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Note the Governor's word I highlighted below. I would not be against internment for Rash Limpballs, but have yet to hear what he's been convicted of and further, would it serve to deter others if we lock up a dead man? ;) The Guv's assertion that he was a leader of patriots shows he doesn't know the meaning of that word, either. If we need to take up a collection to send him to an English class after hours, I'll contribute a small amount. Ken =========== https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/02/22/kriseman-fried-push-back-on-desantis-call-to-lower-flags-for-rush-limbaugh/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=12221,11163 Kriseman, Fried push back on DeSantis call to lower flags for Rush Limbaugh The St. Petersburg mayor and agriculture commissioner announced their plans Monday. St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman. [ OCTAVIO JONES | Times ] By News Service of Florida Published 39 minutes ago Updated 39 minutes ago St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried intend to defy a call by Gov. Ron DeSantis to lower flags to half-staff to honor conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who died last week. Fried, the only statewide elected Democrat, issued a statement Monday that she will direct offices within her Cabinet agency not to lower flags. “Lowering to half-staff the flag of the United States of America is a sacred honor that pays respect to fallen heroes and patriots. It is not a partisan political tool,” Fried said. “Therefore, I will notify all state offices under my direction to disregard the governor’s forthcoming order to lower flags for Mr. Limbaugh — because we will not celebrate hate speech, bigotry, and division.” Fried added that “our flags will remain flying high to celebrate the American values of diversity, inclusion, and respect for all.” After Fried’s announcement, Kriseman, also a Democrat, tweeted that city flags also won’t be lowered to honor Limbaugh, but will instead be lowered to honor Pinellas County sheriff’s deputy Michael Magli, who died last week after he was struck by a pickup truck. The sheriff’s office said the driver was fleeing deputies and had a blood-alcohol level more than three times the level at which Florida presumes impairment. Fried oversees the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which includes nine regional licensing offices, 38 state forests and 23 agricultural law-enforcement inspection stations. On Friday, DeSantis said Florida will lower flags to half-staff after funeral plans are set for Limbaugh, a Palm Beach resident who died Wednesday after a battle with cancer. “When there’s things of this magnitude, once the date of internment for Rush is announced, we’re going to be lowering the flags to half-staff,” DeSantis said during a campaign-style press event at the Hilton Palm Beach Airport in West Palm Beach. In a statement Wednesday, DeSantis praised Limbaugh for having an ability to “connect with his listeners across the fruited plain — the hard-working, God-fearing and patriotic Americans who were and are the subject of derision and ridicule by the legacy media.” Fried is widely rumored to be considering a run against DeSantis in 2022. -- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician

http://www.universe-people.com/english/default_en.htm Are you ready for the rapture, er, I mean, are you ready for the evacuation of Earth by the Universe-People? If you're color blind, you will miss about 99% of the glory of this site. If you aren't color blind, kindly don your sunglasses before entering ;) Ken -- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician

And don't even talk to me about the Democrats being portrayed as the bad guys in here. Look back to the 1960s when the Democrats joined the Civil Rights movement at full speed under LBJ, and when Republicans fought it, they were warned that they had lost the black vote for at least a generation. We have Republicans as the bad guys now, with the party infested/infected with white supremacists and full of hate. Ken ====== https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/02/18/ku-klux-klan-act-capitol-attack/?utm_campaign=wp_evening_edition&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_evening The 150-year-old Ku Klux Klan Act being used against Trump in Capitol attack By Erick Trickey Feb. 18, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. EST Violent attempts to overturn an election aren’t new in American politics. After the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan launched white-supremacist insurrections all across the South to stop Black people and their allies from voting. And 150 years ago, President Ulysses S. Grant and Congress responded to those vigilante attacks with a groundbreaking law. Known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, it still protects Americans from political intimidation today. This week, the Klan Act was cited in a federal lawsuit aimed at those involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Filed by House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the lawsuit accuses former president Donald Trump, his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of conspiring in violation of the Klan Act to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. House Homeland Security chairman sues Trump and Giuliani, accusing them of inciting Capitol riot The Klan, founded in Tennessee in 1865 by Confederate veterans, grew by 1867 into an armed paramilitary force that pledged to restore “a white man’s government” in the South. In disguises to shield their identities, Klansmen intimidated and murdered Black and White members of the Republican Party after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Klan violence peaked just before the 1868 and 1870 elections. “We have just passed through an Election which, for rancour and virulence on the part of the opposition, has never been excelled in any civilized community,” South Carolina’s Republican governor, Robert K. Scott, wrote to Grant in fall 1870. “Colored men and women have been dragged from their homes at the dead hour of night and most cruelly and brutally scourged,” Scott reported, “for the sole reason that they dared to exercise their own opinions upon political subjects.” The opposition, Scott told Grant, had declared “that they will not submit to any election which does not place them in power.” Klan sympathizers were even plotting to disrupt the vote tally. “I am convinced that an outbreak will occur here on Friday ... the day appointed by law for the counting of ballots,” Scott wrote. Grant, elected president in 1868, had led the Union Army to victory in the Civil War. But as letters from his Southern supporters beseeched him for help, Grant realized that the Klan threatened to undo the U.S. government’s postwar efforts to create a multiracial democracy. “Sir, we are in terror from Ku-Klux threats & out?rages,” S.E. Lane, a woman in Chesterfield, S.C., wrote to the president in 1871. “Our nearest neighbor, a prominent Republican, now lies dead — murdered, by a disguised Ruffian Band, which attacked his House at midnight a few nights since. His wife also was murdered. … My Husband’s life is threatened…. We are in constant fear and terror.” Grant responded by sending more federal troops to North and South Carolina to stop the insurrection. He named a new attorney general, Amos T. Akerman, a federal prosecutor from Georgia who had aggressively enforced the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Akerman moved the new Justice Department, created in 1870, into the Freedmen’s Savings Bank building in Washington. That symbolic solidarity with former enslaved people reflected his priorities. Akerman charged the Justice Department with upholding the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendm

https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/67794-heres-how-many-covid-deaths-we-can-blame-on-trumps-terrible-response Here's How Many COVID Deaths We Can Blame on Trump's Terrible Response By Paul Blest, VICE 13 February 21 A new report says 40% of total COVID deaths could have been avoided. ormer President Donald Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a public health disaster. Now a new report in one of the world’s most respected medical journals is attempting to quantify the human cost. The report, published by the Lancet, faults the Trump administration’s lack of preparedness around personal protective equipment (PPE) and its “non-existent oversight of infection control practices” for the deaths of nearly 3,000 healthcare workers alone. It also says Trump’s decision to designate the meatpacking industry “essential” was a contributor to more than 45,000 COVID-19 cases, and the deaths of at least 239 meatpacking workers. But perhaps most damning of all, the Lancet found that roughly 40 percent of the nation’s COVID deaths—as many as 188,000 people out of nearly 470,000—could have been avoided, something that the researchers directly blame on Trump’s pandemic response, or lack thereof. “Even the best of countries have had deep problems with COVID, but we think there’s substantial shortfall because of Trump,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a primary care doctor, professor at the CUNY School of Public Health, and one of the report’s lead authors, told VICE News. Reasons for that shortfall, according to Himmelstein, include Trump’s well-documented downplaying of COVID, his boosting of unproven crank treatments like hydroxychloroquine, and the Trump administration’s de-emphasis on public health, which included eliminating a pandemic unit within the National Security Council in 2018, less than two years before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. The failure to respond effectively to COVID-19 has disproportionately affected people of color, increasing the life expectancy gap between Black and white people by more than 50 percent. Overall COVID mortality rates are as much as 3.6 times higher for people of color than non-Hispanic white people, according to the study. Aside from the terrible initial response to COVID, Himmelstein also placed blame for the nation’s struggling vaccine rollout at Trump’s feet. “We had a good eight months warning there would be a vaccine, and there was no planning for how to get it out,” he said. “We have now, in many parts of the country, people desperately looking for appointments... Planning would have averted that kind of waste and scrambling.” The Lancet report alleges that Trump’s impact on public health was disastrous even before the pandemic. There were 22,000 extra deaths related to environmental and occupational factors in 2019 than there were in the last year of former President Barack Obama’s presidency, which the commission attributes to federal regulatory rollbacks. But the report’s authors say the problem goes way beyond just the former president. “We started out really looking at what Trump had done, and he has certainly done a lot wrong,” Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, another lead author on the report and a distinguished professor at the Hunter College School of Public Health, told VICE News. “But we looked at the health of the American people...and what we found is that it’s been four decades of government failure to support policies that support human health.” The authors suggest an overhaul in the country’s public health infrastructure to fix the problem. In addition to giving the CDC more tools to fight systemic racism, they recommend transitioning to a Medicare for All system like the one championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders. (Himmelstein and Woolhandler are co-founders of the Physicians for a National Health Program, a doctor-led group advocating for Medicare for All.) President Joe Biden has opposed such a bill, claiming it would cost too much. And until Medicare for All becomes a reality, Himmelstein said the U.S. should try to get to universal coverage regardless. “At the mi

https://religiondispatches.org/how-do-you-beat-a-pretty-damning-impeachment-case-you-lie/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-do-you-beat-a-pretty-damning-impeachment-case-you-lie How Do You Beat a ‘Pretty Damning’ Impeachment Case? You Lie Republican Senator Kevin Cramer who, after saying that Trump bore responsibility for inciting the Capitol assault, now says Trump is not culpable. He is presumably committed to "draining the swamp." Image: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons. Facebook Tweet The House Democrats presented evidence Wednesday substantiating the allegation that, on January 6, Donald Trump incited an insurrection against the United States. For about eight hours, to be followed today by another eight hours, the impeachment managers showed a pattern of violent rhetoric by the former president, and tried to show a connection between his violent rhetoric and his supporters’ violent actions. In granular and exhaustive detail, the managers walked us through each of the stages leading up to the worst attack on our government since September 11, 2001. First, Trump targeted the courts. When that failed, he targeted state election officials. When that failed, he targeted high-ranking Republicans. When non-violent options ran out, he turned to violent options, culminating in January 6’s attempted coup. The former president didn’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater, lead manager Jamie Raskin said: It’s more like a case where the town fire chief—who’s paid to put out fires—sends a mob not to yell fire in a crowded theater, but to actually set the theater on fire. And who then, when the fire alarms go off and the calls start flooding into the fire department asking for help, does nothing but sit back, encourage the mob to continue its rampage and watch the fire spread on TV with glee and delight.” The Democrats’ chief obstacle, it must be said, is establishing causality. Did Trump’s violent rhetoric cause violent action? That’s a legitimate question. But it’s a question needing to be in accordance with the task at hand. The impeachment managers are not prosecuting a criminal case (though they are alleging an actual crime). They are not trying to demonstrate guilt beyond doubt. They are prosecuting a political case, affirmed and guided by the Constitution, in order to achieve a political goal the Constitution’s framers said was important to achieve. Even if there’s some daylight between rhetoric and action, that daylight is narrow and dim. That’s why Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said the evidence presented was “pretty damning.” That’s why she went on to say she can’t imagine the American people voting for Trump again. But even if Trump did not cause it, he did nothing to stop it. This, I thought, was the most compelling part of the Democrats’ presentation. If the former president did not light “the fire,” he certainly didn’t try to put it out, as would be expected from the commander-in-chief in matters of national security. If he’s not guilty of incitement, he’s guilty of dereliction of duty. (The obvious inference is that he didn’t try to put it out because he wanted to see it burn, which brings us back to incitement.) After insurgents occupied the Capitol for about three hours, Trump did issue a tweet telling them to go home. He never said stop, though. He never said violence is wrong. He said thank you. He implied a job well done. The Democrats showed a video clip of Jacob Chansely, the so-called Q shaman, responding to Trump’s tweet. “He’s saying we won the day.” The question on everyone’s mind is what do the Senate Republicans think? Are 17 willing to convict a former GOP president? Well, there’s Sen. Murkowski. But she’s never been chummy with Trump. (Indeed, she owes him nothing.) As for the others, it seems even the sight of Mitt Romney running for his life, and Vice President Mike Pence being shuttled to safety, is not enough to change their minds. Sure, they have strong words, mighty strong words, for the insurgents themselves, but not for Donald Trump. “It doesn’t affect me in terms of how I feel abou

Recent exchanges I've had with others referencing the Republican Party in the US made me want to get down into the nuts and bolts of it. There are many ways to break it down, here are a couple of them which caught my interest. Note thatone of these seems to be "old" but if you consider how much change you've seen since that poll/study, you'll note that much of it was toward the edges and not seeking the center in the GOP. My interpretation (and certainly yours may vary!) is that the Republicans are getting whiter, older, and, depending on how you interpret the statistics, more Christian. Flip that statement over completely and it seems to describe the evolving Democratic Party. Ken ======== https://news.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diverse-republicans-mostly-white.aspx Politics February 8, 2013 Democrats Racially Diverse; Republicans Mostly White Democrats and independents grow more diverse since 2008 by Frank Newport PRINCETON, NJ -- Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 89% of Republican self-identifiers nationwide in 2012, while accounting for 70% of independents and 60% of Democrats. Over one-fifth of Democrats (22%) were black, while 16% of independents were Hispanic. These results are based on more than 338,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking in 2012, and clearly underscore the distinct racial profiles of partisan groups in today's political landscape. Republicans are overwhelmingly non-Hispanic white, at a level that is significantly higher than the self-identified white percentage of the national adult population. Just 2% of Republicans are black, and 6% are Hispanic. Seventy percent of Americans who identify as independents are white, but independents have the highest representation of Hispanics (16%) of the three groups. Eight percent of independents are blacks. Democrats remain a majority white party, but four in 10 Democrats are something other than non-Hispanic white. More than one in five Democrats are black, roughly twice the black representation in the adult population. Racial and Ethnic Groups Gravitate Toward Different Parties Looked at differently, these party composition patterns reflect major differences in the way Americans in various racial and ethnic groups identify their political affiliation. Almost two-thirds of blacks identify as Democrats, with most of the rest identifying as independents. Only 5% of blacks nationwide identify as Republicans. Half of Hispanics identify as independents, although the majority of the rest identify as Democrats. This is despite their high level of approval and strong majority voting support for Democratic President Barack Obama. Relatively few Hispanics (13%) identify as Republicans. Whites are the most politically diverse of the three major racial and ethnic segments, with between 26% and 38% identifying with one of the three partisan groups. Whites tilt slightly toward being independents or Republicans rather than Democrats. The large white concentration of Republican identifiers, in short, is caused by a dearth of nonwhites self-identifying with the GOP, rather than a monolithic Republican orientation among whites. Although Asians and other races make up a small proportion of the U.S. population, the data show that the political pattern they follow is quite similar to that of Hispanics: they are most likely to identify as independents, second-most likely to identify as Democrats, and least likely to identify as Republicans. Racial Breakdown of Independents and Democrats Has Shifted Most Since 2008 The racial and ethnic composition of the Republican Party today is similar to what it was in 2008, the year when Gallup began its daily tracking. There have been essentially no changes in the percentage of GOP identifiers who are white, black, and Hispanic. Independents have become more Hispanic since 2008 (and slightly more black), while Democrats have become more black and more Hispanic. Phrased differently, the independent and Democratic segments of the U.S. population are now less white than they were in 2008, reflecting the uptick

When you get to the section on 1856 and Charles Sumner, I remember as a child reading the big bronze plaque on the Courthouse Square where I grew up in Brooksville, Florida describing how the town got its name, as tribute to a criminal. I do not know of any efforts at changing the name, seems a little like the old "horse is out of the barn, let's lock the door" thing to me. I did notice on my last visit home that the Confederate soldier statue ("Johnny Reb" in the generic form) now has an iron spike fence around it. Ken ========== https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/al-franken-republicans-deficits-1122888/ Surprise! Surprise! Republicans Care About Deficits Again! Al Franken: The GOP only cares about deficits when Democrats hold the Oval Office By Al Franken On Monday, President Biden met with 10 supposedly moderate Republicans in the Oval Office to discuss their scaled-down $618 billion Covid-relief proposal. Even though the economy is still reeling from the pandemic and tens of millions of Americans are struggling to feed their families and put a roof over their heads, they are very concerned about the $1.9 trillion price tag on Biden’s plan. Lately, it seems, Republicans have taken renewed interest in deficits and our growing national debt. That’s because a Democrat is in the White House. When a Republican is president, deficits don’t matter. In fact, that means it’s time to cut taxes — on the wealthy. Republicans’ purported thinking is that tax cuts on high-income earners will incentivize economic growth and thus, as calculated through something called “dynamic scoring,” will produce far more revenue, which in turn more than pays for the tax cuts. This actually never happens. Remember the Laffer Curve? If not — look in the dictionary under “discredited.” You may remember that I wrote a book titled Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations. Undertaking the painstaking — I’m sorry, painful — research, Rush did make an arguably valid point about the Laffer Curve. “If you had to pay a 100 percent tax rate on your income, you wouldn’t work!” Of course, Rush was absolutely right. Almost everyone should pay somewhere between 0 percent and 100 percent in order to optimize productive economic activity and everyone’s well-being. And, yes, out-of-control debt can be an existential threat to a nation. The question becomes: “When is it out of control?” To Republicans, the answer is simple: “When a Democrat is president.” The record, of course, is almost exactly the opposite. The national debt nearly tripled under Ronald Reagan, who gave huge tax cuts almost exclusively to the top of the income ladder. (In fact, because of a substantial increase in the payroll tax, taxes actually went up for the bottom 40 percent.) During George H.W. Bush’s single term, the national debt increased by 54 percent. Without a single Republican vote, Bill Clinton increased marginal tax rates for the affluent at the beginning of his two terms. Instead of leading to a recession, as every Republican House and Senate member had predicted, we experienced eight straight years of marked economic growth and a balanced budget with a surplus that George W. Bush inherited. During his first debate with Al Gore, W. touted his tax-cut proposal: “By far the vast majority of my tax cut goes to those at the bottom.” Not just “a majority.” Not “a vast majority.” But “by far a vast majority.” Not one of those was true. In fact, the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts went to those at the top. When W. took office, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan endorsed Bush’s tax cut not only as fiscally prudent, but necessary. The looming budget surpluses, Greenspan feared, would pay off the entire federal debt before the end of the decade! If the surpluses didn’t end when our debt was paid off, it could cause serious economic disruption. Large tax cuts, Greenspan said, were necessary to avoid that catastrophe. That particular catastrophe certainly was avoided. By the time George W. Bush handed off the worst economy since the Great Depression

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https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-senate-just-cast-a-preliminary-vote-on-trumps-impeachment-trial-heres-the-good-and-bad-of-it/36012/ The Senate just cast a preliminary vote on Trump’s impeachment trial – here’s the good and bad of it Bill Palmer | 3:33 pm EST January 26, 2021 Palmer Report ? Analysis Rand Paul forced the Senate to hold a vote today on whether holding an impeachment trial of Donald Trump after he’s out of office is constitutional. Paul’s motion was shot down 55-45, meaning the trial will happen. That’s the good news. The bad news, at least for the moment, is that only five Republicans voted in favor of holding an impeachment trial. That’s far from the seventeen votes required to convict Trump. But here’s the upshot: the news keeps getting uglier about Trump’s role in trying to overthrow the election, inciting the Capitol attack, and trying to block a response to the Capitol attack. More ugly details over the next week could prompt more Republicans to shift toward convicting Trump. They’re keeping their powder dry for now. In any case, Trump’s impeachment trial is a win-win for Democrats. Either they get a conviction, or they get to use acquittal against every Senate Republican who faces reelection in 2022. Don’t listen to the media trying to invent reasons why the trial is somehow a loss for Democrats. That’s just fear mongering for the sake of ratings. Don’t fall for it. -- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician

I'm engaged in a discussion on an email list and I've been "called on the carpet" for my use of "ex-President" in referring to Trump. I've been informed that properly, it's either "President" (as if he still held the office) or "former President". The inference I get from that other person is that "ex" is negative. OK, I too agree that it's negative. Why should I not use it anyway if that's the way I feel? Is there another term I could use even if it's even worse than "ex"? I won't go the extreme of saying "The cockroach from New York with the orange hair who thinks his shit doesn't stink who poorly demonstrated leadership abilities while he was unfortunately in the White House after being elected by morons who couldn't recognize truth if it bit them on the ass". I think that may go slightly too far and it's difficult to remember. It also insults cockroaches :) Ken -- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician

This one is so outrageous that I can't do anything except laugh at it. If it's true, then 150 years have elapsed in which no one could do anything about the "mistake" and yet now, it can be changed by an end run around it by some magic we don't know and it can be managed to make it all right. Yeah. Right. You've convinced me. For sure. </sarcasm> Ken ============ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/qanon-conspiracy-theories-trump-tiktok-1118668/ QAnon Believers Are Pushing New Trump Conspiracy Theories on TikTok New theories that Trump will be sworn in as the 19th president on March 4th are swirling on social media By EJ Dickson Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press/AP Over the past few months, as conspiracy theories have circulated regarding the election results and President Joe Biden’s inauguration, social platforms have struggled to keep up with the onslaught of misinformation. Much of these false narratives have been driven by believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the baseless idea that President Trump is lying in wait to expose a secret cabal of Democrats engaged in a child sex-trafficking ring. Inauguration Day was supposed to mark the “storm,” or the day of reckoning when Trump would arrest all of his enemies and send them to Guantanamo Bay; when the storm never arrived, many QAnon believers were left angry and confused. In the week since the inauguration, QAnon believers have struggled to reconcile their worldview with the reality that Biden is president, in many cases coming up with new, increasingly bizarre theories to support their belief that Trump will soon take office once again. TikTok, which has a younger-skewing user base and has historically struggled to curb the proliferation of conspiracy theories, is one social platform currently playing host to the baseless belief that President Trump will be sworn into office on March 4th, 2021. Under hashtags like #19thpresident (which has more than 235,000 views), or #march4th (which has more than 1.4 million views) TikTok users are propagating the idea that an obscure 1871 act made the United States a corporation and not a federal government, thus rendering any laws passed after that year moot and U.S. citizens not subject to them. According to this theory, the United States will revert back to its original form on March 4th, the date when presidents were inaugurated prior to the 1933 passage of the 20th amendment. They believe Trump will be sworn in as the 19th president of the United States. (The 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant, served between 1869 and 1877, or the time period when those who cling to this theory believe the United States “became” a “corporation.”) One video linking to a YouTube video that promotes this belief has more than 44,000 views; another, featuring a woman claiming “in March, President Trump will be the original president under the US Constitution,” has more than 442,000 views. Some conspiracy theorists point to the presence of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. until March as “evidence” to support this theory, or cite the fact that FederalRegister.gov, a database of federal register documents, is not yet listing Biden’s approved executive orders as “evidence” that his administration is a sham. “Listen, patriots, y’all can relax. We’re going back to a republic come March. Trump will be back in the presidency but he will be the 19th president ’cause we’re not gonna be a corporation no more. We’re going back to the republic,” one TikTok creator says in a video that has also been duetted by other Trump supporters. “Your boy will be inaugurated March 4. Period, point blank, end of story,” says another TikTok creator with more than 78,000 followers, in a video that has 15,400 views. (TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) This conspiracy theory stems from the principles of the sovereign citizen movement, a fringe movement predicated on a slew of bizarre legal interpretations and theories aimed at “proving” that U.S. citizens are not subject to any laws passed after 1871. There has historically bee

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/21/legal-scholars-federalist-society-trump-convict-461089 Legal scholars, including at Federalist Society, say Trump can be convicted Some Republicans have argued a former president can't be the target of an impeachment trial. Former President Donald Trump waves as he disembarks from his final flight on Air Force One. | AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta By NATASHA BERTRAND 01/21/2021 02:01 PM EST Former President Donald Trump can be convicted in an impeachment trial for his role in inciting the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 even though he is no longer in office, a bipartisan group of constitutional law scholars wrote in a letter Thursday. “We differ from one another in our politics, and we also differ from one another on issues of constitutional interpretation,” wrote the signatories, which include the co-founder and other members of the conservative Federalist Society legal group. “But despite our differences, our carefully considered views of the law lead all of us to agree that the Constitution permits the impeachment, conviction, and disqualification of former officers, including presidents.” More than 150 legal scholars signed on to the letter, which was obtained by POLITICO. They include Steven Calabresi, the co-founder of the Federalist Society; Charles Fried, who served as solicitor general under Ronald Reagan and is now an adviser to the Harvard chapter of the Federalist Society; Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute; and Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University and leading scholar on the specific question of whether former officials can be impeached. The House impeached Trump last week, for the second time, in a 232-197 vote for "incitement of insurrection” following the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that left five people dead. As the impeachment process moves into its next phase in the Senate, the signatories of the letter are seeking to counter an argument that has been gaining steam among some Republican senators: that it would be unconstitutional for the Senate to hold an impeachment trial for Trump now that he is a private citizen. “The Senate lacks constitutional authority to conduct impeachment proceedings against a former president,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in a statement last week. “The Founders designed the impeachment process as a way to remove officeholders from public office—not an inquest against private citizens.” Many Republicans have taken a cue from the conservative former federal appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig, who argued in the Washington Post earlier this month that “once Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, Congress loses its constitutional authority to continue impeachment proceedings against him — even if the House has already approved articles of impeachment.” The constitutional scholars who signed on to the letter disagree with that assessment, arguing that because the Constitution’s impeachment power has two aspects — removal from office and disqualification from holding office again in the future — it must also be extended to former officials who could try to run for reelection. “Impeachment is the exclusive constitutional means for removing a president (or other officer) before his or her term expires,” they wrote. “But nothing in the provision authorizing impeachment-for-removal limits impeachment to situations where it accomplishes removal from office. Indeed, such a reading would thwart and potentially nullify a vital aspect of the impeachment power: the power of the Senate to impose disqualification from future office as a penalty for conviction.” Trump had signaled before leaving office that he might try to run for president again in 2024, and has reportedly mulled forming his own political party. But if the Senate were to hold an impeachment trial and convict him, he would be barred from holding public office ever again. That provision of the impeachment power, the legal scholars wrote, “is an important deterrent against future misconduct.” "If an

US Constitution, Article I, Section 3 (http://www.kdebusk.com/const/consti.html) The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. As many times as I've read this document, I never before noticed that there is a distinct difference in conviction and judgment. It should have been very apparent to me since that's the way all our other courts operate. The way I read it (and this could very well be disputed), even without a conviction requiring 2/3 or more, a judgment could be issued lesser than the whole enchilada, as it were. This appears to me at least to be a subject wide open for argument and court action if only to solidify definitions. A flawed analogy might be that between citizens and persons in this document, with many saying they should be read as meaning the same thing and most saying the very fact that two separate words are used means there are two separate meanings. Can judgment only follow conviction? Here again, the IANAL (I am not a lawyer) acronym applies totally. To say this all in a different way, judgment in the legal sense follows conviction, but it's optional. We've all seen instances where a guilty verdict was given but there was no punishment other than wearing the metaphorical scarlet letter "I" to bring in a literary reference. Ken -- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician

Here's a little checklist. It is by no means comprehensive, merely provided to give you a little bit of food for thought. 1) Are you prohibited from owning any sort of holy book, or required to do so, no matter which religion publishes it? 2) Are you prohibited from discussing your religion in public? 3) Are you prohibited from practicing your religion in a recognized church/mosque/temple/synagogue/etc.? 4) Do you believe your religion gives you rights others don't have based on God word to your religion? 5) Do you believe you are inherently better than others based on your religion? I don't even have to give you the "accepted" answers to these questions. You know immediately what the question means and what effect the wrong answer would have on others. And I don't have to be an atheist to receive their newsletter just to keep in touch with the views of others. Of course, should the Christian Nationalists referenced in this email gain enough control, I would become a criminal merely for reading the opinions of those who disagree with the established religion. Is the suppression of others and the denial of their rights commanded by your God? If so, maybe you should be shopping for a different God. Ken =============== -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: What is “Religious Freedom”? Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 09:49:00 -0500 From: Nick Fish, American Atheists <info@...> Reply-To: info@... Dear Supporter -- Every year, on January 16, we celebrate the enactment of Thomas Jefferson’s “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,” a document that guaranteed equality under the law for both religious and nonreligious Americans. Despite what Christian nationalists would have you believe, religious freedom does not mean special privileges for religious people or legally justified discrimination. Instead, religious freedom means that the government may not treat anyone differently, whether positively or negatively, because of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. And the separation of religion and government is the cornerstone of true religious freedom. This month, as we celebrate Religious Freedom Day, we released the latest edition of our State of the Secular States report to help lawmakers and advocates promote positive laws and fight back against Christian nationalism. We know that 2021 will be a crucial year in the fight to protect true religious freedom. As Alison Gill, our Vice President for Legal and Policy, explained to The Guardian, while 2020 saw very few Christian nationalist laws passed at the state level, primarily due to the pandemic, we expect to see many more dangerous bills introduced in legislatures as things start to return to normal. “Those issues that are contentious in the culture war will continue to move forward this year, and will affect LGBTQ people, religious minorities, and non-religious people, and women, and reproductive access,” she warned. Christian nationalism is a threat to all of our rights. And these extremists don’t limit themselves to introducing bad bills at the state level. Many of the violent rioters at the U.S. Capitol last week were motivated by Christian nationalist rhetoric and beliefs. Today, on Religious Freedom Day, help invest in the state-level advocacy that will ensure we can defeat these Christian nationalist bills that are already being introduced across the country. Whether it’s “In God We Trust” displays being forced into public schools, atheist parents being prevented from adopting or fostering, or abortion restrictions that reflect evangelical theology, Christian nationalism should not define our laws. With these Project Blitz bills, Christian supremacists are trying to subvert the meaning of religious freedom, claiming that it only applies to them. Let’s take back religious freedom from the Religious Right. Let’s use it to guarantee rights for atheists and all Americans, not to excuse Christian privilege and discrimination. Tell your Member of Congress and Senators that religious freedom applies to everyone, including atheists! Then make a tax-deductible donation today to

Howdy, plantsman, good to see you here. At the moment we are very small (I believe you are #3 here) but hoping to grow. Invite your friends if you wish. Almost anything goes, if you need your leash to be yanked, I'll do it gently so as not to strangle you ;) I believe this entire site is set up for moderation on at least the first post, and then I will try to remember to remove that from your record. Ken ========= -- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician

Do you believe in ETs? Do I? My beliefs are not affected by any facts or artifacts (there really aren't any I've seen which stand up to strict protocol examinations) but it's merely a hunch that we are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As for the "dead civilizations" idea, just think back on our history over the past 75 years and how close we've come to destroying each other totally or at least to the stone age level. Ken ========= https://www.space.com/milky-way-alien-life-map?utm_source=notification The Milky Way is probably full of dead civilizations By Rafi Letzter 16 hours ago (Image: ? European Souther Observatory) Most of the alien civilizations that ever dotted our galaxy have probably killed themselves off already. That's the takeaway of a new study, published Dec. 14 to the arXiv database, which used modern astronomy and statistical modeling to map the emergence and death of intelligent life in time and space across the Milky Way. Their results amount to a more precise 2020 update of a famous equation that Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence founder Frank Drake wrote in 1961. The Drake equation, popularized by physicist Carl Sagan in his "Cosmos" miniseries, relied on a number of mystery variables — like the prevalence of planets in the universe, then an open question. This new paper, authored by three Caltech physicists and one high school student, is much more practical. It says where and when life is most likely to occur in the Milky Way, and identifies the most important factor affecting its prevalence: intelligent creatures' tendency toward self-annihilation. Related: From Big Bang to present: snapshots of our universe through time Click here for more Space.com videos... CLOSE "Since Carl Sagan's time, there's been lots of research," said study co-author Jonathan H. Jiang, an astrophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech. "Especially since the Hubble Space Telescope and Kepler Space Telescope, we have lots of knowledge about the densities [of gas and stars] in the Milky Way galaxy and star formation rates and exoplanet formation ... and the occurrence rate of supernova explosions. We actually know some of the numbers [that were mysteries at the time of the famous 'Cosmos' episode]." —11 fascinating facts about our Milky Way galaxy —Big Bang to civilization: 10 amazing origin events —5 reasons we may live in a multiverse The authors looked at a range of factors presumed to influence the development of intelligent life, such as the prevalence of sunlike stars harboring Earth-like planets; the frequency of deadly, radiation-blasting supernovas; the probability of and time necessary for intelligent life to evolve if conditions are right; and the possible tendency of advanced civilizations to destroy themselves. Related: 9 strange, scientific excuses for why humans haven't found aliens yet Modeling the evolution of the Milky Way over time with those factors in mind, they found that the probability of life emerging based on known factors peaked about 13,000 light-years from the galactic center and 8 billion years after the galaxy formed. Earth, by comparison, is about 25,000 light-years from the galactic center, and human civilization arose on the planet's surface about 13.5 billion years after the Milky Way formed (though simple life emerged soon after the planet formed.) In other words, we're likely a frontier civilization in terms of galactic geography and relative latecomers to the self-aware Milky Way inhabitant scene. But, assuming life does arise reasonably often and eventually becomes intelligent, there are probably other civilizations out there — mostly clustered around that 13,000-light-year band, mostly due to the prevalence of sunlike stars there. A figure from the paper plots the age of the Milky Way in billions of years (y axis) against distance from the galactic center (x axis), finding a hotspot for civilization 8 billion years after the galaxy formed and 13,000 light years from the galactic center. (Image credit: Cai et al.) Most of these other civilizations that sti

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/dear-trump-supporter/35038/ Dear Trump Supporter… Robert Harrington | 3:00 pm EST December 26, 2020 Palmer Report ? Analysis Dear Trump supporter, I know, you’re unhappy. And I also know, many of you don’t accept the final outcome of the 2020 US presidential election. This is ironic when you think about it, because the last time people like me were in your position, your only advice to us was, “Too bad. Get over it.” Then you spent the next four years reminding us to get over it pretty much every day. In fact, you spent the next four years telling us Donald Trump was our President — whether we liked it or not. Well guess what? I guess the tables have turned. You got your comeuppance. You got your John Podesta moment. You now know how it feels to have defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. But I’m not going to do to you what you did to me — and people like me. I’m not going to gloat. Instead, I’m going to ask you a question. That question is this. Why do you let Donald Trump decide what’s morally right and what’s morally wrong for you? Can’t you decide those things for yourselves? Permit me to give you an example. Donald Trump almost never wears a mask. He frequently supports the narrative that masks are optional and he even supports people who rebel against wearing masks entirely. As a result, his people almost never wear masks either. Even members of his own staff pay lip service to mask-wearing as well. But do you understand why wearing a mask is important? Do you know what a mask is for? Do you know what a mask does to keep us safe? Take a guess. Chances are you’re wrong. The actual reason for wearing a mask isn’t to protect you. It’s to protect others. You see, carriers of coronavirus can have no symptoms at all for a very long time. Sometimes they can have no symptoms for as long as they carry the virus. So if everyone wears a mask, especially these coronavirus carriers who don’t know they are coronavirus carriers, the chances of coronavirus spreading are drastically reduced. Think of that. Think of the hundreds of thousands of people who would be alive today, or the millions who would have never gotten sick in the first place, if only we’d done the right thing from the very start. Other countries did it. Many other countries saved lives and saved businesses because their people cooperated. In fact, this kind of thing only ever happens when people cooperate. This was our chance to shine, to show how through cooperation we can all save lives. Cooperation, in short, is the kind of thing democracy was born to do. You see, when we stand together against a common enemy, only then can we make America great again. And there has never been an enemy quite so relentless, quite so implacable, quite so indifferent to politics or religion than coronavirus. Instead we used the pandemic as another way to hate each other, another way to divide each other, another way to make America smaller, more petty. Another way to make America less great. Donald Trump used coronavirus to divide us. On the one hand, after calling coronavirus a hoax, his administration finally got around to telling us to wear masks in its official guidelines. On the other hand, he continued to support people who rebelled against mask-wearing. He took his mask off, as if taking off a mask is a form of macho defiance, as if it was something to be proud of. And a lot of people did the same. And a lot of people died. It’s unfortunate that the wearing of masks has become political. Many Republicans encouraged by Donald Trump think it’s okay not to wear a mask. Some Republicans refuse to wear masks at all. Some are even violent about it. Take a look at an average Trump rally and see how many people aren’t wearing masks, including Trump. Yet every time Donald Trump holds a rally, a firestorm of coronavirus is started. Many people die as a result, including Donald Trump’s personal friend Herman Kane. Imagine if Donald Trump had started out with a consistent message that everyone should wear a mask. Imagine how different things wou

-- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician

-------- Forwarded Message -------- The UN’s World Happiness Report Ranks “Socialist Friendly” Countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland & Switzerland as Among the Happiest in the World The UN’s World Happiness Report Ranks “Socialist Friendly” Countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland & Switzerland as Among the Happiest in the World Posted: 22 Dec 2020 01:00 AM PST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3vsGlAvr04 One of the most pernicious, “dangerous, anti-human and soul-crushing” myths in the business world, writes Liz Ryan at Forbes, is the “idiotic nostrum” that has also crept into government and charitable work: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” The received wisdom is sometimes phrased more cynically as “if you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen,” or more positively as “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” But “the important stuff can’t be measured,” says Ryan. Don’t we all want to believe that? “Can’t Buy Me Love” and so forth. Maybe it’s not that simple, either. Take happiness, for example. We might say we disagree about its relative importance, but we all go about the business of trying to buy happiness anyway. In our hearts of hearts, it’s a more or less an unquestionable good. So why does it seem so scarce and seem to cost so much? Maybe the problem is not that happiness can’t be measured but that it can’t be commodified. Buddhist economies like Bhutan, for example, run on a GHI (Gross National Happiness) index instead of GDP, and pose the question of whether the issue of national happiness is one of priorities. In other words, “you get what you measure.” In March, Laura Begley Bloom cited the 20 happiest countries in the world at Forbes, using the UN’s 2020 World Happiness Report, “a landmark survey of the state of global happiness,” as the report’s website describes it, “that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.” Happiness is measured across urban and rural environments and according to environmental quality and sustainable development metrics. The report uses six rubrics to assess happiness—levels of GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom and corruption, and income. Their assessment relied on self-reporting, to give “a direct voice to the population as opposed the more top-down approach of deciding ex-ante what ought to matter.” The last chapter attempts to account for the so-called “Nordic Exception,” or the puzzling fact that “Nordic countries are constantly among the happiest in the world.” Maybe this fact is only puzzling if you begin with the assumption that wealthy capitalist economies promote happiness. But the top ten happiest countries are wealthy “socialist friendly” mixed economies, as Bill Maher jokes in the clip at the top, saying that in the U.S. “the right has a hard time understanding we don’t want long lines for bread socialism, we want that you don’t have to win the lotto to afford brain surgery socialism.” This is comedy, not trenchant geo-political analysis, but it alludes to another significant fact. Most of the world’s unhappiest countries and cities are formerly colonized places whose economies, infrastructures, and supply chains have been destabilized by sanctions (which cause long bread lines), bombed out of existence by wealthier countries, and destroyed by climate catastrophes. The report does not fully explore the meaning of this data, focusing, understandably, on what makes populations happy. But an underlying theme is the suggestion that happiness is something we achieve in real, measurable economic relation with each other, not solely in the pursuit of individualist ideals. Related Content: How Much Money Do You Need to Be Happy? A New Study Gives Us Some Exact Figures Creativity, Not Money, is the Key to Happiness: Discover Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s Theory of “Flow” Albert Camus Explains Why Happiness Is Like Committing a Crime—”You Should Never Admit to it” (1959) Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness The UN’s World Happiness Repo

I'm not sure which God this guy is hearing, but he/she/it/them got it wrong. If God wanted Trump to be President for life, he/she/it/them would have done more than whisper in some idiot's ear. At the least, a full page ad in the NYTimes would have appeared with no one having placed it there or paid for it. That would be enough for me to believe this load of crap. As it stands, I hark back to my youthful days when I enjoyed using some drugs. I want some of what Johnny Enlow is taking! Ken ========== https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/god-told-johnny-enlow-trump-got-88-million-votes-won-45-states-including-california-and-new-york/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=rww&utm_campaign=bestof God Told Johnny Enlow Trump Got 88 Million Votes, Won 45 States Including California and New York By Kyle Mantyla | December 14, 2020 11:30 am QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow appeared on the Elijah Streams YouTube channel Friday, where he declared that he had been told by God that any presidential election vote total showing President Donald Trump receiving fewer votes than he has followers on Twitter is fraudulent. Enlow, who is a leading proponent of Seven Mountains Dominionism, spun a convoluted conspiracy theory alleging that there was a “red tsunami” in the 2018 midterm elections in which Republicans made massive gains, only to have those gains wiped out by Democratic voter fraud. Enlow claimed that the Trump campaign was aware of the rampant fraud, and rather than contest or expose it, they set up a “sting operation” for the 2020 election. According to Enlow, the Trump campaign did not want to win the presidential election outright because that would have foiled its plans to expose the widespread fraud. And Enlow knows this, he claims, because God told it to him. “It was a sting operation,” Enlow said. “They knew [the Democrats] had to cheat, and they knew they had to cheat a lot. They already knew they were going to cheat at least 15 percent, because that’s what they did last time. What they ended up having to do is to cheat by every means known to man. They had to do the Dominion software, they had to enter into the new algorithms, they had to freeze the election, produce new ballots, pull them out of suitcases. It’s the most flagrant cheating in history.” “Until we see at least 88 million votes show up for Trump and 45 states, it will not have been [legitimate],” Enlow added. “The numbers are actually greater than that. I don’t know why the Lord gave me two sets of numbers, but he just says, ‘You’re not even seeing close to the truth unless you see at least 88 million.’ He told me in a weird way: ‘If you don’t see at least as many votes as he has followers on Twitter’—88.6 million followers on Twitter, and that has been squelched as well. And then the states, he went through just one by one with me and was telling me who was where. And so here’s the big news: California and New York both went red.” Tags: Johnny Enlow Election 2020 -- "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and mathematician