If you say all lives matter in response to black lives matter, you're a racist blinding yourself to the truth that in many ways black lives don't seem to matter to authority. It's like sitting at a big table where everyone but you gets served dinner, and when you mention that your dinner matters you get answered with an angry "all dinners matter" but no food.

You can't commit crimes, dumbass. How moronic are you?

You can't (edit: or shouldn't, I guess you still can in most places) go to church because Covid is real, not a fake virus as some morons insist. I wish these deniers would sign a petition denouncing and refusing any medical treatment for covid related issues, then go party with each other making sure to shake hands and kiss each other ceaselessly. Put your health where your mouth is...or don't you believe the dangerous bullshit you spout?

Peaceful protesters don't carry bricks, those are Boogaloo boys looking to start riots. Peaceful protests at capitals protesting masks and shutdowns aren't what happened, heavily armed violent takeovers of federal buildings to denounce public health measures and threaten public officials with lynchings and mob murders is what happened....but with no feds sent in after them like was done preemptively in Portland.

Protests in the streets by mask wearing, social distancing people is not a major risk factor, indoor Trump rallies without masks or social distancing ARE a major risk factor, and sparked outbreaks.

So much nonsense and ignorance in such an annoying package is almost impressive.

Really? I remember you being on the side of the Bundys both times they became an armed group of anarchist criminals running amok, and calling Obama a criminal thug for trying to stop them.
So it's not the criminality, not running amok, not armed takeovers of public areas and expulsion of police, it's only the Democrat part of your label you have a problem with.
Since he didn't use that word, and you answered you would have been delighted, you're a liar. You weren't delighted when he did it.

You gladly cheer for Trump sending in Federal officers to attack Democrats based on blatantly false, thoroughly debunked right wing propaganda, and cry and whine when they're used to restore law and order from violent armed anarchists by Obama after months of negotiations because those armed criminal anarchists running amok were Republicans.

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)

Shoot back with black tallons. Where are all Trump's "ready to go" 2A people? Certainly they would stand against this tyrannical thuggery....unless they're really all babies cowering behind and threatening with their guns but only when only they have guns to threaten with. No. Couldn't be.

Fucking violent thugs shooting people peacefully sitting on their porch.
They have zero authority to make you be INSIDE, only on your property.
This is not policing.

Shoot those thugs in the head like Trump said to. Presidential order through Twitter, shoot the THUGS. Burn their hideouts too...police stations. They aren't policing, so they don't deserve them.

I won't piss on a cop if they're on fire, or use my breaks if they're in front of my moving vehicle. By far, they're the most violent gang in America.

@bobknight33, does giving someone a nice ride on the clock excuse this? Or illegally arresting the press? Or repeatedly unannounced, shooting people dead in their homes, or repeatedly suffocating people in public using banned control methods, and how about lying about all of it until civilian video goes public?
Edit: You patriots aren't doing a thing to stop this tyrannical clampdown, gangs of THUGS shooting peaceful citizens on their porch backed by tanks, I guess all that "our guns protect us from a tyrannical government takeover" is definitely bullshit, we're sending those thugs to your house next to collect your guns, you don't need them anymore since you're all snowflakes.

That depends on which bible you mean....there are many.

Really? Lost to history?! Hardly....lost to the ignorant and uneducated maybe, but even atheists like me know full well Jesus the man was a Jew, and definitely not a European or "white". Roman/Italian artists knew this, but worked for a Roman church so portrayed him in their image.

Genetic purity?! Lol. I guess that means no one has EVER become Jewish, you're either born one by two pure Jewish parents or not. Hardly reality, and would reject nearly every person in Israel (or elsewhere). Just because there is a long standing religious/cultural taboo against marriage outside the culture, it still happens, as does conversion. Racial/genetic purity is a fallacy debunked by genetic testing.

Prophecy is a leap. No prophecy has been correctly interpreted until AFTER the events supposedly prophesied occurred. It's ridiculous to go back after the fact and claim "see, now that I know exactly how to interpret the unclear prophecy I couldn't decipher before, it's a 100% perfect prediction" but never be able to predict the future. That's the same nonsensical logic mediums use.

The second temple was also the third, since the true second temple was originally a rather modest structure constructed by a number of Jewish exile groups returning to the Levant from Babylon under the Achaemenid-appointed governor Zerubbabel. However, during the reign of Herod the Great, the Second Temple was completely refurbished, and the original structure was totally overhauled into the large and magnificent edifices and facades that are more recognizable. Logically, the third temple was the one destroyed by Romans, the second replaced by Herod but the new one was still called the second temple anyway. (To avoid contradicting prophecy? ;-) )

If the dome of the rock, the second most holy place in Islam, is destroyed, expect Jerusalem to follow soon after, as that will definitely start a religious war between nuclear powers.

Herodotus is credited with using the term Palestinian first, in the 5th century BCE as an ethnonym, making no distinction between Arabs, Jews, or other cultures inhabiting of the area. Romans adopted the term as the official administrative name for the region in the 2nd century CE, "Palestine" as a stand-alone term then came into widespread use, printed on coins, in inscriptions and even in rabbinic texts.

I think you are confused about the history, here's a primer...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel

The area was populated by various people's including Jews until the Jewish–Roman wars of 66–136 CE, during which the Romans expelled most of the Jews from the area (well, really they arguably left voluntarily because they refused to be second class citizens barred from practicing their religion freely) and replaced it with the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, the Arabs were already there, not invaders or immigrants. When Assyrians (Mesopotamians) invaded in circa 722 BCE, they ruled empirically, meaning only the Jewish ruling elite left, returning in 538 BCE under Cyrus the Great....so no, the Arabs didn't just settle after the Jews were dispersed.

It's patently ridiculous to say the Arab nations were unprovoked, Jewish illegal immigration led to a hostile takeover of the region by illegal immigrants with rapid expansion of their territories into their neighbors continuing through today. The Jews defeated the Arabs thanks to American backing and exponentially better hardware. It was only their right if might makes right, and the Arab nations are under no obligation to let them keep what they stole any more than the Jews were obligated to let the Arab nations retain control in the first place. If Iran, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or any combination can take it, by your logic they have every right to do so.

I do agree, in the end there will be more conflict until the area becomes uninhabitable....largely because every religion's prophecies end with them in control, and no one wants to admit it's all nonsensical iron age tribalism at work.

Lol. Good point.....dirty hippies. ;-)

Um....what? Vegans should want to avoid them almost as much as the hunter's helper and slaughterhouse sucker brand lozenges, not flock to the brand marketed at meat harvesters.

Um...really? You think non vegans fear a vegan culinary takeover or something enough to falsify studies/polls? That's hilarious.
As to the 7% number, even vegan organizations in Britain disagree, as does Wiki....
According to a 2018 survey by Comparethemarket.com, the number of people who identify as vegans in the United Kingdom has risen to over 3.5 million, which is approximately seven percent of the population, and environmental concerns were a major factor in this development.[140] However, doubt was cast on this inflated figure by the UK-based Vegan Society, who perform their own regular survey: the Vegan Society themselves found in 2018 that there were 600,000 vegans in Great Britain (1.16%), which is a dramatic increase on previous figures.[141][142]
United States: Estimates of vegans in the U.S. vary from 2% (Gallup, 2012)[143] to 0.5% (Faunalytics, 2014). According to the latter, 70% of those who adopted a vegan diet abandoned it.

Your video, Anna Kendrick’s Between the Scenes Takeover, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Even Donna Brazile finds proof that the DNC rigged the primary in HRC's favour, that HRC's campaign used the DNC to circumvent donation caps, and that HRC's campaign vacuumed-up funds meant for the state parties: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC

Looks like an attempt at white-washing her own complacency in the rigging, but it's juicy info nonetheless.

Since election rigging is featured so often in the media these days, the lack of coverage of the class-action suit filed against the DNC becomes even more apparent. Luckily though, some some blogs are still on the case.

Appetizer:

Counsel for the DNC tap-danced around the judge’s initial line of questioning before finally answering that primary elections are “generally state funded.” But he left out how the Clinton campaign’s “takeover of national party structure” completely changes the context for “state funded.” Sure, there’s accounts with the state’s name on them, but the money was supplied by the Clinton campaign. At the very least, counsel for the DNC is being disingenuous when he says the DNC doesn’t fund state elections. In 2016 alone, FEC filings show that Florida received almost $22 million from DNC Services corp. How does that not constitute DNC funding?

Right, so you're basically advocating shutting down the federal government to get your way. Sorry, elections have consequences. The GOP lost control of both houses in Obama's first two years. They could have had positive influence on Obamacare, but they decided to claim instead it was a socialist takeover of health care, intended to kill grandma. That's the Republicans' fault for getting their butts handed to them in the election. That wasn't because they backed down.

Obamacare wasn't shoved down your throat. You had a vote like everyone else. Boo hoo, your side lost. Do you see me saying everything the Republicans and GWB did was shoved down my throat, even though I didn't like a lot of it? Nope.

Your sister has Crohn's. I never said she didn't. My wife had diabetes for most of her life and recently went through years of dialysis before having a simultaneously kidney and pancreas transplant, which she's still dealing with the anti-rejection meds.

Your sister's medical condition doesn't make your BS story true about what Obamacare did to her premiums. I laid out EXACTLY how Obamacare would work in her situation, and you introduced nothing that proves what I said wrong. Instead, you thought you'd claim the righteous indignation ground and assumed that my immediate family didn't have very serious medical conditions to deal with as well, and then resorted to name calling.

Just remember, your friendly neighborhood HeroPsycho told you Clinton will crush Trump in the electoral college. You can try and ignore reality all you want, but the inevitable is coming, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

The party is split no matter who wins. Trump has and likely will get more votes than anyone, but if he wins, I have even Republican friends who out of a moral obligation feel forced to vote for Hillary Clinton. Let that sink in. These are people who claimed Obamacare was "a complete government takeover of the health care system" claiming people (which is pure bullshit), and they can't stomach the thought of a Trump presidency.

On the other hand, Trump supporters might riot if Trump doesn't get it.

I don't generally make drastic predictions about politics, but I think we are watching the destruction of a political party. I don't see a way forward for the GOP because the Tea Party movement is too big and energetic within the GOP to not dominate it, yet cannot accept their way is a losing way, they are perfectly content on burning the GOP to the ground in the process, and too stupid to understand that is what they are doing.

@Trancecoach

I don't comment much at all for years, but I did just want to say that people complaining about politicians acting like elitists apparently don't recognize some very key facts about voters:

Most people want the government to spend more (take your pick whether it's favoring increased spending on social programs, or it's more spending on defense, etc.), yet want to be taxed less. Just that fact alone proves how stupid the general electorate is. An alarming portion of voters can't tell you accurately the difference between a Republican and a Democrat, don't understand how market forces are supposed to work, or even be able to recognize what is and isn't a socialist idea at its core.

I don't mean this as an attack on Democratic voting blocs specifically, nor Republican voting blocs. I mean this as an attack against the intellectual ability of most American voters. And when the voting public is that ignorant, ideologically blind, or just plain stupid, what do you think some people are going to do, regardless of their party's affiliation? They're gonna try to take advantage of it.

And doing things to hide key aspects of legislation in order to get support is hardly new, and hardly unique to either side. Explain to me how doing those things is any different than making ridiculous claims about Obamacare that have no bearing on reality different?

Remember those? They're gonna kill grandma! DEATH PANELS!

"Obamacare is a complete socialist takeover of the healthcare system!" That one just proves my point. The conservative right spent decades programming the American voting population to equate socialism as bad, when so many people don't even know what socialism actually is, and they did this despite numerous examples of when largely socialist policies have been resounding successes. Then they make a completely false claim that Obamacare is a complete socialist take over of the US health care system, when it isn't to fire up their voting blocs to oppose it, along with anyone else who is too stupid to know what "complete socialism" would actually look like in the health care system (hint: single payer), and who are stupid or ideologically blind enough to recognize successful largely socialist policies (like institutionalizing compulsory public education as a DUH example).

Where the hell was your outrage then? You think those (we'll call them) criticisms were coming out of voters spontaneously? No, they were thrown into the ring by GOP and conservative leaders as tools to manipulate public opinion into opposing Obamacare when they were flaming piles of bullcrap.

So either you're one of the idiots, or you're one of many partisans trying to spread your BS incredulity at the other side.

And to be clear, I'm not attacking you because you're a conservative. I'm attacking you because this is either hypocrisy or ideological blindness at its worst.

Physical War has slowed down but Economic War has replaced it.

Why invade a country with massive casualties when an economic takeover is just as effective and legal.

And once a population expands to bursting, instead of invading and taking land by force, they immigrate --the floodgates are open. (eg. China and the Midle East).

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Thanks for letting me know - we generally try and prevent "takeover" type ads, but it sometimes difficult to track them down and disable them. If you do see one, I would appreciate a screenshot if possible so I can send to our ad partners.

Also, buy more tampons.

OMG it is the Decepticons takeover signal! Run!