2020 Elections - Trump FIRED

[Farfromgeneva]

Business owners have a ton of arb opportunities to minimize the tax nut. I watched it at a firm I worked for that sold to a Philly based shop in 2019 for years. $5mm in gtd pmts to specifies owners, founders and a few others on top of other income, accelerated depreciation at times, strange mixing of cash and accrual accounting (this was a firm that sold for less than $50mm at 1-1.25x trailing 12mo revenues, about 8x capital/retained earnings in the firm. I know because I had the operating agreement and financials.

I just haven’t encountered business owners making that kind of money who think about stopping expansion or other growth investment opportunities ever pass over taxes. And that is including many non financial business owners. They either have the risk profile and confidence in their operation along with the opportunity to move full steam ahead and manage the financial statements for tax purposes afterwards or they don’t have that motivation inside them. Maybe you know some different. But an all in north of 50% hasn’t seemed to stop those folks in the past. I agree when you start pushing above maybe 55-60% it becomes more of a consideration but 50% all inclusive seems low.

Might not have had a problem with the SALT cap if it hadn’t clearly been implemented as a weapon against perceived political enemies. I’d also like it either eliminated altogether or a bit higher or scaled to assessment area. They adjust max loan amounts for Fan/Fred and Va/FHA/HUD based on area. It’s not hard for a $500-$750k (the 20% down check I wrote in a nice Atlanta neighborhood is more than I’ll get for my mother’s home in Binghamton by about $20k). home in a lot of cities which qualifies as solidly middle class these days would be north of $10K in property taxes. The last 20% in home prices can almost completely be explained by mortgage rates holding under 4-4.5% for a number of years now. So yeh government has lowered rates partly in effort to make homeownership more affordable and then they turn around and make it more expensive on the other side which is counterproductive.

I'm just reflecting on the discussions I had with my dad & brother over the years before each decision to knock out a wall & expand the grocery store business, then to eventually build a small strip mall to house our larger grocery "market" & lease the adjoining store front to a drug store/pharmacy.

The tax incentives that Reagan introduced, prompted them to pull the trigger & enabled them to pay off the mortgage in a few years.
They were cautious & couldn't afford to make a mistake & start over. The chains, then big boxes were always snuffing around, some made offers. So far, they've all backed off & stayed away. My brother recently celebrated the 100th year anniversary of a 3rd generation family owned independent grocery business.

That’s truly great and I hope it continues to succeed. But you’re talking about a 3-5% profit margin industry as well. Of course that would make any new capital investment come with a particularly asymmetric return. But compared with graphic printing companies with 8 figure rev or custom boat manufacturers with a couple hundred million in revenue family owned that make 15-20% EBITDA margins who started out at zero or with one contract where they were looking at growing in their market or beyond and they only really seem to consider tax implications of their growth plans as something to be managed but not a variable in the decision to buy new equipment to take on bigger contracts for example. They’re looking at their business scaling and raw numbers usually. As in were now xx revenue and y profit nominally.

I believed we needed to come down pre Regan, so no real qualms with those cuts. There might’ve been some room in the Bush cuts but the cap gains drop was a mistake and we’ve gone from playing with house money to start thinking about putting the deed on the table territory since the financial crisis (or perhaps even a littler earlier)

[a fan]

The tax incentives that Reagan introduced, prompted them to pull the trigger & enabled them to pay off the mortgage in a few years.
They were cautious & couldn't afford to make a mistake & start over. The chains, then big boxes were always snuffing around, some made offers. So far, they've all backed off & stayed away. My brother recently celebrated the 100th year anniversary of a 3rd generation family owned independent grocery business.

That's a tough biz, and as farfromgeneva posted, a ridiculously low margin enterprise.

I'd be happy to go back to where taxes were while Reagan was in office. We'd have a nearly balanced budget!

[old salt]

The tax incentives that Reagan introduced, prompted them to pull the trigger & enabled them to pay off the mortgage in a few years.
They were cautious & couldn't afford to make a mistake & start over. The chains, then big boxes were always snuffing around, some made offers. So far, they've all backed off & stayed away. My brother recently celebrated the 100th year anniversary of a 3rd generation family owned independent grocery business.

That's a tough biz, and as farfromgeneva posted, a ridiculously low margin enterprise.

I'd be happy to go back to where taxes were while Reagan was in office. We'd have a nearly balanced budget!

My dad & brother would have been thrilled with a 3-5% profit margin. Their customer base can't afford that. That accounts for their cautious approach & realistic, attainable aspirations. ...yet they could still support 1 household quite nicely. No stakeholders to satisfy.

[seacoaster]

Merry Christmas. A little story about Sid's expert:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investig ... gn=wp_main

As she asked the U.S. Supreme Court this month to overturn President Trump’s election loss, the attorney Sidney Powell cited testimony from a secret witness presented as a former intelligence contractor with insights on a foreign conspiracy to subvert democracy.

Powell told courts that the witness is an expert who could show that overseas corporations helped shift votes to President-elect Joe Biden. The witness’s identity must be concealed from the public, Powell has said, to protect her “reputation, professional career and personal safety.”

The Washington Post identified the witness by determining that portions of her affidavit match, sometimes verbatim, a blog post that the pro-Trump podcaster Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman published in November 2019. In an interview, Maras-Lindeman confirmed that she wrote the affidavit and said she viewed it as her contribution to a fight against the theft of the election.

“This is everybody’s duty,” she said. “It’s just not fair.”

In a recent civil fraud case, attorneys for the state of North Dakota said that Maras-Lindeman falsely claimed to be a medical doctor and to have both a PhD and an MBA. They said she used multiple aliases and social security numbers and created exaggerated online résumés as part of what they called “a persistent effort . . . to deceive others.”

Powell’s reliance on Maras-Lindeman’s testimony may raise further questions about her judgment and the strength of her arguments at a time when she is becoming an increasingly influential adviser to the president. Trump’s legal team distanced itself from Powell last month after she falsely claimed Republican state officials took bribes to rig the election. But she has visited the White House three times in the past week, once to participate in an Oval Office meeting. Trump has weighed naming Powell a special counsel to investigate the election, according to previous reports.

Maras-Lindeman, 42, served in the Navy for less than a year more than two decades ago and has said she worked later as a government contractor and part-time interpreter. She has identified herself as a “trained cryptolinguist.”

North Dakota’s assertions about her credentials came in a civil case brought by the state’s attorney general in 2018 over a purported charitable event she tried to organize in Minot, N.D., where she and her family resided. Attorneys for the state said she used money she collected — ostensibly to fund homeless shelters and wreaths for veterans’ graves — on purchases for herself at McDonald’s, QVC and elsewhere.

A judge ultimately found that Maras-Lindeman violated consumer protection laws by, among other things, misspending money she raised and soliciting donations while misrepresenting her experience and education. He ordered her to pay more than $25,000.

Maras-Lindeman has appealed to the state Supreme Court. In court filings and in her interview with The Post, she denied mishandling the funds or misleading donors. She blamed identity theft and bureaucratic failings for a proliferation of variations on her name and social security numbers associated with her.

Maras-Lindeman also claimed that she was targeted by the state for political reasons, noting that around that time she was exploring running for mayor of Minot — under the slogan “Make Minot Great Again.” She said that in 2018 she assisted the campaign of David C. Thompson, the Democratic challenger to longtime Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem (R). Thompson is now Maras-Lindeman’s defense attorney.

Thompson said in an interview that the case was a “vindictive exercise” and was excessive given the relatively small amounts of money in question. “They took a missile to kill a fly,” he said.

In an interview, Stenehjem — who signed a brief this month asking the Supreme Court to take up a case that sought to overturn the election — dismissed the claim that his investigation was politically motivated and said that anyone working with Maras-Lindeman should “back away” from her.

In a text message, Powell did not directly address questions about Maras-Lindeman’s fraud case and credentials. “I don’t have the same information you do,” she wrote to The Post.

Powell’s lawsuits — litigation she has referred to as “the kraken,” after a Scandinavian mythological sea monster — rely in key respects on a handful of anonymous expert witnesses. Among them is a purported military intelligence expert identified in court filings as “Spyder.” The Post reported this month that the witness is an I.T. consultant named Joshua Merritt who has never worked in military intelligence. Rather, Merritt spent the bulk of his decade in the Army as a wheeled-vehicle mechanic.

Like Merritt, Maras-Lindeman told The Post she had never spoken directly to Powell or anyone working on her legal team. She said she distributed the affidavit widely to like-minded people and was unaware it had come to Powell’s attention until it appeared as an exhibit in one of her cases.

Maras-Lindeman’s 37-page affidavit outlines a purported conspiracy by the Canadian company Dominion Voting Systems, which sells voting machines used in some states, and Scytl, a Spain-based firm that provides election software. She claims that votes cast on Dominion machines in key states were hacked as they passed through Scytl tallying systems and rigged in favor of Biden.

“The vote is not safe using these machines not only because of the method used for ballot ‘cleansing’ to maintain anonymity but the EXPOSURE to foreign interference and possible domestic bad actors,” she writes in the affidavit.

Like Trump and many of his supporters, Maras-Lindeman points to election night spikes in Biden’s vote totals — explained by officials as merely the result of densely populated areas reporting their counts — as evidence of a “digital fix” involving abrupt dumps of bogus votes.

In a statement last month, Dominion described allegations leveled against it by Powell and other Trump supporters as “baseless, senseless, physically impossible, and unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.” Scytl said in a statement that it “does NOT tabulate, tally or count votes in US public elections,” had no relationship with Dominion, and that its U.S. operations are run by a Tampa-based subsidiary.

Powell’s lawsuits — litigation she has referred to as “the kraken,” after a Scandinavian mythological sea monster — rely in key respects on a handful of anonymous expert witnesses. (Ben Margot/AP)
Last week, Dominion said it had written to Powell to demand that she retract what the company said were defamatory accusations.

Federal judges have rejected all four of the complaints Powell has filed, two of which — in Wisconsin and Arizona — included Maras-Lindeman’s affidavit.

In Wisconsin, a federal judge ruled that Powell’s request that the results of the election be overturned is “outside the limits” of the court’s power. Attorneys for Gov. Tony Evers (D), in seeking the dismissal, said the complaint was “rampant with wild speculation and conspiratorial conclusions, and simply without any basis in law or fact.”

A federal judge in Arizona wrote that allegations “that find favor in the public sphere of gossip and innuendo cannot be a substitute for earnest pleadings and procedure in federal court” and “most certainly cannot be the basis for upending Arizona’s 2020 General Election.”

Powell has appealed the cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she is seeking to have them consolidated."

[cradleandshoot]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/weve-finally ... 00203.html

I was discussing this with my wife last night. My guess is January 6 is the day the republican party irreversibly splits into two parts, Trumplicans and Neorepublicans. In my thinking a petulant Trump takes at least half of his 74,000,000 voters with him in his post POTUS effort to maintain relevancy, and this group will have an overweighted influence on the 2022 primaries. Good luck to what remains of a serious republican party to counteract that.

I've always had the number around 25 million - true lovers of Trump and all the fringe players. i.e. his base.

I was shocked at the total number of votes he got this time, if the EC was proportional, Biden got 272...so either his base is way bigger or there are some that won't vote for a D, period.

IMHO his base has grown since the 25-30% days of the 2016 primaries, but it's nowhere near 48% of the voting populace. It's definitely much more the "hold my nose and vote" group that got him the numbers. People who won't vote for a D in the foreseeable future no matter what their platform is. That's what 30+ years of right wing talk radio and Fox's "us vs. them" mentality has gotten us.

Is there an “left wing radio” equivalent? I don’t know if there is such a thing? If so, far less of a presence on talk radio?

There use to be " Air America' some guy named Al Franken was suppose to be the leftwing version of Rush Limbaugh. Al could be pretty funny from time to time. The proof is in the pudding. I hate to tick off you commie libs but Rush has had his audience for what 30 something years. Al Franken wound up becoming a big time commie lib politician. Until his sexual perversions came to light and he quit the US Senate. If all of America loves you commie libs how come everyday Americans won't even listen to your message on the radio? The answer is, much to the dismay of you commie libs, is that mainstream America is not interested in your bullchit.

Woah doggies. Neither are admirable human beings, pervert versus an addict who only copped to his addiction after he got busted? Both these kettles are black.

Limbaugh's lung cancer is terminal. He won't be a problem for the FLP folks much longer.

[Matnum PI]

Trump and Pence.
https://flip.it/tU4Wpe

[cradleandshoot]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

[MDlaxfan76]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

Of course the Bible 'says' quite a few things that only make sense poetically or in the context of the times in which written. Same for the Koran and most old sacred works...

On the two masters, God can be served first and foremost and, IMO, without betraying one's duty in our Constitutional democratic republic as an elected representative, duty bound to separate religion and state. Of course, if you (one) think that your God is telling you to do things that are contradicted in the law and your duty as a representative of all the people, then you should resign the authority the people governed have vested in you...which is quite the opposite of using that authority to force others to live by your religious beliefs rather than their own.

On the other hand, a personally devout person may well believe that God calls them to live their own life by his Word but that this calling does not require them to force others to do so as well. That would certainly be how I'd understand Christ's message in many matters, including the 'give unto Caesar what is Caesar's' response by Jesus to the specific question of 'church and state'.

If we look throughout history as well as many places in our current world, we can see how much damage is done when people attempt to enforce their religious beliefs on others...

I'm sure glad our Founders proscribed against such.

Merry Christmas!

[Matnum PI]

Trump Is Losing His Mind
The president is discussing martial law in the Oval Office, as his grip on reality falters.

Peter Wehner
The Atlantic
Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC

Donald Trump’s descent into madness continues. The latest manifestation of this is a report in The New York Times that the president is weighing appointing the conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, who for a time worked on his legal team, to be special counsel to investigate imaginary claims of voter fraud.

As if that were not enough, we also learned that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was pardoned by the president after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, attended the Friday meeting. Earlier in the week, Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, floated the idea (which he had promoted before) that the president impose martial law and deploy the military to “rerun” the election in several closely contested states that voted against Trump. It appears that Flynn wants to turn them into literal battleground states.

None of this should come as a surprise. Some of us said, even before he became president, that Donald Trump’s Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering him, was his psychology—his disordered personality, his emotional and mental instability, and his sociopathic tendencies. It was the main reason, though hardly the only reason, I refused to vote for him in 2016 or in 2020, despite having worked in the three previous Republican administrations. Nothing that Trump has done over the past four years has caused me to rethink my assessment, and a great deal has happened to confirm it.

Given Trump’s psychological profile, it was inevitable that when he felt the walls of reality close in on him—in 2020, it was the pandemic, the cratering economy, and his election defeat—he would detach himself even further from reality. It was predictable that the president would assert even more bizarre conspiracy theories. That he would become more enraged and embittered, more desperate and despondent, more consumed by his grievances. That he would go against past supplicants, like Attorney General Bill Barr and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and become more aggressive toward his perceived enemies. That his wits would begin to turn, in the words of King Lear. That he would begin to lose his mind.

So he has. And, as a result, President Trump has become even more destabilizing and dangerous.

“I’ve been covering Donald Trump for a while,” Jonathan Swan of Axios tweeted. “I can’t recall hearing more intense concern from senior officials who are actually Trump people. The Sidney Powell/Michael Flynn ideas are finding an enthusiastic audience at the top.”

Even amid the chaos, it’s worth taking a step back to think about where we are: An American president, unwilling to concede his defeat by 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral College votes, is still trying to steal the election. It has become his obsession.

In the process, Trump has in too many cases turned his party into an instrument of illiberalism and nihilism. Here are just a couple of data points to underscore that claim: 18 attorneys general and more than half the Republicans in the House supported a seditious abuse of the judicial process.

And it’s not only, or even mainly, elected officials. The Republican Party’s base has often followed Trump into the twilight zone, with a sizable majority of them affirming that Joe Biden won the election based on fraud and many of them turning against medical science in the face of a surging pandemic.

COVID-19 is now killing Americans at the rate of about one per minute, but the president is “just done with COVID,” a source identified as one of Trump’s closest advisers told The Washington Post. “I think he put it on a timetable and he’s done with COVID ... It just exceeded the amount of time he gave it.”

This is where Trump’s crippling psychological condition—his complete inability to face unpleasant facts, his toxic narcissism, and his utter lack of empathy—became lethal. Trump’s negligence turned what would have been a difficult winter into a dark one. If any of his predecessors—Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, to go back just 40 years—had been president during this pandemic, tens of thousands of American lives would almost surely have been saved.

“My concern was, in the worst part of the battle, the general was missing in action,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, one of the very few Republicans to speak truth in the Trump era.

In 30 days, Donald Trump will leave the presidency, with his efforts to mount a coup having failed. The encouraging news is that it never really had a chance of succeeding. Our institutions, especially the courts, will have passed a stress test, not the most difficult ever but difficult enough, and unlike any in our history. Some local officials exhibited profiles in courage, doing the right thing in the face of threats and pressure from their party. And a preponderance of the American public, having lived through the past four years, deserves credit for canceling this presidential freak show rather than renewing it. The “exhausted majority” wasn’t too exhausted to get out and vote, even in a pandemic.

But the Trump presidency will leave gaping wounds nearly everywhere, and ruination in some places. Truth as a concept has been battered from the highest office in the land on an almost hourly basis. The Republican Party has been radicalized, with countless Republican lawmakers and other prominent figures within the party having revealed themselves to be moral cowards, even, and in some ways especially, after Trump was defeated. During the Trump presidency, they were so afraid of getting crosswise with him and his supporters that they failed the Solzhenitsyn test: “The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me.”

During the past four years, the right-wing ecosystem became more and more rabid. Many prominent evangelical supporters of the president are either obsequious, like Franklin Graham, or delusional, like Eric Metaxas, and they now peddle their delusions as being written by God. QAnon and the Proud Boys, Newsmax and One America News, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson—all have been emboldened.

These worrisome trends began before Trump ran for office, and they won’t disappear after he leaves the presidency. Those who hope for a quick snapback will be disappointed. Still, having Trump out of office has to help. He’s going to find out that there’s no comparable bully pulpit. And the media, if they are wise, will cut off his oxygen, which is attention. They had no choice but to cover Trump’s provocations when he was president; when he’s an ex-president, that will change.

For the foreseeable future, journalists will rightly focus on the pandemic. But once that is contained and defeated, it will be time to go back to focusing more attention on things like the Paris accord and the carbon tax; the earned-income tax credit and infrastructure; entitlement reform and monetary policy; charter schools and campus speech codes; legal immigration, asylum, assimilation, and social mobility. There is also an opportunity, with Trump a former president, for the Republican Party to once again become the home of sane conservatism. Whether that happens or not is an open question. But it’s something many of us are willing to work for, and that even progressives should hope for.

Beyond that, and more fundamental than that, we have to remind ourselves that we are not powerless to shape the future; that much of what has been broken can be repaired; that though we are many, we can be one; and that fatalism and cynicism are unwarranted and corrosive. There’s a lovely line in William Wordsworth’s poem “The Prelude”: “What we have loved, Others will love, and we will teach them how.” There are still things worthy of our love. Honor, decency, courage, beauty, and truth. Tenderness, human empathy, and a sense of duty. A good society. And a commitment to human dignity. We need to teach others—in our individual relationships, in our classrooms and communities, in our book clubs and Bible studies, and in innumerable other settings—why those things are worthy of their attention, their loyalty, their love. One person doing it won’t make much of a difference; a lot of people doing it will create a culture.

Maybe we understand better than we did five years ago why these things are essential to our lives, and why when we neglect them or elect leaders who ridicule and subvert them, life becomes nasty, brutish, and generally unpleasant.

Just after noon on January 20, a new and necessary chapter will begin in the American story. Joe Biden will certainly play a role in shaping how that story turns out—but so will you and I. Ours is a good and estimable republic, if we can keep it.

[MDlaxfan76]

Thanks for posting that.

Merry Christmas, Matnum!

[Farfromgeneva]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

I get that but then they all must go into politics not caring about their constituents who don’t agree on certain topics which may interfere with their faith. If your master is “god” then don’t become a politician. That’s simple too.

Or conversely all the religious believers in congress are liars to their god because they don’t serve him/her all the time. Maybe it’s their faith that is the fraudulent part?

[cradleandshoot]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

Of course the Bible 'says' quite a few things that only make sense poetically or in the context of the times in which written. Same for the Koran and most old sacred works...

On the two masters, God can be served first and foremost and, IMO, without betraying one's duty in our Constitutional democratic republic as an elected representative, duty bound to separate religion and state. Of course, if you (one) think that your God is telling you to do things that are contradicted in the law and your duty as a representative of all the people, then you should resign the authority the people governed have vested in you...which is quite the opposite of using that authority to force others to live by your religious beliefs rather than their own.

On the other hand, a personally devout person may well believe that God calls them to live their own life by his Word but that this calling does not require them to force others to do so as well. That would certainly be how I'd understand Christ's message in many matters, including the 'give unto Caesar what is Caesar's' response by Jesus to the specific question of 'church and state'.

If we look throughout history as well as many places in our current world, we can see how much damage is done when people attempt to enforce their religious beliefs on others...

I'm sure glad our Founders proscribed against such.

Merry Christmas!

Some guy named Jefferson also authored the 5 truths in the Declaration of Independence. All men being endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Governments are created to secure those unalienable rights. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. It is fair to say that 244 years later America has taken those principles written by Thomas Jefferson and redefined them to what suits us best today. As a nation we sure have deviated off of the path our founding fathers put us on. Some of those deviations have been good and necessary. Other detours have probably not led us in a direction the founders ever wanted us to go. Government today is becoming more and more ala carte. Pick what suits your personal needs and enjoy.

[cradleandshoot]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

I get that but then they all must go into politics not caring about their constituents who don’t agree on certain topics which may interfere with their faith. If your master is “god” then don’t become a politician. That’s simple too.

Or conversely all the religious believers in congress are liars to their god because they don’t serve him/her all the time. Maybe it’s their faith that is the fraudulent part?

I also get what your saying. The problem comes when interpreting the fine line between seperation of church and state. If a young un brings his bible in to school to read on his own free time he might as well have brought in a gun. I don't think that kind of church and state seperation is what the founding fathers had in mind. The extreme views are troublesome on both sides.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

I get that but then they all must go into politics not caring about their constituents who don’t agree on certain topics which may interfere with their faith. If your master is “god” then don’t become a politician. That’s simple too.

Or conversely all the religious believers in congress are liars to their god because they don’t serve him/her all the time. Maybe it’s their faith that is the fraudulent part?

I also get what your saying. The problem comes when interpreting the fine line between seperation of church and state. If a young un brings his bible in to school to read on his own free time he might as well have brought in a gun. I don't think that kind of church and state seperation is what the founding fathers had in mind. The extreme views are troublesome on both sides.

That is not true: https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/bi ... ents-legal

[cradleandshoot]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

I get that but then they all must go into politics not caring about their constituents who don’t agree on certain topics which may interfere with their faith. If your master is “god” then don’t become a politician. That’s simple too.

Or conversely all the religious believers in congress are liars to their god because they don’t serve him/her all the time. Maybe it’s their faith that is the fraudulent part?

I also get what your saying. The problem comes when interpreting the fine line between seperation of church and state. If a young un brings his bible in to school to read on his own free time he might as well have brought in a gun. I don't think that kind of church and state seperation is what the founding fathers had in mind. The extreme views are troublesome on both sides.

That is not true: https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/bi ... ents-legal

There have been exceptions to that. Especially if a student wants to pray in class while reading their bible.

https://www.libertyinstitute.org/pages/ ... es-allowed

There have been quite a few others. Sometimes teachers in public schools have their own interpretation of religious freedom and separation of church and state. In the minds of some public school teachers the bible is as dangerous as any gun.

[CU77]

The problem comes when interpreting the fine line between seperation of church and state. If a young un brings his bible in to school to read on his own free time he might as well have brought in a gun. I don't think that kind of church and state seperation is what the founding fathers had in mind. The extreme views are troublesome on both sides.

Extreme views, eh?

Jefferson pointedly argued that the Bible should be kept out of the hands of children, only made available after their own ability to reason independently had been established through study of history and philosophy.

https://www.monticello.org/site/researc ... us-beliefs

[cradleandshoot]

The problem comes when interpreting the fine line between seperation of church and state. If a young un brings his bible in to school to read on his own free time he might as well have brought in a gun. I don't think that kind of church and state seperation is what the founding fathers had in mind. The extreme views are troublesome on both sides.

Extreme views, eh?

Jefferson pointedly argued that the Bible should be kept out of the hands of children, only made available after their own ability to reason independently had been established through study of history and philosophy.

https://www.monticello.org/site/researc ... us-beliefs

But Jefferson still had that radical opinion that we all have unalienable rights created by the government that can never be taken away. As a matter of fact while their is much debate about their meaning he did state we are endowed by our creator with those unalienable rights. Freedom of religion should travel down a 2 way street. I understand what Jefferson meant. i was raised as a Catholic from the moment I was born. The teaching of the church was a foundation of what my family believed. Organized religion becomes a complicated thing. My faith in the Catholic church was in doubt when I graduated from HS. The organized beliefs and dogma of the church were something I could no longer accept. If God loves you then a stupid belief about putting the fear of God in someone makes no sense. I don't want the people that run the government telling me how live my life according to their belief system. The other side is I don't want the government telling me how to live my life in accordance to what they don't believe in. Separation of church and state becomes problematic when the government takes that to the extreme where they dictate when, where and how people can express their faith. When a school child is admonished and reprimanded for saying "merry christmas" to a fellow student, that ventures from the land of separation to the land of government sponsored intolerance.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state's election results with claims that featured "intentional misrepresentations."
bit.ly/37FHRBA

Good. These a-holes deserve to lose their licenses to practice.
And to pay the State's (taxpayer's) costs.

Spoken like the true FLP democrat that you are. MD you are the poster child for how totally f***ed up the republican party is. Your a life long Richard Nixon loving Rockefeller blue blood republican. You think that by sucking up to all your FLP friends here on this forum that they will love and respect you.

ok, you need YOUR second cup of coffee.

No, I think the shameless, dishonest attack on our democracy deserves tough reprobation. I could care less whether the lawyers are GOP or Dem.

Since when does defending democracy make one FLP???
God help us...

I am working on my 3rd cup of coffee. When are you ever going to defend your own party? I'm not the lifelong Nixon/Agnew republican here... you are skippy. You seem to be 100% clueless that your arguments support the democrats. You have never once to my knowledge defended your own party that you claim a lifelong allegiance to. Maybe you need to consult your brother in law you have locked in your basement. The solution to you MD is really very simple. Why keep bullchitting all of us by claiming you are a Republican. Do what you should have done a long time ago... change your party affiliation to democrat. If you claim to represent mainstream republican ideology you are feeding everybody on this forum an industrial strength line of bullchit. If I was to be a republican i would never accept your viewpoint. If i was to accept your point of view why would i not just become a FLP democrat.

Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?

I’ve heard MD espouse traditional republican views such as freedoms of opportunity a number of times. It’s the party that sold out to this snake oil salesman. McCain vs Lindsey Graham? Who’s been more honorable and deserving of praise? By your argument Graham is the “true republican” because he falls in line behind a wanna be dictator who wipes his a** with the constitution every chance he gets. If this is your position then your definition of republican also would include the lack of a spine or any leadership qualities whatsoever.

By the way, Trump is now attacking Pat Cipollone, Mark Meadows & Mitch McConnell so I guess those guys should convert party affiliations too since they aren’t real republicans.

I defend MD because we have similar viewpoints along with many good long-standing republicans who held to limited government involvement, freedom to live as one chooses, low to zero wealth transfers. All of which the republicans who flip flopped behind Trump (Whats up Marco Rubio?) no longer behave as though they believe in. I don’t like being told be politicians who flipped their entire mentality around bc they took a PR loss to this guy that I’m not part of a party I supported before most people on Parler or watching OAN ever even paid attention to any of this.

"Should George W Bush also change his party affiliation since he’s all but condemned Trump? Should McCain have switched parties along with Flake and Paul Ryan?"

All good examples of why the republican party is all over the place in where their members stand.

Can you name for me any members of the democrat party that will advocate any position that strays from the hard line democrat beliefs? Can you name for me any upper echelon democrat that is pro life and will say so vocally? Don't strain your brain trying to think of one. You can't possibly be pro life and ever be accepted as a main stream democrat. You can be a pro choice republican and you stand a very good chance of being welcomed into the republican party with open arms. So tell me which party is more narrow minded in their thinking? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic that is pro choice. Would Joe Biden be the POTUS elect if he was true to his religion and was anti abortion? I'm asking for a friend. In my Catholic upbringing 50 years ago Joe Biden would have had an angry mob of priests and nuns carrying torches and pitchforks chasing his ass all over the place for having such beliefs as a devout catholic. My how the times have changed. Thank goodness the Catholic church is willing to change their dogma to stay hip and cool with modern thinking. What would Jesus say?

It’s easy, this country holds since inception to the belief of separation of church and state. Simple. Pro life in ones own circle of influence localized (personally, friends, family) and quiet on the subject while representing a set of constituents, where at a minimum half, and probably more like 70-80% are in fact pro choice. That’s kinda the job of a politician, to represent their constituents. If a politician isn’t separating church and state in their official representative capacity then they are derelict in their duties. Black and white my friend.

The bible also says you can't serve two masters. The exception to that is when your a politician. On any given Sunday you are free to live your life according to your faith. Every other day of your life you separate your faith from your job. You have to serve the other master.. I never would have made it as a politician. It may be black and white but to an individual of devout faith it can be a heartbreaking decision. That could be why it is easier for your run of the mill politician, they don't have a heart. They just do what they must do to get re elected.

I get that but then they all must go into politics not caring about their constituents who don’t agree on certain topics which may interfere with their faith. If your master is “god” then don’t become a politician. That’s simple too.

Or conversely all the religious believers in congress are liars to their god because they don’t serve him/her all the time. Maybe it’s their faith that is the fraudulent part?

I also get what your saying. The problem comes when interpreting the fine line between seperation of church and state. If a young un brings his bible in to school to read on his own free time he might as well have brought in a gun. I don't think that kind of church and state seperation is what the founding fathers had in mind. The extreme views are troublesome on both sides.

That is not true: https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/bi ... ents-legal

There have been exceptions to that. Especially if a student wants to pray in class while reading their bible.

https://www.libertyinstitute.org/pages/ ... es-allowed

There have been quite a few others. Sometimes teachers in public schools have their own interpretation of religious freedom and separation of church and state. In the minds of some public school teachers the bible is as dangerous as any gun.

Whatever

[MDlaxfan76]

Yes, different people have varying opinions about the Bible...and certainly have a right to express those views, whether positive or negative.

But separation of church and state is about government endorsing or requiring or otherwise favoring one or any particular religious belief or practice over any others or over none at all.

Seems to me that when in publicly-funded school, one's time should be spent on school activities, most particularly during class. And unless the course is on, say, comparative religion, reading the Bible wouldn't be part of such activities. Plenty of time away from school for reading the Bible for one's religious purposes.

[Farfromgeneva]

That’s what I was trying to get at but didn’t articulate as well. We went from dictating what choices a woman can make with her body or other extremely impactful all the time impositions by church to a kid bringing a bible into school and getting banged out of it. If one can’t serve god faithfully however that is while avoiding having those demands impose the will of church on a group (majority in this case) then the person has to make a choice between profession (politician) and religion.

It would be gluttonous to not do so...