipment. I would donate to a fund that reimbursed departments for any costs associated with this kind of policing....someone more tactful should create one.