Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Pillow Guy.....His case ended up being a sham...

Awesome!  

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

My candidate? I think I have said it enough times it should have sunk in by now. Trump is not now nor never has been "my candidate".....He has certainly been the lessor of 2 evils and STILL is though lol

I do hope we get to see some debates.....Kamala will bury herself lol

Back when I was certain Trump would beat Biden, I was pretty vocal about blaming the D's for nominating the worst candidate possible.  It is not that Biden is such a bad guy, although I think he enabled his extremely corrupt family.   It is because he is obviously deep into cognitive decline and unable to perform the job under any circumstance.   

Now, Harris is not my cup of tea given that she is a fairly progressive Democrat.  That said, I think she is going to beat Trump in a close race, and if there is a debate or two I think that she will bury Trump.  Biggly.

So, in the interest of fairness, I blame the Republicans for nominating Trump, whom I do not believe could or will beat any Democrat out there, other than Biden and perhaps a recycled Hillary Clinton.  When the Republicans wail and gnash teeth because Harris wins and then governs as a predictably liberal Californian, I sure hope these Republicans look in the mirror and accept blame for the electoral defeat.  The party should never have allowed Trump to take over, and I will never vote for him, except in one circumstance.

Of course, I think the union will be fine even with a lefty in charge, since the system is indeed that robust.  

Jim

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

No need to blame themselves when they will clearly and inevitably be cheated out of the election.

The MAGA faithful and Trump himself will of course claim that he was cheated by electoral fraud and anything else they can think of.  But the non-MAGA Rs in Congress, the regular Republicans and the R leadership all know that the excuses are BS.  Rational beings must own the folly of nominating Trump again.

Unless he wins of course, which I think is a 40/60 proposition at this point in time.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

While I certainly agree with you, Brian, who's left in the Republican party at this point to correct course? 
The GOP reps with any independence and integrity are few and far between. Most of those who voted to impeach Trump are gone. Kittinger, Cheney and the like are out.
Hogan is about the only one I can think of at this point. Any others?

I think you are looking at this backwards Rod.  How many Rs at the Federal and State level are MAGA diehards?  People like MTG or Boebert?  There are plenty, but it is far from a majority.   

The majority of the R politicians, like I suppose the 20 some R representatives from your home state, are typical Republicans who tolerate or even suck up to Trump because that is the way the political winds are blowing.

I think we discussed Nikki Haley in this context.  She endorsed Trump because her choices are to tolerate him for now or get out of politics.  The Democrats are doing the exact same thing.  The whole Democratic party is being pulled to the left on social issues because they can not fight the tide and remain relevant.  Does this mean everyone in Washington except for Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders lack independence and integrity?  I suppose this is one way of looking at it.  Another is to figure they are all just politicians being politicians as they always have since the beginning of history.

If Harris doesn't choke, Trumpism will be gone in a few election cycles.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Really?! Reading these posts, it seems evident that most are pleased with the choice of Tim Walz even though they may have favored Kelly or Shapiro. 
It's also quite evident that the only ones pleased with JD are Trump Jr and an ex-Fox host who recommended him and subsequently Trump Sr who may have buyer's remorse...

Greg’s post was a pun, and a clever one too!

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

This one made me laugh. 

Just showed my wife this meme.   She laughed out loud.   😂

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

"...these days I only inhabit the OT forum and sometimes the science, star party, or ATM forums. I've never had a problem with anyone there as the moderating is the exact opposite of this place."

True, we don't have any moderators on the AM forums and haven't for a long time. My beef is not so much with the CN moderators, and some of their forums have multiple moderators which can make it a crapshoot on who to contact, but the trolls I'm referring to commonly start threads with what's the best fill in the blank (eyepiece, reflector, refractor, mount, mirror, etc) and frequently post in multiple forums and supposedly have multiple pieces of equipment they're supposedly inquiring about, frequently divert to anything but their topic, i.e when talking reflectors they start a separate discussion about refractors and vice versa in the same thread and do it repetitively. 

I've called a few out now and then for pulling this stuff and one amateur even PMed me and told not to bother with these guys as they're a bunch of sharks (his words) just hunting for a gullible responses to get their jollies.

My problem with CN is the self-appointed know it alls.   So many over there vastly inflate the scope of their own knowledge.   Jim.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

In this regard, ya gotta agree she has one of the longest necks on the planet. It's almost as if there's was some sort of body part mixup in utero. Maybe she has a transgender issue, and, being a conservative, she just doesn't want to own up to it. Or, perhaps, somebody simply rolled the genetic dice and came up short...

While we are mocking necks, Word-class Russian Collusion liar Adam Schiff has the longest human neck on the planet!

https://x.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1828201780544504064

I'm glad this story keeps coming back.  We've know for a long time the FBI, (think about it, the FBI!) actively and with absolute knowledge of what they were doing, interfered in the 2020 presidential election on behalf of one candidate.  Suppression of the laptop story, while armed with knowledge the laptop was genuine, right before the election, is inexcusable meddling.  This interference quite plausibly swung the election to Biden.

The general Covid censorship Zuckerberg talks about is beyond troubling too.  As you all know, the First Amendment protects citizens against government censorship.   This protection is not limited to direct censorship.  The First Amendment's scope covers indirect censorship where the government strongarms a private publisher.  Such as indisputably happened in spades according to Zuckerberg and as detailed in the "Twitter Files" published by Matt Taibbi and others.

Why is this not a bigger deal?  Seriously, the FBI meddling in elections and active governmental censorship are grave threats to effective democracy.   

My guess is the people are so divided at this point the left and middle think government malfeasance is OK or at least excusable, so long as it keeps Trump out of office.   The right of course is equally certain the government is unilaterally line up to oppose Trump, so any censorship, active lies pushed by the FBI, and the like, might be outrageous treasonous acts, but are hardly surprising.

Also, our press is broken.  The press has become divided reflecting the population (or maybe the population reflect the press?)   The major left and center news outlets happily spiked the laptop story because they were told by the FBI (and various other experts) it was "Russian disinformation."  As noted above, they were told this at the time the FBI had long known the laptop was real.  Why is the press not outraged and energized by the official deception?  Undoubtedly because it helped their guy win the election.  

For the sake of democracy, people need to rise above the balkanization and be outraged by governmental malfeasance whether or not it benefits their team.  For the sake of democracy, the press needs to return to a proper journalistic mission, no matter who the reporters and editors personally prefer.  Jim

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

"X" as the venue? Really? An aggrieved  Zuckerberg and his word is gospel! The FBI meddled in the elections! Got proof? 
It's not a bigger story because its BS...

I did not expect you deny admitted facts!  The laptop was genuine as admitted by the FBI and now acknowledged by every major news organization, although they made this acknowledgement rather late and rather quietly.  Zuckerberg's letter to congress is proof of the government's pressure on Meta.  Why does it matter to you that the letter was published on X?  It was also published just about everywhere!  Do you need a dozen links? There is a ton more hard evidence of governmental censorship pressure generally reported by Matt Taibbi and others as the "Twitter Files."  Broaden your reading list a bit.

Why do you think Zuck is "aggrieved?"  He is as faithful a lefty as you are.

The government has strayed far into the realm of censorship and manipulation.  If you think that the timing of the spiking of the Hunter laptop story was just coincidence, then there is no hope for any objectivity from you.  I, for example, do not think the timing of the New York Post's original reporting on Hunter's laptop was coincidental.  The release of that story was timed to benefit Trump!  The spiking of that story by the government, including the FBI, with the complicity of the non-right press was timed to help Biden.  How could anyone conclude otherwise?

Do you actually still think the whole "Hunter's Laptop" story is indeed Russian misinformation?