Trump Administration 2.0 ~ #4

The 100-day mark required the addition of this thread.

via AXIOS

Inside the Trump family's 100 days of presidential profit

The bottom line: Trump's first term blurred the line between public office and personal gain. His second term has erased it — turning the presidency into a profit engine for his brand and bloodline.

***
At least six huge money-making schemes are in play at the present time.

I see that Agent Orange wants a big military parade for his birthday (er, I mean for flag day). The latest reports are that the miliarty is all in and planning to muster thousands of troops plus tanks and planes.

I wonder if it will actually happen this time around. I remember that during Trump 1.0 he wanted to do that but somehow got blocked.

Anybody making book and giving the odds that this time he's going to get his wish?

On a more consequential theme: We can see his approval rating tanking (though as David Brooks pointed out, not with his still-loyal fan club), so what is the mechanism that turns popular discontent into the arrest or reversal of the autogolpe?

Trump cuts will increase devastation after disasters, expert warns: ‘It is really scary’
Nina Lakhani | 5 May 2025

... The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to disaster management will cost American lives, with hollowed-out agencies unable to accurately predict, prepare for or respond to extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics ...

Samantha Montano, professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and author of Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, said the death toll from disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes and water pollution will rise in the US unless Trump backtracks on mass layoffs and funding cuts to key agencies. That includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), whose work relies heavily on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which is also being dismantled...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/05/trump-cuts-disaster-preparedness

Trump wants to re-opem Alcatraz, too. Doesn't the US already lead the world in incarceration??

In rural Michigan, a prison is reopening as biggest ICE detention hub in Midwest
Rose White | May. 03, 2025

North Lake Correctional Facility

GEO Group, a private prison company, is gearing up to reopen the North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin, Mich. as an 1,800-bed immigration detention center ... shuttered when President Joe Biden, in an attempt to “reduce profit-based incentives to incarcerate,” phased out federal contracts with private prison companies.

... The administration is now planning to spend $45 billion – more than quadruple the current ICE budget – on increasing detention beds from 41,500 to 100,000 to deliver on a goal of “removing one million” people a year.

And for-profit prison companies are cashing in...

https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2025/05/in-rural-michigan-a-prison-is-reop...

Move over China, the mass surveillance state ... DOGE has IRS, Social Security data, etc. RFK Jr is building Medicaid databases of those with autism. USPS photographs envelopes sent to addresses -- dunno if last one is universal, or by request, help. Now those leaving as well as entering the US are photographed?

One doesn't go through US Customs when leaving by car -- that means photographing people on public highways? (Or on private bridges such as Detroit-Windsor Ambassador Bridge.) Or by arrangement with Canada and Mexico? (Canada and US Customs share a common database.)

US Customs and Border Protection Plans to Photograph Everyone Exiting the US by Car
Caroline Haskins | May 9, 2025

... A CBP spokesperson tells WIRED that the agency plans to expand its program for real-time face recognition at the border, potentially aiding Trump administration efforts to track people who self-deport...

https://www.wired.com/story/cbp-face-recognition-exit-us-border/

Move over China, the mass surveillance state ... DOGE has IRS, Social Security data, etc. RFK Jr is building Medicaid databases of those with autism. USPS photographs envelopes sent to addresses -- dunno if last one is universal, or by request, help. Now those leaving as well as entering the US are photographed? RealID for domestic air travel. SAVE proposes birth certificate or passport as voter ID. The frog is poached!

One doesn't go through US Customs when leaving by car -- that means photographing people on public highways? (Or on private bridges such as Detroit-Windsor Ambassador Bridge.) Or by arrangement with Canada and Mexico? (Canada and US Customs share a common database.)

US Customs and Border Protection Plans to Photograph Everyone Exiting the US by Car
Caroline Haskins | May 9, 2025

... A CBP spokesperson tells WIRED that the agency plans to expand its program for real-time face recognition at the border, potentially aiding Trump administration efforts to track people who self-deport...

https://www.wired.com/story/cbp-face-recognition-exit-us-border/

Trump administration considers suspending habeas corpus (BBC)

Donald Trump's administration is "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus - the right of a person to challenge their detention in court - one of the US president's top aides has said. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Friday that the US Constitution allowed for the legal liberty to be suspended in times of "rebellion or invasion"... Miller described habeas corpus as a "privilege", and said Congress had already passed a law stripping judicial courts of jurisdiction over immigration cases. Legal experts and critics have questioned the veracity of his interpretation of US law. "Congress has the authority to suspend habeas corpus - not Stephen Miller, not the president," Marc Elias, an attorney for the Democratic Party, told MSNBC...

>8 John5918: Not just one oopsie in sending Garcia to El Salvador jail, after SIX weeks Ozturk finally released while Trump Administration seeks to cancel her student visa for writing an op-ed*, a "transgression" protected by the Constitution, sounds like:

Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk is released after spending six weeks at a Louisiana detention center
Gloria Pazmino, Rebekah Riess, Dalia Faheid | 9 May 2025

... A chilling video of Öztürk’s March 25 arrest showed a swarm of officers encircling her near her Somerville, Massachusetts home as she shrieked in fear, sparking national outrage. Her detention more than 1,500 miles away from her home – part of a series of high-profile arrests of international students who participated in pro-Palestinian activism – has triggered widespread protests and raised concerns over due process and free speech on university campuses.

Her arrest came a year after Öztürk co-authored a campus newspaper op-ed* that was critical of Tufts University’s response to the war in Gaza, and her attorneys have said that she was targeted by the administration in an attempt to chill pro-Palestinian speech in violation of her constitutional rights. The 30-year-old, originally from Turkey and on a valid F-1 student visa, was shuttled through multiple states after her arrest and suffered through a series of asthma attacks without adequate medical care, according to her attorneys.

Öztürk, who has not been charged with any crime, was accused by the Trump administration of participating in activities in support of Hamas. Neither the administration nor attorneys for the Department of Justice presented any evidence of her alleged activities in court. ..

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/09/us/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-bail-release
--------------------------------------------------

* Op-ed:
Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions
Rumeysa Ozturk, Fatima Rahman, Genesis Perez and Nicholas Ambeliotis | Tuesday, March 26, 2024
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

>6 margd: The USPS has taken photos of mail for years--it's the way mail without bar codes are read to apply a bar code when the mail is run through machines.

>8 John5918: So, basically anyone can be arrested with no grounds whatsoever and kept in detention indefinitely with no legal recourse. I'm not a lawyer, but even I know habeas corpus is meant to prevent unlawful detention in any and all cases, not just immigration. They are attempting to pass it off as part of immigration agenda, when in reality suspending it would make the US top the list of lawless countries in a blink.

>10 MsMixte: Are records kept? I only realized photos were taken only recently when USPS offered me copies when I put mail on hold. Nice to know if something that needs immediate attention, but Big Brother potential?

ADMIN: Just an fyi, recently I'm posting duplicates. Don't think I'm doing anything differently?

>10 MsMixte: Are records kept? I only realized photos were taken only recently when USPS offered me copies when I put mail on hold. Nice to know if something that needs immediate attention, but Big Brother potential?

If we're talking about oppressive government surveillance: If China can do it, don't you think the US can?

The US government has the means, the motivation, and intends to manufacture the opportunity. Remember "W"s instinct to never let a good crisis go unexploited.

The good news is that our protections lie in a free press, an informed citizenry, constitutional civil rights under the rule of law, an independent judiciary and legislators responsive to the will of the people.

The bad news is all of the above.

I admire Martin Rowson for the complexity and the razor sharp wit of his cartoons in The Guardian. Friday's example gave me the chance to have a good, long laugh. (It helps if you're familiar with Francis Bacon's portrait of Innocent X (Wikipedia) )

Screaming Dope

>12 margd: I honestly don't know how long those records are kept. Probably not very long, as there's so much mail coming through that it would be impractical to store the images for much more than a few days unless the records are being kept due to a warrant.

>16 MsMixte: 318,000,000 pieces a day * 200 kb (max/piece) = 63.6 terabytes per day.
Considering I've seen high estimates of 470 TB/square foot in a data center (and that's a few years ago), that would be pretty trivial to hold onto forever for the federal government. Or just a sizeable government contractor.

>17 davidgn: USPS is using machinery from the 1980s still.

However, the longer answer is: records are kept anywhere from 3 months (regular tracking numbers) to three years (adult signature on restricted delivery). Length of retention time depends upon the service requested for the piece of mail.

>18 MsMixte:. Sounds like it could be a gold mine of data for a wouldbe surveillance state ... Though mostly bills/receipts, ads, and NGO pleas, if my mail is at all representative. (Mail holds so disappointing under Trump guy: USPS holds 1st class and allows bulk mail to clog mailbox announcing one's absence to wouldbe burglars -- thank goodness for kind neighbors' interventions -- and they occasionally mistake 1st class for bulk (and VV.))

In their quest for power, guys like Hitler and Trump are extremely dangerous because they bring out the worst elements of people's human nature. Their façades and methods are different, but the results are horrifyingly similar.

During the cold war, a pair of experimenters, one in the Soviet Union and one in the US, explored the breadth of mail censorship by sending each other leteters (remember those? ) sealed with a superglue that couldn't be steamed open or otherwize tampered with without leaving marks. They mailed each other letters to and from all sorts of places within the then USSR, including obscure places where nothing much went on ... no military bases, big industrial complexes, anything that might be considered "sensitive". Lo and behold, every last one of those letters had been opened, and presumably read by the authorities.

They concluded that a vast bureaucracy opened every single international letter.

Those were the days before really effective OCR, cheap storage and relational dabase engines, just think what can be done today. The dark side of technical prrowess, one supposes.

Emolument much?* Never mind security concerns, reported that Trump will accept jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One, and then transfer to Trump Library before his term ends.

Trump to accept a luxury 747 as a gift from Qatar: Reports
Tara Suter - 05/11/25

... However, Qatar’s media attache to the U.S. said in an emailed statement to The Hill on Sunday that “Reports that a jet is being gifted by Qatar to the United States government during the upcoming visit of President Trump are inaccurate.”

“The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made,” Ali Al-Ansari added in the statement ...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5294701-trump-to-accept-a-luxury-747...

* https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R42662.html
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southpaw ‪@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social‬ | May 11, 2025 at 1:46 PM:

It’s especially galling that AG Pam Bondi personally wrote the memo approving the gift of the Qatari airplane. Her last job was as a lobbyist for Qatar! https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6415-Exhibit-AB-20190723-16.pdf ...

To be clear, we haven’t seen the memo Bondi provided yet. ABC News reported its existence this morning, citing sources. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-poised-accept-palace-sky-gi...
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Lindsay Beyerstein ‪@beyerstein.bsky.social‬ | May 11, 2025:

Pam Bondi was getting $115,000 a month to lobby for Qatar before she left to defend Donald Trump:

Pam Bondi's lobbying for Qatar explained
...President-elect Donald Trump's new pick for Attorney General once earned $115,000 a month as a registered foreign lobbyist for the Qatari government...
https://www.newsweek.com/pam-bondi-qatar-lobbying-attorney-general-1990130
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Reading all of the above, continues to prompt asking the questions: Aren't we in America? When will this stop? And, who will be brave enough to stop it before it is way too late. I know I've read a lot of WWII/holocaust books to now make a correlation. And, now is it scary to post something Trump might find offensive and punish the writer? When will the book burning begin?

As an aside, Trump administration would be kept very busy if they tried to burn the over 3,000-4,000 books I have in all levels of my house -- my basement, my bedrooms, my living and dining rooms, my loft, and old books in the attic.

Writing the above and realizing the truth of it all is so very scary.

Who can stop this man? And, WHEN will it happen?

>23 Whisper1: Ah! Well that's the $64 question, isn't it?
Of course, I have no particular expertise or insight, but what seems apparent (to me at least), is that there's a bit of a race to the midterm elections.
If Agent Orange manages to distort the elections, the counting, or the seating of those actually elected "in time", our goose is well and truly cooked.
But if there are still meaningful elections, there's a very good chance that by that time Agent Orange and anybody that looks like him , or has been in any way associated with him, will be so toxic as to cause all those "rascals" to be voted out on their ears, which may be enough to allow actual free elections in 2028 at which point it's a whole new ball game.

The lawless crew was "quick off the blocks" and got several laps ahead in the first three months. It seems the rest of civil society was and to some extent still is, a bit in denial about the true state of play, to wit: A profoundly anti democratic party has captured the white house, neutralized the congress, (arguably) bought off the Supreme Court. and is proceeding to gut the professional civil service, replacing with loyalits in a reversion to the spoils system.

Influential institutions of civil society attemted to protect themselves by capitualting, hoping to avoid damage by flattery and bribery. When it's "every man for himself", each one will be picked off individual and it's bye bye birdy.

Slowly, reluctantly, and belatedly, that reality is being acknowledged and a more nearly unified resistance is growing

Will it grow strong enough and fast enough to neutralize the anti democratic administrations huge head start?

Stay tuned!

Trump has sat for only 12 ‘daily’ intelligence briefings since taking office
Amy Mackinnon | 05/09/2025

... In much of his first term, Trump met with intel officials twice a week for the briefing, which provides the intelligence community’s summary of the most pressing national security challenges facing the nation.

The low number of briefings this time around is troubling to many in and around the intelligence community, who were already concerned about Trump’s act-first-evaluate-after approach to governing...

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/09/trump-intelligence-briefing-frequency-0...

Trump has revoked the legal status of "more than 500,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans" on "humanitarian parole". But don't worry, the much more needy white South Africans now have refugee status.

I don't know why this pisses me off as much as about anything Trump has done. It's just the most explicitly white-supremacist, heartless bullshit that has come from the administration.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-supreme-court-humanitarian-par...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/12/politics/white-south-africans-refugee-status-arri...

tony romm ‪@tonyromm.bsky.social‬ | May 12, 2025 at 9:48 PM
economic policy correspondent at the new york times

NEW: Republicans just proposed significant new restrictions to food stamps as they ready Trump's tax package. More severe work requirements for more Americans, including some with kids, and states must pay some costs. Millions could lose aid.

Republicans Target Federal Anti-Hunger Program as They Prepare Trump Tax Package
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/trump-taxes-snap-program.html

I've seen reports that John Deere is closing factories in the USA and shedding thousands of jobs as a result of tariffs.

I'm also aware of concerns within the model railroad community in the USA. This is not a huge industry, but nevertheless it includes many small US businesses and its products reach a sizeable number of US households. Most of the manufacturing is done in China, and the consequent increase in prices is going to have a negative affect on this community.

>22 margd: contd.

Adam Kinzinger ‪@adamkinzinger.bsky. | May 13, 2025 at 8:21 AM

Just FYI because evidently Fox or OAN or whatever is pushing the lie that America accepted the Statue of Liberty and that’s equivalent to the plane.

Congress VOTED to approve receiving the statue. So congress should vote on the jet
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margd: Just dawned on me that Trump may sell US land to Saudis et al(?)

Saudis already bought US land and scarce water rights to raise alfalfa for their horses;
+ parched forecast for Middle East;
+ emoluments;
+ Trump willingness to sell public lands in US;
+ Arab investments...

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-white-house-was-lying-cnns-jake-tapper-goes-ther...

‘The White House Was Lying’: CNN’s Jake Tapper Goes There in Scathing on Air Takedown of Joe Biden

***
In my opinion, the fact that Trump won the POPULAR vote is much more problematic than anything Biden and the Dems did or didn't do in 2024. Too many Americans have a 1950's mindset in 21st Century America.

>28 John5918:

They were closing plants six months ago and moving operations to Mexico. And, the weakened farming economy...

“They are not related to production moves,” the statement said. “As we have repeatedly stated, these layoffs are due to the weakened farm economy and a reduction in customer orders for our equipment.”

In a Feb. 13 earnings call, Deere officials said the company would continue to scale back production after sales dropped 37% in its Oct. 1-Dec. 31 first quarter from the same period a year earlier.

The Fake News community, including yourself, seem to intentionally conflate the issues conveniently.

Also, a new plant is being built:

https://www.ksmu.org/news/2025-05-05/john-deer-reman-breaks-ground-on-expansion-...

>27 margd: If the Congress passes the new tax cuts for the rich while cutting aid for those in poverty, I expect not just protests, but a revolt. Otherwise, Americans are so lost you'll never climb out of this hole.

>32 SandraArdnas:

I dunno. I'm thinking back to trickle-down economics from the Reagan years, and Nixon before that. Is this that much different?

>33 librorumamans: Yes. Those people now live in actual poverty. They didn't when the initial inanity of trickle down was sold. Selling trickle down propaganda now is impossible since the need is not to be better off in the foreseeable future, but to survive now. Plus, this is the umpteenth time the privileged get yet another break, which is why the underprivileged sink lower and lower in the first place. The very fact that working people in one of the richest countries in the world need food stamps shouts 'social injustice' so loud it reverberates through the universe. Finally, didn't Trump promise wealth and prosperity on day one. If I was one of the dimwits who believed him and he then proceeded to make me even poorer to give even more those who don't need it, I'd want his head on a spike. So, like I said, if there is no mass outrage, the apathy and resignation is so predominant that he can get away with literally anything and he will.

>34 SandraArdnas: ~1/3 of Americans have difficulty making ends meet + Trumpians shredding social safety net -- something has to give!

>34 SandraArdnas: >35 margd:

This is directly dealt with in John Raulston Saul's Massey Lectures The Unconscious Civilization in which he draws comparisons between the inequalities preceding the French Revolution and the modern economic disparities in the US.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/04/09/how-trump-tax-cuts-really-affected-rich/

Interesting notes in that article for anyone interested.

“Despite the widespread narrative that the tax cuts included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act disproportionately favor the wealthy, our analysis of hard IRS data tells a very different story,” Jack McPherrin, research fellow for the Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center at The Heartland Institute, said in a public statement.

“The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that lower- and middle-income households have received the largest tax cuts as a percentage of income, while higher earners actually took on a greater share of the overall tax burden,” McPherrin said.

The average tax filer in the income bracket of between $40,000 and $50,000 paid about 19% less in income taxes in 2022 than the average filer in the same income bracket paid before the passage of the tax reform law in 2017.

The study showed that filers in the tax bracket earning between $50,000 and $75,000 paid on average 16.58% less than filers in the same bracket in 2017.

Taxpayers filing in the bracket of between $75,000 and $100,000 paid about 11% less in 2022 than in 2017, the study found.

By contrast, the highest income earners had significantly fewer tax savings.

For example, filers with income between $5 million and $10 million paid only 2.3% less in 2022 compared to 2017, the Heartland study found.

In 2022 every income bracket earning less than $200,000 paid a smaller portion of the overall tax burden than they did in 2017, the study found. Meanwhile, every income bracket above $200,000 paid a larger portion, according to the Heartland study...

>35 margd:

>36 librorumamans:

Government collusion with corporations has existed since Edison... Henry Ford got all of the quality car makers put out of business. Folks pop pills and sense the meaninglessness of their existence. In that ignorance they begin to justify the violence of a French Revolution.

Amazingly, rational humanists conclude that some are superior to others, ergo inflating their own value. All whilst wondering why the ignorant get fussy when times are tough. It must be that they need cake.

The US is much like Russia in Tolstoy's time and Rome or France...it's always similar, mostly due to Godlessness and self-worship.

Interesting as leaders in Republican Party that targeted transgender people and drag in last campaign, Hegseth is installing a makeup studio at Pentagon, Trump routinely wears bronzer, and Vance really does wear eye makeup. (I thought maybe Vance had double eyelash mutation, which comes with cardiac risk, but nope: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lp546i6hzk25 .)

The white rural reckoning
Trump is betraying the very voters who put him back in power.
Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman | May 15, 2025

Farm policy
Coal and extractive industries
Schools and libraries
The poor and minorities
Informational literacy and broadband access
Environment, forests, and national parks
Rural reawakening ...

A stunning PBS/NPR/Marist poll released earlier this month showed Trump’s support in rural America since taking office cratering. His February approval rating of 59 percent — a figure that includes both Trump-loving white rural citizens and far less supportive non-white rural citizens — fell 19 points to just 40 percent.

Given the limited number of rural residents in all but the biggest national surveys, that poll could be an outlier. But it suggests doubts may be emerging in the places where Trump got his strongest support — and which are now being punished for believing that he actually cared about them...

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-white-rural-reckoning-waldman-schaller

It was never about jobs, farm subsidies, etc.. It is about white, male supremacy. Most Trump voters don't care at all what Trump does, as long as it hurts others more than it hurts them. Spite and bitterness are their lifeblood.

>41 Cardboard_killer:

Here, Hear! Dag,durn racisss don't even know dat, eether...

Dem der blacks folks can't take cares of themsilves, cus they too stupid. So what if duh morey-on trump dun make dem der dum black folk qwality of life better accordin to job numbers, dey stoopid. Blacks don wan jobs, they need us smart white fokes to do all der thinkin' and they can juss cash der willfare chex and juss smash all der babiez up and grinds'em in a blenderz and flush'em down duh toilet, who carez? Dey too stoopit... If you don vote Demmicrat, you ain't black, ya silly dummy. Juss like dem racisss magat summsobishes to ignore dat duh bess powlisee is Demmicrat powlisee. Shudd up an lissen to duh qwalified thninkers!

>39 margd:

Are you mocking men who wear makeup? We see through your real opinion margd. Fake that outrage, sista!

>43 TheToadRevoltof84: No, dummy, that was mocking men who wear makeup but are anit-trans bigots. Sit down.

>44 SandraArdnas:

Typical progressive, on again with fake outrage. So inherently, you must also think it demeaning for a man to wear makeup? Oh the anti-metaphysical process of PIL politics, everything is meaningless, projection and lies.

>45 TheToadRevoltof84: Typical Trumpshit, spouts nonsense and ignores whatever s/he been told to just spout more nonsense. Until you decide to actually converse, sit down. Which part of he was 'mocked for wearing makeup because he's an anti-trans bigot' is hard to grasp? Rhetorical question, no need to answer. We both know you'll just continue ignoring anything said and babble whatever you feel like. Alternatively, perhaps you genuinely lack the intellectual capacity to understand why he is being mocked. Either way, I'll leave you to your monologues.

One of the oddities of the US right wing is that they loudly complain about "fashion" and "star's vanity", yet all their leaders are plastic surgery victims, and most wear makeup. The people that whine about "crappy reality TV" and then elect a "crappy reality TV" huckster. Every accusation is a confession.

>42 TheToadRevoltof84: Wow. Next time just say "I have a black friend", and it will come off way less racist.

>48 prosfilaes:

Unfortunately, there's a greater chance that you admit the left's bigotry of low expectations regarding minorities, particularly blacks, and contempt of anyone that doesnt agree with you, than for me to attempt to humor you in this matter.

Interesting that you noted the language, not as a redneck racist? Are you assuming a color to my redneck, you people really are jacked up on your bigotry.

>47 Cardboard_killer: Despite your complete inability to enact self-reflection, you're not completely wrong. It actually works for both sides of the political spectrum. Sadly, progressives just have terrible solutions and think way too highly of themselves.

>49 TheToadRevoltof84: Interesting that you noted the language, not as a redneck racist? Are you assuming a color to my redneck, you people really are jacked up on your bigotry.

Let's talk about language. Most people who post to LibraryThing do so in a standardized version of their language. You are clearly capable of doing so, despite some laxity and carelessness. So writing in that form is obviously communicate a message, and it certainly doesn't sound like it's trying to communicate your pride in being black.

A lot of that text was eye dialect. Eye dialect is when you spell a word in a nonstandard way to reflect its pronunciation in writing a dialect even though the speakers pronounce it the same way everyone else does. The word "carez" is an obvious example; it's pronounced /kɛɹz/ in standard American English. It's usually the author indicating that those speakers are lower class, or lesser people in the eyes of the author.

>51 prosfilaes:

Correct. And as a Redneck "Racist, Trump Voter" I typed ignorantly. You assumed a color, which speaks volumes, because I never intended it as such. I actually intended it as an ignorant Redneck that was trying to agree with Progressive policy.

Another strange thing about conservatives is their perceived importance of topics. What is always important are the things they are actually right about, even when they are hardly germane to the actual question. Discuss the constitution and mis-state the date of the Mayflower's landing and you have lost the attention span of the locutor, who promptly forgets the actual import of the conversation to go on about some picayune nonsense.

It is telling for two reasons: first, it is obvious they are not acting in good faith in a discussion or debate; second, they are too ego driven to ever be a good partner with those who don't agree with them. I suspect it has to do with domineering fathers growing up.

>53 Cardboard_killer:

My father actually avoids conflict at all costs. My mother takes things head on. You wouldn't know that because your generalizations about sexes are as ridiculous as your generalizations about color.

Also, what question are you asking?

You're clearly attempting to converse around me as the self-important one in this, not quite conversation. I honestly am not sure, since all you have done is attempt to paint me as a racist, ego-driven, nonsensical, etc... but you don't need to gain favor with the progressives here, they all just point and call me something and you'll all agree it's true.

Ask a question, if you actually have one.

It's always entertaining to read about the "soft bigotry" of the left when it comes from the same mouth that spouts gushers of plain old ordinary bigotry. But what can you expect from a lying fuckwad?

I'm not going to speculate on why this particular douchenozzle is a bigot, nor on why they're a liar - that would be rude and presumptuous. I will however continue to point out that they're a compulsive liar and apparently a committed bigot as well. I tried engaging with them, found they were as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike, and gave up. Y'all have fun now, but remember: when the fun stops, stop.

And for those interested in something other than the burblings of our local idiot, I've just noticed this:

U.S. Credit Receives Downgrade From Moody’s as Trump Pushes Costly Tax Cuts

The credit rating of the United States received a potentially costly downgrade on Friday, as the ratings firm Moody’s determined that the government’s fiscal outlook had deteriorated as a result of rising debt levels and stood to worsen further if Republicans enact a package of new tax cuts.

The downgrade, to one notch below the highest triple-A rating, amounted to a political and economic repudiation of Washington, where President Trump only hours earlier had pushed his party to adopt a sprawling package that might add trillions of dollars to the nation’s fiscal imbalance.

(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/business/us-credit-downgrade-moodys.html)

Seems a bit more worthy of our attention than the news that there's a racist posting on the internet - I'm pretty sure that's not news.
(It'll be interesting to see what the racist gets around to saying about this once the party line is decided)

>55 kiparsky:

Can't make it up better than King Hoax. You heard em kids; call the Conservative a liar for not buying a hoax and boy it sticks in fake outrage land. If you pretenders like the echo round hear, you should keep it that way.

Are you angry due to excessive masturbation? Don't answer it here, and I think it would come off as disingenuous if I apologized for asking, but think about it a bit.

You're not stupid, but you're angry like a stupid person. There's something deeper you gotta get at... Most Progressive types medicate, but I think you know better. I can't quite figure you out, Kip.

>52 TheToadRevoltof84: You assumed a color, which speaks volumes, because I never intended it as such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_%E2%9F%A8th%E2%9F%A9 "Many speakers of African American Vernacular English, Caribbean English, Liberian English, Nigerian English, Philadelphia English, and Philippine English (along with other Asian English varieties) pronounce the fricatives /θ, ð/ as alveolar stops t, d. Similarly, but still distinctly, many speakers of New York City English, Chicago English, Boston English, Indian English, Newfoundland English, and Hiberno-English use the dental stops t̪, d̪ (typically distinct from alveolar t, d) instead of, or in free variation with, θ, ð."

That is, rednecks pronounce th as θ or ð. Only certain dialects of English pronounce them as stops t, d.

I actually intended it as an ignorant Redneck

So you made them write in a way typical of some written depictions of Black speech. That's pretty racist. Ignorance is not defined by which variation of language you speak. Remember that your language sounded like βαρ βαρ βαρ to the Ancient Greeks, hence the word barbarian.

>58 prosfilaes:

I've been in company with rednecks of all colors, they talk pretty much the same. The drawl is by locale, tell yourself what you want. It's very clear that you assumed the ignorance and associated a color.

Sorry, I don't believe you're racist. I do think you're a fake outrage pig though. I'm not mad at you for being a cancer, I just think your false sense of superiority is very sad. Good on you though for spending time on your disingenuous and pointless research to please the fake outrage crowd here on pro and con.

>59 TheToadRevoltof84: I guess facts do care about your feelings. Going back to that paragraph I posted, scholars find that use of d for th is a feature of (ignoring foreign and racial dialects), Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, and Boston English, not redneck English.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtITldz_8k (From the very start)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpUJAGpKSfk (9 seconds in, a very clear thang instead of thing; not ding or dang.)

I do think you're a fake outrage pig though. ... Good on you though for spending time on your disingenuous and pointless research

If by "fake", you mean you don't like it. It seems very typical of MAGA Republicans to not care what the facts say.

>60 prosfilaes:

Those aren't facts, they're generalizations by locations and on YouTube videos from folks selling videos. That's an entertainment version, real, I suppose it's more hillbilly than redneck types vary by location. Settle down, they'll all still blame me for your bigotry.

https://youtube.com/shorts/fY-2lpxuWBQ?si=BJsP0nghfQZrEcJW

https://youtube.com/shorts/ESl3Njl-dPk?si=2At-htcMq5IaT2uJ

Why don't you consult Thomas Sowell on why bigotry from the left is so harmful.

>57 TheToadRevoltof84: Stop humiliating yourself.

It's interesting to see what the lying bigot chooses to pretend not to see.

At least six Tornadoes passed through Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky last night, killing at least 23.

One was 40 miles south of me.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjaPujgB/

No National Weather Alert available because of DOGE cuts

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJwm2zmtwMF/?igsh=MTR4NzVzbG5jZG96MA==

From yesterday’s Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper:

Trump cuts to National Weather Service leave Kentucky offices understaffed

https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article306549111.html

That means multiple National Weather Service offices, including Jackson, do not have staff monitoring weather conditions during late-night shifts. That’s important because weather conditions can change rapidly, Fahy said.

All commercial weather programs —from the Weather Channel, AccuWeather to weather apps — are dependent on National Weather Service data. Commercial weather cannot replace the National Weather Service, Fahy said.

Adding

Kentucky NWS office in Jackson was staffed amid severe weather, despite shortages.

https://www.weku.org/the-commonwealth/2025-05-17/kentucky-nws-office-in-jackson-...

>64 2wonderY: Aiyiyi -- sleeping in musty fruit cellar, if lucky enough to have one... As it was I slept with radio on (Michigan, Ontario) during the first front. At what point with disasters and collapsing economy will MAGA voters say "enough"?? Those poor people -- hope FEMA, Red Cross, states, NGOs, churches, somebody are there for them...

>61 TheToadRevoltof84: Both of the examples you gave me show that people who don't pronounce th as d or t.

Why don't you consult Thomas Sowell on why bigotry from the left is so harmful.

Why would I waste time discussing things with you? You dismiss facts from scholars who have spent their life studying linguists, a field you seem uneducated in. Argue with you, maybe, however pointless that is, but you'll crow over any thing that supports your preconceptions and deny anything doesn't support your preconceptions. You screwed up; you wrote a text that you claim was from a certain perspective, but gave no external clues of that, but did give clues that it was meant to be from a Black perspective. That's giving you the benefit of the doubt. You'd rather argue that "Those aren't facts, they're generalizations by locations" instead of accepting they are facts and they're going to frame how people interpret your text.

Interesting story: apparently Trump's approval ratings on issues correlates with respondents' ignorance of those issues.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/18/polls/trump-job-approval-news-att...

>67 kiparsky: That bit of news is consistent with something else I've read sorry, don't have a link and not certain that it was from the NYtimes...oh curse that dratted source amnesia! claiming that the voters who came out of the woodwork to put Agent Orange over the top in the 2024 election were people were "disengaged", didn't usually vote, didn't read newspapers or watch even Fox "news", getting most of their info (when they were interested) from social media or word of mouth from friends, relatives, coworkers, random encounters, and such.

We're talking about people who really didn't grasp who and what Agent Orange is.

I think the article opined that some of them are beginning to "getting it" as the Trump administrations policies begin to bite them.

Homo Sapiens. Sheesh!

>66 prosfilaes:

Both of those examples use them interchangeably, (do not, try dis, at home)... you have a preconceived notion about black speech and conservative ideas. I want less government and I believe in God. I actually was illustrating how stupid you think I am...If you believe that I'm racist, which undoubtedly you do, then I can't change it. I'll only add that I didn't mean for it to be a black person (based on the words used, it actually makes no sense from a black perspective). But I definitely have and at times do hear folks use t and d interchangeably. But, it also doesn't change that all discussion on here is generally a farce.

You may keep your high ground. You progressives think a discussion is just trying to paint conservatives as racist and sometimes I don't really know what you're actually trying to prove. So you win, if you think my dialogue was racist and comes across as racist in whatever technicality or scholarly way, so be it.

Call me ignorant if you'd rather. Good day, be well, I hope you find blessings. Sorry for wasting your time.

>68 modalursine:

This bit of fake news is consistent with our other fake news of the controlled minds brigade, so it must be true! Go to the News busters site and watch the synchronized lies, it's amazing!

Even when the truth comes out, you'll never know. It's why you progressives still wear masks...

https://www.newsbusters.org/

You can learn in real time, not that biased actually, all of the ways progressives utilize propaganda like good Commies.

Tens of millions of USA adults function below a sixth-grade level. Tens of millions of USA adults function below a third-grade level. A Trump 2.0 "reality show" series was a done deal before any votes were cast.

Noli pascere trollum

>71 Molly3028:

Another progressive "fact", undoubtedly. And, if I don't agree, I'm racist, bigoted, lying...trolling. Progressives pop pills to tolerate themselves, but I wonder if you took a few more you may tolerate me as well?

>72 modalursine:

😬, it's not as cool as you thought... I actually do read most of team fake news' links and 'facts' and a couple of you have actually given me valuable insight. But I thinks you should read that site for a while. I know vampires hate the light, but it'll eventually drive you insane to find out you're the one supporting the corruption in Washington.

>69 TheToadRevoltof84: you have a preconceived notion about black speech

I have said nothing about black speech. I wrote about which dialects of English actually pronounce ð as d, which in the US are either northern or African-American Vernacular English.

I'll only add that I didn't mean for it to be a black person

I see that now. I can't say I'm impressed with the idea that writing like that is an appropriate way to communicate that the speaker is less intelligent; which dialect you use is a matter of what your parent and community spoke, not your intelligence.

do hear folks use t and d interchangeably.

Which has nothing to do with the dental fricatives. I understand you don't have basic knowledge of linguistics, so stop digging.

You progressives think a discussion is just trying to paint conservatives as racist

I think a discussion is pointless if one side is saying "you progressives think".

all of the ways progressives utilize propaganda like good Commies.

Many of us are Americans; we're learned propaganda from the best in the world at it, the corporations of the US, not the relatively ham-handed Communists.

>74 TheToadRevoltof84: Do you actually believe if you repeat a lie enough times it will become true? It's nauseating reading your self-congratulatory nonsense that projects your own shadow onto others. Truly. I feel sick to my stomach.

Here, have fun with just one blatant Trump corruption scheme. His sons travel the world to 'negotiate' who gives how much and for what exactly. https://apnews.com/article/trump-meme-coin-crypto-75063140a2223eb2698db7435dfaf5...

>74 TheToadRevoltof84: you're the one supporting the corruption in Washington.

400 million dollar jet. Threatening law firms that have supported clients that opposed him. Demanding that Amazon not show the additional markup of tariffs because it will hurt him.

You want to talk about corruption in Washington, let's talk about corruption in Washington. But we have the most corrupt president in American history, you should start there.

>76 SandraArdnas: Yes, that is usually what lying-ass sacks of shit hope for. Or at least, that by repeating a lie often enough people will stop questioning it.

Sometimes, they're stupid enough to believe their own lies, which gets you into the usual conundrums about whether a lying-ass sack of shit who believes their own lies is actually lying. The answer to that conundrum is yes, they're lying, because in fact they don't believe their own lies, they're just trying really hard to believe them and this whole business is just them trying like hell to convince themselves that the lie they want to believe is true, so the pain they feel will stop. You could almost feel sorry for them if they weren't such fucking horrible people. But being vicious racist scum whose only dream in life is to personally lick the shit from the asshole of power, there's not really any hope that anyone with any sense could feel sorry for them.

>75 prosfilaes:

Fair enough.

>76 SandraArdnas:

You're mistaken if you think the corruption isn't scattered throughout our government. That is why we want less centralized power. Fundamentally, you miss the point... and these odd "scandals" out in the open are so silly.

I do forgive you and the progressive echo has won again! I haven't cared enough to give any of you a real effort because you're so lost and we speak a whole different language. I'm sorry about that. I also tend to be half-hearted on this phone. I do hope you find your way some day. Be well!

>77 prosfilaes:

Ha, okay. I guess in time we'll get the history we want.

>78 kiparsky:

Kip, you're still angry like a stupid person. Get a grip.

>82 TheToadRevoltof84: Not angry, but I can see how you might read that as anger. Truth sounds angry if you're living a lie.

>83 kiparsky:

What lie, specifically, pick just one, would you like me to address or admit to?

Again, there are things I have agreed to having ignorance of. I do believe that the spirit of the argument was disingenuous or twisted, but I'm fine with owning up to something whether it was simply a technicality used to make me appear stupid, but I have not intentionally lied here. So please, let me address it.

Do not bring up the hoax though, Heyers name was clearly mentioned but it was a blurted question and not the question being addressed. That's why it's not in the transcript. That's just the way it goes and nobody still believes that hoax.

>84 TheToadRevoltof84: Are you still upset about being a liar? If you don't like it, stop.

Speaking of controlling dissent and censorship, I am cross posting this from the military history book group.

I'll note that the firing of head of LOC copyright office Ms. Perlmutter was done without a reason given unlike the Librarian of Congress. Here is Jen Psaki explaining. It is a war on controlling sources of knowledge, and hence free speech.

https://youtube.com/shorts/XOnFbdwJ4_U?si=odNmRTTL8QnbtgWl

>86 Cardboard_killer:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/09/uniparty-foreign-policy-blob-codifying-wa...

or the general, team blue is propping up lies.

https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-glenn-beck-program/media-pelosi-misinformatio...

... and accused 21 right-wingers — including Glenn Beck — of circulating "vicious" and "sinister" falsehoods. This is the same New York Times that has published a long list of stories that later turned out to be completely false in just the last few years.

So on the radio program Monday, Glenn listed at least 35 times the media got it all wrong and asked, "Now, who's the threat to our Democracy again?"

"How many of these stories did you publish?" Glenn asked. "Did you publish and lead the charge on Russian collusion? Did you publish the neo-Nazis are 'fine people' lies? Did you publish and stand by Jussie Smollett? How about the Bubba Wallace garage pull, or the Covington kids, or the Governor Whitmer kidnapping plot, or the Kavanaugh rape, or the Trump 'pee tape'?

"I remember reading all of these stories, sometimes for months, in your newspaper," Glenn went on to say, adding, "Or the COVID lab leak was just a conspiracy theory. Or the border agents that were on horses were whipping migrants. Or saved nuclear secrets at Mara Lago, or the Steele dossier. Did you print the Russian bounties on the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan? Or that Trump said drinking bleach would fight COVID? Or the Muslim travel ban or Hunter Biden's laptop was just disinformation from Russia? Did you print any of these?"

"Liberals, did you believe any of these? How about 'Andrew Cuomo was the best in COVID leadership'? Or Trump cages for migrant kids? Or Trump over-fed koi fish in Japan? Or 'Build Back Better' will pay for itself? The Trump tax cuts benefited only the rich? Cloth masks prevent COVID? If you get vaccinated you won't catch COVID and you won't spread it to others?" he continued.

"How about the SUV killed parade marchers, not the guy behind the wheel?" Glenn added. "Or Trump used tear gas to clear a crowd for a Bible photo? Or that 'don't say gay' was actually in a bill? How about the Putin price hike? Did you guys print that? Or ivermectin is horse dewormer and not for humans? Or the 'mostly peaceful protests' of BLM? Or, I love this one, Trump overpowered the Secret Service for the wheel of 'The Beast'? Or Officer Sicknick was murdered by protesters? January 6 was a well-planned insurrection? Or BYU students hurled racist insults at a Duke volleyball player?"

"And now 'our democracy is under threat'? This disinformation thing is really coming from the right?"

On censorship:

https://www.dailysignal.com/?s=censorship

https://www.newsbusters.org/search?search_api_fulltext=censorship&sort_by=cr...

https://nypost.com/search/censorship/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY

>87 TheToadRevoltof84: You're at least partly right on some of those episodes, which is the tragedy of the situation. The problem is that with those types of sources as your "media criticism," you're out of the frying pan and into the fire. The MSM sold you a bill of goods one too many times, which motivates your righteous determination to believe whatever horseshit your counter-disinformation sources of choice decide to feed you, knowing they've got you hooked on your own sense of epistemological superiority.

Better:
https://fair.org/
https://www.medialens.org/
https://www.project-censored.org/
https://www.freepress.net/news/free-press-mourns-death-co-founder-and-scholar-ro...
RIP Robert McChesney.

>88 davidgn:

Thanks for these links, although skeptical, I will admit there seems to be at least a good face value that I can entertain.

I actually don't buy all of the "horseshit" I'm sold on the right, but I do support the "proposed" mission of the conservative right. Most of the entertainment right does similarly represent their side of the story as the left, selling entertainment value division. However, I'm against bloated government control, which is what the 'entertainment right' pretends to be against. Although, they float back to controlled opposition when rubber meets the road and claim there's a bridge too far...

However, Newsbusters and Daily Signal rarely feed me the same line as the entertainment right. I do trust them a bit more.

The government is the bigger problem, as they collude with MSM to control the information. I understand your reservations about my sources, but I don't see how you describe a similar problem and assume that 'progressive' (read informed authority) solutions are the best?

What makes you think that you're not being sold a different line of horseshit? Glenn Beck is entertainment and doesn't always allow himself to get out of line when he believes he'll lose audience, but that list was a small sampling of the controlled narrative that doesn't get out.

The problem with engaging these people is that they have no ability to change their minds when presented with evidence. For example:

"CBS News boss Wendy McMahon exits amid Trump pressure"

is not censorship because CBS=bad. Of course, no other administration was instrumental in forcing the resignation of a major news agency, but all politicians are the same, so democrats did it too, so it's okay when a republican does it and it was a good thing, too, because it isn't censorship like "they" are doing, it's only righting past wrongs, and two wrongs do make a right, and I did my own research to figure that out.

To quote a book: "They make the weather, then stand in the rain and say 'shit, it's raining'"

>90 Cardboard_killer:

Except, you are the one doing the thing you are saying "these people" do. We're all guilty here and the only thing we can agree on is that we're not going to agree on solutions. Trump pressure = CBS has been losing viewers and is in hot water in lawsuits.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/31/trump-sues-cbs-over-edited-harris-60-minu...

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/04/22/trumps-cbs-de...

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/22/cbs-refusal-release-60-minutes-harris-tra...

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2025/05/19/covering-cover-...

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/05/18/too-late-cbss-marg...

The facts of censorship are directly reversed here. It is due to the controlled opinions and censorship that has Wendy out. It's like saying, look, we were doing the thing, and now we're paying for the thing, because you don't like being screwed and lied about!

>80 TheToadRevoltof84: One of the things making me sick to my stomach is your complete lack of any moral compass. I guess it's a prerequisite for supporting Trump.

If I read one more time how you lackadaisically dismiss major crimes and/or abhorrent behavior with 'everybody does it', I'm going to puke. You seem blissfully oblivious that, even if it were true, that is not the first thing that would pop into the mind of a person that has a smidgen of integrity. Those people would be even more outraged by the scale, not less. You're not one of those people. You believe you've given him a pass with that, rather than disclosed something about yourself.

Secondly, it isn't true to begin with. So, you're lying on top. No Trumptard, just because there's corruption to some degree everywhere, including the US, it does not make it of the same scale. Nor have you ever had a convicted felon as the President.

Finally, I want to vomit at your use of 'progressives'. Everyone here is progressive compared to you. It's like being a Nazi and lumping all non-Nazis as some monolith group, even though they have a variety of different positions on a whole array of issues. The only thing connecting them is being anti-Nazi, because lo and behold, everyone sane is anti-Nazi because of what it is and does. Or to illustrate with an analogy: if you imagine people in this thread as the ocean, there are a number of currents and even several distinct oceans. You, however, represent that mountain of plastic that floats in the middle of nowhere. Pollution, not ocean. That does not make the oceans a monolith group. It makes you stick out as a sore thumb.

>92 SandraArdnas:

What you're saying is: I'm not allowed to vote, period, unless I support those in power who do not hold each other accountable for their crimes? Do you not understand Democracy? I didn't ask for this.

Trump's conviction of writing checks to his hooker and asking her to shut her mouth is appalling, but is that any different than Kamala sleeping her way into offices? Or Biden raping Tara Reed or forcing his daughter to shower with him? Or marrying his kid's babysitter? Or using his son and brother as pawns to collect money from foreign governments?

https://nypost.com/2023/07/05/missing-biden-corruption-case-witness-dr-gal-luft-...

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/how-much-time-do-i-have-ex-biden-biz-partner...

>88 davidgn:

I didn't love fair.

Medialens seems to have some value here. The solutions appear to be the opposite of mine. It appears that there's always a funny disconnect, when there's government and business collusion and it involves money, that's not going to improve with socialism and it doesn't discredit capitalism, it just shows the corruption in the population.

There's no way around that.

But I do like that, whatever observations one maintains about Trump, they can at least observe something reasonable.

@Medialens:

https://www.medialens.org/2025/orange-peace-is-donald-trump-a-racist-misogynisti...

...It reads like something out of science fiction to say it, but Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, was basically right, ‘media giants ruled by corporate interests… are in the pocket of the establishment war machine’.

The journalists cited above are not all stooges of power, of course; some are simply favoured and promoted because they believe the right thoughts.

Much as we might disagree with him on virtually everything else, it matters when Trump says of Ukraine:

‘And I’ve been watching these people being killed at levels that you’ve rarely seen… not even close… since the Second World War, and I’m very disappointed.’

It matters because it highlights how almost no-one in our brutalised, pocketed media is discussing this appalling loss of life as a desperately urgent reason for ending it.

Outliers like Hitchens aside, where are the human beings emphasising that an end to the Ukraine war would be wonderful, that a 50 per cent cut in military spending and an associated thaw in relations between the US, China and Russia, would be an almost undreamed of step towards a more peaceful, sane world?

It is deeply significant that ‘mainstream’ media which ordinarily bow low at the feet of US presidential power are either ignoring or bitterly attacking Trump’s calls for de-nuking, conventional disarmament and peace, and it is no accident.

The truth being revealed is that UK state-corporate media do not simply defer to US presidential power; they defer to the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about and of which they are very much a part.

I haven't reviewed the other two, but clearly my lunch-time extravaganza must close for the day. I have burned way too much time of late on librarything...

One of the problems here in the USA is that most people believe the old trope, "all politicians lie". The right wing thrives on that delusion. It allows the acceptance of all kinds of shameless bad behavior by their leaders. And worse, it sets up an amoral "bothsidererism" world view. It becomes defending fascism by saying communism was worse. It becomes, "I'm not the racist; you're the racist."

So next time someone says to you that all politicians lie, tell them they are naive to think that. And worse, they are living in a world view where only power matters.

>93 TheToadRevoltof84: More demagoguery. Color me surprised.

What you're not allowed is to make excuses for the inexcusable, lie and manipulate to justify your choice (at this point to yourself really), and generally play dumb to anything upsetting your preconceived beliefs. You're allowed to be critical of everyone, including those you voted for. Rationally, based on verifiable facts, statements and events. That is actually what us 'progressives' do. I for one cannot imagine myself being so infatuated with my latest political choice to embrace everything they do uncritically, let alone to defend them at all costs. For someone who opines how the political sphere is in the gutter all around, you find thinking critically about any of them an insurmountable obstacle. The 'enemy' is attacked by merely proclaiming them just as bad, while the chosen one is exempt from it for the same reason. The result is no thinking involved at all. There's mud slinging on one side and defense of indefensible on the other. That's it. That's your level of discourse here.

>58 prosfilaes:

Per your chosen source, I do want to note that, my declaration of regional pronunciation is not that misguided. Despite my ignorance to the scholarly, and perhaps the quick response to yet another post about my-types racism, my quick response to you wasn't that far from a reasonable response. See regional pronunciation.

In The Lie That Tells a Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction, John Dufresne cites The Columbia Guide to Standard American English in suggesting that writers avoid eye dialect; he argues that it is frequently pejorative, making a character seem stupid rather than regional, and is more distracting than helpful. Like Walpole, Dufresne suggests that dialect should be rendered by "rhythm of the prose, by the syntax, the diction, idioms and figures of speech, by the vocabulary indigenous to the locale".11 Other writers have noted that eye dialect has sometimes been used in derisive fashion toward ethnic or regional pronunciation, in particular by contrasting standard spelling with non-standard spelling to emphasize differences.121314

Eye dialect, when consistently applied, may render a character's speech indecipherable.15 An attempt to accurately render nonstandard speech may also prove difficult to readers unfamiliar with a particular accent.16

>95 Cardboard_killer: That's actually an interesing (if unendearing) fact of American political life. There's a big strain of anti-intellectualism in these parts. Citified "intellectual", educated "smooth men" are seen in some quarters as a snobbish elite who are out to screw the ordinary bear. In the Bible (which gets mentioned lots in America if not read all that much) there's the story of Jacob who is a smooth man, and Esau who is a hairy man, and in the end the smooth man fleeces the hairy man out of his inheritance.
The curious bit though, is that normally intelligent people, often good hearted and well meaning, wary of being "conned" by the smooth men, fall for the totally unscupulous faux hairy man who sells them a line of malarky about how elections were stolen, independent professional bureacracies are an evil "deep state", how a thuggish mob chanting "Hang Mike Pence" are the true patriots, and how massive grift and self dealing is actually "draining the swamp", and how their personal circumstances will be enhanced through cruelty to others and by a set of hair-brained schemes implemented by deluded crackpots.

>87 TheToadRevoltof84: This is the same New York Times that has published a long list of stories that later turned out to be completely false in just the last few years.

It's called news; you report what you know today and report new news tomorrow.

the Bubba Wallace garage pull,

It is a fact that there was a rope tied in the shape of a noose in Bubba Wallace's garage (and nobody else's). Should they not have printed that?

the Kavanaugh rape

Kavanaugh was accused of attempted sexual assault by a credible source, and the accusation has not been disproven.

I could go through a lot of these. There are some problematic ones, but that last one is an example of Glenn Beck at best demanding the MSM follow his interpretation of facts, and at worst demanding they don't publish the news that someone accused Kavanaugh of rape and spoke before Congress about it.

If you get vaccinated you won't catch COVID and you won't spread it to others?"

Good old anti-vaccination propaganda. Vaccines work. They're not perfect, and the COVID one is more like the flu vaccines than the measles vaccine. This is another category, where if Glenn Beck is correctly describing the articles, they overstated the case, but the fundamentals are true.

Again, discussion is great. Posting articles that are full of crap is a waste of time.

>99 prosfilaes:

Except no retraction or clarification is made when the truth comes out. Which allows those lies to spread and creates disingenuous conversation, with exhausting progressive bigotry.

The noose was there...this wasn't Smollet level but ended up a hoax.

https://x.com/bobpockrass/status/1275537961656954881/photo/1

Kavanaugh was, was he? I really doubt it, and I doubt those selling the story believe it either.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/07/08/new-book-on-kavanaugh-confirmation-holds-...

https://nypost.com/2019/09/17/christine-blasey-fords-friend-now-says-shes-skepti...

https://nypost.com/2019/09/16/new-york-times-corrects-story-detailing-misconduct...

The debate over the covid shots ability to stop the spread is over. I'm astounded you are still selling this. It can't stop the spread, which was a cudgel used against those that didn't get it. Nevermind any other argument against it, peoples lives were ruined on a lie.

The fact that you're batting 0 for, you should probably call it a day. You seem to think a lot of things are a waste of time, maybe that's why you're progressive?

>100 TheToadRevoltof84: Except no retraction or clarification is made when the truth comes out.

In this very post, you offer a link to an article titled "New York Times corrects story detailing misconduct claim against Brett Kavanaugh".

The noose was there...this wasn't Smollet level but ended up a hoax.

A hoax is "Anything deliberately intended to deceive or trick." This is not a hoax; it happened, it turned out that it was not intended to be malicious.

Kavanaugh was, was he? I really doubt it, and I doubt those selling the story believe it either.

She made her claim, and she spoke about it before Congress. The fact that people are making counterclaims doesn't prove her false, and certainly doesn't make the news about it disinformation.

And why would I care what you doubt? Even from experts, "I really doubt it" might at best be interesting; it won't be convincing. In talking with someone whom I'm arguing with, it means nothing.

If you get vaccinated you won't catch COVID and you won't spread it to others

Good old anti-vaccination propaganda. Vaccines work. They're not perfect, and the COVID one is more like the flu vaccines than the measles vaccine. This is another category, where if Glenn Beck is correctly describing the articles, they overstated the case, but the fundamentals are true.

The debate over the covid shots ability to stop the spread is over. I'm astounded you are still selling this.

Are you seriously doubting that vaccinations against COVID significantly reduces your chance of getting COVID and passing it on to others? If that's not what you mean by "stop the spread", you're moving the goal posts here.

>101 prosfilaes: On the last point (and strictly limited to whether the vaccines were effective in preventing transmission), he's not wrong. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431
The vaccines were quite good at keeping people out of the hospital, and alive. But at keeping them from getting mild symptoms and passing the virus on? Not so much.

>100 TheToadRevoltof84: The debate over the covid shots ability to stop the spread is over

This much at least is true. Sadly, what follows is a lie, and you know that it's a lie, but I'm trying to be fair and call out anything you say which deviates from your usual pattern of spewing a generous mix of lies and bullshit that's so stupid it's not even wrong. So don't say I'm not giving you credit where it's due, you lying-ass fuckwad.

>94 TheToadRevoltof84: Ukraine... almost no-one in our brutalised, pocketed media is discussing this appalling loss of life as a desperately urgent reason for ending it...

I really don't know what media you are reading, but as far as I can see the media has been full of calls for peace in Ukraine, and for a negotiated settlement.

where are the human beings emphasising that an end to the Ukraine war would be wonderful

Again, I don't know how you can miss them. The late Pope Francis was one stellar example, but religious leaders in general have been outspoken on the matter, as have international peace and human rights movements such as Pax Christi, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, etc. The US Institute for Peace was also outspoken on the war in Ukraine until the new US president summarily closed it down.

Which is not to say that there aren't counter-voices both in the media and amongst public figures. But don't paper over all the voices for meaningful dialogue and an end to the conflict.

>102 davidgn: I think you might be misreading that abstract a bit. It's saying that someone who has been vaccinated and gets covid can still transmit it to others, which is not surprising in any way. It also tells us that people in this subset of the population are contagious for less time than the unvaccinated (and thus the vaccine reduces the overall level of transmission, ie, "stops the spread") and that they are less likely to transmit the vaccine to others who are vaccinated, again meaning that vaccines "stop the spread".

And before some moron comes in and tries to play lawyer, "stop the spread" is a slogan. The question at issue is whether Covid-19 vaccines reduce the spread of that virus, and the answer is, yes, they do, in a very significant way.

(I say "moron" because apparently the moron in question objects to being called a liar, so I'm trying to be respectful)

>105 kiparsky: Vaccines are in my point of view like speed limits. Not everyone will keep them and you can run your car of the road even at speeds under the limit, but in the general statistical way speed limits work and causes the accidents to be fewer and less fatal. (And it is not the end of the world if your neighbour breaks the speed limit once in a while or doesn't get the flu shot or whatever.)

>106 bnielsen: Exactly. And to drag your metaphor out for those who are too dim to follow it all the way to the end, arguing that vaccines are useless because they are not 100% effective is like arguing that speed limits are pointless because some people still speed. Or that laws prohibiting rape should be abolished because Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and Brett Kavanaugh exist.

>94 TheToadRevoltof84: a 50 per cent cut in military spending and an associated thaw in relations between the US, China and Russia, would be an almost undreamed of step towards a more peaceful, sane world?

The Guardian says https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/03/trump-budget-cuts-health-educati... : "Education, health, climate and more on chopping block and 13% rise – to over $1tn to Pentagon – in ‘skinny budget’".

Trump may have randomly babbled that he wants to cut the military budget by 50%. Let's see him put actions with that. For everything he said about the Afghanistan war, it was Biden who got us out, which Trump told us he could have done so much better.

>104 John5918:
>108 prosfilaes:

Guys, I didn't type that. This was me pasting a clip from a site you gave me a link to. I felt that site was discussing some reasonable things without needing to like or love Trump.

The Afghanistan withdrawal was an awful debacle; you get the people out before the troops...and you take the equipment out with the troops. Biden did it wrong and people were imprisoned and killed due to the carelessness. Trump has been anti-war his whole life, that used to be a Democrat position, which a moderate Democrat is what he really is. The only time there wasn't war since Biden's been in politics, was when Trump was in office, and Biden wasn't in an office at all.

>105 kiparsky:

Thanks, Kip!

>109 TheToadRevoltof84: I didn't type that. This was me pasting a clip from a site

Might be helpful if you were to use one of LT's tools to indicate what is a cut-and-paste quote and what are your own words. I tend to use the "blockquote" function, but others use italics or bold. Even putting it in quotation marks would be better than nothing.

I don't recall giving you a link to that site.

>111 John5918:

It's there. right above the text.

>112 TheToadRevoltof84:

Yes, there's a link, but there's no obvious indication what in your post is a cut-and-paste quote and what are your own words.

>101 prosfilaes:

it was a garage door pull and it had been there well before Wallace was intended for the stall. He made hay for attention and honestly damaged an already tense atmosphere.

Kavanaugh was cleared and Blasey Ford was not credible. It was a malicious attempt to smear a moderate candidate, who happens to be nominated by an 'R', so he's obviously the worst ever.

A vaccine cannot reduce the risk of catching anything, it can only help you fight what you catch. That's the basis, it is meant to replicate an infection without suffering the actual sickness at the same level so that you have something akin the a natural immunity. Basic science. They lied about natural immunity, which is better, and maliciously (still smear) people who don't buy into it.

>114 TheToadRevoltof84: A vaccine cannot reduce the risk of catching anything, it can only help you fight what you catch.

Indeed. That's why so many people get measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc every year in the United States.

Unless of course they don't.

>96 SandraArdnas: Verifiable facts? "That's what progressives do"

I'll respond with a quote from Obama:

"A losing strategy for us, is when we are so insistent on our purity, when we are so self-righteous about positions, that we can't see those folks," Obama said of political adversaries. "When we're talking down to them or our general attitude is that ‘we’re gonna convince you' on how wrong you are.'"

"I have not seen that work yet," he added.

Obama also said that Democrats were not, for the majority of modern history, "on the right side" of tolerance.

"It's not as if the entire history of this country Democrats were on the right side of this thing," he said. "Democrats, for most of modern history, up until the Civil Rights legislation were anti-democratic and terrorized people and killed them for trying to exercise their democracy."

"So we don't have clean hands," Obama continued.

>114 TheToadRevoltof84:

Kavanaugh was cleared and Blasey Ford was not credible.

More lies. I've lost track of how many that makes. Maybe you could just save them up and tell one big lie in the week, and then confine yourself to things that are true the rest of the time?

>114 TheToadRevoltof84: it was a garage door pull and it had been there well before Wallace was intended for the stall.

So. What. Yes, it would be nice if someone invented a printing machine that only worked on what was true, except so much of the right would object loudly to the way it didn't work for them. But in the real world, we know what we know at the time. But yes, someone using a method of execution associated with extrajudicial executions of black men as a garage door pull is entirely normal.

A vaccine cannot reduce the risk of catching anything,

On an individual level, that might be true on some technical level, but it can keep a disease from having any symptoms or being communicable, which for any practical level is not having the disease.

On a global level, yes, it does seriously reduce the risk of catching a disease. The probability of catching smallpox is zero. The probability of catching polio in the Western Hemisphere is practically zero. The graph theory is actually rather dramatic; you hit a certain level of vaccination and a disease that everyone knows somebody who has caught it becomes something rarely seen, even something we can think about completely getting rid of.

They lied about natural immunity, which is better,

They lied about using the off-ramps for decelerating big trucks; it turns out ramming a couple school buses between you and a mountain wall works much better. No, spreading a deadly disease around is not better. This is ethics 101; having other people die so you have a slightly better outcome is evil.

>116 Daferzz: "Democrats, for most of modern history, up until the Civil Rights legislation were anti-democratic and terrorized people and killed them for trying to exercise their democracy."

That's history. That's history that Obama is too young to really remember, and in 2025, 75% of the population wasn't born for. The average person in the US is under 40; they were 15 in 2000, which I'd argue is around the age that most people really start to become aware of the political world around them. I can appreciate history, but it's not going to affect how I vote or affect how I look at someone who was born after that history, especially after 1980 or 1985, and chooses to be associated with the Republicans of Reagan and now Trump.

>116 Daferzz: I'm not Obama. Nor is anyone in this thread. I'm not even American and if not for electing the nutter that affects the whole world, I would not care one bit what happens in your politics. I was talking about the discussion here and progressives was in quotation marks because it referred to (mis)use by the person I responded to. In short, the point was you either argue in good faith and no dirty tricks or you're not really debating but pushing your agenda by all means.

I'm not sure what you find questionable about verifiable facts. People either said something or they didn't, events happened or they didn't, some things in life are factual by nature. To the extent that we may not be certain about many of those, that is then also expected to be reflected in one's argument. You do not claim it as a fact, but with the appropriate level of (un)certainty. Conversely, cherry picking only pieces that suit you, leavening it with misinformation and violating all the rules and best practices of argumentation and rhetoric is not going to get you any respect for your positions. It makes for a heated but useless squabble.

In the call for more "non-mainstream" US news sources, I recommend looking at sources outside the US. I recommend DW, BBC, and al-Jazeera among others. Different honest viewpoints are good--different dis-information sources are bad (OAN, Fox, TASS).

And that is one thing the US fringe survives on--taking mis-information, claiming a pattern of dis-information, and then feeding the fooled their own dis-information. It appeals to a certain mind, usually under-educated people looking for a feeling of superior knowledge. The first limits their experience in epistemology, the second limits their ability to change their beliefs with new evidence.

>118 prosfilaes:

Bubba Wallace sought attention, bottom line. To turn it into a story that is still repeated to this day, was the intention. I won't add any more on that.

I'll deal with the "vaccine" later.

On Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, the first link is to holes in the trial. The second is on a book that talks about her. Kavanaugh would have been strung up if they could have done it. Blasey Ford is not old enough to forget so much... Kavanaugh was confirmed because the case against him was fabricated, piecemeal, by a political operative. She was avoiding the hearings and couldn't remember an awful lot of details but read the below for a quick search of info. It is harder for me to get sources than for fake news users as Google filters it intentionally, still.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/10/01/7-apparent-inconsistencies-or-gaps-identi...

"The woman who accuses Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teens tells a story with multiple inconsistencies, the sex crimes prosecutor who questioned her has told Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A “reasonable prosecutor” would not move forward based on this evidence, the veteran sex crimes prosecutor said.

“In the legal context, here is my bottom line: A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that,” Rachel Mitchell, who questioned Christine Blasey Ford Thursday during a committee hearing, writes in a Sept. 30 memo to the lawmakers about Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh.

“Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them,” Mitchell, chief of the Special Victims Division of the Maricopa County, Arizona, Attorney’s Office, says in the memo.

“For the reasons discussed below, I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.”

Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist who lives in Northern California, repeated for the committee what she told The Washington Post for a story published Sept. 16: that Kavanaugh, now 53, held her down, groped her, and tried to remove her clothes in a bedroom during a house party in the early 1980s in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Here are seven of the inconsistencies or instances of missing “appropriate detail” that Mitchell identifies in the memo.

1. Ford Doesn’t Recall Details of the Party

“Dr. Ford has no memory of key details of the night in question—details that could help corroborate her account,” Mitchell’s memo says. “She does not remember who invited her to the party or how she heard about it. She does not remember how she got to the party. She does not remember in what house the assault allegedly took place or where that house was located with any specificity.”

2. Ford Doesn’t Recall How She Got Home

“Perhaps most importantly, she does not remember how she got from the party back to her house,” Mitchell writes, adding:

Her inability to remember this detail raises significant questions. She told The Washington Post that the party took place near the Columbia Country Club. The club is more than 7 miles from her childhood home as the crow flies, and she testified that it was a roughly 20-minute drive from her childhood home.

She also agreed for the first time in her testimony that she was driven somewhere that night, either to the party or from the party or both. Dr. Ford was able to describe hiding in the bathroom, locking the door, and subsequently exiting the house.

She also described wanting to make sure that she did not look like she had been attacked. But she has no memory of who drove her or when. Nor has anyone come forward to identify him or herself as the driver. Given that this all took place before cell phones, arranging a ride home would not have been easy.

Indeed, she stated that she ran out of the house after coming downstairs and did not state that she made a phone call from the house before she did, or that she called anyone else thereafter.

3. No One Has Come Forward to Corroborate Ford’s Account

“Dr. Ford’s account of the alleged assault has not been corroborated by anyone she identified as having attended—including her lifelong friend,” Mitchell writes in her memo.

The memorandum notes that Ford identified three people other than Kavanaugh who were present in the house: Kavanaugh friend Mark Judge, Patrick “P.J.” Smyth, and Ford’s lifelong friend, Leland Ingham Keyser.

“Dr. Ford testified to the committee that another boy attended the party, but that she could not remember his name,” Mitchell writes. “No others have come forward.”

Those Ford identifies all denied being at the party, she notes.

Most relevantly, in her first statement to the committee, Ms. Keyser stated through counsel that, ‘simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.’ In a subsequent statement to the committee through counsel, Ms. Keyser said that ‘the simple and unchangeable truth is that she is unable to corroborate Dr. Ford’s allegations because she has no recollection of the incident in question.’

4. Ford’s Accounts of the Incident Aren’t Consistent

In Ford’s then-confidential July 30 letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., she says that after the assault, at which Judge was present, she heard Kavanaugh and Judge talking to other partygoers downstairs while she hid in a bathroom, Mitchell writes.

“But according to her testimony, she could not hear them talking to anyone,” Mitchell writes.

Mitchell also notes that Ford has not been consistent in saying who exactly was at the party.

“According to The Washington Post’s account of her therapy notes, there were four boys in the bedroom in which she was assaulted,” Mitchell writes.

Ford told the Post that the therapist’s notes were wrong because she had said a total of four boys were at the party, but only two in the bedroom, Mitchell adds.

In her letter to Senator Feinstein, she said ‘and 4 others’ were present at the party. In her testimony, she said there were four boys in addition to Leland Keyser and herself. She could not remember the name of the fourth boy, and no one has come forward.

5. Ford’s Accounts Contain Gaps in Her Memory

“Dr. Ford has struggled to recall important recent events relating to her allegations, and her testimony regarding recent events raises further questions about her memory,” Mitchell’s memorandum to committee Republicans says.

Ford could not recall whether she showed a full set of therapy notes or only portion to the Post reporter and could not remember whether she showed the reporter actual records or a summary, Mitchell writes.

Ford “does not remember if she actually had a copy of the notes when she texted the Washington Post WhatsApp account on July 6,” Mitchell writes.

Ford did not share any therapy notes with the committee, she adds.

6. Ford’s Timing in Making the Accusation

Mitchell writes that Ford’s answer to why she disclosed the allegations when she did is questionable:

She claimed originally that she wished for her story to remain confidential, but the person operating the tipline at The Washington Post was the first person other than her therapist or husband to whom she disclosed the identity of her alleged attacker.

She testified that she had a ‘sense of urgency to relay the information to the Senate and the president.’ She did not contact the Senate, however, because she claims she ‘did not know how to do that.’ She does not explain why she knew how to contact her congresswoman but not her senator.

7. Ford’s Inconsistent Claim of Psychological Impact

“She maintains that she suffers from anxiety, claustrophobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder,” Mitchell writes of Ford, adding:

The date of the hearing was delayed because the committee was informed that her symptoms prevent her from flying. But she agreed during her testimony that she flies ‘fairly frequently for her hobbies and … work.’

Despite this fear of flying, Ford flies to the Mid-Atlantic at least once a year to visit family and has has flown to Costa Rica, French Polynesia, and Hawaii, Mitchell writes.

She also flew to Washington, D.C. for the hearing. Note too that her attorneys refused a private hearing or interview. Dr. Ford testified that she was not ‘clear’ on whether investigators were willing to travel to California to interview her.

It therefore is not clear that her attorneys ever communicated Chairman Grassley’s offer to send investigators to meet her in California or wherever she wanted to meet to conduct the interview.

https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/6184059-Justice-on-Trial-Excerpt-Pages...

"The Kavanaugh team stuck to its policy of not attacking Ford personally even though damaging information about Ford was being openly discussed by people who knew her, some who knew her quite well. Classmates were surprised by the media’s portrayal of her as an ingénue, which was very different from how they remembered her in junior highand high school. Female classmates and friends at area schools recalled a heavy drinker who was much more aggressive with boys than they were. “If she only had one beer” on the night of the alleged assault, ahigh school friend said, “then it must have been early in the evening.” Her contemporaries all reported the same nickname for Ford, a riff on her maiden name and a sexual act. They also debated whether her behavior in high school could be attributed to the trauma of a sexual assault. If it could, one of them said, then the assault must have happened in seventh grade. Although discussions along these lines were pervasive in the still-close Montgomery County community, none of these details was reported by the media, which were preoccupied with every emerging scrap of information about Kavanaugh’s youth. Investigators on the Senate Judiciary Committee received communications from two men who claimed to have had (consensual)

romantic encounters with the teenaged Christine Blasey. Each claimed consensual encounters with her that sounded similar to the assault she described. For instance, one man said that when he was a “19-year-oldcollege student, he visited D.C. over spring break and kissed a girl he believes was Dr. Ford. He said that kiss happened in the bedroom of a house which was a 15- to 20-minute walk from the Van Ness Metro. Ford was wearing a swimsuit under her clothing, and the kissing ended when a friend jumped on them as a joke. He said that the woman initiated the kissing and that he did not force himself on her.” Another person, claiming to be a college acquaintance of Ford’s, said that Ford used to purchase drugs from another student and regularly attended his fraternity parties. According to this witness, she enjoyed a robust social life in college. Other friends from college reported similar experiences and said Ford had never demonstrated fear of rooms with single entrances. Contemporaries of Ford’s at Holton-Arms said the least believable part of her story was how she left the party. It was inconceivable to them that she would have left Leland Keyser behind and that Keyser would not have found her abandonment to be highly noteworthy. She had always filled a protective role for Ford, so it seemed quite unlikely that she would not have become worried and made sure her friend was well. The story of a fifteen-year-old tenth-grader leaving behind the only other female at a party and then finding her way home, miles away, in pre-cell phone 1982, with no car, no metro, and no cabs readily avail-able is difficult to believe. Ford’s partying and interactions with boys and young men and the attention they drew had dismayed her family. Some journalists noticed that a letter from “members of Christine Blasey Ford’s family” did not include the signatures of any blood relatives. In a story headlined “Christine Blasey Ford’s Family Has Been Nearly Silent Amid Outpouring of Support,” the Washington Post took her parents and brothers to task for failing to sign her in-laws’ letter. Her father, Ralph Blasey, responded, “I think all of the Blasey family would support her. I think her record stands for itself. Her schooling, her jobs and so on.” Later he added, “I think any father would have love for his daughter.

The media tended to skim over Ford’s political views, which ran decidedly to the left and were at variance with most of her family’s. Facebook friends reported that she had regularly expressed her hostility to the Trump administration before she deleted her profile around the time of Kavanaugh’s nomination. After her retreat from social media, only a few references to her political opinions remained, one mentioning a hat she wore in homage to the anti-Trump “pussy hat” protesters, another protesting Trump’s policy on border security.38In one of the Washington Post’s deferential profiles of Ford, her husband had suggested that any strain in the family was due to those “differing political views” and misogyny: “It was a very male-dominated environment. Everyone was interested in what’s going on with the men, and the women are sidelined, and she didn’t get the attention or respect she felt she deserved.” The same article emphasized that Ford’s father and Kavanaugh’s father belonged to the same all-male golf club, Burning Tree.

The Post suggested that Ford’s family was afraid to defend her, quoting her sister-in-law as saying that supporters of sexual assault victims have trouble coming forward. Hale Boggs III, the scion of a prominent Democratic family and a friend of the Blaseys, remarked, “It’s got to be such a difficult situation for that family. It’s a very close-knit community where a lot of families know each other.” Still, a number of persons close to the family reported that staying silent was actually the family’s way of supporting Christine. It was not fear of showing support for Ford that kept others in the community quiet but the opposite. While many high school acquaintances of Ford’s revealed unflattering details about her behavior in high school—some of them truly salacious—the media’s hostility to Kavanaugh made them fear for their livelihood if their names were attached to the stories. Some worried that their children’s college applications would be affected. And some were reluctant to expose Ford to the kind of ferocious public..."

>120 Cardboard_killer:

It's funny you mention this, because thinking about Plato's divided line ~Ontology, Epistemology, also reminds me of the first thing that I think of when I think of Plato, which is the "Allegory of the Cave", which further reminds me of PIL politics and the complete aversion to Metaphysics.

https://lawliberty.org/the-philosophy-underlying-dei/

The fact that you also make such consistently, poor observations, talking about and around us under-educated without tagging anyone is also silly. "And the one thing about the under-educated is..." But, the fact that DW, BBC and al-Jazeera are the reverso equivalents of OAN, Fox, TASS on the other side, makes your idea of trusted sources all the richer. Who the hell on this side of the Cold War trusts State Media? Seriously? You actually believe your image makers and trust your image makers, whereas us under-educated believe our image makers are just as selfish as anyone else and shouldn't have too much power.

>122 TheToadRevoltof84: Europeans 'trust' state media. Public TV financed by taxpayers has many aspects of its programming regulated by law and aside from appointing the CEO, politics has no influence on it. In short, it has no influence on editorial policy. Even privately owned media is subject to laws that ensure basic independence of the editorial team from corporate owners.

Likening BBC to Fox is so absurd I'm going to block you to prevent myself from wasting any more time and getting depressed by human race by reading any more of your 'input'. I can always unblock you when it's time to rub in the results of Trumponomics for a short while. Until then, freeeeeedom from learning more what kind of thinking led to 70 million people voting for someone whose answer to whether the President is obliged to protect the Constitution is 'I don't know'.

>123 SandraArdnas: Hilarious that the lying sack of shit goes on about "who trusts state media" and then cites Fox.

Another thing to remember is that US conservatives truly believe that they are the victims of an international plot. So, non-US sources are in league with "mainstream" US media. It bears remarkable resemblance to the threat of "international Jewery" that Nazis go on about, where "the Jews" controlled both Communist Russia and capitalist America.

Indeed it shares common heritage and is most likely born out of an attempt to code language not to appear as antisemitic.

Hahaha, you guys are always Joshin' me. Golly, if I thought you actually meant what you said, I'd be worried 😟!

I hadn't gotten the antisemitic bit, yet! That's a new one. Could someone call me a transphobe, because I haven't gotten that one yet.

You guys should really read my links, you may eventually get off your meds. And, honestly Kip, the pie you owe me hasn't arrived yet.

And not only did your covid shot not stop the spread, looks like it caused death. Most of us know that already. Stay tuned to Toad 84 channel for all your news needs, ya'll!

BOMBSHELL: Report Lays Out How Biden Covered Up Deadly Side-Effects Of COVID Vaccine
https://www.dailywire.com/news/bombshell-biden-admin-covered-up-adverse-covid-va...

FDA Will No Longer Approve Annual COVID Vaccine For Younger, Healthy Patients
https://www.dailywire.com/news/fda-will-no-longer-approve-annual-covid-vaccine-f...

>121 TheToadRevoltof84:

Why do you cut and paste reams and reams of text? Why not just post the link, as you already do, with a summary, or quote a few sentences or a paragraph which you particularly wish to emphasise or to give the reader an idea of the gist of it?

>127 John5918:

Because nobody clicks the links I post and any description, I give, will just deter the would be "clicker".

>128 TheToadRevoltof84: Because nobody clicks the links I post

How do you know? I've clicked and read a few of them, although I can't say they've impressed me. And if someone considers what you post to be bollocks and therefore doesn't click on your links, do you think they're going to read it simply because you paste it at length?

>129 John5918:

Well, most of the time I follow your wishes and in some recent cases I felt the need to do otherwise.

Yes, it is the conservatives that are trying to control all information.

Trump administration bars Harvard from enrolling international students
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/22/us/harvard-university-trump-international-student...

However, according to Fox News, "Antisemitism Shut Down!" A great victory over free speech.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/harvard-student-visa-trump-noem-dhs

>131 Cardboard_killer:

I might be on Harvard's side here. I don't think they really need government funding for everything, and I think funding should be pointed. But, if Harvard wants to to have a certain culture, let'em!

Based on how many kids get Merit Honor Roll now, I'd say the education system is failing. Harvard is no longer great, but they should be free to hate Asians and Jewish individuals at their own discretion and still apply for funding for certain research or programs.

>131 Cardboard_killer: I still think it's weird that the most Klan-aligned administration since Wilson is getting away with talking about antisemitism as if it's not their major selling point for the key constituency that got them into office.

It's an interesting trick.

>133 kiparsky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_antisemitism

>134 davidgn: Oh, I'm very familiar with the notion, I've been watching this go on since the '90s. I'm just astounded by how gullible the elite fuckers in charge expect the American public to be, and by how obliging the American public has been on this score.

>135 kiparsky: Yeah, it is totally galling to see hard core antisemites crying crocodile tears over the alleged antisemitism of criticizing the present government and actions of the state of Israel. Something, by the way, that Jewish Israeli citixwns do big time.
The article has it pegged right in the first paragraph; the Christo-Fascists think they need to have a state of Israel so that the end times can roll. They don't give a hot hoot for the Jews, and many of them harbor crackpot racialist ideas about us too.

>136 modalursine:

I'm sorry about the things you're going through. I don't know why or who hurt you, but no matter who you think they represent, you are worth as much as anyone. There really is only one way to heal, I hope some day you'll be blessed.

>136 modalursine: Do you have a number for the liar's carer? I think it's time for their pill.

The important issue isn't the MAGA smoke screen for why they are doing what they are doing. The important issue is that the government of the USA is seeking to intimidate private educational institutions to surrender administrative autonomy for their political goals. It is the essence of totalitarianism.

Or... The essence of totalitarianism is suspending habeas corpus... Or ignoring court orders. There are so many choices

>138 kiparsky: Someone once tuned my in to a pithy bit of folk wisdom: "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."

>141 modalursine: I've heard that somewhere before... :)

>142 kiparsky: Well, we're smack in the middle of that faux Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times". Boy Howd!
The constitutionally mandated apparatus for checking a would be mad king is pretty much hors du combat:
The GOP Senators and Congress persons seem enthralled to Agent Orange
The Supremes are partially bought and mostly stacked with reationaries who seem eager to rubber stamp and enable the FFOTUS in dismantling the rule of law, a very odd stance for a bunch of legal fleagles, but there you are.

The lower courts are, some of them, still functioning; but then again, the administration seems to regard it as their birthright to ignore any court orders that displease them.

A mass turnout on the oprder of magnitude as one has seen in (of all places) Serbia, might do the trick, but I'm not seeing that quite yet (if ever).

Unfortunately, a majority of women voters failed to follow Melania's path AWAY from her husband's 2.0 candidacy and presidency!

>143 modalursine: One thing that comes up in a lot of stories, which I think is interesting: anonymous senators and representatives and their aides all claiming "off the record" that if votes in their chamber were anonymous, Trump would lose all of them. If there's any truth in that, then it's strictly electoral. And given the last few months, it's getting harder to find solidly MAGA districts.
I'm not saying sanity is returning, not by a long chalk, but I think there's cracks showing up.

The Supremes are the big problem. It's a bastard court, mostly illegitimate, and thanks to Ginsburg's miscalculation it's going to be a long time before we get a chance to fix that through normal order. Particularly if Alito and Thomas bow out now while Trump still has the Judiciary Committee - if they wait for the midterms, then the picture changes a lot.

>144 Molly3028: Well, Melania's case was a bit special. She was paid to be long-term arm candy, and sure, she's a model, she can pull that off, but I don't think there's enough money in the world to get her to pretend to like him.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record:
It's a race to the midterms.

Can the authoritarian breakthrough become election proof by Nov 2026? If that happens, it's sauve qui peut.

But failing that, can or will the voting public be so turned off by the shenanigans of the Trump administratioin that they'll vote for anyone else, even if it's two dead flies, and can the Dems manage not to flubb the dubb by appearing so out of touch and elitist that Trump looks good (or less bad) by comparison in the eyes of "low information" voters?

At this point, I think the fairest thing to say is "It's anybodies guess. Way to early to tell. And who knows, maybe the horse will learn to talk!

>143 modalursine: - speaking of ancient Chinese curses or maybe it would be better to say the administration newly cursing Chinese - one item of change is the focus of young Chinese with respect to coming to the US for college. My son is in China where he teaches mathematics in English to Chinese students who want to come here. Usually, out of a class of around 30 he has 20 or so seniors who apply to come to the US. This year only 2 applied to the US. The other 19 applied to Australia where they were immediately granted a student visa - so dear old Donald just lost tuition payments for 19 US colleges -one has to wonder how much more money he has cost our institutions of higher learning - and that, of course, doesn't factor in all of the other benefits our country gets from foreign students.

Now that Trump is living in the White HOUSE, the casino truism stating 'the house always wins' is a reality via the multitude of money-making schemes he has forged. Trump appears to be on a mission to replace all the money he lost as a casino owner!

>147 alco261: We're hearing the same story about a "brain drain", from multiple sources. It's not just lost revenue, though of course that's nothing to sneeze at; it's also the loss of the intellectual vibrancy that of a large multi ethnic, multi national, multi religious body of students and scholars brings to the campus and the country at large.

It's a double whammy: International students will stay away in their multitudes, and increasingly, American students will begin to seek higher education abroad.

God bless VespucciLand.

via Mediaite

President Donald Trump used some of his Memorial Day remarks at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday to criticize former President Joe Biden’s record on immigration.

Trump spoke for about 17 minutes at the annual ceremony honoring US service members who died in combat. For most of his speech, he paid tribute to generations of Americans who gave their lives in war for the cause of liberty.

But at one point in his address, Trump veered from his prepared remarks to comment on what he called a “hard four years,” criticizing Biden’s handling of the border.

via USA Today ~

The head of America's central banking system encouraged Princeton University's 2025 graduates to do "whatever it takes to preserve and strengthen our democracy" in a May 25 commencement speech at the Ivy League university.