Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

Well, it's been awhile since I've listed anything for sale in the classifieds but I've got a lot of eyepieces so I'll have to do inventory and let some go.

Anyhow, I hope you guys do try to stick around and I do post often here in the hopes of keeping things going but it's a bit frustrating in not getting any replies.

That said, I find CN to be the equivalent of a troll-town in many instances and when I recently called a poster out for being one, MY post got deleted by a moderator instead of the troll! (The same troll had also been called out for being one in another forum on CN by someone else but that's how it goes.) Additionally, posters frequently post about subjects that have already been discussed at length and all they need do is use the search function at the top of the forum but they won't even do that. At least we don't get that here.

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Wait a minute, we don't get trolls here? LOL.

Well, ok, we do get ONE (as opposed to a town-full) although he makes up for it by being the person that he is...
PS: Glad to know you guys appear to intend to remain in the forum afterall. And, happy retirement Maurice!

Ya gotta see professor Weissman's take on it:

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/he-didnt-see-it-weissmann-incredulous-at-alito-for-appearing-to-suggest-he-was-unaware-of-upside-down-flag-in-own-yard/

"Former (Trump) White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said Sunday that Republicans would be demanding resignations from liberal justices if they were reported to have displayed upside-down flags on their lawns after former President Trump was elected in 2016."

“If after Donald Trump won in 2016, Justice [Sonia Sotomayor] hung a flag upside down on her front lawn, we, Republicans, would be calling for her resignation,” Farah Griffin said Sunday.

“I find it deeply disturbing, and I don‘t think we can gloss over it,” she added.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4673167-farah-griffin-if-sonya-sotomayor-flew-upside-down-flag-gop-would-call-for-her-resignation/

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Imagine what the lying right wing wack-o of astromart would have said if Sotomayor had put up an upside-down flag after the 2016 election. The hypocrisy is thick with these supposed republicans.

Alito, the crusader...

"...this later report addresses Alito’s apparent sale of Bud Light-maker Anheuser-Busch stock — and his possibly related purchase of Molson Coors stock — in the wake of an anti-trans Bud Light boycott last year. Chris Geidner, who wrote the stock-related report for Law Dork exploring Alito's possible boycott participation, observed:

Participating in a boycott is undeniably a political statement. And there are pending cases for which participation in an anti-trans beer boycott could be seen as his having a finger on the scale of justice on the side of the anti-trans advocates supporting — and in some cases, defending — these laws such that recusal could be required."


https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/supreme-court-alito-stock-bud-light-anheuser-busch-rcna153102

"Key Republican senators sharply criticized Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after news reports showed an upside-down American flag – a symbol used by some supporters of former President Donald Trump who challenged the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory – flying outside his home in 2021.

Such criticism of a conservative justice from high-ranking GOP senators is extremely rare and a sign of how unusual the controversy is.

In a brief interview with CNN, Senate Republican Whip John Thune, one of the contenders vying to replace retiring Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, called the flag a “bad decision.”

“I don’t know how you explain that,” Thune said."


"Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that it was a “mistake” for Alito to have an American flag hanging upside down at his home."

“It creates a bad image,” Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju. “It created a situation that we’re all talking about. So, yeah, I think it was a mistake.”

"Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney echoed concerns about the flag."

“It’s very unfortunate and we ought to take a look at it,” he said to reporters.


https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/politics/republican-senators-alito-upside-down-flag/index.html

When ya got Republicans criticizing Alito, you know there's a problem...

"An upside-down American flag – a symbol used by some supporters of former President Donald Trump who challenged the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory – hung outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after the election, The New York Times reported Thursday."

"The revelation is almost certain to prompt calls for Alito, a member of the court’s conservative wing, to recuse himself from several high-profile cases pending before the court this year involving the election and subsequent attack on the US Capitol, including the blockbuster question of whether Trump may claim immunity from federal election subversion charges."

"The Times published a photo of the inverted flag, which it said was seen at the justice’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 17, 2021."


Alito, for his part, blames it on his wife!:

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito said in an emailed statement to the Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/politics/alito-upside-down-american-flag-house/index.html

I'm not sure who is worse, him or Clarence...

What gets me about the Trump voters is that they think the economy will improve for them if Trump is re-elected. In other words, they think the prices will essentially return to the levels seen in his first term in office. They will not. If they did, we'd have deflation and a significant and concurrent recession. These same voters also seem to be oblivious to the fact that prices do go up over time, particularly over the course of four years.

Much of that belief is instilled upon them by Faux news and the rest of the right wing media...

Originally Posted by James Brown

You continue to attribute the motivation for regular Trump voters to stupidity.  The press does this in spades.  It is a recipe for a Trump win in my opinion, and it will be the left's fault.

"You continue to attribute the motivation for regular Trump voters to stupidity."

Perhaps you've never watched interviews of Trump voters at a Trump rally.

That said, I agree with today's opinion column on CNN with Mark Zandi, the chief economics whizz at Moody's economics:

"The outcome of the presidential election isn’t likely to hinge on abortion, immigration or even climate change. It is likely to depend, instead, on the price of gasoline in the leadup to the vote."

"Based on my econometric analysis of past presidential election outcomes looking at the state electoral college vote, which accounts for a wide range of political and economic factors, if gasoline falls toward $3 a gallon by election day, President Joe Biden should win re-election. However, if pump prices rise to more than $4, former President Donald Trump is more likely to prevail"

 https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/20/opinions/gas-prices-presidential-election-biden-trump-zandi/index.html

Originally Posted by James Brown

I know that rally attending folks are hard core Trump supporters and I am pretty confident that the press seeks out the craziest and loudest for their interviews.  Not surprising that this tiny fringe sample comes across as stupid or unhinged.   You make a mistake extrapolating from a crazed Maga gal or guy to the 1/2 of the population who might vote for Trump.  Do you disagree?

Politicians of both the left and the right pay a political price all the time for things they do not directly control.   Gas prices are one example.   The pandemic was another.

I'm going to pivot here - and remind everyone that I think the United States will be just fine no matter who is elected.   I certainly think the partisans who cast this election as the choice between glorious democracy and totalitarianism (partisans on either side) are full of it.   I am not going to vote for Trump, I think he lacks the basic skills and integrity to be a national leader.   I am prepared for his election though, because I think the Ds are committing election malpractice in many ways.   I won't like the second Trump term, but I am confident the USA will emerge intact.

"I know that rally attending folks are hard core Trump supporters and I am pretty confident that the press seeks out the craziest and loudest for their interviews.  Not surprising that this tiny fringe sample comes across as stupid or unhinged.  You make a mistake extrapolating from a crazed Maga gal or guy to the 1/2 of the population who might vote for Trump.  Do you disagree?"

Well, I think it's fair to say that it's much more than Trump rally voters that comprise the crazed MAGA voters in the Trump base. But, to your point, I agree that half of the population are not in that particular category.

"I am not going to vote for Trump, I think he lacks the basic skills and integrity to be a national leader. "

I think you should have realized that before you voted and helped elect Trump in a previous election.

" I certainly think the partisans who cast this election as the choice between glorious democracy and totalitarianism (partisans on either side) are full of it."

I couldn't' disagree with that more. If Trump is elected, he will surround himself with yes men and those, to a large extent, will be provided by project 2025 and the Heritage foundation:

"It calls for eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Commerce, deploying the military for the use of domestic law enforcement against protesters under the Insurrection Act of 1807,” Crockett told Hamilton during a Republican-led House Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government earlier this week. “It also has the repealing of Schedule F status for thousands of federal employees to allow a president to replace career civil servants with unqualified partisan loyalists. That’s probably my favorite of it. It also prohibits the FBI from combating the spread of misinformation and disinformation like Russia and China who are actively trying to interfere with American elections.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gops-project-2025-plan-may-see-the-rise-of-dictator-donald-trump

And:

"Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision"

https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981