@raphjd said in Levin Calls For Schiff To Be Disbarred Over Doctored J6 Committee Text Messages:

@bi4smooth

Clearly, you have a pathological need to defend the DNC/CCP at every turn.

"Inadvertently" I guess that's the same thing that happened in the FBI with the CIA email about Carter Paige and the FISA warrants.

Are you seriously suggesting that the accidental addition of a PERIOD when some intern made a poster out of the message actually altered the message content - in any MEANINGFUL way???

Who's the delusional one?

R-O-F-L ... it comes full circle now!

Read the article...

Hunter Biden conspired with other Democrats from the Clinton and Obama administrations, along with those evil Ukrainians (what happened to the Chinese?) to release COVID-19 to get Trump out of office!

Of course, they planned the COVID-19 crisis - because it's so common that US Voters choose to oust a sitting President during a crisis! (Historically - not so much! Had Trump handled the crisis as most Presidents would: by galvanizing the country around a unified response, he'd have been re-elected in the landslide he always dreamed of! Instead, he turned it into a political football, blaming others for stupid things and setting Americans against Americans over a distrust of science! DOH!)

Re-read the article - without the "world-view" that every one of the 7 billion people, except for the 70+ million who voted for Trump in 2020, were conspiring to get him (Trump) out of office...

@gerggently said in Dems who once decried "loose canon" Trump, now defending Biden "going off script":

Yes, which is why his remarks were so refreshing and the fact he's not backing down is making talking heads assplode is beautiful.

Refreshing? His remarks practically panicked our allies - who are even more AFRAID of war than Biden is himself - and fed the Russian paranoia that we were "out to get them" (You know the "red scare" we knew just a few decades ago? Well, they have their own "Yankee scare" culture!)

So many people who I had good time for are misinterpreting what he said, outside of the deliberately dense dullards at Fox and DSA, that I've stopped following a few dozen people on Facebook and Twitter.

Unfollowing people because they don't agree with your own interpretation of events ... how Trumpian of you! (You have learned well, grasshopper... the dark side of the Force strong within you!)

Speechwriters are not noted for their bravery.

Do you think Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" comment was "off the cuff"?

Speechwriters don't PUT the words into the politician's mouths, they POLISH the words that come out of their mouths! If Biden wanted to call for regime change in Russia - without giving Putin the soundbites he'll use to excuse many many more heinous war crimes - his speechwriters could have found a way....

I suspect the NSA is learning to "cull" actual national secrets OUT of Presidential briefings for Biden the same way they did for Trump... loose lips sink ships!

@raphjd said in BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Claims He Has Contents Of Hunter Biden's Laptop, Attempts To Enter Into Record:

@bi4smooth

Are you saying that Hunter's laptop, emails, photos and all are fake?

I'm saying the laptop's "bona fides" aren't clear, and remains a part of the Justice Dept's investigations...

Look, as I said before: Hunter Biden has a LOT of skeletons in his closet - REAL ONES - you DON'T have to make shit up (e.g. make claims that are still unclear as to whether they are valid)...

Hunter Biden:

• is a known, and admitted drug addict
• as a drug addict, he squandered HUGE sums of money on drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes - an allegation made by his ex-wife and he has admitted to
• he cheated on his wife, having multiple affairs - including with his dead brother's widow (that doesn't say much about her either!)
• he attempted to disclaim a child - born to one of his one-night-stands - only to have is paternity proven by DNA testing
• his addiction was so bad, the Navy discharged him - from the reserves!
• he is KNOWN to have claimed to be able to get his "clients" close to his father, but all reports so far say none of those "schemes" came to fruition - it seems Joe Biden loves his son, but also knows NOT to trust him and keeps him well away from his political career
• owed about $450k in back taxes on property in Washington, DC - but those have been paid, although the source of the funds seems to be in question

So, we can all agree, Hunter Biden is not a "good guy"!

The contents of the laptop (who Hunter claims was stolen by Russians - making any contents suspect) remains a maelstrom of speculation from assholes who don't care about facts... if and when those contents are revealed in a credible way (like, for instance, as evidence in a trial!), we can then believe what's there... until then, the speculation has been rampant - with nary a credible source around...

One last thing:

Hunter Biden has never - once - held a political office.

Not even as a Senate Page when his dad was a Senator. (Again, it seems to me that Papa Joe has always known his boy was troubled - and kept him away from "important" parts of his life as a result. That said, as a father of 9, let me tell you - you don't love your kid less because they're a scumbag. You love them still. You try to protect them as much as you can. And you protect yourself from them!)

@raphjd said in BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Claims He Has Contents Of Hunter Biden's Laptop, Attempts To Enter Into Record:

@gerggently

Actually, there's a longer video which is much better.

Funny how Democrats don't want Hunter's laptop in the record.

If Matt Gaetz actually has the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, and wants to read it into the record, well then:
1 - someone at the Justice Dept (who actually DOES have custody of the laptop in question) isn't just in trouble, they're going to prison for losing, and tampering, with evidence in a Federal Investigation
2 - let him read it (but insist he read ALL of it - for context, don't ya know)... including log files, events, and crash dumps! Assuming there's about 100GB of data on there, it should take him about 6-7 years to read aloud all of the data on that laptop!

This is such bullshit... an incredibly easy to disprove claim... maybe he's trying to take the heat off of Rep. Cawthorn - he who claims to have been invited to Capitol Hill orgys and to have seen other Reps do lines of cocaine!

Note: Cawthorn is being threatened with "being primaried" by his own party because his antics are so "over the top"...

I like a good Republican - but an asswipe is an asswipe, regardless of who they caucus with!

@raphjd said in BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Claims He Has Contents Of Hunter Biden's Laptop, Attempts To Enter Into Record:

@bi4smooth

If you watch Congress, they constantly put things into the record without reading it.

If it's so easy to disprove it, let's see what you have.

They put written material into the record... go ahead, add a tractor the the Congressional Record...

Again: the laptop is in the custody of the Justice Dept. - if Gaetz (who is a clown) actually has the laptop, someone (who works in evidence lockup) is going to prison.

Again - plenty of REAL dirt on Hunter - made-up shit is unnecessary and detracts (further?) from your credibility... right, Rep Cawthorn?

@raphjd said in BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Claims He Has Contents Of Hunter Biden's Laptop, Attempts To Enter Into Record:

@bi4smooth

Papa Joe brags about using tax money to protect Hunter. It's on video.

A crackhead and criminal will say anything to keep out of trouble.

Of course, he's gonna claim some mysterious Russians stole his laptop, since 51 spies (the same ones that lied about Trump colluding with Russia) said it.

You are easily confused, aren't you...

If Joe Biden uses "personal" money to bail out his son, it's Government money - because he works for the Government... there are all kinds of controls and audits on how actual Government money is spent... and if it was spent on defending HUNTER Biden, I would think that'd have come out by now. (Of course, you can't prove a negative. I can't prove there are no angels on any heads of any pins - only that, under a microscope, we've never found one - yet!)

The person who claimed Russians stole the laptop is Hunter Biden - who, while he claims (and there is no evidence to the contrary) to be clean now, as the tale with his illegitimate child shows, he doesn't always remember what he did when he was using... not a credible witness, to be sure.

But the point(s) here aren't that Hunter Biden isn't a very "good guy" - the point is that you're trying to use the moral and physical failures of an apolitical son to sully the name & reputation of his father! And that's just wrong.

I'm dropping this thread because, as with your other Hunter Biden thread, you are just trying to throw mud at Joe Biden (who has his own foibles to attend to and atone for!), and are inappropriately using his apolitical family member as a weapon. That's just sad, immoral, and pitiful on your part.

Argue about it with someone else... (mic drop) I'm outta this one!

You may remember this: Former Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) resigned from Congress in January to take the helm of Donald Trump's Media & Technology Group - the Trump company that would oversee the "Truth Social" app - designed to give Trump a platform aside from Twitter and Facebook, which had taken to censoring his ... er... imaginative, fact deficient, borderline delusional posts.

Launched a little over a month ago (Feb 21, 2022), Nunes (who once sued the owner of a Twitter account named "@DevinCow" - an account largely used to lampoon the Congressman. Shocker: the suit was dismissed as frivolous) has quickly learned that all the marketing in the world can't fix a broken app! As someone who has worked in tech for my entire career, I have one piece of advise for him: if you're going to run a tech company, high some GOOD tech people! (The site has struggled to scale, even though the base code is from Mastadon - a free and open-source platform that has proven to be quite scalable in the "right hands").

But tech hasn't been the whole problem:

• The "Truth Social" app was initially a hit! Signing up 872K users in the first week, but enthusiasm quickly waned - esp as many of the early users were using the platform to attack and make fun of the former President.
• Current statistics show about 50K hits per week on Apple's App Store - a 90% drop from the first week!
• The companion website initially had 6-million hits per week, but instead of growing, the visits to the site have fallen to under 1-million per week. (NOTE: The website cannot be used to post or read posts on the app, nor is the Android version of the app available yet)
• Launched as an "alternative" to the "heavy-handed" Twitter and Facebook, users were quickly confronted with terms of service that forbade users to: "disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site".
  Truth Social also declares that it has the right to "suspend or terminate your account" and also "take appropriate legal action".
• Truth Social has blocked accounts for behavior it considers harmful or inappropriate, including creating accounts with parody names or complaining about the app.
• Truth Social also disclaims any responsibility for any post made on the platform (Section 230 anyone?)
• Needless to say, users' responses have been akin to: this is better than Twitter and Facebook.... how?

One more factoid: Axios reported that there were multiple official-looking accounts for entities, like: @NFL, @FoxSports, @ESPN and others. These "accounts" had legitimate-appearing links and logos, but were not created with the help - or even permission - of the named entities! Some were removed when the rightful owners of the service and trademarks complained.

Needless to say, The Donald is not pleased. Rumors around the TMTG water coolers is that Mr. Nunes is avoiding Mr. Trump, for fear of hearing those infamous words: YOU'RE FIRED!

Maybe he can run and get his old seat in Congress back?

@raphjd said in Health care is now a private matter:

Democrats are now saying that health care is a private matter.

HIPAA (the law in the US that protects your health information) was enacted in 1996 - under a Democrat President.

So... they've been saying health care is a private matter since 1996.

The "explosive" issue in the US is that a draft proposed SCOTUS ruling was leaked, and it would repeal Roe v. Wade - the ruling from nearly 50 years ago that protected a woman's right to choose an abortion. (It had other affects as well)...

If that is the final decision, it will throw a REAL monkey-wrench into the mid-term elections: a large majority of the US electorate is pro-choice. What should be a Republican monsoon of wins may be the opposite!

Time will tell...

@raphjd said in Health care is now a private matter:

Here's a tweet from Kamala, on 3 May;

The rights of all Americans are at risk in this draft opinion. If the right to privacy is weakened, every person could face a future in which the government can potentially interfere in the personal decisions you make about your life.

Oh, the fucking irony.

You're beautiful!

You're purposefully conflating PUBLIC HEALTH with PERSONAL HEALTH.

You do know that, under Reagan/Bush there was a push to FORCE people with HIV/AIDS to identify themselves as-such in any situation where there may be exposure:

• ALL medical facilities (Dr., Dentist, Physical Therapist, Psychiatrist, Massage Therapist... you name it!)
• People who were HIV+ and didn't divulge this information could be charged with "reckless endangerment" or even "attempted murder".
• People who were HIV+ were, in some states, required to wear IDs (bracelets, necklaces, etc) that identified them as HIV+ - JUST IN CASE there was an accident and emergency personnel arrived on scene (you gotta know who to save, and who to let die, don't ya know!)

Look, there ALWAYS has to be a balance between personal (private) health information, and public safety-releated health issues. We (society, not Democrat/Republican) don't always get it right, and in times of crisis, we usually overreact.

Personally, I was far more concerned about the Covid-19 ID (vaccination) cards than I was the vaccine mandates! (NOTE: ALL of the "mandates" had exceptions for people with legitimate reasons not to be vaccinated). They seemed Orwellian and could have easily been misused. I don't know about other places, but that - thankfully - did not happen here. (The only people who EVER asked for my vaccine card was my employer.)

Here in Fla, and in Louisiana (where I recently traveled), there are plenty of places (businesses) where masks are still (this is mid-2022) required, and where people are asked to "mask up" IF they haven't been vaccinated - but allowing them to self-identify as meeting the criteria... sans documentation! Viva la difference! (Intentional Anglican-French spellings there!)

Honestly, as-is, it's not much different than the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" signs we used to encounter as kids (I grew up on the Florida beaches - no shirt AND no shoes was the NORM for kids!)

@raphjd said in Democrats throw "birthing people" under the bus:

@bi4smooth

It says everything about you liberals.

You idiots flip flop all over the map, to suit your agenda.

As I said, if I dared claim, as you did, that man can't get pregnant, you would have called me a transphobe. But since I sided with the trans community, you idiots claim I'm a transphobe. That is the kind of garbage people you liberals are.

You liberals are nothing more than bad faith actors.

You can't see the idiocy of your own argument.
You hear from 2 different people that you're "inserting" the trans issue into a subject that is patently NOT ABOUT trans people, and largely does not affect any of them (at least not as a result of their being trans).

This is the equivalent of claiming that white privilege is a trans issue... or that social security running out of money is a trans issue...

Just when are you going to make Trump's loss in 2020 a trans issue? I can't wait to hear your twisted mind make a "logical" attempt to make THAT jump!

@raphjd said in Is it legal to protest outside justices’ homes? The law suggests NO:

@bi4smooth

Did you read the bit about the federal law that bans this kind of thing?

The federal law (discussed in the article) clearly makes this illegal, even though the White House and DOJ are ignoring it because it suits their agendas.

ROFL - you act as-if the law is clear-cut and boundless... so, all those demonstrators in front of the White House are terrorists (and are in violation of this law)... because the White House is the residence of the US President!

Likewise, people demonstrating outside Speaker Pelosi's house every day should be arrested and deported to their ancestral homes....

Balderdash - of course there are limits (which is what the law REALLY addresses)...

but for YOU - nah... for YOU it's more like:

• Speech I agree with is PROTECTED, 1st Amendment Speech!
• Speech I *disagree with is terrorism and must be stopped and punished!

Someone's news feed from the Kremlin has been cut...
now we get random right-wing shit from YouTube?

That's telling!

@raphjd said in US State Department says there are only 2 genders:

On Armed Forces Day (21 May 2021), the US State Department tweeted this;

Today on Armed Forces Day, we celebrate the women and men who bravely serve across all branches in the United States military. We are grateful for their dedication and service to the American people.

I see - so, I can't say "Thanks to Apple Growers out there, for all the delicious food!"

Instead I have to say: "Thank you to the growers of each of the following fruits:

Gala
Red Delicious
Fuji
Granny Smith
Honeycrisp
Golden Delicious
McIntosh
Pink Lady
Braeburn
Ambrosia
Bramley
Charles Ross
Crispin
Early Victoria
Early Worcester
Ellisons Orange
Epicure
Gibsons Scarlet
Golden Spire
Greensleaves
Howgate Wonder
Ingrid Marie
James Grieve
Jonagored
Jupiter
Katy
Orleans Reinette
Peasgood Nonsuch
Red Gravenstein
Red Victoria
Rev W. Wilks
Ribston Pippin
Rosemary Russett
Spartan
Sturmer Pippin
Sunset
Superb
Tydermans Late Orange
Warners King
Winston
..."

I could go on - there are over 7,000 varieties of Apples around the world...

So, if I say "I love Apple Pie", please forgive me, growers of Granny Smith Apples, but I mean to say that I love "Braeburn Apple Pie", and the rest of you Apple Growers can go fuck yourselves...

Or, maybe, just a thought, sometimes we could have words or phrases in the English Language, that mean a WHOLE CATEGORY of things - all at once!

For example: "Men and Women" could include, cis-gender, trans-gender, and even hermaphrodite, inter-sex, and even eunichs! And even THAT is just a partial list! ... all without having to name each one, separately!

OMG - consider, just for a moment, how much easier that would make our language!

mind blown

You know how when you buy a new car, all of a sudden you see that car .... EVERYWHERE!

Or, if you have a scary experience with a spider, all of a sudden, you see spiders... EVERYWHERE!

Or, if you get called out for being a transphobe, you suddenly see transphobia in EVERYTHING!

@raphjd knows these things... @raphjd IS these things!

@raphjd said in US State Department says there are only 2 genders:

@serenity

Are you saying that they didn't tweet what I quoted?

Or, if you admit they did tweet it, then they only acknowledge men and women.

I think you are making excuses for them.

No, he's saying the Gov't made a generalized statement that covered over 98% of the population - and because it was not talking about gender, it failed to specifically include any of the 66 other recognized terms than can be used to describe human gender identity.

They did not do so to be exclusionary - only you have done that.

BTW: If you ask sociologists, they would tell you that "men and women" covers 99.3% of the population - but I personally think that trans and other gender non-conforming people are under-reported, so I expanded it - claiming only 98% of the population...

Just to be perfectly clear, up-front, and honest about it...

@raphjd

Actually, I have never called you a transphobe - that was someone else. What I've said - repeatedly - is that your MASSIVE overreaction to being called one may be your attempt to reconcile your own feelings over the matter.

I do not believe that failing to mention trans people when in topics unrelated to sexuality or gender is phobic at all... there is no requirement for trans-supportive people to keep trans issue front-of-mind at all times!

But you demonize me at all costs and on all fronts - and I'm not offended. IMHO, your views are extreme and foreign bad-actor influenced, so being distanced from them is a PLUS in my view!

Most certainly @raphjd has "silenced" opposition (including myself).

Look, it's not that hard to understand: the right-wing politics in the world are having their heydey, and the admin of this part of the site is right there along with them. "Free Speech" to the right wing is that you're allowed to claim they're wrong, as long as you agree to all of their made-up facts & come to the same bogus conclusions...

NOTE: any facts you bring up that would run counter to their beliefs (and that's what they are: "beliefs" vs knowledge) will be written off as "leftist media". Their favourite retorts always start with "what about..."

True conservatives (vs. MAGA & extremist right-wingers), as well as the moderates and liberals, have - for quite some time now - just let these nut-jobs have their space... it's become an echo chamber (whether they admit as much or not), where they continually pat themselves on the back for one false claim after another, and "claim victory" over some "evil conspiracy" out to get them.

They're harmless - a bunch of bullied teens who now get to be the bullies... the big fish in their teeny pond.

My advise: stay off the Politics & Debate part of the site - it's not what you think it is.

Can I take it from your level of outrage that you'll be calling out White Christian Evangelists for the exceptionally high levels of child molestation rates in that population?

I didn't think so.

BUT, the libs who are constantly reporting on OTHER mass shootings "not trans" can't say that here... so, I guess you one-upped them libs! (Nevermind the 34 OTHER mass shooting so far in 2026 that were NOT committed by gay or trans persons.) [Source]

@blablarg18
I shot these ridiculous stats in the head in another thread.

There are only about 2.8m trans people in the USA. At your "offender rate" of 0.33 per million, that's less than 1 offender in the USA.

I think we can agree, THAT is not possible....

BUT, I still say, forget about number of offenders per million -- let's look at total offenders. Truth be told, white evangelical christian men are STATISTICALLY much more of a potential danger to your children than trans people are...

But why look at the results without looking at the problem: gay, straight, trans - THAT's just finger-pointing! Those things are not (according to psychologists) causal to these mass murder events! What IS common is that the perps suffer from mental illness - and this country HAS NO - ZERO - INFRASTRUCTURE to help people with mental illness... well, at least not until they commit a crime (and often times, that first crime is indeed, murder!)

Please - stop pointing the finger at one minority group or another and recognize the need for a REAL solution - some kind of mental health care in this country!

@headstrong19
For those interested, it's on HBO Max
Originally a British mini-series
Of course, it's also likely downloadable on other torrent sites (I have NOT seen it downloadable here yet)