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Trump Picks Matt Gaetz as Attorney General

Two birds with one stone?

It allowed Gaetz to resign his seat, which means House ethics investigation is over - so, dodged that bullet.

And in the likely event of not being confirmed (or "reluctantly" withdrawn if vote count is not there) he can start a new career of being "GOP star influencer" on talk shows, or Congressional / DoD liaison for his BIL Palmer Luckey (founded and sold Oculus Rift to Facebook, founded defense contractor Anduril).
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Two years ago, the FBI raided Donald Trump's home to retrieve government records he had refused to return, including hundreds containing classified information.

Yet, national security and foreign policy [implications and dangers] (Iran, North Korea, Russia, Russia, Russia) - the issues where the President actually has the most power and Executive branch apparatus, mostly unencumbered by Congress - weren't visible at all on Harris campaign's agenda... neither were Trump's numerous business failures and utter incompetence (except for making billions selling worthless DJT stocks before bankruptcies), and that Trump and family profited far more from politics and Presidency than he ever did as a "businessman," to counter and blunt his "[Great Businessman] will fix it" / "He made trains run on time" bulls**t...

Outside of "talking to the choir" issues, no dots connected between foreign policy and danger of criminality and recklessness in governance and post-governing ... and implications of someone having a "get out of jail free card" handed out by SCOTUS potentially acting in his own interest instead of country's.

If you have to ask "Why is THIS GUY even close?" it means that what you've been doing isn't working and it's time to find out why and change course, not keep telling people that the NUMBERS look good and they are "ignorant/stupid/deplorable" and should just wait until our "medicine" starts working... any day/week/month now - "you'll see it in the next BLS and BEA reports!"

She never even tried to have a Sister Souljah moment. She ran a nearly substance-free ("I am not Trump" / "I am pro-unions" / "I am against price-gougers") national campaign the way that may work in California, against marketeer who [bought and] sold value-free things his entire life.

Outside of snowflakes - like Washington Post and LA Times editors having hissy-fits about endorsements - people in general, even those who don't like their jobs, do not hate the "rich people" who sign or make it possible (often at a lo$$ for owners, like WaPo's -$77m in 2024 alone) to get their paycheck. They also understand, unlike Whoopi, that "cracking down on price-gouging" and "the rich paying their fair share" are phony "solutions" to their problems. "Bernies / Robin Hoods" are not going to win majority.

Most people generally don't "hate on the rich" and see a hypocrisy when Dem candidates are endorsed, surrounded by and pal around with the glam "rich and famous," including billionaires - talk about "happy happy joy joy" campaign "not listening/hearing, not seeing, not speaking" about real issues for most people... while Trump was trolling them at MickeyD's.

There is only so long that a party can keep selecting crappy candidates (who have to pander to the far left/right in primaries) and then switch course in general because majority of people keep rejecting either/both, when they are unhappy.

We had a choice between two (three?) "failing-up" candidates, who kept being rewarded for/despite their failures, one as politician, another as businessman and politician:

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#19 | Posted by Idependant97 at 2024-11-10 02:07 AM
Democrats need to be looking into exactly what it is that minorities are needing.

Wrong solution to the wrong problem(s). They tried to do just that for longer than the last 4-8 years - relying on "identity politics" and keep trying to give more and more "rights" to more and more "minorities" - often at the expense of other "minorities" and that's exactly the mess they find themselves in now.

You have it backwards - Dems need to spend less time figuring out how to "protect" / give new "rights" to some "minorities" while ignoring or even intruding on the rights of and pissing off other "protected minorities" - including women who are not real minority class - and many who want to be treated as just "Americans" and have a robust middle and upper class, like Black, Hispanic, Asian millionaires and billionaires, small and large business owners etc.

They have the same issues other "Americans" have - unlike Dems trying to identify/classify everyone except "rich white male" as a minority that needs "protection" and "special rights" - their "communities" are like any others, they don't [any longer] need to fall in line with whatever other issues the Dem party wants/needs, to expand.

Treating them like children or second-class citizens, telling them they should have grievances against the "Whities" who they work, play, partner with, or employ, and that they need Dems to "protect" them, no longer works - "they're all grown up" now, and resent and reject pandering. They want a piece of the full pie, but Dems can only offer them scraps off the table, like "historic appointment of first 'minority' to the 'position' in administration" etc.

Same, BTW, applies to another "minority" but this one is shrinking instead of growing - unions, now at only about 6% of private sector, and whose membership is not in any way politically united or aligned with their leaders/bosses/capos - they are no longer the "influencers" they were decades ago. Yet Biden and Harris campaigns spent a lot of time (ads and rallies/interviews) to let us know they were endorsed by unions' bosses - with the same effect as celebrities or newspapers endorsements.

Building, and especially, keeping, a "majority minority" is tricky - you start having "inter-minority" conflicts... like trans rights vs women/girls rights, Arabs/Muslims vs Jews, Black/Native men/women vs White/Asian/Hispanic women, working poor vs business owners/professionals, well-educated vs less-/un-educated, LGBTQ+ vs straight, "protected young" vs "protected old" etc., etc., etc.

IOW, the more "minority" groups Dems take under their wing, and/or the more things/"rights" they find they need to "give" them, the higher the chances of conflict with other, likely larger, minority groups exist, and less the chances of amicably resolving them. Possibilities (of conflict) are endless!

Look at the exit polls link in #7 - see how "Moms class" voted (or DID NOT vote) - they have daughters who may not say it out loud in school ("intolerant," "ignorant"), but don't want to share their bathrooms with or compete against trans-women. Minor or non-issue to you, but to them it's a huge overreach and makes no sense... and an example of "class/group clash."

In effect, the "majority minority" coalition is always going to be subject to sort of political blackmail that's similar to social democracies in many countries - you need several parties to form a government and they all want to exact the price / concessions for doing so and joining the plurality winner - see France 2024 elections.
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#7 | Posted by CutiePie

"More than" and "Less than" symbols reformatted the beginning of the post and ate some data... s/b:

2020 Trump - 74.2m - 47%
2020 Biden - 81.2m - 51%+

2024 Trump - 74.2m - 50%+
2024 Harris - 70.3m - 48%

-11m deficit is enough for a dozen "Blue Walls" - that's the real story.
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#2 | Posted by censored at 2024-11-09 05:42 PM
Obama and Clinton were elected because of a bad economy. Carter lost because of one.

Elections are usually a referendum on incumbent / current administration, and most often that centers on economy. Economies, especially as large as the US, usually thrive on their own and governments never fail to take credit for it. So crises, real or manufactured/imagined, often lead to change of leadership.

But trying to convince people that the economy is good, because the BLS or the Fed say so, sounded either like a deliberate lie or a tin ear and disconnection from reality that many people experience every day.

I was posting here the real state of the economic reality for most people and explained the policies that led to it, every time I saw a post with headline showing how good the NUMBERS are, and I am sure, they were ignored (if at all known / understood) by the campaign...

Couple that with constantly pushing and overemphasizing, at the expense of "bread and butter" issues, the 'boutique' "progressive" policies that many people - even in trad Dem "Identity politics" demographics - find harmful or even dangerous, and are vocally against, and you have a lot of people finding themselves alienated from/by the interests of the party.
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2020 Trump - 74.2m - 51%, 306 EC

2024 Trump - 74.2m - >50%
2024 Harris - 70.3m - 48%

11m deficit is enough for a dozen "Blue Walls" - that's the real story.

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Pro-Trump Influencer: Russian Agent Paid Me to Post Video

Remember, remember
The Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot!
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!

Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.

Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England's overthrow.
But, by God's providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
...
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European Greens Ask Jill Stein to Drop Out to Stop Trump

LOL. Besides not understanding why she is running... they're kind of late to the party, aren't they?

Anyway, anyone who votes "their conscience" for Stein wasn't ever going to vote for either Trump or Harris.
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** BLS explains: "The CPI does not necessarily measure your own experience with price change... A national average reflects millions of individual price experiences; it seldom mirrors a particular consumer's experience."

"Average" is a key word here, but it's actually even worse: some of the components are "weighted" higher, some lower; others, like consumer's credit interest payments, some property-related expenses, some insurance costs are not included, use of subjective "hedonic regression" etc.

Also, depending what "weighted basket" of goods and services you are in, your "personal inflation" ("particular consumer experience") may be higher than headline or core CPI.

Neither BLS CPI nor Fed's PCE are perfect at measuring even "average" inflation:
The pricing challenges aren't unique to the CPI. ... The personal consumption expenditures price index, produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, also has some quirks when it comes to measuring certain expenses like health care.

So neither the CPI or CPE are ideal, one-univariate-fits-all indices, and both understate inflation. That's one reason why Social Security checks (and/or other "fixed income") even "adjusted for inflation" usually fail to keep up with the actual COL.

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#2 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2024-10-30 03:24 PM
So, by lumping "consumer spending" with "private investment" you have the GDP.

No.

Those two contributors should be quantified independently, because dividend re-investments and stock buybacks should not be considered "consumer spending".

What?? No, they are just two components of the official and most popular formula for the GDP and GNP. "Consumer spending" recently accounted for about 70% of GDP.

I'm probably misunderstanding this entire scenario.

Yes.

#5 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2024-10-31 03:12 PM
The Consumer Price Index has dropped to a 2.1% inflation rate.

Headline CPI ** did, purely on the [relative] weakness of oil price, thanks to IAF and USAF finally dealing with Houthis (Iranian proxy in Yemen) and their campaign to block Red Sea shipping routes, and after Israel announced that they will not hit Iranian oil industry (in the first strike) and US oil industry (Exxon, Chevron et al) and OPEC dialed up the oil output.

Core CPI (excludes "volatile" food and energy prices) for September was higher again and August revised up.

And Sept. PCE (Fed's preferred inflation measure) core and headline was up again, and also has been rising, which is why T-bonds yields are rising, despite further weakness in the economy - (Sept. Chicago PMI plunged to 41.6 from already low 46.6, expected 47.5) and retail inventories have increased while wholesalers and distributors are reduced, i.e., slowing sale-through. September personal spending (0.5% vs exp. 0.4%) continues to outpace personal income (0.3% vs exp. 0.4%), with consumer debt, not even counting BNPL, increasing (meaning more people are having hard time making ends meet) and more of upper and middle class consumers are "trading down" - i.e., are on downward "hedonic adaptation/treadmill." ***

The U.S. economy is the envy of the world. We've come out of the pandemic in better shape than any developed country in the world.

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#5 | Posted by Gal_Tuesday at 2024-11-01 11:06 AM
I moved on her like a bitch. I couldn't get there and she was married. ... Grab them by the p***y!

So, "Li'l Young Orange Thug" is a rapper! That will only get him some "urban" votes.

If you want GenZ to vote against him, ignore the "thug" part of this tape and emphasize this part:

Trump: "I moved on her, and I failed. I'll admit it.

Now, do a video/slide show and overlay this 'admission' in large bold print over every bankruptcy and failed enterprise that "Mr Will.Fix.It!" has ever run into the ground, including Trump-U, and he'll be a GenZ' laughing stock.
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At the direction of President Biden, I authorized these targeted strikes to further degrade the Houthis' capability to continue their destabilizing behavior and to protect and defend U.S. forces and personnel in one of the world's most critical waterways.

#2 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2024-10-17 04:31 PM
It takes presidential authorization to air strike known weapon storage sites during an active conflict draining the Navy's resources. No ------- way the Houthis can be effective suppressed that way.

LOL
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U.S. military forces, including U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers, conducted precision strikes against five hardened underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

About time, after two Israeli strikes took out the fuel tankers and surface launchers, and immobilized the ports where Houthis were receiving Iranian munitions used to attack Red Sea shipping routes and US and UK Navy ships, swatting Houthis' missiles and drones with expensive AA missiles.

Adapted from Iran's motto "Death to Israel, Death to America", Houthis official slogan makes their priorities more clear: "Allah is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam" since Hussein al-Houthi used it in 2000.

Nice opportunity for a first real practice run for B-2s, like THAAD installation in Israel, and a [not so] subtle message to Iran that the "hardened underground" nuclear facilities they constructed to prevent Israel from demolishing the sites - since Israel has no "heavy" bombers in their arsenal, only F-15i, F-16i and F-35i planes - may not be as "impenetrable" as they tout. It's safe to assume that IAF will eliminate S-300s defending Iran's nuclear sites in their first round of response.

Red Sea/Gulf of Aden shipping insurance and crude prices have already come down significantly as a result of these strikes. Also helps Israel by reducing potential "incoming" from Yemen, in addition to sharp reduction of rockets and drones from Hamas, and still working on Hezbollah, before turning their attention to the "Octopus" Iran.
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That's so much less than $42Billion spent on Biden Harris broadband initiative which hasn't connected anyone.

It didn't connect anyone because it was not spent - it was part of bipartisan $1T 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and as is typical of government programs, "designed" to be allocated to different states and had enough red tape to be "shovel-ready" in 2025-2026, and nobody applied for grants because no one wanted to deal with managing added litany of "woke" federal mandates and states' requirements, and higher expenses to hire "local workforce (read 'union') at prevailing wages and benefits" which they couldn't realistically afford or recoup.

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#12 | Posted by lfthndthrds at 2024-10-12 04:27 PM
The service is free through the end of the year.

"Starlink terminals will now work automatically without need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane"

You never heard of "30 day free trial period"?

Except to get these 30 days "free" one needs to read the small print:
"Please note: A Starlink kit is required to access this free service. If you do not already have a Starlink kit, you will need to purchase one"

That's $350-$400 plus tax. Starlink has also warned of significant delays that may prevent orders from arriving for weeks. ... And "After 30 days, we will move you to a paid Residential subscription."

Residential subscription costs $120/month, significantly more than a typical fiber or fixed-wireless internet service, which could cost around $40 per month.

Besides, even if you could get your hands on the kit in time, you would need electricity to run it, and if electricity restored, the internet service usually follows very soon.

Not exactly a charity, more like opportunistic promotion, at best, and "bait and switch" at worst.
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#10 | Posted by commnotes at 2024-10-12 01:35 PM
???
What about the ones financed by UK and US?

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Elon Musk's 'Free' Internet for Hurricane Victims Has a Major Catch

His "free" Starlink for Ukraine was also BS.

October 10, 2024 - Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radek Sikorski, issued a statement in response to years of Musk's back and forth claims around his funding of Starlink in Ukraine:

"I'd like you to know Starlink units in Ukraine are not funded by Mr. Musk. They have been, are and will be funded exclusively by Poland. We do it, and it's a factor in Ukraine being able to continue fighting."
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#11 | Posted by tonyroma at 2024-10-06 02:49 PM
You still peddling the same lies I destroyed 2 days ago?
Why do you people have to lie incessantly when the truth is readily available?

He is not lying - you guys are talking past each other about different parts of the same BLS report that your link points to.

You simply quoted "headline" numbers from the BLS summary on first page, mostly from the "seasonably adjusted" Establishment Survey - which is what BLS usually tells us.

He quoted a deeper dive into some of both "adjusted" and "unadjusted" numbers in both the Establishment and Household Surveys, shown much further in the report in A-# and B-# tables and also analysis of those numbers - some simple add/subtract math.

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#11 | Posted by tonyroma at 2024-10-06 02:49 PM
You still peddling the same lies I destroyed 2 days ago?
Why do you people have to lie incessantly when the truth is readily available?

He is not lying - you guys are talking past each other about different parts of the same BLS report that your link points to.

You simply quoted "headline" numbers from the BLS summary on first page, mostly from the "seasonably adjusted" Establishment Survey - which is what BLS usually tells us.

He quoted a deeper dive into some of both "adjusted" and "unadjusted" numbers in both the Establishment and Household Surveys, shown much further in the report in A-# and B-# tables and also analysis of those numbers - some simple add/subtract math.

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#54 | Posted by oneironaut at 2024-10-05 11:12 PM
#53 TL;DR

TL;DR;SI - "Too long; didn't read; stayed ignorant."

Not for you, then.

Try reading the sentences in bold type only, see if that can stop you feigning ignorance and increase interest in the subject.
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#25 | Posted by BellRinger at 2024-10-01 03:02 PM
Iran hacked Trump's campaign and sent the info to the DNC and you are going to bring up Russia?

You do understand that 1) these are not mutually exclusive, and 2) the "good Christian" Vladimir Putin is in cahoots with "good Muslim" Ayatollah Khamenei of Islamic Republic of Iran, so the end goals are the same?

Coincidentally (?), Trump recently said that he would "have to make a deal with Iran" and Trump is also a "good friend" of "good communist" Kim Jong Un and "good de facto dictator" Orban of Hungary - all friends of Putin.

* Orban aide said Hungary would have surrendered to Russian invasion and called Ukraine's decision to defend itself militarily "irresponsible."
* Six North Korean officers were killed and 3 more injured on the Russian frontline near the Donetsk region.

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Jill Stein: How and Why I Will Stop Kamala Harris Winning the White House
Muslim and Arab Americans are flocking to the Green Party because of Democrat support for Israel's wars, Stein says.

Good PR stunt. Jill Stein wants you to think she can play a role of "spoiler." She is Jewish, so I guess they call it chutzpah, but she is not naive enough to think that her votes actually matter.

The thing is that no one thinks she has any chance to win anything anywhere, so the only votes she will get are the "protest" votes from "absolutists" against both Trump and Harris. Voting for President is not mandatory, so if she weren't in the race, these voters would register their protest with some other "name" on the ballot or none at all.

Hillary didn't lose in 2016 because of Jill Stein, Gore didn't lose in 2000 because of Ralph Nader (he would be President if he won either New Hampshire or his state of Tennessee), Bush didn't lose in 1992 because of Ross Perot - they lost because a number of people chose to vote for "other / none of the above" rather than for them... for whatever reasons.
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#19 | Posted by ClownShack at 2024-10-01 04:53 AM
Isn't it nice sitting at home on your couch spreading hate about people you know nothing about.

The one sitting on the couch spreading hate, half-truths and propaganda you love to spread about people you know nothing about... is you.

You didn't even read a quarter of my post, or care about any facts in it - just recited usual one-sided grievances ("oppressors") and habitually launched into ad hominem.

You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.

You can ignore reality, you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
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#16 | Posted by NerfHerder at 2024-09-29 11:07 PM
Good Americans and westerners don't start off hating Israel.

Good Germans in 1920s-30s didn't start off hating Jews. Palestinian children didn't start off hating Jews, Israelis, Israel. They "learned" from someone | somewhere | somehow.

It's not until we start learning [from someone|somewhere|somehow] and paying attention ... that this view begins to change.

And we learn [from someone|somewhere|somehow] that this evil ...

We suddenly [??] realize that Israelis have been indoctrinated from birth to view the non-Jewish indigenous populations of the region as less than human ... despite having more than 21% of Arab Israeli citizens, as well as more than 5% of Druze, Bedouins and other minorities and being the only multicultural, multi-religion, multi-party democratic society, with liberal western norms, who have no problems living next to / side-by-side with their neighboring Arab countries after they gave up on destroying Israel in several major and minor wars and sought peace. In fact, their economies greatly benefited from trade with more prosperous Israel, which has neither oil nor abundance of natural resources.

Palestinian leaderships, OTOH, refused peace and establishment of Palestinian state every time it has been offered to them, and broke every "permanent cease-fire" agreement with Israel.

But who needs the facts, knowledge or reasoning? We have social media to "learn" from.

We learn that this is what we are seeing when we [or someone we don't know] translate [by someone we don't know] comments Israelis [or someone we don't know] make in Hebrew on social media [or somewhere] ...

The social media "information" is a great resource... for being indoctrinated and radicalized.

And we gradually [!!] come to understand ... ... ... all the reasons we now hate Israel and Jews... voil'a! You have graduated from the University of Indoctrination and Radicalization!

Thank you. You've just described a classic process of indoctrination and radicalization. That's how the young Palestinians and poor-critical-thinking adults anywhere, especially exposed to the "right information" on social media, get radicalized and keep looking and "paying attention" for all kinds of one-sided grievances (real, made up or fake), instead of learning well-known facts and looking at real causes of Palestinians suffering - they are true victims of their own leaderships, who portray them as victims of Israel / Zionists / Jews. That gets them both sympathy and billions in "humanitarian aid" for "refugees" which they use for their stated goal of genocide - Jews and Israel.

Their "leaderships" (depending on which "militia" / sect / gang one belongs to) always aligned themselves with forces or powers antithetic and hostile to Jews and/or Israel: German Nazis before and during WW2, then with the other Arab countries and Soviet Union/Russia, and later, after dissolution of USSR, with Islamic Republic of Iran to wage the Jihad / Holy Struggle - Hitler's "Mein Kampf" also translates into "My Struggle."

Their view of Israel is the same as Putin's view of Ukraine - it's "our land and always has been" and Ukrainians / Israelis are the "occupiers / colonizers" - thoroughly debunked, but alive and well in propaganda and social media.

I am not trying to change your mind, but the [anti-Israel] "process" of indoctrination and radicalization that you described here is a classic "teachable moment" / "case study" for others, so... thanks!

"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history"
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In other news from Middle East:

* Hezbollah confirmed Israel had carried out strikes in Beirut's Kola district, targeting their Telegram channel

* IDF struck Yemen's Hodeidah and Ras Issa ports, attacking oil reserves and military supplies, following Houthis recent 3 ballistic missile attacks on Tel-Aviv and central Israel. This strike substantially exceeded massive strike on Hodeidah port in July, using "dozens" of F-15i planes 1800 kilometers from Israel. Targets also included power plants and a seaport used to import oil and transfer Iranian weapons to the region, in addition to military supplies and fuel tankers.

IDF noted that Houthis are cooperating with Iraqi "militias" who are also Iranian proxies in the region, but avoided directly striking militias in Iraq, to prevent complicating situation there for the US.

* In Syria, on September 24 USAF conducted two strikes which killed 37 militants affiliated to the extremist IS and an al-Qaeda-linked groups. On September 16 US conducted a large-scale airstrike on IS training camp in Syria, which killed 28 militants, including at least 4 Syrian leaders.
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