Elections; 2024 by THG

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

How stupidity is an existential threat to America

By Bobby Azarian | May 31, 2024, 7:00AM ET

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/stupidity-threat/

It may sound like an insensitive statement, but the cold hard truth is that there are a lot of stupid people in the world, and their stupidity presents a constant danger to others. Some of these people are in positions of power, and some of them have been elected to run our country. A far greater number of them do not have positions of power, but they still have the power to vote, and the power to spread their ideas. We may have heard of “collective intelligence,” but there is also “collective stupidity,” and it is a force with equal influence on the world. It would not be a stretch to say that at this point in time, stupidity presents an existential threat to America because, in some circles, it is being celebrated.

Although the term "stupidity" may seem derogatory or insulting, it is actually a scientific concept that refers to a specific type of cognitive failure. It is important to realize that stupidity is not simply a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but rather a failure to use one's cognitive abilities effectively. This means that you can be “smart” while having a low IQ, or no expertise in anything. It is often said that “you can’t fix stupid,” but that is not exactly true. By becoming aware of the limitations of our natural intelligence or our ignorance, we can adjust our reasoning, behavior, and decision-making to account for our intellectual shortcomings.

To demonstrate that stupidity does not mean having a low IQ, consider the case of Richard Branson, the billionaire CEO of Virgin Airlines, who is one of the world’s most successful businessmen. Branson has said that he was seen as the dumbest person in school, and has admitted to having dyslexia, a learning disability that affects one’s ability to read and correctly interpret written language. But it wasn’t just reading comprehension that was the problem — “Math just didn’t make sense to me,” Branson has said. “I would certainly have failed an IQ test.”

So, what is responsible for his enormous success, both financially and in terms of being a prolific innovator? Branson attributes his success to surrounding himself with highly knowledgeable and extremely competent people. Branson’s smarts come from his ability to recognize his own limitations, and to know when to defer to others on topics or tasks where he lacks sufficient knowledge or skill.

This means you don’t have to be traditionally intelligent or particularly knowledgeable to be successful in life, make good decisions, have good judgment, and be a positive influence on the world. Stupidity is a consequence of a failure to be aware of one’s own limitations, and this type of cognitive failure has a scientific name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a well-known psychological phenomenon that describes the tendency for individuals to overestimate their level of intelligence, knowledge, or competence in a particular area. They may also simultaneously misjudge the intelligence, expertise, or competence of others. In other words, they are ignorant of their own ignorance. The effect has been widely written about, and investigated empirically, with hundreds of studies published in peer-reviewed journals confirming and analyzing the phenomenon, particularly in relation to the dangers it poses in certain contexts.

It is easy to think of examples in which failing to recognize one’s own ignorance can become dangerous. Take for example when people with no medical training try to provide medical advice. It doesn’t take much Internet searching to find some nutritionist from the “alternative medicine” world who is claiming that some herbal ingredient has the power to cure cancer. Some of these people are scam artists, but many of them truly believe that they have a superior understanding of health and physiology. There are many people who trust these self-proclaimed experts, and there is no doubt that some have paid with their lives for it.

What’s particularly disturbing about the Dunning-Kruger effect is that people are attracted to confident leaders, so politicians are incentivized to be overconfident in their beliefs and opinions, and to overstate their expertise. For example, Donald Trump — despite not having any real understanding of what causes cancer — suggested that the noise from wind turbines is causing cancer (a claim that is not supported by any empirical studies). It is well documented that on topics ranging from pandemics to climate change, Trump routinely dismissed the opinions of the professionals who have dedicated their lives to understanding those phenomena, because he thought that he knew better. It’s bad enough that politicians like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t recognize their own ignorance and fail to exercise the appropriate amount of caution when making claims that can affect public health and safety — but what is really disturbing is that they are being celebrated for their overconfidence (i.e., stupidity).

It is less surprising that politicians who regularly exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect are being elected to office when one realizes that they are being voted in by people who also display the Dunning-Kruger effect. A 2008 study by the political scientist Ian Anson surveyed over 2000 Americans in an attempt to see whether or not the effect was playing a role in one’s ability to overestimate their political knowledge. The results clearly showed that the people who scored lowest on political knowledge were the very same people who were the most likely to overestimate their performance. While this is shocking, it also makes perfect sense: the less we know about something, the less of an ability we have to assess how much we don’t know. It is only when we try to become an expert on some complex topic that we truly realize how complicated it is, and how much more there is to learn about it.

This new theory of stupidity I have proposed here — that stupidity is not a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but a lack of awareness of the limits of one’s intelligence or knowledge — is more important right now than ever before, and I’ll tell you why. The same study by Anson mentioned above showed, that when cues were given to make the participants “engage in partisan thought,” the Dunning-Kruger effect became more pronounced. In other words, if someone is reminded of the Republican-Democrat divide, they become even more overconfident in their uninformed positions. This finding suggests, that in today’s unprecedently divided political climate, we are all more likely to have an inflated sense of confidence in our unsupported beliefs. What’s more, those who actually have the greatest ignorance will assume they have the least!

What we are dealing with here is an epidemic of stupidity that will only get worse as divisions continue to increase. This should motivate all of us to do what we can to ease the political division. When we can clearly see the social factors that are causing people to become increasingly stupid, our anger and hatred toward them should dissipate. We do not have much control over our level of intelligence or ignorance, or our ignorance of our ignorance.

But this does not mean that we should accept stupidity as the result of deterministic forces that are beyond our control. After gaining a deeper awareness of our own cognitive limitations and limited knowledge base, we should do what we can to instill this higher awareness in others. We must not just educate the public and our youth; we must teach them to become aware of their own ignorance, and give them the skills they need to search for more knowledge and to detect when they or others are overestimating their knowledge or competency.

We have good reason to be optimistic that this is possible. A 2009 study showed that incompetent students increased their ability to estimate their class rank after being tutored in the skills they lacked. This suggests that we can learn a type of “meta-awareness” that gives us the power to more accurately assess ourselves and our own limitations. Once we can do that, then we can know when we need to do more research on a given topic, or to defer to experts. We can also get better at distinguishing between true experts and those who only claim to be experts (but are really just demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect).

We are all victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect to some degree. An inability to accurately assess our own competency and wisdom is something we see in both liberals and conservatives. While being more educated typically decreases our Dunning-Kruger tendencies, it does not eliminate them entirely. That takes constant cognitive effort in the form of self-awareness, continual curiosity, and a healthy amount of skepticism. By cultivating this type of awareness in ourselves, and making an effort to spread it to others, we can fight back against the stupidity crisis that threatens our nation.

Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of the new book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity. He is also a blogger for Psychology Today and the creator of the Substack Road to Omega. Follow him @BobbyAzarian.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, May 31, 2024 6:09 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Conservatives like Trump because of his character

Conservatives might like Trump on policy grounds, but they could get exactly the same policy from nearly any Republican. What sets Trump apart is his character. This is why his fans like him. His character. Donald Trump has:

• Been convicted of covering up an affair with a porn star.

• Been caught on tape bragging about grabbing pussies.

• Lied about President Obama wiretapping him.

• Tried to extort the president of Ukraine into digging up dirt on a political opponent.

• Worked tirelessly to illegally overthrow an election he lost.

• Promised to pardon the violent protesters who attacked the Capitol on January 6.

• Been found liable for sexual assault.

• Lied relentlessly about matters big and small.

• Claimed many of the world's worst autocrats as friends.

• Cheated customers of "Trump University" out of millions of dollars.

• Been fined nearly $500 million for business fraud.

• Fired an FBI director for refusing to end an investigation into his campaign.

• Been ordered to shut his charitable foundation and pay restitution for repeated self-dealing and legal violations.

• Pocketed millions of dollars from foreign interests staying at his hotels.

• Promoted dangerous quack "cures" for COVID-19.

• Baselessly claimed that Ted Cruz's father was associated with the Kennedy assassination.

• Said that soldiers who are wounded or die in war are suckers and losers.

Trump oozes "character" out of every pore and orifice on his body.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, May 31, 2024 10:19 PM

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Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, June 1, 2024 2:30 PM

USA Today: Trump is guilty. It won't matter at all this election.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/05/30/trump-guil
ty-verdict-voters-election/73912611007/

A) He's not guilty. We had a DA who ran on taking Trump down and an activist judge who was going to make sure a guilty verdict happened no matter what. All of this happened in the bluest of the blue areas in the country, with a hand-picked jury from an area who voted 85% for Joe Biden* in 2020.

This will be appealed and thrown right in the trash where it belongs, and was nothing more than a stunt to be able to have news articles calling Trump a convicted felon leading up to the election.

B) Oh... It's going to matter. Trump is going to win by an even bigger margin than he was going to win by last week before this verdict.

Tick Tock

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Sunday, June 2, 2024 6:25 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

If America turns against Trump, he’d rather see America burn to the ground

"I'm afraid of him going to jail, not for him, not for his safety, that's on him. I'm more concerned for you and for all of us and our families and for the American people because this clown had four years of being debriefed on national security issues. On top of that, if he becomes the Republican nominee he gets debriefed again, starting now, think about this," Cohen said.

He added: "You have now a Republican-leading candidate who is a felon who is going to be debriefed on national security issues knowing how loosely lipped he is...My concern is, in a prison situation, he's willing to give away these secrets for a bag of tuna or a book of stamps and he will do it because he doesn't care. If America turns against him he rather see America burn to the ground and that's who Donald Trump is."

https://www.newsweek.com/michael-cohen-raises-alarm-donald-trump-going
-jail-1907123

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 2, 2024 6:26 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s Arrogance Has Reached New Levels

Dahlia Lithwick: Justice Alito, in recent weeks, is making very real and serious errors in his opinions. They’re actually prompting corrections from sources that he cites, who say, “No, my work reflects the opposite of what you’re claiming.”

Mark Joseph Stern: This happened just last week in the racial gerrymandering case out of South Carolina. Alito cited the Brennan Center, a left-leaning pro-democracy group, to support the proposition that the racial turnout gap is growing—white people are voting at significantly higher rates than racial minorities. And Alito said this fact leads to the conclusion that racial data is actually less useful in drawing maps, so the court should assume that the map-drawers didn’t look at racial data, because it’s not very useful. Even though the map-drawers in this case shifted 30,000 Black residents to a new district with almost surgical precision to make a competitive district less diverse.

The Brennan Center responded that Alito completely misunderstood its work, and in fact got it backward. Bizarrely, he cited an old blog post rather than a more recent, comprehensive analysis of this issue, which would’ve shown why he was wrong. The Brennan Center said that what it actually showed was that South Carolina has better data, on the individual and community level, about racial identity than political affiliation. If Alito had read four more sentences of the blog post he cited, or read the full report that elaborates on this issue, he would have seen that the map-drawers in this case had every incentive to look at racial data! It’s clearer and more useful than data about voters’ political preferences. Alito just butchered the Brennan Center’s analysis and used it to mean the opposite of what it meant.

He received a similar rebuke from a source he cited in his dissent from the CFPB decision, too, right?

Yes. In his dissent asserting that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded unconstitutionally, Alito cited a book by Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz called Congress’s Constitution. Not once, not twice, but eight times. And it’s a very good book! But Alito cited it for the proposition that the Framers would never have wanted to let a federal agency draw its budget the way the CFPB does. And that the Framers and their English forebears would have wanted the judiciary to limit how Congress funds the executive branch.

Chafetz was so irritated by this that he felt moved to tweet that Alito got it dead wrong. Because Chafetz preemptively rebutted the theory that Alito embraced: In the book, he wrote that “text of the Constitution allows for indefinite appropriations in all contexts other than the army,” which is limited to two-year appropriations. That explicitly contradicts Alito’s pseudo-originalist claim. Also, Chafetz wrote about how the appropriations power was, early on, used in a broad and nonspecific way, which Alito deemed unconstitutional. And Chafetz wrote that this power was meant as a check on the executive by the legislative, not a judicially enforceable limit on Congress. Again, that’s the opposite of what Alito asserted. Yet the justice cited Chafetz’s book for support over and over again!

What’s really alarming is that the other conservatives are going along with it. They just accept that King Alito can decree these new realities and facts and histories.

I would just add that this is entirely predictable from somebody who has proven, day after day after day, that he doesn’t believe reality. Justice Alito is at a place where he thinks the entire Justice Department is going after Trump and Jan. 6 insurrectionists because they’re witch-hunters. He believes the media is a bunch of liars and the world is out to get him. He believes the insurrectionist flag is benign, a foam finger that screams “Go George Washington.”

So yes, it’s entirely predictable that somebody like Alito would bend every single fact to conform with his own reality. That he would be the “I did my own research” supreme court justice. It’s really cognitively frightening, separate and aside from the politics of it. This is mistrust of every institution, materialized as a human being who decides the cases that control our lives.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/samuel-alito-upside-down-a
merican-flag-supreme-court.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 2, 2024 7:26 AM

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Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Monday, June 3, 2024 8:09 AM

Trump saying a felon cannot be allowed in the White House.

Funny...

T

Trump: Hillary shouldn't be allowed to run for president

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Monday, June 3, 2024 4:04 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The time for Biden to show restraint has long since passed.

Trump was just unanimously convicted by a jury of his peers for election interference. He had his hapless fixer pay off Daniels not “for personal gain,” as the Biden campaign statement alleges, but to defraud the American people, to deprive them of the information that they needed to make an informed decision on Election Day 2016 and to illegitimately obtain the most powerful office in the world on behalf of the country’s far right. Donald Trump covered up his affair with Daniels so he could appoint Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. He committed felonies so that the insurrectionists at the reactionary Heritage Foundation could rewrite the nation’s tax laws to make rich people richer. And so on.

Biden likes to repeat the canned phrase “Don’t compare me to the Almighty; compare me to the alternative”—a motto he attributes to his father and which is about as edgy as a mid-aughts Verizon Guy commercial. But what the hush money case demonstrates clearly is that Trump is a genuinely terrible human being. What kind of man has unprotected sex with an adult film star while his wife is home recovering from labor and delivery and caring for an infant? What kind of terrible employer has an underling borrow against his own home to cover up his boss’s sordid lies and extramarital affairs?

For years, leading Democrats have danced around a truly blunt assessment of Trump without ever coming out and saying it directly: The man is an evil, amoral cretin willing to betray those closest to him without a second thought. Find some coded language that can puncture the epistemic closure of conservative evangelical Christians. Call him the worst person in the entire country, which is basically what he is. Tap into the robust public opinion of the majorities who believe that extramarital affairs are morally wrong by asking: “If Melania can’t trust him, why should you?”

Whatever path they choose requires departing from the warmth and safety of “No one is above the law” framing. Letting the conviction more or less speak for itself is a conservative strategy that would make sense if Biden were decisively leading the race and wanted to avoid unforced errors. But as hard as it might be for everyone in the White House to accept, the president’s campaign is clearly trailing, according to public opinion polling. Yes, the margins are narrow, but if the election were held tomorrow, it is more likely than not that Donald Trump would win it. You can’t run out the clock when you’re losing. And that means that Biden needs to go on the offensive, just like dozens of leading Democratic officials and strategists are asking him to.

Yet Biden and his team clearly feel that having Biden stay out of the whole thing can help legitimize the prosecutions and whatever verdicts follow. This is wishful thinking. Take one fleeting glance at how people on the right are reacting to Trump’s conviction—that should be sufficient to disabuse the White House of the notion that there is anything it could possibly do to reach hardcore MAGA voters. Former Fox anchor Megyn Kelly promised prosecutions of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for unnamed offenses: “We’re going to have to look at what the statutes of limitations are on the various crimes they surely committed, “ she intoned. Charlie Kirk, the young MAGA media superstar, implored his followers to “indict the left, or lose America.” Donations to the Trump campaign surged. Nearly all Republican officeholders deemed the verdict somehow illegitimate. In other words, keeping the Trump prosecutions at arm’s length earned Biden precisely nothing from the right, which has existed in a state of continuous rage for so long that it does not have any other emotional register to draw upon.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/trump-president-biden-felo
n-alvin-bragg-democrats.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 7:09 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

'Two days and it's over': Russian arms dealer endorses Trump amid call for U.S. civil war

By David Edwards | June 3, 2024 2:55PM ET

https://www.rawstory.com/viktor-bout-donald-trump/

Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer dubbed the "merchant of death," endorsed former U.S. President Donald Trump and suggested a new American civil war was needed.

While guest-hosting with Alex Jones on Monday, Bout was asked about his views on Trump.

"Look, one thing is clear," Bout said. "That Trump is for real. He is real, and he is alive."

The arms dealer said President Joe Biden was "like a zombie."

"We can discuss all the points, but at least he is a real person who is honestly, full-heartedly, not willing to see America being ruined and killed by the globalists," he continued.

"So this is a, you know, situation where we all hope that Trump finally will quickly act after he was inaugurated, and literally make sure that this deep state or those globalists who are fully controlling the American administration would be unable to make more harm to the human being on the planet and stop killing, first of all, Americans."

Viktor Bout was freed from a U.S. prison in 2022 in a swap for basketball star Britney Griner.

Later in Monday's show, he agitated for a second American "revolution."

"They're gonna try to really attempt on the life of the Trump, and they said, oh, sorry, you know, we killed him," he warned. "Who knows, maybe they're gonna get hostages of Trump's family and put him to negotiate some."

"So in this level, I guess all American people have to do their maximum to really show to the globalists," he added. "If you mess up with this, it would be, you know, our strong response. Look, if people go to the street in America, the real America, who they are, it's over."

"It's two days, and it's over. Forget about January 6th, it was a joke."

Jones argued that Jan. 6 was a false flag operation.

"Yeah, exactly, but think of this, if people everywhere will go on the street, not only in D.C., but everywhere, that's it," Bout agreed. "Who, police gonna attack all people, hell no. Military, they're gonna send military against American people."

"But this is a moment for another American revolution."

Watch the video below from the Alex Jones Show.
https://www.rawstory.com/viktor-bout-donald-trump/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 10:22 AM

Yup, trump is and always has been, in bed with Putin, Russia.

T

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 12:43 PM

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Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 3:05 PM

Can Former President Trump 'Make Felonies Great Again'?

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 3:17 PM

The Hill: Regardless of the Trump verdict, Biden’s in trouble

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4696046-despite-trump-guilty-verd
ict-biden-is-in-trouble/

Yup.

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Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 3:48 PM

Yup...

T

Trump breaking up alliances within the Republican party

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 5:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Yup...

T

Trump breaking up alliances within the Republican party

Good. Fuck the Republican party and the Bushite NeoCon trash you follow at The Lincoln Project.

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Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 5:36 PM

If Trumps gotta keep lying he isn't winning.

T

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Tuesday, June 4, 2024 6:18 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ben, a 42-year-old white guy from Texas, explaining to a focus group why he's moving away from Trump:

“As far as porn stars go for affairs, he could have set a better example for who to have an affair with.... There are so many wonderful porn stars out there.... But I want a president who’s going to be able to cover up a $130,000 bribe to Daniels. If he can’t pull that off, I’m not going to trust him with the nuclear football. This seems like such an easy thing for him to screw up. I’m kind of leaning toward Biden now.”

The traditional way of paying hush money is with a briefcase full of hundred-dollar bills. If Trump had stuck to that he never would have been caught.

But no. Like the Nazis meticulously accounting for every death at Auschwitz, Trump had to bribe Stormy Daniels in a way that required meticulous accounting on his company's books. So now he's a convicted felon.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/04/opinion/trump-verdict-f
ocus-group.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 5, 2024 8:55 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Republicans Who Voted Against Contraception Access
Jun 05, 2024 at 8:00 PM EDT

1. John Barrasso of Wyoming
2. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee
3. John Boozman of Arkansas
4. Ted Budd of North Carolina
5. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virgina
6. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
7. John Cornyn of Texas
8. Tom Cotton of Arkansas
9. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota
10. Mike Crapo of Idaho
11. Ted Cruz of Texas
12. Steve Daines of Montana
13. Joni Ernst of Iowa
14. Deb Fischer of Nebraska
15. Chuck Grassley of Iowa
16. Josh Hawley of Missouri
17. John Hoeven of North Dakota
18. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi
19. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
20. James Lankford of Oklahoma
21. Mike Lee of Utah
22. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming
23. Roger Marshall of Kansas
24. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
25. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma
26. Rand Paul of Kentucky
27. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska
28. James Risch of Idaho
29. Mike Rounds of South Dakota
30. Marco Rubio of Florida
31. Eric Schmitt of Missouri
32. Rick Scott of Florida
33. Tim Scott of South Carolina
34. John Thune of South Dakota
35. Thom Tillis of North Carolina
36. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama
37. Roger Wicker of Mississippi
38. Todd Young of Indiana

Another nine Republicans joined indicted Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey in sitting out the vote:
1. Mike Braun of Indiana,
2. Katie Britt of Alabama,
3. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,
4. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee,
5. John Kennedy of Louisiana,
6. Jerry Moran of Kansas,
7. Mitt Romney of Utah,
8. Dan Sullivan of Alaska
9. J.D. Vance of Ohio.

https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-republicans-who-voted-against-contr
aception-access-1908825

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ben, a 42-year-old white guy from Texas, explaining to a focus group why he's moving away from Trump:

“As far as porn stars go for affairs, he could have set a better example for who to have an affair with.... There are so many wonderful porn stars out there.... But I want a president who’s going to be able to cover up a $130,000 bribe to Daniels. If he can’t pull that off, I’m not going to trust him with the nuclear football. This seems like such an easy thing for him to screw up. I’m kind of leaning toward Biden now.”

Yeah. I'm sure "Ben" is a Trump voter. Nobody at the New York Times has ever had a single conversation with a Trump voter.

Maybe somebody ought to show "Ben" all of the footage of Biden* fucking up every other sentence off the teleprompter when he's not staring off into space and forgetting completely where he is, before turning around and shaking hands with ghosts and finally getting off the stage after one of his aides comes and takes his arm.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:54 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Yeah. I'm sure "Ben" is a Trump voter. Nobody at the New York Times has ever had a single conversation with a Trump voter.

Maybe somebody ought to show "Ben" all of the footage of Biden* fucking up every other sentence off the teleprompter when he's not staring off into space and forgetting completely where he is, before turning around and shaking hands with ghosts and finally getting off the stage after one of his aides comes and takes his arm.

I have had ten thousand hours of conversation with Trump voters. Never once have any of them understood that they are the cause of all their problems or even realize they are grossly failing their responsibilities. Their problems are always somebody else's fault. Biden's fault most recently. But before that, Obama's. Before that, Bush's. In between? Democrats' fault in general.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 5, 2024 10:16 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

If Donald Trump wins back the White House, Putin stands to rake home all the chips. Trump told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (so Orbán subsequently said) that his plan to end the war quickly was to cut off all aid to Ukraine — in other words, to let Putin win. However, if Putin has attacked a NATO country before the election (spurring all the other NATO members to respond under the treaty’s Article 5, which says an attack on one is an attack on all) or fired off nuclear weapons (breaking the “nuclear taboo” in place since 1945), then even Trump might have a hard time letting Putin have his way.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/ukraine-strikes-russia-war
-biden-putin-red-line.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 5, 2024 11:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:I have had ten thousand hours of conversation with Trump voters. Never once have any of them understood that they are the cause of all their problems or even realize they are grossly failing their responsibilities. Their problems are always somebody else's fault. Biden's fault most recently. But before that, Obama's. Before that, Bush's. In between? Democrats' fault in general.

Sure thing, buddy...

Says the guy who bitched nonstop for the last 3.5 years straight while his party is running things. The same guy who hasn't gone a single day of his life without posting the ex-President's name.

How often have I brought up Obama's name in the 2020's? How often did I bring up Obama's name since I've gone sober?

Did I bitch about personal shit in the last 7.5 years of sobriety. Damn sure did. Both when Trump and when Biden* were President.

I've taken ownership of ALL of my bad choices. I'm not going to say that to you again.

And I hate to break it to you, but even in the worst circumstances I'm not anything like any alleged Texas Trump voter you think you know. I own everything I have, and I own zero debt to anyone or any financial institution. I can make a very, very, very little go a really long way.

I get to sit back and wait it all out whenever the pendulum swings way to far one way and the inevitable over-correction the other way gears up.

That's where we are at right now.

Don't believe me?

Were you even aware we are 5 days into Pride Month in 2024?

And when that pendulum swings so far the other way it makes you wish it was 2003 and GWB were still President, maybe you'll remember that he was responsible for about half of the government overreach there is today. Overreach that neither party is ever going to fight to remove because they are the sole benefactor.

I know I won't ever forget.

I'm not a Republican. I've never been a Republican.

But when that pendulum does swing hard that way and they've damn near militarized the place to combat all the stupid shit that the Left did when the pendulum was about to snap out the left side of the fuckin' cuckoo clock, I'll be right here to tell you that I told you so. Again.

And then, I finally get to shit talk Republicans for a while again and give them their due.

Well... Maybe...

Yanno... if the Democrats don't get their way now and hand the government the reins to the internet. One day down the road you wake up and realize that the Republicans get just as much benefit and use out of all the laws and rule changes they pretend they're half-hardheartedly fighting against. Maybe by 2030 both "sides" finally get their way and they can just start breaking down people's doors and pulling them out into the street for things they've said online like they do anywhere else in the world.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 6:42 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

What the U.S. and Britain Can Learn From Singapore
Data shows that in key areas, Singapore is better at governing than the U.S. and Britain.

By Graham Allison | June 5, 2024, 4:33 PM

Graham Allison is a professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/06/05/singapore-us-uk-government-compar
ison-elections-citizens-governance-politics/

When asked whether the U.S. government works, most Americans say no. According to recent polling by Ipsos, more than two-thirds of adults in the United States think the country is going in the wrong direction. Gallup reports that only 26 percent have confidence in major U.S. institutions, such as the presidency, the Supreme Court, and Congress. Nearly half of Americans aged 18 to 25 say that they believe either that democracy or dictatorship “makes no difference” or that “dictatorship could be good in certain circumstances.” As a recent Economist cover story put it: “After victory in the Cold War, the American model seemed unassailable. A generation on, Americans themselves are losing confidence in it.”

Most Singaporeans have a very different outlook on their government, a managed political system that has elections but nonetheless facilitates the dominance of one party, the People’s Action Party. According to a Pew Research Center report, three-quarters of Singaporeans are satisfied with how democracy is working in their country. Moreover, 80 percent think their country is heading in the right direction—the highest number in any of the 29 countries surveyed in the May Ipsos poll.

In 2024, both the United States and Singapore are facing one of the most challenging tests of any system of government: the transfer of power from one leader to the next. Textbooks on government identify this as an arena in which democratic systems have the greatest advantage over authoritarian or managed alternatives. Yet, as this year shows, that isn’t always the case.

In May, as then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong passed the baton to his chosen successor, Lawrence Wong, Singaporeans almost unanimously applauded the orderly, peaceful transition. In contrast, Americans’ sense of gloom is growing as they approach a presidential election in which voters will have to choose between two candidates who claim that the other’s victory would mean the end of U.S. democracy. According to an April Reuters/Ipsos poll, two-thirds of U.S. voters believe that neither candidate should be running.

These comparisons invite the question: Is Singapore simply better at governing than other countries?

To answer this, consider the following three Report Cards, which use data from international organizations to assess Singapore alongside two countries holding major elections this year: the United States and Britain. Each report card grades the countries on how well they have fulfilled the requirements that Singapore’s founder and first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew—the father of Lee Hsien Loong—believed were the function of government: to “improve the standard of living for the majority of its people, plus enabling the maximum of personal freedoms compatible with the freedoms of others in society.”

The first Report Card considers citizens’ well-being, which we’ve assessed based on categories for which there is ample data, such as income, health, safety, and sense of security.

The second Report Card covers what the World Bank calls “governance,” or a government’s effectiveness in facing issues, making policy choices, executing policy, and preventing corruption.

The third Report Card, which considers both individual rights and citizens’ satisfaction with their government, is more difficult to interpret. It includes the judgments made both by international organizations and by polls that gauge how citizens feel about their democracy.

It’s worth reflecting on nine takeaways related to these Report Cards. First, Lee Hsien Loong left to his successor a population that is now wealthier than Americans—and almost twice as wealthy as their former British colonial overlords. When he took office in 2004, the so-called Singapore miracle had already happened: Singapore’s economy had soared since the 1960s, taking the country from poverty to having a GDP per capita that was approximately three-quarters of that of the United States, where many analysts thought it would remain. Yet 20 years later, Singapore’s GDP per capita is more than 4 percent higher than that in the United States: $88,500 compared with $85,000.

Second, while rapid economic growth often produces greater income disparity, over the past two decades, Singapore has reduced inequality significantly—from 0.47 to 0.37 (as measured by the Gini coefficient, a measure by which 0 equals complete equality and 1 represents complete inequality)—while the United States has remained around 0.47. (For comparison, China’s Gini coefficient is 0.46, and the country with the highest level of inequality is South Africa, with 0.63.)

Third, Singaporeans are generally healthier and live longer than their counterparts in the United States and Britain. Just 20 years ago, life expectancy in all three countries was approximately the same. Today, the life expectancy in Singapore is longer (84 years) than that in the United States (76 years) and Britain (80 years). Singapore’s infant mortality has fallen from 27 deaths per 1,000 births in 1965, to 4 in 2004, to 1.8 today—considerably lower than both other countries. Furthermore, 93 percent of Singaporeans express satisfaction with their health care system in contrast to 75 percent of Americans and 77 percent of Britons.

Fourth, Singapore was clearly best prepared for a major public health crisis. Because the COVID-19 pandemic struck all countries at around the same time, it provided a clear test of their response systems. On a per capita basis, around 10 Americans or Britons have died from COVID-19 for every one of their counterparts in Singapore.

Fifth, while approximately one-third of Singaporeans, Americans, and Britons graduate from university, students in Singapore tend to be academically ahead of their peers in the other two countries. In 2022, 41 percent of Singaporean high schoolers scored as “top performers” on mathematics tests among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, compared with just 7 percent of Americans and 11 percent of Britons. In 2009, Singapore ranked second in international math scores, behind China; today, Singapore is first, far ahead of China and every other country, while the United States is 34th, and the United Kingdom is 14th.

Sixth, Singapore surpasses both the United States and United Kingdom when it comes to ensuring rule of law and control of corruption, according to the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators. This aligns with OECD data, which shows that Singapore ranks first among OECD countries in citizens’ confidence in their judicial system (89 percent) and in overall satisfaction with their government (93 percent).

Seventh, Singapore is one of the most stable countries in the world: The World Bank ranks it in the 97th percentile of countries for “political stability and absence of violence/terrorism,” up from the 85th percentile two decades ago. The United States, by comparison, is only in the 45th percentile, and the United Kingdom is in the 62nd.

Eighth, multinational corporations generally consider Singapore’s political and legal environment to be the best in the world for doing business. On the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, Singapore has moved up from No. 5 in 2004 to No. 1 today, having passed the United States in 2019. In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual ranking of countries in which to do business, Singapore has held the No. 1 spot for the past 16 years; the United States typically ranks third, while the United Kingdom is not even among the top 10.

Finally—and this complicates the picture—Singaporeans have much less freedom to exercise their political rights. According to Humans Right Watch, Singapore’s “political environment remains overwhelmingly repressive.” Freedom House classifies Singapore as only “partly free,” with a score of 48 out of 100, while the World Bank places Singapore in only the 44th percentile of all the world’s countries for voice and accountability, which “captures perceptions of the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media.” These figures are significantly higher—sometimes twice as high—in the United States and Britain.

Despite this, polls find that most Singaporeans are satisfied with their version of democracy. Yet even Singaporeans who disagree with international critics of their regime recognize the need to create more space for domestic debate. As Wong, the new prime minister, put it recently: A majority would “like to see more opposition voices in parliament. So the opposition presence in parliament is here to stay.”

The contrast between Singapore’s ranking on the first two Report Cards and the third takes us back to the question: What is government for? From a Western perspective, the possibility that a more autocratic state could govern more effectively than a more open democracy seems almost unthinkable. History offers few examples of benevolent dictatorships that delivered the goods—or stayed benevolent for long. But in the case of Singapore, brute facts are hard to ignore.

Americans and Britons cherish freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the related basket of liberal rights. But if given a choice, would they accept limits on some of these rights to enjoy the high standards of governance that their Singaporean counterparts are accustomed to? Do they care more about the freedom to speak their minds and support an opposition party, or what Singaporean businessperson Calvin Cheng has described as the freedom to walk safely “in the wee hours in the morning, to be able to leave one’s door open and not fear being burgled” and “knowing our children can go to school without fear of drugs, or being mowed down by some insane person with a gun”?

To put it more provocatively, consider an extreme hypothetical. Imagine that instead of choosing between U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump or the Conservative and Labour parties, citizens in the United States and Britain were offered the chance to vote for an alternative. This alternative would be to subcontract their country’s governance for the next four years to Singapore’s ruling party. In 2028, citizens would have a chance to vote again between giving that party four more years in power or returning to their current systems, in which they choose between the candidates presented by the two parties.

It’s a radical and obviously unrealistic possibility. But reflecting on the question and the possible benefits of such an arrangement should help us think more clearly about what’s required to make government work.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 6:51 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Sure thing, buddy...

I love it when you post long comments. I love listening to Trumptards describe how the world works. It reminds me how wacko you and the typical Trumptard are. I find it comforting to know that there is karma, that people who are wacko have wacko lives. The wackos are not aware of themselves. When the daily disappointments hit them, the wackos blame either people who don't live wacky lives or a generalized conspiracy against wackos.

Not that wackos can understand why, but bad things happen to wackos for good reasons.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:07 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The contrast between how Republicans and Democrats behave in Court

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/hunter-biden-trial-defense
-trump-hush-money-comparison.html

Following the news of Hunter Biden’s trial this week after covering Donald Trump’s hush money trial for the past six, one thing is clear to me: Hunter Biden’s defense strategy is much more typical than Trump’s, and thus much likelier to produce an acquittal. The differences in defense tactics are representative of the differences in temperaments between the two men, but they could also be critical to the outcomes for both.

Hunter Biden, the son of current President Joe Biden, faces criminal charges related to lying about drug addiction on a federal form when he purchased a gun in October 2018. The first major difference comes down to how Hunter Biden and Trump presented themselves to jurors. Throughout his trial, Trump closed his eyes and appeared unresponsive during almost all the critical moments of testimony and argument. Jurors responded similarly coldly to the former president, all of them declining to look at Trump every day as they walked right past him at the defendant’s table. Hunter Biden, by contrast, is reportedly deeply engaged, even waving at one prosecution witness, a former girlfriend, when she took the stand.

Defense attorneys have attempted to portray Hunter Biden sympathetically, as a deeply flawed addict who has made some mistakes but is looking to get his life back in order. A jury that reportedly includes jurors who have had family members who have experienced addiction already seem responsive to these efforts—as CNN reported on Monday: “One juror appeared to become emotional during defense attorney Abbe Lowell’s opening statements. The juror reached for tissues in her bag and dabbed her eyes and her nose several times. It’s unclear what prompted the reaction.” Essentially, Hunter Biden has already been humanized for the jury. Trump’s defense attorneys, by contrast, tried to portray him as a very important former president who was above having to face the same criminal justice system the rest of us do. Trump’s demeanor came across this way as well. This did not work.

The second difference is in the support systems that showed up for each defendant in court every day. Trump usually had a parade of sycophantic political and media cronies around him, seemingly looking to leech off of the power of the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

In terms of family representation, Trump’s son Eric showed up many days, and his son Donald Jr. showed up a few, and daughter Tiffany showed up one, but most notable were the absences. Trump’s daughter Ivanka never showed up, nor did his wife Melania. Contrast this with Hunter Biden, who has been there every day with his sister, Ashley; the woman who raised him, first lady Jill Biden; and his wife, who has reportedly helped him get sober. (Jill even showed up on her 73rd birthday.) President Joe Biden has not attended, but that is likely to avoid injecting politics into the case, which is the opposite of what Trump attempted to do.

Third, there is already a deep contrast in the approach that Trump’s attorneys took with adverse witnesses, compared with how Lowell, Hunter Biden’s defense attorney, is responding to prosecution witnesses in his case. During Trump’s trial, defense attorneys outright abused witnesses in a way that made them more sympathetic to jurors. This was most blatant with the woman who alleged the affair that resulted in the illegal hush money scheme, Stormy Daniels, with Trump attorney Susan Necheles using every disreputable trope in the “he-said, she-said” book to try to shame and tarnish Daniels. Again, it did not work.

Conversely, Lowell has been very tame with the women who have walked through stories of Hunter Biden’s drug addiction, only questioning them briefly and never attacking them. This was true of Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, who shared heartbreaking stories of her former husband’s addiction. But it was also true of Hunter Biden’s adult dancer ex-girlfriend, Zoe Kestan, who testified for prosecutors about his struggles with addiction during the period in question. One need not imagine how a Trump defense team would treat Kestan, given how they abused Daniels. Even Hunter himself seemed sympathetic to Kestan, with the New York Times reporting that “he gave an uncomfortable wave and a smile before looking down, head in hands” when she was asked to identify him in open court. It’s impossible to imagine Trump having similar humility or decency.

Fourth, the contrast in the way that each defendant has treated the legal system itself is stunning. Trump repeatedly antagonized Justice Juan Merchan by violating a gag order that barred him from attacking witnesses and jurors. He used the courtroom hallway to give daily speeches attacking the justice system itself and claiming to be a victim of political persecutions, with those same political supporters who showed up in court going on TV to spread the message.

Meanwhile, Democrats, for the most part, have refused to condemn this prosecution. Even President Joe Biden refused to attack the prosecutors in the case, issuing a basic statement of support for his son. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,” Biden said in the statement. “Hunter’s resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us. Our family has been through a lot together, and Jill and I are going to continue to be there for Hunter and our family with our love and support.” While these sorts of statements are not supposed to impact—or even reach—jurors, they do play a profound role in how the public views proceedings and the integrity of our justice system.

Finally, and most significantly, the legal cases each defense team is making are markedly different. Lowell has conceded key and obviously true elements of the prosecution’s case, while focusing in on a narrow technical point that he hopes might convince jurors to acquit. Trump attorney Todd Blanche, contrastingly, denied every aspect of the charges, even the ones that seemed impossible to deny, and threw every single possible argument at the wall in order to win acquittal. The latter approach failed for Trump, but the cleaner version might just work for Hunter Biden.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/hunter-biden-trial-defense
-trump-hush-money-comparison.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:20 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Video of Trump saying US shouldn’t have a president with a felony conviction

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/viral-tiktok-resurfaces-video-
of-trump-saying-us-shouldn-t-have-a-president-with-a-felony-conviction/vi-BB1nCul7

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 9:21 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

THE QUESTION
Is Donald Trump no longer able to visit 37 countries as a convicted felon?

WHAT WE FOUND
At least 10 countries have laws that restrict convicted felons from entering their country.

Canada has a law that restricts people who have been convicted of a crime from entering the country. However, some convicted felons may still be able to enter Canada if they meet certain criteria “depending on the crime, how long ago it was” and how the person has behaved since committing the crime, the Government of Canada says.

In Mexico, authorities have the option to turn away convicted felons if “they have been charged with or convicted of a serious crime in Mexico or elsewhere,” the Department of State says.

Australia also restricts convicted felons from visiting the country, but it's up to government officials to determine if the committed felony is a threat to the country. In order to visit the country, a person must pass a “character test.”

Much more at https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/donald-trump/claims-tha
t-donald-trump-is-no-longer-able-to-visit-37-countries-now-that-hes-a-convicted-felon-need-context/536-7d6b43aa-4962-43a6-8c26-f1221e1bbd42

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 11:10 AM

Are Trumpers in a cult; yup.

T

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 2:57 PM

Call it whatever you'd like, Ted.

Biden* loses in November either way.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:57 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Republicans Watching Your Daughter

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 4:58 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Keep Republicans Out Of Your Bedroom

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 5:16 PM

The New York Times

A Popular Political Site Made a Sharp Right Turn. What Steered It?

Real Clear Politics has been catering to campaign obsessives since 2000. It pitches itself as a “trusted, go-to source” for unbiased polling. The Trump era changed its tone, and funding sources.

But less well known is how Real Clear Politics and its affiliated websites have taken a rightward, aggressively pro-Trump turn over the last four years as donations to its affiliated nonprofit have soared. Large quantities of those funds came through two entities that wealthy conservatives use to give money without revealing their identities.

Real Clear’s evolution traces a similar path as other right-leaning political news outlets that have adapted to the upheaval of the Trump era by aligning themselves with the president and his large following, its writers taking on his battles and raging against the left.

As the administration lurched from one crisis after another — impeachment, the coronavirus, a lost election the president refuses to concede — Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents, through a mix of its own content and articles from across conservative media.

In recent days, as Mr. Trump and his loyalists repeated baseless claims of rampant voter fraud and counting errors, Real Clear Politics gave top billing to stories that reinforced the false narrative that the president could still somehow eke out a win. Headlines on Monday — more than a week after Mr. Biden had clinched the race — included “There’s Good Reason Not To Trust Election Results” and “Trump Attorney Says Results in Several States Will Be Overturned.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/real-clear-politics.htm
l

Biden is going to win.

tick tock

T

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 6:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
The New York Times

A Popular Political Site Made a Sharp Right Turn. What Steered It?

Real Clear Politics has been catering to campaign obsessives since 2000. It pitches itself as a “trusted, go-to source” for unbiased polling. The Trump era changed its tone, and funding sources.

But less well known is how Real Clear Politics and its affiliated websites have taken a rightward, aggressively pro-Trump turn over the last four years as donations to its affiliated nonprofit have soared. Large quantities of those funds came through two entities that wealthy conservatives use to give money without revealing their identities.

Real Clear’s evolution traces a similar path as other right-leaning political news outlets that have adapted to the upheaval of the Trump era by aligning themselves with the president and his large following, its writers taking on his battles and raging against the left.

As the administration lurched from one crisis after another — impeachment, the coronavirus, a lost election the president refuses to concede — Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents, through a mix of its own content and articles from across conservative media.

In recent days, as Mr. Trump and his loyalists repeated baseless claims of rampant voter fraud and counting errors, Real Clear Politics gave top billing to stories that reinforced the false narrative that the president could still somehow eke out a win. Headlines on Monday — more than a week after Mr. Biden had clinched the race — included “There’s Good Reason Not To Trust Election Results” and “Trump Attorney Says Results in Several States Will Be Overturned.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/real-clear-politics.htm
l

Biden is going to win.

tick tock

T

Wow. NYT is scared.

I guess they'll go after Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight next.

Trump's up 1.5 points nationally there.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/nati
onal/

That no darn good Russian traitor Nate Silver is going to pay!

What happened, Ted?

I thought that you were going to throw Trump in prison and Biden* was going to win by default.

Guess not, huh?

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 6:57 PM

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 8:44 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Updated: 06/06/2024 01:21 PM EDT

A federal judge has ordered Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, to report to prison by July 1 for his conviction for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, previously paused Bannon’s four-month sentence while he appealed his conviction. But on Thursday, Nichols ruled that the original reasons for the postponement no longer apply because a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled strongly and unanimously last month against Bannon’s position.

Bannon intends to continue appealing the case to the full bench of the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court. But unless one of those courts steps in to block Nichols’ decision, Bannon is unlikely to be able to stave off prison in the meantime.

If Bannon indeed heads to prison on July 1, it would put him behind bars until just before the November election. In addition to keeping Bannon — who hosts a popular far-right podcast — off the air for a crucial stretch of the election cycle, Nichols’ decision would also effectively pardon-proof Bannon’s jail sentence. (Trump pardoned Bannon on the final day of his presidency on federal fraud charges.)

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/06/steve-bannon-prison-jan-6-sub
poena-trump-00162065

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 6, 2024 9:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Updated: 06/06/2024 01:21 PM EDT

A federal judge has ordered Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, to report to prison by July 1 for his conviction for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, previously paused Bannon’s four-month sentence while he appealed his conviction. But on Thursday, Nichols ruled that the original reasons for the postponement no longer apply because a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled strongly and unanimously last month against Bannon’s position.

Bannon intends to continue appealing the case to the full bench of the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court. But unless one of those courts steps in to block Nichols’ decision, Bannon is unlikely to be able to stave off prison in the meantime.

If Bannon indeed heads to prison on July 1, it would put him behind bars until just before the November election. In addition to keeping Bannon — who hosts a popular far-right podcast — off the air for a crucial stretch of the election cycle, Nichols’ decision would also effectively pardon-proof Bannon’s jail sentence. (Trump pardoned Bannon on the final day of his presidency on federal fraud charges.)

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/06/steve-bannon-prison-jan-6-sub
poena-trump-00162065

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Censorship is an excellent tool of the Democrat Party.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Friday, June 7, 2024 7:32 AM

Oh. I forgot to mention Virginia.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/virg
inia/

Virginia is in play too. According to 538, it's a virtual tie.

Somebody had better put that no-good Putin loving Nate Silver in prison soon.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Friday, June 7, 2024 8:01 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

What Donald Trump’s Criminal Trial Reveals About a Potential Second Trump Administration

The picture that emerged in the New York courtroom was of a person on top of details, aware of what his team is doing. Along with outside events, it suggests Trump will be even less constricted by rules and norms than he was before.

By Andrea Bernstein | June 5, 6 a.m. EDT

https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-criminal-trial-second-
term

Trump is currently leading in the polls. It’s entirely possible he will be elected president. Yet he’s continuing to aggressively pursue business deals in countries that will have a long list of issues on which they will be seeking U.S. support.

The Trump Organization entered a full-on partnership with LIV Golf, an entity majority-owned by the government of Saudi Arabia, for tournaments at his golf courses. And last year, a New York Times reporter and photographer visited what the reporter called a “multibillion-dollar project backed by Oman’s oil-rich government that has an unusual partner: former President Donald J. Trump.” The project was launched and is being built while Trump is the front-runner for a second presidency. But neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign tried to defend or separate the project from the candidate who, while not running the company, still makes money from it.

It isn’t just the foreign deals. In April, right around the time Trump was about to be criminally tried in New York, he offered oil executives gathered at Mar-a-Lago “a deal,” the Washington Post reported. The publication summarized his message as: “You all are wealthy enough that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House.” In exchange, the Post said, Trump promised to reverse President Joe Biden’s initiatives to slow climate change, vowing to roll back some of them “on Day 1.”

And, as has been widely reported, with Truth Social going public, Trump has set up a perfect avenue for potential corruption. It’s a way for Trump’s supporters to personally offer him financial support at a time when he desperately needs it. By propping up the share price of the stock of the cash-hemorrhaging social media company, shareholders have potentially put billions of dollars in Donald Trump’s pocket.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, June 7, 2024 10:56 AM

Get fucked with your propaganda.

Trump will be your next President. If you don't like it, please feel free to leave my country.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Friday, June 7, 2024 1:56 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Get fucked with your propaganda.

Trump will be your next President. If you don't like it, please feel free to leave my country.

My ancestors were here hundreds of years before Trump's arrived from Germany or your stepfather arrived from Mexico. My prosperous descendants outnumber all your relatives, either the 6ixStringJackasses struggling with poverty and mental illness or pretending they are still middle-class. I have NOT been sick even once in the 21st Century while your health is terrible. You and Trump are going extinct because of your execrable behavior. There will be no redemption or even a future for you and you know it, Sicko. You and Trump despair because you know what happens next, the same thing that happened to Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor. It is not Trump and you who will be fine.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, June 7, 2024 1:56 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Bogus doomsaying is bad for progressives

By Kevin Drum | June 7, 2024 – 9:59 am

https://jabberwocking.com/bogus-doomsaying-is-bad-for-progressives/

Why do so many people think that things in the US are far worse than they really are? A big part of the reason is that it's not just individual scientists who are manipulating data to protect their own fiefdoms. On the left, practically the entire think tank industry is dedicated to doomsaying in order to keep the public focused generally on the need for stronger social programs.

We need an eviction crisis to maintain focus on the homeless. We need a safety net crisis to maintain focus on the poor. We need an incarceration crisis to maintain focus on racism. We need a wage crisis to maintain focus on the working class. We need an education crisis to maintain focus on the children. We need a police shooting crisis to maintain focus on social justice. We need a jobs crisis among the young to maintain focus on Gen Z. We need a democracy crisis to maintain focus on Donald Trump. We need a tuition crisis to maintain focus on higher education. We need a lead crisis in Flint to maintain focus on Black people. We need a pandemic education crisis to maintain focus on in-person learning.

Never mind that there is no eviction crisis.
https://jabberwocking.com/evictions-dont-appear-to-have-risen-over-the
-past-year/

Never mind that social spending has skyrocketed over the past few decades.
https://jabberwocking.com/conservatives-have-not-killed-the-welfare-st
ate/

Never mind that incarceration rates among all races have been falling for over a decade.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-incarceration-of-black-men-has-plum
meted/

Never mind that the debate over flat wages is way out of date. Household earnings have increased 0.6% a year for the past 20 years and 1.4% a year for the past decade. Yes, of course this is adjusted for inflation.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/his
torical-income-households.html

Never mind that test data suggests American children are actually doing pretty well.
https://jabberwocking.com/pisa/

Never mind that police shootings of unarmed suspects—of all races—have plummeted over the past decade.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-police-shootings-of-unarmed-suspect
s-are-way-down/

Never mind that Gen Z is doing fine, both on the employment front and elsewhere.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-wages-and-employment-of-the-young/

Never mind that democracy in the US is in excellent shape, both before and after the Trump era.
https://jabberwocking.com/how-are-we-doing-on-the-democracy-front/

Never mind that university tuition hasn't actually risen more than a smidgen over the past several decades.
https://jabberwocking.com/the-cost-of-college-has-barely-changed-in-th
e-past-30-years/

Never mind that the kids in Flint are fine.
https://jabberwocking.com/the-tragedy-of-flint-is-not-what-most-people
-think-it-is/

Never mind that pandemic learning losses seem to have nothing to do with remote learning.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-test-scores-were-the-same-in-states
-that-kept-schools-open-and-closed-during-covid/
https://jabberwocking.com/us-does-surprisingly-well-on-covid-declines-
in-latest-pisa-test/

Needless to say, conservatives do the same thing: They cherry pick statistics to "prove" dubious points that are politically convenient. But generally speaking they use anecdotal outrage to keep their audience motivated. Lefties use an endless barrage of social crises.

What this means is that both sides are in a relentless battle to paint America as a hellscape. Is it any wonder, then, that so many people think America is a hellscape?

This is a particularly bad strategy for progressives. When people are frightened and scared, they tend to vote conservatives. That's why scaring people is a core part of movement conservatism. Conversely, people tend to be more generous and open-minded when they feel good. In the long run, an endless cascade of crises isn't good for the cause, and that's especially true when the crises aren't even real. At the very least, we need to focus on real crises—fentanyl, climate change, Black schoolchildren—and spend a lot less time on the fake ones.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 7, 2024 5:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Get fucked with your propaganda.

Trump will be your next President. If you don't like it, please feel free to leave my country.
My ancestors were here hundreds of years before Trump's arrived from Germany or your stepfather arrived from Mexico. My prosperous descendants outnumber all your relatives, either the 6ixStringJackasses struggling with poverty and mental illness or pretending they are still middle-class. I have NOT been sick even once in the 21st Century while your health is terrible. You and Trump are going extinct because of your execrable behavior. There will be no redemption or even a future for you and you know it, Sicko. You and Trump despair because you know what happens next, the same thing that happened to Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor. It is not Trump and you who will be fine.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Somebody needs to teach junior how sex works.

I don't have any of my step-father's genes, dummy.

We all know everything you have to say about yourself is complete bullshit, so whatever. Don't forget to take the trash out for your mom this week.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Friday, June 7, 2024 5:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Bogus doomsaying is bad for progressives

By Kevin Drum | June 7, 2024 – 9:59 am

https://jabberwocking.com/bogus-doomsaying-is-bad-for-progressives/

Why do so many people think that things in the US are far worse than they really are? A big part of the reason is that it's not just individual scientists who are manipulating data to protect their own fiefdoms. On the left, practically the entire think tank industry is dedicated to doomsaying in order to keep the public focused generally on the need for stronger social programs.

We need an eviction crisis to maintain focus on the homeless. We need a safety net crisis to maintain focus on the poor. We need an incarceration crisis to maintain focus on racism. We need a wage crisis to maintain focus on the working class. We need an education crisis to maintain focus on the children. We need a police shooting crisis to maintain focus on social justice. We need a jobs crisis among the young to maintain focus on Gen Z. We need a democracy crisis to maintain focus on Donald Trump. We need a tuition crisis to maintain focus on higher education. We need a lead crisis in Flint to maintain focus on Black people. We need a pandemic education crisis to maintain focus on in-person learning.

Never mind that there is no eviction crisis.
https://jabberwocking.com/evictions-dont-appear-to-have-risen-over-the
-past-year/

Never mind that social spending has skyrocketed over the past few decades.
https://jabberwocking.com/conservatives-have-not-killed-the-welfare-st
ate/

Never mind that incarceration rates among all races have been falling for over a decade.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-incarceration-of-black-men-has-plum
meted/

Never mind that the debate over flat wages is way out of date. Household earnings have increased 0.6% a year for the past 20 years and 1.4% a year for the past decade. Yes, of course this is adjusted for inflation.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/his
torical-income-households.html

Never mind that test data suggests American children are actually doing pretty well.
https://jabberwocking.com/pisa/

Never mind that police shootings of unarmed suspects—of all races—have plummeted over the past decade.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-police-shootings-of-unarmed-suspect
s-are-way-down/

Never mind that Gen Z is doing fine, both on the employment front and elsewhere.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-wages-and-employment-of-the-young/

Never mind that democracy in the US is in excellent shape, both before and after the Trump era.
https://jabberwocking.com/how-are-we-doing-on-the-democracy-front/

Never mind that university tuition hasn't actually risen more than a smidgen over the past several decades.
https://jabberwocking.com/the-cost-of-college-has-barely-changed-in-th
e-past-30-years/

Never mind that the kids in Flint are fine.
https://jabberwocking.com/the-tragedy-of-flint-is-not-what-most-people
-think-it-is/

Never mind that pandemic learning losses seem to have nothing to do with remote learning.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-test-scores-were-the-same-in-states
-that-kept-schools-open-and-closed-during-covid/
https://jabberwocking.com/us-does-surprisingly-well-on-covid-declines-
in-latest-pisa-test/

Needless to say, conservatives do the same thing: They cherry pick statistics to "prove" dubious points that are politically convenient. But generally speaking they use anecdotal outrage to keep their audience motivated. Lefties use an endless barrage of social crises.

What this means is that both sides are in a relentless battle to paint America as a hellscape. Is it any wonder, then, that so many people think America is a hellscape?

This is a particularly bad strategy for progressives. When people are frightened and scared, they tend to vote conservatives. That's why scaring people is a core part of movement conservatism. Conversely, people tend to be more generous and open-minded when they feel good. In the long run, an endless cascade of crises isn't good for the cause, and that's especially true when the crises aren't even real. At the very least, we need to focus on real crises—fentanyl, climate change, Black schoolchildren—and spend a lot less time on the fake ones.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Kevin Dumb is working overtime doing those mental gymnastics to make his world view fit the actual real world which looks nothing like the world he sees from his hospice bed.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, June 8, 2024 7:52 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Kevin Dumb is working overtime doing those mental gymnastics to make his world view fit the actual real world which looks nothing like the world he sees from his hospice bed.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

6ix, lying and being stupid caused your troubled life. But you are exactly like every other Trumptard, including Trump.

Car sales are just fine, despite what Trumptards claim
https://jabberwocking.com/car-sales-are-just-fine/

Another headline today:

Really? Naturally this got me curious, especially since I was pretty sure I knew the answer. Here are new vehicle sales:

From 2000 through the beginning of 2020, unit sales clock in at an annualized rate of 16.13 million. For the last 12 months sales have averaged 16.15 million. There's no decline.

As it happens, most of the article is just a bitch session among enthusiasts about how new cars can't hold a candle to old cars. The old ones had V-8s, stick shifts, knobs instead of touch screens, etc. etc.

Fine. Nothing wrong with bitching. But if you're going to say that unhappiness about new cars is widespread enough to cut into sales, you should check first to see if sales are actually down.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, June 8, 2024 9:49 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Democrats are in a fight against fascism
By Edward McKinley, Austin Bureau, Houston Chronicle, June 8, 2024

Beto O’Rourke thinks this year’s election is not just a battle between Democrats and Republicans but a fight between democratic values and the spread of fascism in America.

“There’s no use trying to save people's feelings in the process,” he said in an interview Friday from his home in El Paso. “I think we just have to be really direct. And make sure everyone’s eyes are wide open and understand the stakes of this election.”

Former President Donald Trump is seeking to “bring dramatic fascism to this country” in his bid for a second term.

O’Rourke said Trump’s talk about immigrants poisoning America and his since-deleted social media post last month mentioning a “unified Reich” would have been at home in Mein Kampf or straight “from the mouth of Adolf Hitler.”

https://tinyurl.com/2xcuvfwc

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, June 8, 2024 2:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Democrats are in a fight against fascism

No they're not.

Democrats are fascists.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, June 8, 2024 2:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Kevin Dumb is working overtime doing those mental gymnastics to make his world view fit the actual real world which looks nothing like the world he sees from his hospice bed.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
6ix, lying and being stupid caused your troubled life. But you are exactly like every other Trumptard, including Trump.

Troubled how?

I don't ever have to do anything I don't want to do. Ever.

Everything else is just gravy.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, June 8, 2024 2:24 PM