Waaaa We Wanna Win, We Wanna Win, Let Us Win
This week we have two gigantic stories in the news. First is the acceleration of COVID-19. Infection, hospitalizations, deaths are happening at a higher rate than ever and higher every day. There is no national response to it, the President doesn't attend meetings or talk about it, there is no funding, no action other than doctors and nurses going to work every day and hospitals trying to keep up. And in one state after the other governors are saying they do not have the resources for it. If you get sick you will die at home, there are no more hospital beds throughout the Midwest and it's spreading. Rates are accelerating in our region, too, it won't miss us. It just hasn't hit here yet with its full force.
The other news story is about Trump's effort to end American democracy. We had a national election with record turnout, and even though Trump got more votes than anybody in history ever had, the other guy got more. Significantly more. Millions and millions more. Trump lost, fair and square.
By any measure this was a good, honest election. Barr sent his DOJ investigators to Democratic-run cities and they came back with no reports of funny business. The Department of Homeland Security sent people out to watch and they came back and said everything was fine. No state reported any systematic bias or malpractice in any jurisdiction. Sure we had the usual voter suppression in Black neighborhoods in the South, tear gas and such, but those people stood in line for hours to get their votes counted, and it worked. There have been audits, recounts, more than thirty lawsuits so far, and no finding of any wrongdoing. Republicans and Democrats sat at the table counting ballots, with bipartisan observers watching closely, and at the end of the day they tallied the numbers and Trump lost. They decided to set aside a handful of mail-in votes in Philadelphia that came in after election day but they didn't make any difference, Trump loses with them or without them. Somebody in Floyd County, Georgia, forgot to read the data from a memory card, and they got fired for that. It didn't make a difference, but things happen.
The Republicans are not actually challenging anything in particular about the voting in any particular place. Because there's nuthin there. Everything went just like it should. Now they are challenging the idea of voting itself. As Trump's lawyer Sidney Powell said yesterday:
I want the American public to know right now that we will not be intimidated. American patriots are fed up with the corruption from the local level, to the highest level of our government. We are going to take this country back. We are not going to be intimidated. We are not going to back down. We are going to clean this mess up now. President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it, and we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom.
Trump's lawyers had long crazy speeches about Venezuela and the company that makes the voting machines, hackers and dictators and communists, Cuba and Argentina and Hugo Chavez and George Soros of course. The press conference was nuts. These are lawyers who had a chance to state their case in court, and they had nuthin. They did not have any facts, they did not have any evidence, they did not even have a cohesive or plausible story to tell.
Their whole point is: we wanted to win and we should.
If there was corruption then there should be some kind of evidence, somebody must have seen something, numbers ought to be off somewhere. There might be a money trail, or phone records of bad guys talking to each other about how to change the outcome of the election. Instead all you have is video shots of not-highly-paid state government workers in offices with fluorescent lights, flipping papers and handing them back and forth. There are other people, all in masks, sitting near them, people from both parties watching. It went all night in some places, people working shifts at the most boring job in the world, concentrating and following the rules to make sure everything was done right. That's all there is. We saw ridiculous long lines at voting places, early voting and on election day, we saw record mail-in voting, drop-boxes -- this was a big operation. There were a very few little things but nobody in their right mind really thinks this was a corrupt or crooked election.
Trump has loaded up the courts with friendly judges but still has lost thirty out of thirty-two lawsuits so far. He might be hoping to get some issue to the Supreme Court, which he has also loaded up with friendly judges, but nobody really has anything that reaches that level. He needs to flip several states to claim a win, and that ain't gonna happen. Some Republican election officials tried not-certifying votes from a Democratic district of Michigan, and that became a mess but Trump is trying today to meet with local Michigan legislators to get them to fix this for him. That is not part of the democratic election process, of course, it is a way to overcome the will of the people so the Republicans can maintain their grip on power.
The Republicans know they did not win the election. As a party that traditionally represents a minority of Americans they have often had to resort to voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other techniques -- even screwing up the US Postal Service -- to win votes, and they tried all that here and it was not enough. Americans do not want Trump for President again, they have chosen Joe Biden. Is this a country that elects its leaders, or has that been a happy story we tell ourselves? We are finding out right now.
posted by JimK at 10:59 AM
198 Comments:
Jim said "By any measure this was a good, honest election... Sure we had the usual voter suppression in Black neighborhoods in the South, tear gas and such, but those people stood in line for hours to get their votes counted, and it worked."
I'd say the counting of the votes was good and honest, but certainly not the election, Republicans heavily biased it in their favour by a massive multi-pronged campaign of voter suppression and handcuffing the Post Office to prevent as many Democratic leaning mail in votes as possible.
Biden officially won the popular vote by some 6 million(and counting). He would have won be several million more if it weren't for Republicans suppressing Democratic votes. That's why the polls showed Biden winning by a much larger percentage than the official count is going to show.
There would have been a lot of doubt about the integrity of the election if Trump had narrowly won, but with Democrats needing to overcome vast suppression of their votes to get a greater number than Trump there is no doubt Biden being president is the overwhelming will of the American people.
Jim said "Trump is trying today to meet with local Michigan legislators to get them to fix this for him. That is not part of the democratic election process, of course, it is a way to overcome the will of the people so the Republicans can maintain their grip on power."
The people involved with counting and certifying the vote are supposed to be independent of Trump. Instead he's meeting with them privately with no record of what's said (like he did with his meetings with Putin) and he's going to lean on these independent employees and threaten them and offer them money or power to go along with his scheme to steal the election.
This is what dictators do and Republicans are standing by and letting Trump do anything he wants and can to steal this election and cement himself as dictator. And now Wyatt and Regina Hardiman will defend everything Trump is doing because they are religious zealots who would dearly love a Trump dictatorship as he's letting evangelical christians define in law that "religious freedom" means the right to make innocent lgbt people and women second class citizens.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Sidney Powell and other members of President Trump’s legal team, in spouting their bizarre, incoherent conspiracy theories about voter fraud, have made clear they want to overturn the election in large part by excluding ballots from Black voters. Without Wayne County, Mich., which is heavily African American, Giuliani declared on Thursday, Trump could have won the state — as if the 15th Amendment and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were nonexistent.
Giuliani’s news conference meandered from debunked claims about Dominion Voting Systems to a scheme somehow involving Hugo Chávez (dead since 2013). The event had virtually nothing to do with post-election lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign, of which Trump has so far lost 32 (in many, campaign officials — including Giuliani — have admitted there was no fraud).
Let us not dwell on the details. Or on the shamefulness of state bar authorities in failing to sanction such unprofessional conduct. Or on Giuliani’s hair dye that ran down from each sideburn. What is clear is that this is the level of sheer insanity and irrational propaganda that passes for Republican “thinking.” Plainly, Giuliani is representing the president’s views, and because the vast majority of Republicans say Trump should be allowed to exhaust his legal claims, his performance has, in effect, been endorsed by Republican House and Senate leadership, much of right-wing media and the Republican National Committee.
Even worse, Trump has invited Michigan Republican state lawmakers to the White House and even reportedly contacted Monica Palmer, a Republican member of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, after she voted to certify the county’s results. (After her chat with the president, Palmer and another Republican on the board wanted to take back their certification votes.) In what is surely its most compelling and descriptive headline of the post-election period, the New York Times declared on Thursday: “Trump Invites State Lawmakers to White House in Bid to Subvert Election.”
Republicans, with help from cynical right-wing propaganda outlets, have convinced a great many Republicans that their delusional poppycock is true. Polls now show a high percentage of Republicans do not believe President-elect Joe Biden won the election, even though he garnered 306 electoral votes and beat Trump by almost 6 million votes. As a result, Republicans have undermined the essence of democracy and made a mockery of our international commitment to free and fair elections.
We may not be able to prevent Giuliani from spouting crazy allegations, but there is plenty that responsible, patriotic Americans can do.
First, respectable networks should not cover live any of the Trump lawyers’ events. (They do not cover insane people ranting on a street corner, do they?)
Second, news outlets must hound every Republican lawmaker, official and candidate either to denounce or condone the abuse of the courts to disenfranchise voters. The two Senate Republican candidates in Georgia, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, have joined in the spurious claims of fraud with baseless attacks on the state’s Republican secretary of state; their opponents should tie them to Trump and Giuliani’s antics.
Third, state and federal officials and the Biden transition team should vow to investigate any efforts by Trump, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) or any other Republican politician who attempts to sway election officials or otherwise undermine free and fair elections.
Fourth, private actors (TV advertisers, business leaders, social media) need to stop enabling anti-democratic activities and slanderous accusations designed to deprive millions of Americans of their right to have their votes counted. Instead of being “labeled” as disputed, Trump’s tweets and Facebook posts should be removed for habitual violation of the platforms’ self-imposed terms of service. Business leaders must recognize Biden as president-elect (as Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others have done), deplore abuse of the courts and pull financial support from Republicans who refuse to accept the results of a lawful election.
The horrifying spectacle playing out before our eyes should leave little doubt of how far down the rabbit hole the Republican Party has gone and how cowardly and detached from reality Republican elected leaders have become. Clarity is enlightening, but in this case, it is also dispiriting. We have only one functional, rational political party. It’s not enough.
Evangelical Doctors' Group Pleads With Churches To Stay Home
A national group of evangelical doctors is asking churches to hald in-person services, saying Christians who gather now "don't care that we may be contributing to others getting this illness because of our selfishness."
Call me crazy for taking the man with hair dye dripping down his cheeks seriously, but I think it would be unfair to dismiss Rudy Giuliani. Amusingly shambolic he may be. That doesn’t mean he is wrong.
The media has been claiming since the election ended that President Trump’s claims of voter fraud are ‘baseless’ and ‘without evidence’. That just is not true. The President’s lawyer gave examples of it during today’s press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington DC. But everyone is too busy mocking him to pay attention.
I tried to listen to what Giuliani actually said and not what he looked like or the characterization of him by the rest of the media. The cameras started feverishly clicking the first time he wiped the sweat from his face, all but guaranteeing that would be the focus of the presser.
Giuliani did in fact present evidence of voter fraud today but many people simply didn’t want to hear it. He cited multiple Americans, one by name, who have signed sworn affidavits stating that they witness some type of fraud, whether it was pro-Trump ballots being thrown out without cause, ballots being backdated to before the election, poll workers being told not to ask voters for identification, and more.
As Giuliani helpfully pointed out, affidavits are considered ‘evidence’ in a court case. Whether you agree or disagree with them is a different question. And it’s reasonable that not all of the people who signed their names would be willing to go public. If you want to hear more of the evidence that was presented, just watch the first hour or so of the press conference.
The more difficult — and crucial — question is whether Trump’s legal team has enough witnesses or other evidence to actually overturn the election in court. That is what journalists should be addressing. But it is simply wrong for the media to assert there is NO evidence of fraud.
Coalition of Atheists & Theists Urge Biden to Restore Religious Freedom for All
Yesterday, more than 100 religious and non-religious group leaders published a letter urging Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to take certain steps to reverse the damage done by the Trump administration on faith-based matters.
Some of the suggestions are mild: Hire people from a variety of religious and non-religious backgrounds. Affirm our nation’s religious diversity.
Others are more serious: Repeal the Muslim ban. Prevent and prosecute hate crimes. Protect church/state separation. Stop taxpayer-funded groups from violating anti-discrimination laws and prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding religion at all.
There’s also this request regarding “religious freedom” — the actual kind, not the pro-Christian version advanced by Republicans:
… over the past four years the federal government has overreached in the name of free exercise, ignoring the harms that certain religious exemptions impose on other rights. For example, these exemptions have been used to undermine LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections and deny access to healthcare, particularly sexual and reproductive healthcare, with disproportionate impacts on people of color. These exemptions have even been used to discriminate against religious minorities and the nonreligious, using inconsistent standards to evaluate free exercise claims. These errors must be corrected. One critical way to do so is to restore the original intent of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to protect religious freedom and also clarify the Act so that the statute is not misused.
These are straightforward suggestions that shouldn’t be controversial. There’s a reason the people signing this document represent a variety of religious and non-religious groups. These are also requests that Biden can do on his own without worrying about a possible GOP-led Senate getting in his way.
One of the silver linings over the past several years, at least from my perspective, has been the rise in interfaith collaboration. So many of us — atheists, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, progressive Christians, etc. — have watched the government become a mouthpiece for conservative Christians who use their faith to hurt other people. It’s required us to join forces since we all want roughly the same things from the government, including equal treatment and no discrimination.
The fact that atheists — who in the past would’ve been at odds with many of these people — are now eagerly working with them (and getting invited to sign letters like these) is a positive sign. It means we’re willing to set our theological differences aside because there’s a larger goal we all share. That’s no small feat. I look forward to the day when we can go back to debating each other on our ideas, but when the nation’s on fire, it’s vital to collaborate to put it out.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous posted "The media has been claiming since the election ended that President Trump’s claims of voter fraud are ‘baseless’ and ‘without evidence’. That just is not true. The President’s lawyer gave examples of it during today’s press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters".
It most certainly is baseless and without evidence. That's why Trump keeps losing in court, he has no evidence, just claims someone looked at me nasty or I heard someone say there was a problem, nothing that qualifies as evidence in a court of law.
"In what is surely its most compelling and descriptive headline of the post-election period, the New York Times declared on Thursday: “Trump Invites State Lawmakers to White House in Bid to Subvert Election.”"
He's going to threaten them that "bad thins will happen to you", just like he did with the Ukrainian ambassador when she objected to him breaking the law to coerce the Ukrainian government into opening a fake investigation into Joe Biden. Then he'll offer them money and/or power to go along with his scheme to subvert the election. This is what dictators do. And Wyatt and Regina Hardiman are 100% behind this coup.
In the previous thread Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump, cut your losses and endorse democracy".
Now they are back to defending his attacks on democracy falsely claiming he has evidence of voter fraud.
So typical of them to contradict themselves according to whatever seems convenient to them at the time.
Rick Wiles: People in PA Should Chase Trans Health Secretary “Out of the State”
Always looking for new ways to wreak havoc on innocent people, right-wing pundit and professional anti-Semite Rick Wiles is trying to rally Pennsylvania citizens to chase transgender health secretary Dr. Rachel Levine out of the state.
(This is the same Rick Wiles who, also this week, threatened the lives of liberals in Florida.)
“That’s a man in a dress,” Wiles fumed. “You’re mentally ill, Dr. Levine. You’re mentally ill, and no normal person should listen to you. You need mental health counseling. You need deliverance.”
“To the people of Pennsylvania,” he continued, “you are absolutely insane if you let that transvestite freak rule your life. … You’re going to that transvestite freak? Seriously?”
“Chase that freak out of the state,” Wiles bellowed. “Chase it out of the state. Rise up in Pennsylvania, and chase that freak out of the state! You don’t have to tolerate this stuff.”
Besides the mislabeling and outright bigotry, it’s appalling that a conspiracy theorist is calling a health professional “insane.”
What caused Wiles to go on this rant was Levine’s announcement that Pennsylvania would expand its face mask requirements.
Good on Levine for having the guts to do what many in her position refuse to do to help curb the spread of the virus. A little inconvenience now will save a lot of hospital space and devastation down the road.
Wiles, who doesn’t give a damn about other people, isn’t just perpetuating the pandemic. He’s trying to hurt the messenger, too. He’s like a kid who cries when asked to eat a vegetable, too short-sighted to understand that sometimes things you don’t like are actually good for you.
Non-believers are human rubbish!
Join our religion of love and peace or go to Hell!
Giuliani alleged that the president was a victim of a scheme by dozens of Democratic election officials from Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other major cities that contributed to Biden getting more votes, even though Trump also improved over his 2016 performance in those traditionally Democratic areas.
"This was not an individual idea of 10 or 12 Democrat bosses. This was a plan. You would have to be a fool not to realize that," Giuliani said at the presser from the Republican National Committee headquarters.
Giuliani and attorney Sidney Powell, a fixture on Fox News prime-time programming who represents former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, made clear that their goal was to overturn the results in several states Biden is leading or has been projected as the winner.
Giuliani and Powell failed to produce evidence of their claims beyond holding up sworn affidavits from citizens who alleged they witnessed suspicious behavior. Giuliani did not commit to sharing his evidence with the press so they could fully vet his claims, and one reporter noted the Trump campaign is not asking for a recount in Wisconsin counties where the Dominion Voting Systems machines were used.
Dominion Voting Systems has been a popular target among Trump and his supporters who have spread claims of election fraud.
Powell alleged that the Denver-based company that supplies voting machines across the United States used technology developed by Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013. She claimed votes were manipulated while being tabulated overseas to favor Joe Biden.
These claims have been disputed or debunked by numerous sources, including conservative media.
The company has disputed the assertions, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has said there is no evidence of foreign adversaries changing vote tallies, and The Wall Street Journal editorial board published a piece on Tuesday debunking claims that Dominion was part of widespread fraud.
The contents of the press conference, during which Giuliani, who referenced the movie "My Cousin Vinny" and battled black water-streaks running down the side of his face, appeared to astonish even many conservatives who urged Giuliani and Powell to produce hard evidence of their claims or risk casting doubt on the country's democratic systems.
Fox News broadcast much of the press conference, while other major cable news networks did not.
"You cannot make an accusation like that without following it through by going to court and trying to prove it," Karl Rove, a former aide to George W. Bush, said on Fox News. "If it’s left out there it will be both unfair to the president if it’s true, and unfair to the American people if it’s false."
Kristin Fisher, a Fox News White House correspondent, said on the network that the press conference was "light on facts" and noted some of the allegations had already been dismissed in the courts.
more evidence:
In a sworn declaration, a respected mathematician says his analysis of election data and phone interviews with Pennsylvania voters raises questions about as many as 100,000 absentee ballots requested in the key battleground state where President Trump and Joe Biden are separated by just about 82,000 votes.
Williams College Professor Steven Miller, a Yale and Princeton trained math expert, said he analyzed Pennsylvania ballot data collected by former Trump campaign data chief Matt Braynard as well as 2,684 voter interviews conducted by a phone bank and found two concerning patterns. One involved possible votes that were not counted, the other ballots that appeared to be requested by someone other than a registered voter.
"I estimate that the number of ballots that were either requested by someone other than the registered Republican or requested and returned but not counted range from 89,397 to 98,801," Miller said in the sworn statement
Rudy Giuliani’s epic rant in his latest wild news conference about suspicious voting in Michigan was based on a glaring mistake: President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer was complaining about vote counts in Minnesota districts, not in Michigan.
That obliterated Giuliani’s claims Thursday of discrepancies in district populations and suspiciously large voter turnouts. The figures mangled overvote percentages by comparing the number of expected district votes in one state to the populations of completely unrelated districts in another state.
“In Michigan and Wisconsin, we have overvotes in numerous precincts of 150%, 200% and 300%,” Giuliani gloated in one of his imagined “gotcha” moments.
The man in charge of Trump’s assault on election results also argued that there were more votes than voters in some districts — again, because he confused the states.
The erroneous numbers used by Giuliani and others on the legal team challenging presidential election results were based on an affidavit submitted — and already thrown out by one court — by self-proclaimed election fraud expert and failed Texas congressional candidate, Russ Ramsland, the Powerline blog first reported Thursday.
“There are over 3,000 precincts [in Michigan] where the presidential vote cast compared to the estimated voters … is 99% all the way up to 350%,” Ramsland complained Tuesday to Lou Dobbs on Fox Business Network. “Where did all those votes come from?”
Clearly, they came from Minnesota. In one section of his affidavit, Ramsland listed as highly suspicious 100% voter turnouts he calculated in 25 districts in Detroit’s Wayne County, which went for Democrat Joe Biden. But all of the districts listed were actually in Minnesota.
Powerline suspects Ramsland may have confused the postal abbreviation for Minnesota (MN) with Michigan (MI). CNN’s Jake Tapper quipped that the legal team was confused over two “M” states. It “certainly speaks to a lack of due diligence,” The Washington Post noted.
Even the numbers Ramsland referred to from Minnesota weren’t supported by official figures, and the affidavit was riddled with other errors, according to the Post.
The erroneous numbers were submitted as part of a Trump campaign lawsuit in Georgia, which was rejected Thursday because it “lacked merit.”
Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, scolded the news media Thursday for not carefully reading and reporting on affidavits submitted as part of the Trump campaign lawsuits, claiming they present evidence of fraud.
“It’s your job to read these things and not falsely report that there’s no evidence,” Giuliani said.
From a friend on Twitter:
If you believe "conversion therapy" should be legal, then you must also agree we should be allowed to send our straight son off to a clinic for 12 weeks and expect him to return home gay. Does that sound horrifying to you? The opposite should be equally horrifying.
I'm heartbroken over [the 11th circuit decision] because the first man I ever loved killed himself when faced with "conversion therapy." His parents lured him home with the promise of reconciliation on his 21st birthday, but instead had a judge who never met him declare him incompetent and dependent.
They had him involuntarily committed to a "Christian inpatient counseling center" with razor wire fences. His mother was driving him back to his apartment to pack some clothes when he asked her to pull over on a bridge, and he jumped to his death.
The only "conversion" these facilities consistently succeed at is from living to dead. Whether or not they remain legal or in operation, I hope you'll remember [my friend] and share his story if someone you know mentions them.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous, today you're arguing Trump won and the count showing Biden winning is fraudulent. Yesterday you said "Not a big fan of Mitt but he's right. Trump, cut your losses and endorse democracy it would be one thing is the raw votes was for you and it was only the electoral college was in your way but you won from no point of view if you leave now, like LBJ and Nixon, you may have a legacy centered around some achievements otherwise, you'll be another Benedict Arnold"
What lead you to change your mind from calling for democracy to calling for Trump to subvert the election? It must have been something pretty big to result in such a drastic change of position.
"If you believe "conversion therapy" should be legal,"
it is legal
by definition
any laws against it are unconstitutional and not valid
any questions?
see Amy Coney Barrett
"then you must also agree we should be allowed to send our straight son off to a clinic for 12 weeks and expect him to return home gay."
no
if you did that, social services should remove the minor from your custody
"Does that sound horrifying to you? The opposite should be equally horrifying."
you mistakenly believe homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality
the latter is rightly privileged and preferenced by society because it perpetuates life
any questions?
see Amy Coney Barrett
"I'm heartbroken over [the 11th circuit decision] because the first man I ever loved killed himself when faced with "conversion therapy.""
he must have had other problems
Here are 85 ways Joe Biden can help LGBTQ people without going through Congress
Trump would have won if LGBTQ people hadn’t turned out to vote for Joe Biden in swing states
LGBT people voted overwhelmingly for Biden with only 14% voting for Trump.
Republicans have spent 4 years destroying the concept of "rule of law". If they are not held to account, the next despot will be even worse. Actions must have consequences.
"This week we have two gigantic stories in the news. First is the acceleration of COVID-19. Infection, hospitalizations, deaths are happening at a higher rate than ever and higher every day. There is no national response to it,"
here's a summary of Trump's Operation Warp Speed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed
the government has poured billions into research and there are currently four vaccines that will be released in the coming months, two of them in a matter of weeks
three of these vaccines, those of Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, & Moderna, received this funding
this is a record-breaking accomplishment
never has a new virus appeared and a vaccine been developed for it in such a short period
of course, one of the four vaccines did not receive Federal funding and will be the first ready, raising the question of whether the Federal involvement that progressive socialists always advocate if even necessary
further, Trump ordered funding for tens of millions of doses to be prepared before it was known if they work
this will insure that there is not a delay for production when the vaccine is determined to be safe and effective
this is brilliantly obvious idea that never was employed in any past pandemic and will likely save hundreds of thousands of lives
also, Trump has mobilized the military with a plan to distribute the vaccine as soon as it's ready
the Dems' contribution?
to constantly seek to undermine public faith in the vaccines being produced
what else could be done?
even Biden is rejecting a national lockdown
that's smart since the WHO does too
mask mandates are not enforceable
local governments have produced a hodge-podge of measures that usually are more politically motivated than scientifically sound
how about hospital capacity?
in the Spring, Trump sent huge ships with medical facilities to cities where governments claimed hospitals had reached capacity
they were never used
how about PPE?
the "experts" and politicians claimed there was some massive shortage of ventilators
Trump responded by ordering corporations to produce them and now we have a huge surplus
and the "experts" now admit that ventilators often don't save lives
how about testing and contact tracing?
it's being done by local health departments although the disease is too widespread for this to be of much help
in short, Trump's response will save hundreds of thousands of lives
Biden and Dems have offered nothing but rhetoric and have tried to undermine public confidence for political ends
TTF should send Trump an apology
Georgia officials certified President-elect Joe Biden’s slim victory there.
Michigan Republicans declared after a White House meeting that they had learned nothing to warrant reversing the outcome in their state.
The mostly maskless Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, has tested positive for the coronavirus.
" Trump's response will save hundreds of thousands of lives"
Rump's covid-19 lies are responsible for 250,000+ covid deaths.
Lies like:
“when we get into April, in the warmer weather—that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus.”
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”
If the economic shutdown continues, deaths by suicide “definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about” for COVID-19 deaths.
“Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere,” and cases are “coming way down.”
The pandemic is “fading away. It’s going to fade away.”
The pandemic is “getting under control.”
“99%” of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”
“We now have the lowest Fatality (Mortality) Rate in the World.”
Mexico is partly to blame for COVID-19 surges in the Southwest.
Children are “virtually immune” to COVID-19.
The U.S. has “among the lowest case-fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world.”
Trump “launched the largest national mobilization since World War II” against COVID-19, and America “developed, from scratch, the largest and most advanced testing system in the world.”
America is “rounding the corner” and “rounding the final turn” of the pandemic.
The media is overblowing fears about the virus ahead of Election Day.
"What happens is, you get better” after being sick with COVID-19. “That's what happens: You get better.”
“You get better and then you’re immune.”
TELL THAT TO THE 250,000+ DEAD AMERICANS WHO WILL NEVER GET BETTER
Click the link above for lots more of Rump's lies through Nov. 2, 2020 about covid-19
"Rump's covid-19 lies are responsible for 250,000+ covid deaths."
this is a complete lie
deaths would be greater if Dems were in control
mistakes made by Dems:
not closing subways
forcing nursing homes to take in elderly people who were contagious
opposing the closing of international borders
telling people masks were useless
discouraging people from going outdoors (apartment dwellers should spend as much time as possible out of the apartment because the virus travels through the ventilation systems)
saying that rallies in support of liberal causes were worth risking illness for
undermining confidence in vaccines being produced
blocking the stimulus bill unless the Senate agrees to cover the pension obligations NY and California have accrued over the decades
voting for Joe Biden
and you say Trump caused deaths by telling people it won't last long and will soon get better?
you'll have to elaborate on how that leads to death
your twisted logic should provide the readers here with a well-needed chuckle
here's the latest stats on the coronavirus by state:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/country/united-states/
as you will see, the four highest states, ranked by COVID deaths per thousand are New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts
oh, you'll say it's gotten better since the Spring in those places
still, no other states made mistakes as bad
those four governors are responsible for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths
"Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, no one cares what your fictitious character has to say
no sense filling up the blog with nonsense comments that none even read
Dems are insistent there is no proof of fraud
they would be better off to admit there is but that it isn't enough to overturn the election
dozens of affidavits have been filed by election workers who saw irregularities
stats should several anomalies of areas where Biden outperformed polls without any reasonable explanation
such stats are regularly considered proof in discrimination cases
here's a university mathematician who thinks there are a hundred thousand problems in Pennsylvania
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/mathematics-prof-says-sworn-statement-many-56000-gop-ballots-pa-may-be
"never has a new virus appeared and a vaccine been developed for it in such a short period"
There are a couple of major reasons for this - one, it's a coronavirus - the same family as the MERS and SARS viruses, which they've studied in the lab for years, giving scientists an excellent jumping-off point to start with COVID-19.
Two, in the past 5 years, advances in Artificial Intelligence - specifically a number of different Machine Learning models -- have reached the point where they can (and have) provided useful results in guiding therapeutic and vaccine design, bypassing much of the tedious and time-consuming trial-and-error phase of vaccine discovery:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frai.2020.00065/full
These advances were due to the work of hundreds of biological and computer scientists around the world - not anything that the anti-science Rump administration did.
"further, Trump ordered funding for tens of millions of doses to be prepared before it was known if they work
this will insure that there is not a delay for production when the vaccine is determined to be safe and effective"
Meanwhile, The Biggest Loser is also blocking Biden's transition team, wasting time that could be used to ensure that vaccine is distributed in the fastest, most efficient, and most effective way possible. It is the American public that will pay for Rump's intransigence.
"this is brilliantly obvious idea that never was employed in any past pandemic and will likely save hundreds of thousands of lives"
To be fair, the last time a pandemic achieved infection and mortality rates comparable to COVID-19, it was 1918 - ten years before penicillin was discovered. Much of the country didn't even have paved roads then. Not really comparable.
"dozens of affidavits have been filed by election workers who saw irregularities"
An affidavit of an "irregularity" isn't proof of fraud. Anyone can claim they saw something "irregular" it doesn't prove a crime or fraud was committed. It may be worthy of investigation to see if something illegal happened, but until that is ascertained, it could just be a partisan poll worker with an axe to grind.
"stats should several anomalies of areas where Biden outperformed polls without any reasonable explanation"
Polls said Hillary would win in 2016. You didn't throw up this kind of argument when she lost. You blamed pollsters and media for being biased and wrong.
And frankly, there are hundreds of reasonable explanations. You can find them on YouTube on the RVAT and Lincoln Project channels - there are LOTS of Republicans that know the Rumpster is unfit for office. You can spend hours watching their videos. It may even give some hope that the Republican party can recover itself after Rump's takeover. Personally, I think they're too far gone, and he will play a corrosive part in the 2024 elections, perhaps even winning their primary again. I could be wrong, in fact I hope I am, but Republicans haven't shown enough spine in the last 5 years to convince me otherwise.
"such stats are regularly considered proof in discrimination cases"
Tell me, very stable genius, how many times have stats been used to overturn the election results when you can recount the actual votes by hand and /or machine?
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "you mistakenly believe h*sexuality is equal to heterosexuality the latter is rightly privileged and preferenced by society because it perpetuates life"
Overpopulation is destroying the planet and humanity with it. There is no valid reason for banning gay marriage. If anything society should be promoting gayness to help deal with the overpopulation crisis.
Good anonymous said "I'm heartbroken over [the 11th circuit decision] because the first man I ever loved killed himself when faced with "conversion therapy."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "he must have had other problems"
He jumped off a bridge immediately after his parents took away his right to self determination and forced him into "conversion therapy". Obviously that is why he killed himself.
After the Mormon church loudly promoted a California gay marriage ban in 2008 suicides amongst lgbt people in Utah doubled and tripled - they saw their community reject them and it had devastating consequences on their mental health. Suicide is now the number one cause of death amongst children in Utah. Research has shown that when gay marriage bans were being promoted in many states it had a huge negative impact on the mental health of lgbt people living there. Of course to Wyatt and Regina Hardiman this is a feature, not a bug.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Dems are insistent there is no proof of fraud"
They do not say that. They say there is no proof of significant voter fraud. Everyone acknowledges there are a handful of cases, all of them committed by Republicans.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "dozens of affidavits have been filed by election workers who saw irregularitiesstats should several anomalies of areas where Biden outperformed polls without any reasonable explanation such stats are regularly considered proof in discrimination cases"
All of which was presented in court and laughed out of court. There is no evidence to support the claim of widespread voter fraud. Trump is claiming several million votes were fraudulent. If that were the case he'd have easily proven it long ago.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "here's a university mathematician who thinks there are a hundred thousand problems in Pennsylvania"
Hired by the guy who's told 20,000 false or misleading statements and has fired 100s of top government employees for not agreeing with him and threatened all the rest with the same. That "mathematician"'s allegations are meaningless, that's why they are not in court with them now.
Wyatt and Regina Hardiman are falsely claiming that That Trump has done a great job on the pandemic and things would be worse if Democrats were in power. That's their standard blanket assertion for every disaster Republicans create.
Trump has mocked the use of masks, social distancing and every other pandemic mitigation measure. His travel "bans" weren't bans. The one on china let 48 thousand people fly from China into the U.S. Then the centre of the outbreaks on the north east coast was transmitted from Europe, not China and Trump didn't ban travel there until the pandemic was already raging in New York.
Trump hid the threat of the pandemic from New York and so it exploded there before anyone could do anything about it. Since then New York got the first wave under control its done much better than red states which have been the centre of the second and third waves exploding with cases and deaths. North Dakota where the governor and conservatives have spit on all mitigation measures has the highest per-capita rate of infection in the world.
Conservatives have attacked every attempt to mitigate this pandemic at Trump's urging. The reason the United States has the greatest number of deaths and cases per capita is that conservatives think mitigation measures are an admission Trump has failed and they refuse to do them. Trump had rally after rally with huge unmasked crowds in close proximity. These were all super spreader events. Trump intentionally made the pandemic worse and his tens of millions of followers have taken their cue from that.
Two days ago Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said:
"Trump, cut your losses and endorse democracy it would be one thing is the raw votes was for you and it was only the electoral college was in your way but you won from no point of view if you leave now, like LBJ and Nixon, you may have a legacy centered around some achievements otherwise, you'll be another Benedict Arnold"
Yesterday and today they are defending Trumps baseless allegations that there was widespread voter fraud and trying to help him overthrow democracy.
That's a pretty radical overnight shift in position Wyatt/Regina. You owe your fans an explanation given your claim to be honest commenters. What changed your mind? Is your church leadership flip-flopping on whether or not they think Trump can pull off this coup?
We know evangelical christians want a dictatorship where they can persecute lgbt people regardless of the huge cost to all Americans that would be. Think Russia, where the oligarchs and Putin are all insanely rich and the bottom 99% is really poor. That's what Trump will do to America if he succeeds.
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So it looks like Wyatt and Regina recently decided to go back to not responding to my comments directly. Starting January 2018 they were afraid to talk to me for a year and a half, angrily announcing "I'll never talk to Priya ever again! I'm sure she's on the watch list of law enforcement agencies around the world!". Then they started responding to my comments again a few months ago. Now they appeared to have stopped again. I'm pretty sure their church leadership/Tony Perkins are pulling their strings. That must really suck.
Trump Death Clock
151,528
Estimated U.S. COVID-19 Deaths Due To POTUS Inaction
In January 2020, the Trump administration was advised that immediate action was required to stop the spread of COVID-19. According to NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, “there was a lot of pushback” to this advice. President Trump declined to act until March 16th. Experts estimate that, had mitigation measures been implemented one week earlier, 60% of American COVID-19 deaths would have been avoided.
The Trump Death Clock doesn't take into account the number of preventable deaths due to the overwhelming opposition of conservatives to simple mitigation measures like mask wearing, social distancing, and minimizing gatherings.
If Trump had been a leader and back in January when he knew how deadly the virus was he had warned the public and strongly encouraged simple mitigation measures the United States could have avoided the vast majority of the 100,000 additional deaths the Trump Death Clock doesn't account for.
Now Trump has poisoned the well of pandemic mitigation measures and Joe Biden won't be able to undo the tremendous opposition to fighting Covid Trump has created amongst conservatives.
"Yesterday and today they are defending Trumps baseless allegations that there was widespread voter fraud and trying to help him overthrow democracy."
That was probably Theresa, who recently started her own blog that no one bothers to comment on:
https://www.westopthesteal.com/
"Trump, cut your losses and endorse democracy it would be one thing is the raw votes was for you and it was only the electoral college was in your way but you won from no point of view if you leave now, like LBJ and Nixon, you may have a legacy centered around some achievements otherwise, you'll be another Benedict Arnold"
That was probably one of the other trolls - Wyatt or Regina. The hard part is figuring out what the "legacy centered around some achievements" is going to look like...
The president who mainstreamed white nationalism...
The president who purposely mislead citizens about the severity of the COVID pandemic, leading to the largest number of deaths of US civilians since the 1918 flu pandemic...
The first president to try to overturn the popular vote and push in electoral college voters for himself...
Wow. What a legacy to be proud of.
Trump’s “Spiritual Adviser” Paula White Asks God to “Override the Will of Man”
Donald Trump‘s “spiritual adviser” Paula White, the head of the government’s “Faith and Opportunity Initiative” program and woman who became a national embarrassment with her calls the other night for “angelic reinforcement,” is still trying to flip the election.
Last night, during a prayer session, she asked God to undo the election results so Trump could remain in office.
We push back every agenda that would release a premature Satanic agenda in the name of Jesus. Anything that would be of an anti-Christ spirit, we break it right now, in the name of Jesus. Every anti-Christ spirit, we break it right now. Every anti-Christ agenda that is being pushed, we break it, we override it, we overturn it, we overturn it, we overturn it in the name of Jesus.
Right now, God, we just declare that you will keep the feet of POTUS in his purpose and his position right now. We stop and we override the will of man for the will of God. We override the will of man for the will of God. We override the will of man for the will of God.
Even when they cry out and say “Give us a king,” “Give us a king,” “Give us a king,” “Give us Saul,” “Give us Saul,” “Give us Saul,” and you say “You don’t want Saul,” “You don’t want Saul,” “You don’t want Saul,” we override the will of man for the will of God right now. And we ask by the mercy and the blood of Jesus that you overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn any will of man for the will of God right now.
Every single mail-in ballot has more power than the full force of that pointless prayer.
If God really wanted Trump to remain in office, you would think He wouldn’t have to do all that much to keep states like Georgia red… but, again, voters are more powerful than the Christian deity. And Paula White is about to be a former White House employee with the stain of Trump forever haunting her legacy.
I posted "Yesterday and today they are defending Trumps baseless allegations that there was widespread voter fraud and trying to help him overthrow democracy."
Good anonymous said "That was probably Theresa, who recently started her own blog that no one bothers to comment on:"
The "every sentence is a paragraph" style says Wyatt/Regina to me. I don't ever remember Theresa writing like that. In any event this highlights the problems with people posting without using a single unique username, it makes it impossible to hold people accountable for their words.
Whether it was just Wyatt and Regina who told Trump to concede and then defended his refusal to do so or Wyatt/Regina and Theresa making separate comments they have a moral obligation to clarify who said what. Of course conservatives don't like telling the truth so they probably won't do so.
The 2020 election has seen record amounts of misinformation and even outright disinformation and malicious lies. While the Trump campaign's allegations of fraud haven't held any water in courts, they've been pervasive in the public arena.
And with some notable exceptions, including Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, many Republican officials have either given credence to or stayed silent on the campaign's unfounded claims of widespread fraud and malfeasance.
In her Wednesday statement, Arizona's top election official Katie Hobbs called out Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey for his "deafening silence." But Looking beyond this year, Hobbs holds out optimism that 2020 is not the beginning of a long-term trend towards elected officials seeking to discredit election outcomes -- and tar the work of election officials like herself in the process.
"I sincerely hope that the reluctance we've seen from Republican elected officials to speak out about how damaging and dangerous these kind of actions and statements are, that this is a temporary situation that will go away when Trump is no longer in the White House," adding, "I hope it's temporary. I really do, because I think that the kind of unwillingness we're seeing cause stand up for our Constitution and our democracy is just very damaging."
"Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, no one cares what your fictitious character has to say
no sense filling up the blog with nonsense comments that none even read
"An affidavit of an "irregularity" isn't proof of fraud."
actually, people are convicted based on them all the time
"Anyone can claim they saw something "irregular" it doesn't prove a crime or fraud was committed."
not conclusively
just like when Christine Blasted Ford said Justice Kavanaugh raped her when he was a teen
you considered that proof
"It may be worthy of investigation to see if something illegal happened, but until that is ascertained, it could just be a partisan poll worker with an axe to grind."
could be, but it's likely some are telling the truth
it's just common sense
as I've said, Trump should concede because there is not evidence of sufficient tampering to overturn the election
Dems, in their ordinary absolutism, say there is NO proof
they use the statement like a mantra
"Polls said Hillary would win in 2016. You didn't throw up this kind of argument when she lost. You blamed pollsters and media for being biased and wrong."
Hillary, and TTFers, claimed it as fraud Trump committed in collusion with Russia
have you forgotten that?
they also claim the polls and elections diverged because Republicans "suppressed" votes
have you forgotten that?
"And frankly, there are hundreds of reasonable explanations. You can find them on YouTube on the RVAT and Lincoln Project channels - there are LOTS of Republicans that know the Rumpster is unfit for office."
Trump being unfit for office isn't an explanation why Biden mysteriously outperformed Trump in certain swing state areas where there was no discernible support for him
it's not just that the polls were wrong, it's how they were wrong
it doesn't make sense
it looks like someone tampered with the vote
"You can spend hours watching their videos. It may even give some hope that the Republican party can recover itself after Rump's takeover. Personally, I think they're too far gone,"
Republicans haven't been hurt at all
they gained seats in the House, will probably retain the Senate, have the majority of legislatures
America rejected the Green New Deal, Biden's tax plan, liberal activist judges and the LBGTQ agenda
they gave Republicans a blank check to gerrymander to protect republican seats based on the census
the winners of the election were Biden and Republican politicians other than Trump
the losers of the election were Trump and Democratic politicians other than Biden and TTF
progressive Dems, led by AOC, have already declared their truce with Biden over
he rules a kingdom that only extends to the White House fence
The Trump campaign is bringing "legitimate accusations" to court through affidavits of credible witnesses and other evidence used in its challenges to electoral outcomes in various states, Federal Election Commission Chairman Trey Trainor said.
Trainor said his review of evidence, including numerous affidavits claiming voter fraud and a sworn statement by a prominent mathematician flagging up to 100,000 Pennsylvania ballots, met the first level of legal scrutiny under what's known as motion to dismiss or "Rule 12(b)(6)" of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which would dismiss less credible claims.
Noting the subsequent legal threshold beyond a "motion to dismiss" is the "summary judgment phase," Trainor said that under this phase, the credibility of witnesses is presumed to be accurate, especially given the caliber of the testimonies Trainor has observed to date.
"When considering a motion for summary judgment, a judge will view all evidence in the light most favorable to the movant's opponent," explains Cornell University Law School's Legal Information Institute website.
"What I would be concerned with, if I were on the other side of these election contests that are going on around the country, is that if you look at the level of evidence that has been provided by these affidavits — hundreds of affidavits that corroborate events that have happened on the ground — in a summary judgment phase of these cases, you have to take the evidence of the plaintiff as being true," Trainor told "Just the News AM" television show Friday morning.
"The court has to take the evidence of the plaintiff as being true and see whether or not the other side can make a case against it," added Trainor. "So, the massive amounts of affidavits that we see in these cases show that there was in fact fraud that took place. And the other side really needs to answer these questions."
On Thursday the Trump campaign, led by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, presented what it called its "opening statement" in a press conference. Members of the campaign's legal team reiterated that it would seek to protect the privacy of many of its sworn witnesses, waiting to sharing their identities with the court, to shield them from potential harassment.
With the Trump campaign's lawsuits in targeted battleground states across the country in various phases of progress through the courts, Trainor said, "At the end of the day, what I would say is that these are legitimate accusations that are going to be tried in court."
"And we need to let this legal process play out," Trainor added, "so that we come to a valid conclusion to this election that everybody believes to be legitimate."
Renowned legal scholar Alan Dershowitz said that Trump campaign legal challenges to 2020 presidential election results could rise to the Supreme Court, provided that plaintiffs demonstrate that sufficient numbers of votes were affected to influence outcomes in particular states.
Dershowitz also said it was an uphill battle for Trump to win the election, saying the constitutional questions raised by the possible lack of certifying election results in certain states have never been asked before in American history.
The national conservative legal group Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society on Friday announced that it will file federal and state lawsuits challenging the presidential election results in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. The Trump campaign is joining with the Amistad Project on the lawsuits on a case-by-case basis, Giuliani said.
"just like when Christine Blasted Ford said Justice Kavanaugh raped her when he was a teen
you considered that proof"
You can't read my mind. You have no idea of whether I thought that was proof or not.
"Dems, in their ordinary absolutism, say there is NO proof
they use the statement like a mantra"
Well, why don't you show us something that goes beyond someone saying there are "irregularities" or statistics that some people think are suspicious... you know, actual PROOF of the widespread voter fraud that Republicans are alleging. So far all you've got are stories that people can make up, and "fraud data" based on the fact that someone didn't know the postal abbreviations for states beginning with the letter "M".
Trump said that there was voter fraud in 2016 too - millions of illegals voting for Hillary. He even set up an investigation to find it. They didn't. We should we believe he's going to find it now. Why should we even believe him? His administration has been a factory of lies. There is no reason to believe he's going to find more voter fraud now than he did in 2016.
"Trump being unfit for office isn't an explanation why Biden mysteriously outperformed Trump in certain swing state areas where there was no discernible support for him
it's not just that the polls were wrong, it's how they were wrong
it doesn't make sense
it looks like someone tampered with the vote"
Wishful thinking.
Polls only sample a small percentage of the voters, like a few thousand in a country of over 300 million. In sparsely populated areas that isn't enough to make a statistically significant determination for that particular area. Despite that, there were a number of polls that correctly predicted Biden's win.
Trump courtroom score: 2 wins, 34 losses.
It's going to be hard to overturn the will of the people at this rate.
"You can't read my mind. You have no idea of whether I thought that was proof or not."
Actually, I do have an idea
Because I read your mind
other than that Christine Blasted Ford thing, they was a lot of sick, perverted stuff in there
"Well, why don't you show us something that goes beyond someone saying there are "irregularities" or statistics that some people think are suspicious..."
there are people that witnessed all kinds of things done to boost Biden's vote count and depress Trump's
the head of the FEC says the evidence is credible
"Polls only sample a small percentage of the voters, like a few thousand in a country of over 300 million."
yes, this is why the polls always assume the Dems are way ahead until right before the election
the pollsters are biased and estimate that Dems are a larger portion of the population than they are
but if polls all over the country are wrong one in one direction, except those polls in certain swing state counties, that's suspicious
"It's going to be hard to overturn the will of the people at this rate."
as I've tried to tell you
and I know you've haven't paid attention because I've read your mind,
Trump isn't going to prevail
no one thinks he will
we are going to have a libertarian's dream:
divided government!
some fraud has occurred but it isn't enough
the problem is that Dems keep saying absolutely no fraud has occurred
it's just a lie
Trump lawyer Sidney Powell laid out the case behind the president's claims of election rigging in a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Examiner on Friday.
Articles from the New York Times and HuffPost that alleged a backdoor in Dominion Voting Systems used in several key battleground states could have been exploited to create vote tallies “that did not exist.”
Powell said those are part of the allegations being brought by the Trump campaign.
“Their system even admits, their own training manual admits, that people can go in and do that. That people can go in and put all kinds of votes in a 'trash' folder and then 'trash' them,” Powell said. “There are devices on the internet that can be used to see it, and we have multiple people who actually saw it as it was happening. We essentially have some pictures of it, and it is terrifying, and it is a huge national security issue. Why have the Department of Justice and the FBI not done something on this immediately?"
Responding to O'Connor's question about reports of "overvotes or overballots" in key voting precincts that recorded "200% to 300% turnout," Powell said it was a combination of different types of fraud.
“It’s probably attributable to fraudulent mail-in ballots or computer alterations of the vote. Either one is distinctly possible, and, of course, we have a lot of dead people voting. But that’s not what my case is really based on — that’s certainly one of the issues in the case, a scheme to defraud the people of their legal vote because people had to go out and affirmatively fill in ballots of people that they knew were dead and then file them, and each one of them is a federal crime punishable by five years in prison, if I recall correctly.”
Powell said that although there are many ways in which the voters were defrauded of a fair election, her representation in the president's case focuses on the use of voting machines that have been mired in controversy since the day of the election.
Powell said Dominion “is moving” operations in an effort to hide from accusations of fraud and accused the company of "shredding documents and God knows what else." She accused Dominion of being "foreign-owned" but operating as a shell company in the United States with ties to George Soros.
"They share office space with one of George Soros's groups," Powell said. "His No. 2 man heads up an operation out of England, but the money for it was all funded from Venezuela, and Cuba, and communists. We've got an eyewitness to all of it who has given a foreign affidavit that he saw it all done, and the purpose it was done for was to rig elections."
Powell said she has no knowledge of whether federal investigators have prosecuted any people for election crimes but said that she wouldn’t be surprised because of the evidence she has seen of criminal actions taken to defraud voters of a fair election.
“I can’t imagine people haven’t been apprehended and arrested and indicted already for some of these clearly easily provable outrageous crimes to set an example for others to know they can’t go around doing this.”
Powell said she had videos and “all kinds of” evidence being sent to her team, which she said was having trouble keeping up with allegations of rampant electoral fraud in several key battleground states.
“The information is coming in at a faster rate than our little team can even process it," Powell said. "Americans are fed up with the corruption, they are starting to report it and come forward and give evidence.”
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that forty-seven percent (47%) say it’s likely that Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Biden would win, but 50% disagree. This includes 36% who say it’s Very Likely and 41% who consider it Not At All Likely.
The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted November 17-18, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have heard a chorus from the left and the media about how Trump is denying Biden an “orderly transition.” As time progresses that chant is only getting stronger as they left demands an immediate acknowledgment of the potential election results and a passing of the baton to Biden.
Let’s start our refutation by showing that Trump was already a target of the DOJ before he was even elected. This is not up for debate or discussion. It is a statement of fact. Trump’s election, transition, and subsequent administrative action has been under constant, unrelenting attack from the left. There has not been a single moment of Trump’s Presidency that he has ever been given the benefit of the doubt, a hand-up, or so much as a Kudos from the media or Democrats.
Sure, there was an “orderly transition” while the Obama’s played “gracious hosts” to then-President-Elect Trump, welcoming Trump with open arms in public, while sharpening their knives in private. We know that Obama had been briefed on the DOJ’s and Intelligence Community’s action in investigating Trump. We know that Clapper, Brennan, Strozk, Page, and others knew about the investigation, often bypassing law and standard operating procedures to establish their “case.” They abused their power, unlawfully filed for warrants, glossed over questionable and unreliable sources, and even resorted to lying about the contents of interviews before Trump ever took office. They pushed a narrative to the media that they (as has since been revealed) already knew wasn’t true. They made accusation after accusation of misconduct and illegal behavior absent any proof. They demanded further investigation and testimony into their unfounded accusations and called any lack of cooperation, stonewalling, and the actions of the guilty.
This offensive lasted from before Trump’s election, literally through the current election, and now the left wants to demand an “orderly transition” of power to a President whom they have questioned the legitimacy of, for no less than 4 years? Excuse me, but no. If the very worst that Trump does is delay during legal challenges and recounts (which mind you, could determine that Trump is still President) then he still will be exponentially better than the left.
This “rules for thee but not for me” form of messaging from the media and the political left is nothing more than gaslighting. We dealt with “scandal” after “scandal” for four years, all of which were made absent evidence, corroborating witnesses, or any of the other means of proof of their case, and NOW they want us to revert to the days of old. Sorry, but no. You don’t get to pretend like recent history didn’t occur to demand a level of treatment above which you provided during that history. It is not only insulting but also condescending. Forgive me, but you’ll have to peddle this garbage to someone else.
A federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s campaign’s lawsuit to overturn the election in Pennsylvania on Saturday, calling out Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to “disenfranchise almost 7 million voters” based on zero actual evidence of voter fraud.
U.S. District Court Judge Matthew W. Brann, who heard Giuliani’s argument on the case earlier this week, said the court “has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that weren’t tied to the actual complaint nor supported by evidence.
“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth-most-populated state. Our people, laws and institutions demand more,” Brann wrote.
Brann said that it was perfectly legitimate for Pennsylvania counties to offer voters an opportunity to “cure” their mail-in ballots. The Trump campaign had complained that elections officials in Democratic-leaning counties had done a better job than officials in Republican-leaning counties advising voters when they made a mistake on their mail-in ballots and argued this amounted to an equal protection violation. Brann said that argument was rubbish.
“No county was forced to adopt notice-and-cure; each county made a choice to do so, or not. Because it is not irrational or arbitrary for a state to allow counties to expand the right to vote if they so choose, Individual Plaintiffs fail to state an equal-protection claim,” he wrote.
“Even assuming that they can establish that their right to vote has been denied, which they cannot, Plaintiffs seek to remedy the denial of their votes by invalidating the votes of millions of others. Rather than requesting that their votes be counted, they seek to discredit scores of other votes, but only for one race. This is simply not how the Constitution works,” Brann wrote.
"This “rules for thee but not for me” form of messaging from the media and the political left is nothing more than gaslighting. We dealt with “scandal” after “scandal” for four years, all of which were made absent evidence, corroborating witnesses, or any of the other means of proof of their case, and NOW they want us to revert to the days of old. Sorry, but no. You don’t get to pretend like recent history didn’t occur to demand a level of treatment above which you provided during that history. It is not only insulting but also condescending. Forgive me, but you’ll have to peddle this garbage to someone else."
Someone remind me again of how many years Republicans kept fanning the flames of birtherism, and claiming Obama was secretly a Muslim despite the fact that he was regularly seen at a Christian church.
And how many Benghazi hearings were there that kept Hillary in the hot seat while never finding anything to charge her with?
Then of course, there was Moscow Mitch: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
No Mitch, your number one priority is to serve the will of the people, not undermine who they voted for at every turn.
Obama won both the popular vote and the electoral college TWICE due to a combination of his character, optimism, and plans for the future. Republicans torpedoed all of that every chance they got - nullifying the will of more than half of the electorate. How long did you think that is going to be a good working strategy?
If Republicans are upset at how Rump has been treated, they only have themselves to blame - they showed the world for 8 years how to demonize and undermine a President they absolutely hated at every opportunity they had.
"and I know you've haven't paid attention because I've read your mind"
Your delusions are seeping through again. Those are the kind of thoughts best kept to yourself. Otherwise, pretty soon you'll soon start sounding like Oozy Giuliani.
People don't pay that much attention to what you type because they know you're full of... it.
The conservative National Review magazine minced no words in a Friday editorial that denounced President Donald Trump’s attempts to undermine the Nov. 3 election, calling the president’s actions a “bid for infamy.”
The magazine focused special attention on the Thursday news conference at the Republican National Committee by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, and lawyer Sidney Powell.
The two claimed a widespread voter fraud conspiracy, based on unproven allegations, which the National Review called “the most outlandish and irresponsible performance ever by a group of lawyers representing a president of the United States.” It dismissed the unproven theories of voter fraud and called their “lawyering worthy of the comments section of Breitbart News.’”
“If there’s serious evidence for any of this, Giuliani and co. need to produce it immediately,” the magazine said. “Waving around affidavits at a press conference without allowing anyone to examine them doesn’t count. ... This magazine has always taken voter fraud seriously, and we hope that any that occurred in this election is exposed and prosecuted. But it’s important to recognize that the broad contours of the 2020 presidential vote make sense.”
National Review editors pointed out that “same-day ballots strongly favoring Republicans were counted first, and early votes strongly favoring Democrats were counted last.” Politics aside, “across the country, the basic picture is the same, without any notable anomalies — Trump excelled in rural areas, got wiped out in urban areas but often by slightly smaller margins than in 2016, and lost soundly in suburban counties, which proved decisive.”
The magazine also urged Republicans to speak out against the Trump team’s “profoundly undemocratic gambit,” adding that the president was only making his loss to President-elect Joe Biden worse by putting on such a charade.
“He’s turning a narrow election defeat into a bid for infamy,” the magazine said.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Election officials in Wisconsin’s largest county accused observers for President Donald Trump on Saturday of seeking to obstruct a recount of the presidential results — in some instances by objecting to every ballot tabulators pulled to count.
Trump requested the recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties, both heavily liberal, in hopes of undoing Democrat Joe Biden’s victory by about 20,600 votes. With no precedent for a recount reversing such a large margin, Trump’s strategy is widely seen as aimed at an eventual court challenge, part of a push in key states to undo his election loss.
A steady stream of Republican complaints in Milwaukee was putting the recount far behind schedule, County Clerk George Christenson said. Many Trump observers were breaking the rules by constantly interrupting vote counters with questions and comments, according to Christenson.
“That’s unacceptable,” he said. He said some of the Trump observers “clearly don’t know what they are doing.”
Tim Posnanski, a county election commissioner, told his fellow commissioners there appeared to be two Trump representatives at some tables where tabulators were counting ballots, violating rules that call for one observer from each campaign per table. Posnanski said some Trump representatives seemed to be posing as independents.
At one recount table, a Trump observer objected to every ballot that tabulators pulled from a bag simply because they were folded, election officials told the panel.
Posnanski called it “prima facie evidence of bad faith by the Trump campaign.” He added later: “I want to know what is going on and why there continues to be obstruction.”
Joe Voiland, a lawyer speaking to commission members on behalf of the Trump campaign, denied his side was acting in bad faith.
“I want to get to the point of dialing everything down … and not yelling at each other,” Voiland said.
At least one Trump observer was escorted out of the building by sheriff’s deputies Saturday after pushing an election official who had lifted her coat from an observer chair. Another Trump observer was removed Friday for not wearing a face mask properly as required.
Trump paid $3 million, as required by state law, for the partial recount that began Friday and must conclude by Dec. 1.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday blasted President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s win, calling Trump’s legal team “a national embarrassment.”
Christie, a Republican and longtime adviser to Trump, condemned the president for making claims of widespread voter fraud without presenting any evidence, adding that it’s time for Trump to concede the election to Biden.
“The conduct of the president’s legal team has been a national embarrassment,” Christie, an ABC News political analyst, said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
He torched Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell for accusing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) of “a crime on television.” During an interview with conservative outlet Newsmax on Saturday, Powell baselessly claimed Kemp, a Trump ally, was bribed by a voting machine company in a conspiracy to defeat Trump.
“This is outrageous conduct by any lawyer,” Christie said. “And notice ... they won’t do it inside the courtroom. They allege fraud outside the courtroom but when they go inside the courtroom, they don’t plead fraud and they don’t argue fraud.”
Though Trump campaign lawyers have pushed unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud and ballot-counting irregularities in public, they have scrapped such allegations in court.
In a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, a judge asked the Trump campaign legal team point-blank whether they were alleging fraud. “To my knowledge at present, no,” the Trump team attorney responded.
“Listen, I have been a supporter of the president’s,” Christie said Sunday. “I voted for him twice. But elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen.”
He continued:
"You have an obligation to present the evidence. The evidence has not been presented and you must conclude ― as [Fox News’] Tucker Carlson even concluded the other night ― that if you are unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn’t exist.
That’s what I was concerned about on election night, and I remain concerned today. I think it’s wrong. I think ... you’ve heard lots of Republicans starting to say this ― I said it on election night ― and I hope more say it going forward because the country is what has to matter the most. As much as I’m a strong Republican and I love my party, it’s the country that has to come first."
Several top Republicans have publicly recognized Biden as president-elect, though most have either refused to do so or have remained silent on the issue.
As we move toward winter and eagerly await access to a vaccine, discussions about how to address potential new spikes in COVID-19 cases are occurring around the country. In framing these responses, it is critical that leaders at every level of government take stock of all we have learned about this virus and avoid actions that risk putting hard-working Americans in a precarious economic position going into the new year.
The most important part will be avoiding large-scale business shutdowns similar to those earlier this year. While those closures bought valuable time for our health care professionals to better learn how to handle the pandemic, we now know enough to continue a safe reopening without shutdowns that endanger small businesses and the communities that depend on them.
Thanks to the tireless, round-the-clock efforts of health officials, we understand the necessary social distancing protocols and the importance of mask-wearing in public spaces. The business community has been key in promoting and carrying out these practices, which play a vital part in controlling the spread of COVID-19 and preventing outbreaks.
Retail stores and indoor shopping centers are good examples. Business owners and their employees have been diligent in enforcing social distancing and mask rules and have gone above and beyond to keep stores sanitary. Because of this, Americans have been able to safely return to in-person shopping and buying.
These businesses have scrupulously followed health guidelines, and in some cases even implemented new ones, – and they should not be punished with blanket actions that severely hamper their ability to operate or force them to close.
Doing so could spell the end for countless businesses and only further disturb an already shaky jobs market, something that would particularly harm low-income Americans and people who rely on hourly retail jobs. Furthermore, we have already seen that the economic fallout from this pandemic especially harms our country’s communities of color, with Black Americans experiencing disproportionately high rates of unemployment. The risks are so great that now the World Health Organization is also warning against further shutdowns.
Americans cannot afford for government officials to fall back on the same responses they did earlier this year, when they based shutdowns on nebulous definitions of “essential” services, often overlooking many vital industries. If we are to come out of this crisis on stable footing, we will need to target the actual sources of outbreaks, rather than close broad swaths of businesses.
Leaders across the country have shown how businesses can reopen safely. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, for example, successfully allowed indoor stores in the area to reopen with the proper safety protocols. Now, it is important that leaders in other areas that have begun issuing new stay-at-home guidance, including Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, refrain from forcing businesses to close down again, as was attempted by El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego before it was stopped.
While the winter months will pose new challenges in mitigating the spread of COVID-19, we are better equipped to handle them and to position our businesses and their employees to operate successfully. The actions we take in the next several months will shape our long-term economic recovery, and forcing businesses that have taken all the necessary steps to keep people safe to shut down again will only make that path to recovery longer.
Republicans should stop posting how to fix the pandemic problem. Along with Rump, they've only helped make the US the worst major country on the planet in terms of COVID response.
It's time to sit down, shut up, and let the health experts do their job. There are too many Republicans who think they are "experts" and have a large base of stupid Rump supporters following them.
Their refusal to wear masks when appropriate, and predilection for gathering in large mobs to support the autocrat in chief is only extending the pandemic for the rest of us who are following the guidelines.
Good anonymous said "An affidavit of an "irregularity" isn't proof of fraud."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "actually, people are convicted based on them all the time".
Yeah? Tell us who.
Good anonymous said "Anyone can claim they saw something "irregular" it doesn't prove a crime or fraud was committed."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "not conclusively"
You mean not in any way at all. In every election you can find something looking a bit odd or out of the norm but that is not in any way proof of voter fraud, especially not on a significant scale.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "just like when Christine Blasted Ford said Justice Kavanaugh raped her when he was a teen you considered that proof"
Christine Ford was a first person witness to a crime. The Trump campaign has not presented any first person witnesses to voter fraud, only complaints that people weren't nice to them or farted in their general direction.
Good anonymous said "It may be worthy of investigation to see if something illegal happened, but until that is ascertained, it could just be a partisan poll worker with an axe to grind."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "could be, but it's likely some are telling the truth"
Conservatives lie prolifically and deny any reality that paints them or Trump in a bad light and any reality that paints democrats in a good light. Trump's told 20,000 false or misleading statements in the last 4 years and his supporters are 100% behind those lies. No, the truth is its likely ALL of them are lying - as conservatives do.
Wyatt/Regina yesterday you said:
"Trump, cut your losses and endorse democracy it would be one thing is the raw votes was for you and it was only the electoral college was in your way but you won from no point of view if you leave now, like LBJ and Nixon, you may have a legacy centered around some achievements otherwise, you'll be another Benedict Arnold"
Why the flip flop to now to backing his attempted coup? Your fans deserve an explanation seeing as you claim to be an honest person.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Dems, in their ordinary absolutism, say there is NO proof"
Republicans haven't given a single example of a fraudulent vote let alone a substantial number of examples. There is NO proof of voter fraud.
Good anonymous said "Polls said Hillary would win in 2016. You didn't throw up this kind of argument when she lost. You blamed pollsters and media for being biased and wrong."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Hillary, and TTFers, claimed it as fraud Trump committed in collusion with Russia"
That's a lie. We never claimed there was voter fraud that allowed trump to get an electoral college win, what happened was that there was a massive Russian disinformation campaign targeted at swing states which tilted voters to Trump.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "they also claim the polls and elections diverged because Republicans "suppressed" votes"
That's exactly what happened. Trump handcuffed the post office to prevent millions of votes by Democratic leaning voters.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump being unfit for office isn't an explanation why Biden mysteriously outperformed Trump in certain swing state areas where there was no discernible support for him"
No one said that was an explanation. The polling showed Biden outperforming Trump in those swing state areas and he didn't do as well as expected l because Republicans suppressed the vote - there's nothing unusual or unexpected about this and certainly doesn't prove any fraudulent votes were cast.
Good anonymous said "You can spend hours watching their videos. It may even give some hope that the Republican party can recover itself after Rump's takeover. Personally, I think they're too far gone,"
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Republicans haven't been hurt at all they gained seats in the House, will probably retain the Senate, have the majority of legislatures".
Trump lost the popular vote by 6 million and would have lost it by several million more if not for Republican voter suppression. Congressional Democratic candidates got several million more votes than Congressional Republican candidates did. The public massively rejected the Republican part, only a biased system and massive Republican corruption allowed them to win the seats they did.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "America rejected the Green New Deal, Biden's tax plan, liberal activist judges and the LBGTQ agenda"
America overwhelmingly voted for those things, 70% of Americans oppose gay marriage bans. By 8-10 percentage points Americans preferred Biden and the liberal judges over Trump and judges who are religious extremists. The system is biased in favour of Republicans and denies the democratic will of the majority of Americans.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "they gave Republicans a blank check to gerrymander to protect republican seats based on the census"
Wow. You couldn't have told a bigger lie about what the will of the people really is. The gerrymandering prevented the majority from electing the people they wanted. That is most certainly not any kind of mandate to further bias the system against the will of the majority.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "there are people that witnessed all kinds of things done to boost Biden's vote count and depress Trump's"
Then why did Trump's law suits get thrown out of court, even with judges he appointed???
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the head of the FEC says the evidence is credible"
A Trump appointed lackey taking Trump's side is meaningless.
Good anonymous said ""Polls only sample a small percentage of the voters, like a few thousand in a country of over 300 million."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "yes, this is why the polls always assume the Dems are way ahead until right before the election the pollsters are biased and estimate that Dems are a larger portion of the population than they are "
No, the polls show a bigger lead than what appears in the vote count because of the massive and systematic suppression of Democratic votes Republicans carry out every election.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "but if polls all over the country are wrong one in one direction, except those polls in certain swing state counties, that's suspicious"
No, this sort of thing happens every election. The smaller the population being sampled the less accurate the polls are with bigger margins of error. If you had gone to universtity you'd know this.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump isn't going to prevail no one thinks he will"
That's an incredibly idiotic statement. Tens of millions of Trumps supporters are certain he will prevail merely because he's been telling them so. When he doesn't they will wrongly believe the election was stolen from him and present a serious threat of widespread violence. If you think Trump shouldn't prevail then why are you repeating his lies about voter fraud?
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "some fraud has occurred but it isn't enough"
Only a handful of cases, all done by Republicans. There is no significant voter fraud that would remotely approach changing the results of the election
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the problem is that Dems keep saying absolutely no fraud has occurred".
No Democrat has said "absolutely no fraud occurred" and there isn't any problem, there was NO significant voter fraud. Republicans leaned heavily on the scale to bias the election in favour of Trump. That Biden still won proves this is what the public really wanted. The counting of the votes couldn't have been more honest and correct
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that forty-seven percent (47%) say it’s likely that Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots".
He's probably lying about this poll and claiming 47% said this when it was 47% of Republicans. He lied about the October 2015 shutdown polls in the same way, swapping the Democratic numbers and Republican numbers around to try to deceive readers into thinking the most of the public supported the Republicans when in fact most supported the Democrats.
In any event, criminal cases aren't decided by opinion polls, they're decided in a court of law and there has not been any significant voter fraud. If there were Trump would have easily proven it by now. Instead he's lost dozens of cases because he has NOTHING.
"Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, no one cares what you make up for your fictitious character to rant over
no one even reads it
Hey Wyatt/Regina, how come you keep flip-flopping back and forth between responding to my comments and then being afraid to? Is it because your church/Tony Perkins is pulling your strings? That must suck.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Let’s start our refutation by showing that Trump was already a target of the DOJ before he was even elected. This is not up for debate or discussion. It is a statement of fact.".
No one denies that fact. Trump was targeted because there was a ton of evidence he was conspiring with Americans number one adversary to corrupt the election. Robert Mueller presented a 12 count criminal indictment to Congress for Trump's obstruction of Justice. Republicans refused to hold him accountable so here we are with him having a chance at a coup to overthrow democracy.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Over the last couple of weeks, we have heard a chorus from the left and the media about how Trump is denying Biden an “orderly transition."
He most certainly is. When Trump was declared winner of the electoral college Obama invited him to the White House two days later to begin the transition. Trump has yet to start the transition almost three weeks later and is denying Biden the transistion funds needed to do so. Trump has also blocked Biden from intelligence briefings and from receiving the messages foreign leaders are sending to him.
This is a threat to the security of the country the transition period was implemented to protect. It also delays mitigation measures for COVID - 19 meaning thousands more are going to die needlessly while the Hardimans and Repubicans pooh-pooh the near 2000 Americans dying every day.
"Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, no one cares what you make up for your fictitious character to rant over
no one even reads it
still
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "As we move toward winter and eagerly await access to a vaccine, discussions about how to address potential new spikes in COVID-19 cases are occurring around the country. ".
"potential" new spikes?! These aren't "potential" new spikes, they're gigantic real spikes that see nearly 2000 Americans a day dying needlessly.
The reason for this is conservatives have angrily rejected adhering to any pandemic mitigation measures such as masks, social distancing, and avoiding gatherings. Conservatives have gone out of there way to make the pandemic worse by holding large rallies and get together where there are precious few masks and no social distancing.
Red State North Dakota has viciously crushed attempts to mitigate the virus infection and as a result has the highest per capita rate of COVID infections in the world.
Trump could have prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths if he had told Americans how serious this was back in January when he found out and implemented a national mask mandate which his followers would have eagerly gone along with. Instead he's mocked the wearing of masks and other mitigation measures encouraging conservatives to pretend there is no problem and to go about living their lives as if that's true.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "no one even reads it"
Well, if you two said it it must be true.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I don't ever Fundies attacking trans men, only trans women.
Trans men were designated female at birth, but their gender is male - just as trans woman were designated male at birth, but their gender is female.
If the Fundies enact a "bathroom bill" that forces trans people into a restroom against their known gender, then the Fundies will have to deal with trans men being forced into women's spaces. It's absurd, because neither trans men nor trans women are sexual predators! We've all been peeing next to them for years. They just want to pee, wash up and leave -- like anyone else.
Fundies are the actual sexual predators, wanting to check under stalls and down pants and skirts to ogle the genitals of strangers.
Watch the Fundies freak out if they get their wish, because a trans man like Shawn Stinson who was designated female at birth but his gender is male, would be forced by law into the female restroom. Does he want to be there? Hell no! He's a trans man, a man -- and I dare any Fundie to question his genitals as not "male" enough!
Everything Trump is doing now is trying to create a bigger disaster for Joe Biden to have to clean up. The ultimate in petty, Trump is taking disastrous revenge on the American public.
"Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, no one cares what you make up for your fictitious character to rant over
no one even reads it
still
"If the Fundies enact a "bathroom bill" that forces trans people into a restroom against their known gender, then the Fundies will have to deal with trans men being forced into women's spaces. It's absurd, because neither trans men nor trans women are sexual predators! We've all been peeing next to them for years. They just want to pee, wash up and leave -- like anyone else."
TS, you're right that trans have been using any bathroom they want for years
so, why did they start pushing all these bills to force business owners to let them do that?
it's an example of liberal extremists, always in search of a new cause, to start a problem
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "so, why did they start pushing all these bills to force business owners to let them do that?"
Because bigots like you were trying to prevent transwomen from using the women's bathroom. You bigots started this. Anti-lgbt is now the whole reason d'etre of Evangelical christianity.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Sunday condemned President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden and bashed Republicans who have remained silent on the matter.
Two weeks ago, Hogan appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and said he believed Trump would “do the right thing” and admit defeat. A day earlier, virtually all major media networks had projected Biden as the winner.
Asked Sunday if he still feels that way, Hogan said he wasn’t sure.
“I have confidence that on Jan. 20 the president-elect is going to be sworn in,” Hogan said. “But I’m not sure I could say that I’m confident that the president is going to do the right thing.”
Trump met with Michigan lawmakers on Friday as part of his ongoing attempt to overturn Biden’s win. Trump is reportedly urging Republican-controlled state legislatures to send pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College.
Michigan lawmakers appeared to reject Trump’s reported strategy on Friday, saying that the state’s electoral votes should go to the winner of the popular vote ― the state’s normal process ― which would be Biden.
“I thought the pressuring of the legislators to try and somehow change the outcome with electors was completely outrageous,” Hogan said.
“We used to go supervise elections around the world and we were the most respected, you know, country with respect to elections and now we’re beginning to look like we’re a banana republic,” he added.
Only a handful of top Republicans have publicly recognized Biden as the president-elect. Most of them have either refused to do so or haven’t yet weighed in publicly.
“It’s time for them to stop the nonsense,” Hogan said. “It just gets more bizarre every single day. And frankly, I’m embarrassed that more people in the party aren’t speaking up.”
Following Hogan’s appearance on CNN, Trump tweeted an article from the right-wing website Breitbart about the Maryland governor’s efforts earlier this year to secure coronavirus tests from South Korea.
The Breitbart story was based on a Washington Post story published Friday that reported Hogan spent $4.6 million in state funding to import 500,000 tests from South Korea that turned out to be flawed.
“Hogan is just as bad as the flawed tests he paid big money for!” Trump tweeted.
Hogan quickly fired back at Trump, tweeting that if the president had done his job, “America’s governors wouldn’t have been forced to fend for themselves to find tests in the middle of a pandemic.”
“Stop golfing and concede,” Hogan added.
If you believe the book of Acts and the writings of Paul and the Early Church Fathers, Christianity started out at least trying to do the whole "the greatest among you must be the slave of all" inverted power structure Jesus taught.
But all that went out the window at the very latest once Rome and the Church made peace and Bishops and Popes discovered how awesome worldly power and wealth were and ever since then, it's always been the same. Shame and abuse the girl who gets pregnant out of wedlock, while the local priest rapes a child, and the Pope fathers illegitimate children with three or four mistresses.
Modern Evangelicalism in America was built on the injustice of slavery and welcomed slavers who raped, abused, and murdered their fellow man into the pews every Sunday. The rules are always for the poor and the powerless and the oppressed, never for the masters, rich, or powerful.
If the Trump horror of the last four years has taught us anything, it's that there's a violent and dangerous segment of America that's a threat both to our democracy and our safety.
Trump's ban on transgender troops hurt the military, former service surgeons general say.
"Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, no one cares what your fictitious character mumbles incoherently about
no one even reads it
still...
"Modern Evangelicalism in America was built on the injustice of slavery and welcomed slavers who raped, abused, and murdered their fellow man into the pews every Sunday. The rules are always for the poor and the powerless and the oppressed, never for the masters, rich, or powerful."
wow!
reading Marx while you're high again?
Evangelicalism didn't really exist at the time of slavery but protestant Christians of the time pushed to end slavery
of course, there were some people who didn't and twisted scripture to reinforce their views but that just because that was the national state of mind and you couldn't do anything without addressing the Bible
Art critic, New York Magazine columnist, and verified Twitter user Jerry Saltz tweeted, Saturday afternoon, that Republicanism was a social problem and should be "snuffed out" via repression.
Saltz's full tweet read, "Republicanism is no longer a political problem; Republicanism is a social problem. It must be treated in the same way coronavirus is treated: it has to be isolated and snuffed-out by repressing it in about 70% of the general population."
Saltz's now deleted tweet advocating for Republicans to be "repressed" and "snuffed out" has not received any reprimand from Twitter moderators, while conservatives on the platform are routinely suspended and censored for far less.
It's lucky for President-elect Joe Biden and team that no one in the national media has any critical questions for them because it's painfully obvious otherwise that they have no sure plan to beat back the coronavirus and quickly restore the economy.
Not that that was ever something they were serious about doing. Democrats have fully enjoyed the lockdowns and being able to keep Americans reliant on the government. But listening to the things coming out of team Biden should assure everyone that the incoming administration is ready to have us in for the long haul with more lecturing about masks and staying shuttered inside our homes.
If there's anyone out there instilled with confidence that Biden and his crew are ready to get us through this with haste, they should watch the interview from Sunday's This Week on ABC with Biden's chief of staff Ron Klain and then reassess.
Asked whether he thought the Trump administration deserved credit for the record-timing development of vaccines that are reportedly as much as 95% effective, Klain, with a straight face, said, "Vaccines don't save lives; vaccinations save lives."
He went on to complain that not enough people are getting tested (even though we're testing more per million than any other country outside of Israel and the United Kingdom) and to say that "now the question is how do we get 100% of Americans a vaccine in short order."
Getting "100% of Americans a vaccine in short order" has never been the goal because no one has ever said it was feasible. The goal, from the start, and what we all knew months ago, was that a vaccine would have to be distributed in phases, first and foremost to those at high risk of succumbing to the virus.
Knowing that it will be up to the new Biden administration to get this done, Klain called the task at hand "much bigger" than creating the actual development of the vaccine.
This would be like saying, "Well, we've found a cure for cancer, but the much bigger part is going to be training all doctors on how to do it."
The scientists who developed the coronavirus vaccines would be forgiven for choosing a specific finger to wave at Klain.
There is nothing coming out of the team Biden to suggest they know a path to life after the virus that doesn't involve an indefinite call for mask-wearing and home-staying
Republicanism is support for a republican system of government.
Republicans are human beings.
Calling a system of government a "social disease" is not the same thing as advocating for Republicans, that is human beings, "to be "repressed" and "snuffed out."
Good anonymous said "Modern Evangelicalism in America was built on the injustice of slavery and welcomed slavers who raped, abused, and murdered their fellow man into the pews every Sunday. The rules are always for the poor and the powerless and the oppressed, never for the masters, rich, or powerful."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Evangelicalism didn't really exist at the time of slavery but protestant Christians of the time pushed to end slavery"
It did exist and while a small minority of christians advocated ending slavery the overwhelming majority of American christians at the time were in favour of slavery and found vast support for the institution in their bible which exhorted slaves to be hard workers for their masters.
Christians like to lie about slavery in the bible and falsely claim it was more indentured servitude and not really slavery per se. That was true of Jews sold into slavery but not non jew slaves who were treated like slaves, never set free and passed on down from father to son and so on. The bible says it is moral for a slave owner to beat his slave to death as long as he doesn't die immediately and takes a couple of days.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "It's lucky for President-elect Joe Biden and team that no one in the national media has any critical questions for them because it's painfully obvious otherwise that they have no sure plan to beat back the coronavirus and quickly restore the economy.".
He has a plan, it involves mask wearing, social distancing and avoiding gatherings. All the things the medical professionals advocate and which conservatives viciously fight against. Trump has made it impossible for Joe Biden to beat back the coronavirus because he's turned all conservatives against the effort. Its going to be at least a year before Joe Biden can start to turn around the mess Trump made and for the economy to require. And Wyatt and Regina will lie forever more about how this is all Biden's fault.
Wyatt and Regina Hardiman lie constantly about how the pandemic is the fault of liberals because the initial outbreak occurred in the New York area. The truth is the explosion in cases and deaths is virtually entirely the fault of conservatives like Trump who have gone out of their way to make the pandemic worse by holding large mask free gatherings with no social distancing.
Just look at the sort of thing that constantly happens with conservatives:
Assault Charge For Trump Supporter Who Coughed On Protester
This is far from an isolated incident. There's an explosion of conservatives spitting and coughing on people wearing masks and pulling masks off of people's places. Conservatives go out of their way to nullify any attempts to mitigate the pandemic because to them that shows loyalty to Trump.
Conservatives are the problem. Conservatives made the pandemic explode. Conservatives are preventing public health officials from bringing it under control. Every day Wyatt and Regina Hardiman are on here opposing all measures to save lives, telling us how its all unnecessary and there is no real problem, pooh-poohing nearly 2000 deaths a day.
Conservatives plotted to kidnap and kill the governor of Michigan because they opposed her attempts to bring the coronavirus under control. That's who conservatives are. Make no mistake about it, they are almost entirely responsible for the disaster the United States is in.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Saltz's full tweet read, "Republicanism is no longer a political problem; Republicanism is a social problem. It must be treated in the same way coronavirus is treated: it has to be isolated and snuffed-out by repressing it in about 70% of the general population."
Saltz's now deleted tweet advocating for Republicans to be "repressed" and "snuffed out" has not received any reprimand from Twitter moderators, while conservatives on the platform are routinely suspended and censored for far less."
Wyatt and Regina Hardiman have advocated for harmless lgbt people to be assaulted, imprisoned, sent to re-education camps and executed. Them condemning a call to snuff out bad attitudes couldn't be more hypocritical.
There is nothing Biden can do to turn around the coronavirus because the 40% of the population that are conservatives are dead set on preventing that from happening. Trump created this situation, he is responsible for all the coronavirus deaths conservatives force to happen during Biden's presidency.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Saltz's now deleted tweet advocating for Republicans to be "repressed" and "snuffed out" has not received any reprimand from Twitter moderators, while conservatives on the platform are routinely suspended and censored for far less.".
Saltz called for bad attitudes to be repressed and snuffed out, not conservatives, so typical of you to lie like this. Steve Bannon calling for medical expert Dr. Fauci to be beheaded was most certainly not "far less", it was far worse.
Sen. Ted Cruz took a stab at forecasting the presidential election in July, and ended up wrong on so many levels, people noticed on Twitter Monday.
In the clip reposted Sunday, the Texas Republican said he didn’t think President-elect Joe Biden would win, but if he did, “I’ll guarantee you the week after the election suddenly all those Democratic governors, all those Democratic mayors will say everything’s magically better. Go back to work. Go back to school. Suddenly the problems are solved.”
Twitter reminded Cruz that nothing is better ― coronavirus is surging almost everywhere in the country and has now infected more than 12.3 million in the U.S. and killed at least 256,000. Democratic and Republican governors alike are instituting tighter COVID-19 safety restrictions repeatedly dismissed by lame-duck President Donald Trump and the GOP.
Biden won the election, and Trump is trying to make Democracy magically disappear by baselessly claiming victory was stolen from him.
A soothsayer you aren’t, Ted.
If Trump had an ounce of humanity and compassion in him he'd order a national mask mandate right now and turn around conservatives attitudes on trying to control the pandemic. The sure as eff won't listen to Biden on this.
The definition of insanity is counting the same votes over and over and expecting a different result.
"The definition of insanity is counting the same votes over and over and expecting a different result."
no, the definition of insanity is to believe false things without proof
the truth is, recounts always produce a different result
they are like snowflakes
different every time and. if you deny that fact,
you're insane
speaking of insane:
A soothsayer you aren’t, Ted.
"Blogger Priya Lynn said.."
Randy, no one is going to get more interested in your imaginary character because you keep bringing them up
posting the same delusions over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity!
Few Republicans are more partisan than Rush Limbaugh, but even he is having a hard time getting behind President Donald Trump’s baseless claim of widespread voter fraud.
The controversial talk show host admitted on Monday that he was underwhelmed by the “evidence” presented by Trump’s legal team during a news conference last Thursday.
During the press event, now-ousted Trump lawyer Sidney Powell claimed without evidence that the 2020 election was rigged by a consortium that included Venezuela, Cuba, Antifa, George Soros, the Clinton Foundation and the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez.
Limbaugh chided the Trump campaign for making big claims without any actual proof.
“You call a gigantic press conference like that — one that lasts an hour — and you announce massive bombshells, then you better have some bombshells. There better be something at that press conference other than what we got,” Limbaugh said. “They promised blockbuster stuff, and then nothing happened. And that’s just, that’s not — well, it’s not good.”
Limbaugh also suggested that “if you’re gonna do a press conference like that with the promise of blockbusters, then there has to be something more than what that press conference delivered.”
On Saturday, Powell appeared on Newsmax to spout some more really dubious voter fraud conspiracies, including one accusing Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, a Trump ally, of being bribed by a voting machine company to ensure the president’s defeat.
The Trump campaign apparently thought Powell went a little too far. On Sunday, Powell was sidelined, though it remains unclear whether she was fired.
Limbaugh isn’t the only Republican media personality who is having a hard time believing the Trump campaign’s false claims of voter fraud.
During his show on Thursday, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson called out Powell for not providing him evidence to support her election claims “despite a lot of requests, polite requests, not a page.”
Carlson told viewers that when his crew continued to press her for evidence, Powell “got angry and told us to stop contacting her.”
Throughout his term Trump has fulfilled Putin's every wish, granting him concession after concession and getting nothing in return. Now that he's lost the election he's stepping up his gifts to Putin and has cancelled the Clear Skies Treaty put in place in 1992.
The Open Skies agreement shared intelligence information with American allies about what the Russians are up to. Two specialized surveillance planes were used to do this and Trump has ordered them destroyed and block a program to replace them with new ones. Trump's again harmed American national security to help Russia and has messed it up so severely Biden won't be able to easily rejoin the agreement and restart the surveillance.
The treaty requires Trump to consult with Congress for 4 months to leave it but yet again he has ignored the rule of law and blundered ahead with it.
Just a gift to Putin on the way out the door.
Trump has been a traitor to his own country and Republicans supported him all the way as he gave the store away.
Wyatt and Regina Hardiman are traitors to their own country. They've defended every corrupt move Trump has taken to help Russia and harm the USA.
"Anonymous The definition of insanity is to believe false things without proof said...
Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, No one cares what your fictitious characters say
no one even reads them
Will the Senate’s richest member be held to account for her blatantly illegal solicitation of campaign cash?
Georgia Republican Kelly Loeffler is the richest member of the United States Senate, but that hasn’t stopped the appointed senator from making an illegal pitch for money to fund her embattled bid for a full term in the chamber.
Loeffler is locked in a January 5 runoff race with the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who finished ahead of her in the initial voting on November 3. She’s mounting a desperate campaign that is filling the Atlanta airwaves with an onslaught of negative ads and, though the multimillionaire could afford to buy them herself, Loeffler’s instead appealing for money from across the country to pay for what could turn out to be the most expensive Senate campaign in history.
That’s what the senator did November 18, when she appeared on a Fox News program from the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda. Loeffler wasn’t talking about Senate business that day. She was talking politics, and, after attacking Warnock repeatedly, the senator announced, “Well look, we know that hundreds of millions of dark, liberal money is pouring into our state. That’s why it’s so important that everyone across the country get involved. They can visit KellyforSenate.com to chip in five or 10 bucks, and get involved, volunteer.”
The appeal was a direct request for campaign money, made inside a federal building. That’s illegal. The section of the Code of Laws of the United States of America dealing with the solicitation of campaign funds inside federal buildings, 18 USC 607, plainly states:
It shall be unlawful for an individual who is an officer or employee of the Federal Government, including the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, to solicit or receive a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State, or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an officer or employee of the United States, from any person.
The code outlines tough penalties for wrongdoers: “A person who violates this section shall be fined not more than $5,000, imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both.”
Loeffler’s appeal was also in conflict with US Senate ethics rules, which state clearly that “Senate Members and staff may not receive or solicit campaign contributions in any federal building.”
Loeffler’s not the first embattled Republican to have gotten caught crossing legal and ethical lines in pursuit of campaign cash. In October, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was called out for pleading in a televised appearance from outside the room where the Senate Judiciary Committee was deliberating on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, “I don’t know how much [the hearing] affected fundraising today, but if you want to help me close the gap, lindseygraham.com. A little bit goes a long way.” That comment led US Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who is a former prosecutor, to highlight federal laws barring such activities and declare, “This is a crime. [Lindsey Graham] committed a crime in plain sight.” An ethics complaint was filed against Graham, though it has yet to be resolved by the lethargic Senate Ethics Committee.
Loeffler’s pitch was a good deal more more blatant than Graham’s. She mentioned explicit dollar amounts and specifically asked donors to “chip in” to her campaign. And watchdog groups noticed. The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint, which asks the Ethics Committee to mount “a swift investigation” into what the organization describes as a “blatant violation of rules that prohibits political fundraising on federal property.”
“If the Ethics Committee again fails to review this matter and hold both Graham and Loeffler accountable, the Senate will establish a dangerous precedent that solicitations of campaign contributions on federal property are permissible,” warn the center’s general counsel, Kedric Payne, and Delaney Marsco, a legal counsel who focuses on ethics issues. “Such a result conflicts not only with the Ethics Committee’s unequivocal rules and guidance, but also a fundamental principle of ethical public service: that federal resources are not to be used for political purposes.”
The American Democracy Legal Fund has also filed a complaint. That organization’s president, Brad Woodhouse, says that Loeffler’s “fundraising solicitation from the Capitol was illegal, plain and simple.”
The Georgia Democratic Party has filed its own complaint, along with a request that the Department of Justice investigate Loeffler’s televised fundraising appeal. “Senator Kelly Loeffler has once again chosen to use her position of power for personal and political advantage by illegally asking for donations on national television while on federal property,” says Scott Hogan, the party’s executive director. “She broke not only Senate rules but also federal law.”
Loeffler’s apologists have mounted a novel defense that suggests the legal ban on senators soliciting money inside federal buildings is intended merely to prevent legislators from meeting with donors in their offices or making fundraising calls on official phones. But that’s absurd.
The Senate Ethics Manual specifically states that “no activities of a political solicitation nature should occur with the support of any federal resources [staff or space] in order to avoid any question that a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 607 has occurred” (emphasis added). The whole point of the rules barring senators from begging for campaign cash inside federal buildings—whether they’re “dialing for dollars” or appearing on national television and asking donors to “chip in”—is to prevent them from leveraging their offices to benefit their election bids. Loeffler took the swampiest part of politics out of the back room and amplified it on national television. If she is not held to account, then the message will be that ethics standards and the rule of law do not apply to the millionaires and billionaires who seek to make the Congress of the United State their privileged playground.
TN Republicans Propose Bill to Spread COVID Even After We Have a Safe Vaccine
When Tennessee’s legislature meets again in January, Republicans are already doing everything in their power to make sure COVID keeps spreading even after a safe, effective vaccine becomes widely available.
To make sense of the bill, you need to know what state law currently says.
It allows parents to cite religious objections to childhood vaccinations, but that excuse is only permitted “in the absence of an epidemic or immediate threat.”
The law also says employees cannot be required to undergo vaccinations or immunizations if they object on religious grounds… unless “the medical examination, immunization or treatment is necessary for the protection of the health or safety of others.”
It also says that religion is an acceptable excuse to get out of certain locally required medical treatments. But, again, that excuse doesn’t apply when there’s an “epidemic or immediate threat of an epidemic.”
Basically, religion is an acceptable excuse to avoid vaccinations — for you and your children — unless Tennessee is going through a pandemic or the public health is at risk.
But according to House Bill 10, filed By Republican State Rep. Jay D. Reedy, and Senate Bill 7, filed by Republican State Sen. Mark Pody, all those disclaimers saying a pandemic overrides religious objections to a vaccine would disappear entirely.
Not only that, the bills say “right of conscience” would become an acceptable excuse to avoid getting vaccinated. Who needs religion? Just say you don’t want a vaccine and the state can’t force you or your kids to get one. Public schools wouldn’t even be allowed to say unvaccinated kids can’t enter the building if these bills go through.
Simply put, these Republicans want to create new ways for people to continue spreading the deadliest virus we’ve ever seen because they have irrational personal objections to it.
More people will die if these bills become law.
It’s what Republicans want because they refuse to accept science. It’s one thing for a symbolic bill like this to be proposed in a state with responsible lawmakers, but Tennessee is a deeply Republican state where right-wing legislation can actually get passed without objection. The question now is whether enough Republican politicians want to defeat the virus or cave in to the most dangerous people in their state.
It’s not a tough decision for decent people. But Republican lawmakers are not decent people. So this could very well pass.
If you could reason with Trump supporters, there wouldn't be any Trump supporters.
Any system that allows the popular vote winner by national total of 2.8 million votes (2016) to be declared the loser ... is fundamentally profoundly corrupt and "rigged".
Which is why Trump was inflicted upon America.
Those 77,000 votes, in 2016 applied to skewed & archaic EC formula, just show the absurdity of a 229 year old 'sacred cow' tradition that is undemocratic in a highly dangerous way.
Religious freedom has to be defined as stopping at the boundary where it deprives any group, or minority, or race, or sex etc. of their own rights to respect, recognition, service, benefits, employment, housing, security of person, reproductive freedom etc.
Trump now 1 win, 36 losses in trying to overthrow American democracy through the courts.
"Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, No one cares what your fictitious characters say
no one even reads them
Back in May, just after COVID-19 spiked across America, President Trump made a bold prediction about a coronavirus vaccine.
"We're looking to get it by the end of the year if we can, maybe before," Trump said May 14 in a White House Rose Garden event.
The next day, he wrote on Twitter: "Vaccine work is looking VERY promising, before end of year."
The mainstream media didn't like that prediction, not one little bit.
"But experts say that the development, testing and production of a vaccine for the public is still at least 12 to 18 months off, and that anything less would be a medical miracle," NBC News wrote May 15 in a "fact check."
So, when Trump said "someday, it will disappear, just like a miracle," he was right if you believe NBC
The network cited Dr. Paul Offit, a professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "I think it's possible you could see a vaccine in people's arms next year — by the middle or end of next year," said Offit. "But this is unprecedented, so it's hard to predict."
NBC also sought comment from Dr. Stanley Plotkin, credited with inventing a rubella vaccine in 1964. "In the best of circumstances, we should have a vaccine — or let's say vaccines — between 12 and 18 months," Plotkin said.
Meanwhile, FactCheck.org investigated reports that Trump said in September a vaccine would be ready "by the end of the year."
"I didn't say what you said," Trump said in a Labor Day press conference. "What I said is 'by the end of the year.' But I think it could even be sooner than that. It could be during the month of October, actually. Could be before November."
"We looked through Trump's past comments on a vaccine, and did not find any cases in which he declared a vaccine would definitely be available by October or November," FactCheck.org wrote on Sept. 11 in a piece headlined, "Trump Exaggerates Progress."
"But he has suggested that the earlier time frame is even more likely. Experts and governmental officials disagree with that assessment."
Then there was CNN, which wrote a piece in August headlined, "Fact Check: Will there be a coronavirus vaccine by November?"
"Nothing is certain, and Trump's optimism might be crushed in the coming months," CNN wrote. "Some experts warn against throwing out specific dates and timelines. 'I think it's very dangerous at this point to give specific dates,' former Surgeon Gen. Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN's Wolf Blitzer ..."
For the record, Trump was technically wrong. There isn't a vaccine — there are three.
Pfizer on Nov. 9 said results from its most recent human trials on its coronavirus vaccine show it is more than 95% effective. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday that once their vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it will be shipped quickly to locations in the U.S.
Then last week, a new vaccine from drug maker Moderna — developed in conjunction with the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed — emerged and is also nearly 95% effective, but does not have to be kept at sub-zero temperatures like the Pfizer version, the company said.
And on Monday, AstraZeneca and Oxford University said their jointly created COVID-19 vaccine has proven to be up to 90% effective and easier to distribute than another potential vaccine.
"These findings show that we have an effective vaccine that will save many lives," said Oxford University professor Andrew Pollard, who served as the lead investigator for the drug's trials. "Because the vaccine can be stored at fridge temperatures, it can be distributed around the world using the normal immunization distribution system. And so our goal ... to make sure that we have a vaccine that was accessible everywhere, I think we've actually managed to do that."
Pfizer projects making up to 50 million doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021. Moderna projects 20 million doses in 2020 and up to 1 billion doses in 2021. And AstraZeneca projects to make up to 3 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021.
Not only will a vaccine be ready before the end of 2020, it could be in use within weeks.
America's vaccine czar on Sunday said immunizations for COVID-19 could begin in about three weeks and that the U.S. could reach herd immunity by next spring.
Moncef Slaoui, who oversees vaccine development for the White House, said on CNN that once a vaccine is approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), all 50 states will be able to begin immunizations.
"Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours from the approval, so I would expect maybe on Day Two after approval," Slaoui said on CNN's "State of the Union." "On the 11th or the 12th of December, hopefully, the first people will be immunized across the United States, across all states."
"You've said you plan to vaccinate 20 million people in the month of December in the United States and up to another 30 million per month after that," said host Jake Tapper. "How many Americans need to be vaccinated for life to be able to return to normal, and when might that happen?"
"So, normally, with the level of efficacy we have — 95% — 70% or so of the population being immunized would allow for true herd immunity to take place," Slaoui said. "That is likely to happen somewhere in the month of May, or something like that based on our plans."
It's a miracle!
Egyptian Researcher: People Become Atheists Because Holy Books Have Obvious Lies
During an interview last week on Egypt’s Al-Hadath Al-Youm TV, researcher Ahmad Abdou Maher made a remark that’s both obvious and rather surprising. He said that young people are becoming atheists in part because religious texts include obvious scientific lies.
When they realize holy books aren’t telling the truth in certain obvious ways, they’re more likely to doubt the bigger theological claims as well. Maher even compared the lies to a COVID virus in your body: It may be relatively tiny — a small proportion of your body — but it has a tremendous effect.
"There is no doubt that the young people who are becoming atheists are giving this a lot of thought. They do not become atheists because they are cowards who like heresy.
…
Today, when someone in high school, at university, or who has graduated… When he opens a [religious] book, he sees that according to all four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, a man cannot bring his sick wife a doctor or some medicine. Do you see? When these [texts] say that a pregnancy can last four years, and that the child must be named after his father even if they have been divorced for three years, [or] if he has been dead for four years… Things like this are why these young people become atheists and heretics!"
He’s not wrong. Discovering that religious leaders lie is indeed one reason people begin the journey out of faith. It’s not the only one, but it’s definitely in the mix.
This is especially interesting given that the Egyptian government once claimed, in 2014, that there were exactly 866 atheists in the country. (The actual estimate is much closer to two million.)
Maher’s statement, then, is an admission that atheism is alive and well in Egypt, and that it can be blamed — if that’s the right word — at least partly on the mistakes of religious leaders who cling to fantastical stories that have no basis in reality.
I don’t know what the reaction will be, though. It’s not like religious leaders are about to come to their senses and ditch the myths. I guess they’ll be creating new atheists whether they like it or not.
"During an interview last week on Egypt’s Al-Hadath Al-Youm TV, researcher Ahmad Abdou Maher made a remark that’s both obvious and rather surprising. He said that young people are becoming atheists in part because religious texts include obvious scientific lies."
and Ahmad Abdou Maher's evaluation of Islam is relevant here, why?
have yourself a merry little Thanksgivin'
let your hearts be bright
from now on
the gay agenda's done and out of sight
Amy Coney Barrett sealed the deal now
the mainstream media can but squeal now
yes, Sleepy Joe is President
but, to him, no bills will be sent
cuz between Mitch's gang and the Squad
there'll be nothing left for Dem mods
so, have yourself a merry Thanksgivin'
now!
And there you have it folks, the TTF troll's Thanksgiving Eve Ode to Hatred.
"And there you have it folks, the TTF troll's Thanksgiving Eve Ode to Hatred."
a strange thing for someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome to say
far from hatred, gays will be better off without the gay agenda
as for Sleepy Joe and the Squad, they ae very amusing and I which them well, even while not supporting their political success
AOC would be much better off back behind the bar
and Sleepy Joe could use more naps, which he won't get on Pennsylvania avenue
the oldest previous President finished his second term three weeks before he reached Biden's age
what were Dems thinking?
"have yourself a merry little Thanksgivin'"
what a great song!
GM dumps Trump fight against pollution reduction, abruptly sides with Biden and California
General Motors CEO Mary Barra threw President Trump under the electric car Monday, announcing in a letter to environmental groups that GM will no longer support the Trump administration's battle to strip California of its own clean-air standards and signaling the automaker is ready to work with President-elect Joe Biden on climate policy.
"President-elect Biden recently said, 'I believe that we can own the 21st century car market again by moving to electric vehicles.' We at General Motors couldn't agree more," Barra wrote. "We believe the ambitious electrification goals of the president-elect, California, and General Motors are aligned, to address climate change by drastically reducing automobile emissions."
Trump, as he did with the pandemic, did everything he could to increase the pollution of our environment.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "far from hatred, gays will be better off without the gay agenda"
There's that conservative christian "love" again, a "love" that denies people autonomy and seeks to force them to live under an iron fist regardless of what the individual wants.
People have a moral right to live however they want as long as they are not hurting others.
All the major medical and mental health organizations agree, gayness is a normal, natural, and healthy variant of human sexuality for a minority of the population [like being left handed] and lgbt people who positively accept their orientation are happier and healthier than those who do not.
The oppression that Wyatt and Regina Hardiman seek to force upon innocent lgbt people is needlessly damaging to us. Harming us is the real goal hidden behind their facade of caring. Here's what they really think:
Dec 11,2009 I posted "Bad anonymous left out one situation where the Uganda law called for the death penalty - if the person was a repeat "offender".
That meant if you had sex with more than one same sex partner, or more than once with the same partner they proposed putting you to death."
Wyatt/Regina/Bad anonymous responded at "yes, Robert said that too I didn't leave it out on purpose, I didn't know about it. Of course, penalties should increase with repeated offenses but the death penalty would be wrong".
"here's a fun story: India's Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated a ban on gay sex in the world's largest democracy"
[For those of you don't know, a "swirly" is having one's head forced into a toilet bowl which may contain urine and feces]
"if they want to dress like a girl when they're a guy and they wander into the boys' room that way, they'll likely get a swirly welcome no real harm done, just a little social discipline to maintain decorum the answer: don't come to school dressed like a girl if you're a guy problem solved"
"Priya thinks a swirly is a "vicious assault"? it's not a big a deal just ask Ward [my husband] he survived"
"in the U.S., you can be executed for doing nothing in Iran, you have to commit a serious crime, like homosexuality"
This is who Wyatt and Regina Hardiman really are.
I missed it the first time around, but when Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "far from hatred, gays will be better off without the gay agenda" it was a veiled threat their god will eternally torture gays
When indoctrinating your children with your philosophy requires threatening them with the greatest injustice the human mind can conceive, there just might be something wrong with your philosophy. Inexcusably wrong.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "and Sleepy Joe could use more naps, which he won't get on Pennsylvania avenue"
Biden is obviously in far better physical and mental condition than Trump. Even if he did need more naps, he'd still easily surpass a president who did nothing in the White House other than watch TV, Tweet, and stuff his fat face. Trump completely abandoned all the duties required of a president, he has been nothing but a house sitter in the White House.
While, of course, I'm relieved that Biden and Harris won the presidential election, I'm still really, really anxious. Here are some reasons why--quotes from Heather Cox Richardson's letter tonight:
1. Last week, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin went further to divorce the government from supporting the economy in this perilous time. He announced that he was suspending the Treasury’s lending powers at the end of the year, taking away a crucial backstop for businesses and local governments. He is also clawing back from the Federal Reserve about $250 billion appropriated under the original coronavirus relief bill in an apparent attempt to keep it out of the hands of the Biden team. That money will go back to Congress, which would have to reappropriate it in another bill to make it available again, which the Republican Senate shows no sign of being willing to do. Republicans have expressed concern that the Biden administration could use the appropriated money to bail out states and local governments, which by law cannot borrow to tide them over.
2. More than 125 economists this week wrote an open letter calling for a new coronavirus relief package to tide the country over until coronavirus vaccines can stem the economic crisis, especially as measures passed back in March will expire with the end of the year. They are simply echoing the many calls for such a measure, including ones from Trump-appointed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. But while the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a new $3 trillion bill back in May, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declined to take it up, and has not been able to bring Senate Republicans together to back their own version. Now, he has sent senators home for Thanksgiving without taking up a bill.
The greatest danger to America right now is a Republican Senate. I can't express how worried I am.
The whole letter, which also covers how popular Yellen is among both Wall Street types and progressives:
https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fheathercoxrichardson.substack.com%2Fp%2Fnovember-24-2020%3A85pah4xpCqHXGcqSbviwuWJpXeg&cuid=1478235
It has been obvious for the last two years, at least, that Trump has been excluded from deliberations by the major leaders of the world. Yes, they did turn their backs on him and laugh at him. That was because he came to meetings unprepared and completely uneducated.
Trump thought that his very presence would be enough for the world leaders Macron, Merkel, Trudeau . They saw through him of course.
Then there was the pathetic spectacle of Ivanka trying to muscle in on the conversation with Catherine Lagarde, as if she, Ivanka, knew anything in common the leader of the IMF. It was a chip off the old block, I too can use my charm on world leaders. It is the family delusion of grandeur.
Now there is a sea change.
At the very least the fact that Blinkin, the new Sec of State, can speak fluent French is an immediate advantage at restoring relations with France and Europe.
And my own joy is that Biden will slap down Boris Johnson, who saw himself as an Anglo-Trump.
I'm really looking forward to America being back, and the whole stench of Trump and his fetid corpse being scrubbed from the White House.
Your freedom of religion should never affect my freedom from your religion.
In his wake, Trump leaves vulnerabilities of democracy exposed
President Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert an election he falsely claims to have won appear to be falling apart. The United States has likely avoided the sort of post-vote struggle for power that characterizes countries with less stable, shallowly rooted democracies.
But the extraordinary actions of the last three weeks could leave lasting marks on U.S. governance. Mr. Trump has identified many cracks and holes in America’s unwieldy, decentralized electoral system – and tested them to see what, if anything, might give.
The result has laid out a path for how others could push further in the future. The way the nation chooses its leader depends at many points on norms and traditions, as well as the goodwill of election workers and local and state officials. Recent weeks have highlighted how a candidate could conceivably manipulate or improperly influence events and key people – particularly if the candidate begins sowing doubts before the ballot, as Mr. Trump tried to do by attacking mail-in voting.
“Elections are the ways we resolve political differences peacefully, and he tried very hard to set up a false choice: one in which either he won or the system was broken,” says Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Voting Rights and Elections Program. “That really undermines the American system ... in which people choose their elected leaders – not the other way around.”................................Yet the court cases have still had an effect. They have meshed with the president’s communications strategy to portray the 2020 election as “stolen.”
“The lawsuits themselves aren’t posing a legal obstacle. The dangerous thing is that there’s probably at least 40 to 50 million Americans who are buying falsehoods, lies, discredited conspiracy theories,” says Professor Levinson.
The president also broke norms by trying to interfere with the election process in some key states. He brought Michigan state Republican leaders to the White House while some of his surrogates on television were suggesting that those Republicans seat pro-Trump electors in the state, overruling Mr. Biden’s Michigan win. Mr. Trump and his allies also attacked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger prior to the state’s vote certification – despite the fact that Mr. Raffensperger voted for him.
These precedents might encourage future losers, particularly in close elections, to decline to concede, file multiple lawsuits, push to overturn state results, and delegitimize the seating of their opponent, all in a hardball attempt to gain power.
“The goal was to undermine not only the election outcome, but our democratic processes,” says Ms. Pérez.
"It has been obvious for the last two years, at least, that Trump has been excluded from deliberations by the major leaders of the world. Yes, they did turn their backs on him and laugh at him."
you mean the great leaders of Western democracy that sat on their asses while Iran and North Korea developed nuclear weapons and China moved to the brink of world domination?
Meanwhile, Trump single-handedly halted the economic progress of the world's most threatening techno-totalitarian state and has negotiated peace between Israel and three Arab states. And counting.
He was nominated twice for a Nobel Peace Prize this year.
That may be nervous laughter.
"That was because he came to meetings unprepared and completely uneducated."
You mean he was unfamiliar with the wine list?
"Trump thought that his very presence would be enough for the world leaders Macron, Merkel, Trudeau . They saw through him of course."
None of those three is likely to be leaders of their country much longer. And unlike Trump, they will leave without any discernible accomplishments. Trudeau, in particular, is a corrupt, racist, puerile man-child who has embarrassed his country on overseas trips.
"Then there was the pathetic spectacle of Ivanka trying to muscle in on the conversation with Catherine Lagarde, as if she, Ivanka, knew anything in common the leader of the IMF."
Tell us more of your pathetic subjective story.
How DARE Ivanka, adviser to the President of the country that provides more funding to the IMF than any other, try to speak the grand poobahess herself, Catharine Lagarde.
How's the IMF doing these days?
"Now there is a sea change."
now that the Biden is President, will the seas roll back like they did the day Obama was nominated? Surely, you're not saying Biden has the same omnipotent power over nature that the mighty Barry O had!
"At the very least the fact that Blinkin, the new Sec of State, can speak fluent French is an immediate advantage at restoring relations with France and Europe."
yes, because France is such a key player on the world stage
LOL!!
thank heaven our Secretary of State speaks French so he can keep up with the continental super-power!
"And my own joy is that Biden will slap down Boris Johnson, who saw himself as an Anglo-Trump."
if you're suggesting a physical altercation, I'm pretty sure Boris can take Sleepy Joe
"Your freedom of religion should never affect my freedom from your religion."
could you identify which religion you are speaking of? they aren't the same
although, in America, we have constitutionally protected freedom of religion
and, with Amy Coney Barrett on the SCOTUS, those rights will be protected
earlier in the pandemic, the SCOTUS 5-4 allowed Nevada to have tighter restrictions on church services tan casinos
yesterday, the SCOTUS, 5-4, overruled Cuomo's restrictions on churches in New York
what a difference an Amy makes
reminds me of my favorite song:
have yourself a merry little Thanksgivin'
let your hearts be bright
from now on
the gay agenda's done and out of sight
Amy Coney Barrett sealed the deal now
the mainstream media can but squeal now
yes, Sleepy Joe is President
but, to him, no bills will be sent
cuz between Mitch's gang and the Squad
there'll be nothing left for Dem mods
so, have yourself a merry Thanksgivin'
now!
"yesterday, the SCOTUS, 5-4, overruled Cuomo's restrictions on churches in New York
what a difference an Amy makes"
The silver lining to this cloud is that religious people, due to their own death grip on stupidity, be dying off at a higher rate than non-religious people. It's too bad this didn't happen sooner in the pandemic - before vaccines are on the horizon. It seems science will come to the rescue (again) before large enough numbers of them die off to positively affect society.
It is interesting to note that the same ideological wing that has seen people marching with guns in the street protesting government mandates to wear masks and social distance in order to preserve people's lives, health, and end this as crisis quickly as possible, bitching about how it interferes with their constitutional "freedoms," some of them going so far as to planning the kidnapping of a governor, is the same ideological wing that wants to impose ultimate government control on a woman's uterus.
Somehow life inside a uterus demands protection with government interventions. Once it's out though, it's a free for all - everyone for himself.
Wearing a mask to protect your fellow citizen's life?
Hell NO! This is 'murica! We gots the FREEDOM to do whatever the hell we want!
Trump litigation score presently: 1 win, 38 losses.
Trump urged Americans to "gather" for Thanksgiving in direct contradiction of official Covid guidance. Time and time again he acts to make the pandemic worse. One of the biggest problems spreading this pandemic are religious gatherings. Trump and religious conservatives are in an unholy alliance.
Since churches can spread COVID 19 with no consequences, now would be a great time to talk about their tax free status. A deadly pandemic doesn't pay for itself & since they're accomplices, they need to at least help fund recovery efforts.
"Since churches can spread COVID 19 with no consequences, now would be a great time to talk about their tax free status. A deadly pandemic doesn't pay for itself & since they're accomplices, they need to at least help fund recovery efforts."
more COVID deaths are attributable to the poor decisions of Andrew Cuomo than any other single person in America
send him a bill
in second place is Anthony Fauci who told Americans, at a point when the virus might still be stopped, that masks don't work
the mainstream press will make them co-men-of- the year!
A major contributor to a group backing President Donald Trump’s fight to overturn the presidential election sued to recover $2.5 million in donations after the campaign failed in several court cases and was unable to prove any fraud.
Ya don't say.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas by North Carolina venture capitalist Fred Eshelman argued that the nonprofit group True the Vote promised to keep him informed of how his millions were being used in what was pitched as a strong case against alleged election fraud. Instead, the suit alleged, he was fed “vague responses, platitudes and empty promises of follow-up” that never occurred.
Ya don't say.
He was kept in the dark when weak cases filed in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania were voluntarily withdrawn in a decision the investor claimed was made in “concert with counsel for the Trump campaign,” the suit said.
In the Wisconsin case, Republican powerhouse attorney James Bopp promised that “evidence will be shortly forthcoming.” But Bopp withdrew the case last week just hours before scheduled oral arguments without ever providing a shred of evidence.
Ya don't say.
Bopp won the the infamous Citizens United case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which opened the floodgates of dark money into campaigns.
A fed-up Eshelman last week ordered True the Vote in an email to immediately wire back his contribution. When the organization failed to comply, he filed the lawsuit.
He thought he'd get his money back from Rump?!?! Bahhahahahahahahahaha!
Eshelman is a major Trump backer who has twice donated the maximum allowable individual contribution of $2,700 to Trump’s campaign, as well as a $100,000 contribution to the Trump Victory PAC, according to records.
What is that old saying about fools and their money?
"won the the infamous Citizens United case before the U.S. Supreme Court"
a tip for any new visitors to the blog: TTFers always stutter when they lie
Citizens is only "infamous" among those who don't the first amendment guarantee of freedom of speech
it established that speaking in print or other media can't be regulated by the government even when it cost money
in the case, Dems were trying to stop a film that criticized Hillary
"which opened the floodgates of dark money into campaigns."
"dark money"= any money that goes anywhere other than to Democrats
"What is that old saying about fools and their money?"
here it is: TTFers are fools who resent those who have more money than they
hey, do you kids recognize this?:
have yourself a merry little Thanksgivin'
let your hearts be bright
from now on
the gay agenda's done and out of sight
Amy Coney Barrett sealed the deal now
the mainstream media can but squeal now
yes, Sleepy Joe is President
but, to him, no bills will be sent
cuz between Mitch's gang and the Squad
there'll be nothing left for Dem mods
so, have yourself a merry Thanksgivin'
now!
Sitting in the shadow of the brutalist health department building in Washington, with only a leather jacket for protection against an autumnal breeze, Moncef Slaoui cuts a defiant figure.
Six months after the former GlaxoSmithKline executive left the private sector to become President Donald Trump’s coronavirus vaccine tsar, Mr Slaoui feels his decision has been vindicated, and critics of the ability of Operation Warp Speed to develop a vaccine in record time having been proved wrong.
“The easy answer for experts was to say it was impossible and find reasons why the operation would never work,” he said.
But the vaccine push is now hailed as the bright spot in the Trump administration’s Covid-19 response, as products from Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca and Oxford university move closer to approval.
Operation Warp Speed is a more than $10bn investment programme with a remit to fund vaccines, therapeutics — such as two recently approved antibody treatments — and diagnostics.
The entire planet is going to benefit from it. We’re going to . . . hopefully have a vaccine available in France and Spain and Italy, all paid for by the US government
So far it has spent the vast majority of its money on Covid-19 vaccines.
As well as funding some vaccine developers directly, it has also signed pre-orders for the products others are working on, guaranteeing them an income from an approved vaccine when the normal commercial decision might be to not take the risk.
Mr Slaoui’s team also helped manufacturers secure supplies and sped up responses to usually laborious regulatory queries.
Scientists had warned that, with much still to learn about Covid-19, a vaccine might take longer to develop, manufacture and distribute than Mr Slaoui — and his boss, the president — might have hoped.
The central achievement of Operation Warp Speed had been accelerating investment in manufacturing, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Columbia University School of Public Health.
“Normally, that would be a huge investment for a vaccine manufacturer to make, and potentially be a huge loss for them if they developed a vaccine that never went on to the market,” she said.
Even Pfizer, which did not take direct investment from Operation Warp Speed, benefited from having a $2bn pre-order for when its vaccine gets approved, said Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
“Even if J&J or someone else beat them to the punch, they were going to get paid,” he said.
Stéphane Bancel, chief executive of Moderna, the lossmaking biotech which took about $2.5bn in government funding from different bodies, said the money was “very helpful”, covering the costs of trials and helping it buy raw materials.
“The entire planet is going to benefit from it,” he told the FT. “We are going to file for approval in the UK based on the US data paid for by the US government. We’re going to file in Europe and hopefully have a vaccine available in France and Spain and Italy, all paid for by the US government.”
Mr Slaoui breaks off from his conversation to take an urgent call. “The White House,” he explained.
Later that afternoon he would appear in the White House Rose Garden alongside Mr Trump to give an update on Operation Warp Speed — a sign of how he has managed to navigate the politics of the pandemic.
Despite being a registered Democrat, he became one of few scientific experts in the administration to retain both their closeness to the president and their professional reputation. Mr Slaoui said he took the job on the condition that there would be no “political interference” and he believes that has been fully met.
President Trump announced a pardon for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn on Wednesday, seemingly bringing to an end a legal saga that began during the 2016 election amid the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
"It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!" Trump said in a tweet.
Flynn, 61, fought to dismiss the government's case against him this year after he pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to investigators about his December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak related to Russia’s response to the Obama administration kicking Russians out of the United States as retaliation for Russian election interference and related to a U.N. resolution on Israel. The U.S. government intercepted Flynn's discussions with Kislyak, after which now-fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok and FBI agent Joseph Pientka grilled him on the contents of the conversation on Jan. 24, 2017.
Flynn told the court in January that he was “innocent of this crime.” He filed to withdraw his guilty plea after the Justice Department asked the judge to sentence him to up to six months in prison — though, afterward, the department said probation would also be appropriate. The Justice Department later moved to drop the charges in May, following a deep-dive review by U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Jeffrey Jensen. The DOJ said that “continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice.”
Instead, presiding Judge Emmet Sullivan, an nasty appointee of sexual predator President Bill Clinton who has handled the Flynn case since December 2017, appointed retired New York judge John Gleeson to present arguments in opposition to the Justice Department’s motion and to explore whether Flynn should be charged with perjury or contempt.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed a three-judge appeals court panel decision in late August and denied Flynn’s effort to have the case against him swiftly dropped. The decision threw the case back to Sullivan, but the appeals court did tell the judge that “as the underlying criminal case resumes, in the District Court, we trust and expect the District Court to proceed with appropriate dispatch.” Sullivan had refused to dismiss it.
"We would have preferred to see if Judge Sullivan would act and for the matter to be resolved in court. We were confident in the likelihood of our success in the case," a DOJ official told the Washington Examiner. "That being said, this is obviously an appropriate use of the president’s pardon power."
The official also said the Justice Department was not consulted about the decision to pardon Flynn. "We were given a heads-up today," she said.
Flynn’s lawyers, led by Sidney Powell since last summer, argued in October that Sullivan’s “increasingly hostile and unprecedented words and deeds in what has become his own prosecution of General Flynn mandate his disqualification.” Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall said in August that the Justice Department “reluctantly” believed that Sullivan might need to be removed because he seemed to have “prejudged” some of the questions in the case. During a September hearing, Powell said she had spoken with Trump to give him an “update” on her client's case and claimed the only request she made was that he “not issue a pardon” to Flynn.
Powell thanked Trump. She also called the pardon "bittersweet," claiming that the justice system did not work properly.
In a statement, Flynn's family said it is "grateful" to Trump "for answering our prayers and the prayers of a nation by removing the heavy burden of injustice off the shoulders of our brother Michael, with a full pardon of innocence."
"Citizens is only "infamous" among those who don't [sic] the first amendment guarantee of freedom of speech"
No you lying moron.
This is what the Constitution says about free speech:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
There have long been laws regulating commercial speech.
In law, commercial speech is speech or writing on behalf of a business with the intent of earning revenue or a profit. It is economic in nature and usually attempts to persuade consumers to purchase the business's product or service. The Supreme Court of the United States defines commercial speech as speech that "proposes a commercial transaction".
In the United States, commercial speech is "entitled to substantial First Amendment protection, albeit less than political, ideological, or artistic speech".[2] In the 1980 case Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court developed a four-part test to determine whether commercial speech regulation violates the First Amendment:
Whether the commercial speech concerns a lawful activity and is not misleading
Whether the government interest asserted to justify the regulation is "substantial"
Whether the regulation "directly advances" that government interest
Whether the regulation is no more extensive than necessary to serve that interest
"it [Citizens United] established that speaking in print or other media can't be regulated by the government even when it cost money"
Again, no:
The Citizens United ruling, released in January 2010, tossed out the corporate and union ban on making independent expenditures and financing electioneering communications. It gave corporations and unions the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other political tools, calling for the election or defeat of individual candidates.
Many Americans are fed up with corporations buying our politicians, and with a Congress that nearly always votes the way corporations want them to and almost never in the way that US citizens want them to:
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
A summary:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
People who disagree with Citizens United simply don't think that the founders of this country, who went to great lengths to stress democracy and citizen voting, intended for the country to be run by corporations.
The counterargument to this is that actually they did, because they gave slave-owners extra electoral powers based on the number of non-voting slaves they owned.
But I would argue that perpetuating an electoral business bias based on slave ownership is counter-productive. Corporations are already turning much of America's low-wage earners into wage slaves, and citizens should have a right to counter their political power on an equal footing, and not be be drowned out by the billions of dollars corporations can spend on political campaigns.
A federal appeals court on Friday denied the Trump campaign's effort to revive a federal lawsuit challenging the election results in Pennsylvania, ruling "the claims have no merit."
A panel of three judges for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request by the Trump campaign, led by Rudy Giuliani, to amend its lawsuit, which had been previously rejected.
"The Campaign never alleges that any ballot was fraudulent or cast by an illegal voter," wrote Judge Stephanos Bibas, *a Trump appointee*, for the panel. "It never alleges that any defendant treated the Trump campaign or its votes worse than it treated the Biden campaign or its votes. Calling something discrimination does not make it so. The Second Amended Complaint still suffers from these core defects, so granting leave to amend would have been futile."
"Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here," the judges added in their opinion.
The President and some of his allies have been questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election, saying without evidence that it was fraudulent and seeking to use legal battles to overturn results in key states. Most recently, a handful of Pennsylvania Republicans, alongside Giuliani, held a "hearing" in Gettysburg on Wednesday over their baseless allegations of voter fraud.
The judges also rejected the President's motion to undo Pennsylvania's certification of votes. The Keystone state on Tuesday certified its general election results, formally awarding President-elect Joe Biden 20 electoral votes.
"The Campaign's claims have no merit. The number of ballots it specifically challenges is far smaller than the roughly 81,000-vote margin of victory. And it never claims fraud or that any votes were cast by illegal voters. Plus, tossing out millions of mail-in ballots would be drastic and unprecedented, disenfranchising a huge swath of the electorate and upsetting all down-ballot races too. That remedy would be grossly disproportionate to the procedural challenges raised," the judges wrote.
Jenna Ellis, an attorney for Trump's campaign, said on Twitter following the ruling that "the activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania continues to cover up the allegations of massive fraud," and pledged to take the case to the Supreme Court.
[Why is it that every time Republicans get a ruling they don't like, they blame an "activist" judge?]
The President's campaign had appealed a scathing ruling last weekend when Judge Matthew Brann threw out the lawsuit ruling it could not be amended and refiled.
Brann compared it to "Frankenstein's monster ... haphazardly stitched together," and slammed the request to disenfranchise nearly seven million voters in a complaint littered with "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations."
The appeals court referenced the Trump campaign's multiple attempts to alter its lawsuit and praised Brann's handling of the matter. State and local election officials have said there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and both a federal court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court have dismissed lawsuits seeking to prevent the state from certifying the results of the election.
"We commend the District Court for its fast, fair, patient handling of this demanding litigation," the panel wrote.
@lacadri34 said "Since churches can spread COVID 19 with no consequences, now would be a great time to talk about their tax free status. A deadly pandemic doesn't pay for itself & since they're accomplices, they need to at least help fund recovery efforts."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "more COVID deaths are attributable to the poor decisions of Andrew Cuomo than any other single person in America"
Utter nonsense. Cuomo got the empidemic under control in New York after it exploded there because Trump didn't warn the country. Trump has done everything in his power to discourage people from taking mitigation measures like mask wearing, even praising the people who tried to kidnap and kill the Michigan governor over her attempts to deal with the crisis. Trump has half the country trying to make this worse, he's responsible for at least 200,000 deaths.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "in second place is Anthony Fauci who told Americans, at a point when the virus might still be stopped, that masks don't work"
Of course they're lying here again, Fauci never said masks don't work, early on he advised people to leave them for the medical workers due to Trump caused shortages.
Trump could have saved 200,000 lives if he had ordered a national mask mandate rather than encouraging people to have large maskless gatherings with no social distancing.
U.S. Suffers Greatest Global Decline in Trust
Since 2016, the U.S. has experienced the greatest drop in global confidence, while Canada continues to be seen as the most trusted.
"There have long been laws regulating commercial speech.
In law, commercial speech is speech or writing on behalf of a business with the intent of earning revenue or a profit. It is economic in nature and usually attempts to persuade consumers to purchase the business's product or service. The Supreme Court of the United States defines commercial speech as speech that "proposes a commercial transaction"."
so, right away, we see political speech is different
it is not an exchange transaction
it is an expression of support for political candidates and protected as speech that cannot be restricted by the government
"Whether the commercial speech concerns a lawful activity and is not misleading"
the government cannot ban speech that it determines is misleading
if it could, there would be no free speech
people don't lose their right to free speech because they can afford to pay for a more effective or convenient platform to speak
"The Citizens United ruling, released in January 2010, tossed out the corporate and union ban on making independent expenditures and financing electioneering communications. It gave corporations and unions the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other political tools, calling for the election or defeat of individual candidates."
corporations and unions are not malevolent ghostly entities that you imagine
they are groups of people and they don't lose their free speech when the join together with others of similar interests
the arguments you make have been rejected by the Supreme Court
they are called Supreme and you are not - for a reason
"Many Americans are fed up with corporations buying our politicians, and with a Congress that nearly always votes the way corporations want them to and almost never in the way that US citizens want them to:"
the "many Americans" are basically progressive liberals, who are in a perpetual dilemma to determine why Americans don't buy into their socialist resentments
hint: it's because history show socialism doesn't work
the owners and officers of corporations are US citizens
and all corporations don't have the same point of view
the wealthiest corporations in America support liberal causes
"A summary:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism."
thank you, Karl Marx
how many people that don't agree with you will we have to kill before your paradise becomes reality?
"People who disagree with Citizens United simply don't think that the founders of this country, who went to great lengths to stress democracy and citizen voting, intended for the country to be run by corporations."
you mistakenly believe that whoever has the most money wins elections
corporations and unions fund democracy by paying for candidates to travel and engage media to seek the votes of citizens
some give to Dems, some to Repubs
but they make a vibrant conversation possible every four years
"Stop trying to steal the election, it's undemocratic and unAmerican"
Stacy Abrams was within her rights to contest a "close election"
even when all the courts disagree with her
stop attacking Stacy!
"Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
Randy, no one cares what your imaginary character has to say
maybe, you create a new imaginary character
it would be more believable if you made the the same gender as you this time
you can call them "Nutso"
"Since 2016, the U.S. has experienced the greatest drop in global confidence, while Canada continues to be seen as the most trusted."
great news!
now Canada can start funding the UN, the IMF, the WHO, et al
and US taxpayers can save a bundle!
well, another Thanksgiving has ended and it's now the Christmas season:
have yourself a merry little Christmas
make the yuletide gay
even though the gay agenda has had its day
Amy Coney Barrett is number five
the media's a kicked beehive
Joe will sleep through being President
just as well, no bills to him will be sent
because Mitch's gang and the Squad
are both out to get Dem mods
so, have yourself a merry little Christmas
now!
President Trump said Thursday evening that coronavirus vaccine deliveries will begin as early as next week.
"The whole world is suffering and we are rounding the curve," Trump said. "And the vaccines are being delivered next week or the week after."
The announcement came during a special Thanksgiving holiday message to U.S. troops overseas via teleconference. Trump noted that front-line workers, medical personnel and senior citizens would be the vaccine's first recipients.
He also argued that his opponent, President-elect Joe Biden, is a piker and should not be given any credit for the vaccines, which he referred to as a "medical miracle" before noting voting irregularities in the 2020 election.
"Joe Biden failed with the swine flu, H1N1, totally failed with the swine flu," Trump said. "Don't let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me and I pushed people harder than they've ever been pushed before and we got that approved and through and nobody's ever seen anything like it."
Joe Biden's plan: he's going to "make it clear" that we need to "stop the virus"
thanks, Joe
that's helpful
you can go back to your nap now
Trump's comments come ahead of a Dec. 10 meeting, where regulators at the Food and Drug Administration will review Pfizer's request for an emergency use authorization for its vaccine developed with BioNTech.
The latest trial data for Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, unveiled earlier this month, showed it was 90% effective.
In addition, Moderna said its vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19. AstraZeneca also reported preliminary results that showed its vaccine efficacy ranged from 62% to 90%, depending on the dosage amount given to participants.
Donald Trump made a very popular move this week:
Top Congressmen praised President Trump on Wednesday for pardoning former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was bullied into pleading guilty in 2017 to making false statements to FBI agents, who said they didn't think they were false. The despicable Robert Mueller, who couldn't force Flynn to plead guilty any other way, threatened to go after Flynn's son with false accusations. Mueller could probably get a job as special adviser to Kim Sum Fat in North Korea!
Congressmen, from leadership to rank-and-file members, said Trump made the right call in granting a full pardon to his first national security adviser. They also took the opportunity to blast top Democrats and the FBI.
"President @realDonaldTrump is right to pardon the respected three-star general,” Congressman Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) tweeted.
Congressman Steve Scalise (La.), who was gunned down by a vicious liberal lunatic in 2017, leveled his criticism at former FBI Director James Comey, noting that Flynn's prosecution was politically motivated.
“The left and Comey’s FBI destroyed General Flynn’s life to try to take down @realDonaldTrump. What happened to him never should have been allowed to happen in America. Justice has been served. It’s long overdue to hold the people behind it accountable,” he tweeted.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.) tweeted that it was “100% the right call to pardon.”
“He shouldn’t have ever been targeted like this in the first place. One item remains...Crimes and other misconduct were committed against @GenFlynn along the way and that justice still remains absolutely necessary today,” he said.
Trump announced the pardon Wednesday afternoon by tweeting: “It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!”
In addition to the miracle cure Trump pushed for COVID and the intervention he took to prevent injustice to Michael Flynn, Trump also deserves credit for another major piece of good news for Americans this week:
In a 5-4 ruling late Wednesday night, the U.S Supreme Court barred the state of New York from imposing strict attendance limits on religious services, in a major win for religious freedom.
Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn sued New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for discriminatory targeting of religious groups with COVID restrictions, as houses of worship were being held to far more stringent standards than neighboring businesses.
At the time of the lawsuits filing, both the Agudath Israel of America and Diocese of Brooklyn fell into red or orange zones, which under state law allowed only 10 or 25 people into a house of worship at any time, regardless of the building’s typical capacity. At the same time, stores and business deemed essential were given far laxer standards, some even lacking any limits on their capacity.
Newly minted Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas in support the rights of religious groups, while Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor did not support the rights of religious groups.
The per curium opinion determined that New York’s targeted responses run in direct opposition to the First Amendment, stating, “Even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”
SCOTUS determined that the exorbitant limitations were in violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free expression, due to the obvious discrimination, and granted both groups the injunction they sought. While neither group is currently in the red or orange zone, the Supreme Court decided to grant the injunction in case the areas return to a heightened level.
Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion which determined that the unfair application of restrictions on churches and synagogues but not “hardware stores, acupuncturists, and liquor stores, bicycle repair shops, certain signage companies, accountants, lawyers, and insurance agents” was a clear violation of the free exercise clause in the First Amendment.
Through much of his opinion, Gorsuch focused on the threats of these discriminatory policies on the Constitution, writing, “Even if the Constitution has taken a holiday during this pandemic, it cannot become a sabbatical.”
He further highlighted the arbitrary nature of who determines what businesses are essential, writing, “Indeed, the Governor is remarkably frank about this: In his judgment laundry and liquor, travel and tools, are all “essential” while traditional religious exercises are not. That is exactly the kind of discrimination the First Amendment forbids.”
"the government cannot ban speech that it determines is misleading
if it could, there would be no free speech"
The extent of your moronitude knows no bounds.
You can't say your special blend of orange juice, aspirin and clover cures cancer. That is a false and misleading statement. The FDA can shut you down for that kind of malfeasance.
It hasn't meant there is no free speech for decades now.
Pull your head out of... well check for some sunlight every once in a while and you'll see the world doesn't operate the way you imagine it does.
"corporations and unions are not malevolent ghostly entities that you imagine"
Not all of them. But then again there are companies like Enron and Theranos. And I'll have to remind you again that you have no idea what I imagine. That's entirely YOUR imagination, which has a proclivity for making up random straw men and arguing against those, rather than address the points that people actually bring up here.
"it is an expression of support for political candidates and protected as speech that cannot be restricted by the government"
People already have their political speech protected by the government -- from janitors to CEOs. Corporations are legal entities that exist on paper defined by laws. They don't even need a person to keep running. They already have special privileges in terms of lawsuits and taxes - more than regular workers. They don't deserve any more.
"they are groups of people and they don't lose their free speech when the join together with others of similar interests"
No one loses their free speech because they join with others of similar interests - that's just moronic. A CEO can still speak our for lower taxes, union members can still speak out for better wages - that's already in the Constitution and hasn't gone anywhere. There's no reason though to allow corporations to amplify their message with billions in media contributions when they've already bought our government. It's time for citizens to get their government back from the corporations - but we can't afford to buy it back.
"people don't lose their right to free speech because they can afford to pay for a more effective or convenient platform to speak"
No one said they did, moron. There you go making up a strawman argument again. Everyone still has the right to free speech. Rich people, and the corporations they own, already control the media, already have a larger platform to bend the will of the electorate than poor people - even if they weren't allowed to spend millions on driving political narratives. Unfortunately they are.
All I'm saying is that corporations shouldn't have a much larger political voice than average people. That's NOT taking rights away, that's keeping everyone's the same.What is so hard about that very simple concept for you to grasp?
"the "many Americans" are basically progressive liberals, who are in a perpetual dilemma to determine why Americans don't buy into their socialist resentments
hint: it's because history show socialism doesn't work"
That's your overactive imagination kicking in again. I have NEVER promoted socialism. Nor have any of my liberal friends. Whenever conservatives hear ideas they don't like coming from the left they start screaming "aackk! SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM! That's SOCIALISM! YOU'RE OUT TO DESTROY AMERICA!"
No, belligerent moron, we're sick and tired of crony capitalism and the plutocracy we currently live in. We're fine with capitalism, we want to see it working better. We want to see Republicans stop destroying it. The banking regulations that were put in after the Great Depression kept invest banks out of the housing market for decades and gave homeowners a stable platform around which to build their lives and families.
Republicans argued those were "job killing regulations" and gutted them - leading to the totally predictable outcome of another housing bubble and subsequent collapse, forcing millions of people out of their homes. This led to a free-for-all where rich people and foreign investors could swoop in an buy up distressed properties for pennies on the dollar. This was great capitalism for rich people and foreigners, not so much for American homeowners.
Advocating for putting those regulations back in simply isn't socialism moron. It's guard rails for capitalism - to keep the average American citizen protected from the unstable vagaries of the investor class playing around in securities markets.
If you had ANY capacity for analytical thinking you would realize that. Instead you're left repeatedly regurgitating the same "SOCIALSISM!" scare tactic corporations have trained you to.
"thank you, Karl Marx
how many people that don't agree with you will we have to kill before your paradise becomes reality?"
Lacking the ability to engage in any rational arguments, you once again fall back to the "SOCIALISM!" scare tactic.
Liberals realise paradise on earth simply isn't possible. Unlike conservatives however, we don't think that means it can't be better and we shouldn't do something about the inequities we see.
This doesn't require socialism or killing people moron. But since you can't argue with actual facts and complicated ideas, or even constructing a properly punctuated compound sentence, you're left with screaming "SOCIALISM!" at everything. You should know by now that only works with other stupid conservatives like yourself. You're banking on the fact that half of the country is of below average intelligence, and using it to its fullest advantage.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.
"The extent of your moronitude knows no bounds."
considering what you imagine is moronic, I have to take that as a compliment
"You can't say your special blend of orange juice, aspirin and clover cures cancer."
yes, I can
unless they are selling the concoction under false pretenses, anyone can say that!
"That is a false and misleading statement."
well, that's a matter of opinion
"The FDA can shut you down for that kind of malfeasance."
if you are in the drug business
"Pull your head out of... well check for some sunlight every once in a while and you'll see the world doesn't operate the way you imagine it does."
it's remarkable how many of TTF's favorite metaphors involve the excretory system
of course, it's easy to understand, considering what they do for "fun"
"Not all of them. But then again there are companies like Enron and Theranos. And I'll have to remind you again that you have no idea what I imagine."
oh, I do
it's a well-known secret that I can read TTF minds
"People already have their political speech protected by the government -- from janitors to CEOs."
it goes beyond the right to say what you want to your next-door neighbor
if you want to donate to a candidate you agree with so they can reach more people with their message, that's exercising your right to free speech
btw, have ever had an IQ test?
I don't want to be accused of intellectually bullying you if you have certain deficiencies
"Corporations are legal entities that exist on paper defined by laws."
they are groups of people who partner together for a common purpose
every single one has the right to free speech alone and together
as long as they wear a mask and stay six feet apart
"No one loses their free speech because they join with others of similar interests - that's just moronic."
is is moronic and, yet, you imagine it's true
"A CEO can still speak our for lower taxes, union members can still speak out for better wages - that's already in the Constitution and hasn't gone anywhere."
no, it hasn't
that explains the Citizens United decision
"There's no reason though to allow corporations to amplify their message with billions in media contributions when they've already bought our government. It's time for citizens to get their government back from the corporations - but we can't afford to buy it back."
it's your imagination that corporations have bought America
every person seeking office tries to persuade citizens to vote for him
granted, they need money to reach more citizens but it's a big country and the money is available to both sides
this is only a problem in your imagination
I know
I have a secret method of reading your imagination!
"That's your overactive imagination kicking in again. I have NEVER promoted socialism. Nor have any of my liberal friends."
well, I was responding to your comment that "many Americans" want to regulate free speech
I knew you weren't talking about you and your friends because you said "many"
"No, belligerent moron, we're sick and tired of crony capitalism and the plutocracy we currently live in."
well, our new President loves that kind of stuff so get used to it
"We're fine with capitalism, we want to see it working better."
right, like taxing away any profits made
"We want to see Republicans stop destroying it. The banking regulations that were put in after the Great Depression kept invest banks out of the housing market for decades and gave homeowners a stable platform around which to build their lives and families.
Republicans argued those were "job killing regulations" and gutted them - leading to the totally predictable outcome of another housing bubble and subsequent collapse, forcing millions of people out of their homes. This led to a free-for-all where rich people and foreign investors could swoop in an buy up distressed properties for pennies on the dollar. This was great capitalism for rich people and foreigners, not so much for American homeowners."
uh, this is a little embarrassing to have to tell you, since you are clearly unaware, but Clinton was the one who de-regulated banks
Dems controlled the oversight committees when everything collapsed
"Lacking the ability to engage in any rational arguments, you once again fall back to the "SOCIALISM!" scare tactic."
after socialism has unmeasured suffering in the last century, it might warrant some aversion by rational people
"Liberals realise paradise on earth simply isn't possible. Unlike conservatives however, we don't think that means it can't be better and we shouldn't do something about the inequities we see."
yes, I know
liberals think the answer is governmental intervention is a cure-all
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers."
true
look how many people voted for Biden!
"btw, have ever had an IQ test?"
Actually I have. It was way back in the 4th grade when a number of my Christian classmates were calling me a "faggot" and beating me up on a regular basis. They were wondering why I was depressed and sent me to a counselor who ran me through a number of tests. They concluded that I was depressed because I was 3 years ahead of my classmates in terms of my educational development. 3 years later, (at the beginning of 7th grade, for those who have trouble with math) the standardized test we all took put me at the beginning of 10th grade. Later tests like the SAT and GRE had me doing pretty well too. I can't complain.
"I don't want to be accused of intellectually bullying you if you have certain deficiencies"
Don't worry, you'll at least have to figure out punctuation before that happens.
"is is [sic] moronic and, yet, you imagine it's true"
Once again, your imagination and reading comprehension fail you.
"it's remarkable how many of TTF's favorite metaphors involve the excretory system"
That was your assumption. I never mentioned it. You could have pulled your head out from under a rock, but then I'd just be guessing where your head was. Unfortunately, I don't have to guess anymore. You told us where it was.
"it's your imagination that corporations have bought America"
It's not my imagination. Just follow Congress' voting record.
"well, I was responding to your comment that "many Americans" want to regulate free speech"
Try reading what I wrote again when you're sober. That's not what I wrote at all.
"I have a secret method of reading your imagination!"
You keep using that word "reading."
Allow me to quote from the "Princess Bride":
"I do not think it means what you think it means."
"Actually I have. It was way back in the 4th grade when a number of my Christian classmates were calling me a "faggot" and beating me up on a regular basis."
why do you say they were Christians?
generally, it's secular rednecks that do that type of thing
"They were wondering why I was depressed and sent me to a counselor who ran me through a number of tests."
that's public school for you
a deep commitment to psychology to solve the world's problems
"They concluded that I was depressed because I was 3 years ahead of my classmates in terms of my educational development."
this was the first they noticed it? how long ago was that?
bet that made all the guys crazy about you
maybe they didn't beat you up because you were gay but because you were stuck up
"3 years later, (at the beginning of 7th grade, for those who have trouble with math) the standardized test we all took put me at the beginning of 10th grade. Later tests like the SAT and GRE had me doing pretty well too. I can't complain."
so....did you get into college?
"Don't worry, you'll at least have to figure out punctuation before that happens."
I have a bias against punctuation unnecessary to convey meaning
hope you didn't take umbrage about my comment on your apparently low IQ
TTFers in the past have accused me of being a bully by employing my clearly superior mental powers to blow their comments to smithereens
"That was your assumption. I never mentioned it. You could have pulled your head out from under a rock, but then I'd just be guessing where your head was. Unfortunately, I don't have to guess anymore. You told us where it was."
you're not foolin' anyone
we know what you do for fun
"It's not my imagination. Just follow Congress' voting record."
they are constantly trying to please the voting citizens in their district
"Allow me to quote from the "Princess Bride":"
permission granted
I know how much gays love stories about princesses and brides so that's a twofer!
At the end of the day, we are all Americans. Sure we have our differences on policy. One side wants to give everyone healthcare and good wages. The other wants to create a white Christian ethnostate with concentration camps and a never-ending plague. But we are not enemies.
Zack, I can only guess that you think acting stupid is a form of humor.
"One side wants to give everyone healthcare and good wages."
Both sides want that. One side wants it to be within the reach of every man without governmental involvement and the other side wants the government to take money from one group and give it to another. The truth is, people prefer a paycheck to a welfare check. A new conservative coalition is developing that is multi-racial and looks out for the interest of the working man. Every racial and ethnic group shifted in the direction of the GOP in the 2020 election. You may not have noticed, but fat cat Dems in high places are worried sick.
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.
The times they are a-changin'
"The other wants to create a white Christian ethnostate with concentration camps"
I have no words. This is as delusional as the red scare of the 1950s. Christianity is the only truly global religion, with sizable numbers of believers in every continent, of every race. It catches fire wherever it is not suppressed. People are drawn to it. And far from trying to stop dissent, Christianity thrives on it.
"and a never-ending plague."
Fortunately, the distribution of vaccines will have already begun before Trump leaves office. Americans will get a chance to thank him for his warp-speed vision. But, only the GOP could bring this to a close this quickly.
"why do you say they were Christians?"
Because that's what they were. Some of them went to the same church I did.
"generally, it's secular rednecks that do that type of thing"
That's what you like to keep telling yourself, but that's not how it works in the real world.
"this was the first they noticed it? how long ago was that?"
It was the 1970's... after Nixon hit us with massive inflation by going off the gold standard, but before Ronnie Raygun sent Republicans off to explode the debt with what G.H.W Bush rightfully termed "voodoo economics."
"bet that made all the guys crazy about you".
Do to my birthdate, I was nearly a year younger than most of my classmates - in some school districts I was past their cutoff date for a grade, but since I had already completed the grade for that age, they allowed me in with the older students. It meant I was frequently one of the smallest kids in class and a favorite target of the Christian bullies.
"so....did you get into college?"
Certainly did... graduated with honors as well. Thanks for asking.
"TTFers in the past have accused me of being a bully by employing my clearly superior mental powers to blow their comments to smithereens"
Once again you misunderstood what you read. Your only mental power appears to be distorting whatever you read that you don't like into some kind of support for communism, or machinations of "THE GAY AGENDA." (TM)
"we know what you do for fun"
Once again, you're mining your own imagination. It's a shame you didn't become a fiction author. It comes naturally to you.
"I have a bias against punctuation unnecessary to convey meaning"
No, you're just lazy. I guess that's why you didn't become an author.
I won't argue that you don't have a bias though. It's just negative.
"One side wants it to be within the reach of every man without governmental involvement and the other side wants the government to take money from one group and give it to another."
Wrong. Democrats don't want government taking it from one group and giving it to another - like Hank Paulson and GW Bush did when when investment bankers blew up the housing market with their speculative derivatives, and then used taxpayer money to bail them out... Or when Rump's clumsy trade war left farmers without their biggest customer and they had to be bailed out with taxpayer money.
Corporations should be paying their workers living wages, instead of starvation wages. The Walton family makes billions of dollars each year skimming off WAY more than their fair share from their employees. So much so that their employees can't afford health insurance, and need to go on Medicaid. The taxpayer shouldn't get stuck with the health insurance bill for the Walton family's employees. The US taxpayer is keeping the Walton family rich. Sounds like socialism for the rich to me, and capitalism for the poor.
Those employees did a lot of work for them - they should be paid accordingly.
"The truth is, people prefer a paycheck to a welfare check."
Sure, they also prefer a paycheck they can afford to live on, not just indentured servitude wages.
"A new conservative coalition is developing that is multi-racial and looks out for the interest of the working man."
That's what the propaganda says, but that's not what happens. The tax cuts for the working man expire, while the corporations get their tax cuts in perpetuity... well until our ballooning debt collapses the US into a full-blown debt crisis at least.
"Every racial and ethnic group shifted in the direction of the GOP in the 2020 election."
Keep pretending that black people won't notice that all cities where Rump was trying to get the votes tossed out had major black populations. I'm sure that's going to help you going forward.
"You may not have noticed, but fat cat Dems in high places are worried sick."
Not as worried as Diaper Don when he leaves office and there's no one there to pardon him. It probably explains why he's been working so hard to undermine the election.
The institutions didn't hold. The voters did.
If Democrats hadn't won the governorships of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the House of Representatives in 2018, our democracy wouldn't just be on the brink. It would be over.
"Because that's what they were. Some of them went to the same church I did."
you say they were Christians because they went to the same church as you
are you a Christian, then?
btw, what denomination was this?
"That's what you like to keep telling yourself, but that's not how it works in the real world."
oh, it's actually a matter of observation
I've never seen a Christian kid beating up a homosexual
although, "gay" is not an uncommon epithet among all kids at a certain age
it's more likely you acted stuck up and full of yourself
they had no idea you were really gay, they were just insulting you
sounds like you spent too much time staring at books
your parents should have pushed you into more well-rounded activities
"It was the 1970's... after Nixon hit us with massive inflation by going off the gold standard,"
interesting...
you favor a return to the gold standard?
I will admit, America was a different place before Aug 74
"but before Ronnie Raygun sent Republicans off to explode the debt with what G.H.W Bush rightfully termed "voodoo economics."
the Reagan era (1980-2006) was a time of uncommon prosperity
it only ended when Americans, weary of the war in Iraq, gave Dems control of Congress
"Do to my birthdate, I was nearly a year younger than most of my classmates - in some school districts I was past their cutoff date for a grade, but since I had already completed the grade for that age, they allowed me in with the older students. It meant I was frequently one of the smallest kids in class and a favorite target of the Christian bullies."
tell us more about these Christian bullies
did they share the gospel in the cafeteria and hold Bible studies after school?
say, you're not Catholic, are you?
"Certainly did... graduated with honors as well. Thanks for asking."
so, what are you doing with your degree in Elizabethan poetry?
"No, you're just lazy."
interesting that you want protection from criticism for being different
but you attack someone else for being different
"I won't argue that you don't have a bias though. It's just negative."
Maybe Elements of Style is negative
"Democrats don't want government taking it from one group and giving it to another - like Hank Paulson and GW Bush did when when investment bankers blew up the housing market with their speculative derivatives, and then used taxpayer money to bail them out..."
and you were against saving S&Ls?
because most liberals weren't
"Or when Rump's clumsy trade war left farmers without their biggest customer and they had to be bailed out with taxpayer money."
we are at war with China, it's appropriate for government to prevent casualties
Trump deserves credit for being the first to recognize the threat of a techno-totalitarian menace to the world and doing something about it
China's growth rate has fallen sharply since Trump took them on
"Corporations should be paying their workers living wages, instead of starvation wages."
wages are negotiable
if they are not willing to pay enough, don't take the job
start a union
"The Walton family makes billions of dollars each year skimming off WAY more than their fair share from their employees. So much so that their employees can't afford health insurance, and need to go on Medicaid. The taxpayer shouldn't get stuck with the health insurance bill for the Walton family's employees. The US taxpayer is keeping the Walton family rich. Sounds like socialism for the rich to me, and capitalism for the poor."
I thought you said you weren't in favor of taking from some and giving to others
the Waltons offer prospective employees a wage and the employee accept the offer
"Those employees did a lot of work for them - they should be paid accordingly."
they are paid what they agree to
"Sure, they also prefer a paycheck they can afford to live on, not just indentured servitude wages."
under Trump, employment and wages was on the rise among the working class
he was the first President to concern himself with helping minorities get opportunities
those who get opportunities are infinitely better off than those dependent on governmental agencies
"That's what the propaganda says, but that's not what happens. The tax cuts for the working man expire, while the corporations get their tax cuts in perpetuity... well until our ballooning debt collapses the US into a full-blown debt crisis at least."
the next stage is budget cuts
we needed t get the economy on the right track first
corporations cuts are permanent because it's politically harder to raise individual rates
it's easier politically to pick on corporations
like you're doing now
"Keep pretending that black people won't notice that all cities where Rump was trying to get the votes tossed out had major black populations. I'm sure that's going to help you going forward."
Trump is contesting Dem fraud votes everywhere, not just in black areas
the days when Dems can take black votes for granted is over
blacks noticed that Trump delivered opportunity and justice
while Dems' attempts to defund the police has led to rising crime and violence in black areas
blacks see it every day and know who's to blame
Dems have ruled black inner cities for decades and things have gotten worse
"If Democrats hadn't won the governorships of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the House of Representatives in 2018, our democracy wouldn't just be on the brink. It would be over."
few elected Republicans in states are backing up Trump's accusations
it's off to the Supreme Court
"Do to my birthdate"
revealing comment from a self-proclaimed genius
"you'll at least have to figure out punctuation before that happens"
"punctuation" is simply a means by which the ruling class enslaves the masses
it is an anti-proletarian fetish with wicked intent
when we issue a death sentence for the capitalists, they will copy-edit it
"are you a Christian, then?"
Not anymore - they beat it out of me. Glad to have left. I'm much happier now. The church I go to now has a lot of ex-Christians in it. Go figure.
"btw, what denomination was this?"
It was a mix.
"oh, it's actually a matter of observation
I've never seen a Christian kid beating up a homosexual"
That's probably because of the court order keeping you 500 yards away from schools.
"it's more likely you acted stuck up and full of yourself"
You're projecting again.
"sounds like you spent too much time staring at books"
You're projecting again.
Actually, I spent time reading a lot of books. Staring at them doesn't help. That's probably why you have such a hard time with reading comprehension. If you had read them rather then stare at them, you'd be a lot further along in your development.
"Maybe Elements of Style is negative"
Never read it, but I'd have to guess that it would show you that book titles should be enclosed in quotes and declarative sentences are completed with periods. Must be all the reading I did as a kid.
"so, what are you doing with your degree in Elizabethan poetry?"
You're projecting again. I actually got a degree in a field that pays quite well.
You really did miss your calling for writing fiction.
"interesting that you want protection from criticism for being different"
Wrong. I want protection from Christians attacking me.
"but you attack someone else for being different"
No, I was just pointing out an obvious fact.
"and you were against saving S&Ls?
because most liberals weren't"
Back then I was still voting mostly Republican - I was young and didn't know any better. Now I know that everyone involved (including the politicians) should have gone to jail, and the banks allowed to fail. As it was, it showed that Uncle Sam is a socialist when it comes to banks and they're free to engage in risky behavior because they can privatize all their gains and socialise all their losses. It led to even worse behavior and even more bailouts later on.
"wages are negotiable
if they are not willing to pay enough, don't take the job"
In theory yes, in practice no.
Folks at the bottom of the income spectrum can't afford to say "no" to a job offer - which is what trying to negotiate a higher wage would do. Corporations have rigged our system to the point where they have a very large pool of desperate workers who will take the lowest wages they can offer and be stuck with it.
Minimum wage isn't even a real lower limit - when corporations want even lower wages they just start hiring immigrants who can't complain about the wages. That's the real reason we can't get immigration reform through Congress, corporations LOVE having a an uber-cheap labor force they can fire at will. They're not going to let that get cut off. Remember that last big immigrant roundup? It happened at meat packing plants. It wasn't murderers and rapist Rump was "protecting" us from.
"start a union"
I'm not going to ignore the fact that the Republican party has gone out of its way to destroy unions for the past 40 years, starting with Ronnie Raygun and air traffic controllers. Republicans and corporations go out of their way to stop unions from forming, and demonize the few that are left. That's not really an option either - which is just the way corporations like it.
"I thought you said you weren't in favor of taking from some and giving to others"
I am, that's why the Walton's shouldn't be grabbing such a large share of the profits their workers create. They should at least leave them enough to pay for their own health insurance rather than leaving taxpayers to foot their bill. Costco does it, no reason the Walton's can't. I don't like socialism for the rich. Just because it's legal doesn't make it right.
"the Waltons offer prospective employees a wage and the employee accept the offer"
As I said before, desperate workers are in a miserable place to negotiate. They can either take the crappy job or live out of a dumpster. The wages don't even allow them to rent their own place - they'll be crammed in with other desperate workers.
"he was the first President to concern himself with helping minorities get opportunities"
You really believe all that propaganda, don't you.
The continuation of the Obama recovery (at least while it lasted under Rump) was part and parcel of Obama's efforts - and Obama was adding new jobs faster in his last 3 years than Rump did during his first 3 years. Despite a HUGE tax cut, Rump actually managed to slow down Obama's recovery before he decimated it with his totally incompetent COVID response.
"the next stage is budget cuts"
Republicans have been doing that for 40 years. That has NEVER caught up with the magnitude of the tax cuts they pushed through, leading to ever expanding deficits, ESPECIALLY when a Republican is in the White House. The only time the deficit starts to get under control is when a Democrat is in the White House and Republicans in Congress suddenly become deficit hawks again. It's amazing how quickly they turn.
"we needed t [sic] get the economy on the right track first"
Well, if Rump hasn't paid off the Electoral College, we'll have Biden in office soon, and the healing can begin.
"blacks noticed that Trump delivered opportunity and justice"
Yeah, that's why so many black people were out protesting against police killing black people this summer. Funny how that wasn't nearly as big a problem under Obama.
"Dems have ruled black inner cities for decades and things have gotten worse"
It is large cities with large black populations that have been the largest generators of US GDP for decades. Given how much Republicans claim to be good at economics and business, you'd think they'd have better luck convincing city voters to elect them. Instead, Republicans reign over vast swaths of farmland getting billions in government subsidies from the cities. Funny how our country works.
"it's off to the Supreme Court"
Ah yes, the refrain of autocrats who just stacked the SC in their favor. What could possibly go wrong with single party rule?
"Do to my birthdate"
revealing comment from a self-proclaimed genius"
You're projecting again... or lying, or both. I have never once called myself a "genius."
"punctuation" is simply a means by which the ruling class enslaves the masses"
Well, at least that was funny!
I'm not surprised though. Given how reluctant Republicans are to wear a mask when a deadly and contagious respiratory virus is raging across the planet, it's amazing some of them follow the life restricting conventions of punctuation at all.
They probably only capitalize some words because they think it makes them more of a "capitalist."
"Well, at least that was funny!"
RATSTTP RATP, that was cold
I've been trying hard to lighten the mood
the good news is you're starting to grow on me but I'll have to put off any more comments for the next couple of days
maybe on Tuesday
With just weeks until his presidency ends, several cities across the U.S. are still owed payments from Donald Trump's campaign for rallies he held, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Texas city of El Paso said this week that they will be hiring outside legal counsel as part of their fight to obtain more than $500,000 from Trump's team to cover the security and other costs from a rally held there in February 2019.
The outstanding debt includes $470,000 in additional services provided by the local police and fire departments, as well as an additional $99,000 in late fees.
Last year, the Center for Public Integrity included El Paso among a list of 10 cities still waiting for payment from the Trump campaign team for rallies as far back as 2016.
A number of city officials have now confirmed to Newsweek that they have still not received the money that they invoiced, with some accepting that it may never arrive.
The debts range from just a few thousands dollars to more than $200,000 in Albuquerque, with El Paso owed the most of them all.
The city of Burlington, Vermont, confirmed that Trump's team still has not paid the $8,464.27 amount they are owed from a campaign rally he held there in January 2016 before he was elected president.
"Mr Trump's failure to cooperate with local law enforcement officials and lack of communication with the public and ticketholders put undue strain on the City's police, and unnecessarily hurt downtown businesses," Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said in June 2016.
"Paying the invoice remains the right and honorable thing for Mr Trump to do."
Nearly five years later, the city still has not received the money.
"The Trump campaign has not paid the invoices. Our Police and Fire Departments did check in at the time after a month of non-payment had lapsed," Jordan Redell, spokesman for Mayor Weinberger, told Newsweek. "Beyond that point, the City concluded that it would not be cost effective to pursue collections remedies."
Celestine Jeffreys, the chief of staff for Eric Genrich, mayor for the Wisconsin city of Green Bay who are owned $9,380 for a Trump rally in August 2016, confirmed to Newsweek: "To date, the City of Green Bay has yet to receive reimbursement from either the Trump or Clinton campaign for 2016 expenses."
Another issue that the legal costs of pursuing the outstanding debt from Trump's campaign team would often be more than what they are owed.
El Paso attorney City Attorney Karla Nieman previously confirmed they would not be filing a lawsuit in order to help get the $569,000 back and instead "continue to explore various options."
The Arizona city of Tucson, who are owned $81,837 from a May 2016 Trump rally, confirmed the legal costs to sue Trump's team for the money would outspend what they are owed and instead plan to learn from their past going forward.
"The City of Tucson was informed by the Trump campaign that it will not pay the 2016 bill. Our City Attorney determined that pursuing recovery through legal action would consume more taxpayer-funded resources than any likely recovery," Lane Mandle, Chief of Staff to the City Manager, told Newsweek.
AP: Biden Plans Fast Action On LGBTQ Rights Issues
The Associated Press reports:
As vice president in 2012, Joe Biden endeared himself to many LGBTQ Americans by endorsing same-sex marriage even before his boss, President Barack Obama. Now, as president-elect, Biden is making sweeping promises to LGBTQ activists, proposing to carry out virtually every major proposal on their wish lists.
Among them: Lifting the Trump administration’s near-total ban on military service for transgender people, barring federal contractors from anti-LGBTQ job discrimination, and creating high-level LGBTQ-rights positions at the State Department, the National Security Council and other federal agencies.
In many cases the measures would reverse executive actions by President Donald Trump, whose administration took numerous steps to weaken protections for transgender people and create more leeway for discrimination against LGBTQ people, ostensibly based on religious grounds.
If bakers can refuse to bake cakes for same sex couples due to differences in "beliefs", why can't health care providers refuse to care for anti-maskers and COVID deniers due to differences in "beliefs"?
"If bakers can refuse to bake cakes for same sex couples due to differences in "beliefs", why can't health care providers refuse to care for anti-maskers and COVID deniers due to differences in "beliefs"?"
no one can die from cake deprivation
but anyone can die from lack of health care
so, there's that
Next thing you know you'll be advocating universal health care.
"Next thing you know you'll be advocating universal health care."
actually, I always have been
I just don't the government running it
@WickedExhausted said "If bakers can refuse to bake cakes for same sex couples due to differences in "beliefs", why can't health care providers refuse to care for anti-maskers and COVID deniers due to differences in "beliefs"?"
Wyatt/Regina/Bad anonymous said "no one can die from cake deprivation but anyone can die from lack of health care so, there's that"
How incredibly hypocritical of you.
Trump issued executive orders that allowed medical professionals to refuse to help lgbt people by just claiming helping them is against one's religion. You never criticized that, in fact you praised Trump as the "most gay friendly president every".
Good anonymous said "Next thing you know you'll be advocating universal health care."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "actually, I always have been I just don't the government running it".
The only way it ever happens is WITH the government running it. You clearly don't advocate for universal health care. You praised Trump allowing medical professionals to refuse to aid lgbt people.
The fact that churches are suing to stay open instead of voluntarily doing what's in the best interest of the public health tells you everything you need to know about churches and their values.
‘Stop The Stupid’: GOP Lawmaker Pleads With Trump To Drop Election Lies
Michigan Rep. Paul Mitchell called on the president to give it up for the “sake of our Nation.”
A Republican House member from Michigan launched his own hashtag trend Sunday, pleading with President Donald Trump to “stop the stupid” and drop his bogus attempts to overturn the election:
Rep. Paul Mitchell
@RepPaulMitchell
Oh my God. .@realDonaldTrump Please for the sake of our Nation please drop these arguments without evidence or factual basis. #stopthestupid
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
We have some big things happening in our various litigations on the Election Hoax. Everybody knows it was Rigged. They know Biden didn’t get more votes from the Black community than Obama, & certainly didn’t get 80,000,000 votes. Look what happened in Detroit, Philadelphia, plus!
This claim about election fraud is disputed
7:59 PM · Nov 29, 2020
41.8K
14.6K people are Tweeting about this
Trump and his campaign have lost dozens of lawsuits challenging election results. A perturbed federal judge in Philadelphia — appointed by the president — last week slapped down one of the suits as “without merit” or evidence.
Many responding to Mitchell on Twitter praised his comment to Trump. He also got a shout-out from attorney George Conway, the never-Trump husband of former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
But others considered the criticism too-little, too-late.
"The fact that churches are suing to stay open instead of voluntarily doing The fact that churches are suing to stay open instead of voluntarily doing what's in the best interest of the public health tells you everything you need to know about churches and their values. tells you everything you need to know about churches and their values."
you know, Doug, if you really valued what's in the best interest of the public health, you'd just stay home, even after the pandemic ends
who knows what someone might pick up from the bugs that live in your hair!
then, your fondest wishes would be reality
that's right, you won't have to take showers!
funny how you think it's OK to cram liquor stores and bike shops but think spread-out-worship services are non-essential
right now, we have an epidemic of dementia, paranoia, hypochondria, and suicide
church actually has a better track record dealing with those problems than the local liquor store but that you think that is irrelevant, tells us everything we need to know about Dougie and his "values".
Doug105 said "The fact that churches are suing to stay open instead of voluntarily doing The fact that churches are suing to stay open instead of voluntarily doing what's in the best interest of the public health tells you everything you need to know about churches and their values. tells you everything you need to know about churches and their values."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "funny how you think it's OK to cram liquor stores and bike shops but think spread-out-worship services are non-essential."
Worship services are not in any way "spread out", people sit side by side. A liquor store or a bike shop is an entirely different thing than a church gathering. Church services are more like a concert or a bar where you have hundreds or even thousands of people crammed closely together for a long time. In a liquor store or a bike shop you have relatively few people in the store for a brief period of time. The chances for spreading the virus are far less than in a church service.
Not to mention that if you close liquor stores its going to literally kill people. Long term alcoholics can die from suddenly stopping drinking.
Evangelical Christian Rick Wiles: Trump Should Use a Firing Squad on Supposedly Traitorous Liberals
Right-wing pundit and professional anti-Semite Rick Wiles, fresh off of saying he would pay the $15,000 penalty for a massive super-spreader wedding, now says he wants Democrats to be executed.
It stems from how, last week, the administration changed up rules regarding federal executions. Rather than limiting the death penalty to lethal injections, the new rule (which could go into effect on Christmas Eve) would allow states to execute people using “any other manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed.”
In theory, that means someone who might otherwise die by lethal injection could be killed via firing squad or electrocution or flat-out torture if the state doesn’t prohibit it.
That was enough information for Wiles to suggest certain liberals should be shot via firing squad.
Wiles was responding to the question of why the Trump administration would fast-track this change:
… I’m not trying to be funny about [this]… because they plan to shoot some people… They’re gonna have a bunch of traitors, they’re gonna line ’em up against a wall and start shooting them. Because that’s what they deserve… The Democrats, the news media. If the leftists, if scientists, professors have been working secretly with the Chinese Communist Party, then line ’em up against the wall and shoot them. That’s what you do with them.
To be clear, even the Trump rules could only apply to people convicted of a crime so heinous, the perpetrator is given the death penalty. Wiles, however, fantasizes about it being used against his ideological opponents. As if there’s some vast conspiracy afoot in which scientists and educators are in cahoots with other countries — a conspiracy that only Wiles and the people in his conservative bubble know about — and the appropriate response is to murder everybody.
There’s no evidence that scientists, professors, and the news media are secretly collaborating with the Chinese government in order to destroy the country.
This isn’t even a prediction of Wiles thinks will happen. It’s not just a random weird Christian thought experiment. This is a man engaging in right-wing fantasy that involves the execution of Democrats he deems unworthy.
At what point do his followers decide to circumvent this already-perverted version of law and take matters into their own hands? When will Wiles — and the men surrounding him — ever be held accountable for his words?
By the way, this is also the same guy who claims to be so “pro-life” he once celebrated an impending ice age because the death of humanity would also mean fewer abortions.
No, there's nothing fascist about Trump and his supporters, nothing fascist or dictatorial at all..
Trump Lawyer Calls For Executing Former Cyber Chief
CNN reports:
An attorney for the Trump campaign on Monday issued a call for violence against Chris Krebs, a former cybersecurity official who was unceremoniously ousted from his post by President Donald Trump after he rejected the President’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.
Joe diGenova, an attorney for Trump’s campaign, said during an appearance on “The Howie Carr Show”: “Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.”
Tim Miller writes at The Bulwark:
This is not just a random Parler troll trying to get attention. This is an attorney speaking on behalf of the President of the United States’ re-election campaign. And while it may read like a macabre joke, the direct nature of diGenova’s comments make it impossible to interpret as anything other than a real wish/threat against a public servant for offering truthful testimony.
DiGenova’s execution wishcasting comes on the heels of a Krebs interview with 60 Minutes in which he debunked the Trump team’s outlandish and conspiratorial claims about the election. Krebs is a lifelong Republican who Trump put in charge of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which had oversight of election security. (Trump fired Krebs via tweet.)
Covid deaths up to 2400 today. A few months ago Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous was telling us the numbers were dropping so fast it would soon no longer be a pandemic. They also told us only 60,000 Americans would die in total. Now that looks like it could be 500,000 or more.
Georgia’s voting systems manager Gabriel Sterling fervently denounced the threats and harassment directed at election workers, imploring President Donald Trump to stop provoking such behavior and to condemn it instead.
“It has to stop,” said Sterling, who is a Republican, on Tuesday. “Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some.”
The election official was visibly shaken as he addressed reporters at the Georgia State Capitol, telling them he would do his best to keep it together during his remarks.
“Mr. President, it looks like a likely loss in the state of Georgia,” he said. “We’re investigating, there’s always a possibility. I get it. You have the right to go through the courts.”
He continued: “What you don’t have is the ability to — and you need to step up and say this — is stop inspiring people to commit potential violence. Someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed. It’s not right.”
GOP leaders have stayed largely silent about Trump’s onslaught on the state’s voting system.
Sterling said Raffensberger, his boss, has had intruders at his home and that his wife has received “sexualized threats” on her cellphone.
“This is elections. This is the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this,” he said. “It’s too much.”
Sterling also referred to violent rhetoric a day earlier from Joe diGenova, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, who said that former U.S. cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs should be shot for defending the integrity of the election. Trump fired Krebs earlier this month for doing so.
The straw that broke the camel’s back on Tuesday, Sterling said, was news that a contractor for a voting system company in his 20s was being harassed.
“His family is getting harassed now. There’s a noose out there with his name on it,” he said.
Sterling said he and his boss had police protection at their houses, which he could come to terms with, given that he took a high-profile position.
But “this kid took a job,” he said. “He just took a job.”
The Trump campaign’s baseless conspiracy theories and lies about a rigged election are a threat to voters’ faith in U.S. democracy, but current and former law enforcement officials have also raised concerns that they could become fodder for extremist violence.
"The Trump campaign’s baseless conspiracy theories and lies about a rigged election are a threat to voters’ faith in U.S. democracy, but current and former law enforcement officials have also raised concerns that they could become fodder for extremist violence."
Stacy Abrams never conceded the Georgia gubernatorial race she lost
she says they done her wrong
is that why we had all that violence this summer?
or, how about that Al Gore?
he stills says the Supreme Court stole the election from him
Hillary?
she still rants the Russians hacked her big victory away
but Trump does the same and he's a "threat to voters’ faith in U.S. democracy"
and Dems wonder why the voters gave them a shellacking in the election
what a revoltin' load of hypocrites!
"but Trump does the same and he's a "threat to voters’ faith in U.S. democracy"
No you bloviating moron, he didn't do the same thing - he and republicans have a long history of pushing guns, "2nd amendment solutions" and saying things like:
"If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, I'll pay the legal fees."
"LIBERATE MICHIGAN!; LIBERATE MINNESOTA!; LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"
Recommending shooting migrants below the waist to slow them down, or telling a whole bunch of gun-toting Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by."
Contesting an election is one thing - especially if you have evidence. Encouraging pissed off losers to take matters into their own hands because you thought the election was "rigged" is an entirely different matter.
Even Republicans like Sterling can recognize that. What is confounding is the level of stupidity it takes for someone like you NOT to recognize that.
actually, stupid, I was just responding to your comment that said: "The Trump campaign’s baseless conspiracy theories and lies about a rigged election are a threat to voters’ faith in U.S. democracy,"
as for potential violence, both sides have those kinds of fringe elements
no Trump supporters shot a Congressman like the liberal nut shot Steve Scalise
and Dems wonder why the voters gave them a shellacking in the election
what a revoltin' load of hypocrites!
Michael Flynn Wants Trump To Declare Martial Law And Redo The Election
The president’s freshly pardoned ex-national security adviser retweeted a statement advocating suspending the Constitution.
https://tinyurl.com/Flynn-Tweet
Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who was pardoned by the president last week for lying during the Russia investigation, wants Trump to declare martial law and “temporarily suspend the Constitution” until a new election is held.
Flynn, who had been awaiting sentencing for lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts before Trump’s pardon, on Tuesday retweeted a news release from a right-wing Ohio group called We The People Convention asking the president to declare martial law so troops can supervise a do-over of the 2020 election.
Flynn tagged many conservative celebs in his post and added: “Freedom never kneels except for God.”
The news release cites “massive, planned, illegal election fraud” carried out by Democrats. Trump lost the election handily to President-elect Joe Biden and no widespread fraud has been found.
If the president doesn’t declare martial law, the statement retweeted by Flynn warns, “we will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands and defend our rights on our own.”
https://wethepeopleconvention.org/articles/WTPC-Urges-Limited-Martial-Law
Why don't Republicans believe in the Constitution?
We all need to step back and remember... and remind others... that Trump's false claims of voter fraud are not benign. This isn't just a case of him using his right to free speech to make an ass out of himself. We have upwards of 100M Americans who now believe that the election was fraudulent and that Biden is an illegitimate president... and more so than any time in our history, they are openly taking about violence and civil war in response.
This is not protected speech. This is yelling 'Fire' in an auditorium. This is incitement to riot or insurrection. This needs to be stopped, asap.
A significant number of Republicans are calling for the overthrow of the election results and a majority of Republicans are giving silent consent to this. Wyatt and Regina Hardiman kept telling us that Trump wasn't acting like a dictator when he does time and time again. They'll keep telling us this is nothing to worry about, it will all be fine until Republicans complete a coup and then they'll tell us that's nothing to worry about.
You can read all about right wing authoritarians who support Trump in this online book:
The Authoritarians
"We all need to step back and remember... and remind others... that Trump's false claims of voter fraud are not benign. This isn't just a case of him using his right to free speech to make an ass out of himself. We have upwards of 100M Americans who now believe that the election was fraudulent and that Biden is an illegitimate president"
this has been going for the last four years
most Dems were convinced Russians somehow manipulated the 2016 vote with the collusion of Trump and that Trump is an illegitimate President
they actually demonize W Bush as well with similar claims, although they now he's a dreamboat
"... and more so than any time in our history, they are openly taking about violence and civil war in response."
about half the country voted for Trump
the people you refer to are fringe characters and the Dems have similar characters
"This is not protected speech. This is yelling 'Fire' in an auditorium. This is incitement to riot or insurrection. This needs to be stopped, asap."
watch the recent Netflix movie about the Chicago 7
"incitement to riot" is a common charge to suppress dissent
Trump election litigation score now 1 win, 40 losses.
The United States set three grim records on Wednesday, recording the highest number of daily deaths, new infections and hospitalizations since the pandemic began.
The U.S. reported 2,777 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday alone, according to an NBC News tally. The country registered nearly 205,000 new cases of Covid-19 on the same day, a figure that comes just a month after the U.S. single-day record topped 100,000 cases for the first time.
Meanwhile, more people than ever are hospitalized. The Covid Tracking Project reported that 100,000 people were hospitalized across the country.
Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, barely contained his contempt Wednesday for people who are donating to outgoing President Donald Trump’s futile bid to overturn the 2020 election result.
Steele used one word to describe the donors ― “suckers” ― as he warned them that the reported $170 million contributed so far “ain’t going to no recount” but instead into a so-called “leadership” PAC whose rules on spending are not massively regulated.
“The great little dirty part of this is Donald Trump right now is raising money at a faster rate to, sort of, steal the election than he did when he was trying to win the election,” Steele told MSNBC’s Joy Reid.
“And that’s what people need to understand. Alright?” he continued. “He’s raising more money now than he did when he was actually running for the job that he’s now trying to say that they stole from him! So, look, the grift is on, baby! It is just on. You need to understand it.”
Steele ran the RNC from 2009 to 2011 and has been a vocal Republican thorn in Trump’s side throughout his presidency.
He acknowledged that people can give Trump all the money they want.
“That’s on you,” he said. “But know what it’s going to.”
Charlie Sykes, the founder of the conservative website The Bulwark, on Wednesday warned Americans to keep focused on Donald Trump now more than ever as it could actually be the “most dangerous” part of his presidency. The conservative pundit and staunch Never Trump said people could “probably spare ourselves some heartburn if we recognize... there are no norms that he is not willing to violate, there’s no standard of decency that he is not willing to shred.”
Sykes also suggested “we have not even seen how low he’s going to go on his pardon-palooza.” Trump last month pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who’d pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation. The president is also reportedly exploring the pardon of three of his adult children (Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump), his son-in-law Jared Kushner and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
“We don’t know what the extent of the corruption is going to be,” Sykes continued. “But what we do know is the president of the United States, right now in real-time, is trying to overturn a legitimate, democratic election.”
“If somebody would have suggested a few years ago that we would be seeing a president of the United States that is actively trying to disenfranchise millions of voters to overturn an election and have himself declared the winner, people would have thought, oh, that’s Trump Derangement Syndrome,” he added. “But that’s literally what’s going on right now.”
“But what we do know is the president of the United States, right now in real-time, is trying to overturn a legitimate, democratic election.”
Trump is so unoriginal
that's exactly what the Dems have been trying to do for four years!
btw, California's COVID restrictions on churches is now unconstitutional
Europe is now having more deaths than in the Spring
it's so odd because Trump isn't running those countries and TTF has been saying the whole thing is his fault
Joe Biden said yesterday he's "going to ask" Americans to wear masks for 100 days when he's elected
thanks, Joe
that oughta fix things up
question: since you have no authority to enforce that and you seem to think they just take your suggestion, why not do it now?
imagine, your only idea to stop he pandemic could be done now
President-elects can give speeches
you might want to throw it in early in the speech, though
people kinda zone out your dull speaking style after about 60 seconds, or so
After 9 months of pandemic-related drags on the economy, it still looks better than most of Obama's presidency.
The U.S. Department of Labor released its monthly jobs report Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main results from the report, compared to Bloomberg consensus data as of Friday morning:
Change in non-farm payrolls: +245,000
Unemployment rate: 6.7% vs. 6.9% in October
Average Hourly Earnings month-over-month: 0.3% vs. +0.1% in October
Average Hourly Earnings year-over-year: 4.4% vs. +4.4% in October
"it's so odd because Trump isn't running those countries and TTF has been saying the whole thing is his fault"
You still can't read.
Dems never said deaths in Europe were his fault. Just the ones here in the US.
And while Republicans complained about mask wearing BLM protesters in the summer while infection rates and deaths were going down, this latest surge started shortly after Rump went around the country doing YUGE rallies where most people refused to wear masks.
Go figure.
US virus deaths top 3,100 in a single day for the first time
The U.S. recorded over 3,100 COVID-19 deaths in a single day, obliterating the record set last spring, while the number of Americans in the hospital with the virus has eclipsed 100,000 for the first time and new cases have begun topping 200,000 a day, according to figures released Thursday.
The three benchmarks altogether showed a country slipping deeper into crisis, with perhaps the worst yet to come, in part because of the delayed effects from Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans disregarded warnings to stay home and celebrate only with members of their household.
Across the U.S., the surge has swamped hospitals and left nurses and other health care workers shorthanded and burned out.
“The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation,” Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday.
Health authorities had warned that the numbers could fluctuate strongly before and after Thanksgiving, as they often do around holidays and weekends. Because of reporting delays, the figures often drop, then rise sharply a few days later as state and local health agencies catch up with the backlog.
Still, deaths, hospitalizations and cases in the U.S. have been on a fairly steady rise for weeks, sometimes breaking records for days on end.
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Are you proud of Rump for his handling of coronavirus too?
He's got much higher numbers than Obama ever did!
N1H1: It's estimated that the swine flu -- a new type of flu that spread worldwide during 2009-2010, causing the first flu pandemic -- caused more than 12,000 flu-related deaths in the U.S.
Ebola: No one who contracted Ebola while in the United States died from it.
"people kinda zone out your dull speaking style after about 60 seconds, or so"
Sorry that big words put you to sleep, but most people prefer presidents that don't act like a 4th grade bully calling people names.
You know, someone who might have an actual plan and policies, rather than just rage-tweeting on Twitter.
President-elect Joe Biden on Friday said his administration would be “the most pro-equality administration in history” as he called for a “new era of LGBTQ rights.”
Biden’s comments to the 2020 International LGBTQ Leaders Conference came while honoring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for receiving the LGBTQ Victory Institute’s History Maker Award. He recorded his statement for a panel marking the 10-year anniversary of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about sexual orientation for serving in the U.S. military.
Biden called it an honor for him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to have campaigned with a record number of LGBTQ candidates.
“It’s an honor to be an ally,” Biden said. “Vice President-elect Harris and I are committed to being the most pro-equality administration in history. But we can’t do it without you and we can’t do it without my dear friend Nancy Pelosi.”
Biden caused a stir as vice president when he supported same-sex marriage in May 2012 before President Barack Obama. The Supreme Court later decided in June 2015 that states must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize marriages from other jurisdictions.
“I can’t wait to work together again to continue to fight for full equality and to usher in a new era of LGBTQ rights,” Biden told the group Friday.
U.S. reported 2,804 COVID-related deaths on Wednesday alone and another 2,879 on Thursday.
*Total deaths* since the start of COVID pandemic:
Greece: 2,706 (pop: 10M)
Japan: 2,208 (pop: 126M)
Nigeria: 1,179 (pop: 196M)
Australia: 908 (pop: 25M)
South Korea: 536 (pop: 51M)
The most shocking number there is Japan. 126 million people and 2,208 deaths.
The US has 328 million and 277,000 deaths and counting.
This is a stunning failure from what we used to think of as the most advanced country in the world. Outrageous. Horrifying.
Florida attorney Bill Price is under investigation after he encouraged Republicans in the state to register to vote in Georgia for the crucial Senate runoff elections even though they don't live there.
Price made the remarks in a Facebook Live video on November 7 that was subsequently deleted. According to a report by Channel 2 investigative reporter Nicole Carr, Price made the comments just half an hour after the presidential election was called for former Vice President Joe Biden.
It also appears that Price himself registered to vote in Georgia on November 8 despite being resident in Florida. Under Georgia law, moving there temporarily in order to vote is a crime. He is now under investigation by authorities in the state.
"If we lose the Senate on Jan. 5 in Georgia, we will become Venezuela," Price told Bay County Republicans in a speech on November 7.
"[A]nd I will invite each and everyone of you to be my roommate in Georgia," he said.
"I'm changing my voter registration right now, and I'm inviting two million people to be my roommate."
Price told his audience that keeping control of the Senate was crucial and that they should and could register to vote in Georgia in time for the runoff elections, which will take place on January 5. He also noted that lawsuits by President Donald Trump's campaign seeking to challenge the election results were unlikely to succeed.
"You still can't read.
Dems never said deaths in Europe were his fault. Just the ones here in the US."
no, what you were saying is that Europe handled superbly and Trump didn't
so, if they were doing something Trump should have done, why are they now in a crisis?
"And while Republicans complained about mask wearing BLM protesters in the summer while infection rates and deaths were going down,"
there may be some Republican somewhere who said that but enough for you to generalize
what there were complaints about is that a couple of weeks before the BLM protests when people had outdoor rallies to protest the lockdowns, the media and liberals howled that the protesters were endangering life on the planet
"no, what you were saying is that Europe handled superbly and Trump didn't"
I'm pretty sure no one said that about Europe, but feel free to point to the quote on the off chance you aren't just making stuff up again.
"what there were complaints about is that a couple of weeks before the BLM protests when people had outdoor rallies to protest the lockdowns, the media and liberals howled that the protesters were endangering life on the planet"
Exaggeration. The conservative protesters had a habit of not wearing masks while gathering. That's a pretty stupid thing to do during a pandemic. The media and liberals simply pointed that out. The large jump in cases in the Dakotas after the Sturgis rally would be a good example:
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-09-08/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-may-have-caused-over-250-000-coronavirus-cases-report
"there may be some Republican somewhere who said that but enough for you to generalize"
It was said a number of times on this blog - but perhaps it was the dude that calls himself a "libertarian" rather than a Republican.
"btw, California's COVID restrictions on churches is now unconstitutional"
Just in time for all those church goers to gather during what has become the most infectious part of the pandemic for the US now. With the mortality rate at about 3 percent of known cases, it won't take out a huge number of them, but given the small percentages elections are won by these days, it could be enough to shift votes away from the stupid party going forward.
Trump litigation score currently: 1 win, 46 losses. Do you think he'll break 50? I do.
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