BarryLaverty

Really??? So that includes our weapons?

History being made and Trump sleeps right through it! Old guys need nappies! https://www.yahoo.com/news/dems-roast-trump-appearing-sleep-202802746.html Dems roast Trump for appearing to sleep in court Alex Gangitano Mon, April 15, 2024 at 3:28 PM CDT2 min read Dems roast Trump for appearing to sleep in court Democratic strategists are roasting former President Trump on Monday for appearing to fall asleep in a New York courtroom during the first day of his hush money trial. Trump at times during the day closed his eyes, appearing to nod off. He also would lean back in his chair motionless with his arms crossed for considerable periods, but opinions differed among the press corps about whether the former president was actually asleep. Maggie Haberman, senior political correspondent at The New York Times, reported that Trump looked like he was sleeping and later told CNN, “He appeared to be asleep. Routinely his head would fall down.” She added that Trump didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him and that his “jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack.” Photographers were only allowed in during the trial’s opening moments and do not appear to have captured the moments Haberman described. Kate Bedingfield, former communications director to President Biden, wrote in response to the reporting, “Sleepy Don.” Dan Pfeiffer, former senior adviser to President Obama, shared Haberman’s initial reporting and added, “If Trump is too old and weak to stay awake at his own criminal trial, what do you think will happen in the Situation Room?” Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina shared Haberman’s CNN interview and highlighted her comment: “Well, Jake, he appeared to be asleep.” Democratic strategist Chris Jackson shared a photograph of Trump and said, “So sad.” Others on X argued that if Biden appeared to sleep during a similar moment, it would be a major story. Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, posted on the social platform X, “you know what this means: it’s time for another round of stories about Biden’s age.” Additionally, journalist Jemele Hill argued in a post, “Now had this been Biden, it would have been the lead story on every newscast and Fox News would have talked about this for weeks.” Meanwhile, former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele joked, “When you’re old and on trial for falsifying official records you tire quickly. Let the man sleep but watch for that slack jaw, drooling could become a problem.” Trump is in court for his first criminal trial in a matter involving a hush money payment made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. The trial began Monday with the jury selection process, which is expected to last at least several days before opening arguments begin and star witnesses take to the stand.

So, this IS a bad deal for Texas? And, this is not companies practicing purposefully greedy profiteering, but it is governmental support in a need area to bolster production so we won't be dependent on foreign-made products. Are you against that as well? Why do you hate America?

You always post half-baked garbage then act scornfully and butt hurt over anyone crossing you...you are MAGA personified...carry on your own dang self.

You'd be wrong there, as usual. I don't want complete gun prohibition. I want registered guns, prevention of violent felons or those on the terror watch list to own them, domestic abusers, and those who are underage. Longer waiting periods, less killing weaponry available.

Oh, so this IS a bad thing for Texas and those who will have jobs here? What I was expecting, well, that and the straw man arguments. When did 'conservatives' get so terrible at 'whataboutisms' that have ZIP comparison value?

Soon after you tell that to the countless more that are murdered here because of our gun obsession. I'll get right on it.

In the Austin area...sure this is a bad thing for some reason. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/biden-administration-agrees-6-4-090030949.html Biden administration agrees to provide $6.4 billion to Samsung for making computer chips in Texas JOSH BOAK Updated Mon, April 15, 2024 at 6:06 AM CDT2 min read 278 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has reached an agreement to provide up to $6.4 billion in direct funding for Samsung Electronics to develop a computer chip manufacturing and research cluster in Texas. The funding announced Monday by the Commerce Department is part of a total investment in the cluster that, with private money, is expected to exceed $40 billion. The government support comes from the CHIPS and Science Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022 with the goal of reviving the production of advanced computer chips domestically. “The proposed project will propel Texas into a state of the art semiconductor ecosystem,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on a call with reporters. “It puts us on track to hit our goal of producing 20% of the world’s leading edge chips in the United States by the end of the decade.” Raimondo said she expects the project will create at least 17,000 construction jobs and more than 4,500 manufacturing jobs. Samsung's cluster in Taylor, Texas, would include two factories that would make four- and two-nanometer chips. Also, there would be a factory dedicated to research and development, as well as a facility for the packaging that surrounds chip components. The first factory is expected to be operational in 2026, with the second being operational in 2027, according to the government. The funding also would expand an existing Samsung facility in Austin, Texas. Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Samsung will be able to manufacture chips in Austin directly for the Defense Department as a result. Access to advanced technology has become a major national security concern amid competition between the U.S. and China. In addition to the $6.4 billion, Samsung has indicated it also will claim an investment tax credit from the U.S. Treasury Department. The government has previously announced terms to support other chipmakers including Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in projects spread across the country.

Oh good, a meme non response to my post. No one serious minded thinks Trump was any kind of diplomatic force for us in the world. He was bluster and arrogant while stroking the egos of dictators and thugs.

Remember that time the Trump administration ended the deal on nuclear access the Obama administration brokered, then Iran became very much closer to developing full blown nuclear weapons? I do.

Per capita those stats. So, nope.

The murder rate there is 11x less than ours. Wonder why that is? Oh, yeah, they require all guns to be registered and have 28 day waiting limits.

So you are equating MAGAs to hyenas? Yeah, makes sense.

Read a very good review that liked it.

Uh, the hyenas are WITH Scar, as his allies, until they realize his betrayal, and they eat him! You have seen the movie, right?

He likes to see himself as Mufasi when he is obviously Scar!

Meanwhile... Trump pushes Arizona lawmakers to 'remedy' state abortion ruling that he says 'went too far

Guess the indicted, big headed extremist didn't get the memo, or he is trusting MAGAts to be gullible dupes. https://www.yahoo.com/news/steve-bannon-accidentally-wrecks-one-141802201.html Trump’s Big Lie About Biden Implodes After MAGA Ally Admits Truth Greg Sargent Thu, April 11, 2024 at 9:18 AM CDT5 min read 2.8k Steve Bannon no doubt thought he was being deviously clever. Speaking with The New York Times this week, he elaborated on a sophisticated plan that Donald Trump’s allies have developed for boosting third-party candidates, so they siphon votes from President Biden. A key part of this scheme, Bannon noted, entails boosting expected Green Party candidate Jill Stein by highlighting oil production under Biden to pull environmentally concerned voters away from him. As Bannon put it: Whoa, that’s some serious 11-dimensional chess, Steve! Except for one thing. If you think for a second about Bannon’s quote—that “oil production under Biden is higher than ever”—it entirely undermines one of Trump’s biggest lies: the claim that Biden’s effort to transition the United States to a decarbonized economy has destroyed the nation’s “energy independence,” leaving us weak and hollow to our very core. This saga captures something essential about how MAGA-world fights the information wars. You’ll note that Bannon is not even slightly troubled by the idea that telling the truth about Biden’s record to one set of voters—left-leaning, green-minded ones—might contradict one of Trump’s most frequent lies to countless others. It isn’t just that for Bannon, assertions should be evaluated purely for their instrumental usefulness. It’s also that he apparently has total confidence that voters who really need to hear the truth he uttered—those in the industrial and Appalachian heartlands who are the targets of Trump’s propaganda—never, ever will, even if he admits to it right in the paper of record. It’s hard to overstate how central Trump’s story about “energy independence” is to his campaign. His basic claim is that under his presidency, we produced record levels of oil, inherently making us strong, whereas under Biden, we’re seeing a “war on American energy” responsible for many ills: deindustrialization, vulnerability to leftist enemies within, dependence on China and other nefarious “globalist” actors, and all-around national decline. In reality, Biden’s green policies are facilitating billions of dollars in investments in rebuilding the industrial base via green energy manufacturing, which is creating a whole lot of advanced manufacturing jobs for people without college degrees—exactly the targets of Trump’s demagoguery. Those policies are driving a manufacturing boom, ironically in red-leaning communities. Green manufacturing makes us stronger, not weaker—more prepared for a future in which climate change becomes a more pressing threat, not just to the world, but to our own national interests. Importantly, all this is happening while the U.S., under Biden, is producing more oil and more natural gas than ever before. Incidentally, as Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler details, Trump wasn’t even that responsible for the recent oil boom anyway: It started before his presidency, thanks to new energy technologies. “The U.S. is now producing more oil and gas than it ever has, and exporting more than ever,” Jesse Jenkins, an energy expert at Princeton University, told me. “We’re a net exporter of all fossil fuels. So we’ve achieved that long-sought goal of physical energy security.” Now the idea of “energy independence” is confusing to begin with. Even if we export more than ever before, oil is a global commodity, which inevitably makes us vulnerable to international shocks. But the answer to that is to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, not to drill more, as Trump wants. Regardless, by Trump’s own metric—that “energy independence” is good, that net exports of fossil fuel energy make us definitionally strong—we’ve achieved more of this under Biden. And critically, his policies are at the same time transitioning us to a post-carbon economy. Bannon knows all this. Yet Trump and his allies keep repeating the contrary story. “They obviously know this narrative is a crock of lies,” Jenkins said. It’s worth stressing that some progressive voters might nonetheless be reasonably upset about oil production under Biden. But the broader story remains that Biden is moving us toward a decarbonized economy by using the levers of government to boost demand for and production of renewable energy sources over time. “What’s important to note is that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are falling,” Jenkins says. That both this and robust oil production and exports are occurring simultaneously, he notes, would probably be viewed positively by moderate voters, including in Appalachia and the industrial Midwest. That is, if those voters hear any of this through the fog of MAGA agitprop. Trump’s attacks on Biden’s energy “weakness” are designed to tell a meta story that has little to do with policy details: Trump will protect us from an array of shadowy forces associated with green energy—leftism, China, ill will toward good ol’ American fossil fuel–guzzling SUVs—while Biden is making us vulnerable to them. You can see how this works in Trump’s proposal for across-the-board tariffs. These would hike prices for American consumers—they would impose a tax—even as Democrats have opted for green policies that move away from the more traditional policy of a carbon tax. Yet as Brian Beutler and Matthew Yglesias explain, Trump can still present his tariffs as a form of protection and Biden’s green agenda as a form of vulnerability, because each of these policies “code” that way for many voters. Bannon understands all this. Strikingly, he declares that “no Republican knows” that oil production is so high under Biden, which is another way of saying that no Republican voters know that Trump is lying in their faces. Bannon and other MAGA propagandists are making sure of that. They are using their influence over information flows to those voters to ensure that the truth never reaches them. And they’re absolutely confident in their ability to succeed.

I don't have a problem with true Republicans. I have a problem with MAGA, with culture warriors, burn down everything 'conservatives'.

Was responding to the glib denial of racism prevalent out there. Did you miss that for the 789th time or do you have an anecdote to share trying to deflect it?

Don't think they would meet that often, hopefully, just when neglect leads to murder.

'Numerous'! Spotted 5 out of 80, and they went by Ty.

Do a Google image search for Tyrone Jenkins and get back with us with what you find.

A longtime Republican, who served in the Trump administration, spells out what supporting Ukraine means very clearly for some of you isolationists, you pushovers for political nonsense pushed by Trump. (Washington Post) What We Lose if We Let Putin Win April 11, 2024 By Dan Coats Mr. Coats, a former senator from Indiana, served as the director of national intelligence from 2017 to 2019. After Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, a rare consensus formed in Washington around the conviction that America must provide military support to Ukraine’s resistance. Three administrations and large majorities of both parties in Congress have consistently held that President Vladimir Putin’s aggression cannot be tolerated. When has such deep solidarity last occurred on any difficult subject? Now members of Congress are arguing that we must turn away from spending more money to help Ukraine, choosing instead to focus on our own needs, pursuing our own interests. This is a false choice. The choices facing America are always based on the same foundation: what best serves our nation. The choice is not America first or something else first. America is always first. The real question, in this complicated and uncertain world, is what course of action will most likely serve our core national interests — security and economic prosperity. Those interests are inextricably linked to the strength of our global alliances and the international system of law and cooperation in which American democracy survives and prospers. And the strength of those networks, in turn, depends on our role as a trusted ally and friend, on our credibility and — frankly — on our virtue. In the 80 years that the Soviet Union or Russia has been our strategic competitor, we have spent an incalculable amount to defend ourselves. We have spent trillions of dollars on America’s nuclear defense alone, with primarily one other nuclear-armed state in mind. Ukraine’s effort to defend itself against Mr. Putin’s advance has degraded Russia’s military more than anyone thought possible when the full invasion of Ukraine began just over two years ago. In blunt dollar terms, helping Ukraine in that defense is, by far, the least expensive way to weaken Russia’s military and discourage Russian aggression, thereby protecting ourselves and our allies. The opposite is also true. If Mr. Putin succeeds, the high anxiety in Europe over his next steps will justifiably continue to grow — and expensive imperatives will follow. Anticipating the next possible phase of Mr. Putin’s campaign to reimpose the Russian hegemony of the Cold War era will force NATO to greatly increase its defense budget, plunging the world into an arms race like those leading up to the world wars. Those who do not see the link between European security and our own are not living in the real world. This is a moment that is heavy with potential consequences for America’s role in the world, for our power to shape future events and for our ability to live securely within our borders. It is by no means certain that the pending aid package for Ukraine passed by the Senate will even come to a vote in the House and, if it does, what its prospects will be. What happens next will determine whether our potential adversaries will be encouraged in their aggressive designs or intimidated by our collective resolve to resist them. It will determine whether our friends and allies will be strengthened by our determination or frightened by the collapse of American will. Volunteers placed a giant replica bulletproof vest bearing the words “She needs armor, too” on the statue of Princess Olga in Kyiv. Credit...Dom Marker The potential consequences of failing to help Ukraine resist Russia’s raw territorial aggression are not limited to Europe. China is watching closely to see how firmly America supports, or doesn't support, its friends these days. Our allies are watching, too, including Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. All three are nervous about China’s regional ambitions — and dependent on America as a security partner. This is the context in which the Ukraine aid package that is before the House must be assessed. This isn’t about the money. It is about American steadfastness, something that is now in question because of another partisan contest. Ukraine and the tens of millions of people living there have become pawns for political maneuvering in Washington. And while these maneuvers are not new to me or to the American public these days, usually the stakes are not so high. Our failure to help Ukraine resist, our complicity in allowing naked territorial aggression to succeed, our undermining of NATO security, our tacit encouragement for China to follow Russia’s lead and, most of all, our abandonment of people of courage and hope and who love America would, together, be a colossal strategic blunder. This is not the time for political games. It is time for America to do what we all know is right.

it is against the law when there is negligence and abuse. Do you disagree with those being unlawful?