The Frankish Reich

In other words, you think they are colluding, as evil capitalists are wont to do. I think I heard that one somewhere before. Bernie Sanders? Karl Marx? I've mentioned the Horseshoe Theory of Politics before - the far left and the far right weirdly converging. And that's what we have here.

I can't even guess at what this is supposed to mean. What is a "gas powered EV?" And in what economic model does a moribund industry (your take on fossil fuel companies) have the market power to do what you're accusing them of doing? You do see that you are essentially agreeing with Biden here - that the oil companies are taking advantage of the Russia-Ukraine war to price-gouge? It's nonsense when he says it, and nonsense on stilts when you say it. And finally: "the whole make hay as the sun shines." Is this a bad google translate of some foreign idiom?

Well, my age (and my kids age - I’d saved enough to cover college) does have a lot to do with it. And I didn’t move completely out of the market, just heavily rebalanced. I’m fine with missing out on some of the run up since I’m not sweating the bear market now. I’m not sure what’s “partisan” about criticizing Trump’s (and Biden’s!) Fed Chair … I just quoted Milton Friedman, but maybe that was waaaay over your amateur investor’s head. I hope your risotto is better than your economics.

I pulled money out of the markets when COVID hit because I did not anticipate the truly unprecedented governmental interventions that propped the market up for the last 2 years. Knowing what I know now, that was a mistake. But it was a rational decision at the time. For example: I pulled money out of high yield (“junk”) bond funds based on my reasonable expectation of a wave of defaults. That didn’t happen because the Fed did the previously unimaginable: it intervened to prop up junk bonds. I think all of these interventions were harmful in the long run, and not just because I missed out on some of the fake money rise in the markets. My point is this: some of you guys want to have it both ways: Blame Biden for the bursting of the bubble that was deliberately created by the Fed before Biden was even President. Biden hasn’t exactly made things better, but as I learned from the conservative economist decades ago: inflation is always and everywhere the result of loose monetary policy. If you made a lot of money in the markets over the last two years, good for you. But you do realize you are cheering on government creation of a bubble economy? And now bitching about that very same bubble bursting? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/08/10/the-fed-bought-more-blue-chip-and-junk-bonds-and-has-started-making-main-street-loans.html

Yep. Not just 2 of the best players in baseball - it’s one sure-thing first ballot hall of famer (Trout) and the best two-way player in the history of baseball (Babe Ruth pitched and hit at world class levels, but not at the same time). And somehow they won’t even make the playoffs?

So I guess the extraordinary market interventions that the political branches and the Federal Reserve took over the last 27 months had nothing to do with the remarkable gains in the market? The gains that are now being washed away by a return to reality? I should know. I moved a bunch of money out of the markets when COVID hit based on the rational expectation that a pandemic would launch the world into recession. Government interventions - truly extraordinary ones like propping up the junk bond market that I stupidly didn’t anticipate - delayed that by 2 years, but I missed out on a lot of the run-up. Just like I’m missing out on the thrill of the decline right now. TINSTAAFL

You mean the eviction moratorium signed into law by TRUMP as part of the CARES act in May 2020? And extended by TRUMP’s CDC in September 2020? (I’ll grant you subsequent Biden admin extensions, but really - Trump started it and continued it)

Quick addition from the Five Guys “nutritional” information — each meal on this ticket was about 2150 calories. That’s right in line with what’s recommended for a FULL DAY of eating. So 21 bucks to stuff your face for a day. Sounds like a deal to me.

Another example of why those polls that have a "Generic Republican" defeating Biden, or your state's senator, or your local rep, don't mean anything. Because they never nominate a "Generic Republican." They nominate a total wacko, and the Dems wind up retaining control of Congress. (I say this as someone who is ready to vote for a good, old-fashioned Republican, but who realizes that no such thing can get through a Repub primary anymore)

In his defense, I too have sometimes confused "Hitler" and "Churchill." Or "Mussolini" and "Pope John Paul II." They both lived in Rome. It's confusing! (But remember, Biden is the senile one)

What, like 18 U.S.C. sec. 101 defines "cop?" "Cop" is a colloquialism. It has no set meaning. It has the meaning people ascribe to it. Feds are, in fact, Law Enforcement Officers. And yes, most people in DC wouldn't hesitate for a moment before referring to the Capitol Police as "cops" if they were pulled over by them in their area of jurisdiction. This is the silliness our insurrection defenders now engage in. Semantic games.

Well, what a clever retort! Blue Lives Matter, but the Border Patrol Agent who killed the Uvalde shooter was wearing his green uniform! So you'll have to think about whether his/her life matters for a bit.

Exactly. What the House Committee is trying to do tonight - and with mixed results so far - is to refocus public attention on what really happened. The "insurrection" wasn't just the storming of the Capitol in an attempt to shut down the formal counting of electoral votes. It was the scheme - a cynical scheme, thought up by cynical, unethical lawyers and consultants like John Eastman - to subvert the process by: (1) stirring up a mob - a mob chanting things like "hang Mike Pence!" - to intimidate the Senate (including Pence in his role presiding over the Senate) from completing their largely symbolic/formal duties (2) intimidating Pence into "rejecting" electoral slates from pivotal states, and encouraging Trumpists in charge of those state governments to appoint phony/pro-Trump slates, and, (3) thereby stealing the election by counting fake electoral votes. Let's not lose sight of that. The mob were a tactic of a planned insurrection (or coup if you like), not the insurrection in and of itself.

Greedy and self centered? 90% Scumbags? 50% [looks up old probability and stats text] So both greedy and a scumbag: a mere 45% see, I told you there’s still reason for optimism.

This is a big one. The percentage of House districts that are truly competitive has been in decline for a long time. When your representative doesn't have to moderate his or her views even a little bit in order to get reelected, you get what we've got now. And it's not going to change anytime soon - political consultants are really, really good now at slicing a dicing the map by census tract until they've chosen the voters they want. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2022/feb/12/us-redistricting-house-seats-safe-competitive-districts Ooh, liberal pub, I must disregard that! Well how about "ooh, Rupert Murdoch owned pub says the same thing" https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-political-maps-will-kill-swing-districts-from-coast-to-coast-11639305003 We've diagnosed the problem, but it doesn't appear fixable - that would require the people in charge, those that benefit from their safe seats, to take action against their own interests. I am still hanging onto my generally optimistic view of America's proven ability to sooner or later fix things: "the thing about things that can't go on like this forever is that they don't." But it's getting awfully hard to keep the faith ...

Will it include naked pelvic thrusting? Will the thrustee be his (male) cousin? Now I’m really intrigued.

But isn't this time different?

Thank you. I agree.

Well, according to PFF Lewan has been a pretty solid starter (roughly Dion Dawkins quality) most of his career, with at least one elite season in 2016, which is kind of a long time ago. I can’t say I spend my weekends isolating Lewan on the All 22 feed, but it seems that PFF has pretty well captured how most of the smart NFL people (GMs included) view his career performance? Or maybe his own contribution$ need to keep pace with inflation…

In other words: it’s perfectly fine that he treated national security information so cavalierly, because … Hillary.

What “impeachment based on her lies?” Trump wasn’t impeached over anything about 2016. He was impeached over withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on the Biden’s, and then for trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/investigation-trump-s-handling-classified-documents-huge-n1295419 The under-the-radar scandal that is about to get a lot more over the radar. Why on earth was Trump spiriting away classified docs? There is just no way this happens by accident. Anyone who has the clearance to handle classified information knows the drill. Taking classified out of the White House is just ridiculous.

I don’t think the word “ignore” means what you think it means. 😛 I can’t wait for you to “ignore” me, then summarize what you think my “ignored” comment said, then go back and un-ignore my “ignored” comment so you can gloat about how perceptive you are.

Congratulations! You are now responding directly to comments you ostensibly “ignore.” In other words, quite literally carrying on your own internal dialogue here on an open forum. There are FDA approved treatments for this.

I will grant you that.