I was young enough that I'm not certain, but probably around 5-6 years old when I realized my parents, and society, lied to me constantly.

It could have been the realization that Santa wasn't really visiting my house, or other fantasies I realized were just that, fantasies, it might have been the realization that working hard and being "good" doesn't guarantee success like I had been told, it might have been the realization that "better living through chemistry" was more a pipe dream than reality....I'm just not sure exactly which trigger fired that gun.

6 years old was a weird year. It's when i stopped taking people's word as fact, and likely when I became a professional grade cynic.
I think that's also the year I decided having children was abusive and I didn't want to do that to someone.

He's just trolling.
He doesn't believe the contradictory nonsense he spouts, he often doesn't read it, just reposts what other far right extremists posted without knowing what it says, which hilariously has him contradicting his own claims constantly, like today claiming there are absolutely no regulations or checks of mail in ballots after yesterday linking an article about thousands of mail in votes being disqualified when they checked the signatures, following the regulations that require checking them. Lol.
It's all about triggering the libtards for him. He doesn't care if he lies or what he's supporting as long as it supports Trump or gets a reaction....what he doesn't see is that's made him totally untrustworthy and only given people like me an opening to get the facts and contradict the bullshit the right spouts these days...without him I wouldn't know what bullshit to address.

Yes, he is totally lost, lobotomized by the Q-anon ice pick.

Looking at the footage. Either it is staged or that's one lucky clown. Picked their wrong victim, they were absolutely acting threatening. Triggered his fight or flight response.

Triggered, are we?

Lol.
So, there's nothing worse to America than you, comrade? You are absolutely a tool of the Socialist / fascist / hoping to return to communist Russian government.
Your presidential pick is the biggest socialist, handing out and redistributing trillions upon trillions while exploding both deficit and debt at unheard of rates.
Your presidential pick is by far the most fascist in my lifetime, likely in American history, now escalating to using federal troops to pre-arrest people they think might become criminals sometime in the future (as a campaign ploy, now going from triggering the libs to pulling the trigger on the libs)....but not to go after actual active domestic terrorists like the boogaloos who committed the crimes you try to blame on blm.
Communism?! Do you think this is the early 70's. There's only one person trying to move towards communism, he's the president....of Russia, and his tools HAVE infiltrated America....you are one.

Please retake English 1, Dimitry, your ridiculous claims make no sense at all if you can't write an English sentence, and only out you as a non English speaking foreigner infiltrating America.

The armed anarchists causing trouble are the same right wing gun toters you claim are anti tyranny not the Black Lives Matter protesters, and they're fighting/killing police, children, and peaceful protesters, lighting fires, and building bombs...all while carrying their manifesto which explains in language plain enough even you can understand it that their violent criminality is designed to get BLM and Antifa blamed for their acts and trigger tyrannical government response and race wars.

It worked....but only on ignoramuses so moronic they get their misinformation from Trump and OAN and ignore what police and federal agencies have all agreed is fact. Antifa is NOT the instigator of violence and damage, right wing groups are, consistently.

65% of Americans support BLM, <35% support the response.
You are correct that this isn't tyranny being stopped....because no one's stopping it.

This isn't anarchy being stopped, it's making blatantly fake excuses for why peaceful protests are being attacked by the right and police, and excuses for sliding into tyranny quick before the election. You support armed anarchy when it's right wingers doing it....Bundys.

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)

That's right Fox is fake news now as well isn't it.

There is video evidence of the kick, are you saying it is CGI?

The police always have the discretion of whether on not they pull the trigger.

*quality triggering of my vertigo

I like to think I rarely get triggered, but their channel name ("It's Okay To Be Smart", gee thanks for permission) really does trigger me. I assume it's targeted at children, but it still annoys me.

The video is an interesting overview, though.

Only a fool believes he didn't really believe it would work and that he just had a genius idea nobody thought of, just like his other idea, massive doses of uv. Nobody knew that wouldn't work, nobody. *facepalm
He's now claiming it was sarcasm since someone apparently told him how stupid he is, but that's obvious bullshit, he meant every word. No wink, no smirk, no "just kidding", he was dead serious.
Edit: now he's claiming it was a genius practical joke on the press not revealed for 18+ hours, putting his worshipers lives at risk to trigger the fake media....uh....yeah, that's much better.
Technically he didn't actually say people should inject it, he said doctors, actual real medical doctors this time, should test direct injection....but when he says that his moronic cultists just do it because he knows more than doctors....they didn't get their hydroxychloroquine through a doctor for the most part, they went black market because reputable doctors wouldn't prescribe it. They took it because Trump said it was perfect, a miracle cure with no downside. Turns out it may double the likelihood of death along with multiple life altering side effects.
Wait and see, people will do it. Probably drinking bleach or rubbing alcohol, but some morons will inject it. Trumpsters are not rational. Just look at homeless cocaine dad here, or you thinking he's convincing in any way. Remember, some Trumpster idiots took fish tank chloroquine because he said "chloroquine good". You think more morons won't inject rubbing alcohol because Trump said "injecting disinfectants good"?!

The president absolutely suggested it might be a way to fight the virus. That's exactly what he did. This whole video was a lame frantic attempt to deny it, then he played the audio that proves he did.

And in all seriousness: because if you aren't old yourself, you know people who are---your parents, your grandparents---or have friends and family who are in the risk groups---diabetic, asthma, smokers, cancer survivors or in treatment---or are just robust young people with immune systems that over-react and then trigger Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and death...

So I don't know you--but wash your hands, wear a mask outside, and isolate.
Whatever you have believed at one point or the other.

Hey Bobby, the newest right wing douche way to trigger libtards is to ignore medical advice and hold pro Trump rallies, of course unmasked and ungloved, handshaking and hugging those other real Americans that turn up. Why not....are you snowflakes afraid of something far less deadly than the flu? Better hop to it, don't you think?

People blame Trump because he dismantled the programs that were a functional safeguard against EXACTLY this kind of outbreak, then denied Covid19 was anything out of the ordinary or at all dangerous, dragged his feet on stopping people from infected areas, and told people to ignore it as a hoax pandemic. His actions and words didn't create Covid19, but they let it become a pandemic that will kill >100000 Americans....maybe millions because his cultists are still convinced it's just a hoax meant to hurt him politically...he said so....and they continue to spread it nationwide.

https://videosift.com/video/China-Is-Building-A-Thousand-Bed-Hospital-In-6-Days

Trump continued to call it a Chinese/Democratic hoax and a minor flu for 2 months after this unambiguous, undeniable message from China that this was a horrific epidemic, which itself came well over a month after the whistleblower put the world on notice, a notice Trump and co 100% ignored for months despite the mounting evidence.

I hate to say this, but Trump is responsible for Flight 752. It would have never happened without his bullshit attack.

Someone with a clue or an active brain cell would have known trigger fingers would be made itchy. That's why civilized governments declare wars. It allows the rest of the world to decide if they actually want to be in the area or not.

All rhetoric aside, Trump is officially a thug.