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But Trump did accurately predict that if we voted for Hillary we were going to be tied up in court. We did, we are.
Here's What Donald Trump Said on the Campaign Trail About a President Being Under Investigation
https://time.com/4819919/donald-trump-obstruction-justice-investigation/
But before he was elected president, Trump repeatedly blasted 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for the investigation into her use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State. In fact, Trump said having a sitting president under criminal investigation would result in a “constitutional crisis.”
“She’s likely to be under investigation for criminality for a very, very long time to come,” Trump said during a Oct. 31, 2016 speech in Warren, Mich.
“We’re going to be tied up in court for the rest of our lives with this deal,” he added, referring to if Clinton were elected. “She’s not going to win the election, but I’m just saying. If Hillary is elected, she will be under protracted criminal investigation likely followed by the trial of a sitting president. This is just what we need.”
How about Rex's 'Trumps a fucking moron'?
Pic Of The Moment: Schiff Shames Republicans
http://theendtimes.news/2016/06/02/cowardly-lion-accepts-nomination-as-new-gop-mascot/
WASHINGTON, DC – The Republican National Committee (RNC)has announced the formal coronation of The Cowardly Lion as the new official mascot of the Republican Party. This comes on the heels of a six month process by which registered Republicans were encouraged to cast ballots and choose a new party mascot that would “better reflect the values and principles of the Republican Party”.
While the GOP had provided ballots with various serious, solid, fearsome and generally impressive options, voters chose instead to overwhelmingly create their own write-in slot, where The Cowardly Lion was penciled in by just over 85% of respondents.
Initially, GOP officials sought to discount or bury the results of a selection process that had clearly gotten out of their control, but once news broke of the nearly three million mailed in ballots cast for The Cowardly Lion, Party leadership decided to own the results and spin them as best they could.
“We couldn’t be more pleased than to have found such a soft, fuzzy, kind and nonthreatening representative of the complete cowardice and lack of backbone that our great party has come to symbolize,” gushed RNC Chairman Reince Priebus via press release. “Our obvious lack of desire to even slow the rapid growth of Big Government power and control over every aspect of life in America while posing, pretending, and talking tough about how we’re for ‘smaller government’ really does make the roaring, but ultimately quite cowardly and pathetic, lion the perfect symbol for the Republican Party.”
As for his part, The Cowardly Lion was quite happy and more than a little surprised to have found a group willing to employ him in any meaningful way.
“I couldn’t be more proud and relieved!” howled Mr. Lion while cowering behind a podium during his acceptance speech. “To have finally found a place where I can pretend to be tough while caving in every meaningful way at every meaningful opportunity, all while being paid handsomely through the contributions of others, well…it’s more than I could have ever even dreamt of!”
“Thank you, Republican Party,” Mr. Lion added while breaking down into tears (again). “I promise to represent you well!”
Pic Of The Moment: Schiff Shames Republicans
http://theendtimes.news/2016/06/02/cowardly-lion-accepts-nomination-as-new-gop-mascot/
WASHINGTON, DC – The Republican National Committee (RNC)has announced the formal coronation of The Cowardly Lion as the new official mascot of the Republican Party. This comes on the heels of a six month process by which registered Republicans were encouraged to cast ballots and choose a new party mascot that would “better reflect the values and principles of the Republican Party”.
While the GOP had provided ballots with various serious, solid, fearsome and generally impressive options, voters chose instead to overwhelmingly create their own write-in slot, where The Cowardly Lion was penciled in by just over 85% of respondents.
Initially, GOP officials sought to discount or bury the results of a selection process that had clearly gotten out of their control, but once news broke of the nearly three million mailed in ballots cast for The Cowardly Lion, Party leadership decided to own the results and spin them as best they could.
“We couldn’t be more pleased than to have found such a soft, fuzzy, kind and nonthreatening representative of the complete cowardice and lack of backbone that our great party has come to symbolize,” gushed RNC Chairman Reince Priebus via press release. “Our obvious lack of desire to even slow the rapid growth of Big Government power and control over every aspect of life in America while posing, pretending, and talking tough about how we’re for ‘smaller government’ really does make the roaring, but ultimately quite cowardly and pathetic, lion the perfect symbol for the Republican Party.”
As for his part, The Cowardly Lion was quite happy and more than a little surprised to have found a group willing to employ him in any meaningful way.
“I couldn’t be more proud and relieved!” howled Mr. Lion while cowering behind a podium during his acceptance speech. “To have finally found a place where I can pretend to be tough while caving in every meaningful way at every meaningful opportunity, all while being paid handsomely through the contributions of others, well…it’s more than I could have ever even dreamt of!”
“Thank you, Republican Party,” Mr. Lion added while breaking down into tears (again). “I promise to represent you well!”
'Taking an opinion' without fact checking it, is part of your problem.
States That Raised Minimum Wage See Faster Job Growth, Report Says
July 19, 2014·12:25 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/07/19/332879409/states-that-raised-minimum-wage-see-faster-job-growth-report-says
Scott Neuman
Twitter
New data released by the Department of Labor shows that raising the minimum wage in some states does not appear to have had a negative impact on job growth, contrary to what critics said would happen.
In a report on Friday, the 13 states that raised their minimum wages on Jan. 1 have added jobs at a faster pace than those that did not. The data run counter to a Congressional Budget Office report in February that said raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as the White House supports, could cost as many as 500,000 jobs.
The Associated Press writes:
"In the 13 states that boosted their minimums at the beginning of the year, the number of jobs grew an average of 0.85 percent from January through June. The average for the other 37 states was 0.61 percent.
"Nine of the 13 states increased their minimum wages automatically in line with inflation: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Four more states — Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island — approved legislation mandating the increases."
The AP notes: "[The] state-by-state hiring data, released Friday by the Labor Department, provides ammunition" to the camp in favor of raising the minimum wage.
A more pertinent question is who is most susceptible to being misinformed. The jury is in on that question. I'll go a step further and state that those who watch both CNN and MSNBC, me, watch Fox News for it's entertainment value.
Fox and Friends, to me, is Two Ted Baxters with a blonde in the middle.
Your demographic of 'more informed', consisting of any Fox News viewers, is imaginary.
He's a liberal satirist, unabashedly so. That said, which of his statements aren't based upon underlying truth?
https://shadowproof.com/2011/04/09/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-lee-papa-the-rude-pundits-almanack/
Random Observations on a Cover-Up (Impeachment Trial Rules Edition)
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
1/22/2020
1. Early yesterday (well, early for me), I made a prediction that democracy's maggot, Mitch McConnell, would allow for some changes in his ludicrously stringent rules for the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump. I said that he would give in on the timeline of the opening statements, which were a punishing 24 hours over 2 days for each side, and on the admittance of evidence from the House investigation, which was going to require a vote on every piece introduced.
I thought that it would come in a vote on an amendment from the Democrats, but, instead, McConnell made the changes (three days and accepting all evidence unless there is objection) before anything got started. This was the bone he tossed to give cover to the so-called "moderates," Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, and Corey Gardner, along with the retiring Lamar Alexander. It will be the only ground McConnell gives. The fix is in so deeply that it would be impossible to pull it out of the clenched anus of the GOP.
2. Yes, you're right. Democratic House managers were incredible yesterday. They were so well-prepared, so eloquent, so passionate about the sanctity of the country, so filled with magnificent retorts and one-liners.
It was the kind of ass kicking that even a barely literate electorate would watch, think, "Holy shit, Trump is just a motherfucker and so are these Republican motherfuckers in the Senate," and rise up to shut shit down until all Republicans were all chased out of town. But we are civic illiterates now, just hoping that we can live and die without anyone downvoting our Reddit comments.
3. Yes, you're right. Trump's legal team acted like a bunch of drunk frat douches (including fucking corrupt Pam Bondi) who knew their dads had already paid off the dean to make sure they get good grades so they can play on the lacrosse team this semester.
They railed and ranted at the Democrats, accusing them of everything from hypocrisy to flat-out murdering the founders. They heaped praise on Trump, because of course they did. They talked shit and shit lies. They did everything but actually address a single fact. And they won't. They're giving a book report without having read the book. And they know they can do it because Mitch McConnell has already promised that this is a big fuckin' show that they're forced to go through because of that goddamn Constitution, which he can't actually rip up but would if he could.
4. We know how this ends. We know that the likelihood that there will be witnesses is the same likelihood that McConnell's face muscles will function like a normal human being's.
And any conviction has the same probability that Lindsey Graham will remove his tongue from Donald Trump's asshole. The GOP does not have honorable people. They are cowards and punks and bitches and worms, dead frightened that Trump will say something fucked-up about them and unleash his bot and bastard online army to threaten to rape their dogs.
5. So if we know the outcome, then what's the game about? It's about 2020, obviously. It's about winning the Senate. It's about peeling away as many putative independents to tell Collins and Gardner to shove their moderation up their Trump-humping peeholes.
The message should be as clear as possible: We're impeaching Trump now because he was trying to fuck with the 2020 election. If we waited until after the election, he'd have fucked with it. And Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell and the rest wanted his criminal ass to get away with it.
5a. Oh, and by the way, Trump still doesn't believe there was interference on his behalf in 2016, and McConnell has refused to do a goddamn thing to protect our elections.
5a. This is where the near-complete abandonment of the Mueller Report hurts Democrats. They could forcefully assert that Trump's attempt to get dirt on Biden was part of a pattern of soliciting foreign interference. But Democrats ended up allowing Trump and pudgy doom muffin William Barr set the terms of discussion of the report.
6. So we're getting a bullshit exercise in futility with this trial. But you should absolutely pass around clips of Hakeem Jeffries reaming Jay Sekulow. You should tell everyone about what a cockknob Pat Cipollone is. And you should campaign for whatever Democrats promise to burn the GOP to the ground and piss on the ashes.
Random Observations on a Cover-Up (Impeachment Trial Rules Edition)
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
1/22/2020
1. Early yesterday (well, early for me), I made a prediction that democracy's maggot, Mitch McConnell, would allow for some changes in his ludicrously stringent rules for the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump. I said that he would give in on the timeline of the opening statements, which were a punishing 24 hours over 2 days for each side, and on the admittance of evidence from the House investigation, which was going to require a vote on every piece introduced.
I thought that it would come in a vote on an amendment from the Democrats, but, instead, McConnell made the changes (three days and accepting all evidence unless there is objection) before anything got started. This was the bone he tossed to give cover to the so-called "moderates," Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, and Corey Gardner, along with the retiring Lamar Alexander. It will be the only ground McConnell gives. The fix is in so deeply that it would be impossible to pull it out of the clenched anus of the GOP.
2. Yes, you're right. Democratic House managers were incredible yesterday. They were so well-prepared, so eloquent, so passionate about the sanctity of the country, so filled with magnificent retorts and one-liners.
It was the kind of ass kicking that even a barely literate electorate would watch, think, "Holy shit, Trump is just a motherfucker and so are these Republican motherfuckers in the Senate," and rise up to shut shit down until all Republicans were all chased out of town. But we are civic illiterates now, just hoping that we can live and die without anyone downvoting our Reddit comments.
3. Yes, you're right. Trump's legal team acted like a bunch of drunk frat douches (including fucking corrupt Pam Bondi) who knew their dads had already paid off the dean to make sure they get good grades so they can play on the lacrosse team this semester.
They railed and ranted at the Democrats, accusing them of everything from hypocrisy to flat-out murdering the founders. They heaped praise on Trump, because of course they did. They talked shit and shit lies. They did everything but actually address a single fact. And they won't. They're giving a book report without having read the book. And they know they can do it because Mitch McConnell has already promised that this is a big fuckin' show that they're forced to go through because of that goddamn Constitution, which he can't actually rip up but would if he could.
4. We know how this ends. We know that the likelihood that there will be witnesses is the same likelihood that McConnell's face muscles will function like a normal human being's.
And any conviction has the same probability that Lindsey Graham will remove his tongue from Donald Trump's asshole. The GOP does not have honorable people. They are cowards and punks and bitches and worms, dead frightened that Trump will say something fucked-up about them and unleash his bot and bastard online army to threaten to rape their dogs.
5. So if we know the outcome, then what's the game about? It's about 2020, obviously. It's about winning the Senate. It's about peeling away as many putative independents to tell Collins and Gardner to shove their moderation up their Trump-humping peeholes.
The message should be as clear as possible: We're impeaching Trump now because he was trying to fuck with the 2020 election. If we waited until after the election, he'd have fucked with it. And Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell and the rest wanted his criminal ass to get away with it.
5a. Oh, and by the way, Trump still doesn't believe there was interference on his behalf in 2016, and McConnell has refused to do a goddamn thing to protect our elections.
5a. This is where the near-complete abandonment of the Mueller Report hurts Democrats. They could forcefully assert that Trump's attempt to get dirt on Biden was part of a pattern of soliciting foreign interference. But Democrats ended up allowing Trump and pudgy doom muffin William Barr set the terms of discussion of the report.
6. So we're getting a bullshit exercise in futility with this trial. But you should absolutely pass around clips of Hakeem Jeffries reaming Jay Sekulow. You should tell everyone about what a cockknob Pat Cipollone is. And you should campaign for whatever Democrats promise to burn the GOP to the ground and piss on the ashes.
3 hour respite for me coming up with Chg. Med, Fire and P.D. Thank you Dick Wolf. STAT, copy that.
LOL! Starter kit for becoming Mad Max with a bladder problem.
More, MUCH more, than we need to know.
https://www.carolwrightgifts.com/sheath-urinal-kit/64782.cfm?%3Fclicksource=X_SELL_PR
He sees the same Catheter TV ads the rest of us see. Oh YEAH!
I tend to ignore names in favor of the persuasiveness, or lack of same, of the content. I've read similar charges against McConnell from other sources over the years.
i was in the reserves at the same time. NO one missed a meeting or finagled a discharge in my unit during my six years.
Good attendance was assured by the threat of activation to full time service in the regular USMC. If it was a bluff, I never saw anyone call it.
It WOULD take Senatorial patronage to pull it off, and even then.
Bush missing his final year in the Air National Guard is equally mind boggling. Fliers probably had to pass drug screenings.
The Strange and Possibly Sordid Story of Mitch McConnell's Military Service
BadKitties
February 24, 2013 · 8:27 PM CST
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/02/24/1189537/-The-Strange-and-Possibly-Sordid-Story-of-Mitch-McConnell-s-Military-Service
Not even close to being done....Parnas.
Asinine statement wrapped around a wishful thinking burger.
The so called POTUS is being impeached, and everything we're viewing will be wrapped around his fleshy neck and the necks of his craven morally imbecilic supporters.
Plus there's no chance in hell that he won't commit yet more crimes between now and Nov.
The fuck they can't, it's in the 2nd Article of impeachment and unless or until those witnesses appear it will be clear to every voter just who is hiding shit, who is obstructing.
How about the asshole who said....“she’s going to go through some things.”
Face it, Trump threatens, bullies and creates a hostile work environment.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/trump-robert-hyde-stalk-ambassador-marie-yovanovitch.html
Two short months ago, former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch sat before the House Intelligence Committee for the second public hearing of the impeachment inquiry. One of the most senior women in the U.S. foreign service—a 33-year veteran who held two previous ambassadorships prior to being posted in Ukraine in 2016—Yovanovitch showed up to testify in direct defiance of the Trump administration’s directive against government officials taking part in the impeachment proceedings.
Poised and reserved in the limelight, Yovanovitch—over several hours—described what it had been like to be targeted in the media by the president’s personal attorney and eldest son, summarily ousted from her position last April, and then name-checked by the president during his now-infamous July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
In that call, the most powerful person in the world said of Yovanovitch, “the former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news” and “she’s going to go through some things.”
Look at the track record of Trumps withholding EVERY fucking thing he has been asked to provide, every witness he's blocked from appearing.
The point was clearly made yesterday that legal action can take many months. THEN we'll here you mfing righties crying even more about a dragged out witch hunt.
Remember the whining about no direct witnesses in the House hearings?
Bolton, Mulvaney, Pompeo and Giuliani ARE first hand witnesses.
If they're exculpatory for Trump, then where the fuck is the vote by GOPERS to compel their appearance before the Senate?
Hint, they're not exculpatory. Cross examination of any or all of them will burn Trumps fat prevaricating ass. Period.
Is this something you are familiar with? I just added it to my Netflix watch list. Certainly looks intriguing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap_(TV_series)
Pine Gap is an Australian television series that was released on Netflix and broadcast on ABC in 2018. The six-part series is written and created by Greg Haddrick and Felicity Packard with Mat King directing all six episodes.[3] The series is produced by Screentime.
Yes, but we move on with the record of the GOP Senate's perfidy and abject cravenness, documented and visually available for campaigns across the country.
Let's hope the Dem AV Dept. is able to throw his latest incriminating comment up on the screen in today's session.
And the hell with Roberts, Schiff or Nadler need to turn to the GOP lawyers and simply ask 'WTF do YOU think that means?!
And, WTF would it mean to you if the same statement came from a Dem president's lips?'
It Sure Does Sound Like Trump Just Bragged About Obstructing Congress
"Honestly, we have all the material," said the president. "They don't have the material." Because the administration refuses to turn over any evidence related to his Perfect Call.
By Jack Holmes
Jan 22, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30624242/trump-admits-obstruction-of-congress-davos-press-conference/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_esq&utm_medium=email&date=012220&utm_campaign=nl19162515
Honestly, we have all the material," said the President of the United States. "They don't have the material." It was some typical New York real-estate bluster: I've got it, you don't, fuck you. Except Donald Trump isn't in real estate anymore, or even in the branding business he pivoted towards later on.
He's been the president for three years, and he's been impeached, and the trial is underway in the Senate, and he just appeared to admit to one of the charges against him. He just bragged about obstructing Congress, the second of two articles along with abuse of power.
The president held a press conference Wednesday at Davos—that haven for populists who represent the forgotten men and women of the American heartland—and predictably, the trial came up. This kicked off a festival of lies: the "transcript" Trump released is not a transcript and it's not exculpatory, it's incriminating.
The call in question launched a frenzy of activity from Trump's aides—including stuffing the call record in a filing system meant for top-secret intel—which indicates they maybe thought something Not Good just went down. The whistleblower's account has been corroborated by witnesses under oath and on the record. None of Trump's very brave defenders will speak under penalty of perjury like those witnesses did. They insist on testifying on Fox News.
And then there was this talk of the "material."
Trump admits to obstruction of Congress — one of the impeachment charges against him.
“But honestly we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”#ShamTrial pic.twitter.com/8BdeMwHcWP
— Minh Ngo (@minhtngo) January 22, 2020
What could Trump be referring to here other than his administration's defiance of all congressional subpoenas for documents and evidence relating to the Ukraine probe? (This is in addition to his blanket ban on anyone with first-hand knowledge of the plot testifying, while he and his allies complain that no direct witnesses have testified. A Catch-22 of Stupid.) The president's position is essentially that the United States Congress has no oversight powers over the Executive Branch.
This is not exactly what the Founders had in mind. The legislature is tasked with making policy and funding it—like, say, granting nearly $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine. The president is supposed to enforce the laws.
Congress has a duty to monitor the Executive and make sure he is doing so faithfully. When the president does not enforce a bipartisan congressional resolution and does not provide an explanation, Congress has a duty to investigate why.
The simplest explanation is that the president believes he will get away with it regardless.
This is just one instance where the president has essentially rejected the legitimacy of Congress and sought to undermine the separation of powers that undergirds the checks and balances safeguarding our democratic republic. He has also sought to seize funds not appropriated by Congress to build his Big, Beautiful Wall, a direct assault on the legislature's power of the purse which, if allowed to stand, would be a critical blow to our system.
If the president can use taxpayer money for whatever he wants by declaring a National Emergency he himself admits is phony, then he can do whatever he wants. That's not a president, it's a king.
But what did you expect from the big real-estate man we put in charge? The guy is not used to "checks and balances." He's used to telling some peon to get a Trump Tower built in Azerbaijan.
It's no coincidence that he's ditched anyone around him who might be concerned about the institutions of a democratic republic, either. Over time, the qualifications for Executive Branch service have been whittled down to absolute fealty to The Leader.
He has gotten away with this, and everything else, to the point he feels free to brag about obstructing Congress during the trial examining whether he obstructed Congress. Meanwhile, all this obstruction prevents investigators from completely exposing Trump on the other count—abuse of power—for which there is already a strong case.
Maybe chalk this up to his strategy of just saying he did the sketchy thing in public so people struggle to process that it was sketchy. Or maybe this is tied to his legal team's strategy, where they'll claim abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not impeachable.
Or maybe he just knows that the Senate's Republican majority have already betrayed their oaths to serve as impartial jurors—or, more importantly, their original oath to defend the Constitution. Mitch McConnell announced this was a sham trial long ago. They've given him the green light to lie and cheat all the way to November.
It Sure Does Sound Like Trump Just Bragged About Obstructing Congress
"Honestly, we have all the material," said the president. "They don't have the material." Because the administration refuses to turn over any evidence related to his Perfect Call.
By Jack Holmes
Jan 22, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30624242/trump-admits-obstruction-of-congress-davos-press-conference/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_esq&utm_medium=email&date=012220&utm_campaign=nl19162515
Honestly, we have all the material," said the President of the United States. "They don't have the material." It was some typical New York real-estate bluster: I've got it, you don't, fuck you. Except Donald Trump isn't in real estate anymore, or even in the branding business he pivoted towards later on.
He's been the president for three years, and he's been impeached, and the trial is underway in the Senate, and he just appeared to admit to one of the charges against him. He just bragged about obstructing Congress, the second of two articles along with abuse of power.
The president held a press conference Wednesday at Davos—that haven for populists who represent the forgotten men and women of the American heartland—and predictably, the trial came up. This kicked off a festival of lies: the "transcript" Trump released is not a transcript and it's not exculpatory, it's incriminating.
The call in question launched a frenzy of activity from Trump's aides—including stuffing the call record in a filing system meant for top-secret intel—which indicates they maybe thought something Not Good just went down. The whistleblower's account has been corroborated by witnesses under oath and on the record. None of Trump's very brave defenders will speak under penalty of perjury like those witnesses did. They insist on testifying on Fox News.
And then there was this talk of the "material."
Trump admits to obstruction of Congress — one of the impeachment charges against him.
“But honestly we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”#ShamTrial pic.twitter.com/8BdeMwHcWP
— Minh Ngo (@minhtngo) January 22, 2020
What could Trump be referring to here other than his administration's defiance of all congressional subpoenas for documents and evidence relating to the Ukraine probe? (This is in addition to his blanket ban on anyone with first-hand knowledge of the plot testifying, while he and his allies complain that no direct witnesses have testified. A Catch-22 of Stupid.) The president's position is essentially that the United States Congress has no oversight powers over the Executive Branch.
This is not exactly what the Founders had in mind. The legislature is tasked with making policy and funding it—like, say, granting nearly $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine. The president is supposed to enforce the laws.
Congress has a duty to monitor the Executive and make sure he is doing so faithfully. When the president does not enforce a bipartisan congressional resolution and does not provide an explanation, Congress has a duty to investigate why.
The simplest explanation is that the president believes he will get away with it regardless.
This is just one instance where the president has essentially rejected the legitimacy of Congress and sought to undermine the separation of powers that undergirds the checks and balances safeguarding our democratic republic. He has also sought to seize funds not appropriated by Congress to build his Big, Beautiful Wall, a direct assault on the legislature's power of the purse which, if allowed to stand, would be a critical blow to our system.
If the president can use taxpayer money for whatever he wants by declaring a National Emergency he himself admits is phony, then he can do whatever he wants. That's not a president, it's a king.
But what did you expect from the big real-estate man we put in charge? The guy is not used to "checks and balances." He's used to telling some peon to get a Trump Tower built in Azerbaijan.
It's no coincidence that he's ditched anyone around him who might be concerned about the institutions of a democratic republic, either. Over time, the qualifications for Executive Branch service have been whittled down to absolute fealty to The Leader.
He has gotten away with this, and everything else, to the point he feels free to brag about obstructing Congress during the trial examining whether he obstructed Congress. Meanwhile, all this obstruction prevents investigators from completely exposing Trump on the other count—abuse of power—for which there is already a strong case.
Maybe chalk this up to his strategy of just saying he did the sketchy thing in public so people struggle to process that it was sketchy. Or maybe this is tied to his legal team's strategy, where they'll claim abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not impeachable.
Or maybe he just knows that the Senate's Republican majority have already betrayed their oaths to serve as impartial jurors—or, more importantly, their original oath to defend the Constitution. Mitch McConnell announced this was a sham trial long ago. They've given him the green light to lie and cheat all the way to November.
I attributed no article to you in my response to you, I simply quoted one muddled sentence of yours and provide a debunking of what you appear to mistakenly believe about gender instruction in kindergarten.
That said, the language of the article debunked is the same kind of hyperbolic nonsense that finds its way into so many of your posts on this topic and on other subjects.
You raised the question, you do the 'research'.
Meanwhile, science and rationality…..
https://massivesci.com/articles/sex-gender-intersex-transgender-identity-discrimination-title-ix/
Straw man arguments. Society upended? Suggests at the very least people marching in the street. I don't see it.
Live; CNN has a time stamp on the top left of their screen...………....12:38 AM ET
The Democratic House Managers are doing something *REALLY* crafty.....
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212893983
In arguing for more evidence to be part of the trial, they are *INTRODUCING* evidence into the record.
- Showing clips of Trump saying he wants witnesses
- showing clips of Lev Parnas being interviewed by Maddow.....
Things that were *NOT* part of the House impeachment record.... are now being shown to *ALL* 100 Senators.
The House Managers are getting around McConnell's embargo of evidence - by showing the evidence anyway!
Brilliant.
Addendum: Since they won't be able to call Parnas as a witness... just keep showing clips of his interviews with Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper. That way, Parnas' claims become part of the trial record anyway - through the back door.
10. I don't think they're trying to influence the other senators
I think those (Republican) senators know all about these things, and could not care less. They are trying to influence the nation, as well as the historical record (all of this will become a part of the record).
There is no hope for influencing the Republicans. Short of some unexpected bombshell that no one can ignore, they are going to vote against removal. It's foreordained: Schiff even said it.
This is all for America. Forget about the Republicans in the Senate.
Warning: Literally Every Conceivable Impeachment Trial Drinking Game Will Quickly Prove Fatal
Tuesday, January 21st, 2020
by Shower Cap | American Madness Journal | 0 comments
http://showercapblog.com/warning-literally-every-conceivable-impeachment-trial-drinking-game-will-quickly-prove-fatal/
Well, my shit-kickin’ Resistance chums, the impeachment trial is finally here! Never has the stark divide between our bleeding nation’s rival realities been clearer. We have the truth, honor, decency, and justice on our side, but sometimes I confess I’m a little jealous of the drugs they’ve got over there in Shitty Wonderland; it looks like a really intense, if angry, high. Okay, let’s round this shit up, shall we?
Missed this one last time out, but didja see where the National Archives blurred images from the 2017 Women’s March that contained criticism of a certain Tangelo-Tinted Taint Tumor, in the latest Dirtbag Orwell Theatre attempt to pretend maybe the point of the whole dang gathering was to protest Netflix losing Scrubs or some shit?
I mean, if we’re editing out anti-Shart content now, future generations are gonna think the period between 2016 and 2021 produced nothing but beer commercials, K-pop, and movies where white people belligerently insist upon “saving” jazz.
Lots of folks think Hairplug Himmler is a recklessly impulsive toddler, careening from crisis to crisis without reason or rhyme, not only incapable of thinking six moves ahead, but mostly just interested in seeing how many pieces he can fit up his nose; in fact, he’s already planning for his post-presidency, trying with all his tiny-fisted might to reverse laws banning bribes to foreign governments, on account of how fiercely anti-corruption he is, you see.
Hey, when your name is your brand and both are synonymous with incompetence, stupidity, and snarling hatred, bribery is pretty much all that’s left, especially when you’re in the market to pull off a real estate scam or two, preferably in a country without an extradition treaty.
Devin Nunes hasn’t been in shit this deep since his poor mamma first caught him stickin’ his willie in the family hog back on the old farm.
With the Pez Dispenser Only With Evidence Instead of Chalky Candy known as Lev Parnas linking Devin and his staff ever more tightly to the Trump/Giuliani Ukrainian extortion ring, America’s most treasonous Congressman didn’t even get invited to join Fat Q*Bert’s impeachment defense team, leaving Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows all the fun that apparently comes with humiliating yourself in front of the entire world on live television. (I think it’s weird, but it’s a different culture, and we shouldn’t judge. Maybe it’s a sex thing.)
You’ll be pleased to learn that the newest branch of the military is ready to defend ‘Murica in the jungles of outer space. Yes, the first Space Force uniforms are an avant-garde rebellion against the traditional notion of “camouflage,” seemingly designed to make our fighting forces stand out as much as fucking possible on the battlefields of the final frontier, perhaps on the theory that any alien invaders would be moved to take pity on our primitive, dumbass, society.
Kid Kompromat’s top Russia advisor, a bad-guy-in-a-movie-set-in-a-prep-school-lookin’ fuck called Andrew Peek, was escorted from the Shart House amidst a security investigation, with plenty of rumors swirling that this grade A dipshit actually fell for the old “honey trap” bit and got his fucking phone stolen by spies.
“The best people” was always a sick, sad, joke, but after three years of scandal-driven turnover, we’re well past scraping the bottom of the barrel; we’re harvesting the fungus from under the floorboards in the room where the barrel’s stored, and giving it top secret security clearance.
Ahead of the impeachment trial, Richard Shelby, who I am told is a United States Senator, and not, as it would seem from casual observation, a Marm-a-Lego steward tasked with licking Sultan Spraytan’s golf shoes clean, excused the President’s many, extremely-well-documented, crimes by saying, “things happen.”
Well, yes. Things do happen. Like, I keep forgetting to buy shampoo, right, and I was almost out of shampoo, so I went to to Target specifically to get shampoo, and I got dishwasher detergent and paper towels and those strawberry-flavored marshmallows I like so much, but of course I was halfway home before I realized I’d left without the fucking shampoo, but it was late and cold and I didn’t feel like going back and sure enough the next day in the shower, I ran completely out of shampoo and I didn’t know how I was gonna wash my hair so what I wound up doing was illegally using congressionally-appropriated foreign aid to extort a vulnerable allied nation* into picking up the shampoo for me and delivering it to my apartment. Things happen.
Well, I assume everybody loved White Boy GI Joe Cosplay Day in Virginia, as the March of the Subpar Yet Heavily Armed provided its annual glimpse into the lives of those emotionally stunted man-children who, for whatever reason, find it very important to let the world know they’re too insecure to leave the house without their comically-obvious penis substitutes. Of course, Sharty McFly tried his best to stir the pot with some fear-mongering tweets, perhaps hoping to inspire a little bloodshed. Fortunately, in this, as in most of the endeavors of his pathetic, crooked, life, he failed.
I feel like Kellyanne Conway’s entire career is basically one enormous ongoing dare to God to strike her down with a bolt of lightening. Maybe that’s why she was flying a kite with a key on it when she claimed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would surely be standing alongside her Turd Emperor today, hollering “fake news” and sharing stale McDonalds, were he only alive to do so.
Mitch McConnell is so committed to aiding Baron Golfin von Fatfuk’s coverup, he’s practically one of the Dotard’s ill-fitting suit jackets.
I assure you, Mitch McConnell sees all the polls showing the American people want a real, fair trial, that they want to see evidence and hear from witnesses; Mitch McConnell simply does not care, for he holds the power and you, you peons, with your quaint little ideas about “justice” and “the rule of law,” do not.
Yertle heard somebody say “Democracy dies in darkness” and thought “holy shit that is SUCH a good idea!” and so he hatched** a sneaky little plot to condense the trial so much that much of it would take place literally in the middle of the night, because Americans can’t be appalled by what they sleep through, right?
However, his cowardly, indecent, scheme went too far for even his cowed caucus of stooges and sycophants, and he backed off a bit. We did that, Resisters, by flooding the Senate with calls; we’ve already beaten him once, and we can, and must, do it again.
Anyway, Adam Schiff dropped a few dozen 20-megaton truth bombs on the Senate GOP while Tangerine Idi Amin’s banned-from-the-children’s-party-clown-circuit-for-being-creepy legal team wheezed and screeched their way through a litany of long-ago debunked lies and horseshit talking points, another painful reminder that President Crotchrot’s lone hope for political survival is the total obliteration of objective truth in this country, and that it’s a price he’s positively giddy to pay, though of course, as is his custom, he’ll be sticking the rest of us with the bill.
Then Chuck Schumer made a modest proposal; no, it wasn’t to ask the Senate caterer to add Irish children to the impeachment lunch buffet, but simply to subpoena the Treasonweasel Administration for documents and witnesses related to, y’know, that whole Ukraine thang.
The idea, near as I can figure it, was that Senators, as jurors in the trial, would be best served by seeing all the relevant evidence, but alas, poor Chuck forgot that formerly uncontroversial things like “honesty,” “intellectual rigor,” and “impartial justice” are totally partisan now, and every single Senate Republican voted to keep their heads firmly in the sand, thank you very much, it’s really quite cool and refreshing down here.
And so we finish where we began; with two competing realities. I’m sure on Fux Nooz, the barely-coherent blather of Sekulow and Cipollone is being spun and praised as the greatest thing since Hannity shoved an entire watermelon up his ass.
Here in the real world, we’re just amazed that Republican Senators, supposedly among the world’s most powerful people, can behave so cravenly without their spines spontaneously bursting from their bodies in search of worthier hosts. Ah well, such is life. Apparently. Fuck.
And that’s all I got for y’all tonight. The Kickstarter for my lil’ comic book project is still live, and I continue to thank you, from the bottom of my dark little heart, for all your support. Y’all are the best readers a drunken fake superhero could hope for!
*Norway, if you absolutely must know.
**GET IT?!?!?
Warning: Literally Every Conceivable Impeachment Trial Drinking Game Will Quickly Prove Fatal
Tuesday, January 21st, 2020
by Shower Cap | American Madness Journal | 0 comments
http://showercapblog.com/warning-literally-every-conceivable-impeachment-trial-drinking-game-will-quickly-prove-fatal/
Well, my shit-kickin’ Resistance chums, the impeachment trial is finally here! Never has the stark divide between our bleeding nation’s rival realities been clearer. We have the truth, honor, decency, and justice on our side, but sometimes I confess I’m a little jealous of the drugs they’ve got over there in Shitty Wonderland; it looks like a really intense, if angry, high. Okay, let’s round this shit up, shall we?
Missed this one last time out, but didja see where the National Archives blurred images from the 2017 Women’s March that contained criticism of a certain Tangelo-Tinted Taint Tumor, in the latest Dirtbag Orwell Theatre attempt to pretend maybe the point of the whole dang gathering was to protest Netflix losing Scrubs or some shit?
I mean, if we’re editing out anti-Shart content now, future generations are gonna think the period between 2016 and 2021 produced nothing but beer commercials, K-pop, and movies where white people belligerently insist upon “saving” jazz.
Lots of folks think Hairplug Himmler is a recklessly impulsive toddler, careening from crisis to crisis without reason or rhyme, not only incapable of thinking six moves ahead, but mostly just interested in seeing how many pieces he can fit up his nose; in fact, he’s already planning for his post-presidency, trying with all his tiny-fisted might to reverse laws banning bribes to foreign governments, on account of how fiercely anti-corruption he is, you see.
Hey, when your name is your brand and both are synonymous with incompetence, stupidity, and snarling hatred, bribery is pretty much all that’s left, especially when you’re in the market to pull off a real estate scam or two, preferably in a country without an extradition treaty.
Devin Nunes hasn’t been in shit this deep since his poor mamma first caught him stickin’ his willie in the family hog back on the old farm.
With the Pez Dispenser Only With Evidence Instead of Chalky Candy known as Lev Parnas linking Devin and his staff ever more tightly to the Trump/Giuliani Ukrainian extortion ring, America’s most treasonous Congressman didn’t even get invited to join Fat Q*Bert’s impeachment defense team, leaving Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows all the fun that apparently comes with humiliating yourself in front of the entire world on live television. (I think it’s weird, but it’s a different culture, and we shouldn’t judge. Maybe it’s a sex thing.)
You’ll be pleased to learn that the newest branch of the military is ready to defend ‘Murica in the jungles of outer space. Yes, the first Space Force uniforms are an avant-garde rebellion against the traditional notion of “camouflage,” seemingly designed to make our fighting forces stand out as much as fucking possible on the battlefields of the final frontier, perhaps on the theory that any alien invaders would be moved to take pity on our primitive, dumbass, society.
Kid Kompromat’s top Russia advisor, a bad-guy-in-a-movie-set-in-a-prep-school-lookin’ fuck called Andrew Peek, was escorted from the Shart House amidst a security investigation, with plenty of rumors swirling that this grade A dipshit actually fell for the old “honey trap” bit and got his fucking phone stolen by spies.
“The best people” was always a sick, sad, joke, but after three years of scandal-driven turnover, we’re well past scraping the bottom of the barrel; we’re harvesting the fungus from under the floorboards in the room where the barrel’s stored, and giving it top secret security clearance.
Ahead of the impeachment trial, Richard Shelby, who I am told is a United States Senator, and not, as it would seem from casual observation, a Marm-a-Lego steward tasked with licking Sultan Spraytan’s golf shoes clean, excused the President’s many, extremely-well-documented, crimes by saying, “things happen.”
Well, yes. Things do happen. Like, I keep forgetting to buy shampoo, right, and I was almost out of shampoo, so I went to to Target specifically to get shampoo, and I got dishwasher detergent and paper towels and those strawberry-flavored marshmallows I like so much, but of course I was halfway home before I realized I’d left without the fucking shampoo, but it was late and cold and I didn’t feel like going back and sure enough the next day in the shower, I ran completely out of shampoo and I didn’t know how I was gonna wash my hair so what I wound up doing was illegally using congressionally-appropriated foreign aid to extort a vulnerable allied nation* into picking up the shampoo for me and delivering it to my apartment. Things happen.
Well, I assume everybody loved White Boy GI Joe Cosplay Day in Virginia, as the March of the Subpar Yet Heavily Armed provided its annual glimpse into the lives of those emotionally stunted man-children who, for whatever reason, find it very important to let the world know they’re too insecure to leave the house without their comically-obvious penis substitutes. Of course, Sharty McFly tried his best to stir the pot with some fear-mongering tweets, perhaps hoping to inspire a little bloodshed. Fortunately, in this, as in most of the endeavors of his pathetic, crooked, life, he failed.
I feel like Kellyanne Conway’s entire career is basically one enormous ongoing dare to God to strike her down with a bolt of lightening. Maybe that’s why she was flying a kite with a key on it when she claimed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would surely be standing alongside her Turd Emperor today, hollering “fake news” and sharing stale McDonalds, were he only alive to do so.
Mitch McConnell is so committed to aiding Baron Golfin von Fatfuk’s coverup, he’s practically one of the Dotard’s ill-fitting suit jackets.
I assure you, Mitch McConnell sees all the polls showing the American people want a real, fair trial, that they want to see evidence and hear from witnesses; Mitch McConnell simply does not care, for he holds the power and you, you peons, with your quaint little ideas about “justice” and “the rule of law,” do not.
Yertle heard somebody say “Democracy dies in darkness” and thought “holy shit that is SUCH a good idea!” and so he hatched** a sneaky little plot to condense the trial so much that much of it would take place literally in the middle of the night, because Americans can’t be appalled by what they sleep through, right?
However, his cowardly, indecent, scheme went too far for even his cowed caucus of stooges and sycophants, and he backed off a bit. We did that, Resisters, by flooding the Senate with calls; we’ve already beaten him once, and we can, and must, do it again.
Anyway, Adam Schiff dropped a few dozen 20-megaton truth bombs on the Senate GOP while Tangerine Idi Amin’s banned-from-the-children’s-party-clown-circuit-for-being-creepy legal team wheezed and screeched their way through a litany of long-ago debunked lies and horseshit talking points, another painful reminder that President Crotchrot’s lone hope for political survival is the total obliteration of objective truth in this country, and that it’s a price he’s positively giddy to pay, though of course, as is his custom, he’ll be sticking the rest of us with the bill.
Then Chuck Schumer made a modest proposal; no, it wasn’t to ask the Senate caterer to add Irish children to the impeachment lunch buffet, but simply to subpoena the Treasonweasel Administration for documents and witnesses related to, y’know, that whole Ukraine thang.
The idea, near as I can figure it, was that Senators, as jurors in the trial, would be best served by seeing all the relevant evidence, but alas, poor Chuck forgot that formerly uncontroversial things like “honesty,” “intellectual rigor,” and “impartial justice” are totally partisan now, and every single Senate Republican voted to keep their heads firmly in the sand, thank you very much, it’s really quite cool and refreshing down here.
And so we finish where we began; with two competing realities. I’m sure on Fux Nooz, the barely-coherent blather of Sekulow and Cipollone is being spun and praised as the greatest thing since Hannity shoved an entire watermelon up his ass.
Here in the real world, we’re just amazed that Republican Senators, supposedly among the world’s most powerful people, can behave so cravenly without their spines spontaneously bursting from their bodies in search of worthier hosts. Ah well, such is life. Apparently. Fuck.
And that’s all I got for y’all tonight. The Kickstarter for my lil’ comic book project is still live, and I continue to thank you, from the bottom of my dark little heart, for all your support. Y’all are the best readers a drunken fake superhero could hope for!
*Norway, if you absolutely must know.
**GET IT?!?!?
How to Defeat Trump and Catch a Frisbee
There is a winnable approach for Democrats in the impeachment trial.
By Thomas L. Friedman
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/trump-democrats-impeachment.html
As the country embarks on only the third impeachment trial of a president in its history, there are many unique features about this moment, but one stands out for me: Never before have we had to confront a president who lies as he breathes and is backed by a political party and an entire cable TV-led ecosystem able and enthusiastic to create an alternative cognitive universe that propagates those lies on an unlimited scale.
It is disheartening, disorienting and debilitating.
How can the truth — that Donald Trump used taxpayer funds to try to force the president of Ukraine to sully the reputation of Joe Biden, a political rival — possibly break through this unique trifecta of a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, reinforced by a network without integrity?
There is only one way: Keep it simple.
Democrats need to just keep repeating over and over one question: “Why would an innocent man, and a jury interested in the truth, not want all the evidence out and all the witnesses to testify? Wouldn’t you if you were innocent?”
Indeed, at moments like these I always fall back on what I consider to be one of the most useful essays in political science. It was a 2012 speech by Andrew G. Haldane, a top economist at the Bank of England, at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo. It was titled “The Dog and the Frisbee” and was all about how central bankers and regulators should think about regulation after the 2008 financial crisis.
Haldane began by asking a profound philosophical question that we should all ponder occasionally: Why are dogs better than humans at catching a Frisbee?
“Catching a Frisbee is difficult,” Haldane began. “Doing so successfully requires the catcher to weigh a complex array of physical and atmospheric factors, among them wind speed and Frisbee rotation. Were a physicist to write down Frisbee-catching as an optimal control problem, they would need to understand and apply Newton’s Law of Gravity.
Yet despite this complexity, catching a Frisbee is remarkably common. … It is a task that an average dog can master. Indeed some, such as Border collies, are better at Frisbee-catching than humans.
“So, what is the secret of the dog’s success? The answer, as in many other areas of complex decision-making, is simple,” he said. “Or rather, it is to keep it simple. For studies have shown that the Frisbee-catching dog follows the simplest of rules of thumb: Run at a speed so that the angle of gaze to the Frisbee remains roughly constant.”
Haldane then went on to explain that catching a financial crisis required the same approach: Keep it simple, don’t choke markets with too many complex regulations, understand that oftentimes “less may be more.”
So it is with this impeachment, too. Democrats need to keep it simple. The goal in this trial is not a conviction by the Senate. That is simply impossible with this Republican Party intimidated by this president using this Fox News-led noise machine.
The most that can be achieved, and it’s a lot, actually, is to convey to the swing voters — the independents, suburban women and moderate Republicans who delivered the House to the Democrats in the 2018 midterms — just how much this president is ready to put himself above the law.
And, therefore, four more years of his presidency, when he would no longer be “restrained” by the need for re-election, would be catastrophic for our country’s unity and for the institutions and norms that have sustained it since 1776.
I am convinced that more Americans are worried about the country’s cohesion and its institutions being ripped apart by Trump than Trump realizes. It’s a key reason his approval rankings remain largely flat while our stock markets soar.
I also believe that the Trump team has overestimated how easy it will be for it to just keep hiding the most important evidence and witnesses now that the impeachment trial has begun and many Americans are tuning in to this issue for the first time.
And when they do, variations of that simple question — “Why would an innocent man, and a jury interested in the truth, not want all the evidence out and all the witnesses to testify? Wouldn’t you if you were innocent?” — will take on even more power.
Republican senators have been able to dodge that question for months while the matter was in the House, but not any longer. And you can already see how uncomfortable it makes them by the way Senator Martha McSally literally ran away from and denounced a CNN reporter when he asked her if the Senate should consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial. There is a reason McSally fled.
A CNN poll released Monday night found that 69 percent of Americans want the Senate to call new witnesses, while 26 percent do not.
Democrats still need to come up with a compelling candidate against Trump. But the midterms told us that there is an important coalition of independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women no longer so sold on Trump.
In 2016 they disliked Hillary Clinton and were willing to give Trump a chance, telling themselves, “How bad could it be — and hey, anyway, we have the Constitution to protect us.” Then they witnessed just how bad it could be and that the Constitution in Trump’s hands could not protect us. Democrats running in swing districts in 2018 also kept it simple, focusing on Trump’s attempts to destroy Obamacare and coverage of pre-existing medical conditions.
This impeachment trial is another opportunity to show those swing voters just how bad it could be, by constantly asking why an innocent president would be frantically preventing the likes of his former national security adviser, John Bolton; his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney; and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, from testifying.
That’s banana republic stuff. That’s end-of-separation-of-powers stuff. That’s I-am-above-the-law stuff.
I repeat, it may not change the outcome of this trial. But it will strike some average, fair-minded Americans as just not right and give them another justification — for themselves, for their friends and for their families — to swing away from Trump in the presidential election. If the next election is about Trump, not the Democrat, a lot of experts believe, he will have a real uphill climb.
In order to prevent that, you are about to see the Trump-Fox-G.O.P. noise machine go nuclear, pull out all the stops and fill the airwaves and the internet with distractions and misinformation.
So keep cutting through it with that simple question: “Why would an innocent man not want all the evidence out and all the witnesses to testify? Wouldn’t you if you were innocent?” Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Don’t make it complicated. Just catch the Frisbee.
How to Defeat Trump and Catch a Frisbee
There is a winnable approach for Democrats in the impeachment trial.
By Thomas L. Friedman
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/trump-democrats-impeachment.html
As the country embarks on only the third impeachment trial of a president in its history, there are many unique features about this moment, but one stands out for me: Never before have we had to confront a president who lies as he breathes and is backed by a political party and an entire cable TV-led ecosystem able and enthusiastic to create an alternative cognitive universe that propagates those lies on an unlimited scale.
It is disheartening, disorienting and debilitating.
How can the truth — that Donald Trump used taxpayer funds to try to force the president of Ukraine to sully the reputation of Joe Biden, a political rival — possibly break through this unique trifecta of a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, reinforced by a network without integrity?
There is only one way: Keep it simple.
Democrats need to just keep repeating over and over one question: “Why would an innocent man, and a jury interested in the truth, not want all the evidence out and all the witnesses to testify? Wouldn’t you if you were innocent?”
Indeed, at moments like these I always fall back on what I consider to be one of the most useful essays in political science. It was a 2012 speech by Andrew G. Haldane, a top economist at the Bank of England, at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo. It was titled “The Dog and the Frisbee” and was all about how central bankers and regulators should think about regulation after the 2008 financial crisis.
Haldane began by asking a profound philosophical question that we should all ponder occasionally: Why are dogs better than humans at catching a Frisbee?
“Catching a Frisbee is difficult,” Haldane began. “Doing so successfully requires the catcher to weigh a complex array of physical and atmospheric factors, among them wind speed and Frisbee rotation. Were a physicist to write down Frisbee-catching as an optimal control problem, they would need to understand and apply Newton’s Law of Gravity.
Yet despite this complexity, catching a Frisbee is remarkably common. … It is a task that an average dog can master. Indeed some, such as Border collies, are better at Frisbee-catching than humans.
“So, what is the secret of the dog’s success? The answer, as in many other areas of complex decision-making, is simple,” he said. “Or rather, it is to keep it simple. For studies have shown that the Frisbee-catching dog follows the simplest of rules of thumb: Run at a speed so that the angle of gaze to the Frisbee remains roughly constant.”
Haldane then went on to explain that catching a financial crisis required the same approach: Keep it simple, don’t choke markets with too many complex regulations, understand that oftentimes “less may be more.”
So it is with this impeachment, too. Democrats need to keep it simple. The goal in this trial is not a conviction by the Senate. That is simply impossible with this Republican Party intimidated by this president using this Fox News-led noise machine.
The most that can be achieved, and it’s a lot, actually, is to convey to the swing voters — the independents, suburban women and moderate Republicans who delivered the House to the Democrats in the 2018 midterms — just how much this president is ready to put himself above the law.
And, therefore, four more years of his presidency, when he would no longer be “restrained” by the need for re-election, would be catastrophic for our country’s unity and for the institutions and norms that have sustained it since 1776.
I am convinced that more Americans are worried about the country’s cohesion and its institutions being ripped apart by Trump than Trump realizes. It’s a key reason his approval rankings remain largely flat while our stock markets soar.
I also believe that the Trump team has overestimated how easy it will be for it to just keep hiding the most important evidence and witnesses now that the impeachment trial has begun and many Americans are tuning in to this issue for the first time.
And when they do, variations of that simple question — “Why would an innocent man, and a jury interested in the truth, not want all the evidence out and all the witnesses to testify? Wouldn’t you if you were innocent?” — will take on even more power.
Republican senators have been able to dodge that question for months while the matter was in the House, but not any longer. And you can already see how uncomfortable it makes them by the way Senator Martha McSally literally ran away from and denounced a CNN reporter when he asked her if the Senate should consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial. There is a reason McSally fled.
A CNN poll released Monday night found that 69 percent of Americans want the Senate to call new witnesses, while 26 percent do not.
Democrats still need to come up with a compelling candidate against Trump. But the midterms told us that there is an important coalition of independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women no longer so sold on Trump.
In 2016 they disliked Hillary Clinton and were willing to give Trump a chance, telling themselves, “How bad could it be — and hey, anyway, we have the Constitution to protect us.” Then they witnessed just how bad it could be and that the Constitution in Trump’s hands could not protect us. Democrats running in swing districts in 2018 also kept it simple, focusing on Trump’s attempts to destroy Obamacare and coverage of pre-existing medical conditions.
This impeachment trial is another opportunity to show those swing voters just how bad it could be, by constantly asking why an innocent president would be frantically preventing the likes of his former national security adviser, John Bolton; his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney; and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, from testifying.
That’s banana republic stuff. That’s end-of-separation-of-powers stuff. That’s I-am-above-the-law stuff.
I repeat, it may not change the outcome of this trial. But it will strike some average, fair-minded Americans as just not right and give them another justification — for themselves, for their friends and for their families — to swing away from Trump in the presidential election. If the next election is about Trump, not the Democrat, a lot of experts believe, he will have a real uphill climb.
In order to prevent that, you are about to see the Trump-Fox-G.O.P. noise machine go nuclear, pull out all the stops and fill the airwaves and the internet with distractions and misinformation.
So keep cutting through it with that simple question: “Why would an innocent man not want all the evidence out and all the witnesses to testify? Wouldn’t you if you were innocent?” Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Don’t make it complicated. Just catch the Frisbee.
Up to a point. If you weren't in the computer industry early on what would you have known about Intel and Microsoft, integrated circuitry and software?
I suppose investing in nascent industries is the exception that proves the rule. Now there are ETFs with baskets of stocks targeting every new industry.
Thematic ETFs would scratch the itch to invest in what you don't have a clue about, but about which you suspect something big is coming:
https://investorplace.com/2019/02/5-of-the-best-thematic-etfs-to-consider/
Global X Internet of Things ETF (SNSR)
Who doesn't want some a that, before buying that fridge that talks to you about what's going bad inside of it, food and the fridge itself, from the milk to the circuitry to the condenser?
ALPS Disruptive Technologies ETF (DTEC)
Uh, huh, own some of what is going to replace what is tanking, is about to tank, in your other funds?
ALPS Medical Breakthroughs ETF (SBIO)
Speaks for itself. And there are ETFs for AI and 5G and.....water.
Eastern Air Lines was a composite of assorted air travel corporations, including Florida Airways and Pitcairn Aviation. In the late 1920s, Pitcairn Aviation won a contract to fly mail between New York City and Atlanta, Georgia on Mailwing single-engine aircraft.
In 1929, Clement Keys, the owner of North American Aviation, purchased Pitcairn. In 1930, Keys changed the company's name to Eastern Air Transport. After being purchased by General Motors and experiencing a change in leadership after the Airmail Act of 1934, the airline became known as Eastern Air Lines.[7]
Growth under Rickenbacker[edit]
In 1938 World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker bought Eastern from General Motors. The complex deal was concluded when Rickenbacker presented Alfred P. Sloan with a certified check for $3.5 million.[8] In March 1939 Eastern had 15 weekday departures from Newark (six to Washington, five to Miami and one each to Richmond, Atlanta, Houston and San Antonio), two from Chicago to Miami, one from Tampa to Atlanta and one from Tallahassee to Memphis.
Those flights and their returns were Eastern's whole scheduled operation; it fit on one page in the Airways Guide. Then as later, Eastern was the fourth largest airline in the country by passenger-miles (103 million in 1939).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines
Fatal accidents
11 September 1974: Flight 212, a Douglas DC-9-31 carrying 78 passengers and four crew, crashed while conducting an instrument approach in dense ground fog at Douglas Municipal Airport. The aircraft crashed just short of the runway, killing 72; three survivors subsequently died from their injuries.
Killed on this flight were James, Peter, and Paul Colbert, the father and older brothers (respectively) of comedian Stephen Colbert.[45]
Good thing you didn't try the same with Blue Star Airlines.
I've been with Fidelity for 40 years, so all of their '80s TV ad songs are instantly recognizable to me.
Stay away from broker assisted trades and $0 trades are all you need.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/investing/brokers/fidelity