leh-nerd skin-erd

Visited the Skeller a few times with friends who attended. I suppose one could spend too much time there, but darn it, I liked it. Not all education takes place in the classroom.

Probably less about the link, more about the Leh-n. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I posted a link to an article, Mike. You lectured like you were the Ethan Hawke character in “Training Day”. All good though. My bad for following up.

Geesh, a couple days ago, you’re invoking the principle of parsimony, recalling your days as the only Caucasian for hundreds of miles in south central (and later, a snowball in a cotton field in Topeka) while chiding me on outlandish conspiracy theories and how you’ve tired of them. Now, a senator opens an investigation into the topic we were discussing and you’re disinterested. Go figure.

Sure.

https://nypost.com/2025/06/11/us-news/sen-josh-hawley-probes-lefty-immigration-group-to-see-if-its-funding-la-riots-this-violence-isnt-spontaneous/ Who knows where this will go, but citations of 'credible evidence' certainly make this interesting given our exchange the other day. This feels sort of on-base to me.

I think you're right on this, though there is something to be said for a parade celebrating national pride. It might mean nothing to you, but will to some. As Fergie points out on the other hand, a few millions on a debt the size we're dealing with, it's a drop in the proverbial bucket.

That was my reply to your comment…so…..yup.

Nope, it was you. You’re probably confused because your malfunctioning virtue signal is messing with your eyesight. Let’s just move on. This is like the 4th or 5th post where you’ve declared your willingness to be benevolent and generous while revealing you’re not either, but would be if the government made you. On the other stuff, some reasonable thoughts there. Glad we can agree there are costs that can be cut, the only difference between you and me is I say cut expense first, raise taxes only as necessary. You say look for cuts and increase taxes concurrently for select groups, especially liberals willing to help but only if required by law.

Ah, the old 'hard work, grit and good common sense' argument, I was wondering when you would trot out that old trope. Get in line, Fergie, that applies to most successful people. It seems like in your case, you use that to justify not doing your fair share while pointing at other people who need to. As far as arguing, I'm not--I'm just having a dialogue on what you say v what you do. That caused you to bring Trump into it, discussing his integrity as if it somehow justifies your actions. As for liberals being "willing to pay more if it will help the economy", I agree liberals are extremely effective in branding their message as such, woefully inadequate at actually parting with their money to do so. It's a thought exercise, nothing more, nothing less. We also agree those big talk/no action liberals are just like you. Anyway, we're going around in circles. Good talk.

Ironically, you’re exactly like Trump. Both of youruse the tax code to justify windfall earnings (relative, of course). The difference is Trump embraces it, you dance around like Mr Bojangles pretending you don’t see your own hypocrisy. At the same time, you’re complaining that other wealthy/wealthier people, certainly the vast majority liberals based on education and income levels as you frequently point out, need to do more in order to convince you that it’s appropriate for you to contribute more. This is the typical über wealthy liberal response. “We have major problems! You should do more!”. As for the dollar amount, $10,000 doesn’t sound like it would put a dent in your country club lifestyle, but if you want to be cautious, maybe consider $5,000. Find a stout number and move on. I’m not here to judge.

Because it’s your value system that suggests you’re unfairly profiting at the expense of those less fortunate. You’re rationalizing the using the argument that others are more less fair. It’s an ethical disconnect, like arguing that you’re on solid footing because you only stole $500 from a store when others stole $1000. You probably struggle to see it because you really, really like the money.

You don’t need a change in tax code to contribute more to the treasury than what would affect you, you can pay more at any time. I never understand why you wealthy folk hold out until the gov compels you, but you’re all pretty consistent. My philosophy remains unchanged. Let’s have a reconciliation of federal/state tax to be certain waste and fraud is as close to eliminated as possible before taxes are increased. You can’t possibly approach “fair share” fairly when efficiency is not a critical part of the evaluation.

I was unaware you were limiting your comments to legislative activities only, but you’re off base there as well. I’m almost embarrassed to have to post these links. The history of our country is complicated and involves all sorts of closed-minded behavior, and it’s certainly not limited to the R brand. I’m not even going to dig into the governments on state and local levels, but if you’re thinking the old school democrats in heavily union WNY were voting for tree-hugging, integration-minded, full term abortion, LGBT inclusive neighborhoods you’re just. plain. wrong. https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/920385802/biden-vows-to-ease-racial-divisions-heres-his-record https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/joe-biden-record-on-busing-incarceration-racial-justice-democratic-primary-2020-explained.html https://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/08/obama-says-marriage-is-between-man-and-woman-011026 https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-07/former-president-clinton-defends-1996-crime-bill-super-predators-remark https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-democrats-purged-safe-legal-rare-from-the-party/2019/11/15/369af73c-01a4-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html

One of the democrat talking points was “no tax increase on anyone making under $250k” for a while. That was later adjusted to $400k to widen the net of victims and demonize those not paying their fair share. https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/president-bidens-no-tax-hike-pledge-problem https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/26/harris-biden-pledge-not-raise-taxes-middle-class-00171416

You never saw the left minimize or target others? Never heard anything about cult members, Putin supporters, about authoritarianism, about failure to tolerate, about white privileged, and most recently, about educated voters v uneducated? The general rule of thumb for a leftists is that whatever income level a leftist is taxed at, the people north paying their fair share starts roughly at the next higher income bracket. Deplorables. Irredeemables. Garbage. You never heard of cancel culture? Fascinating.

When he mentioned the current administration being derelict in its duty, he didn’t suggest it was Truman or Eisenhower at the helm. That’s a plus and in spite of his very pronounced stutter, I think he did good here. I’m voting sharp as a tack. Final answer.

Well, based on recent history, it’s possible though I don’t see the MSM participating in the deception to the extent they protected Biden. I also don’t see an unflinching, unquestioning commitment to belief in stories told by MSM outlets like I see with folks on your side of the aisle. In the event your version of a conspiracy comes to pass, I’d probably follow your lead when the dust settles and state that “DJT is off the stage, and no longer relevant.” when the time was right. That would be immediately after it was revealed, of course. Such is politics. As for the Epstein files, I never understood why they remained hidden, but it seems the DOJ has opted to follow the Biden DOJ lead. Continuity is good? From my side of things, I’m comfortable that the Biden admin would have selectively released any damaging or potentially damaging information contained in the files, consistent with the scorched earth policy followed during his admin. However, anything is possible.

Ok, but it seems a bit unreasonable to apply Occam's theory and not consider that being lied to is pretty much a mainstream issue these days. You imply I'm thinking conspiracy, but I'm thinking with a cell phone and communication/messaging apps it's pretty simple to organize a crowd of individuals intent on creating a ruckus. That said, you asked what I thought, I replied. When you pressed for further information, I replied again. There was nothing conspiratorial in what I suggested, yet here you are offering your opinions on my potential conspiracy theory. For what it's worth, we were lied to about Russia and who knew what and when, lied to about the deteriorating mental condition of JB, lied to about HBs laptop and Russian disinfo campaigns, lied to about elements of COVID including death counts of the elderly....all of which had the numbskulls on the other side of the political aisle screeching about conspiracy nuts. I'm not doing that here, and certainly acknowledge the possibility you have laid out. It's quite reasonable. It's ok with me to disagree agreeably.

I disagree. Chaos in the streets is always good for party out of power, it allows for the opportunity to position itself as the problem solver it given the chance. To borrow from a well-known political saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”. As to who might be organizing, I’d think there are any number of groups that might be in play: -Open Border groups; -Foreign govts/individuals looking to sow seeds of discontent in our country; -Left wing anarchists -Right wing anarchists; -Cartels; -Business groups that favor open borders and cheap labor; -Any group/social club Roundy belongs to;

That might be your conclusion, it isn't mine. I shared my conclusion at the end of my last post. Your question was fair, and it seems you've come to the conclusion that there was no coordination and everything happened spontaneously. That's possible.

Yes, I've been to Los Angeles though it's been quite a number of years. For whatever that's worth, I've never been to Washington, DC and feel pretty confident I know what happened there. As for coordination and violence, which part do you disagree with? That they were coordinated, or violent? I think the violence is pretty evident and was going off the assumption that spontaneous rioters typically don't have professional grade fireworks at hand, and multiple incidents occurring in the same way at the same time across a geographic area seems unlikely to be a random occurence. Be that as it may, let's assume that spontaneous riots occur in multiple sections of the city over a several day period, and said rioters happen upon unmanned gasoline containers with bottles, rags, and matchbooks conveniently nearby. Not far away, a random truck drives by and drops a pallet of Mexican flags nearby, and just around the corner, a black market illegal professional grade fireworks shop is left unattended whilst the proprietor goes to grab himself a latte from Starbucks. Rioters be rioting, and if the local authorities are overmatched, overwhelmed or apathetic to the needs of federal law enforcement agencies, the obvious answer seems to be to bring in protection from another source.

Whether or not the 'issue' demands intervention typically has a lot to do with the perspective from which it is viewed. Inside the violence, intervention of any sort probably seems like a pretty sweet deal. From the safety of the perch outside the zone, sure, let it all play out. I do agree with you, however, that a strong, direct and forceful response from the local authorities is the first wave. Again, sounds like the feds say the locals failed in that regard. As for 1/6, that's the beauty of consistency, I don't have to constantly change narratives depending on who the target is. The liberal democrats (and all others) sequestering behind armed guards was absolutely the correct thing to do. Asking, begging, pleading and hoping for the cavalry to arrive was the correct course of action and reflects human nature. I'm quite certain that had some 1/6ers breached the room they were in, there would have been no calls for restraint, or inquiring as to who was armed and who was not, or ensuring only the appropriately designated individuals fires warning shots first/shots to disable second before moving onward to more lethal options. Thereafter, supporting the shooting of the unarmed Ashli Babbitt and rushing to the defense of the LEO who shot her made sense because to them, in that case, it was all very, very personal. I wish they gave as much love, support and understanding to other members of the law enforcement community when it wasn't them directly in harm's way.

I don't know if we need the Marines, but would think probably not. However, the attacks seems well-coordinated and violent, which implies to me a certain degree of sophistication and funding. I couldn't say whether intelligence suggests greater violence on the horizon. With respect to National Guard, well, it seems the LAPD was unwilling to assist, the governor and mayor has made their feelings clear on the attempt to enforce the law, so deploying the NG makes sense. The rioters are wrong, great, we agree. I would think the onus would be on the state to deal with rioters, violent extremists, and stay out of the way of federal law enforcement activities. I don't think that's happening, so the federal government needs to provide support for federal law enforcement activities. I would also hazard a guess to say that those directly impacted by the rioters, insurrectionists and fomenters of violence would willingly accept the assistance of the federal government as the state plays politics on the sideline and not give a **** what that looked like. All they likely see is the time, effort and money put into building their lives, homes and businesses treated as fodder for extremists and at the whim of government officials unwilling to apply the law. In that regard, btw, the locals would not be unlike the liberal politicians huddled behind walls and people with guns and a willingness to use them on 1/6. Given the choice to dispatch the 1/6 rioters with extreme prejudice, bring in the National Guard, the Marine Corp, the First Infantry Division and any and all in-between, they would have chosen to do so to protect themselves regardless of rules, laws and regulations.

From an emotional perspective, I understand and appreciate what you’re saying. Individuals and families seeking a better way of life for themselves and their families is an age old story and an orderly and process-driven system for legal immigration is what every decent and reasonable person should hope for. We haven’t had that, and people on both sides of the border have been victimized. “Legal or not” is where the problem begins, and separating families is pretty common in that situation. As for resistance, if the standard response to emotional decisions is rioting and violence against law enforcement, the outcome would typically not be “Well, forget it, let’s just let it go.”. The better alternative is compliance with laws and regulations. This situation has been decades in the making and the responsibility falls squarely on the politicians representing our country for the last several decades. It’s exacerbated now by Democrat and liberal leaders who actively encourage defiance of our laws, regulations and sovereignty. It seems from photos and videos that the local authorities are unable to handle the situation, which involves federal personnel on the ground being targeted with violence. Politics plays a huge part in the response, and if reporting from the feds in this case is to be believed, it sounded as if LAPD would rather see federal law enforcement hurt/injured/killed than render assistance. Like the law, hate the regulation, hate enforcement…but the actions of individuals assaulting law enforcement officers, destroying private property, shutting down traffic and terrorizing neighborhoods is clearly a very dangerous situation. Those responsible for violent intercession are playing chess as well.