Politics

[PopeBeanie]

Insider trading at presidential levels, e.g. right before war news releases
About 11 minutes

[PopeBeanie]

One thing I like using Groups for is to keep history of events, e.g. Trump Era corruption and other crises damaging Democracy. The following 23 minute video focuses on SCOTUS’s role in re-interpreting the constitution, with their “pro-unitary executive” decisions. In a way, Trump has been their instrument for pushing their single-party-power enablement.

[PopeBeanie]

Not fun to watch. Just posting for the historic record, during dystopian times.
Slightly under 11 minutes.

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie:

Fortunately, not even Trump and MAGA are exempt from the wishes of the marketplace:

Trump Merch Store Closes After Low Sales Amid Iran War
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-merch-store-in-chicago-closes-after-low-sales-amid-iran-war/

[PopeBeanie]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Trump Merch Store Closes After Low Sales Amid Iran War

Which is so tiny in comparison to his and his family’s grift and middle east partnerships capturing billions of dollars. While other, Epstein-broker-like connections (outside of pedophilia) are kept hidden, perhaps even classified as matters of “national security”?

(I can’t remember the word right word, something like purportedly or ostensibly, when it comes to Trumpian presumptions of what ones with executive power can officially call “classified”, even while off duty for years at Mar a Lago.)

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie:

That’s so tiny in comparison to his and his family’s grift and middle east partnerships capturing billions of dollars. While other, Epstein-broker-like connections (outside of pedophilia) are kept hidden, perhaps even classified as matters of “national security”? (I can’t remember the word right word, something like “purportedly”, when it comes to Trumpian presumptions of what ones with executive power can call “classified”.)

What’s become apparent to me is that the proported master of The Art of the Deal can’t even get that right.

In exchange for a flying white elephant from Qatar that has to be taken apart, inspected, refurbished, and maintained thereafter, Trump gave air facilities to Qatar’s air force, the very nation that runs Al-Jazeera, the propaganda arm for Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, and every other Islamist terrorist group and regime on the Planet who would see the U.S. and the entire West either converted or in subimission to Islam or dead.

And by his own admission and the admission of news reports, Trump’s military actions to keep the Strait of Hormuz open has benefitted the Gulf States, Iran, Pakistan, and China far more than it has benefitted the U.S., whose taxpayers have had to shell out $25 Billion since the war started, $11.3 Billion in the first week, with maybe $200 Billion more coming!:

By the End of the Week, the Trump Administration’s War in Iran Will Likely Have Cost $25 Billion

By the End of the Week, the Trump Administration’s War in Iran Will Likely Have Cost $25 Billion

All this and the Mullah’s regime is still oppressing Iranians, holding Uranium, and shooting U.S Pilots from the skies!

Decidedly not Making America Great Again and not America First, nor a boon to our allies!

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[PopeBeanie]

Trump and Gang aren’t the only ones profiting from MAGA superfans buying his personalized merch. 1 minute short:

[PopeBeanie]

Patience, grasshopper, this is a two-parter.

1) Call me naive, I only learned about mogging today. Here’s a 1 minute intro:

2) Here it is in a Hegsethian context, within the Trumpian context. I like the whole episode but jump into it where it serves comedic effect wrt mogging, leaving 9 minutes to watch:

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie:

Ask me and I’d say this is The Self-Harm Club for Men. Does the Club have a President who is also a Patient?

Offhand, I’d say that true Masculinity is a man having spatio-temporal coordinates and being in one piece. Looks are just working on points for style.

[PopeBeanie]

Y’all know that SCOTUS just defanged the Voting Rights Act, right? So incumbent legislators are already celebrating by ramping up gerrymandering. (An incumbent majority is even more empowered now to remain incumbent regardless of the majority of votes cast.)

Short:

[PopeBeanie]

Does anyone know, was this Hegseth, or Patel?

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie,

It could have been either Trump or Biden. Both are proof that you don’t need to be drunk or stoned to have deranged faculties.

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie:

Y’all know that SCOTUS just defanged the Voting Rights Act, right? So incumbent legislators are already celebrating by ramping up gerrymandering. (An incumbent majority is even more empowered now to remain incumbent regardless of the majority of votes cast.)

Shifting goalposts in the middle of a game is always a crap deal, but why isn’t anyone equally protesting against the idea of voting jurisdictions divided by color or the “urban renewal” and housing, building, and land use policies that makes such jurisdictions inevitable?

Pop-Up Video Factoid: The practice of Gerrymandering originated in Massachutsetts and was named after 1812 Governor Elbridge Gerry and a Boston district shaped like a mythological salamander.

[PopeBeanie]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

1812 Governor Elbridge Gerry and a Boston district shaped like a mythological salamander

Whoa, nice factoid. I think I’ll remember this. I mean, I want to transmute enough brain cells to accomodate a more permanent memory. Salamandering, too? I always recall seeing districts with only a highway-wide corridor connecting two distinctly separated areas.

So I’ve recently decided that the electoral college is NOT the problem I used to think it was, and that gerrymandering is the much bigger problem, as you’re alluding to. The problem, of course, is expecting political parties in power to pass this kind of legislation. Blue politicians seem to be more willing to prohibit self-serving district lines… at least until Trumpian Reds (and 6-3 conservative SCOTUS) sell slimy salamadering as a righteous, power-seeking virtue. Their Jesus would approve.

As for lower populated states having equal representation in the US senate, I think that doing away with the electoral college would not necessarily change the way each state is represented in the senate. I think it would depend on how US Congress (or constitutional convention) would word an amendment.

So if 2026 elections are fair, we have a better, albeit miniscule chance at outlawing the slime at the national level. The next problem is defining what “fair” redistricting would look like. But imo, lines would have to be decided by completely non-partisan commission, or just make all elections 1) At large at the state level, with 2) Rank voting. (Rank voting is NOT complicated! For voters who don’t get it, fine, let other voters who get it fill in those extra choices.)

California’s “at large, regardless of party” governor elections suck, when the on candidate who gets the most votes win. With no rank voting, a candidate can win with only a small percent of all votes.

I forgot to add, I do believe that each state should be able to decide how to support every voter’s access to the ballot box, without forcing them to pay (e.g.) for ID or whatever may be required to prove they’re qualified. (Most states with Trumpian GOP in majority seem to not support this as an imperative.)

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie:

Whoa, nice factoid. I think I’ll remember this. I mean, I want to transmute enough brain cells to accomodate a more permanent memory. Salamandering, too? I always recall seeing districts with only a highway-wide corridor connecting two distinctly separated areas.

Well, the proper lesson to derive from the factoid is that Gerrymandering preexisted the present Democratic and Republican binary and is not confined to the South.

And the lesson to derive from my question above is that the choice of where to live and work that is made every day is at least as important, if not more so, than a choice of evils made every 2, 4, or 6 years. Politicians seem to think the latter choice is more important.

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