unsure of what was said. interpret this as 'he had the opportunity to say he was wrong for his actions, but has decided to avoid full responsibility for his behavior'.

or least that's my personal take of this 'bit'.

implying it was a 'thing' (fetish) needed, and the women (in his employ) okayed his action. nope. not buying it.

ignoring, rationalizing - it's not going away. weiner, allen, cosby, polanski...being creepy stays on your permanent record.

I thought the same thing. If average Canadians only paid 11% total in taxes Canada would have been forced to build a wall to stop all the republicans trying to move there.


Ahhh.....Thanks @eric3579 . He's taking what they called "labor tax" which apparently is some nonsense number they produced that, while it includes employee income and payroll tax as well as employer contributions, is somehow far less than employee income and payroll taxes alone in Canada, labor tax is listed at 11.5% with the next lowest being the UK at 26.1%. Somebody screwed up here, their numbers don't add up.

Arson plain and simple. They should be charged with murder 1 for any deaths, and all 8 million in damages....not just the one guy who fired the shot but everyone involved in setting up the firebomb.

They went to a bone dry field of brush to create an explosion in the middle of waist high dead grass without clearing the fuel from the site and without bringing any fire suppression equipment, not even a wet towel, that makes it intentional arson....or a case of being too dumb to be allowed to live.

No reasonable person could NOT foresee that a huge tannerite explosion in a <2% humidity field of fuel would start a fire, and running away without even trying to put it out makes it again 100% intentional.
This moron and his family should just be harvested for organs, it's the closest they could get to actual restitution. This $500 a month nonsense is outrageous. 100% of the family's assets should be forfeited, including houses, cars, pensions, anything of value...and left with < $1500 a month from his salary....a fourth year agent makes an average of $125000 a year plus 64 days of paid time off, family health and life insurance, retirement starting at 50 with full benefits, employer matched savings, pension, etc. $500 a month ($6000 a year) is insulting and not even noticeable to his finances considering his salary, $5000 a month isn't enough, and would still leave him with $65000per year + all those benefits....not to mention whatever his wife brings in. That's absolutely outrageous. I feel like restitution of $100000 a year until it's fully paid off is being generous considering the damage he caused.
Side note, this is the level of intelligence the border control agency accepts. We need an IQ minimum for public servants, I'm pissed one penny of my tax dollars go to pay brain dead slugs like him, and that total morons like him are armed and given authority is asinine.

2) Yes there are more Americans, so more are employed. The percentage of the population employed is falling gradually at the same time. Neither of these two facts actually mean anything significant and neither have any impact on how Trump should be evaluated.

@newtboy ...LEARN
1. Almost 4 million jobs created since election.
2. More Americans are now employed than ever in our history.
3. Created more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since his election.
4. Manufacturing jobs growing at the fastest rate in more than three decades.
5. Economic growth last quarter hit 4.2 percent.
6. New unemployment claims recently hit a 49-year low.

7. Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.

8. African-American unemployment has recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.

9. Hispanic-American unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded.

10. Asian-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.

11. Women’s unemployment recently reached the lowest rate in 65 years.

12. Youth unemployment has recently hit the lowest rate in nearly half a century.

13. Lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for Americans without a high school diploma.

14. Under this administration, veterans’ unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in nearly 20 years.

15. Almost 3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since the election.

16. The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.

17. Ninty-five percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future, the highest ever.

18. Retail sales surged last month, up another 6% over last year.

19. Signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history. After tax cuts, over $300 billion poured back in to the U.S. in the first quarter alone.

20. As a result of his tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.

Lol. Right. More projection. Sorry sunshine, I'm pretty certain I've established a reputation for multiple legitimate sources and verifying my claims in stark contrast to you who only sites illegitimate and unverified far right Russian based internet media.

I seriously doubt that you listened or watched, and I know if you did you didn't understand 4/5 of it. I guess you were totally full of shit saying you're employed and going in to work then.

So, a nominee who can't answer the most basic questions about the constitution should be confirmed as one of 9 people who interpret it? Knowing it forwards and backwards would seem a bare minimum requirement...but not for you or trump, you need a justice who's ignorant of the constitution to get her to ignore and violate it for you. Enjoy the new 19 justice court with 10 new seats filled by Biden and an amendment making adding more unconstitutional. Because we can is now the standard set by Republicans, they have zero legitimacy complaining, and will have zero power to stop it.

So cute, sweety. Pretending to be informed. That's just precious, doll.

And they think they deserve ANOTHER multi billion dollar handout/bailout from taxpayers, another socialist handout for free, no strings attached at all, but won't commit to upgrading service or even keeping employees employed (considering their competence level, that's reasonable, a monkey on meth would do better).

Same story at United. Fly Southwest.

If one of these customer service crews was just found at the ticketing desk torn limb from limb by hand, customer service would improve instantly. A carry on bag full of sodas makes a great weapon, and drawing and quartering sends one hell of a message....just saying.

Just a side note, while airports screech at you to social distance every thirty seconds, airplanes are flying at capacity with zero possibility of any social distancing, instead you're forced to have physical contact with other passengers. Don't fly during pandemics unless it's absolutely necessary.

The political system is what it is, and technically it is still a democracy, so yes, he was elected.

The system is broken.

America is broken.

Trump is a symptom and ultimately not the cause of America's problems. Like many symptoms, he is problematic, but to assume he is the disease is a huge mistake.

Corporations and the ultra-wealthy now run the country. Wealth disparity is at an all-time high. Employers weaponize the medical system to force fealty from employees.

The truth is, America has long been an Oligarchy and is rapidly slipping into Fascism. Trump may have accelerated the process, but it was there all along.

What are you going to do about it?

Who is your employer?

More lies, nice try, the image is not a fake, even Snopes confirms it. A manager at GY Topeka created it, managers are representative of leadership and the company (as every leader in a company knows) that the leader was not in compliance with corporate policy doesn't change the responsibility of of GY to address. If this didn't get national attention the unfortunate employees at Topeka GY (and anywhere else this employee presented) would believe their employer has taken a political stand on a hot button and divisive issue. GY is welcome to do this but they are also welcome to lose/gain business as a result.

As far as I'm concerned the process worked as it should and is a wake-up call that cancel-culture cuts both ways.

pretty fair.

rather have competent, caring, compromising (to get problems addressed), near-the-center leadership. rid america of crazed, corrupt, callous, craven cowards that prefer power over contentment.

tho' seeing higher education, sane healthcare, and a tax structure that provides for all the necessities of running a country...if that's a revolution - then joe missed the mark.

(see there? complaining about joe & ain't in office yet! not about the party, it's about feeling good enough to want to party!)

problems want to have...
- road surfaces so smooth, have to fight the impulse to nap
- primary education so effective, 8yr-old takes over doing the taxes after seeing last year's submitted forums
- healthcare so affordable, have no reason to see doctor...when too broke, embarrassed, or there are needles!
- an employer that pushes you to work harder w/"are we paying you too much?" & you know the bastard is right.
- hoping your mandated paid vacation time isn't so long you forget how to say 'you want fries w/that'
- keeping your voting selection secret because you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings 'it was so hard! all were so worthy! have to choose someone?!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klUweWE-u6A

Just absolutely wrong on every point except the post office....but consider instead of giving them the funding needed to address these problems, Trump has withheld funding for even normal operation and his appointees have already removed 10% of it's capacity, when they need to be expanding it to hold a fair and open election according to Whitehouse and CDC guidelines.
What happens when it takes 4 weeks to deliver ballots because of the intentional slowdowns and many aren't delivered before election day? Tens of millions are disenfranchised directly because of Trump's actions. A vote blocked is a vote STOLEN, so you are standing with a plan that cheats tens of millions out of their vote unequivocally in a stated plan to avoid hundreds of assumed fraudulent votes from being attempted (but likely caught so not cast).

Trump should want to fund it because holding a fair election is his duty, but he's never fulfilled a duty in his life.

Um...Covid absolutely 100% is a legitimate reason for vote by mail according to health agencies that determine such things (CDC, HHS) ..as if any reason is needed, it's the norm in many states.
Vote by mail is not an excuse for covid, that actually is BS....but I think you meant to be contradicting the former. It's a pure lie that it's more fraudulent than in person voting, another bold faced lie Trump told you.

You can't vote outside. Social distancing while voting is going to take the lines that were 5-6 hours long in places and make them twice that long. Thousands of polling places can't be staffed because most pollsters are elderly retired people, in the most effected group and totally not safe to work, (especially since it's a given that dozens of moronic denier Trumpsters are going to show up at every open polling place unmasked insisting it's their right to vote while spreading disease and forcing their way inside), so many are being closed. How do you think in person voting could possibly work given those facts?

If your ilk would mask up, we could do that, but you all have extended and exacerbated the pandemic so badly, and in their brainless worship of Trump still claim it's ALL a hoax, never even existed, and still won't wear masks because they block oxygen and suffocate people. Because of Trump's horrific leadership, in person voting is a no go for most without risking their, and other people's lives.

Your choice for president is failing at even holding an election...not surprising, he's failed at literally every job a president has, and our nation has suffered greatly, lost international status, tens of trillions, trade, respect, jobs, and over 160000 lives directly because of Trump's leadership....and every problem I listed is getting worse daily as he floundered.

What has he done successfully in your mind besides the tax cut he gave himself, doubling the deficit? Not the economy, not employment, not safety, not health, not trade, not deals, not strengthening ties with allies....so what?

Bob,

Here's where we agree on something.

I came from amazing wealth, like total top .01%, then lost everything and ended up in absolute poverty. I taught myself a valuable skill and kept building and building on it. It started with shit jobs, but I kept learning and doing more and never stopped believing in myself or in my ability to better my circumstance. I went to college and learned how to learn more efficiently. Even now, I'm improving my skills on a daily basis. 40 years later, now I'm in the 1%.

This is America to me, one part of it: that in America, you at least have a chance -- however small, however improbable -- to better yourself through your own skills, drive and determination. It's not a 100% guarantee, but I honestly haven't seen another country that fosters this attitude.

For the nb, did I have a leg up? Definitely. I was born with an extraordinary mind into a hyper-affluent family. As a child I went to the best public schools in America during a time when education was valued above all else. By the time my mom and I were basically on the street, I had enough base knowledge to build on what I'd already learned. I also took advantage of community college when it was all but free ($50 a semester) and was able to take pretty much any class that interested me. I was also able to afford a computer when they were very expensive and complicated.

Finally, I was born a white male and caught innumerable breaks because of that. I have zero doubt that I am where I am in part to this accident of birth, because I was told by cops, teachers and employers, sometimes quite openly and sometimes in coded language, that I was preferred over non-white people.

For all America's sin -- and many be thy score -- the nucleus of true capitalism is still alive.

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)