#biggest liar of the u.s.

[hale-nathan]

Trump Weird News - From POTUS To BLOTUS

[killjoyfem]

Remembering her: with the American verdict, Heard has faced more than the culture’s wrath — she has faced global humiliation.

The entire case had been like a “Black Mirror” episode. A dystopian nightmare in which TikToks of a distraught woman detailing an alleged sexual assault were devoured with popcorn and laughter. Twitter hashtags — #AmberIsALiar, #AmbersAPsychopath, #TeamJohnny — made it a trial by media.

Those supporting Heard received death threats, rape threats, a constant bombardment of hate for simply saying, “I stand with Amber.” I know: I got them in bucketloads.

We saw tired, misogynistic methods used again and again to discredit a woman trying to stand up for her rights. Blaming Heard for not leaving, for fighting back, for not being bruised enough, for not having enough evidence. And when she did have evidence? Depp’s team portrayed her as a manipulative liar — and the jury appears to have found this credible.

Heard’s psychologist, Dawn Hughes, testified that Heard had post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of domestic abuse. Psychologist Shannon Curry, a witness for Depp, diagnosed Heard with borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder — despite having never treated her.

As a barrister, I have witnessed the pathologization of survivors become a go-to tactic to discredit them. Slamming a woman’s mental state has always been a quick and easy way to gaslight them — “Oh, she’s crazy,” “she’s so unstable” — “medicine” as a misogynist’s handmaiden.

Many women who watched this trial will recognize this, the classic DARVO playbook in action: deny, attack and reverse victim and offender. And they will fear that they could be next.

The trial reinforced the notion that those who speak out must look, sound and act a certain way. They must conform to the stereotype of the “perfect victim,” one who cowers in a corner, voiceless and powerless. That woman doesn’t speak or fight back.

This is a trope. It rarely exists.

I’ve seen victims behave in all manner of ways in abusive relationships and in the courtroom. Perhaps the only time we see the “perfect victim”? In movies written by men.

As the verdict came, abuse survivors expressed their devastation online. One psychologist told Rolling Stone that “hundreds” of survivors had contacted her to retract victim statements or pulled out from court cases as a result of watching the trial.

The biggest losers here are the U.S. justice system and the women who might otherwise have put their faith in it. Women have been told that if we have enough evidence, we’ll be believed. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how much evidence we have. The system is rigged against women.

Do you think it’s fair that a woman had to testify before a man she says abused her, while that man sat there, smirking? Do you think it’s fair that, throughout the trial, the most intimate and traumatic details were broadcast for the world to see? Do you think it’s fair that Heard was ordered to pay millions of dollars for writing an article that didn’t even name the man who has prevailed in this case?

Heard had the PR team. She had the legal team. Still, she couldn’t win. All we got during weeks of painful testimony was a woman being treated like a villain, a famous man showered with adoration and a justice system failing to protect what it supposedly promises to defend.

The Depp-Heard trial was a circus. The verdict is a gag order. (source)

[asmoshoebox]

it's 2004. gay marriage has just been legalized in one (1) u.s. state: massachusetts. misroch, increasingly at odds with the law due to being a terrible liar, an even worse driver, and an inveterate "we could just kill him like we did that other guy!" murder enthusiast, is coming perilously close to an arrest warrant, and they know this.......which is why it's time to apply for a marriage license with the biggest risk to misroch's infosec since sliced bread.

[nicklesonraison]

The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein’s Unsealed Court Documents

The names of acquaintances and associates of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein—including that of former U.S. presidents and British royalty—were released on Wednesday evening in a set of court documents that were part of a suit against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015.#Epstein  #EpsteinList #Epsteinadasi #EpsteinClientList EpsteinIsland EpsteinFiles EpsteinDocs

The documents, the first in more than 200 that are expected to be unsealed over the next few days, are part of the defamation lawsuit filed by victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Maxwell has previously called Giuffre a liar after she alleged that Epstein and Maxwell had abused her. (That case was eventually settled in 2017, but Maxwell was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting young girls for Epstein to sexually exploit in a criminal investigation of Epstein’s acts after his death.)

Watch more from TIME Click to unmute

Names of figures that were previously associated with Epstein, such as Prince Andrew and former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, were mentioned in the court documents, but there was little new information outside of what was already known to the public. Some documents had previously been released in other court cases, while Epstein’s high-profile contacts have been covered extensively in the media.

In December, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ordered the documents to be released, though she gave people until Jan. 1 to appeal the order in case they did not want their name to be revealed. The names of victims who were minors when they suffered abuse were not released, though some have previously spoken out about Epstein’s actions in media interviews.

Here’s what to know.

What the documents reveal For the most part, the documents say little about the actions taken by individuals outside of Epstein, though there is a 2016 deposition from Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s victims, that mentions politicians and figureheads in the U.S. and abroad.

While celebrities like Bruce Willis, Cameron Diaz, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Spacey, Naomi Campbell, and Leonardo DiCaprio are also mentioned in the records, they have not been accused of helping Epstein in any capacity. Sjoberg was only asked if she had met the aforementioned people, which she denied.

Connections to Epstein previously led high-level executives to resign from their positions, including Barclays chief executive Jes Staley. Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent suspected of scouting girls for Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape accusations.

The documents on Wednesday confirmed the scale of both Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking ring and his powerful social network. Prince Andrew—the younger brother of King Charles III—was one of the names referenced in the documents, mentioned by a witness for touching her breast.

Andrew was also previously accused of raping Giuffre when she was a teenager. After a lawsuit filed by Giuffre in 2021 and amid growing public pressure, Andrew was forced to relinquish his military titles and public duties—even as he repeatedly denied the allegations. The two settled the lawsuit in 2022 after Andrew paid Giuffre an undisclosed sum of money.

The case against Epstein Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender who would lure young girls under the impression that they would be giving him massages that would then “become increasingly sexual in nature,” according to the 2019 indictment against him. Jennifer Araoz, one of the victims, said that Epstein would invite her to his house and pay her hundreds of dollars after her visit. While they initially spoke about her life and goals, he later became abusive, Araoz said.

Epstein had long avoided facing any consequences for his actions. He was first investigated for sexual misconduct in 2005 after a woman claimed that he had molested her teenage stepdaughter. Palm Beach police eventually charged Epstein with counts of unlawful sex with a minor in May 2006, but then State Attorney Barry Krischer sent the case to a grand jury, which indicted him with one count of soliciting prostitution. The charge was minor, leading to much criticism and causing the FBI to open a federal investigation against Epstein. But Epstein ended up serving a short 18-month sentence in 2008 for recruiting an underage girl for prostitution after he struck a plea deal with U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to avoid being charged with any federal crimes.

Epstein later came back under scrutiny in 2018, after the Miami Herald looked at Acosta’s role in negotiating a short sentence for Epstein. In July 2019, Epstein was arrested after federal prosecutors looked at his behavior between 2002 and 2005.

The case against him revealed that the victims, some as young as 14, were paid to provide sexual services to him and his friends, and to recruit other young girls to his circle of victims. Epstein’s employees would also sexually abuse the young girls.

He was facing charges for sex trafficking and conspiracy in July 2019 when one month later, he died by suicide in a New York federal jail. The investigation continued after his passing, leading prosecutors to convict Maxwell for sex crimes in connection to her dealing with Epstein.

Here are other names high-profile mentioned in the documents:

Bill Clinton The former president was mentioned in the documents released on Wednesday, in Sjoberg’s testimony that Epstein had told her “Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.” She also said that she knew Epstein had “dealings” with Clinton but did not know they were friends until later media reports.

The former president’s ties with Epstein has long been the subject of media scrutiny—intensified in the wake of the financier’s indictment. The two had connected while Clinton was working on his nonprofit group the Clinton Foundation, and in 2002, they took a trip to Africa on Epstein’s private jet.

In 2019, Clinton’s office said that the former president did not know about Epstein’s “terrible crimes,” and that he had not spoken to Epstein in “well over a decade.” A spokesperson for Clinton told CNN on Wednesday that it has “been nearly 20 years since President Clinton last had contact with Epstein.”

Records show that Giuffre’s attorneys wanted to get a deposition from Clinton. Giuffre, the plaintiff in the defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, did not accuse the former president of doing anything with her, but attorneys saw Clinton as a “key person who can provide information about his close relationship with Defendant and Mr. Epstein and disapprove Ms. Maxwell’s claims.”

Donald Trump The former president—whose relationship with Epstein was also widely reported—was also mentioned in Sjoberg’s 2016 deposition. Sjoberg testified that she and Epstein once made an impromptu stop in Atlantic City due to poor flying weather. Asked if she had given Trump a massage, Sjoberg said no. Trump once called Epstein a “terrific guy,” but later said he had a falling out with him. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I was not a fan of his,” Trump said in 2019.

Michael Jackson Sjoberg recalled meeting late musician Michael Jackson at Epstein’s house in Palm Beach, but said no when asked if she had massaged him.

Sarah Kellen Kellen, Epstein’s former assistant, was named in testimonies of victims detailing their encounters with Epstein. She was said to have helped schedule his “massages,” which his victims said was a euphemism for sexual services.

A judge had described Kellen as “a criminally responsible participant” in Epstein’s scheme.

But Kellen was never charged and has remained out of the public eye. Kellen said through a spokesperson in 2020 that she herself had been sexually and psychologically abused by Epstein for years.

Jean-Luc Brunel Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent suspected of scouting girls for Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape accusations.

Giuffre said in her deposition that she was sent by Maxwell to have sex with Brunel “at many places.” The documents also say that Brunel would bring girls as young as twelve "to the United States for sexual purposes and farm them out to his friends, especially Epstein."

Bill Richardson Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico who died in September, was also mentioned. Giuffre said in her deposition that Maxwell had instructed her to give Richardson a massage. In 2019, a spokesperson for Richardson denied he ever met Giuffre, according to Las Cruces Sun News.

Leslie Wexner Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of L Brands (which owns Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works), was also mentioned in Maxwell’s deposition. When asked if she had ever provided Giuffre with “an outfit of a sexual nature to wear for Les Wexner,” Maxwell said “categorically no.”

Epstein was Wexner's money manager and a trustee of the Wexner Foundation During an L Brands investor conference in Sept. 2019, Wexner called Epstein's action "abhorrent." Wexner says he cut ties with Epstein in 2007.

Glenn Dubin Hedge fund manager and billionaire Glenn Dubin was mentioned in the documents, with Giuffre testifying that “Ghislaine told me to go to Glenn Dubin and give him a massage, which means sex,” Giuffre said in her deposition..

Dubin has previously denied Giuffre’s allegations.

Dubin’s wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin, was also referenced in the unsealed documents. Maxwell said in her deposition that she was friends with Andersson-Dubin.

Alan Dershowitz Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s lawyer, was also mentioned in the newly-released records. The documents say that Epstein forced a minor to have sex with the former Harvard law professor multiple times. The documents also say that Dershowitz “was an eye-witness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein and several of Epstein’s co-conspirators.

Dershowitz would later play a significant role in negotiating the NPA on Epstein’s behalf.” NPA stands for non-prosecution agreement, which allowed Epstein to avoid serving a severe sentence when he was first charged with soliciting a minor for prostitution.

“Of course I’m on that list, I was his lawyer. I flew on his plane,” said Dershowitz in a Youtube livestream after the list came out.

Marvin Minsky Computer scientist and former MIT professor Marvin Minsky was also mentioned in the documents. Giuffre said she was asked to have sex with Minsky when he went to Epstein’s island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

[marxistswiftieism]

Im sorry but why do you support North Korea? It’s literally a dictatorship

there is literally so much I could say about this but I am going to assume you asked this in good faith and say first of all please take a minute to analyze why you choose to believe anything the United States government or any Western imperial power has to say about a communist nation that they previously attempted to genocide? Think to yourself why on earth would the United States, the biggest imperial power on earth with the strongest military and most vested interest in the continuation of white supremacy and capitalism, have a vested interest in spreading lies about a communist self sufficient nation that once again, they previously tried to genocide. Also consider how easy it is for the U.S. to spread this propaganda because the majority of Americans have under a 10th grade reading level, nearly 1/4 of Americans are functionally illiterate, and the vast majority of Americans speak and understand no Korean and even less understand the dialect of Korean spoken by those in the DPRK.

Now with all that in mind, what in particular about the DPRK do you find horrific? Is it the fact that many citizens lack access to food because of embargos and sanctions set into place by the U.S. government? Is it the comparative lack of electrical power with western nations due to embargos and sanctions put in place by the U.S. government? Is it the strange and outlandish laws that don't actually exist but you wouldn't know that because you are choosing to believe the information you get from Western media? Is it the labor and reeducation camps that defectors like Shin Dong-hyuk tell, never once mentioning that he was put in jail for sexually assaulting someone? Is it stories like those told by defector Yeonmi Park, a notorious liar who has changed her "escape" story more than 5 times and is on the payroll of the U.S. state department? Is it that all the citizens of the DPRK that you have seen are "actors"? a claim so baffling and ridiculous that I can't even begin to explain why you would believe it. Is it the idea that all DPRK citizens are brainwashed and in desperate need of Americans to save them? because that's totally not manifest destiny repackaged in a post cold war world! And do you have sources that aren't from Radio Free Asia or other Western media outlets to support this? photographic evidence? videos? surely if the DPRK was, en masse, torturing it's citizens, starving them, and putting them in forced labour camps that we would have some proof, right?

In all honesty, I can show you hours of documentation that proves that anything the U.S. government says is horseshit, on both "sides" of the aisle, but I know that won't change your mind. But I believe in a global communist future and I believe that what the government has said about the DPRK and their people are LIES. if you read this far, good for you and I hope you take what I said to heart

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 7, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

And then there was President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address.

This is the annual event in our politics that gets the most viewers. Last year, 38.2 million people watched it on television and streaming services.

What viewers saw tonight was a president repeatedly offering to work across the aisle as he outlined a moderate plan for the nation with a wide range of popular programs. He sounded calm, reasonable, and upbeat, while Republicans refused to clap for his successes—800,000 new manufacturing jobs, 20,000 new infrastructure projects, lower drug prices—or his call to strengthen the middle class.

And then, when he began to talk about future areas of potential cooperation, Republicans went feral. They heckled, catcalled, and booed, ignoring House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) attempts to shush them. At the State of the Union, in the U.S. Capitol, our lawmakers repeatedly interrupted the president with insults, yelling “liar” and “bullsh*t.” And cameras caught it all.

Extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), her hands cupping her wide open mouth to scream at the president, became the face of the Republican Party.

Biden began with gracious remarks toward a number of Republicans as well as Democrats, then emphasized how Republicans and Democrats came together over the past two years to pass consequential legislation. Speaker McCarthy had asked him to take this tone, and he urged Republicans to continue to work along bipartisan lines, noting that the American people have made it clear they disapprove of “fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict.”

For the next hour the president laid out a promise to continue to rebuild the middle class, hollowed out by 40 years of policies based on the idea that cutting taxes and concentrating wealth among the “job creators” would feed the economy and create widespread prosperity. He listed the accomplishments of his administration so far: unemployment at a 50-year low, 800,000 good manufacturing jobs, lower inflation, 10 million new small businesses, the return of the chip industry to the United States, more than $300 billion in private investment in manufacturing, more than 20,000 new infrastructure projects, lower health care costs, Medicare negotiations over drug prices, investment in new technologies to combat climate change. He promised to continue to invest in the places and people who have been forgotten.

Biden described a national vision that includes everyone. It is a modernized version of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, and he very clearly invited non-MAGA Republicans to embrace it. He thanked those Republicans who voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, then tweaked those who had voted against it but claimed credit for funding. He told them not to worry: “I promised to be the president for all Americans. We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.”

But then he hit the key point for Republicans: taxes. To pay for this investment in the future, Biden called for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He noted that “in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes.” “That’s simply not fair,” he said. He signed into law the requirement that billion-dollar companies have to pay a minimum of 15%—less than a nurse pays, he pointed out—and he called for a billionaire minimum tax. While he reiterated his promise that no one making less than $400,000 a year would pay additional taxes, he said “no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter.” He also called for quadrupling the tax on corporate stock buybacks.

Republicans consider these proposals nonstarters because their whole vision is based on the idea of cutting taxes to free up capital. By committing to higher taxes on the wealthy, Biden was laying out a vision that is very much like that from the time before Reagan. It is a rejection of his policies and instead a full-throated defense of the idea that the government should work for ordinary Americans, rather than the rich.

And then he got into the specifics of legislation going forward, and Republicans lost it. The minority party has occasionally been vocal about its dislike of the State of the Union since Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted “You lie!” at President Obama in 2009 (Obama was telling the truth); a Democrat yelled “That’s not true” at Trump in 2018 as he, in fact, lied about immigration policy. But tonight was a whole new kind of performance.

Biden noted that he has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion (in part because pandemic programs are expiring) and that Trump increased the deficit every year of his presidency, even before the pandemic hit. And yet, Congress responded to the rising debt under Trump by raising the debt limit, cleanly, three times.

Biden asked Congress to “commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never, ever be questioned.” This, of course, is an issue that has bitterly divided Republicans, many of whom want to hold the country hostage until they get what they want. But they can’t agree on what they want, so they are now trying to insist that Biden is refusing to negotiate the budget when, in fact, he has simply said he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. Budget negotiations are a normal part of legislating, and he has said he welcomes such talks. Tonight, once again, he asked the Republicans to tell the American people what, exactly, they propose.

And then Biden did something astonishing. He tricked the Republicans into a public declaration of support for protecting Social Security and Medicare. He noted that a number of Republicans have called for cutting, or even getting rid of, Social Security and Medicare. This is simply a fact—it is in Senator Rick Scott’s (R-FL) pre-election plan; the Republican Study Committee’s budget; statements by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Ron Johnson (R-WI); and so on—but Republicans booed Biden and called him a liar for suggesting they would make those cuts, and they did so in public.

Seeming to enjoy himself, Biden jumped on their assertion, forcing them to agree that there would be no cuts to Social Security or Medicare. It was budget negotiation in real time, and it left Biden holding all the cards.

From then on, Republican heckling got worse, especially as Biden talked about banning assault weapons. Biden led the fight to get them banned in 1994, but when Republicans refused to reauthorize that law, it expired and mass shootings tripled. Gun safety is popular in the U.S., and Republicans, many of whom have been wearing AR-15 pins on their lapels, booed him. When he talked about more work to stop fentanyl production, one of the Republican lawmakers yelled, “It’s your fault.”

In the midst of the heckling, Biden praised Republican president George W. Bush’s bipartisan $100 billion investment in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

And then, in this atmosphere, Biden talked about protecting democracy. “For the last few years our democracy has been threatened, attacked, and put at risk,” he said. “Put to the test here, in this very room, on January 6th.”

With lawmakers demonstrating the dangerous behavior he was warning against, he said: “We must all speak out. There is no place for political violence in America. In America, we must protect the right to vote, not suppress that fundamental right. We honor the results of our elections, not subvert the will of the people. We must uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy. And we must give hate and extremism in any form no safe harbor.”

“Democracy must not be a partisan issue. It must be an American issue.”

With Republicans scoffing at him, he ended with a vision of the nation as one of possibility, hope, and goodness. “We must be the nation we have always been at our best. Optimistic. Hopeful. Forward-looking. A nation that embraces light over darkness, hope over fear, unity over division. Stability over chaos.”

“We must see each other not as enemies, but as fellow Americans. We are a good people.”

Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave the Republican rebuttal. Full of references to the culture wars and scathing of Biden, she reinforced the Republican stance during the speech. “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left,” she said. “The choice is between normal or crazy.”

She is probably not the only one who is thinking along those lines after tonight’s events, but many are likely drawing a different conclusion than she intended.

—

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/02/07/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-prepared-for-delivery/

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/politics/republican-response-sarah-huckabee-sanders-biden-sotu/index.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-offers-bipartisan-olive-branch-during-state-of-the-union-republicans-slap-it-away

https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-boo-trump-on-immigration-state-of-the-union-2018-1

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[from comments]

MaryOMary

"The photo of that one woman, her mouth stretched open in a howl of hate; it brought to mind the faces we saw so long ago gathered behind Black schoolchildren as they headed toward newly desegregated classrooms. It was shocking then, seeing those neatly dressed but anonymous hurling pure howling hatred to innocent kids. It’s different but no less shocking seeing that very expression from elected officials directed at our President of the United States. It’s insane. And it’s forever frozen in time, that moment of unhinged lunacy. Shame, shame, shame."

[bogleech]

These replies meant well but they miss the point, we are absolutely dealing with a fanatical hive minded cult here. Zombie and Sheep are completely appropriate euphemisms for people who willingly chose not to think for themselves, and if Trump says the sky is green then his whole barking, flopping gaggle of drunken seals will not only immediately believe the sky is green, they will also believe you're a baby-eating commie satanist if you think it's ever been blue.

I'm just going to copy/paste what I already added before:

-

"The number of people who seriously didn't know anything other than "he said he'd fix the economy" can't be that common. And if you ever heard him speak, you heard him define "fixing the economy" as "shutting down the border," because his single biggest campaign tool has been the complete and utter lie that "illegals" are a significant drain on the economy or that they're on the rise. Both are false. The vast, vast majority of his supporters, I'd say well over 99%, maybe more like several hundred to one, hold at least one, normally several of the following beliefs:

That there are bloodthirsty foreign devils deliberately invading at all times from the Southern border, and they can be blamed for the financial struggles of the "legal" citizens.

Anyone outside the traditional gender norms is an insatiable pervert and wants to corrupt innocent children.

Those who get abortions or in some cases even use birth control are murderers and filthy whores.

People in poverty are just lazy druggies who didn't care or try hard enough and brought all of their suffering on themselves.

The Disabled and in fact anyone unable to just work, work, work and work for at least some retail shit are a burden to be scorned.

Everyone bombed and killed by the U.S. military or any of its allied countries is always either a terrorist or an acceptable sacrifice in the fight against terrorists.

Police brutality is overstated and most people hurt or killed by cops did something to deserve it, but most especially minorities, who may or may not be genetically predisposed to crime.

An idea that Jewish people secretly control the world through a vast interconnected conspiracy that may also involve demon worship and child trafficking.

Doctors and scientists are liars who drain money from the economy and are wrong about everything that might inconvenience a rich man.

Non-Christians of any kind are degenerate and dangerous.

Trump's entire platform, and that of all other GOP candidates these days, is a deliberately fuzzy promise to act on any or all of these hysterical prejudices. He's most consistent about the first one and made it pretty much the central pillar of his whole campaign, because the paranoia over an imaginary "border crisis" is by far the most popular culture war uniting the right. Which is pretty fucking sad considering just how utterly fabricated it is, and how effortless it is to find that out in only seconds. However, not all conservatives subscribe to all of the same moral panics at the same time, so right wing influencers spend a lot of time weeping and gnashing over "liberalism" or "socialism" or this word that rhymes with "yoke" so that every one of their stupid, angry grovelers can read into it as a promise to defeat whatever it is those words mean in their mushy fucking brains. The single most important thing to understand of all, though, is that the lies are not what make them hate people. They already wanted to hate those people. The lies are concocted after the fact to justify the deeds they want to commit. They are stupid, scared, gullible and weak but they are also willfully spiteful with a massive punishment fetish, so when you get enough of them together they can actually wreak havoc. The point of my original post was that they're not anything as cool or impressive as evil nefarious villains. They're more comparable to a mindless but inexorable flood of sewage.

-

I will also add: almost all of them categorize other human beings as "illegal aliens," and to them those aren't just words, but an actual demographic label they want to force on anyone who didn't fill out all the right forms, which they want enforced as an unforgivable crime.

Getting upset that I turn around and throw "dehoominizing langwidge" back at them is honestly a little ridiculous and even kind of uncomfortable, like if you saw a guy beating his wife and patted him gently on the back to remind him he matters. No he doesn't! Put a knife in that hand first! Referring to violent xenophobes as zombies or animals or vermin shouldn't bother you any more than calling them shitheads or assholes or even just jerks, because all possible words and language are completely inconsequential compared to their actual efforts at legislative dehumanization.

That's what "dehumanization" actually is. Not calling someone a dog or a ghoul in words, which is merely an expression of how ugly their behavior has become. Dehumanization is the actual treatment, by action, of other people as less worthy of basic rights and that is what they set out to do every single day. Like are some of you seriously that sheltered and naive. Yeesh. If you're personally acquainted with that one-in-a-million kind-hearted well meaning oaf who ignorantly supports the right wing out of innocent childlike ignorance, congrats but it doesn't change a thing and maybe your poor sweet gentle pet maga should have cared enough to know what they were voting for?

Young people have GOT to stop talking about conservatives like they're scary menacing monsters. Yes the policies they back are horrifically destructive but that's entirely because of how individually stupid, fearful, emotionally stunted, weak willed and catastrophically gullible they are. That all is what made them become right wing to begin with. Just the most easily manipulated zombie sheep on earth.

[df23efe]

The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein’s Unsealed Court Documents

The names of acquaintances and associates of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein—including that of former U.S. presidents and British royalty—were released on Wednesday evening in a set of court documents that were part of a suit against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015.

The documents, the first in more than 200 that are expected to be unsealed over the next few days, are part of the defamation lawsuit filed by victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Maxwell has previously called Giuffre a liar after she alleged that Epstein and Maxwell had abused her. (That case was eventually settled in 2017, but Maxwell was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting young girls for Epstein to sexually exploit in a criminal investigation of Epstein’s acts after his death.) 

Names of figures that were previously associated with Epstein, such as Prince Andrew and former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, were mentioned in the court documents, but there was little new information outside of what was already known to the public. Some documents had previously been released in other court cases, while Epstein’s high-profile contacts have been covered extensively in the media.

In December, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ordered the documents to be released, though she gave people until Jan. 1 to appeal the order in case they did not want their name to be revealed. The names of victims who were minors when they suffered abuse were not released, though some have previously spoken out about Epstein’s actions in media interviews.  

Here’s what to know. 

What the documents reveal 

For the most part, the documents say little about the actions taken by individuals outside of Epstein, though there is a 2016 deposition from Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s victims, that mentions politicians and figureheads in the U.S. and abroad. 

While celebrities like Bruce Willis, Cameron Diaz, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Spacey, Naomi Campbell, and Leonardo DiCaprio are also mentioned in the records, they have not been accused of helping Epstein in any capacity. Sjoberg was only asked if she had met the aforementioned people, which she denied. 

Connections to Epstein previously led high-level executives to resign from their positions, including Barclays chief executive Jes Staley. Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent suspected of scouting girls for Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape accusations.

The documents on Wednesday confirmed the scale of both Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking ring and his powerful social network. Prince Andrew—the younger brother of King Charles III—was one of the names referenced in the documents, mentioned by a witness for touching her breast. 

Andrew was also previously accused of raping Giuffre when she was a teenager. After a lawsuit filed by Giuffre in 2021 and amid growing public pressure, Andrew was forced to relinquish his military titles and public duties—even as he repeatedly denied the allegations. The two settled the lawsuit in 2022 after Andrew paid Giuffre an undisclosed sum of money.

The case against Epstein 

Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender who would lure young girls under the impression that they would be giving him massages that would then “become increasingly sexual in nature,” according to the 2019 indictment against him. Jennifer Araoz, one of the victims, said that Epstein would invite her to his house and pay her hundreds of dollars after her visit. While they initially spoke about her life and goals, he later became abusive, Araoz said. 

Epstein had long avoided facing any consequences for his actions. He was first investigated for sexual misconduct in 2005 after a woman claimed that he had molested her teenage stepdaughter. Palm Beach police eventually charged Epstein with counts of unlawful sex with a minor in May 2006, but then State Attorney Barry Krischer sent the case to a grand jury, which indicted him with one count of soliciting prostitution. The charge was minor, leading to much criticism and causing the FBI to open a federal investigation against Epstein. But Epstein ended up serving a short 18-month sentence in 2008 for recruiting an underage girl for prostitution after he struck a plea deal with U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to avoid being charged with any federal crimes.  

Epstein later came back under scrutiny in 2018, after the Miami Herald looked at Acosta’s role in negotiating a short sentence for Epstein. In July 2019, Epstein was arrested after federal prosecutors looked at his behavior between 2002 and 2005.

The case against him revealed that the victims, some as young as 14, were paid to provide sexual services to him and his friends, and to recruit other young girls to his circle of victims. Epstein’s employees would also sexually abuse the young girls.

He was facing charges for sex trafficking and conspiracy in July 2019 when one month later, he died by suicide in a New York federal jail. The investigation continued after his passing, leading prosecutors to convict Maxwell for sex crimes in connection to her dealing with Epstein. 

Here are other names high-profile mentioned in the documents:

Bill Clinton

The former president was mentioned in the documents released on Wednesday, in Sjoberg’s testimony that Epstein had told her “Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.” She also said that she knew Epstein had “dealings” with Clinton but did not know they were friends until later media reports.

The former president’s ties with Epstein has long been the subject of media scrutiny—intensified in the wake of the financier’s indictment. The two had connected while Clinton was working on his nonprofit group the Clinton Foundation, and in 2002, they took a trip to Africa on Epstein’s private jet. 

In 2019, Clinton’s office said that the former president did not know about Epstein’s “terrible crimes,” and that he had not spoken to Epstein in “well over a decade.” A spokesperson for Clinton told CNN on Wednesday that it has “been nearly 20 years since President Clinton last had contact with Epstein.”

Records show that Giuffre’s attorneys wanted to get a deposition from Clinton. Giuffre, the plaintiff in the defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, did not accuse the former president of doing anything with her, but attorneys saw Clinton as a “key person who can provide information about his close relationship with Defendant and Mr. Epstein and disapprove Ms. Maxwell’s claims.”

Donald Trump

The former president—whose relationship with Epstein was also widely reported—was also mentioned in Sjoberg’s 2016 deposition. Sjoberg testified that she and Epstein once made an impromptu stop in Atlantic City due to poor flying weather. Asked if she had given Trump a massage, Sjoberg said no. Trump once called Epstein a “terrific guy,” but later said he had a falling out with him. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I was not a fan of his,” Trump said in 2019.

Michael Jackson

Sjoberg recalled meeting late musician Michael Jackson at Epstein’s house in Palm Beach, but said no when asked if she had massaged him.

Sarah Kellen

Kellen, Epstein’s former assistant, was named in testimonies of victims detailing their encounters with Epstein. She was said to have helped schedule his “massages,” which his victims said was a euphemism for sexual services. 

A judge had described Kellen as “a criminally responsible participant” in Epstein’s scheme. 

But Kellen was never charged and has remained out of the public eye. Kellen said through a spokesperson in 2020 that she herself had been sexually and psychologically abused by Epstein for years.

Jean-Luc Brunel

Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent suspected of scouting girls for Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape accusations.

Giuffre said in her deposition that she was sent by Maxwell to have sex with Brunel “at many places.” The documents also say that Brunel would bring girls as young as twelve "to the United States for sexual purposes and farm them out to his friends, especially Epstein."

Bill Richardson

Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico who died in September, was also mentioned. Giuffre said in her deposition that Maxwell had instructed her to give Richardson a massage. In 2019, a spokesperson for Richardson denied he ever met Giuffre, according to Las Cruces Sun News.

Leslie Wexner

Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of L Brands (which owns Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works), was also mentioned in Maxwell’s deposition. When asked if she had ever provided Giuffre with “an outfit of a sexual nature to wear for Les Wexner,” Maxwell said “categorically no.”

Epstein was Wexner's money manager and a trustee of the Wexner Foundation During an L Brands investor conference in Sept. 2019, Wexner called Epstein's action "abhorrent." Wexner says he cut ties with Epstein in 2007.

Glenn Dubin

Hedge fund manager and billionaire Glenn Dubin was mentioned in the documents, with Giuffre testifying that “Ghislaine told me to go to Glenn Dubin and give him a massage, which means sex,” Giuffre said in her deposition..

Dubin has previously denied Giuffre’s allegations. 

Dubin’s wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin, was also referenced in the unsealed documents. Maxwell said in her deposition that she was friends with Andersson-Dubin.

Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s lawyer, was also mentioned in the newly-released records. The documents say that Epstein forced a minor to have sex with the former Harvard law professor multiple times. The documents also say that Dershowitz “was an eye-witness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein and several of Epstein’s co-conspirators.

Dershowitz would later play a significant role in negotiating the NPA on Epstein’s behalf.” NPA stands for non-prosecution agreement, which allowed Epstein to avoid serving a severe sentence when he was first charged with soliciting a minor for prostitution.

“Of course I’m on that list, I was his lawyer. I flew on his plane,” said Dershowitz in a Youtube livestream after the list came out.

Marvin Minsky

Computer scientist and former MIT professor Marvin Minsky was also mentioned in the documents. Giuffre said she was asked to have sex with Minsky when he went to Epstein’s island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

https://time.com/6552063/jeffrey-epsteins-unsealed-court-documents/

[leutjaneausten]

Open in app or online

February 7, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 8

SAVE

▷ LISTEN

And then there was President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address.

This is the annual event in our politics that gets the most viewers. Last year, 38.2 million people watched it on television and streaming services.

What viewers saw tonight was a president repeatedly offering to work across the aisle as he outlined a moderate plan for the nation with a wide range of popular programs. He sounded calm, reasonable, and upbeat, while Republicans refused to clap for his successes—800,000 new manufacturing jobs, 20,000 new infrastructure projects, lower drug prices—or his call to strengthen the middle class.

And then, when he began to talk about future areas of potential cooperation, Republicans went feral. They heckled, catcalled, and booed, ignoring House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) attempts to shush them. At the State of the Union, in the U.S. Capitol, our lawmakers repeatedly interrupted the president with insults, yelling “liar” and “bullsh*t.” And cameras caught it all.

Extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), her hands cupping her wide open mouth to scream at the president, became the face of the Republican Party.

Biden began with gracious remarks toward a number of Republicans as well as Democrats, then emphasized how Republicans and Democrats came together over the past two years to pass consequential legislation. Speaker McCarthy had asked him to take this tone, and he urged Republicans to continue to work along bipartisan lines, noting that the American people have made it clear they disapprove of “fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict.”

For the next hour the president laid out a promise to continue to rebuild the middle class, hollowed out by 40 years of policies based on the idea that cutting taxes and concentrating wealth among the “job creators” would feed the economy and create widespread prosperity. He listed the accomplishments of his administration so far: unemployment at a 50-year low, 800,000 good manufacturing jobs, lower inflation, 10 million new small businesses, the return of the chip industry to the United States, more than $300 billion in private investment in manufacturing, more than 20,000 new infrastructure projects, lower health care costs, Medicare negotiations over drug prices, investment in new technologies to combat climate change. He promised to continue to invest in the places and people who have been forgotten.

Biden described a national vision that includes everyone. It is a modernized version of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, and he very clearly invited non-MAGA Republicans to embrace it. He thanked those Republicans who voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, then tweaked those who had voted against it but claimed credit for funding. He told them not to worry: “I promised to be the president for all Americans. We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.”

But then he hit the key point for Republicans: taxes. To pay for this investment in the future, Biden called for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He noted that “in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes.” “That’s simply not fair,” he said. He signed into law the requirement that billion-dollar companies have to pay a minimum of 15%—less than a nurse pays, he pointed out—and he called for a billionaire minimum tax. While he reiterated his promise that no one making less than $400,000 a year would pay additional taxes, he said “no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter.” He also called for quadrupling the tax on corporate stock buybacks.

Republicans consider these proposals nonstarters because their whole vision is based on the idea of cutting taxes to free up capital. By committing to higher taxes on the wealthy, Biden was laying out a vision that is very much like that from the time before Reagan. It is a rejection of his policies and instead a full-throated defense of the idea that the government should work for ordinary Americans, rather than the rich.

And then he got into the specifics of legislation going forward, and Republicans lost it. The minority party has occasionally been vocal about its dislike of the State of the Union since Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted “You lie!” at President Obama in 2009 (Obama was telling the truth); a Democrat yelled “That’s not true” at Trump in 2018 as he, in fact, lied about immigration policy. But tonight was a whole new kind of performance.

Biden noted that he has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion (in part because pandemic programs are expiring) and that Trump increased the deficit every year of his presidency, even before the pandemic hit. And yet, Congress responded to the rising debt under Trump by raising the debt limit, cleanly, three times.

Biden asked Congress to “commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never, ever be questioned.” This, of course, is an issue that has bitterly divided Republicans, many of whom want to hold the country hostage until they get what they want. But they can’t agree on what they want, so they are now trying to insist that Biden is refusing to negotiate the budget when, in fact, he has simply said he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. Budget negotiations are a normal part of legislating, and he has said he welcomes such talks. Tonight, once again, he asked the Republicans to tell the American people what, exactly, they propose.

And then Biden did something astonishing. He tricked the Republicans into a public declaration of support for protecting Social Security and Medicare. He noted that a number of Republicans have called for cutting, or even getting rid of, Social Security and Medicare. This is simply a fact—it is in Senator Rick Scott’s (R-FL) pre-election plan; the Republican Study Committee’s budget; statements by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Ron Johnson (R-WI); and so on—but Republicans booed Biden and called him a liar for suggesting they would make those cuts, and they did so in public.

Seeming to enjoy himself, Biden jumped on their assertion, forcing them to agree that there would be no cuts to Social Security or Medicare. It was budget negotiation in real time, and it left Biden holding all the cards.

From then on, Republican heckling got worse, especially as Biden talked about banning assault weapons. Biden led the fight to get them banned in 1994, but when Republicans refused to reauthorize that law, it expired and mass shootings tripled. Gun safety is popular in the U.S., and Republicans, many of whom have been wearing AR-15 pins on their lapels, booed him. When he talked about more work to stop fentanyl production, one of the Republican lawmakers yelled, “It’s your fault.”

In the midst of the heckling, Biden praised Republican president George W. Bush’s bipartisan $100 billion investment in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

And then, in this atmosphere, Biden talked about protecting democracy. “For the last few years our democracy has been threatened, attacked, and put at risk,” he said. “Put to the test here, in this very room, on January 6th.”

With lawmakers demonstrating the dangerous behavior he was warning against, he said: “We must all speak out. There is no place for political violence in America. In America, we must protect the right to vote, not suppress that fundamental right. We honor the results of our elections, not subvert the will of the people. We must uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy. And we must give hate and extremism in any form no safe harbor.”

“Democracy must not be a partisan issue. It must be an American issue.”

With Republicans scoffing at him, he ended with a vision of the nation as one of possibility, hope, and goodness. “We must be the nation we have always been at our best. Optimistic. Hopeful. Forward-looking. A nation that embraces light over darkness, hope over fear, unity over division. Stability over chaos.”

“We must see each other not as enemies, but as fellow Americans. We are a good people.”

Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave the Republican rebuttal. Full of references to the culture wars and scathing of Biden, she reinforced the Republican stance during the speech. “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left,” she said. “The choice is between normal or crazy.”

She is probably not the only one who is thinking along those lines after tonight’s events, but many are likely drawing a different conclusion than she intended.

[leezardweezard]

Okay So! This is gonna be kinda a long breakdown of exactly what is being said here.

There’s a few inconsistencies that immediately I thought was kinda weird.

Firstly: The person in the video starts by stating the average net income per person in America in 1930. Now generally, we do not use averages when it comes to looking at a typical income level because averages are really sensitive to extreme numbers! If you have very high or low numbers your average is at risk of being skewed, and with the US Income wealth being distributed how it is, there are a lot of insanely high earners that could easily affect average income. I also noticed that it said per person, but when we’re comparing incomes, we (usually) do it by median household income. We do it by median because medians are are not so sensitive to extreme numbers.

For a quick refresher: average income would be all income added together divided by the sample; and median is where we line up all the annual incomes least to greatest and find the middle value, which tells us that 50% of our sample is earning below that value and 50% are earning above that value. 

A quick google search tells me that this statistic is pulled from study.com, which the maker of the video had cropped out. When I tried to look at that source, an in-depth breakdown was blocked by a paywall, so there’s no way to really tell where this information is from. 

I was then curious about what the actual median household income was, and unfortunately while I couldn’t find that information in the few census reports I skimmed, I was able to find national median family income for 1939 here. [It looks like they use family in similar if not the same way we use household today, so it did include single person families as well as couples and those with children.]

If you can’t read it, that’s a median income of $1,226 per year! Or $26,802.56 in today’s dollars. So half of the people who made money through their salary/wages in 1939 made less than $26,802 that year. [There are tables for those who made money through different means, that amount was not included in this specific table, but I’m very tired and the document was 150 pages long so maybe I’ll look it up later].

So at this point I’ve pretty much discounted that first statistic. Moving on to the second shown statistic, you can see that google is showing a median annual income of $31,133. So even if that 1930 $88k income had been correct, it was a national average so it would very off to compare it to a national median. Those are two different numbers used to say different things!

In checking in on that $31k 2019 median income number, I found that the median income per household was around $67k in 2020 (According to the 2020 CPSASEC, which is not the decennial census but is made by the U.S. Census Bureau and had a sample of around 90k).

I don’t want to discount the heart of what this video is saying at all, costs of living is absurdly high right now plus I know I could definitely have missed something crucial in trying to fact check. One of the biggest problems in using census data (and just about any other survey) is that it is difficult to reach populations who don’t have reliable access to phone, email, or mail. As you can imagine, these surveys leave out crucial parts of our population like people who live out in isolated areas and houseless people who don’t have reliable access to these things. But still, I don’t think it’s great that this person is presenting this information that is so outrageously off base. The wealth gap is a problem, we aren’t making enough, things are way too expensive, but to do something about it we still have to have an idea of what’s going on. While probably well-intentioned, this just muddies the waters.

Anyways, TLDR: Sources wack, average and median are not the same, google is a liar sometimes- basically everything from the video is misrepresented or untrue (maybe not entirely on purpose).

[urbanchristiannews]

BREAKING WORLD WAR III NEWS: DANIEL WHYTE III TELLS PRESIDENT BIDEN TO FIRE THE OPENLY HOMOSEXUAL AND MARRIED TO A MAN BUTTIGIEG IMMEDIATELY AS TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY; IN FAIRNESS, DANIEL WHYTE III TELLS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE KEVIN MCCARTHY TO DO WHATEVER YOU NEED TO DO TO GET RID OF THE WORSE LIAR IN THE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WHO ONCE SAID HE WAS A HOMOSEXUAL REPUBLICAN GEORGE SANTOS IMMEDIATELY; HACK FEARS: U.S. INVESTIGATING FAA OUTAGE; PRESIDENT BIDEN SAYS, "WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE CAUSE IS"; THE BIGGEST GROUNDING OF PLANES SINCE 9/11.

BREAKING WORLD WAR III NEWS: DANIEL WHYTE III TELLS PRESIDENT BIDEN TO FIRE THE OPENLY HOMOSEXUAL AND MARRIED TO A MAN BUTTIGIEG IMMEDIATELY AS TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY; IN FAIRNESS, DANIEL WHYTE III TELLS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE KEVIN MCCARTHY TO DO WHATEVER YOU NEED TO DO TO GET RID OF THE WORSE LIAR IN THE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WHO ONCE SAID HE WAS A HOMOSEXUAL REPUBLICAN GEORGE SANTOS IMMEDIATELY; HACK FEARS: U.S. INVESTIGATING FAA OUTAGE; PRESIDENT BIDEN SAYS, “WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE CAUSE IS”; THE BIGGEST GROUNDING OF PLANES SINCE 9/11.

A traveler at St Louis International Airport told The U.S. Sun her flight to Phoenix was pushed back three hoursCredit: Cindy Harrison BREAKING WORLD WAR III NEWS: DANIEL WHYTE III TELLS PRESIDENT BIDEN TO FIRE THE OPENLY HOMOSEXUAL AND MARRIED TO A MAN BUTTIGIEG IMMEDIATELY AS TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY; IN FAIRNESS, DANIEL WHYTE III TELLS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE KEVIN MCCARTHY TO DO WHATEVER YOU…

[filosofablogger]

The New Kid In The Party?

The New Kid In The Party?

A good governor … and here I am using the term more expansively to include all government decision-makers from state legislators all the way up through the U.S. Congress and even the president … will make every decision based on what is best for the country and for its people – ALL its people, not just white people or male people or Christian people or straight people.  They will sometimes err…

[robertreich]

Trump’s 40 Biggest Broken Promises

Trump voters. Nearly 4 years in, here’s an updated list of Trump’s 40 biggest broken promises.

1. He said coronavirus would “go away without a vaccine.”

You bought it. But it didn’t. While other countries got the pandemic under control and avoided large numbers of fatalities, the virus has killed more than 130,000 Americans*, and that number is still climbing.

2. He said he won’t have time to play golf if elected president.

But he has made more than 250 visits to his golf clubs since he took office – a record for any president – including more trips during the pandemic than meetings with Dr. Fauci. The total financial cost to America? More than $136 million.

3. He said he would repeal the Affordable Care Act, and replace it with something “beautiful.”

It didn’t happen. Instead, 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance since he took office. He has asked the Supreme Court to strike down the law in the middle of a global pandemic with no plan to replace it.

4. He said he’d cut your taxes, and that the super-rich like him would pay more.

He did the opposite. By 2027, the richest 1 percent will have received 83 percent of the Trump tax cut and the richest 0.1 percent, 60 percent of it. But more than half of all Americans will pay more in taxes.

5. He said corporations would use their tax cuts to invest in American workers.

They didn’t. Corporations spent more of their tax savings buying back shares of their own stock than increasing workers wages.

6. He said he would boost economic growth by 4 percent a year.

Nope. The economy stalled, and unemployment has soared to the highest levels since the Great Depression. Just over half of working-age Americans are employed – the worst ratio in 70 years.  

7. He said he wouldn’t “cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”

His latest budget includes billions in cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

8. He promised to be “the voice” of American workers.

He hasn’t. His administration has stripped workers of their rights, repealed overtime protections, rolled back workplace safety rules, and turned a blind eye to employers who steal their workers’ wages.

9. He promised that the average American family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

But nothing trickled down. Wages for most Americans have barely kept up with inflation.    

10. He promised that anyone who wants a test for Covid will get one.

But countless Americans still can’t get a test.

11. He said hydroxychloroquine protects against coronavirus.

No way. The FDA revoked its emergency authorization due to the drug’s potentially lethal side effects.

12. He promised to eliminate the federal deficit.

He has increased the federal deficit by more than 60 percent.

13. He said he would hire “only the best people.”

He has fired a record number of his own cabinet and White House picks, and then called them “whackos,” “dumb as a rock," and  "not mentally qualified.”  6 of them have been charged with crimes.

14. He promised to bring down the price of prescription drugs and said drug companies are “getting away with murder.”

They still are. Drug prices have soared, and a company that got federal funds to develop a drug to treat coronavirus is charging $3,000 a pop.=

15. He promised to revive the struggling coal industry and bring back lost coal mining jobs.

The coal industry has continued to lose jobs as clean energy becomes cheaper. 

16. He promised to help American workers during the pandemic.

But 80% of the tax benefits in the coronavirus stimulus package have gone to millionaires and billionaires. And at least 21 million Americans have lost extra unemployment benefits, with no new stimulus check to fall back on.

17. He said he’d drain the swamp.

Instead, he’s brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history, and he’s filled departments and agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who are crafting new policies for the same industries they used to work for.

18. He promised to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.

His Justice Department is trying to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act, including protections for people with preexisting conditions.

19. He said Mexico would pay for his border wall.

The wall is estimated to cost American taxpayers an estimated $11 billion.

20. He promised to bring peace to the Middle East.

Instead, tensions have increased and his so-called “peace plan” was dead on arrival.

21. He promised to lock up Hillary Clinton for using a private email server.

He didn’t. Funny enough, Trump uses his personal cell-phone for official business, and several members of his own administration, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka, have used private email in the White House.

22. He promised to use his business experience to whip the federal government into shape.

He hasn’t. His White House is in permanent chaos. He caused the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history when he didn’t get funding for his wall.

23. He promised to end DACA.

The Supreme Court ruled that his plan to deport 700,000 young immigrants was unconstitutional, and DACA still stands.  

24. He promised “six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit.”

He hasn’t delivered.

25. He promised to bring an end to Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear program.

Kim is expanding North Korea’s nuclear program.

26. He said he would distance himself from his businesses while in office.

He continues to make money from his properties and maintain his grip on his real estate empire.

27. He said he’d force companies to keep jobs in America, and that there would be consequences for companies that shipped jobs abroad.

Since he took office, companies like GE, Carrier, Ford, and Harley Davidson have continued to outsource thousands of jobs while still receiving massive tax breaks. And offshoring by federal contractors has increased.

28. He promised to end the opioid crisis.

Americans are now more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car accident.

29. He said he’d release his tax returns.

It’s been nearly 4 years. He hasn’t released his tax returns.

30. He promised to tear up the Iran nuclear deal and renegotiate a better deal.

Negotiations have gone nowhere, and he brought us to the brink of war.

31. He promised to enact term limits for all members of Congress.

He has not even tried to enact term limits.

32. He promised that China would pay for tariffs on imported goods.

His trade war has cost U.S. consumers $34 billion a year, eliminated 300,000 American jobs, and cost American taxpayers $22 billion in subsidies for farmers hurt by the tariffs.

33. He promised to “push colleges to cut the skyrocketing cost of tuition.”

Instead, he’s made it easier for for-profit colleges to defraud students, and tuition is still rising.

34. He promised to protect American steel jobs.

The steel industry continues to lose jobs.

35. He promised tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations would spur economic growth and pay for themselves.

His tax cuts will add $2 trillion to the federal deficit.

36. After pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, he said he’d negotiate a better deal on the environment.

He hasn’t attempted to negotiate any deal.  

37. He promised that the many women who accused him of sexual misconduct “will be sued after the election is over.”

He hasn’t sued them, presumably because he doesn’t want the truth to come out.

38. He promised to bring back all troops from Afghanistan.

He now says: "We’ll always have somebody there.”

39. He pledged to put America first.

Instead, he’s deferred to dictators and authoritarians at America’s expense, and ostracized our allies — who now laugh at us behind our back.

40. He promised to be the voice of the common people.

He’s made his rich friends richer, increased the political power of big corporations and the wealthy, and harmed working Americans.Don’t let the liar-in-chief break any more promises. Vote him out in November.

[gldenhrs]

                              (—) ★ spotted !!  OLIVIA MORGAN  on the cover of this week’s most recent tabloid ! many say that the 26 year old looks like OLIVIA HOLT , but i don’t really see it. while the  PROFESSIONAL FIGURE SKATER  is known for being  VALIANT  my inside sources say that they have a tendency to be  ABRASIVE   i swear, every time i think of them, i hear the song HALL OF FAME BY THE SCRIPT .

*   ◞  ╰   general   .

full name :   olivia desirée morgan . nicknames :   goes predominantly by liv  &  ice princess by the press / fans . birthdate / zodiac sign : somewhere in november during scorpio season  . birthplace :  chicago , il . sexual orientation : heterosexual . family :  patricia  &  john morgan ( deceased ) . siblings :  none . pets :  dog named fitz .   occupation : professional figure skater . life goal :  to make it to the figure skating hall of fame . love language :  actions / words . + traits  :   valiant , authentic , loyal , confident , determinated , passionate , persistent , strategic , fearlessly ambitious   &   self reliant  . - traits  :  secretive , resentful , controlling , stubborn , abrasive , sarcastic , possessive  &  opinionated . aesthetic :  bravery , white ice skates , the smell of freshly made coffee , customized leotards , smudged lipstick trails on coffee cups , olympic gold medals , designer sunglasses , cold breeze , sports endorsements , eye contact across a crowded room . muse inspo :   scarlet o'hara ( gone with the wind ) , elsa ( frozen ) , monica geller ( friends ) , christina yang ( grey’s anatomy ) , princess jasmine ( aladdin ) , megara ( hercules ) , donna pinciotti  ( that 70s show ) , kat straford ( 10 things i hate about you ) , dorothy zvornak ( the golden girls ) , eloise bridgerton ( bridgerton ) , spencer hastings ( pretty little liars ) , lexi howard ( euphoria ) , rosa diaz ( brooklyn nine-nine )

*   ◞  ╰   quick history facts  .

okay , okay , okay , so liv here is your typical star athlete . ever since she could breathe , she breathed figure skating  &  doing the impossible on ice which now kind of makes her usa’s crown jewel due to her accomplishments  !  

grew up in chicago to an amazing couple of parents anyone can ask for , they were her biggest support system , her everything --  ( tw: death ) until a tragic accident which took them both .  she still lowkey hasn’t recovered from that .

luckily , her coach aka tom , stepped in  &  basically adopted her bc he didn’t want the foster home to take one of the best talents in the state !  she owes him her life , her everything ,  &  she definitely considers him a father figure  ( despite him being strict af ) .

to cut the story short bc it’s still in the works , she’s one of the best figure skaters in the US after winning the U.S. champion title five times ,  &  then later on going so far to actually win the olympic gold  TWICE !  naturally , not everyone follows sports or figure skating but when ur the best of the best  &  getting all these praises , endorsements , magazine covers , etc , the people kinda know ? ?  ( career inspo :  michelle kwan )

anyway , she moved to la when she was about 20 bc’ tom kinda had a business deal there idk so she obvi followed bc the land of dreams yadayada .  tbh she misses the colder weather , but she grew to like the fact she can hike with her dog whenever , even during october so there’s that

*   ◞  ╰   personality & dating life  .

can be v charming  ( kinda has to be )  due to her area of work aka needing to charm the crowd  &  her sponsors , but at the same time she’s very detached from everyone ? ?  she tries to be social but prefers staying out of the limelight the most she can .

lives a seriously healthy af lifestyle bc her coach is always on her throat about it .  her schedule is insane , lemme just say !  BUT  , obviously she does drink  ( rarely )  but when she does she’s such a fucking lightweight it’s almost iconic to see her drunk .  she can legit get off by  ONE  cocktail  &  make a total fool of herself which is also one of the reasons why she’s like  “ water for me pls “  .  god forbid if she ever tried any drugs ....

v v opinionated  (  &  sarcastic )  about p much everything ?  she’s also stubborn as a mule so good luck trying to prove her wrong .  

but if u are her friend , she’s the most loyal of them all . will do absolutely everything for u !

lowkey has a bit of a problem when it comes to being in control ? ? she likes to be in charge of p much everything which is why she also  HATES  failing aka losing .  the idea of doing such just sends chills down her spine so instead she works twice as hard just to make sure it never happens .  she’s really under a lot of stress obvi but mostly it’s her own fault due to her self-depreciating on a day-to-day basis !

as for her love life ... well , she doesn’t have any . had one boyfriend whom she dated before he broke her heart .  since then , she’s been kinda scared to open her heart fully to someone .  plus , she now considers falling in love to be the  BIGGEST  distraction of them all .  it’s sad tbh .

*   ◞  ╰   connections  .

ahhhhhh just like , the usual --  childhood best friends , best friends , ex best friends , friends through association , maybe a rival or a friend in skating ,  friends only for the cameras , enemies , exes on bad terms , exes on bad terms , hookups , flings , fwbs ,  etc  ! !  

i also have some plots written for her too  HERE .  :~)

[filthforfriends]

hey sorry to bother you but i don't get the whole lace thing, maybe because i am uncultured on this topic but what color lace were on Thomas's boots he wore at coachella? and why is it such a big thing, it has a special meaning, the color i mean? also i missed when you wrote about maneskin at coachella, with so many accounts that post so offen sometimes is hard to keep up with everything out there, not your fault, just to explain where i come from with this question.

I’ve already talked about this at length and will not be discussing it any further but this person was very polite so here’s a recap:

Lace code is a way to nonverbally communicate value systems in the punk scene. It has three components: shoes, lacing, lace color

1. Lace code is displayed on combat boots, almost always Doc Martens brand.

2. You have to ladder lace your Docs to signify that your lace color has meaning. To do this you must unlace the criss cross pattern the boots were sold in and relace in a ladder pattern.

3. Here are the important colors:

💛yellow= anti-racist

💜purple= gay pride

❌red= neo-Nazi

⬜️white= white supremacist

American Doc Martens do not sell white laces. The only way you can get them is if you buy certain pairs of all white boots. No boots come with red laces. The only “red” laces they sell are actually burgundy and plaid which is neutral. Unlike Italy and other countries, American Doc Martens don’t have a how to lace your boots page.

All this is so you can’t make their shoes into hate symbology. So if you’re in the U.S. and want to lace your Docs with red or white you’d have to go to a separate store.

Here is Thomas performing at Coachella in white, ladder laced combat boots. He’s worn them since. No I don’t think he’s a white supremacist. However Thomas does fit into the Aryan ideal for beauty. Rock music is rife with blatant racism from David Bowie to Pantera. So if you didn’t know Måneskin and just saw this picture…

I’m sure you’re thinking how was he supposed to know if it’s not a thing in Italy? Something to note is how much Måneskin borrow from the punk scene. Of course it just started as kids who thought a fuck you attitude was cool. When they became world famous adults with an appeal that was founded in the punk, I would have liked them to learn the history.

I don’t blame Thomas. Their styling team however, people who studied the history of rock n’ roll fashion, should have caught this. Maybe they did and didn’t think it mattered because lace code isn’t relevant in Italy.

But they’re an Italian band not American. Coachella is the biggest music festival in the U.S. though. With a publicity team I think it’s fair to expect enough cultural sensitivity to avoid hate symbology. So I’m not calling out Måneskin the band, but rather Måneskin LLC.

One of the reasons this take became so disputed is that Doc Martens website varies between countries. So I got called a liar because people were looking at a different website than me and seeing all the things American Doc Martens doesn’t carry.

[gingersnappe-9]

Quisiera: Hometowns Are Small (1)

Javier Peña / F!Reader; Post Narcos

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Summary: You never thought you would see him again. The kid who always thought he knew best. The one who was so sure of himself and that the world was his oyster. You weren’t surprised that he didn’t recognize you though. That was Javi you grew up with. This Javier was different. It was plain to see that he carried a weight with him. Knowing the things he knew, holding on to whatever he’d done in the back of his mind now and forever. He wasn’t the bright and shiny version of Javi you once knew, but he was still as golden as ever.

2.3K words

Warnings: minor profanity

This fic will eventually get spicy (18+ only) but each chapter will have individual warnings

The bar looked exactly the same as when he left. The same bar stools, a little more worn in than before; the same bartender, with a few more wrinkles than Javier remembered, with humor to spare; but the same classic songs played on the jukebox.

The people of Laredo had welcomed Javier Peña back as some sort of hero. A few strangers would walk up to him now and again to shake his hand and congratulate him on a job well done.

I hardly fixed anything. Those scumbags still have a foot on the throat of the government. They’re suffocating the life from that country. It’s still a mess. And the U.S. is playing both sides.

The high schools and universities in and around Texas called more times than he could count asking him to come speak to their students about his experiences. The ass kissing requests, “It would be so inspiring to speak to a real world hero who made a difference on a global scale.” Law enforcement agencies approached him a few times looking to recruit him -- something about wanting a “tried and true enforcer in the war against drugs”. He’d even received a few offers from DEA adjacent organizations within the Mexican and American governments offering him further opportunities to “fight the good fight” for another fucked up government surrounded by liars and cheats.

What a load of bullshit.

He had been home for maybe two months since he’d quit the DEA. For now, Javier would tell himself that he was content to work with his dad on the ranch and at the end of the day either come to this bar or stare at the river and watch the undetected narcos row their contraband up stream. The cheap whiskey won most battles after two weeks of the latter option nearly drove him insane. The former DEA agent was more than content to people-watch from his seat looking out at the rest of the small bar, a habit that had yet to be broken.

The man two seats away from him had picked up his glass three times but had yet to take a sip on account that he kept getting distracted by someone who appeared to be his date who had nearly two and a half drinks already. The three guys in the farthest booth, who seemed suspiciously young compared to the rest of the patrons, laughed loudly together. A few older caballeros chatted idly at a small table off to Javi’s left, complaining about how kids these days were only into their walkmans and their “loud rock music”. Javier had to laugh at that. Being one of those kids that adults complained about to their drinking buddies felt like a lifetime ago. Mostly because it was.

It hadn’t just been the ten plus years in the DEA working to take down some of the biggest drug cartels in the world that aged Javier. It was the knowledge that the vicious cycle of narcos making money and outside agencies going into foreign countries in the name of justice only to make shady deals would most definitely never end. Not in his lifetime anyway.

Before Javier could get too lost in his own despair, a group of ladies walked in. A few homegrown Texas girls: some stetsons, denim on denim, and well-worn boots. A few others walked in wearing what looked like scrubs. Doctors or nurses perhaps? All Javi knew was that damn near all of them were cute and he felt like being distracted.

Since Colombia, Javi hadn’t really indulged himself in women like he used to. Whether it was because the pickings were slim, or the fact that Javi had done it so often as a sort of transaction, he didn’t know. Or maybe it was that none of these typical “good” small town girls particularly did it for him. But Javi was feeling the whiskey a bit more today so he made the bold move to go and talk to one.

The girl who peaked his interest was wearing a white button up and dark jeans tucked into the top of her rather nice boots. Most likely a well-off girl working her way through daddy’s money. He moved a couple seats over so he was within striking distance. She was busy talking with someone he couldn’t see. Javi called the bartender over and asked him to refill whatever the lady in the white shirt was drinking and to put it on his tab. The older gentleman simply gave a knowing smirk.

Javier nursed his drink and quietly watched the girls talk from the corner of his eye. The other patrons cleared out slowly as time went on. It was only Javi and the ladies who remained now. He could’ve sworn he heard a familiar voice, but couldn’t quite figure out who it was. His target so to speak nursed her drink slowly, the whole affair seemed to be some old friends catching up with one another after a long day of work. He caught bits and pieces of information about their lives. Someone had their second child not too long ago. Another’s sister was getting engaged to someone they didn’t particularly like. There was mention of dates not going well. Javi rather enjoyed being a fly on the wall and listening in to the small moments of their private lives they made public. There was something comforting in hearing mundane things that happened in the world. It gave him a moment to think it wasn’t all so bad.

The sun had gotten lower in the sky, seeping into the bar with a warm glow. Unfortunately for Javier, it signaled to many of the girls that it was high time they leave, including the one girl he never even got the chance to buy a drink for. Nearly every girl had left with only one remaining.

Javier eyed her for a second. A lovely face with her hair done back in a french braid. A plain white t-shirt underneath a flannel, some well-worn jeans that had started to fray at the knees, boots with a little caked on dust and dirt, her stetson resting on the bar top. But what really caught Javier’s eyes was the belt buckle she wore.

Down south, those meant something. It wasn’t just for show if you ran with the right crowd; or in this case, rode. They were won and worn with pride after a competition for an event of riding or wrangling. Javi had seen his fair share of people wearing them growing up and knew the skill of the wearer was no joke.

She had just finished what looked like to be a mixed drink, probably a rum and coke. Simple, no fuss kind of drink, Javi thought to himself. He found he tended to like that in a woman. The bartender placed another one in front of her.

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t order this.” Her voice was cool and clear, enough to perk Javier’s ears.

The old man smiled cunningly before gesturing towards Javi, “Compliments of the gentlemen.”

The woman turned her head to look Javier in the eye. He suddenly felt like he was in the spotlight. The old man probably knew he had meant the other lady, but ignored him. The woman rolled her eyes and grabbed the glass after looking at Javi for a few seconds. He kept rather still, sort of like a deer in headlights. Something about her seemed… so familiar.

“You’re trying to figure out where you know me from. Isn’t that right, Javier Peña?” There was that voice again, cool like summer rain. She said his name with an easy roll of her tongue, a native Spanish speaker. It set off bells in Javi’s head

In his line of work, it wasn’t great if someone knew your name as a perfect stranger. A little relief washed over him when she spoke again after taking a sip of her complimentary drink.

“Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you…”

Now Javier was racking his brain, still not having said a word. She knew him, and apparently he knew her. Was she in the DEA at some point? No, there were so few women he would at least remember the faces of the women he encountered. He must’ve known her from his time in the States.

“I-- uh. You-” Javi hated not knowing things.

The mystery woman laughed. It was nice… really nice if he was being honest. But it was so god damn familiar. It was killing Javi at this point.

“Alright, don’t blow a fuse. I thought you big hot shot DEA guys would have better memory recall,” She tipped her head back and leaned into her chair. Positively eating up the fact that Javier was feeling out of the loop, “It's Y/N… Y/N Parra de Sanchez. I live a few houses away from you. We went to school together.”

Holy shit. This is the girl from next door? Well, “next door” was used loosely, especially in Texas. She lived a few miles up the road from the entrance of his family’s small ranch.

He looked at her in awe. “Y/N. Your family raised the horses, right?” Javier inquired slowly, phrasing his statement more like a question. Brief memories from his youth came back to him: Him and a girl about his age with pigtails running through a field; him and a group of kids at their confirmation ceremony at their Roman Catholic church, among them a girl who seemed to hate the lace trim of her dress. But that girl was quiet. Hadn’t quite grown into herself yet. Nowhere near as confident as the other girls in their class. Certainly not the woman he saw before him.

You gave him a quick smile. “Yeah. That was us. Nowadays I’m a little busy with work so we just house horses at the barn.”

“Holy shit. Pardon my language, but it’s been what? Fifteen years since I saw you last?”

You visibly shuddered at the number of the years, “Oh lord. We’re not that old? But yeah. I guess it’s been a while. And I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, but I couldn’t help but poke a little fun at you. Not everyday a girl gets a bonafide hero to buy her a drink.”

Javier gave a huff at the word “hero”. He had sort of hoped you would be above all that. From what he remembered of that young girl, she always surrounded herself with a set of stable, genuine friends and people. Javier was always a little too preoccupied by some other girls who were a little more grown, to put it mildly. It had come to bite him in the ass since the closest person he could call a friend was his former partner Steve, who was all the way in Florida.

Possibly reading the discomfort in Javier’s disposition, you continued, “We’ll have to catch up some more another time.” Javier snapped out of his thought to see you placing your hat back atop your head.

“Leaving so soon?” Javi let his voice drop a little bit as he spoke, hoping he could entice you to stay one more drink.

Taking a brief look around the empty bar before continuing to put on your jacket, you chuckled, “Yeah. Unfortunately this chica rises with the roosters.” You dropped a few bills on the bar before walking up close to Javier, who was still somehow sitting. “Me encantó verte otra vez, Agente Peña,” When you got up close enough, you placed a hand on one of his shoulders and leaned in to place a gentle kiss goodbye on his cheek -- something the two of you were accustomed to in your Latin households -- making Javi from blushing a bit even as you continued with, “Que tengas una linda noche.”

I loved seeing you again, Agent Peña… Have a nice night.

As you walked away, you tipped your hat to the boys and strode off leaving Javi sitting there for one of the few moments in his life where he found himself dumbstruck.

“Boy you got it bad.” The bartender’s teasing tone snapped Javi out of his daze.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Javi shot back as he tugged his favorite leather jacket on and threw down money.

The old man smiled at him once more. “Y/N is a catch and a half. Comes in here often too.”

Javi retorted with, “I meant for you to give the drink to the girl she was talking to.”

“That woman has a fella who don’t take too kindly to other guys even looking at her, let alone buying her drinks. Besides, she’s a dime a dozen. And word is you could use a real girl. Y/N fits that bill.” This guy had some serious cajones.

Now Javi was getting irritated. What was with everyone all of a sudden knowing his business before he did? “Oh yeah, and who the fuck told you that?” Not holding back the bite in his voice.

“Chucho.”

Chucho was Jesús Peña. Javier’s father.

Javier brought his hand up to rub his forehead in frustration. As if his Pops didn’t try and persuade him enough about his career choices, he had the bartenders playing matchmaker for him. “Cabrón.” Javi muttered under his breath as he began to walk out.

The fresh air felt good against Javier’s skin. The warmth from the whiskey had flooded his face a little bit. As he walked to his truck he at least tried to believe that’s what it was. It was the whiskey making his face warm and not the fact that sweet little you from way back when was now a woman. And not just any woman, the kind who was bold enough to kiss an old family friend whom she hadn’t seen in nearly fifteen years right on the cheek then saunter off with her hips swaying and ass looking as good as it did in those jeans.

Whiskey be damned. You looked good, Javi thought to himself as he drove home, passed a certain someone’s house that was tucked back behind some Texas palmetto trees and a few coral beans.

Catching up later can’t come soon enough.

Taglist: @mcueveryday