Shocker!
That event tomorrow where crack head Mike Pillow was going to blow the election case open by hand delivering his explosive evidence directly to the Supreme Court tomorrow…cancelled. He says his evidence is too dangerous. I bet you agree.
😂

The RNC is done. 100% a MAGA org now, which means actual Republicans are out. Hint- there aren’t enough MAGA to win elections without Republicans and independents, both of which have been threatened and excluded from the party.
The purge has happened, the new Trump loyalist staff is incredibly incompetent and has one job, get Trump elected even if it means losing every other election nationwide. They won’t do it.
Republicans are simply leaving the party, and leaving their elected positions early to avoid being complicit with you morons. Fundraising has dried up. Don has killed the right! He couldn’t have done so good a job at destroying the Republican Party if he was trying.

MAGA stooge and Jan 6 architect Navarro goes to prison early next week. Another MAGA administration felon going to prison for treasonous activities related to the big lie (the attempted coups).

Meanwhile, the good economy is finally sinking in to the masses, and Biden’s approval ratings are skyrocketing while Don’s plummeted as it became clear his only defense to 85 treasonous felonies is to delay them until after the election, win the election, become a dictator for life and pardon himself from even the state charges (when you’re a dictator, you can do anything and they just let you. Grab America by the pussy and just start fisting.)

I wonder if the recent scrutiny of the tens of millions taken by these judges from plaintiffs and defendants in their own courts and the resulting outrage will make him consider this offer, knowing real ethics LAWS are coming as soon as Democrats retake the house and his fire-hose of unreported “gifts” is likely to dry up under new laws with teeth, this may be his only shot at continuing the lavish lifestyle he and the other “conservative” “justices” all enjoy thanks to their billionaire donors who buy decisions.

Note- there has yet to be a single credible accusation of taking “unreported gifts” (aka bribes) against any of the 3 “liberal” justices. No false equivalency to make here @bobknight33, none. The best the muck rakers can come up with is Geinsberg once accepted a trip she reported on her disclosures from someone who had PREVIOUSLY YEARS EARLIER had a case heard. I’m sure you will say that’s the exact same crime as taking millions from people with cases pending before your court and not reporting a dime of it or recusing yourself.

He'll still cast those votes though.. just like our prestigious senator from California that is older than dirt and barely functioning.

These people are amazing for staying at a job for so long. The power really sucks them dry.

Calling fake. I think it’s a toy grenade and probably a coke/mentos or dry ice “bomb” underwater to make the relatively safe explosion that’s so poorly cut in at the end.

Notice he calmly holds onto the “grenade” for 3 full seconds before tossing it just feet away. No sane person would do that with a real live grenade that has a 4-5.5 second fuse and a fatality radius of 5 meters. Were it real, it easily could have exploded before hitting the water and he would be dead or severely injured. He didn’t even have a safety shield to hide behind.

A real golfball grenade sitting on the bottom like that would punch a hole in the best made pool, especially right next to the drain like it was, and the shockwave through the water would likely crack the walls.

Here’s what it really looks like (explosion at 1:14)

250000 more jobs in April.
Unemployment in 2020 topped 14%, today down to 3.4%.
2020 gdp -3%. 2021 gdp +5.9%
Sure sounds like that spending turned some tides.

Markets are somewhat stagnant (but still rising at 5%+- a year) for two reasons…1) the purely Republican caused banking failures caused by Republican forced through deregulation toon in 2018 leading to exactly what the regulations were designed to prevent and 2) the Republican blackmail of the economy using the debt ceiling that daily costs more as investments and international partnerships dry up because no one wants to be tied to a nation that won’t pay its bills…or that threatens to not pay its bills over partisan blackmail schemes.

I was going to start off saying that the whole concept of a private ambulance company - an essential service run for profit that so obviously benefits the wealthy over the poor - is so alien to me that it feels wrong to my core.

Then I read your comment and thought that the training really is at the heart of this. Were they sufficiently trained and managed to know that this could/would kill?

This is not a rhetorical question.

If they were paid little and/or forced to work long shifts so they're facing this while tired enough not to think/care, then I blame the company and, by association, the system. If they were well trained and had no genuine excuse (rather than reason) for their behaviour then I blame them.

The reality probably isn't as cut-and-dried as I present it above, but there's definitely a spectrum of blame to be considered.

1 small point of correction - the workers are on break between 10am-3pm in the summer, which is when you see those >50C temperatures. They worked all through the night, and you can't pour concrete in the day because it's too hot and dries too quickly.
An exceptional (i.e. not the norm) construction company was one that paid it's workers what was promised, and on time. All local companies had to be 51% owned by Qataris, not sure if that changed as part of their 2018 reforms.

yeah...it's the situation where a person doesn't burn down the house to get to the cockroaches...unless the house is condemned...and there are fire folks at the ready...and the vegetation isn't too dry...damn it...just want some sense when lives are in the balance.

where it'd be like shooting into a crowd to get a perp. akin to the recent event - where cops shot into a crowd to get a perp!

Come on, people. I know it’s dry politics, but only 2 votes including my own!?

The FBI director admitting under oath that they did not investigate any accusations against Kavanaugh (and yet claimed publicly that they had for years while stonewalling congress), but instead of investigating tips like they claimed repeatedly they had done thoroughly, they in fact just forwarded them directly to the whitehouse and awaited instructions on who to talk to and exactly what to ask them should enrage every American. They are not supposed to just be a propaganda department for the whitehouse.

Another institution totally disgraced and now untrustworthy after being infiltrated by dishonest Trumpists willing to break every rule and law to gain power. Add them to the DOD, secret service, DOJ, etc. All untrustworthy now thanks to Trump’s deep state people.

Guaranteed the same went for unqualified Barrett and Gorsuch…no investigation or vetting at all and every accusation just forwarded to Trump and forgotten.

Not caring about this kind of thing is why the tiny minority of the far right controls so much of this country now. It’s why Republicans have held the presidency for 3/5 terms this millennium despite only getting the most votes once.

You need to care about the degradation and politicization of national institutions or this country is doomed.

No fires? It seems dangerous in dry areas like So. CA.

What do they mean “running out”? We’ve been out of water for decades.

As bad as this sounds, I think he’s under selling the problem big time.

Federal officials announced in February that California farmers will get no federal water this year, zero (that’s the Central Valley Project), while the state has allocated agriculture only 15% of normal from its distribution systems.
Meanwhile the state has also demanded agricultural water districts and cities stop diverting water from rivers and streams along the San Joaquin River. This includes 200 cities in and around the Bay Area, like San Francisco which gets up to 85% of its water from those rivers and streams.
Some rivers and streams in California have stopped flowing, all have reduced flow. The Mad River, just blocks from me, is usually 6-8’ deep bank to bank (75-100’) for at least 6 months out of each year, the last 3 years it never reached its banks and remained a shallow stream all winter, becoming a creek in summer. It is abnormal, most rivers are worse off.
Aquifers have already been depleted so much that the entire Central Valley is sinking rapidly. Reservoirs are WELL below 50%, despite what this clip said (Shasta is reporting at 40% today, but driving over it it looks like maybe 10-20% full with no inflow).
So far this year along, over 1000 residential wells have gone dry. This includes many entire communities losing their drinking water supplies completely. The number of agriculture wells that can no longer function is uncountable. It’s estimated we will lose 2700 drinking water wells this year state wide.

The California water problem isn’t a pressing future issue, it’s an ongoing unmitigated disaster we’ve ignored for far too long. At this point, it’s likely insurmountable, and a collapse of California agriculture will make today’s inflation seem like the good old days when average workers could afford to eat. Start a garden, it’s going to get weird.

I used to use Kodak TP-2415 for astrophotrography, and it's the most insanely fincky film I've ever used, with one exception: Fuji made FF slide film for the same purpose that were ISO 10,000. The stuff was so reactive to ANY heat that it came delivered on dry ice and you had to slam the slide into the back of the camera as absolutely fast as you could. The darkroom processing on those slides was best done by someone who dealt with nothing but Fuji -- and not just Velvia.

If you've only shot 400 - 800 35mm, MF and FF is a world you cannot imagine.

Economic disruption of the blockades was similar to the Mohawk blockade of railways about 2 years ago:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-rejects-police-intervention-to-put-an-end-to-blockades/

Similarly, mass lay offs and multi-billions of dollars of goods stuck sitting around waiting to get to the industries needing them.

Since at least 2012 the attempted expansion of an existing pipeline(Trans Mountain) was targeted continuously by blockades. Opposition and resulting delays leading to cost overruns so large that company ultimately halted the multi-billion dollar project.

In terms of dollars being lost, the convoy protest wasn't special. More over, the blockade of the border in Ontario that was causing the real economic damage was dismantled and removed before the 'emergency measures' were enacted. Which is to state, the emergency measures were primarily intended to clear out downtown Ottawa. In downtown Ottawa though, the damages were at minimum as localized as any of the lumber or pipeline blockades mentioned.


Prime Minister Trudeau couldn't be more unequivocal when he was expressing his support for the farmer protests in India and the Floyd protests in the US. Clip if you'd like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9EaSF6Y0eE

The protests in India absolutely did immensely more harm to India's economy than the convoy here did in Canada. The protests in support of Floyd were again unequivocally more violent than the convoy in Canada.

There really is no basis by which to point to the convoy's actions and find them in any way unique or distinct from multiple other protests within Canada, or ones abroad that have been either given more latitude, or outright embraced and supported.

The distinction as even you can't resist going after, is that their beliefs they are protesting for are stupid and wrong, so no right to protest for them. That isn't how the right to protest within a democracy should be allowed to work.

I also have to point out the 'ethical' argument isn't as cut and dry as you want to make it out either.
-Pipelines bad so blockading is good ignores the fact the same oil gets pumped regardless, it just gets loaded into trucks that burn even more oil to haul it and have a fair greater risk of accidents and spills.
-Defending the rights and lands of Aboriginal peoples(like at Coastal Gas Link site violently attacked with millions in damages while the convoy was being vilified for 'incitement') is anything but obvious. The Wet'suwet'en hereditary leaders made claim to parts of the pipeline route and demanded it be shut down. However, the same Wet'suwet'en people's multiple elected Band Councils signed on with their wishes to proceed with the project. In fact, ALL elected representatives of ALL the Bands with land along the route had ALL signed onto the project and wanting it to proceed. It is in no way obvious that ignoring the will of those other bands to favour the conflicting claims of the hereditary leaders is clearly the most respectful of the people's wishes.

Oh no!
Good….Trump (likely) only has $93 million in liquid assets….1% of the 10 billion he’s claimed. None of his properties have shown a profit in at least two years, and they all are essentially owned by the banks that loaned him the money to buy them.
Better….he has $750 million in loan debts due in the next few years.
Best…. he also has between $100-$300 million in back taxes to pay or go to prison.

Sounds like Daddy Trump is going to be sleeping on your couch soon, he already spent all your political donations on defending his own criminal cases, and they’re all still moving forward. His lawyers are making arguments first year law students would laugh at, not actual defenses….and have bled both his and the RNCs coffers dry.
D’oh! Bad year to be a Trumpster.

This is literally EIA. He did almost everything wrong you could possibly do:

1. Drop the lit match into a pile of garbage while focusing on the burning box of matches.
2. Piling dry cardboard onto the burning garbage as if somehow that would smother it.
3. Repeatedly fanning the flames with a heavy blanket instead of trying to smother the flames and cut off oxygen.
4. Hitting a large uncontrolled pile of burning materials with a small amount of water that really just served to scatter the burning materials instead of putting them out.

I need to buy a new fire extinguisher. I actually just bought one for the kitchen (which specifically smothers without scattering grease or oil) but the package was stolen out of the mail room before I could pick it up. /rant