US Politics Thread 2021-24

[Rockstar]

After watching the press conference and reading this article further I took "Biden showed few signs of stumbles" as sarcasm.

[BrucePartington]

Bring the popcorn.

[August]

DOJ admits there's little evidence to support Jan. 6 sedition charges The Department of Justice has since said that a portion of the evidence is not actually quite as damning as was previously believed.

As the trials get underway for those who participated in the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, it turns out that the charges against these defendants are not as serious as the public was initially led to believe. The Department of Justice has since said that a portion of the evidence is not actually quite as damning as was previously believed.



Reuters reports that none of those 400 who have been charged have been charged with sedition, which would be an incitement of rebellion. Instead, the most serious charge brought against any of the defendants has been assault. Two of the men who were charged with assault on Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick used bear spray in the attack.
Others have been charged with conspiracy, and obstruction. While five people lost their lives during the riot, only one was killed with a weapon, and that was Ashli Babbit, who died after being shot by an unnamed Capitol Police Officer. Sicknick was assaulted with bear spray, but died some time later and a cause of death has not been released. The other three suffered medical emergencies.
Much of the work of prosecutors has been in an attempt to prove that conspiracy. Less than 25 people are facing that charge, and ten people are said to have ties to the Oath Keeper militia movement.

https://thepostmillennial.com/doj-ad...6vXQzLojVpDjLQ

[August]

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by August

But it was a Landslide!



What more could you ask for?


Honestly I feel bad for the guy, pretty soon I think people are going to really begin to wonder if he's fit enough. If its found he's not or rumor mill start heating things up, I really hope he can find a way to bow out gracefully and honorably. As for the gullible morons who rode the bandwagon and voted for him and the idiots who propped him up as a candidate. I have absolutely no compassion whats so ever for those clowns.

[Skybird]

I am not certain what to think of this. Therefore I take note of it but I delay forming an opinion on it, (if ever, since it does not affect me in any way anyway). But it is curious.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...level-n1262209

[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

But it was a Landslide!



What more could you ask for?


Honestly I feel bad for the guy, pretty soon I think people are going to really begin to wonder if he's fit enough. If its found he's not or rumor mill start heating things up, I really hope he can find a way to bow out gracefully and honorably. As for the gullible morons who rode the bandwagon and voted for him and the idiots who propped him up as a candidate. I have absolutely no compassion whats so ever for those clowns.

Going to begin to wonder?

It was 100% evident last year to those of us with a relative suffering from dementia that Biden is clearly unwell.

Every time his campaign called a lid, it was because his lucidity was gone for the day. This is well-established that dementia sufferers often are fairly lucid in the morning but progressively decline as the day progresses.

This presser was a dumpster fire.

[August]

Speaking of lawsuits.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's brother and sister-in-law sued CNN in federal court for $75 million on Thursday, stating they were defamed by a report last month alleging they were members of the QAnon conspiracy group. Jack and Leslie Flynn, who live in Rhode Island, alleged in U.S. District Court in New York City that the CNN report on Feb. 4 falsely portrayed them as members of QAnon by selectively airing video footage from a family outing last Fourth of July where they joined Michael Flynn in reciting the oath to the Constitution that members of Congress take.
At the end of oath, Michael Flynn uttered the phrase "Where we go one, we go all," and the entire family responded, "God Bless America." CNN edited out the pledge and the "God Bless America" exclamation and claimed the phrase uttered by President Trump's national security adviser was an "infamous QAnon slogan," the suit alleged.

https://justthenews.com/accountabili...alleging-qanon

[Gorpet]

[QUOTE=Catfish;2737782]^ Somehow funny how you always rant against "the rich" and the unfairness of how material things always accumuate on one side, still you'll be voting conservative and cement this forever. The dream that anyone can become a millionaire and be better than the rest. Or become president (as long as he/she is a milllionaire). [/QUOTE

Yes i do rant against the rich politicians and their families. Because they seem to acquire wealth way beyond their paid positions. And the truth is if your not a millionaire at least here in America. Don't bother running for a seat on the local city council.Must less running for President... and the dream of becoming a millionaire are for those who spend their money playing the lotto every week . There is no real conservatives left in this country only players of the game of Thrones.

[3catcircus]

[QUOTE=Gorpet;2739103]

Originally Posted by Catfish

^ Somehow funny how you always rant against "the rich" and the unfairness of how material things always accumuate on one side, still you'll be voting conservative and cement this forever. The dream that anyone can become a millionaire and be better than the rest. Or become president (as long as he/she is a milllionaire). [/QUOTE

Yes i do rant against the rich politicians and their families. Because they seem to acquire wealth way beyond their paid positions. And the truth is if your not a millionaire at least here in America. Don't bother running for a seat on the local city council.Must less running for President... and the dream of becoming a millionaire are for those who spend their money playing the lotto every week . There is no real conservatives left in this country only players of the game of Thrones.

Pretty much this. We no longer have robber barons who worked hard to get where they are and then engage in philanthropy. All we have now are robbers.

[Torpex77]

[QUOTE=Gorpet;2739103]

Originally Posted by Catfish

^ Somehow funny how you always rant against "the rich" and the unfairness of how material things always accumuate on one side, still you'll be voting conservative and cement this forever. The dream that anyone can become a millionaire and be better than the rest. Or become president (as long as he/she is a milllionaire). [/QUOTE

Yes i do rant against the rich politicians and their families. Because they seem to acquire wealth way beyond their paid positions. And the truth is if your not a millionaire at least here in America. Don't bother running for a seat on the local city council.Must less running for President... and the dream of becoming a millionaire are for those who spend their money playing the lotto every week . There is no real conservatives left in this country only players of the game of Thrones.

Totally agree..was going to run against Joe Courtney in CT when I lived there and just what it would take to "get on the Ballot" was impossible for a normal average American with a family. Its damn near infuriating...they talk about anger..I think there more anger/frustration now than in 16.

[Moonlight]

[QUOTE=Gorpet;2739103]

Originally Posted by Catfish

^ Somehow funny how you always rant against "the rich" and the unfairness of how material things always accumuate on one side, still you'll be voting conservative and cement this forever. The dream that anyone can become a millionaire and be better than the rest. Or become president (as long as he/she is a milllionaire). [/QUOTE

Yes i do rant against the rich politicians and their families. Because they seem to acquire wealth way beyond their paid positions. And the truth is if your not a millionaire at least here in America. Don't bother running for a seat on the local city council.Must less running for President... and the dream of becoming a millionaire are for those who spend their money playing the lotto every week . There is no real conservatives left in this country only players of the game of Thrones.

I must say this must be how every western nations are at the moment and there isn't a snowballs chance in hell of the old way ever coming back, whatever that was.

I'm in the middle of all this, I'm not rich and I'm no where near being poor, but whenever a politician hits the TV screen I always think "you bent bastard", money makes the world go round but it doesn't stop them from being incompetent pillocks does it.

[3catcircus]

[QUOTE=Moonlight;2739165]

Originally Posted by Gorpet

I must say this must be how every western nations are at the moment and there isn't a snowballs chance in hell of the old way ever coming back, whatever that was.

I'm in the middle of all this, I'm not rich and I'm no where near being poor, but whenever a politician hits the TV screen I always think "you bent bastard", money makes the world go round but it doesn't stop them from being incompetent pillocks does it.

I think we're where we are because good people chose not to stop the corrupt before they got into positions of power.

Even people who start out with the best of intentions are corruptible and need to hear the word "no" a lot more often.

Look at a Jeff Bezos. National honor society student scholar. Worked at McDonalds as a teen. Does well in college, graduates with engineering degrees, and starts doing good things career-wise. It probably wasn't until he started working in banking and hedge funds that he became corrupt - because banking and entertainment draw the unethical and the morally bankrupt where terrible behavior is encouraged.

Had Amazon stayed an online bookseller, Bezos would still be wealthy beyond belief. Now, however, with all of the unethical executives either not telling him no or themselves not being told no, we are at a point where Amazon steals from the people who sell via their online store - copying good ideas and products and then undercutting the small businesses who originally came up with them.

The Wolf of Wall Street should be taught in business school ethics courses - where that behavior was (and still is) the norm rather than the exception. We didn't even put any of the people who caused the 2008 crash in jail - we bailed them out and let their companies pay them bonuses.

Entertainment is the same - people who have too much access to wealth, poor impulse control, and enablers who won't say no.

Politics? Lying, cheating, and stealing are a way of life.

Sure, there are some people who are evil from birth, but most people become immoral and unethical because they are surrounded by others who encourage such behavior as expected.

[Bilge_Rat]

interesting article on the judicial process surrounding the jan. 6 riots.

Even though Biden's DOJ has been aggressively pushing the narrative that this was an "armed insurrection", it looks like they don't have the evidence to back it up and most "rioters" will be able to plead to simple trespassing with no jail time:

Americans outraged by the storming of Capitol Hill are in for a jarring reality check: Many of those who invaded the halls of Congress on Jan. 6 are likely to get little or no jail time.

While public and media attention in recent weeks has been focused on high-profile conspiracy cases against right-wing, paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, the most urgent decisions for prosecutors involve resolving scores of lower-level cases that have clogged D.C.’s federal district court.

A POLITICO analysis of the Capitol riot-related cases shows that almost a quarter of the more than 230 defendants formally and publicly charged so far face only misdemeanors. Dozens of those arrested are awaiting formal charges, even as new cases are being unsealed nearly every day.


In recent days, judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys have all indicated that they expect few of these “MAGA tourists” to face harsh sentences.

There are two main reasons: Although prosecutors have loaded up their charging documents with language about the existential threat of the insurrection to the republic, the actions of many of the individual rioters often boiled down to trespassing. And judges have wrestled with how aggressively to lump those cases in with those of the more sinister suspects.

“My bet is a lot of these cases will get resolved and probably without prison time or jail time,” said Erica Hashimoto, a former federal public defender who is now a law professor at Georgetown. "One of the core values of this country is that we can protest if we disagree with our government. Of course, some protests involve criminal acts, but as long as the people who are trying to express their view do not engage in violence, misdemeanors may be more appropriate than felonies.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...il-time-478440

[Onkel Neal]

Had a great start to my day with this article from the solid gold Kevin Williamson about that ninny from Massachusetts and her hare-brained tax ideas.

Elizabeth Warren Is a Ridiculous, Power-Hungry Crackpot

Elizabeth Warren — the ridiculous hustling flatbilly grifter from Massachusetts from Oklahoma who snookered the academic establishment by pretending to be a Native American while writing dopey self-help books that are so sloppy and intellectually dishonest that it’s a surprise skeezy old Joe Biden hasn’t plagiarized them yet, a political grotesque who prides herself on being in the first generation of her family to attend college but rage-tweets as though she were in the first generation in her family with opposable thumbs, as ghastly and deceitful and god-awful a sniveling and self-serving a creature as the United States Congress has to offer — is, in spite of the genuine facts of her sorry case, getting a little full of herself, and believes that as a senator, she should be above the petty “heckling” of the little people.

At issue is the senator’s recent social-media spat with Amazon. Because Senator Warren is as dreadfully predictable as a chlamydia outbreak in West Roxbury, you can imagine the insipidity of her complaint: “Blah blah blah, fair share, higher taxes on everybody except important hometown business interests and rich liberals in Cambridge, blah blah blah, Amazon.” Etc.

To which Amazon offered a perfectly sensible response, if I may paraphrase: “You’re in the Senate, you ridiculous ninny — and you are even on the freakin’ committee that writes tax legislation. You got a problem with tax law? We know a counterfeit Cherokee princess repping Massachusetts you might want to have a quiet word in private with.”

(My words, not theirs. Should have been theirs, though.)

Senator Warren, because dishonesty is her reflexive instinct (remember that bullsh** made-up story about being fired from a teaching job for being pregnant?), protested: “I didn’t write the loopholes you exploit.”

Well, senator . . . this is going to be kind of awkward!

Do you know what another word for “loophole” is? Law. Loopholes aren’t manufactured at some overseas sweatshop loophole factory operated by Charles Koch’s evil cousin Skippy — they are manufactured right there in the august body that is the United States Senate Committee on Finance, of which Senator Elizabeth Warren is, insanely enough, an actual member. She may as well have a sign on her door reading “Loopholes ’R’ Us.”

This is Senator Warren’s mess. Jeff Bezos just pays the bills.