All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Revolutionary_Jack]

And now for some fun. Biden driving a new Ford Electric F-150.

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/139...2F100215443790

https://twitter.com/i/status/1394733645903040517

Keeping up with the Putins and Jong-Uns, our boy is, lol.

It's kind of weird that the conservatives grapple behind a total bully-coward like Trump who probably hasn't driven a car in ages, and they are against a guy who performs old-time masculinity better.

[Tami]

Feds investigating alleged illegal donations to Collins’ re-election bid

The FBI is investigating what it describes as a massive scheme to illegally finance Sen. Susan Collins' 2020 re-election bid, Axios has learned.

What's happening: A recently unsealed search warrant application shows the FBI believes a Hawaii defense contractor illegally funneled $150,000 to a pro-Collins super PAC and reimbursed donations to Collins' campaign. There's no indication that Collins or her team were aware of any of it.

Collins helped the contractor at issue, then called Navatek and since renamed the Martin Defense Group, secure an $8 million Navy contract before most of the donations took place.
Former Navatek CEO Martin Kao was indicted last year for allegedly bilking the federal government of millions in coronavirus relief loans.

What they're saying: "The Collins for Senator Campaign had absolutely no knowledge of anything alleged in the warrant," Collins spokesperson Annie Clark told Axios in an emailed statement.

The big picture: Federal prosecutors say Kao used a shell company to funnel $150,000 in Navatek funds to a pro-Collins super PAC called 1820 PAC.

[skyvolt2000]

Carter and Reagan pretty much rose commensurate with the GDP growth of the time, but I don't have a great explanation for the big growth during that era - do you? Again its more or less what I might expect - you just hope tax revenues keep up with it.

Remember you had an oil crisis and Reagan's era started cutting or defunding programs that dealt with issues like mental health.

So if you are cutting funding for mental health-would that increase be in other programs like drug wars, policing and prison?

Also what other programs got added?

Well, if you only have a hundred, then nose to the grindstone and get a job. Where's the pride in hard work? Saying give me money because I'm too lazy to work doesn't say much. Grandpa Joe's not going to give it to you if you march up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is he?

The pride is there but folks want the compensation for it.

Have you looked at health insurance? My school district does 2-3% raise. IF and I do mean IF it's 2%-INSURANCE that goes up between MINIMUM $70-200 eats that up and you get less money to take home. Mine was $950 just for me before we got a new insurance company.

How many jobs are paying BELOW the market. Texas has to FORCE school districts to pay EVERYONE market value. Because folks were leaving because LOL places like Wal-Mart were paying better. Being a nurse at the hospital PAID better then being a school nurse-who only worked 185 days. Heck there are some school employees who make more than WNBA players & WWE wrestlers.

Job availability. Retail are the only jobs available around me. Along with Amazon distribution center. We don't have job fairs. Those tend to be in a certain demographic areas and if you don't have a car-SORRY. Heck Downtown Dallas does not have them either. LET THAT SINK IN.... But we have plenty of apartments downtown starting at $1500 with the homeless all around you.

[godisawesome]

So how come the last Republican to balance the budget was Eisenhower?

According to that graph, it looks like Nixon and HW Bush kept a balanced budget as well, which surprises me.

I think that might be the sheer impact of the New Deal era making a lot of progressive tax ideas become generally accepted, so that what were then conservative tax policies naturally accepted the some fo them as a political reality.

People sometimes forget that Reagan “trickle down economics” and “welfare queen” narratives was one of the first times you really saw any success in selling the idea that rich people having more money would be of greater benefit to the average worker in the long run compared to welfare... and that HW even coined the term “voodoo economics” to describe it, and that part of Clinton’s appeal was seeming to accept that narrative himself at least in part.

There’s a reason you see some conservative text books so desperate to try arguing that the New Deal didn’t prove economically beneficial; the entire generation of people who believed it *was* took decades to replace with people to confuse about that fact.

[Tendrin]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/poli...251512028.html

The St. Louis lawyer who brandished a firearm at Black Lives Matter protesters last year has officially entered the 2022 race for Missouri’s open Senate seat.

Mark McCloskey tweeted he will have “a huge announcement” on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show Tuesday evening, but his Senate campaign website went live hours before the appearance.

Oh.

Oh no.

WBE-EEEeeeeee....

[CSTowle]

Well, if you only have a hundred, then nose to the grindstone and get a job. Where's the pride in hard work? Saying give me money because I'm too lazy to work doesn't say much. Grandpa Joe's not going to give it to you if you march up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is he?

We don't tax people evenly because not everyone starts off with a level playing field or continues on a similarly easy path. If you start off life with factors like low income, a single parent home, being educated in a poorly funded/underperforming school district, etc. everyone one of those factors lessens the percentage chance you'll be able to go to college or obtain a decent job. Even in the (low percentage) chance you're able to achieve that despite the factors arrayed against you you'll likely be in debt for a good portion of your life, and will find everything from obtaining and maintaining a decent vehicle to buying a home and/or raising a child to be major financial decisions that will likely close the door to other opportunities. The chance you'll be able to do anything like save or invest for the future is almost a laughable luxury.

Meanwhile, those we tend to describe as "born on 3rd base and think they hit a triple" and who also tend to tout this "bootstraps, work hard" narrative (and honestly compare the amount of work an average low-to lower middle class worker does on a daily basis vs the average upper middle class to wealthy person) tend to come from families with an abundance of resources, connections, and opportunities. When they lag behind in school they can hire a tutor. They never have to worry about where a meal is coming from, if they can afford new clothes/shoes, if they might have to switch residences (not because their family acquired a new vacation home, but because it was forced upon them). They have a long funnel of success guiding them that they have to actively sabotage to not end up on a decent life path with a good education and start to their career. And the very well-off might not even need a career, as their inherited wealth makes enough money for them that they can pursue whatever of the many opportunities available to them that they like (or do nothing at all).

Trying to blame the poor for being poor is a bad idea for two reasons. One, it ignores their reality and makes it easier to ignore changes that could take some of that burden off of them and provide them with at least a fraction of the opportunities those born with far more advantages take for granted. Two, it allows some to believe their success in life isn't the result of a fortunate birth and circumstances but comes from the natural order of things and allows them to see any attempt to balance that disparity as a violation of that order. It's probably a comforting narrative for those born well-off, but it's pretty far removed from reality.

According to that graph, it looks like Nixon and HW Bush kept a balanced budget as well, which surprises me.

Republicans were different back then. Reagan was the first step (that I'm aware of, please more educated folk feel free to correct) on the track that led us to Trump. Con man entertainer looking to stick it to the poor and help his buddies. Most Republicans before that just wanted to keep their money and be left alone, an understandable instinct even if it ignores realities outside of one's self, but weren't actively anti-poor.

Probably kinda tough to be proud of your hard work when this is the actual reality of things...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoc...h=1a10ba54720b

You see the same thing with some members of the military. I always wonder why that's not talked about more, the supposed love and support for the troops on the right until it comes to pay raises or buying them decent body armor or anything else that might inflate the budget (which of course is something the Republicans would normally never do). An aircraft program that the Pentagon tells us they don't need or want but has jobs contracts in 22 states? Sure, we have a trillion for that. GI Joe needs to keep his kids fed on base? Hey buddy, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Oh, and thank you for your service.

[Amadeus Arkham]

NEW: The @NewYorkStateAG investigation into the Trump Organization is “no longer purely civil.” “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” a spokesman told CNN.

Oh s***

[Revolutionary_Jack]

NEW: The @NewYorkStateAG investigation into the Trump Organization is “no longer purely civil.” “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” a spokesman told CNN.

Oh s***

Okay, I will buy that tub of pop-corn now. This might actually be a show.

[numberthirty]

...

You see the same thing with some members of the military. I always wonder why that's not talked about more, the supposed love and support for the troops on the right until it comes to pay raises or buying them decent body armor or anything else that might inflate the budget (which of course is something the Republicans would normally never do). An aircraft program that the Pentagon tells us they don't need or want but has jobs contracts in 22 states? Sure, we have a trillion for that. GI Joe needs to keep his kids fed on base? Hey buddy, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Oh, and thank you for your service.

Sure.

"Conservative..." goes right out the window when it comes to being serious about the cost of many weapons programs/manufacture.

As for those two groups?

They are folks who actually have jobs. There are plenty of Americans who are in a far worse position where it comes to a job where they can even just make a "Keep Your Head Above Water..." wage.

Never mind folks who might have a child with special needs or the folks who have to put the kind of time in that it takes to care for parents/older family members. Not even mentioning the more complicated "Elder Care..." situations(Diabetes/Cancer/Alzheimer's Disease/Parkinson's Disease...)

The idea that anyone(outside of the actual one percent...) is on some sort of a gravy train?

It is beyond infuriating.

[Mister Mets]

NEW: The @NewYorkStateAG investigation into the Trump Organization is “no longer purely civil.” “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” a spokesman told CNN.

Oh s***

Former prosecutor Ken White, not a Trump fan, thinks this is exxagerated.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Popehat/s...38531650985984

This is roughly as significant as me saying “my intentions towards Jennifer Lawrence are no longer purely platonic”

[Tami]

Former prosecutor Ken White, not a Trump fan, thinks this is exxagerated.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Popehat/s...38531650985984

Um, if the statement is an official statement and as such is verbatim, word for word, coming from the NYS AG, then how can that be interpreted any way other than what the wording says? Isn't saying that it is an 'Exaggeration' like someone saying to you that they are going to the store to buy milk, then you say to someone else, 'oh, that's an exaggeration, he is not actually going to the store to buy milk'?


if you don't believe that this is the true statement coming from the NYS AG, then do you have another alternate statement coming from the NYS AG?

I'm saying this because I'm confused why anyone would question the statement unless they don't believe it to be real.

[Tendrin]

Um, if the statement is an official statement and as such is verbatim, word for word, coming from the NYS AG, then how can that be interpreted any way other than what the wording says? Isn't saying that it is an 'Exaggeration' like someone saying to you that they are going to the store to buy milk, then you say to someone else, 'oh, that's an exaggeration, he is not actually going to the store to buy milk'?


if you don't believe that this is the true statement coming from the NYS AG, then do you have another alternate statement coming from the NYS AG?

I'm saying this because I'm confused why anyone would question the statement unless they don't believe it to be real.

I think Popehat's suggestion is that nothing will come of it, just as nothing came of the Mueller investigation in terms of delivering on Trump's criminal culpabilities.

[Kirby101]

Former prosecutor Ken White, not a Trump fan, thinks this is exxagerated.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Popehat/s...38531650985984

Sure, but if Bradley Cooper says it, I wouldn't discount it.

[Kirby101]

I think Popehat's suggestion is that nothing will come of it, just as nothing came of the Mueller investigation in terms of delivering on Trump's criminal culpabilities.

The DOJ stopped Mueller from investigating Trump. The NY AG won't be so constrained.

[Tami]

I think Popehat's suggestion is that nothing will come of it, just as nothing came of the Mueller investigation in terms of delivering on Trump's criminal culpabilities.

There is only so much weight that can be amassed before the bough breaks, even for Trump. At this time, he is running out of tricks and shields to protect him. His defenses aren't as strong as they used to be, his allies are busy dealing with their own legal or political liabilities or walking away after being used by Trump as his sacrificial lambs. The only card he has left is the hope that Florida won't turn him over to NY. However, that is not something that has happened before or rarely happens ever. Even if it does, Trump will be trapped in Florida, unable to visit any of his other properties and that is something he can't do for long. Assuming that the next Gubernatorial race doesn't replace DeSantis with a Democrat. If that happens, Trump will find himself en route to New York real quick.