Here’s a couple of good questions for an election year: while we may talk about minimum wages, why don’t we ever discuss maximum wages? And, while our politicians may argue about how little a family can survive on, why do they never address the other end of the inequality scale: just how much accumulated wealth might be too much?
The best move ever is of course to come up with a catchy name for your theory. In this case, it's Limitarianism.
But I'm expecting a science-fictiony turn in Klara and the Sun. Perhaps artificial intelligence sinking into abuse mode while failing to sense anything out of the ordinary?
It was a different twist. Probably better, because it was something I did not expect.
I have a relatively minor discontentment about it, but let me stay silent about it. I am rather happy that great humanist fiction continues in 21st century.
Average playout: 1. It is more preferable for China to attack in south of Taiwan. In north they would fail to get a foothold. 2. An assumption is that Japan will let USA use their bases. 3. USA will overpower the Chinese navy. 4. Chinese infantry in Taiwan cannot sustain themselves and would eventually be defeated. 5. All events from beginning to end take some four or five weeks.
Comments: - Taiwan is a difficult island to conquer. The difficulty is comparable to World War II's D-Day or Philippines battles. - One would think that when both sides use war games to predict the outcome and the outcome is clear, they would not engage in real war. In reality the risk may be taken anyway. - Sometimes politicians, citing some political factors, encourage military action despite the pessimism of the generals. For example, Iraqi generals in the Iraq war did not see any point in fighting, but Saddam Hussein said he was talking with the French and Russians and that victory was possible. - Ukraine holds on strategically because USA/EU supports Ukraine and Russia is unable to disrupt the support. Such support is not possible for Taiwan. A longer war would be lost for USA and Taiwan would have to put up an internal resistance, build on asymmetric capabilities, landmines and such.
My own takeaways: Western policy makers think they have already done everything they could for Ukraine. Victory for Taiwan is plausible, so it is okay to call the current status in Ukraine a day. Their Plan B: Even if the West loses Taiwan, so what.
Funny thing is, like mentioned in the Map thread, few in Europe seem to think that our support of Ukraine is just right. A fairly clear majority want us to do more, and a minority want us to do less (or preferably nothing at all).
Yes, the majority wants us to do more and a minority wants to do less, but these are people who don't have much power over either national or union-level policies. The only effect they have is to get politicians to act busier for a few months before elections.
Not true. A majority of the political circles cannot "want to do more". They are the ones in position to do as much as they want. If we assume that the political circles would like to do more, but cannot, then why is it exactly the political circles in western EU who are unable to do more?
Nope. Support for Ukraine is precisely at the level that the political circles have set. It is in their nature to think that they have already done their best. The state of affairs is as it is not because they cannot do more even though they would want to, but because they think they are performing top-notch according to polls, charts and maps.
Edit: An easy test for the members of the political circles is to ask them to formulate victory for Ukraine or defeat for Russia. Make a poll and see what sort of answers you get. Actually, how do you formulate victory for Ukraine yourself?
And I have yet to see anyone (outside that minority) happy about the current sorry state of the US, because of our own sorry state.
The western EU political circles are afflicted — always have, always will — with the superiority complex. Under this complex, they never see or acknowledge their own sorry state. Sorry state does not exist for them. Some foreign country such as USA can be in a sorry state. Eastern EU members can be blinded by a sorry "survivalist" mindset. EU biggies themselves in their own mind are not in any sort of sorry state, never have been. EU biggies don't think they have made any mistakes that need correcting.
For a moment Scholz was able to enounce that the Ostpolitik had led to an "Irrtum". What was the lesson he took from this in the same speech? To start militarising Germany. So this "Irrtum" has been taken care of this way. It did not involve doing more for Ukraine. In his mind, Scholz was briefly in an embarrassing situation, but he got quickly out of it.
Another example: Remember Macron's flights and phone calls between Putin and Zelensky, trying to get them to agree to a peace or ceasefire or negotiate a deal over something he himself was not certain of? Clearly Macron had no idea what he was doing. Clearly he had no idea that he was undermining any possibility of formulating a common EU policy. (Actually, I assume he was doing it deliberately precisely in order to kill anobody else's better initiative just to pretend to be relevant on the world arena just to ingratiate his own narcissism, but that aside.) His attempts fell through massively. His counterproductive "diplomacy" was overrun by USA/Baltic initiative of providing Ukraine with unconditional support. Has Macron regretted his macroning for a second? Does he see how destructive and dangerous he was? Or at least that he was or is in a sorry state? Nope. Nothing. Sorry state does not exist for him. Not for a second did he think he was doing anything wrong. He does not think he is doing anything wrong now and there's no chance in the universe for him to get in any sort of sorry state.
US and EU has had a well-working partnership through decades: US breaks things with weapons, EU rebuild them with money. US feels strong, EU feels good, and both get results, often the wanted ones.
Now, once you get over this flashy oversimplification, take some time to count the wanted results as opposed to unwanted results, and you should see how skewed this characterisation is. At least, you would if you took the on-ground situation more seriously. The EU has been miserable at diplomacy at every crucial turn. Not occasionally miserable, not getting "often the wanted" results, but making things worse at every single crucial turn, such as Balkan wars, messing up relations with Poland and Hungary after they joined the EU (and almost messing them up with more countries, Estonia being a close call), failing to see any threat in Russia. The results in those situations were deaths and misery, having to call in external superior firepower (against Serbia, which means that diplomacy failed), and signing agreements (Minsk Agreements) that were doomed to be either broken (which again means that diplomacy failed) or, if not broken, then perpetuate unlawfulness (which means that whoever signed the agreements had no sense of justice).
A far more accurate characterisation of the EU activities is the way Ukranians characterise it — it was Ukrainians who came up with the words "macroning" and "scholzing" as far as I know — and the way North Africans see it — as plain old French colonialism, slightly modernised, but still unmistakably colonialism. Moreover, the entire "Global South" perceive the EU/USA/Nato/IMF etc. "seven-headed beast" as a single colonial power headquartered in the so-called collective West.
Why do they perceive it this way? I'd say, given the actions of the entity, how could they not.
The final test for USA is whether Trump happens again. All branches of government should demonstrate the resolve to take him out. Thus far the judicial branch has yielded the best results, but kind of mixed. For example, the gag orders produced no consequences, even though Trump clearly breached them. The best would be for SCOTUS to decide that Trump cannot run, which is up next, seems to me.
A party whose leader attempted a coup and who fails to condemn such a leader — quite the contrary, lets him run for presidency again — should be banned. This is probably in the competency of Congress, but the current Congress is absolutely not up for it. The executive branch is making a fair attempt by driving the secret documents case, but it seems to be narrowly running out of time.
Ukraine's president Zelensky visited Estonia this week. It caught my ear that he wants to get back those refugees who would be eligible for the army. Not sure how warmly the refugees take this.
This is the status on the politico-rhetorical front, as officially expressed by the most pro-Ukraine EU member:
I'd say the status is pretty bad. At 12:08: "I think there's a difference between 2014 and 2024. In 2014 I saw how quickly it went from Let's support Ukraine to Let's sit down and negotiate, give away the territory so that Russia is happy. This time we have been able to explain how giving in to the aggressor only gives you more war. Weakness provokes Russia. Strength doesn't."
Unfortunately no, we have not been able to explain this. First, we failed to explain this in 2014. As she acknowledges both earlier and later in the interview, there are still EU members who are unclear on the support for Ukraine and unclear on the needed outcome, and it is clear (to me) that she implies other/more members than Hungary. For example in the same context she mentions that there is still the illogical strategic requirement on Ukraine to not attack Russia's soil — this is something Hungary has nothing to do with.
The current support and sympathy that is flowing out towards Ukraine is not due to our explanations, but due to our strong example and initiative, and even more so due to the actual situation on the ground that very concretely proved the falsity and perversity of the position of western EU that left them utterly embarrassed. The concrete material proof did the trick. The EU biggies are convinced by no explanation ever. They needed an outbreak of hot war to lift their asses a bit.
However, their embarrassment is wearing off and they will soon fall back to their old attitude. Republicans in USA have already stopped the support from USA to Ukraine, so that the current balance of EU's support surpasses that of USA. This has the effect of the EU biggies thinking Our support to Ukraine is absolutely fabulous, bigger than that of USA, therefore we can pat ourselves on the back now and take it easy. Elections in USA are scheduled at the end of this year, so Democrats (and as a result entire USA) will be, in best case, cautious and indeterminate on the Ukraine topic for the entire year. In practice, "cautious and indeterminate" means a halt, and EU biggies will do the same with a delay, which is the way they have behaved all these decades.
I discovered Travelingisrael some five years ago or so. I appreciate a good professional tour guide. I have passed some of the same training and done plenty of tour guiding informally. Most of what I know about the attitudes and culture in Israel I know from the videos of Travelingisrael.
Anyway, on topic: Travelingisrael is an outright Zionist. He considers his positions "centrist", positions such as that there was no such thing as Palestinian people in the first half of the 20th century, so the land was up for grabs, and of course Jews/Israelis have a historical+moral+divine priority to it over everybody else. Plus Israel has committed no atrocities that would not be overshadowed by atrocities against the Jewish people.
such as basic arithmetic! If you have difficulties with such, it's a matter of memory and apperception...
I passed, so I did not have difficulties to any significant degree. And I may be underestimating myself, since I am comparing myself to my primary school deskmate who was the school primus, particularly in arithmetic, being able to calculate large numbers in his head and even play blind chess.
Anyway, there are several areas in math, arithmetic being one, geometry being another. I was excellent in geometry.
What you mean is that you have no idea about anything. Russia welcomes Trump. Russia contributed to Trump's election campaign in 2016, significantly so, if not outright decisively. Trump and Putin are best buddies. Not as best as Trump and Epstein, but almost.
CCP also warmly welcomes an erratic American leader once again. The status of the war in Ukraine conveys the following message to the Far East: Westerners don't help even those of their own race, so they definitely won't help Asians. Meaning that Taiwan is entirely on its own, absolutely helpless in case USA gets a pact-ignoring Nato-demolishing president who has no idea about geopolitics, no idea about global trade and does not care to get an idea. For CCP this means: If Trump wins, we have Taiwan in our pocket. Foreseeing this, Japan has decided to remilitarise.
The EU is divided. Ever since the end of Cold War, the western half spearheaded by Germany and France has been working to undermine Nato (as a defence alliance against Russia) and USA's role on the continent. The western half of the EU has been working to approach Russia economically and politically, envisioning Russia's membership for the EU. A part of this policy has been to divest the new members of their voting rights with every new renegotiation of the EU constitution, and the next such step is right now on the lips of all western EU leaders, including Scholz, Macron, and Leyen.
The eastern half has no use for this kind of the EU. The eastern half of the EU sees Russia as an existential threat. They joined Nato and the EU (and Nato first) in order to counterbalance and counteract this existential threat. The current status of the war in Ukraine conveys the following message: Despite all treaties, alliances and memberships, the West does not do anything to hold itself to their declared values and signed commitments. The West sees no problem giving up the eastern countries to Russia. The following action by the eastern EU countries depends on how fast they are able to take this message in and reorient themselves. The fastest one to correctly foresee this coming was Orban who already reoriented Hungary pre-emptively. Hungary is best positioned for the post-Ukraine-war situation by having operable relations both with Russia and the EU biggies and also with USA, whoever the president there be. Hardly anyone else will (be able to) reorient themselves this radically, but at least nobody has any reason to hold to their commitments to the West any longer, since the West has by now clearly dropped all commitments (and even pretension of fairness) to the East which, for the East, held existential value, the most important value of all. The betrayal from the West has been absolutely total and thus reorientation is forced, inescapable. So, even though nobody in the eastern half of the EU welcomes a Nato-demolishing president in USA, realistically nobody can expect any president in USA be capable of saving Nato's reputation either. As a result, nobody in the eastern half of the EU gives a damn who becomes the president of USA. But the western half would welcome a reasonably polished diplomatic figure who would not look too bad to take a photo together with. Trump is not welcome for that reason.
And what is your reason to favour Trump for president, OakdaleFTL? I get it: He is the treasonous nepotist election-denying dictator wannabe with no morals, no principles, and no professionalism. He represents everything near and dear to yourself.
This video is a review and critique of Misali's seximal system, which according to Misali is the best way to count. The video argues that the binary system is far better. After watching it, I am convinced.
What I find most impressive about the video is that it even makes the binary system palatable as a human-language system (Chapter 6 at 1:00:15). However, at this point I slightly disagree because I got inspired to invent a slightly modified system that would work better in my opinion, even though my system would not match the notation as neatly as the system proposed in the video. I will probably spend the weekend testing my system out.
Arithmetic never was my strong suit. This is exactly why I went to work at a bank: I heard they have computers for counting so that I don't have to do any of it. Unfortunately we are in civilisational decline and crappy Microsoft products are increasingly not up to the simple tasks of counting and computing. A few years ago I had to buy a soroban to physically start practising arithmetic in order to be able to get work done.
By the way, soroban computing is a fantastic skill to possess. It can be easily adapted to any base.
Yes, this is the point that I am making. The method we (you and I) apply here is anecdotal, but let's not underestimate this, because it *is* objective. We want a city to be objectively livable, on your example quieter, not quiet in the opinion of locals who have suffered noise for so long that they don't notice it any longer and it does not occur to them to complain about it. In some places the polled people may think à la, "Oh, this is the EU asking questions. I better make my home town look fantastic" just like Russians who see on TV that their economy is doing brilliant, so it is not worth a mention that they have to burn their boots and pieces of old furniture to warm up their home.
This is a report on the regional policy website of the EU, so definitely some EU regional policy kommissar looks at it and decides, "Romanians are catching up nicely. Good job!" This is the important reason to have objective measures, to get from our anecdotal observations to more adequate auditing, so that EU's regional policy would not be as terrible a systemic failure as its geopolitics is. But alas, they are shooting themselves in the foot with a machine gun in both areas.
This particularly applies to the Russian minority, which is relatively much larger in Estonia and Latvia than in Lithuania.
This is the correct answer. (Everything else is rather irrelevant.)
Estonia and Latvia have to deal with a sizeable bunch of actual Russians inside our own borders. This particular issue is sharply dividing the country along ethnic lines.
I find polling in the EU, by the EU, pretty atrocious. Now, this Ukraine issue is of course appropriate material for polling, but the other day a report about the livability of cities was published. The obvious problems: - It's based on polling, asking what people think. Isn't livability objectively measurable, such as number of kindergartens/schools per parents etc? - It is a weird selection of cities. From Nothern Europe nd Baltics they take just the bare ridiculous minimum, i.e. the capitals, while there are many cities from Central and Southern Europe, and also cities from countries outside the EU, from countries that will never become the EU (Turkey). - The results are very off. Number ten in overall ranking is Cluj-Napoca. I have been there. I know what kind of city it is. Number one is Zürich. I have been there. I know what kind of city it is. There are subjectively (since this report is subjective) easily better, nicer, prettier, cleaner, better-managed cities with denser amenities in both countries. There must have been a weird slice of population who got polled, such as EU interns' own kitchen pals or such.
When making an objective report, it should be possible to measure all cities (of the EU), or all cities starting with a certain size. In this case apparently the goal was not to get an objective report out, to learn something from the data, but just to conjure up some nonsense regardless of the damage it causes in those who stumble on the nonsense that has an official stamp on it.
When you do a report, stupid EU, do it thoroughly and properly, fairly and objectively. But clearly you are not able to do it, so get replaced by ChatGPT.
One upon a time Fox News went all-in on Trump. Then on 2020 they called the elections correctly and the warm relationship became endangered even after Fox News fired the elections reporters who had called the elections correctly. Fox News tried to save the relationship by spreading the elections lie more faithfully than William Barr, but it was to no avail. Fox News had to settle with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 m, fire their biggest magnet Tucker Carlson and Trump stopped appearing at Fox News.
Until two days ago or so, when Trump agreed with Fox News to arrange a "town hall", a televised meeting between a candidate and voters. Trump was in his normal mode: - lying about elections - lying about his lawsuits - promising to become a dictator - accusing media - ridiculing and threatening his political opponents
And the Fox News hosts just giggled.
Evidently, Trump is like a drug. Even though relationship with him is extremely damaging and unhealthy, Fox News cannot help itself and desperately wants more. Until death do them part.
Estonia's Nublu (with Finland's Mikael Gabriel) are trying to win Finland's national song competition to get to represent Finland in Eurovision. With this configuration they hope to secure 12 points for Finland at least from Estonia.
I think the name is actually passable. It has the minimum requirement for a project name: Be distinct, different from other projects. The name of Vivaldi browser does not pass this minimum requirement. Neither did Opera.
At this stage I personally am done browser-hopping, certainly when it comes to graphical browsers. Apart from interface configuration, what I want from a browser is - Control over cookies (suppress all by default) - Control over popups/popins (suppress all by default) - Control over fonts and colours (the imposed styles and scripts should be completely unnecessary)
The modern web is bad and getting worse. In late 90's and 00's, popups proliferated. When popup blockers became common, popups were replaced by popins, which are a far more evil feature.
In good old times, control over cookies used to be in the browser, that is in the user's hands. Ever since the EU's completely unwarranted inane incompetent idiotic counterproductive cookie directive, there is no longer any control whatsoever over cookies. Instead we have cookie popups/popins which give the false impression to people that they are managing their cookie preferences, whereas in reality of course they are not. The cookie popups do not care what settings the user has set in the browser (in the only place where the settings have an actual under-the-hood effect), the popups pop up regardless, and also regardless what settings you set in the website popup earlier. Every time you visit a website, you get the popups no matter what your settings are or were.
None of the graphical browsers over the last ten years or so is able to control popups, despite some browsers having a setting for it. There is literally no single decent graphical browser currently in existence out of the box. Maybe Brave browser or the like can be made to suppress all popups with careful extra tinkering.
Text mode or terminal browsers handle both cookies and popups properly out of the box. They also handle fonts and colours properly out of the box and usually interface configuration is fine too. Unfortunately they do not handle webscript features, such as delayed loading, properly. For delayed loading and other heavily scripted features, graphical browsers are still necessary.
The user interface feature that I expect from graphical browsers is the ability to toggle off all toolbars and menus. Vivaldi used to have it for a while, but in recent updates they ruined it and they brought back an empty bar that you cannot get rid of. No reason for the bar and no way to get rid of it. I won't ask why.
On Linux I can still achieve the toolbar-less and menu-less effect in all apps by going fullscreen and then taking control over the fullscreen window by resizing it with the window manager as if it were any other window. Funny that Windows is called Windows, but has no window manager. Anyway, it should be possible to toggle off all toolbars and menus in all web browsers. Browsers are giving their users less and less, so give at least that.
Human rights? Another symptom of your self-righteousness: You believe everyone in the world has the right to residence and citizenship anywhere they choose... Why? It's certainly not enlightenment. It's Soros-style agitprop. How do you determine that residence and citizenship are inalienable? Hand-waving? No. You just want to keep the argument going, and this red herring is just a means to that end. It doesn't matter that it's nonsensical!
Oh dear, you have not learned your fallacies properly. Your reading comprehension is F as usual.
My point was that DeSantis and Abbott are engaged in human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime. Crimes should be prosecuted in a law-and-order country. Also, human rights reads straight in the Declaration of Independence of USA.
Your attempt to sidetrack from this by attributing the concept of human rights to Soros instead is a red herring. You are using logical fallacies to compensate for your lack of facts, but this is not going to work. Just keep on cheering crimes and criminals - when they are of your own party, you hyperpartisan hypocrite.
61% in Germany. 62% in Estonia. What explains the fact that the numbers are so low and so close to each other, compared to 83% in Lithuania and 90% in Finland?
Americans with their stupid non-system where the president has the freedom to be a treasonous nepotist election-denying incompetent buffoon and run again without any repercussions to himself while all his lawers and more eager supporters are being jailed left and right. And that this idiotic campaigning takes years in enormous cost of time, money and nerves. Oh Lord have mercy.
Good that this is over and done with now. Except if one of the main party candidates dies and the not the other....
First, the U.S. is not subject to the so-called World Court. So, your "serious charge" amounts to nothing more than impotent moralizing. Second, immigrant status is not conferred by mere aspiration.
This is exactly my point, knowing that "conservatives" and "literalists" in USA do not acknowledge the concept of human rights, even though Declaration of Independence of USA takes it "to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It's an enlightenment concept, not a World Court concept.
A country that is in denial of this concept is not an enlightened country. It is in plain evidence now that what Declaration of Independence proclaims does not obtain in the legal and moral sense of the inhabitants of the country at all. The bussing of immigrants is a clear example that the moral turpitude is not limited to Oakdale rednecks in the country, but it is a general state of mind among the country's officials and jurists. As follows:
The flights last month, carrying 48 migrants, attracted international attention and drew condemnation from Democrats as well as several legal challenges. Mr. DeSantis immediately claimed credit for what appeared to be a political maneuver — dumping dozens of asylum seekers on the doorstep of Northeastern Democrats who have resisted calls to clamp down on immigration.
The fact that DeSantis is using the budget of his own state to bus immigrants of another state (since his own state does not have such readily abusable immigrants) to a third state should be an inter-state/federal legal challenge in multiple ways, but this is not the most pertinent point. The most pertinent point is that "legal challenges" in this article refer to lawyers trying to figure out whether there is something legally challengeable in this activity.[1]
If lawyers are puzzled about human trafficking on the level of governors of states, then clearly USA is a sad third-world dump when it comes to the legal framework concerning human trafficking.
Third, if you're in the country legally (i.e., have been processed by Border Patrol and have a scheduled court hearing) and I offer you a bus or plane ticket to -say- New York, that is not "trafficking". That is largesse.
To reduce the concept of human trafficking as far as possible, its minimum key feature is the consent of the trafficked. Now, many people *want*, even desperately so, to get to a country that has been presented to them as a better country. They are lured by alleged opportunities. So people's want is not the kind of consent relevant to the concept. Trafficking comes in with a trafficker/smuggler who does the allegations of the work/living opportunities and then the opportunities don't obtain at the destination.
Say a pimp promising a different job to someone at a destination while the actual job ends up being prostitution — this is sex trafficking even when the pimp pays all the costs to the destination and provides accommodation at the destination. This should be easy peasy to understand for a ten-year-old, if not a five-year-old. For an Oakdale pimping is a largesse because he cannot afford it, but legally pimping is sex trafficking. In case of the bussing of immigrants, the perpetrators provide nothing at the destination.
DeSantis and Abbott qualify as human traffickers. Human trafficking is a serious crime when regular people do it, but lawyers in USA are puzzled about it when governors do it, so once again so much for being a law-and-order country where people allegedly have rights. Immigrants deserve more adequate information about their destination country: USA is a below-average third world dump where non-citizens have zero constitutional rights and there is no recourse against state officials. African smugglers advertise the EU as the place where everyone who crosses the border receives an Adidas jumpsuit, iPhone and a fully equipped apartment. Sorry, dear immigrants, the traffickers are lying to you.
Sergei Guriev recommended Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro in his latest (or perhaps penultimate) livestream. The little book club of my colleagues at work took it on.
I'm halfway through now and I guess I can recommend it too, even though I don't know what the final turn will be. The only other work I know from Kazuo Ishiguro is The Remains of the Day (the movie, not the book) and judging from that, no sharp turns are expected.
Klara and the Sun qualifies as science fiction. The first-person narrator Klara is an "artificial friend," preoccupied and constantly concerned with serving its human. In this sense the novel is similar with the main theme of The Remains of the Day. Also similar is the class society and the focus on mannerisms and etiquette.
But I'm expecting a science-fictiony turn in Klara and the Sun. Perhaps artificial intelligence sinking into abuse mode while failing to sense anything out of the ordinary?
As said, I'm only halfway through. Hope I did not spoil anything for anyone. Really lovely piece of literature it is.
FYI: Resident Aliens are both subject to U.S. jurisdiction and protected by most constitutional provisions — one obvious exception being the right to vote in federal elections.
Your dilemma is as follows: If immigrants had no nominal rights, then USA would be under serious charge due to lack of legal framework for human rights at home. But if immigrants have nominal rights, then bussing them *is* human trafficking and against the law. Which way is it?
Either way I know both the legal situation and concrete facts better than you. You are not in a position to FYI anything. All your years on this forum you have provided very little factual information, but none that was not known already. Otherwise you have only provided so-called alternative facts, which are sometimes fascinating to observe for psychoanalytical purposes.
What? I'm now required to agree with anyone you call "conservative" or "literalist"?
An entrenched Trumpite who did not see the insurrection happening and thinks Hillary is somehow crooked while Trump is not obviously lacks sufficient epistemological acumen to agree or disagree with anything.
(But I did note your failure to cite an example or culprit! Typical "ersi".)
The name and example is DeSantis. Come on, it's directly in the post you were responding to, inside the embedded quotes. Typical Oakdale dropping off half of the content when parsing sentences both when reading and writing. Since you are clearly overburdened with incoming information already, I won't bother you with any further details.
But Trump will not be the overall winner of the presidential elections. He never got the popular vote ever once
Had you the ability and the inclination to pay attention, you'd know that winning the national popular vote doesn't matter...
I know this. Trump does not. His false argument for his victory is that he got more votes than anybody had ever seen, and he got even more the second time. Therefore "they stole it" even though all the traces of election theft are on him.
Hillary Clinton learned that lesson the hard way! (Her husband tried to tell her...but I guess she believed her own hype. )
Had you the ability and the inclination to pay attention, you would actually note that Trump is yet to learn it. And he is making absolutely sure that he learns this in the hardest way anyone has ever seen.
But of course, you prefer factless partisan delusions of grand propaganda. Hillary conceded within a day. Trump has still not conceded to this day. Are you paying attention? No, you are not. Facts are not your thing.
My own opinion of DeSantis is that of course he should be in jail by now too, for bussing immigrants.
Why? Once an "immigrant" is cleared by the federal authorities[1], they can go wherever they want! In fact, the constitution guarantees such freedom of movement.
So you have not been paying any attention to this one either. The facts are as follows:
The immigrants are taken to where they do not want to go. They are not going by themselves. They are taken to where nobody expects them, i.e. they are literally dumped at the destination. The name of the crime is human trafficking.
And you are completely clueless of the fact that the American constitution has been argued (by "conservatives" and "literalists") to guarantee literally nothing to non-citizens. You really have no grasp on law. Same as on facts.
Then again, this is to be expected in the Trump cult. As you were.
1 Processed and given a court date for an administrative hearing...↵
I take this as one of your regular reflexive projections. Being a hyperpartisan hypocrite you think everyone else is a hyperpartisan hypocrite, and also, being on meds you think everybody else must be on meds as well.
(BTW: I still prefer DeSantis for the 2024 nomination... Hope my mentioning it again doesn't cause you any "cognitive dissonance"; as if that were a possibility!)
Sure enough this can be a possibility for you. It fits with your characteristic pattern by adding another layer of compulsive delusion. DeSantis is the Trumpiest of all Republican candidates. Maybe Ramaswamy would be Trumpier, but his skin colour prevents him from getting sponsors and supporters.
However, I have to warn you on two points. First, DeSantis is an actual politician. This means he is professionally guaranteed to disappoint you. He says Trumpy stuff, but he may very well turn around after he gets what he wants. And what does he want? As a politician, he wants the office, and do nothing with it. (On second thoughts, Trump also betrayed every promised value and principle once he got into office - actually he had already demonstrated that he has nothing to do with those values before he got into office -, but his supporters disregard this reality and stay with the Trump cult, so maybe this point will not deter you at all.)
Second, Trump is making sure that in the current Republican party no other candidate has a chance, except when Trump is literally gagged, handcuffed and thrown in jail. Or dies on the campaign trail. So if you want to stick with the likeliest winner among Republicans, it's Trump. But Trump will not be the overall winner of the presidential elections. He never got the popular vote ever once, despite his false claims to the contrary (which again should have been handled in the court system years ago, if law and order matters) and this time the establishment will make sure his election manipulations are actionably countered.
Edit: My own opinion of DeSantis is that of course he should be in jail by now too, for bussing immigrants. Or is there no legal punishment for that in USA? So much for being a law-and-order country then...
So you lay all your love and hopes on Trump because he might become good in the future? Wait, this cannot be. You lay all your love and hopes on Trump because he is a Republican who worships power regardless of principles and so do you. You condone insurrection — as long as it is your guy doing it. This takes some major lack of legal and moral sensibilities.
Trump should have been stopped at the latest when he was pimping together with Jeffrey Epstein back in the 90's
You mean when he barred Epstein from his clubs? Let's add libel to the list...
Wow, you were able to dig up a fact for once! Well done! Trump banned Epstein from his parties in 2008 after Epstein had already become a legally certified pedophile. However, I spoke about 90's, when Trump and Epstein were, hm, very intimate business partners in the same business servicing (themselves first of all but also) the Hollywood & financial & (worldwide!) political elite who were keeping it under the radar.[1] They are both pimps.
Since you are a hypocrite with no principles, you are perfectly fine with a pimp (and a dictator insurrectionist, obstructor of justice, tax evader, business fraudster, serial adulterer etc. etc.) if he is in your beloved political party. But here's a minor hilarious note: in 2008 Trump was a Democrat, so how can you possibly look favourably at the fact that he banned Epstein? Oh, right, you have no principles, therefore anything goes.
Well, you are in good company with Trump: He has no principles either, neither moral, legal or political! His main desire is to do stuff like shoot people on the Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and get away with it. And to pay no taxes because that makes him smart. Is there something similar you need to get away with too? You can open up here, we won't tell anyone
Until now I assumed you still had some way to go until absolute irreversible depravity. I didn't realise I had some way to go to drop all assumptions.
1 Edit: As a corollary, Trump has/shares dirt (in Russian, kompromat) on those people. This partly explains why the political elite (of both parties) and the judicial system pamper him on issues that would get an average person ostracised and jailed many times over. It's not due process that protects him. It's corrupt privilege. This corruption is part of why it can be reasonably expected that Supreme Court lets him off the hook with all aspects of the insurrection. The other part is that it is a solid political tradition that the president of USA has no accountability, and Trump did the insurrection while he was president, so there. For the same reasons, a similar outcome can be expected in the election theft case (which Trump will naturally appeal all the way to the Supreme Court), but perhaps not (one would hope, if law and order matters) in the case of theft of state documents, because that one he perpetrated while moving out of office.↵
