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The USA Politics Thread

#13241 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 27 August 2022 - 03:58 PM

'From prison, he'd likely have little more than a metal table.

But Trump could probably do a lot of the chief executive's job from a prison cell, with some accommodations[...]

[...] He could issue pardons, veto bills, issue executive orders, sign legislation, and make political appointments. [Pardon power might make him pretty popular in prison. "Art of the Deal"....]

"Some presidents have described the White House as a prison, but the Constitution doesn't specify that that's the only prison you could occupy in order to serve as president," [...]

Trump could deliver the [State of the Union] address via Zoom while wearing orange prison garb[...]

Another logistical question: What would happen to the "nuclear football," a briefcase that's supposed to stay near the president and holds the codes needed to launch an attack[...]

"Would the military aide who carries the briefcase be in an adjacent cell?"

[...] US Secret Service agents would protect an imprisoned Trump, according to former federal law-enforcement officials.

[...] If he wound up in federal prison[...] He could attempt to issue a presidential self-pardon[...]

As president, Trump would technically oversee the Federal Bureau of Prisons. [...]

"I assume he could designate the White House" as a Bureau of Prisons facility where "he's the only inmate," [...]

But if Trump were convicted of a state crime, federal-level executive powers wouldn't do much.'

Yes, Donald Trump Could Run for President From Prison in 2024
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#13242 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 28 August 2022 - 07:42 PM

'Trump-nominated judge announces intent to appoint a special master for Mar-a-Lago documents'

'[... won't decide whether to appoint one or not until after] Sept. 1 hearing[...]

"It is not an injunction [DOJ can keep reviewing documents]. The filter team has been doing its work for two weeks already. [...]" '

'[...] "What happens when DOJ says they have already reviewed all the documents?"'

Trump-nominated judge announces intent to appoint a special master for Mar-a-Lago documents


'[...] If she's willing to ignore this many procedural rules in Trump's favor, she's probably willing to ignore substantive rules, too.'

She ordered all of these things without DOJ having been served and without even a request for ex parte relief. If she's willing to ignore this many procedural rules in Trump's favor, she's probably willing to ignore substantive rules, too." / Twitter

Wonder what Trump's willing to offer her---dibs on the next Supreme Court seat?... (Thomas and Alito are getting up there in years. Thomas looks obese. Or maybe it would be during Trump's third or fourth term....)


'"she entered this tentative order before the Department of Justice prosecutors even had an opportunity to weigh in on the issue. [...] 'The court hereby provides notice of its preliminary intent to appoint a special master in this case.' And she has only heard from Trump's defense team."

[...] never heard a judge even announce a "tentative ruling" before both parties have been heard.

[...] there likely won't be a so-called "special master" appointed. [...] The Justice Department is likely to appeal the decision to a higher court that will overrule [Trump judge... though IDK, the Trump Supreme Court might be up for it]

[...] There is no special master [in] executive privilege cases. [...] executive privilege cases [...] must be filed in D.C. This is filed in Florida. So, it is in the wrong jurisdiction. And there is no special master for classified information cases. [...] this is a delay tactic."'

'The legal term for this garbage': Experts rip judge for 'pandering' to Donald Trump's document demands

... if he delays the probable indictment(s) until after the midterms it should (hopefully) help the Democrats.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 28 August 2022 - 07:43 PM

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#13243 User is offline   Cause 

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Posted 30 August 2022 - 01:11 AM

Why isn’t this a bigger story?

https://www.wsws.org...9/umlr-a09.html

Striking miners union is being fined 13 billion dollars, to account for lost revenue of the company they are striking against?
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#13244 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 30 August 2022 - 01:33 AM

View PostCause, on 30 August 2022 - 01:11 AM, said:

Why isn't this a bigger story?

https://www.wsws.org...9/umlr-a09.html

Striking miners union is being fined 13 billion dollars, to account for lost revenue of the company they are striking against?


Million not billion... but yeah, good question.
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#13245 User is offline   Aptorian 

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Posted 30 August 2022 - 02:48 AM

View PostCause, on 30 August 2022 - 01:11 AM, said:

Why isn’t this a bigger story?

https://www.wsws.org...9/umlr-a09.html

Striking miners union is being fined 13 billion dollars, to account for lost revenue of the company they are striking against?


They should just declare bankruptcy and open a new union.
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#13246 User is offline   Tsundoku 

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Posted 30 August 2022 - 06:23 AM

View PostAptorian, on 30 August 2022 - 02:48 AM, said:

View PostCause, on 30 August 2022 - 01:11 AM, said:

Why isn’t this a bigger story?

https://www.wsws.org...9/umlr-a09.html

Striking miners union is being fined 13 billion dollars, to account for lost revenue of the company they are striking against?


They should just declare bankruptcy and open a new union.


Or maybe even declare they are too big to fail, get mega$$$ in Federal bailouts and then pay massive bonuses to union position holders and go back to doing the exact same stuff they did before.
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#13247 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 30 August 2022 - 07:15 AM

I'm sure the corporations consolidating our news outlets for purely benevolent purposes would be happy to cover all the union news going on right now, but unfortunately those resources are needed to cover the scourge of entitled Millennials and Gen Zers "quiet quitting".
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#13248 User is offline   Malankazooie 

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Posted 31 August 2022 - 07:50 PM

Posted Image
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#13249 User is offline   Tiste Simeon 

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Posted 31 August 2022 - 08:01 PM

I'd rather stick rusty forks in my testicles than listen to anything any of those vile, awful people have to say...
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
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#13250 User is offline   Cause 

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Posted 31 August 2022 - 09:23 PM

View PostMalankazooie, on 31 August 2022 - 07:50 PM, said:

Posted Image


All that hot air explains the heat wave
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#13251 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 02 September 2022 - 12:12 PM

'Trump Says He's Giving Cash to Jan. 6 Suspects and [Suggests He] Would Pardon Them if Re-Elected

[...] "It's a disgrace what they've done to them." [...] "looking very, very strongly at pardons," as well as an apology from the government'

Trump Says He's Giving Cash to Jan. 6 Suspects and Would Pardon Them if Re-Elected

... even more to break him out of prison if he's denied bail for being a flight risk (could he run for president from Russia? he'd probably prefer that over running from prison....)? Then once he's president again they'll all get pardons. Maybe ambassadorships too....


'President's Primetime Speech Persistently Heckled With "F**k Joe Biden!"

THAT'S DEMOCRACY FOR YOU

[...] constantly interrupted by a loud heckler chanting "Fuck Joe Biden!" The yeller could be repeatedly heard on live video feeds of the president's 24-minute address[...] Biden said Trump's influence on the GOP imperiled "the very soul of this country." "They're entitled to be outrageous," Biden said around 20 minutes into his speech in Philadelphia." "This is a democracy." [...] Fox News hosts were critical of the lighting used as a backdrop for Biden's speech, which Tucker Carlson described as a "blood-red Nazi background." On Twitter, the hashtag "PedoHitler" trended with Biden's critics likening the American president's speech to addresses given during the Third Reich.'

President's Primetime Speech Persistently Heckled With 'F**k Joe Biden!'


Posted Image

'Trump also posted a picture of Biden making his speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, alongside a picture of himself kissing an American flag. "Someone should explain to Joe Biden," Trump added, "Slowly but passionately, that MAGA means, as powerfully as words can get, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"'

Donald Trump Claims Biden's Democracy Speech Somehow Threatened America With 'Military Force'

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 02 September 2022 - 12:13 PM

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#13252 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 04 September 2022 - 01:28 PM

'Peter Thiel Pulls the Rug Out From Under Mitch McConnell

Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley investor bankrolling a creepy new strain of conservative populism, essentially paid for the successful Republican Senate primary campaigns of his chums Blake Masters in Arizona and J.D. Vance in Ohio. Neither candidate raised much cash on his own, while their opponents [...] have raised loads.

Mitch McConnell has been begging Thiel to keep cutting checks to boost Vance and Masters. "Thiel has told associates that he has no plans to spend more this cycle," [...] "and that his aim was to elevate younger Republican candidates who would mark a sharp break from the party's neoconservative wing, not to engage in a tit-for-tat spending war with Democrats." If there is anything that can make the taciturn Mitch McConnell scream what the HELL while clawing the wallpapering off his office, it is Thiel saying that.

Joe Biden
Live from the Sith throne room, a speech about democracy.

[...] there was much criticism of the backdrop: A red uplit Independence Hall, resembling a very specific scene from The Last Jedi, with two Marines flanking Biden in the background. Some reporters were critical of the placement of the Marines in a political speech, observing that Trump would've been crucified had he done that—so it's only fair Biden take criticism, too.'

Peter Thiel pulls the rug out from under Mitch McConnell

'How a Record Cash Haul Vanished for Senate Republicans

[...] spent 95 percent of it. A big investment in digital, and hyperaggressive tactics, have not paid off.

[...] Senator Rick Scott [...] installed a new digital team, spearheaded by Trump veterans, and greenlit an enormous wave of spending on digital ads, not to promote candidates but to discover more small contributors. Soon, the committee was smashing fund-raising records. [...]

[...] The Republican group entered August with [...] less than half of what the Senate Democratic committee had ahead of the final intense phase of the midterm elections.

[...] Scott's enormous gamble on finding new online donors has been a costly financial flop in 2022 [...]

[...] the N.R.S.C. is raising less than before Mr. Scott's digital splurge.

[...] had squeezed donors with hyperaggressive new tactics. And all the money coming in obscured just how much the committee was spending advertising for donors. Then inflation sapped online giving for Republicans nationwide. [...]

[...] used methods that experts say will eventually exhaust even the most loyal givers.

[...] far and away the nation's biggest online political advertiser, outspending every other party committee combined [...]

The sums were so breathtakingly large [...] concerned Democrats began to study the ads, fretting that somehow Republicans had unlocked a new sustainable way to raise money online.

They had not.

The Senate Republican bet had been this: By spending vast amounts early, the party could vacuum up contact information for millions of potential donors who could then give repeatedly over the coming months.

[...] The committee went from being the biggest political spender on Facebook to being completely absent on it. [...]

Digital fund-raising has dried up across the Republican spectrum in recent months, and the N.R.S.C. has been hard hit. Online donations to the committee plunged by 37 percent between the first and second quarters of this year.

[...] digital budget that ballooned so quickly that Republicans, even inside the committee, are talking about a financial autopsy to examine [...] conflicts of interest. [...]

Under campaign finance law, a portion of the committee's funds are supposed to be walled off for legal expenses, and are not to be used for campaigning. Yet in July, the committee’s biggest expense — a $1 million media buy[...] came from those restricted legal funds[...]

Prior to politics, Mr. Scott led a major for-profit hospital chain. He was forced out in the late 1990s and the company went on to pay $1.7 billion in federal civil and criminal penalties for health care fraud.'

How a Record Cash Haul Vanished for Senate Republicans
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#13253 User is offline   Nicodimas 

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Posted 05 September 2022 - 05:34 PM

https://www.zerohedg...says-we-are-war

Each couple of years this festers and gets worse. It's crazy from the outside looking in. I noticed this start to grow around 2005-2007. Looking back I see where this started though during the Bush era. So the official Democrat party platform has shifted to civil war.

Its clear through all the riots that just happened the underlying goal is to create hot conflict. You see it quite often is mere discussion with someone on the left spectrum they are quite mad.

(Nobody wins in a civil war)

https://youtu.be/SzfvfF4IxRI


I'd still not rather see death and reeducation camps from the left in the US. So let's hope bidens followers don't act on this speech to make it a hot war.

It's common before things get bad to label your political enemy as extremists, evil as a way to dehumanizing them. I said this a couple years ago ..here , now it's applying to how much of the population. Scary for sure.

Anyhow.. be prepared and be in the ability to help those that may be persecuted. Hopefully peace will prevail and the best thing for the right is to stay away if it gets hot.

Wondering if their is a way out of this..I fear this rhetoric will grow larger than just words
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#13254 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 05 September 2022 - 06:33 PM

Does that sound like a good faith argument to anyone else? That the Democratic party, which just a couple months ago was a feckless bunch of hippies led by a doddering old man, are now the scariest force on the face of the earth? Because they passed a mild tax hike on people making $400k or more, some equally mild environmental programs (combined with the usual allowances for oil companies to keep thriving), and then another mild relief package for college debts that shouldn't even exist in the first place?


Does citing neo-fascist blog ZeroHedge in 2022, which this year alone acted as a direct pipeline of Russian pre-invasion propaganda, inspire you with trust? Does it make you think, "Hmm, sounds like an honest place to start a conversation about current events. I should definitely give this more than a second's thought before dismissing it for the weak bullshit it obviously is?"


Maybe we can compare the messaging and see if any of that holds up:




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#13255 User is offline   QuickTidal 

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Posted 07 September 2022 - 02:05 PM

So this is now an international incident right?

Like nuclear secrets (top top top level shit)....and Kushner got 2bil from the Saudi's for something right?

So are we thinking this was Israel's secrets sold to them to the tune of that money?

Like how do ANY allies of the US not DEMAND this fucker be arrested now? Aside from the optics of the fact that American Intelligence can now be considered completely insecure....and this will now be the fact for decades by any allies....whoever he had info on should rightly be incensed that he's still walking free after selling them out to their enemies...
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#13256 User is offline   amphibian 

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Posted 07 September 2022 - 02:21 PM

The worst case is indeed something like that.

I think the truth of what happened is a bit more mundane than that worst case scenario - I believe something this big (selling Israeli nuke secrets to the House of Saud) didn't occur via this kind of going through random boxes in storage. I believe that because Trump and Kushner both know how much money that would mean and would absolutely take that info on themselves, then rip up documents + toilet them if any are left. There's too much money to be made there for those dumb butts to cover it up or leave it totally out of their hands. I can't quite believe they'd be bold enough to sell Israeli nuke secrets because there's a surprising amount of Jewish Russian money that those two have cozied up to for decades. Risking that to go all in with the Saudi seems like something they wouldn't do - unless Trump somehow runs again in 2024 and wins. Then he could probably fuck over the Israelis and get away with it because the Russians and Saudis would be using him.

Kushner's 2 billion for his investment fund seems to have come in connection with the 110 billion arms deal he helped broker and for other services already rendered/will be rendered.

I do believe a bad case scenario is very likely - that random people had access to many boxes all over Trump's holdings/homes and in the White House during his presidency and that some of the boxes included things like agent lists and other sensitive information, which some people either were directed by other states or corporations or sold those to those entities.
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#13257 User is offline   QuickTidal 

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Posted 07 September 2022 - 02:26 PM

Ah okay. You're probably right. I'm still just aghast at all this stuff. How is this guy so untouchable?
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora

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#13258 User is offline   amphibian 

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Posted 07 September 2022 - 02:37 PM

It is partly because he has enough money to put enough obstructions in the way of consequences to mostly get away with things.

It is also partly because the US justice/law enforcement systems concentrate power in the hands of people who mostly want him to succeed - not particularly because they like him, but because he's on their side and their side needs to be able to do shit like this and get away with it to win.

It's why McConnell stacking the federal judiciary with unqualified assholes is a decades long fucked up thing to do, yet perfectly in fitting with their overall goals (to run a breaking down system into near total privatization and systematic exploitation).

I am a bit dour right now because one of my projects for work right now is figuring out employment rates in various states of people with disabilities. It has me looking at health insurance, access to care and community, minimum wage, worker protections, longevity of working, quality of life and length of life, and effective/not effective programs etc.

The worst results I can track with data are in states where it's impossible to live unless you're working due to little to no social support, no healthcare access, and endemic poverty that's brutally difficult to get out of. They're all very deep "red" states.

Basically, I'm doing an undergrad level dissertation inside a few weeks in order to better understand, create, and support proper legislation in New York to address these issues.
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#13259 User is offline   Primateus 

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Posted 07 September 2022 - 05:07 PM

You just know that Trump's "Special Master" is going to be Rudy,
Screw you all, and have a nice day!

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#13260 User is offline   Malankazooie 

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Posted 07 September 2022 - 05:47 PM

I was thinking Putin, except he would come in disguise wearing a monocle and a mustache and going by the name Walter Portman. But yeah, the special master deal will slow things down big time, for years potentially.
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