Recent Posts
UpInArms (55,963 posts)
1. We are truly a third world country
Quoteso easily solved. MOVE!
MLWR (1,306 posts)
3. And more and more of us wish we had your system. In all ways it is far more honest and above board.
TVguyCards (344 posts)
Just a serious reminder.....
Right now this very moment when you read this, someone is about to die because they couldn't afford healthcare.
Seeing all these posts about Natalie Harp reminded me that sometimes we need to re-center ourselves and lock in. Focus.
UpInArms (55,963 posts)
1. We are truly a third world country
MLWR (1,306 posts)
3. And more and more of us wish we had your system. In all ways it is far more honest and above board.
FakeNoose (44,122 posts)
4. Do the wealthy Norwegians leave their country to avoid paying taxes?
I don't know the answer to that. But I do know that it takes an entirely different mindset and probably a different upbringing, to be willing to pay more than 60% of one's income to the government.
I'm not saying that Americans are better or worse, but we are different. Some Europeans used to come here because they liked our system better. Nowadays, not so much.
https://democraticunderground.com/100221451179
WASHINGTON — A man who identifies as a transgender woman has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for plotting to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, yet another example of a trans-identifying individual who plotted politically motivated violence.
Twenty-five-year-old Ryan Michael English (who goes by Reily or Raleigh Jane English) of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in March to weapons charges stemming from a plot to assassinate Bessent. On Tuesday, a judge sentenced English to 73 months and 36 months of supervised release, according to the Justice Department.
His gender identity was not publicly known until Tuesday, when court documents and testimony showed that English identifies as a woman.
Recently we told you how the ACLJ had filed two California Public Records Act (CPRA) requests, demanding answers about its election and voter registration process. One went to the Secretary of State’s office. The other went to the California Department of Justice.
The question we wanted answered was simple: What is California doing when it comes to noncitizens who are illegally registered to vote or who may even attempt to vote illegally?
As wepreviously reported, the Secretary of State’s office gave us one answer that was troubling. They said they don't track the reason someone is removed from the voter rolls when that reason is non-citizenship. In other words, California may remove someone from the voter rolls because of noncitizen, but the state doesn't actually maintain a record if the reason was noncitizenship, and that “complaints are forwarded to Elections Division staff for further review.”
Now,we’ve received a response from the California Department of Justice and here is where things get even more interesting.
Wes specifically asked for records on the state’s policies for handling investigative referrals of illegal voting.. In other words, if someone raises a concern about potentially illegal voting, what is their process for investigating it?
The answer to our second request was blunt. The California DOJ responded to our FOIA, stating it has no records containing or addressing “‘policies’ that are specific to handling ‘investigative referrals for illegal voting.’” They don’t even have a policy. Now, California is very quick to point out that state law prohibits non-citizens from registering to vote in elections where they are not eligible. Voters are required to attest under penalty of perjury that they meet the eligibility requirements, including citizenship.
California Admits It Doesn’t Track Noncitizens On Voter Rolls As Federal Law Requires
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Our second records request — to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office — came due on Aug. 10, and the response we received doesn’t inspire any more confidence than the secretary of state’s did.
We asked California’s DOJ for three things: Records on the programs and activities the state uses to keep its official voter rolls accurate and current; records on the state’s policies for handling investigative referrals of illegal voting; records on the outcomes of those illegal-voting referrals, with private information about the individuals involved excluded.
The answer to our second request was blunt. The California DOJ responded to our FOIA, stating it has no records “containing or addressing ‘policies’ that are specific to handling ‘investigative referrals for illegal voting.’”
El-Sayed’s Mother Worked for Terror Group That Helped Bin Laden
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At last, in 2016, IARA-USA entered a guilty plea to transferring almost $1.4 million to Iraq in violation of American sanctions. And Elkomy, El-Sayed’s mother, had been facilitating numerous large transfers of money to the Iraq operations of the network. No wonder Hamas-tied CAIR’s members donated over $100,000 to El-Sayed’s campaign — his family has been promoting Islamic extremism for years.
Again, El-Sayed’s mother was helping the financial operations of a network that supported one of the most infamous terrorist leaders of modern times (Bin Laden), who orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans in 2001. That same network supported a terrorist group (Hamas) that committed the worst single day of slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust in 2023. And the “charity” network propped up the genocidal Jihad group that has spent years committing atrocities in Afghanistan: the Taliban.
El-Sayed has not publicly distanced himself from Elkomy’s past, or indeed, from Islamic extremist groups in general. Why should he, when Islam explicitly teaches that Jihad is praiseworthy? Again, CAIR not only donated to him, but officially endorsed him and encouraged people to vote for him. If a terrorist front group endorses you, that probably means you are likely to promote the goals of Jihad. And the Muslim Brotherhood celebrated El-Sayed’s primary win. El-Sayed certainly — and proudly — supports wiping Israel off the map.
At this point I'm genuinely surprised the argument over Jason Arday is still going, but it is. The latest angle, which both David and I wrote about yesterday, is that the media were to blame for his apparent suicide because they...did their jobs?
It could not be more clear that the problem, as they see it, is not that the media revealed a fabulist who was unfit for his high-profile job. The real problem is that he was one of them and the media aren't supposed to go this hard against one of them. The media ought to know that it's okay to destroy a fraud and liar on the right but when it comes to their side of the aisle, the media is supposed to dial it back. The failure to dial it back for Jason Arday is being treated as a sign of bad (racist) motives.
And that's how you get opinion pieces like this one from the Guardian arguing that the right is a bunch of monsters even though in this case they were clearly right about Jason Arday.
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To sum it up, the evil, racist right hounded the poor man to his grave. Now the awkward truth: They were right about him being a fraud.
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The monsters were right and their glee at being right was terrible to behold. And while it's good to demonize those foes of all that is good (the right), don't lump them in with the reporters who were saying exactly the same thing because, well, because the media is composed of fair-minded progressives.
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The underlying idea here, which I think is common on the left, is that the right should always be discounted because of their bad motives. Meanwhile, progressive journalists should always be credited for their virtuous motives even if they are repeating things the conservatives said first. Put another way, no conservative author can ever be credited for just speaking the truth and no left-wing journalist can be faulted for failing to do so until absolute forced by circumstances.
It really is maddening over time to be part of this never ending game of media Calvinball. Sure, the right said Joe Biden was slipping for years, but even when it turns out they were absolutely right almost no one will admit that or remember it for next time. No one wants to talk about why the rest of the media dropped the ball either. And no matter how many cycles of this game we go through, right up to Jason Arday, the Left never can credit the right for just speaking the truth.
