I'm constantly writing long winded letters on official letterhead, printing them out, then mailing them out, to exclusively people I don't care about. Yeah okay donny boy.

Maybe it wouldn't be a "nobody likes me" situation if you weren't such an asshole.

Louis summary and changed/updated views of all the things wallstreetbets, Gamestop, Robinhood. Makes situation much more understandable for someone like me with very little knowledge of how all these things work. https://youtu.be/jQDHWu32W7o

I could quote legal scholars who think otherwise, but since it is kind of split down the middle, you would be able to find just as many that argue that it is constitutional. My opinion goes towards the non-constitutional side. He isn't a sitting President any longer and the only reason Democrats are doing this is because, as you mentioned, it is a much higher bar to convince a jury that using the word 'Fight' means a call to insurrection. If they could manage to force it through the easier method, then they can simply call for a majority vote and block him from running again in 2024.

That is the net goal of the Democrats, because they fear he will win once people realize how badly the new ecological policies and debt from a further stimulus is going to hurt our economy. Let's be realistic in that it took Trump fucking up multiple times, the worst pandemic in 100 years, and the entire Democratic voting bloc turning out for Biden to win by a few thousand in the critical states that gave him the electoral mandate. I can't vote for him again, but there are plenty who would. Mostly poor and middle class working people who are going to be realizing just how bad Biden is going to fuck up the economy in the short term over his appeasement of portions of the green new deal.

We've discussed the gun situation to death. I could post quotes from Kamala and Biden, as well as his stated plan for gun control he put up on his site, but it would again serve no purpose. You feel that nothing will happen or it will only be limited to scary 'assault rifles'. I feel otherwise. We can bang our heads against the metaphorical wall over and over, but in the end neither of us is going to change the other's mind on gun control.

Sadly, in my case, that still means that unless Democrats do a 180 on gun control and illegal immigration I will continue to be forced to vote for Republicans. Also, yes, I mean the trial, but can we not split hairs? It's like asking for a Kleenex and getting nagged that you really meant Puffs.

This is a "Thuggish morons vs thug" kind of situation though. It wouldn't surprise me one bit that the thug would open fire in multiple directions THEN ram away out of the scene.

That would be the easiest/laziest response though. I was honestly being unfair to the cop with the above statement if I left it at that.

It seems the cop was just honestly looking into a reported illegal racing/gathering situation. Situation quickly got out of hand and got ganged up by those cop-hating (or not cop-fearing at least) kids. Legitimately panicked, the cop wanted to extricate him/herself out of the situation. What to do? Ram out a bloody path, putting people's body or even life in danger be damned, of course.

You've got to understand that the cop simply WOULD NOT be thinking any of those people are "innocents" and act discriminately, feeling they "deserve protection."

Cops feel so empowered these days they can do anything and feel justified to do anything without risk of consequences for themselves. The whole Law Enforcement and Justice Department "brotherhood" is behind every cops. With that mentality, why would this particular cop NOT do what he/she did? Why would this cop care what happened to the people that got rammed through? I can imagine they would do all these things.

Besides, the cop have to assume some of them came packing guns. It WAS a legitimately dicey situation he/she got into...

The lawsuits.... anyone want to bet what portion of the blame the cop will get? I bet the verdict when the gavel drops is a big fat ZERO.

Want to blame the cop? Why not blame the System first? Since it's all too easy under America's law enforcement system to train even an honest-to-goodness, idealistic person to go from "I want to Protect & Serve" to "I can kill/main anyone for looking at me funny and call it police work."

This is just not "Shocking!" anymore. In fact, I don't expect any less these days of police encounters. Cynical? Of course, But how can I NOT be?

I think you mean they wouldn't have to pay you the interest. They would have to pay you back the principal. And that would be under specific cases and usually when no contract is involved, also all depends on where you live.

Also, I don't think either Bill's building codes are "new" vs. the usury laws being "existing". Please cite to support.

The irony is that additional laws to stop predatory lending are, in fact, what red tape is made of, by definition. So I found it amusing that he would look at her situation, say that Nancy and team were trying to solve it for her by passing new laws, then go on to complain about all the red tape surrounding this building. That red tape exists because someone else before him saw a problem or safety issue or concern, and put yet another policy or law in place to solve it. In reality, as your posts prove, her problem was not that a predatory lender got involved in her life, but that her business was in bad shape because she had gone off the deep end and was thus losing customers.

I could easily imagine a bit where he showed a stack of papers four inches thick that he had to sign to get a loan, and complain about the processing time, then showcase an SMS based loan that works in another country and funds in one day.

Fuck you, traitor. This isn’t a joking matter.
You aren’t even joking, you repeated this nonsense with all seriousness elsewhere.

Bombs aren’t peaceful. Many were planted.
Molotov cocktails aren’t peaceful. Many were found before they were used.
Armed forced entry isn’t peaceful. In most states it’s grounds for homocidal defenses.
Hunting congress with intent to harm or kill them isn’t peaceful. It’s treason.
Vandalism isn’t peaceful.
“Combat” isn’t peaceful. Trump directed the mob to start combat at the capitol building.
Destruction of public property isn’t peaceful. $hundreds of thousands in damage.
All these crimes were part of the “combat” Trump directed. Instigating sedition is a capitol offense that calls for a firing squad.

Joe is right, if the Trumps, who called for combat at the capitol building earlier that day, aren’t removed and arrested, along with every single identifiable terrorist in the videos and any police that helped, it is 100% approval of mob rule, and the next armed murderous mob should be hunting Trump and his family. In that situation, poor Barron is going to have to eat them all if he doesn’t want to be lynched and cooked with them.

Every Trump property should be burning right now as property of treasonous traitors. Every Trump family member should be under arrest. The 25th should be enacted, and Trump arrested for directing an attack against America. This was a violent attack on democracy at Trump’s clear and unambiguous direction, but the coward was too terrified to go with them as he promised to. Too bad, would have been nice to see him shot dead by capitol police.

You’ve said the same about people in their homes, even about George Floyd if I’m not mistaken, he wasn’t running, straw man.

I do see his issue as a problem. I don’t think it’s an excuse to break the law in multiple dangerous or malicious ways like he did. I think, like most other countries have, we should pay people their normal wages to stay home quarantined so we might stop being the worst at COVID response on the planet and avoid this kind of situation altogether.
You seem to think we should pretend the pandemic is a fraud and go back to life like it was pre 2020....problem solved. Your words say as much. Sorry, that’s not realistic. That “plan” kills millions at best and destroys the economy in the process.

Btw, we've been over this a dozen times, I’ve never taken a dime of government assistance, and my wife and I live on $30k a year. Just because i don't need government assistance doesn't mean I don't see the need for others, just like even though I'm "retired" I can still understand the need for a paycheck, but needing money is not an excuse to break the law or heroin dealers and bank robbers would be good guys who just need to make money.

Yes, the government doesn’t care, that’s why it just passed another COVID relief bill that again gives the vast majority of the money to corporations and state government, not citizens (likely with the same lack of protections that let Kushner and a few Trumps take millions from the first relief bill). For once, Trump at least publicly tried to do the right thing (credit where it’s due) by insisting on larger payments like Democrats wanted all along and Republicans killed the idea.

Ah yes, law and order. Breaking laws to avoid legal inspections so they can continue breaking the law.

Dude is blaming the wrong people. Yeah, they can't stay open and he can't pay his staff. He shouldn't need to in a fucked up, once-in-a-century situation like this. The governments in other supposedly civilized countries are paying citizens so they don't NEED to work. So they can stay home and help prevent the spread of this disease. Are they handling it perfectly? Fuck no! But you can't look at the per capita death rate in this country compared to other countries and think our approach is working.

Keeping people home as much as possible and limiting opportunities for viral spread: these are are what's needed in order to get us back to some semblance of normalcy as soon as possible, with as few unnecessary deaths as possible. The federal government could make this happen, but segments of it have chosen not to. THAT is who he should be blaming, and complaining to. Mitch McConnell and his cronies in the Senate are literally killing American citizens, and businesses like this guy's, by refusing to actually help.

Wow, thanks for the laugh. I thought I had heard every 9/11 theory out there. Apparently 6 months wasn't enough time to brief Bush on the Al Qaeda threat, because his schedule was still backed up from the inauguration. And the FBI and CIA were just too polite to intrude on his time clearing brush on the ranch with a vital national security situation. LOL!!!

Also, what were these "plans for Osama?" Haven't heard that one either.

Donald Trump IS the Q. You know, of QAnon.

Also the Q of IQ. Lacking in I.

Also Donald Trump probably has good analytics telling him how he stands so he knows he is drowning before he hits the water. His reactions seem adequately correlated to the situation and projections - only they are just as chaotic and dumb as his 4 years in office.

Even the hysterical orange man should know to wait for the actual result before ranting. So he already knew it was done at that stage. His campaign understands the mechanics of vote counting, they are just out to cause damage now. Rudy knows how vote counting works, he is bullshitting hard. The content of what Rudy and Jr. say is irrelevant. Like John McEnroe ranting at the umpire. I would love to write "youre out!" but it still isnt officially over, is it?

Also this will be no victory over Trump or common ignorancy. This is just saving a horror of a situation by a hairs breadth. A feeling of relief rather than victory.

If people would comply, don't shot at , don't run, don't fight. then maybe just maybe those who do would not be shot at.


99% black on black murder 1% cop on black murder. Fix the 99% and the 1% will fade away.

Cops are not the problem, bad people are.



In 2018, most (77.3 percent) of the 14,123 murder victims for whom supplemental data were received were male.


Of the murder victims for whom race was known, 53.3 percent were Black or African American, 43.8 percent were White, and 2.8 percent were of other races. Race was unknown for 233 victims

More than 49 percent (49.2) of all murders for were single victim/single offender situations.


When the race of the offender was known,
54.9 percent were Black or African American,
42.4 percent were White, and
2.7 percent were of other races. The race was unknown for 4,821 offenders

72% used guns


In 2018, 27.8 percent of homicide victims were killed by someone they knew other than family members (acquaintance, neighbor, friend, boyfriend, etc.),

12.8 percent were slain by family members, and
9.9 percent were killed by strangers.

The relationship between murder victims and offenders was unknown in 49.5 percent of murder and non negligent

Yeah, I can only say for certain what has happened here. Most doctors that run private practices and are rated well slowly started transitioning to either a service that charges a large amount of money per patient per year, in addition to insurance, or they simply posted on their website they no longer accept insurance. They call it direct primary care, like you pay a fee per month.

https://reason.com/video/doctors-direct-primary-care/

My doctor joined a concierge service called MDVIP. I just checked and he lowered his rates to 1,800 per year per patient. Whether you go or not. He was a great doctor, but I refuse to pay 3600 per year for my wife and me to see a doctor. Not when they will bill our insurance as well for any actual visits/treatments.

Instead we had to switch to Austin Regional Clinic, who has an amazing lab and bloodwork team, but the doctor situation is as I mentioned before. There is no feeling that I have a personal doctor. Usually they schedule me with whichever one is available or a PA. Every time I have to re-list what meds I am on and what existing conditions I have because they don't remember. You would think they could look at a chart, but they are so busy every time. It's like sex in high school, in, out, and thanks for coming.

We've tried some others, even a few private practices, but none have been up to par. All of them seem to be super busy and have trimmed their staff to the bone.

If the ACA isn't changed or doesn't go away, I don't see it getting any better.

The ACA was passed on party lines, it was going to be screwed up because of that no matter what. What pisses me off about it is that instead of trying to come up with a better solution, the Democrats rammed that fucker through. I can only assume it is because for a brief period they had control of the legislative and executive branches all at the same time. So rather than take a chance to fix it, they figured if they were going to get anything they might as well get it in place.

Obama inherited the situation in the ME. Bush fucked up royally. Obama just took a bad situation and made it worse. Admittedly, there were other fingers in the pie also, but he is still culpable.

The rules for the drone war were decided by Obama's administration. Regardless of what Bush did before, that lays 100% on Obama and his team. Some good articles to read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/president-obamas-weak-defense-of-his-record-on-drone-strikes/511454/

https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/opinion/bergen-obama-drone/index.html

https://www.propublica.org/series/drones

I'm not arguing the merits of either. I don't think Trump is a good man or President.

It's my firm opinion that Obama chose to play the long game, hoping that the anger over Garland not being confirmed would influence the upcoming election. He believed that they might take the Senate back and then either he or Hillary would then be able to get the nominee they wanted. Plus as @newtboy pointed out, there was no way any pick he chose was going to pass muster with the Republican controlled Senate. Picking another person would likely tarnish them and remove a good liberal pick from future selection.

I consider Obama a good person and a mediocre President. I voted for him the first time because I bought into his mantra of change. It didn't happen. He forced through the ACA on party line votes, fucking up my personal situation in regards to doctors and insurance. He further screwed up the situation with the middle east which directly led to the entire Syria/ISIS situation. He did authorize drone strikes that led to many non combatant deaths and some pretty reprehensible situations. That is including the fact that his administration considered any military aged male in strike zones to be enemy combatants UNLESS they could be verified otherwise after their death. So many of those were not counted. There are other issues I have with his Presidency, but those are some of the big ones.

He did kill Bin Laden. I will give him kudos for that. I also think that once he lost control of the Congress in his second term he had no way to get anything accomplished, so I can't say he wouldn't have done something I liked in his second term. He is also an amazing orator.

Newt, you don't know the half of it. The reason they need a bail-out? Two words, my friend: stock buybacks.

Back in '16, good ol' AA was ~$20 BILLION in debt. Yes, their DEBT was larger than the GDP of some nations. Bad situation, right? What to do, what to do -- HEY! I got it! Let's spend NINE FUCKING BILLION on stock buybacks. In doing so, they turned $5b in reserve cash into $550 million. Trump himself couldn't have fucked this up worse if he tried.

It gets worse. Here, I will quote from Forbes:

"The numbers boggle the mind. American Airlines spent nearly three times its current value on stock buybacks over the last six years."

It gets even worse from there.

Over the last ten years, AA spent ~$13b on stock buybacks. You know what their free cash flow was over the same 10-year period?

-$7,935 million.

That's not a typo. Their free cash flow, unique among all major airlines, is NEGATIVE. The number on their -negative- cash flow is greater than the -positive- cash flows of Jet Blue and Alaska combined.

Guess where that money went?

Shareholders? Nope.
Employees? Nope.
Improvements to the business as a whole? Nuh-uh.

If you guessed "The CEO's pocket", you win a $4 Snickers bar. If you also suspect that any bailout will end up in the same place, I'm throwing in a free Baby Ruth or an Abbazabba (your choice).

That's right: your tax-paying American ass is going to bail out these cocksuckers not to save jobs -- no fucking chance in Hell that's going to happen -- but to make Doug fucking Parker, an asshole of utterly legendary proportions who made $11.5 MILLION in 2019 thanks to those buybacks, even fucking richer.

There's not enough Prep-H in the world to compensate for that level of ass-fucking. And you WILL smile when you're getting raped, otherwise it's getting stuffed in your mouth afterwards.

(BTW: when they started this financial cocksuckery, AA was ~$60 a share. On Friday, it closed just below $13. Dough Parker still made money. The funds, including pension funds, who invested in AA @ $60? Not so much.)