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:

You just said Republicans were fascists.

The same rules don't apply to you. Imagine that, huh?

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

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

As with Trump, the troubles his Trumptards and 6ix get into are their own fault.

Trump’s Bizarre Moments With Dr. Phil and Hannity Should Alarm Us All

Earth to media: The criminal prosecutions of Trump are legitimate. The “revenge” he’s promising would be wholly illegitimate. Time to make that a whole lot clearer.

By Greg Sargent | June 8, 2024

https://newrepublic.com/article/182480/trump-dr-phil-hannity-bizarre-m
oments-alarm

The whole idea that Trump is seeking “revenge” is itself spin. There is nothing for Trump to legitimately seek revenge in this manner for, as Biden and Democrats did not unjustly victimize him with these prosecutions; he brought them upon himself. So what’s the proper response to such elaborate levels of deception and propaganda?

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

Saturday, June 8, 2024 6:28 PM

All the trouble you get into is your own fault.

All the trouble anybody gets into is their own fault.

Next.

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

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

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

Saturday, June 8, 2024 7:24 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:
All the trouble you get into is your own fault.

All the trouble anybody gets into is their own fault.

Next.

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

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

Trump is in trouble but he says it is the judge's fault, not his.

Trump Wants to Jail His Judge. Here’s the Truth: He’s a Hero

The judge Trump called “a tyrant” regularly shines the light of fairness and empathy on defendants with mental illnesses.

By Michael Daly | Jun. 08, 2024 9:49AM EDT

The judge whom Trump had called a “devil” and “crooked” and “a tyrant” is in fact as close as New York City has to a hero on the bench, regularly bringing the light of fairness and empathy to Part 59M.

Instead of Donald Trump, the defendant’s chair was occupied by a woman who had entered a program for defendants with a serious mental illness after pleading guilty to theft and assault. She had been scheduled to appear on the morning of May 29 for a monthly evaluation, but it was rescheduled because the Trump jury was deliberating. The jurors had returned early the following evening and repeated the word “guilty” 34 times while people in the packed courtroom strained to discern even the tiniest sign of Trump’s reaction.

The courtroom was now largely empty, but the 62-year-old jurist on the bench was the same. New York County Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan began by addressing this defendant just as he had the defendant in the hush-money case.

Merchan has been the presiding judge in Manhattan Mental Health Court since its inception 13 years ago. It convenes every Wednesday to provide what The New York State Office of Court Administration describes as “a comprehensive system of oversight and treatment to eligible defendants with mental illness.” He is not some reflexively permissive pushover; if you fail to live up to your commitments, you are liable to do more time than if you had never entered the program. He is assisted by Amber Petitt-Cifarelli, a resource coordinator who sits to his right. She says that many of the successful defendants share a motivation.

“They don’t want to disappoint the judge,” she said. “People feel really seen and heard by the judge and have a sense of fairness in the courtroom,” Petitt-Cifarelli told The Daily Beast.

More at https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-trumps-devil-judge-juan-merchan-sho
uld-really-be-known-for

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

Saturday, June 8, 2024 8:55 PM

Nobody cares about your TDS dude.

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

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

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

Sunday, June 9, 2024 7:40 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:
Nobody cares about your TDS dude.

6ixStringJackass, you are a stupid asshole like all Trumptards. That's why Trumptards are bitter and angry at the world, which is punishing them for what they are.

The real world knows you for what you are and what you do. Excluding from knowing are other Trumptards. They don't even know why Trump earned the punishment he is receiving.

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

Sunday, June 9, 2024 7:40 AM

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

Trumptards (and their media enablers) are into an all-out attack on critical thinking and the rule of law

By Mike Lofgren | June 9, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/09/what-a-fool-believes-donald-and-ameri
cas-bogus-respect-for-faith/

Last summer’s federal indictment of Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol released a flood of concern-trolling from the establishment media. The arguments revealed something sadly defective about the intellectual tenor of the present age, a mindset that cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy. It is the root cause of American political and social dysfunction.

The verdict of the prestige journals was remarkably consistent: Trump’s eventual trial would hinge, not upon facts, evidence and patterns of behavior involving him or other actors in the case, nor on whether the trial scrupulously upheld the law and proper judicial procedure, but on subjective matters concerning the defendant’s beliefs, feelings and motivations, as well as how the public perceived the trial through the polarizing lens of political partisanship.

You know what’s coming when you read a headline like this New York Times howler: “Trump Election Charges Set Up Clash of Lies Versus Free Speech.” Really? Conspiring to violently overthrow the government and then inciting a mob to do it is just a little free-spirited political rhetoric, such as to allow legitimate disagreement? Does that require us to set aside the fact that people were killed?

The Wall Street Journal, as you might expect, chimed in with this one: “Trump Is Being Prosecuted, but Justice Department Is on Trial, Too.” Both-sides-ism, much?

But the absurdity of the media mentality is perhaps best captured by this Washington Post headline: “Heart of the Trump Jan. 6 indictment: What’s in Trump’s head.” Absent some breakthrough in neuroscience, what goes on in the minds of others is denied to us; just as a scientist can’t infer the intentions of the solar system, only its behavior, we can only draw conclusions from a person’s words and actions, not his subjective state of mind. In all the media reports I have cited, the journalists seem to have made Trump the final arbiter of his own intent.

If criminal conviction depended on a defendant’s own representation of his state of mind, there could be no law enforcement. But the unspoken premise of legal experts typically quoted in the media is that a default assumption of benign intent only applies to certain claimants like Trump. Try robbing a 7-Eleven or stealing a police cruiser and I doubt the judicial system will be unduly concerned about what was going on in your head, or your claims that it was free expression under the First Amendment.

More at https://www.salon.com/2024/06/09/what-a-fool-believes-donald-and-ameri
cas-bogus-respect-for-faith/

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

Sunday, June 9, 2024 3:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody cares about your TDS dude.
6ixStringJackass, you are a stupid asshole like all Trumptards. That's why Trumptards are bitter and angry at the world, which is punishing them for what they are.

The real world knows you for what you are and what you do. Excluding from knowing are other Trumptards. They don't even know why Trump earned the punishment he is receiving.

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

Awwwwwwwww...

Somebody is really salty that they're about to lose everything in the upcoming election.

Boo hoo

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

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

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

Sunday, June 9, 2024 3:44 PM

Pure evil, photographed...

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

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

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

Sunday, June 9, 2024 3:48 PM

https://jabberwocking.com/three-charts-about-presidential-taxing-and-s
pending/

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oNvZ

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

Here are three charts showing fiscal discipline for every president since Ronald Reagan. They show three things.

First, Republicans raise a lot less revenue than Democrats. Second, Republicans blow up spending while Democrats keep it under control. Third, as a result, deficits generally get worse under Republicans and improve under Democrats.

There's a bonus fourth chart at the bottom that shows annual GDP growth. Democratic presidents rank first and third, so there's obviously no penalty for Democratic policies.

POSTSCRIPT: Is the spending chart unfair to Donald Trump since it includes lot of bipartisan COVID spending? Sure. But his second budget was 6.3% higher than his first one. He was on track to blow up spending all on his own.

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

Sunday, June 9, 2024 6:41 PM

Yup, he sure is.

T

'A draft dodger': Vets slam Trump in new Biden campaign ad

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 6:07 AM

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

Opinion | The Day My Old Church Canceled Me Was a Very Sad Day

By David French | June 9, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/opinion/presbyterian-church-evangel
ical-canceled.html

This week, the leaders of the Presbyterian Church in America will gather in Richmond, Va., for their annual General Assembly. The Presbyterian Church in America is a small, theologically conservative Christian denomination that was my family’s church home for more than 15 years.

It just canceled me.

I am now deemed too divisive to speak to a gathering of Christians who share my faith. I was scheduled to speak about the challenges of dealing with toxic polarization, but I was considered too polarizing.

I was originally invited to join three other panelists on the topic of “how to be supportive of your pastor and church leaders in a polarized political year.” One of the reasons I was invited was precisely that I’ve been the target of intense attacks online and in real life.

The instant my participation was announced, those attacks started up again. There were misleading essays, vicious tweets, letters and even a parody song directed at the denomination and at me. The message was clear: Get him off the stage.

And that’s what the conference organizers chose to do. They didn’t just cancel me. They canceled the entire panel. But the reason was obvious: My presence would raise concerns about the peace and unity of the church.

Our family joined the P.C.A. denomination in 2004. We lived in Philadelphia and attended Tenth Presbyterian Church in Center City. At the time, the denomination fit us perfectly. I’m conservative theologically and politically, and in 2004 I was still a partisan Republican. At the same time, however, I perceived the denomination as relatively apolitical. I never heard political messages from the pulpit, and I worshiped alongside Democratic friends.

When we moved to Tennessee in 2006, we selected our house in part because it was close to a P.C.A. church, and that church became the center of our lives. On Sundays we attended services, and Monday through Friday our kids attended the school our church founded and supported.

We loved the people in that church, and they loved us. When I deployed to Iraq in 2007, the entire church rallied to support my family and to support the men I served with. They flooded our small forward operating base with care packages, and back home, members of the church helped my wife and children with meals, car repairs and plenty of love and companionship in anxious times.

Two things happened that changed our lives, however, and in hindsight they’re related. First, in 2010, we adopted a 2-year-old girl from Ethiopia. Second, in 2015, Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign.

There was no way I could support Trump. It wasn’t just his obvious lack of character that troubled me; he was opening the door to a level of extremism and malice in Republican politics that I’d never encountered before. Trump’s rise coincided with the rise of the alt-right.

I was a senior writer for National Review at the time, and when I wrote pieces critical of Trump, members of the alt-right pounced, and they attacked us through our daughter. They pulled pictures of her from social media and photoshopped her into gas chambers and lynchings. Trolls found my wife’s blog on a religious website called Patheos and filled the comments section with gruesome pictures of dead and dying Black victims of crime and war. We also received direct threats.

The experience was shocking. At times, it was terrifying. And so we did what we always did in times of trouble: We turned to our church for support and comfort. Our pastors and close friends came to our aid, but support was hardly universal. The church as a whole did not respond the way it did when I deployed. Instead, we began encountering racism and hatred up close, from people in our church and in our church school.

The racism was grotesque. One church member asked my wife why we couldn’t adopt from Norway rather than Ethiopia. A teacher at the school asked my son if we had purchased his sister for a “loaf of bread.” We later learned that there were coaches and teachers who used racial slurs to describe the few Black students at the school. There were terrible incidents of peer racism, including a student telling my daughter that slavery was good for Black people because it taught them how to live in America. Another told her that she couldn’t come to our house to play because “my dad said Black people are dangerous.”

There were disturbing political confrontations. A church elder came up to my wife and me after one service to criticize our opposition to Trump and told me to “get your wife under control” after she contrasted his support for Trump with his opposition to Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Another man confronted me at the communion table.

On several occasions, men approached my wife when I was out of town, challenging her to defend my writing and sometimes quoting a far-right pastor named Douglas Wilson. Wilson is a notorious Christian nationalist and slavery apologist who once wrote that abolitionists were “driven by a zealous hatred of the word of God” and that “slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the war or since.”
http://archive.moscowid.net/1996/06/01/southern-slavery-as-it-was/
https://susannalee.org/courses/print/Wilkins-Wilson_1996-print.pdf

We also began to see the denomination itself with new eyes. To my shame, the racism and extremism within the denomination was invisible to us before our own ordeal. But there is a faction of explicitly authoritarian Christian nationalists in the church, and some of that Christian nationalism has disturbing racial elements underpinning it.

A member of the denomination wrote “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” one of the most popular Christian nationalist books of the Trump era. It argues that “no nation (properly conceived) is composed of two or more ethnicities” and that “to exclude an out-group is to recognize a universal good for man.” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/christian-nationalism-wolfe/

I do not want to paint with too broad a brush. Our pastors and close friends continued to stand with us. Our church disciplined the man who confronted me about Trump during communion. And most church members didn’t follow politics closely and had no idea about any of the attacks we faced.

But for us, church no longer felt like home. We could withstand the trolls online. We could guard against physical threats. But it was hard to live without any respite, and the targeting of my children was a bridge too far. So we left for a wonderful multiethnic church in Nashville. We didn’t leave Christianity; we left a church that inflicted harm on my family.

I still have many friends in the Presbyterian Church in America, people who are fighting the very forces that drove us from the church. In March, one of those friends reached out and asked if I’d join a panel at this year’s General Assembly.

I agreed to come. The P.C.A. extended a formal invitation for me to join a panel with three church elders to speak at a session before the main event. I knew the invitation would be controversial. Members of the denomination have continued to attack me online. But that was part of the point of the panel. My experience was directly relevant to others who might find themselves in the cross hairs of extremists.

The anger against me wasn’t simply over my opposition to Trump. It was directly related to the authoritarian turn in white evangelical politics. My commitment to individual liberty and pluralism means that I defend the civil liberties of all Americans, including people with whom I have substantial disagreements. A number of Republican evangelicals are furious at me, for example, for defending the civil liberties of drag queens and L.G.B.T.Q. families. A writer for The Federalist ranted that granting me a platform was akin to “giving the wolf a brand-new wool coat and microphone and daring the sheep to object.”

The panel was announced on May 9. On May 14, the denomination caved. It canceled the panel, and in its public statement, I was to blame. I was sacrificed on the altar of peace and unity. But it is a false peace and a false unity if extremists can bully a family out of a church and then block the church from hearing one of its former members describe his experience. It is a false peace and a false unity if it is preserved by granting the most malicious members of the congregation veto power over church events.

When I left the Republican Party, I thought a shared faith would preserve my denominational home. But I was wrong. Race and politics trumped truth and grace, and now I’m no longer welcome in the church I loved.

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 7:46 AM

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

The difference between a 6-3 Supreme Court and a 7-2 or 8-1 Supreme Court is enormous

I am begging the justices to learn from Ruth Bader Ginsburg's historic mistake.

No matter how far the Supreme Court moves to the right, liberals will always win some high-profile victories before the justices. That’s because lawyers are smart, and when the Court lurches rightward, right-wing lawyers start bringing more and more aggressive cases to see what they can get away with until they eventually find the point where a majority of the justices balk.

Earlier this term, for example, the Supreme Court reversed a decision by the right-wing United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which declared the entire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unconstitutional. The Fifth Circuit’s decision rested on a completely made-up theory of the Constitution that even Justice Clarence Thomas deemed to be a bridge too far. It also threatened to so disrupt the US banking system that the Fifth Circuit’s approach could have triggered a second Great Depression.

Yet, while this catastrophe was averted, the vote was not unanimous. Two justices – Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – voted to roll the dice on an economic depression. So did seven judges on the Fifth Circuit.

The point is that many Republican appointees to the federal bench embrace arguments that no rational person would endorse. And, with each seat Trump fills on the Supreme Court, the risk increases that the Court will do permanent damage to the United States, its economy, and its democracy.

Even setting aside this risk, countless rights that millions of Americans take for granted will be on the chopping block if Sotomayor and Kagan are swapped out for, say, another Clarence Thomas.

More at https://www.vox.com/scotus/354381/supreme-court-sotomayor-kagan-retire
-now

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 8:35 AM

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

While Trump remains free on his own recognizance, he will soon be interviewed by a probation officer or psychologist for a pre-sentence report that Judge Merchan will use to help decide his punishment.

During the interview, Trump can “try to make a good impression and explain why he or she deserves a lighter punishment,” according to the New York State Unified Court System.

The report may also include interviews with Trump’s family and friends, as well as others involved in the case. It may also include Trump’s personal history, criminal record, and recommendations for sentencing.

How Trump’s Life Will Change Now That He’s a Convicted Felon

https://time.com/6985067/donald-trump-felon-travel-guns-voting/

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 8:56 AM

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

Over the last two decades, Republican Supreme Court justices have accepted gifts valued at $4,780,720.

"Public servants who make four times the median local salary, and who can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, hunting excursions and club memberships — to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their 'generosity.'"

Republican Justice Thomas received gifts totaling $4,042,286.

https://www.newsweek.com/scotus-gifts-explained-3-charts-supreme-court
-justices-clarence-thomas-1909482

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 12:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Over the last two decades, Republican Supreme Court justices have accepted gifts valued at $4,780,720.

"Public servants who make four times the median local salary, and who can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, hunting excursions and club memberships — to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their 'generosity.'"

Republican Justice Thomas received gifts totaling $4,042,286.

https://www.newsweek.com/scotus-gifts-explained-3-charts-supreme-court
-justices-clarence-thomas-1909482

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

They're way behind Nancy...

Heard that she and Paul just made a killing recently on microprocessors. What a lucky market pick.

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

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

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 1:01 PM

Here's the website that Newsweek was using as a source for that article.

https://fixthecourt.com/2024/06/a-staggering-tally-supreme-court-justi
ces-accepted-hundreds-of-gifts-worth-millions-of-dollars/

Right toward the top they have a link that says "See a list of all the gifts here".

Oh, great! We've got everything documented to look at for ourselves.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14l25NLvBOd9sk4mArK4k7dtV0MUwxr
5GBuLHL5Sp8lo/edit?pli=1#gid=957411191

In 1996, Thomas got a ticket to a Cowboys game valued at $500.

In 1992, he was provided with round trip private airfare to a Cowboys game that was valued at $68,333. (More than my house cost when I bought it with cash in 2012).

These numbers are hyper-inflated, especially for the time they took place.

Looking at this list is like watching an episode of Storage Wars and watching those dummies ramble off what the junk in the locker they bought is worth and the money just piling up in a graphic on screen for all the dummies watching it to just believe that all the crap they bought was actually worth something.

How much are Dallas Cowboys tickets now?

Quote:
How much are Dallas Cowboys tickets?

https://seatgeek.com/dallas-cowboys-tickets

Ticket prices for Dallas Cowboys games vary depending on factors such as seat location, venue, the opposing team and whether it’s a preseason, regular season or playoff game. This season, the lowest price for Cowboys tickets is approximately $23, with an average price of $501. Ticket prices fluctuate daily, so to stay up-to-date on the best pricing, hit the ‘heart’ icon on the event listing you’re interested in.

The average price of a Cowboys ticket in 2024 is $501, with the lowest price currently at $23.

But Roberts was gifted a single Cowboys ticket in 1992 and 1996 (30 years ago on average) that were both valued in the chart at $500.

In 1996 he was gifted a ticket to a Florida Panthers hockey game that was also valued at a nice round $500. Now I can't find any information about ticket prices for the Panthers, but I do have some ticket stubs from 1996 here.

$26.48 is the price listed on the ticket here.

https://buylase.ru/product/276004433228

And this one was for the 1996 Stanley Cup, listed at only $160.

https://www.flapanthersvault.com/item/stanley-cup-game-1-ticket-1996/?
postId=1814

If you're going to collate a lot of data and make claims like this, you'd better be able to back up those claims. Nobody with two firing brain cells is going to look at this list and take it seriously.

I'm all for making sure that every person working for the government isn't allowed to make money off of their positions outside of the salary that comes with the job. But we don't get to cherry pick who gets taken down by gifts when they ALL take gifts.

And half-assed, hit-piece efforts like this with made up figures are not helping anyone remediate any problems.

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

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

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 1:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack (May 31st):
It looks like we get to add Virginia to the list of blue states that are now toss ups too.

That electoral college map just keeps looking worse and worse for Joe Biden* every month.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack (June 7th):
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.

New Polls Make Virginia a "Toss-Up" State in 2024 Election

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/06/10/tom_bevan_new_polls
_make_virginia_a_toss-up_state_in_2024_election.html

Yup.

Tick Tock

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

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

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 3:00 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:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Over the last two decades, Republican Supreme Court justices have accepted gifts valued at $4,780,720.

"Public servants who make four times the median local salary, and who can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, hunting excursions and club memberships — to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their 'generosity.'"

Republican Justice Thomas received gifts totaling $4,042,286.

https://www.newsweek.com/scotus-gifts-explained-3-charts-supreme-court
-justices-clarence-thomas-1909482

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

They're way behind Nancy...

Heard that she and Paul just made a killing recently on microprocessors. What a lucky market pick.

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

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

You missed that Justice Thomas is accepting bribes from Corporations with cases he is deciding in their favor.

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 9:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Over the last two decades, Republican Supreme Court justices have accepted gifts valued at $4,780,720.

"Public servants who make four times the median local salary, and who can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, hunting excursions and club memberships — to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their 'generosity.'"

Republican Justice Thomas received gifts totaling $4,042,286.

https://www.newsweek.com/scotus-gifts-explained-3-charts-supreme-court
-justices-clarence-thomas-1909482

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

They're way behind Nancy...

Heard that she and Paul just made a killing recently on microprocessors. What a lucky market pick.

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

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
You missed that Justice Thomas is accepting bribes from Corporations with cases he is deciding in their favor.

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

I didn't miss it. I ignored their claims that he has. They can't even bother to get small details right with their "research", so I'm not going to buy any claims they're making on the bigger picture. I went into detail on the post below the one you quoted.

Be better reporters, data gatherers, and fact checkers, and serious people might take your claims seriously.

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

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

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

Monday, June 10, 2024 11:07 PM

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

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Not Paying Taxes.
Why America’s oligarchs are rallying around Trump.

June 10, 2024, 7:00 p.m. ET

An American flag being flown upside-down next to the flag of the Heritage Foundation.
Outside the Heritage Foundation in Washington on May 31.Credit...Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

After Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, the Heritage Foundation — a right-wing think tank that has, among other things, produced the Project 2025 agenda, a blueprint for policy if Trump wins — flew an upside-down American flag, which has become an emblem for support of MAGA in general and election denial in particular.

This action may have shocked some old-line conservatives who still thought of Heritage as a serious institution, but Heritage is, after all, just a think tank. It’s not as if upside-down flags were being flown by people we expect to defend our constitutional order, like Supreme Court justices.

Oh, wait.

But Heritage’s embrace of what amounts to an attack on democracy is a useful symbol of one of the really troubling developments of this election as it heads into the final stretch. Heritage presents itself as a defender of freedom, but its real mission has always been to produce arguments — frequently based on shoddy research — for low taxes on rich people. And its tacit endorsement of lawlessness illustrates the way many of America’s plutocrats — both in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street — have, after flirting with the crank candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., been rallying around Trump.

Why would billionaires support Trump? It’s not as if they’ve done badly under President Biden. Stock prices — which Trump predicted would crash if he lost in 2020 — have soared. High interest rates, which are a burden on many Americans, are if anything a net positive for wealthy people with money to invest. And I doubt that the superrich are suffering much from higher prices for fast food.

Wealthy Americans, though, are surely betting they’ll pay lower taxes if Trump wins.

Biden and his team have offered fairly explicit guidance about their tax agenda, which would directly raise taxes on high-income Americans and also raise corporate taxes, which would indirectly be mainly a tax on the wealthy. These measures wouldn’t produce taxes at the top remotely comparable to what they were during the Eisenhower years, when the top marginal income tax rate was 91 percent and large estates could face inheritance taxes as high as 77 percent. Still, Biden’s plans, if carried out, would make the rich a bit less rich.

Trump has been far less explicit, but he clearly wants to retain his 2017 tax cut in full, and his allies in Congress are committed not just to tax cuts but to starving the Internal Revenue Service of resources, which would allow more wealthy Americans to evade the taxes they legally owe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/10/opinion/trump-biden-billionaires-ta
xes.html

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:20 AM

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

NEWS FLASH

The twice-impeached convicted felon Republicans are running for President — an adjudicated rapist who has been found liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties and now awaits trial in three much more serious criminal cases — who cheated to get into college and cheated to get out of the draft, cheated on his wives, cheats at golf, cheated on his taxes, cheated contractors, cheated with his charity and stiffed creditors of the four companies he put into bankruptcy — “the undisputed world champion of destroying things,” as Tucker Carlson put it, whom dozens of his own former top staffers consider dangerously unfit for the job — met with his probation officer yesterday.

Is this a great country or what?

https://andrewtobias.com/120786-2/

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:25 AM

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

Trump Finally Admits What He Thinks of His Supporters

Trump’s latest admission of apathy while holding rallies that keep sending people to the hospital speaks volumes about Trump’s perception of his base.

“He talked all the time about the people themselves being disgusting,” Olivia Troye, former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, told The New York Times in 2020 while discussing Trump’s view of his supporters. “It was clear immediately that he wanted nothing to do with them.”

https://newrepublic.com/post/182499/trump-admits-thinks-supporters

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:26 AM

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

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Not Paying Taxes.
Why America’s oligarchs are rallying around Trump.

June 10, 2024, 7:00 p.m. ET

After Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, the Heritage Foundation — a right-wing think tank that has, among other things, produced the Project 2025 agenda, a blueprint for policy if Trump wins — flew an upside-down American flag, which has become an emblem for support of MAGA in general and election denial in particular.

This action may have shocked some old-line conservatives who still thought of Heritage as a serious institution, but Heritage is, after all, just a think tank. It’s not as if upside-down flags were being flown by people we expect to defend our constitutional order, like Supreme Court justices.

Oh, wait.

But Heritage’s embrace of what amounts to an attack on democracy is a useful symbol of one of the really troubling developments of this election as it heads into the final stretch. Heritage presents itself as a defender of freedom, but its real mission has always been to produce arguments — frequently based on shoddy research — for low taxes on rich people. And its tacit endorsement of lawlessness illustrates the way many of America’s plutocrats — both in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street — have, after flirting with the crank candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., been rallying around Trump.

Why would billionaires support Trump? It’s not as if they’ve done badly under President Biden. Stock prices — which Trump predicted would crash if he lost in 2020 — have soared. High interest rates, which are a burden on many Americans, are if anything a net positive for wealthy people with money to invest. And I doubt that the superrich are suffering much from higher prices for fast food.

Wealthy Americans, though, are surely betting they’ll pay lower taxes if Trump wins.

Biden and his team have offered fairly explicit guidance about their tax agenda, which would directly raise taxes on high-income Americans and also raise corporate taxes, which would indirectly be mainly a tax on the wealthy. These measures wouldn’t produce taxes at the top remotely comparable to what they were during the Eisenhower years, when the top marginal income tax rate was 91 percent and large estates could face inheritance taxes as high as 77 percent. Still, Biden’s plans, if carried out, would make the rich a bit less rich.

Trump has been far less explicit, but he clearly wants to retain his 2017 tax cut in full, and his allies in Congress are committed not just to tax cuts but to starving the Internal Revenue Service of resources, which would allow more wealthy Americans to evade the taxes they legally owe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/10/opinion/trump-biden-billionaires-ta
xes.html

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:56 AM

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

Why Two Simple Words Bother Trump So Much

The former president’s fury over a Biden ad highlighting his comments about fallen U.S. soldiers shows he can dish out his favorite insults but can’t take them in return.

By Jake Lahut, Michael Daly | Jun. 11, 2024 4:46 AM EDT

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-two-simple-words-bother-trump-so-muc
h

Donald Trump has always been comfortable hurling insults. Yet for all his bluster, the more the 2024 U.S. presidential election heats up, the more one thing becomes clear: The former president can dish it, but when it comes to a specific type of insult, he can’t take it.

He hates being called a “loser.” Or, for that matter, a “sucker.”

Those words came to the fore again on Sunday, when Trump demanded Joe Biden’s campaign take down an attack ad quoting back at Trump some of his most infamous insults: those directed towards U.S. soldiers, including those killed in combat.

As first reported by The Atlantic in 2020 and later confirmed by John Kelly, the retired U.S. Marine Corps general who became Trump’s second White House chief of staff, in conversations around a canceled visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France in 2018, Trump called fallen U.S. soldiers both “losers” and “suckers”.

Trump has always denied the remarks. But after the Biden campaign included them in its ad released last week, while President Joe Biden visited Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s anger showed his opponent had gotten under his skin.

First, at a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, Trump told supporters Biden “said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers, the dead soldiers from World War I.’’’ Labeling the whole episode “made up,” Trump said the Biden campaign were “sick people” for making the ad.

Later, Trump posted similar comments to his Truth Social platform, adding: “The Military hates Crooked Joe, and all of the failure he represents. Take down the Fake Ad, Joe.”

Contacted for comment on Monday, Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager and a combat veteran wounded in the Gulf War, unleashed a furious near-200-word statement.

Even before the new Biden campaign ad drew so fierce a response from Trumpworld, however, former and current Trump officials who spoke with The Daily Beast agreed that among all Trump’s controversies, the one over the “suckers” and “losers” comments is one that really bothers its subject.

“He just has no concept of service, that’s the main thing here,” said one former senior Trump White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about a president who as a young man avoided wartime service in Vietnam. “So it’s really difficult for him to imagine why people would even [serve in combat]. It’s just a whole foreign thing to him.”

A high-ranking Trumpworld strategist, meanwhile, said Trump’s fury over the Biden campaign’s use of the “suckers” and “losers” comments pointed to perhaps Trump’s biggest fear: being called a “loser” himself.

“The biggest insult to him to get under his skin is that he lost in 2020, he lost his court case and he’s convicted now” on 34 criminal charges, the strategist said.

In comparison, the strategist said, “You can call him fat, call him an insurrectionist, call him a racist [but] that’s just not gonna stick.”

Going to the molten core of Trump’s ego—that’s how Democrats can provoke the strongest response, the GOP strategist said.

“I think his deepest fear, or the deepest psychology with Donald Trump is that he [didn’t win] the 2020 election [when] he’s won everything in life,” the Republican said. “That’s the pressure. He’s married hot women, he built famous buildings, he had a highly rated, successful TV show. And he became president, right?”

But according to the Republicans who spoke to The Daily Beast, Trump’s blow-up over the Biden ad revealed that despite the perceived professionalism of his current campaign team, the candidate’s insecurities have only gotten worse with time.

While none of the Trumpworld figures were certified psychologists, what they were describing effectively amounted to projection. Trump’s favorite insult is also the one he fears most when applied to him: being called a “loser.”

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 7:03 AM

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

The "real crisis" for Trump comes at sentencing: "He can't apologize"
"If you refuse to acknowledge and take responsibility for wrongdoing, you're sure to get a longer tougher sentence"

By Chauncey DeVega | June 11, 2024 5:45AM (EDT)

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/11/the-real-crisis-for-comes-at-sentenci
ng-he-cant-apologize/

Donald Trump is utterly and totally predictable. He is aggressive, violent, hostile, antisocial, and impulsive with an unquenchable thirst for power in all its forms. His prime directive is to always attack. Donald Trump was taught this by his infamous mentor, the political fixer and attorney Roy Cohn. Trump’s personality and Cohn’s teachings were a perfect fit for each another.

It has served him remarkably well in politics. He won the presidency, took over the Republican Party, survived two impeachments, and is now tied with President Biden in the early 2024 polls despite attempting a coup and being convicted of a criminal felony. The latter "distinction" may actually help his popularity with his MAGA followers and other supporters.

When cornered or confronted, Donald Trump responds by lying, obfuscating, evading, and then becoming even more aggressive. To wit: After being convicted in his New York hush-money election interference trial, Donald Trump was not cowed or humbled. He instead escalated his threats of revenge and retribution against his perceived enemies. Trump’s revenge and retribution, per his repeated public statements and promises to be the country's first dictator, will almost certainly include imprisonment and executions for “treason.”

Trump will be sentenced in July for his crimes of paying hush-money payments as part of his election interference scheme. This week, Trump is scheduled for a pre-sentencing interview that will help to determine if Judge Merchan (who presided over his trial in New York) will put him in prison. Trump’s prime directive of ruthless aggression may backfire here, with him being sentenced to prison for his crimes and continued refusal to show any type of contrition.

Like Donald Trump, the American mainstream news media is also almost totally and utterly predictable. Even after eight years of experience with Trump and his assaults on democracy and norms, they continue to normalize him and the MAGA movement. This is functionally the same as surrender.

As a class, America’s elites have been trained by Trump’s constant attacks as well. They are now positioning themselves for maximum profit and opportunism (and survival) with the assumption that Donald Trump is going to defeat President Biden and become the country’s first dictator.

"Putting Donald Trump in jail will not make him more powerful, it will further diminish him."

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and bestselling author who teaches at Syracuse University College of Law, although he is not a lawyer. He has written three books about Donald Trump, who Johnston has covered for 36 years. In this conversation, he reflects on the hush-money election interference trial and what it feels like to finally see Donald Trump held somewhat accountable for his decades-long crime spree. Johnston also puts Trump’s “guilty” verdict in a much larger context as reflecting the moral rot of today’s Republican Party and larger “conservative” movement – and American society more broadly.

Johnston also shares his thoughts about what Trump’s conviction will mean (or not) for the 2024 election and how the American mainstream news media remains most ill-equipped and negligent in how it is covering the corrupt ex-president and the existential threat to democracy embodied by his MAGA movement and the other neofascist forces.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length:

You have been reporting about Donald Trump for many years. How does it feel to finally see him convicted of a felony?

I’m not giddy or elated. This is a very sad day for America. And it's sadder because tens of millions of Americans think that Trump is their savior, their leader, their hero. I do feel some sense of relief. I wrote a piece at DCReport, the lede of which was, "Donald Trump is a felon. I've waited 36 years to write that." But I was surprised at the feeling I had when the verdicts came in, which was kind of flat.

More at https://www.salon.com/2024/06/11/the-real-crisis-for-comes-at-sentenci
ng-he-cant-apologize/

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 8:27 AM

Why Trump Will Lead Republicans to Historic Defeat

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 12:33 PM

Paul Ryan Goes Public With Urgent Warning About Electing Trump

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:16 PM

I see you boys are working overtime today.

Thank you, BTW Ted, for further illustrating my point that you're a NeoCon by putting Paul Ryan's unwanted mug up in here today too. You really love the Ryans and the Cheneys and all of the very worst of the GWB era Republican party.

Look at the polls and that's all you need to know.

Joe Biden* has been down since September of last year. And nothing you've done to Trump has changed any of that. Nothing you will do to Trump will change any of that.

We're only still talking about "7 swing states" and Trump is up in all of them. Even Nate Silver/538 agrees on that, and currently gives Trump even better chances than RCP does across the board.

3 or 4 of those swing states are virtually out of reach for Joe Biden* already, and there are new possible swing states entering the picture like Virginia and even Washington state.

The only way that Trump doesn't win, Ted, is if Second carries out one of his many archived threats against him before election.

Tick Tock

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:39 PM

Oh no, he's smelling her hair. He must be a pedophile. In Trumps case he really is.

T

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 1:42 PM

More NeoCon propaganda from our resident Jackbootlicker Ted.

*yawn*

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 3:09 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:

The only way that Trump doesn't win, Ted, is if Second carries out one of his many archived threats against him before election.

Tick Tock

Have you seen this play out in real life: a cancerous fool and his relatives insist, loudly, that he will survive when he only has a 50/50 chance?

(Trump's chances are 50/50)

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 4:17 PM

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

The only way that Trump doesn't win, Ted, is if Second carries out one of his many archived threats against him before election.

Tick Tock
Have you seen this play out in real life: a cancerous fool and his relatives insist, loudly, that he will survive when he only has a 50/50 chance?

(Trump's chances are 50/50)

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

There you go, Ted.

Maybe you can convince Second to stand by his convictions and do something about your little problem. He and "people" like him are the only thing standing between you and a 2nd Trump Presidency less than 5 months from now.

Tick Tock

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:01 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:

There you go, Ted.

Maybe you can convince Second to stand by his convictions and do something about your little problem. He and "people" like him are the only thing standing between you and a 2nd Trump Presidency less than 5 months from now.

Tick Tock

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

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

The Secret Service is sworn to protect the US Constitution and is standing along side Trump with loaded weapons to do exactly that should Biden give the kill order. Maybe Trump ought to go into hiding on Nov 5th and not come out until he has definitely lost?

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:16 PM

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

There you go, Ted.

Maybe you can convince Second to stand by his convictions and do something about your little problem. He and "people" like him are the only thing standing between you and a 2nd Trump Presidency less than 5 months from now.

Tick Tock

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

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
The Secret Service is sworn to protect the US Constitution and is standing along side Trump with loaded weapons to do exactly that should Biden give the kill order. Maybe Trump ought to go into hiding on Nov 5th and not come out until he has definitely lost?

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

Archived: https://archive.ph/o9WWd

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:17 PM

Hey Jaynez. Why don't you put that one in the predictions thread for us?

You read that, Ted?

Your boy Second says that your boy Joe Biden* is going to murder Trump.

Not only that, but he's 1,000% behind the idea of Joe Biden* giving the order and he feels that would be "defending the Constitution". Would you agree with Second?

And you, Second...

You're really on tilt now, aren't you boy?

You aren't one of them extremists, are you?

You're sure starting to sound like one.

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:38 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:

Archived: https://archive.ph/o9WWd

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

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

I have always hoped that you were unlike all the other Trumptards I know but you keep proving you are a goddamn idiot just like they are. P.S. Being idiotic is why Trumptards struggle in America, but since they don't understand how stupid they are, they blame others for their problems. Often their bosses, wives, children, even banks get the blame. But more and more frequently Democrats are at fault according to Trumptard mythology.

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:59 PM

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

Archived: https://archive.ph/o9WWd

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

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
I have always hoped that you were unlike all the other Trumptards I know but you keep proving you are a goddamn idiot just like they are. P.S. Being idiotic is why Trumptards struggle in America, but since they don't understand how stupid they are, they blame others for their problems. Often their bosses, wives, children, even banks get the blame. But more and more frequently Democrats are at fault according to Trumptard mythology.

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

I'm not the one who keeps digging myself a deeper hole, son.

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:19 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:

I'm not the one who keeps digging myself a deeper hole, son.

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

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

Really? It is Trump digging his own grave with his mouth.

Trump’s rhetoric after his felony conviction is designed to distract, stoke fear and ease the way for an anti-democratic strongman

By Karrin Vasby Anderson, Colorado State University | June 4, 2024 8:45am EDT

https://theconversation.com/trumps-rhetoric-after-his-felony-convictio
n-is-designed-to-distract-stoke-fear-and-ease-the-way-for-an-anti-democratic-strongman-231535

After a jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a politically damaging relationship, he responded by warning viewers of his post-verdict news conference: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

That statement simultaneously invokes the ideal of an independent judiciary and attempts to delegitimize it.

As a scholar of political communication, I study how rhetoric strengthens or erodes democratic institutions and can prime an audience to expect or accept violence. Regardless of how someone feels about the legal arguments made during Trump’s trial, Trump’s attempts to prevail in the court of public opinion continue his campaign to discredit democratic institutions and threaten anyone who gets in his way.

Demagoguery is weaponized political communication that, as communication scholar Jennifer Mercieca explains, “undermines both democratic decision-making and democracy itself.” Demagogues use rhetoric to dominate an electorate rather than to persuade voters. Key characteristics include evading responsibility for claims and scapegoating anyone disloyal to the demagogue.

Demagogic communication includes one or more of what scholars Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt identify as “key indicators of authoritarian behavior.” Those include rejection of, or weak commitment to, democratic rules and norms; denial of the legitimacy of political opponents; tolerance or encouragement of violence; and readiness to curtail civil liberties and media freedom.

In the aftermath of Trump’s felony conviction, the demagogic rhetoric of Trump and allied Republicans delegitimizeed democratic institutions and fostered threats of violence.

‘Designed to distract’

When Trump declared that “if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” he was, of course, correct. Ideally, that’s how laws work. They should apply equally to a regular citizen and a former president.

Trump’s case is extraordinary given his status as a former president, and the legal theory used by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been dubbed “novel.” Nonetheless, in the legal and national security publication Just Security, Siven Watt and Norman L. Eisen document a long history of state prosecutors going after politicians who flout laws to benefit political campaigns in similar ways.

Trump’s posts on social media were designed to distract from those facts by undermining the independence and trustworthiness of the judiciary and scapegoating anyone who isn’t a Trump supporter. That included President Joe Biden, officers of the court, immigrants and even a Fox News anchor deemed insufficiently supportive.

While the jury was deliberating, Trump set the stage, described the proceedings as a “Biden witch hunt,” the “WEAPONIZATION OF THE JUSTICE SYSTEM!” and “ELECTION INTERFERENCE.” Later he asserted that the gag order imposed by Judge Juan Merchan was “UNCONSTITUTIONAL” and described members of the “DOJ and White House” as “Thugs and Monsters who are destroying our Country.”

Immediately after the jury returned its verdict, Trump intensified his delegitimization of the American legal system, asserting that “the real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people” and adding, “our whole country is being rigged right now.”

Stoking fear

A particularly important dimension of Trump’s reaction to the verdict is that his comments combine the delegitimization of democratic institutions with ad hominem attacks – name-calling – and scapegoating. This strategy is textbook demagoguery.

The day after the judgment, Trump began his 33 minutes of public remarks with what seemed like a non sequitur, shifting from the case, to ad hominem attacks, to immigration, and back to ad hominem attacks:

“This is a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. These are in many cases, I believe, sick people. When you look at our country what is happening, where millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world – not just South America, from Africa, from Asia, from the Middle East – and they’re coming in from jails and prisons and they’re coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums. They are coming in from all over the world into our country. And we have a president and a group of fascists that don’t want to do anything about it. Because they could, right now, today. They could stop it, but he’s not. They’re destroying our country.”

Voters are encouraged to believe that the government — comprised of “sick people” and “fascists” — is after them, as are immigrants.

Although Trump’s jumbled approach makes his rhetoric sound disjointed — even chaotic — it’s carefully designed to stoke fear and create an atmosphere more amenable to an anti-democratic strongman. Trump’s jaunty 2016 campaign promise, “I alone can fix it,” and his more recent, ostensible “joke” about being “dictator for one day,” have given way to dire pronouncements from Trump about his fellow citizens, such as this late-2023 statement: “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

The strategy would be less effective if Trump was the only one deploying it. But, following a familiar pattern, prominent Republicans reliably echoed his framing.

The Associated Press reported that the “ferocity of the outcry was remarkable, tossing aside usual restraints that lawmakers and political figures have observed in the past when refraining from criticism of judges and juries.”

The Guardian summarized Republicans’ responses: “A shameful day in American History. A sham show trial. A kangaroo court. A total witch-hunt. Worthy of a banana republic. These were the reactions from senior elected Republicans, who once claimed the mantle of the party of law and order, to the news that Donald Trump had become the first former US president convicted of a crime.”

Republican senator and vice-presidential hopeful Tim Scott’s impassioned attack on the judiciary was emblematic of the response. He called the verdict a “hoax,” a “sham” and an “absolute injustice justice system.” He then addressed Bragg, the Manhatten district attorney, directly, saying, “DA Bragg, hear me clearly: You cannot silence the American people. You cannot stop us from voting for change.”

‘Hang everyone’

Stoking fear through ad hominem attacks and scapegoating is often a precursor to violence. The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol followed Trump’s complaints about a “rigged” election.

NBC News reported that in the aftermath of Trump complaining about a “rigged” jury trial, posts are circulating on social media that target trial Judge Merchan, Bragg and the jurors with doxxing, intimidation and even death threats.

NBC quoted one poster who said, “We need to identify each juror. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal.” Reuters quoted Patriots.win users who said, “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to Washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution” and “Trump should already know he has an army willing to fight and die for him if he says the words. … I’ll take up arms if he asks.”

Not everyone who supports Trump politically is poised to “take up arms,” but video posted on X by Donald Trump Jr. with the tagline “F— JOE BIDEN” shows an arena full of fans awaiting the UFC lightweight championship chanting “F— Joe Biden” and cheering Trump as he smiles and raises his fist.

Video of the event was posted on YouTube and circulated by right-wing websites like the Daily Caller and Breitbart.

In her book “Demagoguery and Democracy,” communication scholar Patricia Roberts-Miller explains that “We don’t have demagoguery in our culture because a demagogue came to power; when demagoguery becomes the normal way of participating in public discourse, then it’s just a question of time until a demagogue arises.”

A demagogue has arisen.

Karrin Vasby Anderson, Professor of Communication Studies, Colorado State University

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

Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:28 PM

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

I'm not the one who keeps digging myself a deeper hole, son.

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

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

Yes.

Really.

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

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

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:17 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:

Yes.

Really.

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

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

Trumptards don't know that Trump is a demagogue or what one is. It is a political leader who appeals to the prejudices of people rather than using rational argument. A demagogue doesn't sound bad if your life lacks reasonableness but it is bad. Life is hard for those lacking reason, which circles back around to the reason they listen to a demagogue in the first place.

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 8:15 AM

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

They Never Stop Lying: MAGA’s Shocking New Lie About Hunter Biden Verdict Is Deeply Revealing

Even the presidential son’s conviction is proof of a vast conspiracy against Donald Trump.

The reaction from MAGA personalities was swift. Many expressed relief that the criminal justice system decisively meted out punishment to the offspring of a sitting Democratic president, and acknowledged that their previously-expressed fears that the system is rigged against Trump have proved unfounded.

Just kidding! MAGA personalities are already claiming the opposite: Incredibly, they are declaring that this guilty verdict slapped on Biden’s son also proves that the system is rigged against Trump. Which reveals something essential about how dependent the MAGA worldview is on elaborate fantasies about the movement’s alleged persecution.

“Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” tweeted MAGA thought leader Charlie Kirk. “The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.”

Trump’s campaign also got in on this sordid act, putting out a deranged statement claiming that Hunter Biden’s conviction is a “distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family.” For some reason, MAGA Nation seems disappointed by the outcome, as if they were secretly hoping for the opposite.

During Hunter Biden’s trial, right-wing media figures relentlessly charged that Biden family members, including the president, were secretly trying to influence the jury and tamper with witnesses—more evidence of dark and dastardly Biden family machinations, this time geared toward getting Hunter Biden off. Now that the thing the MAGA right warned against (Hunter skating free) did not happen, it has magically been repurposed into the same Biden-orchestrated conspiracy.

Recall that the MAGA right’s primary purpose in focusing so relentlessly on Hunter Biden has been to gin up a case for impeaching and prosecuting his father, mostly around a tortured series of claims about the Bidens’ foreign dealings. Why haven’t either of these things happened? Well, House Republicans failed to find any basis for impeachment after months of trying. Despite all that effort, they still haven’t found any grounds for criminal referrals about President Biden to the Justice Department (they have referred their claims about Hunter Biden). Meanwhile, another special counsel, Robert Hur, did not recommend charging the president with criminal mishandling of classified documents because he couldn’t find evidence of it. Hur, too, was originally appointed U.S. attorney by…President Trump.

For the MAGA right, the problem here can’t possibly be that President Biden didn’t actually commit any crimes. It can only be that the Justice Department is too corrupted to prosecute them, and that House GOP leaders are too weak-kneed and feckless (another bizarre MAGA claim) to ferret them out themselves. Bizarrely, after all that, now that Hunter Biden actually has been found guilty of crimes, that also cannot possibly mean the justice system is operating as it should, because that would be exonerating to the president and affirm his claims that he is keeping his hands off the department.

The enormous contortions required to portray the justice system as rigged at every turn show yet again that pretty much everything the MAGA right is saying about these matters is about laying a pretext for Trump, once back in office, to launch prosecutions of Biden and Democrats without cause, under the guise of tit-for-tat payback for something that wasn’t actually done to Trump and his followers.

https://newrepublic.com/article/182603/hunter-biden-verdict-guilty-tru
mp

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 12:32 PM

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 2:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
For the MAGA right, the problem here can’t possibly be that President Biden didn’t actually commit any crimes.

Yeah... and I'm sure his son is a great artist and his paintings are worth millions.

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

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

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 5:37 PM

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:20 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:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
For the MAGA right, the problem here can’t possibly be that President Biden didn’t actually commit any crimes.

Yeah... and I'm sure his son is a great artist and his paintings are worth millions.

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

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

You are a braying Jackass. But then which Trumptards aren't? Certainly not Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Secret Recordings of Alito and Roberts Revealed the True Stakes of the 2024 Election

By Mark Joseph Stern, June 12, 2024 4:39 PM

Lauren Windsor taped the two justices opining, separately, about the Supreme Court’s duty to push the nation down a more “moral” or divine path.

The faithful, Alito declared, must fight “the new moral code” that is “ascendent” in secular society and allegedly breeds “hostility” toward “traditional religious beliefs.”

What, exactly, is this “ascendant moral code” that Alito decries? He had previously provided some details in a 2020 speech that condemned reproductive choice, same-sex marriage, and even COVID-related safety measures as persecution against religious conservatives. And in his own judicial opinions, Alito hits this same theme hard, warning that the expansion of rights for women and LGBTQ people necessitates the contraction of rights for Christians.

Alito agrees that the country must be returned to “a place of godliness,” and obviously believes he, as a justice, has an important role to play in this course-correction. The chief justice, by contrast, says he wants to leave moral decisionmaking to elected representatives, and keep the courts agnostic about the proper role of Christian morality in the law. On the bench, Roberts does not always abide by this precept, sometimes overriding the people’s refusal to subsidize Christianity.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/secret-alito-roberts-2024-
election-stakes.html

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 7:30 PM

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

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

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

Thursday, June 13, 2024 7:14 AM

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

6ixStringJack, are any Indiana Trumptards convinced Michelle Obama could/should replace Biden? It is another freakishly stupid notion that my Texas Trumptards entertain. But wherever I look, stupidity predominates in their lives, not just politics!

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) suggested that Hunter Biden’s conviction in the federal gun charges case could create “an opening” for Michelle Obama to make a bid for the White House.

Ogles responded to the verdict on Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria” on Wednesday and emphasized the “need to pursue justice” before suggesting President Biden may step back from the race amid his son’s guilty verdict.

“That being said, I think it also creates an opening for Democrats like Michelle Obama in here. The Biden family can say, ‘Hey, we’re going to take care of our house, we’re going to take care of our son,’ and then allow Michelle Obama to come in and run,” he said.

“Because again, Joe Biden can’t win this election, and they know that they are desperate for another candidate,” Ogles added.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4718557-andy-ogles-hunter-biden-
conviction-michelle-obama/

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

Thursday, June 13, 2024 7:21 AM

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

Now that he is not on trial, Trump will be running his mouth nonstop. Trumptards will love it because he is them but normal people will notice he is not right in the head, the characteristic which Trumptards find most attractive about him.

One of the advantages that Trump has had is we’ve seen less of him. One of the reasons I think the race seems closer than it will ultimately be is that people have forgotten about Trump. They’ve forgotten the reasons they didn’t like him. They’ve forgotten the reasons why.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-conway-donald-trump-advantage-tr
ial_n_666ab349e4b076909e1d3433?ncid=NEWSSTAND0001

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

Thursday, June 13, 2024 8:38 AM