The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[James DiEugenio]

11 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

 

So, all you dancers and theatrical performers, just stay the hell home!

Steve Thomas

Did he really spell troop like that Steve? I thought UP was an Ivy League school.

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Did he really spell troop like that Steve? I thought UP was an Ivy League school.

Trump went to college at Fordham for awhile before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania to get his B.A. in BS-- after, allegedly, paying someone to take his SATs for him (according to Mary Trump.)  His eldest sister, apparently, did a lot of his homework for him.

I don't think Donald Trump has ever read a book in his life.  Let's recall that the guy thought Frederick Douglas was still alive, and repeatedly insisted that the U.S. would have fewer COVID cases if we did less testing!

I read an article a few years ago in which one of Trump's former professors at Penn said that Donald Trump was the worst student he ever had in his class.

There are reports from multiple sources that Trump has had difficulty understanding basic intelligence briefings.

Little wonder that he got most of his "intelligence" briefings during the past four years from Fox News.

[Ron Bulman]

25 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Trump went to college at Fordham for awhile before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania to get his B.A. in BS-- after, allegedly, paying someone to take his SATs for him (according to Mary Trump.)  His eldest sister, apparently, did a lot of his homework for him.

I don't think Donald Trump has ever read a book in his life.  Let's recall that the guy thought Frederick Douglas was still alive, and repeatedly insisted that the U.S. would have fewer COVID cases if we did less testing!

I read an article a few years ago in which one of Trump's former professors at Penn said that Donald Trump was the worst student he ever had in his class.

There are reports from multiple sources that Trump has had difficulty understanding basic intelligence briefings.

Little wonder that he got most of his "intelligence" briefings during the past four years from Fox News.

I thought I read a year or two ago he kept a copy of mien kampf  on his bedside table for bed time reading.  Seriously.  Fake news?

[Bob Ness]

7 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Dylan wrote some great songs but many are half a century old. I'm not knowledgeable on today's music scene, but I'm curious as to how many artists today are covering Dylan songs or performing them in movies or on TV. I don't see how there could possibly be enough new royalties to cover an investment of $300 million. It seems to me about as likely as the U.S. paying off its national debt.

 

Seriously. Was never a big Dylan fan but how can his library be worth that much? I wonder what a drop in a sound track would cost. Yikes.

[Kirk Gallaway]

From an ancient Chinese text written over 2500 years ago.

 

An occasional convulsion is bound to occur, uncovering a hidden evil within society and at first causing a great sensation. But since the situation is favorable on the whole, such evils can easily be glossed over and concealed from the public. Then everything is forgotten and peace apparently reigns complacently once more. However, to the thoughtful man, such occurrences are grave omens that he does not neglect. This is the only way of averting evil consequences.

 

 

It's time for a constitutional convention. I mean these crackers wrote a pretty good document. But we know what time has done to it. You can't have lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. Our life span isn't 40 years anymore, I heard that the average person born today, will live to be 103!

Ok they were pretty enlightened for their time and of course just mortal wealthy slave owners like the rest of us. (joke) But I don't particularly trust their "wisdom". It seems we always hear people  like Jon Meacham with phrases  like the "Framers in their Infinite Wisdom" or there  is Doris Kearns Goodwin or Bechloss, just always fawning over the founding fathers. Who are these experts? Do we ever get to an impasse where we don't always hear about the wisdom of the founding fathers"? That they foresaw so many things, then why did they leave it  so up to grabs?

 

Of course dump the electoral college! The smaller states have a whole body of congress where they're equally represented called the Senate. How that's going to be done? I'm not sure but the wording is loose enough that there are ways to get around it.

 

The allowances for things that happen, like a state reversing their electors? WTF is that about? Trump has pushed profiting from office beyond what I ever could have foreseen! Now he's  just soaking his followers for money to irresponsibly create division that the election was a hoax?

 

Bill Maher came up with a pretty good analogy about "Gus" a movie I didn't know anything about where a professional football team gets a mule to kick field goals! Just the fact that it wasn't ever stated in the nfl charter that players absolutely had to be human beings!  And he uses it as an analogy against Trump, that he'll  take advantage of any moral statute that isn't absolutely pinned down!.Now he's going to handout pardons to his partners in crime  like  Christmas gifts. But then you realize, nothings really pinned down! We see now this constitution is fragile as hell!

 

It certainly a double standard about what entitles which party to claim they won a Presidential election. Republicans can lose by 10 million votes and eek out a one electoral vote victory and actually feel a sense of entitlement! That's just baked into the expectation that a Democrat will typically think they  have to win "big enough" that the Republicans can't take it away . The Democrats should be able to win both electorally and in popular vote by 1 vote!

 

Just imagine the deep sh-t we'd 'd be in right now if Biden won by 3 million instead of 7 million votes! We'd have riots and violence by the Trump cult, more guys in trucks with guns trying to run people off the road. We'd have people being killed! We'd have the more Trump zombie spammers like Wheeler misinforming his already egregiously misinformed lot and some of the more clever ones will work their lemmings into a frenzy!

 

We have a sitting President who right out in front of us is still trying to engineer an American  coup with first these Michigan representatives visiting the White House. Now the Supreme Court threw out his case when Trump tried to disallow 2.5 million mail in votes that had already been counted, So now Trump's trying to use the Pennsylvania legislature to not verify their state electors. So now  the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania house is  in court right now trying to sue the electors in a case against against the serving Pennsylvania  Governor and Secretary of State.! And he's still trying to throw out the vote in Wisconsin and still is trying to overturn the election!  That Trump would try to bring the whole thing down that we, as a nation have spent 250 years working on.

 

He's lost about every case  in court.  We'll be congratulating ourselves that the "system worked" but imagine if he wasn't so inept! Imagine if in his Presidency he didn't say something criminally stupid everyday? Imagine if he was actually smart, and had maybe his bombast but just an ounce of a typical politician's discretion about what to say in public! He was just  too inept to be successful, so we still won't lay a hand on him for trying to subvert out Democracy?

So the whole thing could happen again!

 

At the end, I guess we forgive it just  because Trumps so inept and so stupidly foolish just like we forgive Wheeler's cries of Revolution for the idea of Trump opening up the country on Easter Sunday, and Trumps cries of "liberate Michigan", "liberate Wisconsin". Just as  we forgive all the hardcore Trump supporters because they never had a politician who relieved their boredom factor by being in the news everyday and dominating their everyday lives?

 

Not I! Stop congratulating yourself for your constitution!!

***

Edited December 9, 2020 by Kirk Gallaway

[Joseph McBride]

The first thing a constitutional convention would do would be to throw out the First Amendment,

which is widely unpopular on both sides of the political spectrum but is all that keeps us having at least a vestigial democracy.

[Steve Thomas]

Lynch mobs are back.

Isn't that nice.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/coronavirus/article247678350.html

 

“The Central District Health Board of Health (Boise, ID) meeting Tuesday night to discuss and vote on a public health order dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic was adjourned shortly after it started because of the danger posed by protesters at the CDH office and at some board members’ places of residence.

Moments after a tearful Commissioner Diana Lachiondo left the virtual meeting to head to her house — where her son was home alone, and where anti-mask, anti-health-order protesters had reportedly gathered — CDH Director Russ Duke interrupted a doctor’s statements on the toll of the coronavirus to tell the board and people watching that Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee had requested that the meeting be ended for safety reasons.

Dr. Ted Epperly, another board member, said protesters gathered at his house as well. He told the Statesman that about 15 people were outside his home, “beating garbage cans and flashing strobe lights through my windows. Two came up and knocked on my door during the meeting.”

A motion was made to adjourn the meeting to a later date and seconded, and board members voted to adjourn shortly after Duke’s statement.”

Steve Thomas

[W. Niederhut]

10 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I thought I read a year or two ago he kept a copy of mien kampf  on his bedside table for bed time reading.  Seriously.  Fake news?

It was a copy of Hitler's speeches, according to a Vanity Fair interview of Ivana Trump.

Meanwhile, Jeff Carter will be relieved to hear that Russian state television has now called for Moscow to grant asylum to Trumpushka...  🤥

Russian Media Wants Moscow to Grant Asylum to Trump
www.thedailybeast.com/russian-media-wants-moscow-to-grant-asylum-to-trump-to-help-him-dodge-prosecutions
 

 

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

8 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Lynch mobs are back.

Isn't that nice.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/coronavirus/article247678350.html

 

“The Central District Health Board of Health (Boise, ID) meeting Tuesday night to discuss and vote on a public health order dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic was adjourned shortly after it started because of the danger posed by protesters at the CDH office and at some board members’ places of residence.

Moments after a tearful Commissioner Diana Lachiondo left the virtual meeting to head to her house — where her son was home alone, and where anti-mask, anti-health-order protesters had reportedly gathered — CDH Director Russ Duke interrupted a doctor’s statements on the toll of the coronavirus to tell the board and people watching that Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee had requested that the meeting be ended for safety reasons.

Dr. Ted Epperly, another board member, said protesters gathered at his house as well. He told the Statesman that about 15 people were outside his home, “beating garbage cans and flashing strobe lights through my windows. Two came up and knocked on my door during the meeting.”

A motion was made to adjourn the meeting to a later date and seconded, and board members voted to adjourn shortly after Duke’s statement.”

Steve Thomas

Election officials face threats, intimidation as Trump pushes false fraud claims

BY BRAD HEATH AND MICHAEL MARTINA

December 8, 2020, 6:03 AM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0:47

 

2:49

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'The people have spoken': Judges toss vote lawsuits

 

 

By Brad Heath and Michael Martina

DETROIT (Reuters) - Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's top election official, had just finished hanging Christmas decorations with her young son on Saturday night when a crowd demanding November's presidential election result be reversed gathered outside her home to denounce her as a "traitor" and a "criminal."

The demonstrators, some armed and holding up placards saying "Stop the Steal", clustered on the sidewalk outside Benson's Detroit home as security and police officers looked on, video broadcast live on Facebook by one of the participants showed.

"Through threats of violence, intimidation, and bullying, the armed people outside my home and their political allies seek to undermine and silence the will and voices of every voter in this state," Benson, Michigan's Democratic Secretary of State, said in a statement on Sunday.

The demonstration was the latest of what election authorities across the United States describe as a tide of intimidation, harassment and outright threats in the charged aftermath of the Nov. 3 election, which Republican President Donald Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump has made unsubstantiated claims of widespread electoral fraud and is trying but failing to overturn Biden's victory, challenging the outcome in court in multiple states while also pressing state officials, lawmakers and governors to throw the results out and simply declare Trump the winner.

Courts have so far rejected those requests.

Supporters of Trump in recent weeks have staked out election officials’ offices in Georgia, mounted armed protests in Arizona and left menacing telephone messages for election officials across the country, producing political turmoil unlike any other in modern U.S. history.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that the baseless fraud claims and subsequent threats against election officials are "very damaging to our democracy. I hope it’s not the end of our democracy."

"We cannot allow our elected officials to live in fear at all times whenever someone doesn’t like how they believe they’ve perform their job duties," Nessel told Reuters.

Michigan, Arizona and Georgia were among a handful of hotly contested battleground states that Biden won, helping to secure his 306 to 232 advantage in the Electoral College that will officially select the next president on Dec. 14.

But the threats have not been confined to places where the election was close. In Vermont -- a state no Republican presidential candidate has won since 1988 -- election officials said they received a voice message threatening them with "execution by firing squad."

“No public servant should ever have to feel threatened or concerned for their safety while they are doing their work," Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat, told Reuters.

"The conspiracy theories and unfounded rhetoric that are being pushed by the president and his campaign team really could inspire some dangerous behavior somewhere in this country. It starts at the top and it really needs to stop.”

 

TRUMP ATTACKS HIS OWN

Trump and his political backers have blasted Republicans leaders and election officials in Georgia and Arizona for certifying Biden as the winner in their states.

Trump himself has described Georgia’s Republican secretary of state as an “enemy of the people", and one of his lawyers, Joe diGenova, said last week the administration’s former election cybersecurity chief should be “taken out at dawn and shot" for publicly defending the integrity of the election.

Several election workers contacted by Reuters said they did not want to speak about the threats they had received for fear it would make things worse.

Georgia officials were similarly reticent until last week, when threats online targeted a young contract worker for Dominion Voting Systems, whose voting machines were used in the state. One post on Twitter included a swinging noose.

That day, Gabriel Sterling, the Republican in charge of the voting machines, walked to a podium visibly angry and demanded that Trump "stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence."

In an interview with Reuters, Sterling said that he personally had received a message calling him a him “traitor” that included his home address. Someone else wished him a happy birthday in a tweet saying it would be his last.

After his local police chief suggested he notify his neighbors, he posted on a local Facebook page urging them to call authorities if they saw anything suspicious.

“I shouldn’t have to do that,” he said.

On Monday, Georgia again certified that Biden had won after counting ballots for a third time.

(Reporting by Brad Heath in Washington and Michael Martina in Detroit, Editing by Soyoung Kim and Sonya Hepinstall)

 

[Douglas Caddy]

Texas oil companies cashing in big on federal COVID-19 relief program

Houston Chronicle

Dec. 8, 2020 Updated: Dec. 9, 2020 6:52 a.m.

 

 https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Texas-oil-companies-cash-in-on-federal-COVID-15784169.php?sid=59a70bf724c17c0f2e71d99d&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=news_a&utm_campaign=HC_MorningReport

 

[Steve Thomas]

This is just a general question.

If we do away with the Electoral College, does that mean that all presidential elections in the future will be administered by the Federal Government? And who would handle that? The Party currently in power?

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

When Donald Trump leaves the White House, he's going to have to go live with his in-laws.

Melania Trump 'just wants to go home'

By Kate Bennett, CNN December 9, 2020

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/politics/melania-trump-future/index.html

“The Mar-a-Lago abode encapsulates approximately 3,000 square feet of the property's main building, a generous proportion for many families, but a relative studio apartment after living in the 55,000 square foot White House mansion.”

“Melania Trump views Mar-a-Lago as a peaceful respite of sun, solitude and self-care.

"Her parents have a suite of rooms there as well, not far from the family quarters," said Leamer, who has spent ample time at Mar-a-Lago as a guest of several members. Viktor and Amalija Knavs, (Melania) Trump's parents, stay at Mar-a-Lago often, and have done so for much of the two decades their daughter has been with Donald Trump.”

Steve Thomas

 

[Bob Ness]

5 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Trump Campaign lawsuit in GA is now available online.

It consists of 1585 pages outlining significant evidence of fraud.

Here are some key points:

• 2,560 felons voted
• 66,247 underage voters 
• 2,423 votes from people not registered
• 1,043 individuals registered at PO boxes
• 4,926 individuals who voted in Georgia after registering in another state
• 395 individuals who voted in two states
• 15,700 votes from people who moved out of state before the election
• 40,279 votes of people who moved without re-registering in their new county
• 30,000 - 40,000 absentee ballots lacking proper signature matching and verification
• The lawsuit also outlines violations of over 30 Georgia laws/codes and includes affidavits.

https://publicrecordsaccess.fultoncountyga.gov/app/RegisterOfActions/#/8AC58FA3E74D313EE950B76978C31FD3F1B59334F84E6E89B0B3A2FA59C9DB008F9597326FEAB55063675E9C184B47E4/anon/portalembed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good one Rob. Where's the response from the Rafensberger? I take it you haven't actually read any of this and are just reposting crap from some Reddit or whatever. Or did you download everything at 50 cents a page?

Having seen some of the garbage Trump et al has tried to throw against the wall I'm left thinking everything you listed here is just more tin foil hat stuff as has proven to be the case in just about everything they've done so far.

[James DiEugenio]

Steve:

The Federal Government cannot administer elections.  They are pretty much exclusively a state function.  That is why and how the southern states derived African Americans of voting rights for about a hundred years until Bobby Kennedy started suing in court and funding voter registration drives.

If you knock out the Electoral College,  then you would just arrange to have the Secretaries of State announce the results in each state, then officially forward all of the vote tallies to congress, total them up and announce the result.  Which is what they do now with the Electoral College.

Edited December 9, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Dennis Berube]

On 12/7/2020 at 12:31 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Read this for Obama on National Security and foreign policy.  He was Mr. Drone without due process.https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/07/barack-obama-the-death-of-idealism/

Great article. Apparently, despite all of that, the majority of the Democratic party views the Obama time as at least "decent". It's obvious that is far from the case. It amazes me that anyone thinks Biden represents something substantively different from that.

 

As a recent Washington Post headline proclaimed, “Washington’s aristocracy hopes a Biden presidency will make schmoozing great again.” (The Post quickly changed its initial headline to “Washington’s Establishment” but “aristocracy” remained in the body of the article.)