And this is the same administration which is trying to remove any anti-Christian bias from the federal workforce.

OCU

This has the potential for impacting Red states more than others...

OCU

How is this not recognized as an opportunity for bribery...

OCU

Arkansas is a Red State that voted 64.20% for the Dotard. "Vroom vroom!"

#4 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-04-22 12:09 PM

Which is exactly why Trump doesn't give a damn, those people would vote for him if he was burning their house down or raping their daughters, and he knows it. Besides, despite what he might be telling people, he's not running again so they can just go pound sand as far as he's concerned. After all, there's not a one of them in the whole bunch that he would allow in the front door of Mar-a-Lago, unless they were making a Doordash delivery from McDonald's.

OCU

I agree, it appears that Hegseth has forgotten his promise to stop drinking if and when he was given the job as Defense Secretary. If he really did have a drinking problem, that's not something that you can just say, "Starting tomorrow morning, I'm not going to drink anymore."

OCU

Shades of the 'final solution'...

OCU

just like all the leftist deadbeats on 'the hill" I've "debated"with

saying the shapiro fire was set by a maga terrorist..

--they just can't accept the fact that he is an anarchist...probobaly

don't know what that is.

#5 | Posted by shrimptacodan at 2025-04-15 05:39 PM

Note that his social media posts seem to present him, if not as a MAGA nutjob, than at least someone who hated Democrats, like when he posted last year that, "People who support Joe Biden shouldn't be allowed to live".

OCU

Only the best...

OCU

About two years ago our financial advisor purchased a modest number of shares of Palantir as part of my wife's stock portfolio (not her IRA, but rather a non-exempt investment account where we had put some excess cash). Anyway, it's gone up in value about four-fold since then, certainly better than any of the other stocks in the account.

OCU

If DOGE is using AI to spy on federal employees, law-enforcement will find ways to use AI to prosecute citizens.

#1 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-04-13 09:24 AM

Shades of the 'Minority Report'...

OCU

When asked about the Palm Sunday missile attack by Russia on a Ukrainian city where 31 people were killed and 80 people injured, Trump's response was "That was a mistake".

Exactly how does Trump know that? Who has he been in communication which where he would have been given that assurance?

OCU

I've taken that same cognitive test many times. Back in 2017 I needed to have a heart valve replaced and I was given both a cognitive and physiological test a few days prior to the procedure. Then I was given the same tests a couple days after the procedure and then again at my 30-day follow-up and again at my 90-day follow up. It was to see if there had been any impact on my mental as well as my physical capabilities. These tests are given to patients who are facing a situation where there could be a problem as a result of either some preexisting condition, or as was in my case, the trauma of a serious surgical procedure. These tests are not designed to be passed or failed, they're designed to show if there has been a change in a person's mental and physical capabilities. The tests are very easy as they need to be able to show slight differences, not intelligence. There are no gotcha questions, in fact, there are not really any 'questions' in the classical sense of the word, but rather it consists of a series of visual and recognition tests, or ones where you're asked to identify simple relationships or remembering a short list of words or a simple phrase. 'Passing' the test doesn't mean that you're a genius, it means that your mind has not deteriorated since the last time that you took the test.

With that in mind, the reason Trump is always talking about having taken this amazing cognitive test just might be that there has been some concern by the doctors that there may be some deterioration in the mental capabilities of the president and therefore they've been including it as part of his annual physical. And if it's indeed true that other presidents have not been given this test, it just might be because their doctors felt that there was no need for them to take it.

OCU

And Trump claims that when he asked the Walter Reed doctors how he had scored compared to other presidents who have taken these cognitive tests, that he was informed that he's been the only president to ever take these tests.

You know, if that's true, it would appear that there's a message for all of us in that revelation.

OCU

Sorry about the multiple posts but the system kept insisting that my post had a problem and asked me back-up and correct the problem, but it appears that the problem was that the posts were getting accepted, just that I didn't know it.

OCU

But wait - you (###### removed) liberals were just saying how US consumers are the ones that pay for the tariffs. In that case, why are the manufacturers and middle men cutting prices?

#44 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-12 11:13 PM

Because that's the only way that their products will remain competitive after the consumer is forced to cover the tariffs. Also, the tariffs are based on the invoice price, not retail, so lowering the price charged to the importer will lower the amount of the tariff.

OCU

But wait - you (expletive removed) liberals were just saying how US consumers are the ones that pay for the tariffs. In that case, why are the manufacturers and middle men cutting prices?

#44 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-12 11:13 PM

Because that's the only way that their products will remain competitive after the consumer is forced to cover the tariffs. Also, the tariffs are based on the invoice price, not retail, so lowering the price charged to the importer will lower the amount of the tariff.

OCU

But wait - you (expletive removed) liberals were just saying how US consumers are the ones that pay for the tariffs. In that case, why are the manufacturers and middle men cutting prices?

#44 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-12 11:13 PM

Because that's the only way that their products will remain competitive after the consumer is forced to cover the tariffs. Also, the tariffs are based on the invoice price, not retail, so lowering the price charged to the importer will lower the amount of the tariff.

OCU

But wait - you (expletive removed) liberals were just saying how US consumers are the ones that pay for the tariffs. In that case, why are the manufacturers and middle men cutting prices?

#44 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-12 11:13 PM

Because that's the only way that their products will remain competitive after the consumer is forced to cover the tariffs. Also, the tariffs are based on the invoice price, not retail, so lowering the price charged to the importer will lower the amount of the tariff.

OCU

But wait - you (expletive removed) liberals were just saying how US consumers are the ones that pay for the tariffs. In that case, why are the manufacturers and middle men cutting prices?

#44 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-12 11:13 PM

Because that's the only way that their products will remain competitive after the consumer is forced to cover the tariffs. Also, the tariffs are based on the invoice price, not retail, so lowering the price charged to the importer will lower the amount of the tariff.

OCU

So much for 'The Art of the Deal'...

OCU

I guess Trump just discovered that he was having trouble finding enough low-paid workers for Mar-a-Lago and his golf resorts. Perhaps he should be offering jobs to all of the federal employees that he's been firing.

OCU

Just another part of Trump's anti-DEI effort...

OCU

The Republicans in Congress are at it again, trying to pass the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act).

First, it would require that if your address changes, for whatever reason, even if you just move from one apartment to another, you'd have to repeat the process of registering to vote from scratch, no options to allow you to just update your current voter registration.

Second, you could only register to vote in-person, at a state voter registration office, so no more 'motor-voter' option.

But here's the big one: only three forms of ID would be acceptable when registering to vote; a valid passport, a certified copy of your birth certificate or your naturalization papers. Drivers licenses wouldn't count, not even a 'real ID', because it does not indicate your place of birth. Neither would a student ID, a military ID nor even a gun permit which has been used in some states, all because they don't show where you were born. In fact, the only 'photo ID' generally available to an individual which shows your place of birth is your passport, and less than half of the citizens of the US has ever been issued a passport.

So if you don't have a passport, what do you have to do? You have to produce a 'certified' copy of your birth certificate. By certified, they mean it has to be one which was issued by your local records office and if must include an embossed stamp showing that it's an original copy. Xerox copes, FAX's or PDF's printed from the internet would not count, it would have to be an actual physical copy from the your local records office with the visible emboss present. And since it doesn't have a photo, you would then have to supplement that with something like a drivers license or state ID card. Which brings us to the next big problem. Married women.

The vast majority of American women take their husband's last name when they get married, which means that the name that appears on their birth certificate won't match the name of their supplemental ID, such as a drivers license or a state ID. This means that these married women would have to produce additional documentation such as a marriage license or papers from a court showing that they've legally changed their name. And lets not even get into what happens with women who've been widowed or divorced and have remarried, because they would have to produce a 'paper trail' to prove that their current name, as it appears on their drivers license or state ID, can be traced back to the name that appears on their 'certified' birth certificate.

And remember, this entire process would have to be repeated, from scratch, every time your mailing address changed, even if it was simply moving from one apartment in a building to another, or if you're a student, changing your dorm room. Or if you're in the military, getting reassigned to a new posting.

And ostensibly, this is being done to stop non-citizens from voting, something which happens so infrequently that you can barely represent if as a percentage of votes cast, something like 0.0001%, per a recent Brennan Center study.

OCU

I really hope this is fake news.

#10 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-04-10 02:56 PM

These golden pins have been available on the internet for some time, and have appeared wherever MAGA merchandise was being sold, at Trump rallies, at the RNC national convention last year, etc. Now it would be interesting to know if Trump or the Trump Organization is getting a 'piece of the action'.

You can even buy them on Amazon:

#73: Exactly correct. During WWII, Americans in the homeland watching the newsreels or reading about our soldiers fighting would never know minorities were dying for the US. Look at Time or Life magazines from 1942-45, black soldiers, airmen, and sailors are not in any photos.

#75 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-04-09 05:37 PM

The same thing happened during WWI, only in that case the big hidden group were Native Americans. At that time, Native Americans, who were born on reservations, were not considered to be American citizens. For most Native American men, the easiest way to gain citizenship was to serve in the US military, while Native American women could only gain citizenship by marrying someone who was already a citizen.

Well, during WWI, a significant percentage of the troops serving in France and Belgium were Native Americans and they suffered high casualty rates, which wasn't acknowledged until well after the war, but when it did become more widely known to the public there was a general outcry. Finally, in June 1924 Congress acted and passed the 'Indian Citizenship Act', also known as the 'Snyder Act', which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States, whether they lived on a reservation or not. However, Native Americans were still denied the right to vote in many states and it wasn't until the 1965 Voting Rights Act that Native Americans were given the full franchise as citizens. But until then, many 'anti-Indian' laws persisted in many parts of the county, with some New England states not only denying Native Americans the right to vote, but also not allowing them to own property nor operating a place of business, well into the 1950's.

OCU