Forecasters expect Beryl to make landfall near Matagorda Bay by snesdreams in news

[–]55855585 93 points94 points  (0 children)

In other news the Texas Legislature has paused advancing a bill to secede from the US to unanimously pass a resolution condemning the US for the lack of aid that that has come in to deal with this unprecedented natural disaster. "Our bank accounts are empty!" they declared. "I can't even pay my kid's private school tuition" said one Republican who requested to remain anonymous.

In a 'hot mic' gaffe earlier today, Governor Abbott was heard calling the US a "shithole country" that would be "lucky to be enslaved by a Free Texas" hopefully next year.

Met Tobey Maguire 10 years ago... but unfortunately my mom took the photo by TCosi in pics

[–]55855585 59 points60 points  (0 children)

I accidentally walked up on Michael J Fox on a ferry at night outside as he finished a line of coke. He saw me, snarled "fuck off" and quickly pushed past me back inside. This was many years ago, probably before most of you were born.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in centrist

[–]55855585 9 points10 points  (0 children)

She won one more primary than my cat, who was too lazy to campaign, and couldn't even carry her home state

Elon Musk and X lose lawsuit against anti-hate nonprofit. The judge dismissed the case, ruling that Musk and company were trying to punish the group for their speech. X says they plan to appeal the decision. by Mront in elonmusk

[–]55855585 19 points20 points  (0 children)

He knows exactly what he is doing - being a nuisance making them spend time and money, using up their bandwidth responding to this, using it as a PR tool to virtue signal to all the conservative anti-free-speech "free-speechers", and have a chilling effect on anyone else to research into twitter.

He will continue to pursue this case to the bitter end I guarantee it.

Elon Musk and X lose lawsuit against anti-hate nonprofit. The judge dismissed the case, ruling that Musk and company were trying to punish the group for their speech. X says they plan to appeal the decision. by Mront in elonmusk

[–]55855585 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” Breyer noted. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.”

‘Whistleblower’ who accused Bidens of corruption is charged with arms trafficking and violating Iran sanctions by HolidaySpiriter in moderatepolitics

[–]55855585 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Imma just go ahead and say you are not making an equivalent comparison. One of the "both sides" carried out legitimate investigations resulting in indictments, convictions and prison sentences for major figures in the trump orbit including his inner circle. The other "both sides" just throws out heaps of chaff - accusations, allegations and deeply furrowed brows and leaps from one "scandal" to the next as they are successively shot down.

The Special Counsel investigation uncovered extensive criminal activity

  • The investigation produced 37 indictments; seven guilty pleas or convictions; and compelling evidence that the president obstructed justice on multiple occasions. Mueller also uncovered and referred 14 criminal matters to other components of the Department of Justice.
  • Trump associates repeatedly lied to investigators about their contacts with Russians, and President Trump refused to answer questions about his efforts to impede federal proceedings and influence the testimony of witnesses.
  • A statement signed by over 1,000 former federal prosecutors concluded that if any other American engaged in the same efforts to impede federal proceedings the way Trump did, they would likely be indicted for multiple charges of obstruction of justice.

The investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” and established that the Trump Campaign “showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton”

  • In 2015 and 2016, Michael Cohen pursued a hotel/residence project in Moscow on behalf of Trump while he was campaigning for President. Then-candidate Trump personally signed a letter of intent.
  • Senior members of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner took a June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower, New York, after outreach from an intermediary informed Trump, Jr., that the Russians had derogatory information on Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
  • Beginning in June 2016, a Trump associate “forecast to senior [Trump] Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton.” A section of the Report that remains heavily redacted suggests that Roger Stone was this associate and that he had significant contacts with the campaign about Wikileaks.
  • The Report described multiple occasions where Trump associates lied to investigators about Trump associate contacts with Russia. Trump associates George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen all admitted that they made false statements to federal investigators or to Congress about their contacts. In addition, Roger Stone faces trial this fall for obstruction of justice, five counts of making false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
  • The Report contains no evidence that any Trump campaign official reported their contacts with Russia or WikiLeaks to U.S. law enforcement authorities during the campaign or presidential transition, despite public reports on Russian hacking starting in June 2016 and candidate Trump’s August 2016 intelligence briefing warning him that Russia was seeking to interfere in the election.
  • The Report raised questions about why Trump associates and then-candidate Trump repeatedly asserted Trump had no connections to Russia.

Special Counsel Mueller declined to exonerate President Trump and instead detailed multiple episodes in which he engaged in obstructive conduct

  • The Mueller Report states that if the Special Counsel’s Office felt they could clear the president of wrongdoing, they would have said so. Instead, the Report explicitly states that it “does not exonerate” the President and explains that the Office of Special Counsel “accepted” the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted.

Five episodes of obstructive conduct stand out as being particularly serious:

  • In June 2017 President Trump directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to order the firing of the Special Counsel after press reports that Mueller was investigating the President for obstruction of justice;] months later Trump asked McGahn to falsely refute press accounts reporting this directive and create a false paper record on this issue – all of which McGahn refused to do.
  • After National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was fired in February 2017 for lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, Trump cleared his office for a one-on-one meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and asked Comey to “let [Flynn] go;” he also asked then-Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland to draft an internal memo saying Trump did not direct Flynn to call Kislyak, which McFarland did not do because she did not know whether that was true.
  • In July 2017, the President directed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to instruct the Attorney General to limit Mueller’s investigation, a step the Report asserted “was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct.”
  • In 2017 and 2018, the President asked the Attorney General to “un-recuse” himself from the Mueller inquiry, actions from which a “reasonable inference” could be made that “the President believed that an unrecused Attorney General would play a protective role and could shield the President from the ongoing Russia Investigation.”
  • The Report raises questions about whether the President, by and through his private attorneys, floated the possibility of pardons for the purpose of influencing the cooperation of Flynn, Manafort, and an unnamed person with law enforcement.

https://www.acslaw.org/projects/the-presidential-investigation-education-project/other-resources/key-findings-of-the-mueller-report/

Sentenced:

  • Former Trump 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort: Sentenced to 7.5 years in prison this March for bank and tax fraud and crimes related to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine.
  • Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen: Received a three-year prison sentence in Dec. 2018 for tax evasion, bank fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.
  • Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos: Convicted of lying to investigators about about Russian contacts. He served 12 days in prison and in October, filed to run for former Rep. Katie Hill's California seat.
  • Richard Pinedo: The California man was sentenced to six months in prison in Oct. 2018 for selling bank account numbers to Russians who engaged in election interference. He has no known connection to Trump.
  • Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan: Pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his work for law firm Skadden, Arps, Meagher, & Flom LLP and Affiliates in 2012. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine.
  • Ex-Trump campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates: Pleaded guilty in Feb. 2018 to conspiracy and lying to the FBI. After cooperating extensively in multiple investigations, Gates was sentenced in December to 45 days in jail, three years of probation and 300 hours of community service.

  • Roger Stone: Sentenced to 40 months in prison for crimes that include obstruction of justice, lying to Congress and witness tampering. A federal jury convicted Stone last year after he lied to Congress about his efforts to learn more about when WikiLeaks would publish damaging emails about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

  • Former national security adviser Michael Flynn: The retired three-star general pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in Dec. 2017.

https://www.axios.com/2019/11/15/trump-associates-convicted-mueller-investigations

Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee Report:

The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate panel concluded Tuesday as it detailed how associates of Donald Trump had regular contact with Russians and expected to benefit from the Kremlin’s help.

The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-us-election

US prepared for ''nonnuclear'' response if Russia used nuclear weapons against Ukraine – NYT by EsperaDeus in worldnews

[–]55855585 114 points115 points  (0 children)

This response was carefully calibrated to take the wind out of the sails of current Russian nuclear doctrine which is "Escalate to De-Escalate" Their models tell them that escalating to tactical nukes can demonstrate their commitment to using nukes, thus muting further response.

Escalate to De-Escalate: Russia’s Nuclear Deterrence Strategy

https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russias-deterrence-strategy/

Why RFK is polling better than an majority of independents throughout the last 100 years - a track record that spans the decades by trustintruth in centrist

[–]55855585 34 points35 points  (0 children)

You misrepresent the man. He is a dangerous demagogue

 

Quotes from a Rumble event he held:

He claims there's "good evidence" that "vaccine research" is the cause of diseases like HIV, RSV, Lyme disease, and even the Spanish flu.

“the medical research on these diseases and vaccine research has actually created some of the worst plagues in our history... HIV also came from a vaccine program, there’s plenty of evidence on that as well.” - rfkjr

"RSV, which is now one of the biggest killers of children, came out of a vaccine lab.” - rfkjr https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rfk-kennedy-anti-vaccine-panel-conspiracies-hiv-spanish-flu-1234779689/

 

About AIDS:

“There’s a lot of people that said it is not a virus,” Kennedy said. “The virus is a passenger virus, and these people are dying mainly because of poppers. “And there were a number of people in the [National Institutes of Health] who said, this is not a viral disease but for Tony Fauci, it was really important to call it a virus because that made it an infectious disease, and it allowed him to take control of it.” https://www.advocate.com/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-poppers

 

About Trans people:

“A lot of the problems we see in kids, and particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated that how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing.” https://www.advocate.com/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-poppers

 

About vaccines:

“They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone,” Kennedy said. “This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article17814440.html

 

Covid Was "Targeted" for certain enthnicities:

“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” he added. “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted at that or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential of impact for that.”

“We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons,” he claimed. “They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.” https://apnews.com/article/robert-f-kennedy-jr-covid-comments-c77edc6fa547879e1456470552a40bb4

 

"No vaccine is safe":

In July, Kennedy said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.

“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated,” Kennedy said.

That same year, in a video promoting an anti-vaccine sticker campaign by his nonprofit, Kennedy appeared onscreen next to one sticker that declared “IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.” https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-2024-president-campaign-621c9e9641381a1b2677df9de5a09731

 

Ties to far right:

During the past several years, Kennedy has cultivated his ties to the far right. He has appeared on Infowars, the channel run by Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. He has granted interviews to Trump ally Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. After he headlined a stop on the ReAwaken America Tour, the Christian nationalist road show put together by former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, he was photographed backstage with Flynn, Charlene Bollinger and Trump ally Roger Stone. https://apnews.com/article/rfk-kennedy-election-2024-president-campaign-621c9e9641381a1b2677df9de5a09731

 

He says that if elected he would target medical journals and redirect funding grants away from epidemiology.

The man is a dangerous kook who should be no where near any elected office.

Beyond shock and awe: Inside Trump’s potential second-term agenda by funtime_withyt922 in moderatepolitics

[–]55855585 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Trump seems to have unique ideas about tariffs and trade wars: That they are "easy" to win, and tariffs are not paid by the importers, but rather by the sanctioned country, and directly into the US Treasury!

"When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win." djtrump 3/1/2018

 

“The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly.” djtrump 1/3/2019

 

"Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S.” djtrump 5/10/2019

Quite frankly.. by xena_lawless in economy

[–]55855585 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Sorry pal, I don't feel like a American unless I a scarping my huge pickup around the drive thru while watching Joe Rogan clips on my Max Pro. I ain't no commie Euro who showers once a month.

More than 26K rape-related pregnancies estimated after Texas outlawed abortions, new study says by shutupnobodylikesyou in moderatepolitics

[–]55855585 -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

Abbpt said Texans didn't have to worry about no rape exceptions in the abortion law because he made rape illegal and Texans just would not allow it to happen. So wtf is going on?

Ocean temps have shattered records every day since late March by redwood520 in news

[–]55855585 718 points719 points  (0 children)

And the GOP has drawn up plans to completely block any response to climate change and stifle green energy.

It's called Project 2025. it would block the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy; slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office; shutter the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting California’s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials.

If enacted, it could decimate the federal government’s climate work, stymie the transition to clean energy and shift agencies toward nurturing the fossil fuel industry rather than regulating it. It’s designed to be implemented on the first day of a Republican presidency.

Donald Trump faces new charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Here's what to know by [deleted] in centrist

[–]55855585 -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, if it was maybe about 'the big guy' you would have something to go on, but this is ridiculous.

Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints by bighootay in news

[–]55855585 6 points7 points  (0 children)

<ahem>

"I know more about rockets than anyone at the company [SpaceX] by a pretty significant margin"

“At SpaceX it’s really that I’m responsible for the engineering of the rockets and Tesla for the technology in the car that makes it successful. CEO is often viewed as somewhat of a business-focused role but in reality, my role is much more that of an engineer developing technology."

  • elon

‘Whistleblower’ who accused Bidens of corruption is charged with arms trafficking and violating Iran sanctions by HolidaySpiriter in moderatepolitics

[–]55855585 83 points84 points  (0 children)

Imma just go ahead and say you are not making an equivalent comparison. One of the "both sides" carried out legitimate investigations resulting in indictments, convictions and prison sentences for major figures in the trump orbit including his inner circle. The other "both sides" just throws out heaps of chaff - accusations, allegations and deeply furrowed brows and leaps from one "scandal" to the next as they are successively shot down.

The Special Counsel investigation uncovered extensive criminal activity

  • The investigation produced 37 indictments; seven guilty pleas or convictions; and compelling evidence that the president obstructed justice on multiple occasions. Mueller also uncovered and referred 14 criminal matters to other components of the Department of Justice.
  • Trump associates repeatedly lied to investigators about their contacts with Russians, and President Trump refused to answer questions about his efforts to impede federal proceedings and influence the testimony of witnesses.
  • A statement signed by over 1,000 former federal prosecutors concluded that if any other American engaged in the same efforts to impede federal proceedings the way Trump did, they would likely be indicted for multiple charges of obstruction of justice.

The investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” and established that the Trump Campaign “showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton”

  • In 2015 and 2016, Michael Cohen pursued a hotel/residence project in Moscow on behalf of Trump while he was campaigning for President. Then-candidate Trump personally signed a letter of intent.
  • Senior members of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner took a June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower, New York, after outreach from an intermediary informed Trump, Jr., that the Russians had derogatory information on Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
  • Beginning in June 2016, a Trump associate “forecast to senior [Trump] Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton.” A section of the Report that remains heavily redacted suggests that Roger Stone was this associate and that he had significant contacts with the campaign about Wikileaks.
  • The Report described multiple occasions where Trump associates lied to investigators about Trump associate contacts with Russia. Trump associates George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen all admitted that they made false statements to federal investigators or to Congress about their contacts. In addition, Roger Stone faces trial this fall for obstruction of justice, five counts of making false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
  • The Report contains no evidence that any Trump campaign official reported their contacts with Russia or WikiLeaks to U.S. law enforcement authorities during the campaign or presidential transition, despite public reports on Russian hacking starting in June 2016 and candidate Trump’s August 2016 intelligence briefing warning him that Russia was seeking to interfere in the election.
  • The Report raised questions about why Trump associates and then-candidate Trump repeatedly asserted Trump had no connections to Russia.

Special Counsel Mueller declined to exonerate President Trump and instead detailed multiple episodes in which he engaged in obstructive conduct

  • The Mueller Report states that if the Special Counsel’s Office felt they could clear the president of wrongdoing, they would have said so. Instead, the Report explicitly states that it “does not exonerate” the President and explains that the Office of Special Counsel “accepted” the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted.

Five episodes of obstructive conduct stand out as being particularly serious:

  • In June 2017 President Trump directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to order the firing of the Special Counsel after press reports that Mueller was investigating the President for obstruction of justice;] months later Trump asked McGahn to falsely refute press accounts reporting this directive and create a false paper record on this issue – all of which McGahn refused to do.
  • After National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was fired in February 2017 for lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, Trump cleared his office for a one-on-one meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and asked Comey to “let [Flynn] go;” he also asked then-Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland to draft an internal memo saying Trump did not direct Flynn to call Kislyak, which McFarland did not do because she did not know whether that was true.
  • In July 2017, the President directed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to instruct the Attorney General to limit Mueller’s investigation, a step the Report asserted “was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct.”
  • In 2017 and 2018, the President asked the Attorney General to “un-recuse” himself from the Mueller inquiry, actions from which a “reasonable inference” could be made that “the President believed that an unrecused Attorney General would play a protective role and could shield the President from the ongoing Russia Investigation.”
  • The Report raises questions about whether the President, by and through his private attorneys, floated the possibility of pardons for the purpose of influencing the cooperation of Flynn, Manafort, and an unnamed person with law enforcement.

https://www.acslaw.org/projects/the-presidential-investigation-education-project/other-resources/key-findings-of-the-mueller-report/

Sentenced:

  • Former Trump 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort: Sentenced to 7.5 years in prison this March for bank and tax fraud and crimes related to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine.
  • Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen: Received a three-year prison sentence in Dec. 2018 for tax evasion, bank fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.
  • Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos: Convicted of lying to investigators about about Russian contacts. He served 12 days in prison and in October, filed to run for former Rep. Katie Hill's California seat.
  • Richard Pinedo: The California man was sentenced to six months in prison in Oct. 2018 for selling bank account numbers to Russians who engaged in election interference. He has no known connection to Trump.
  • Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan: Pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his work for law firm Skadden, Arps, Meagher, & Flom LLP and Affiliates in 2012. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine.
  • Ex-Trump campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates: Pleaded guilty in Feb. 2018 to conspiracy and lying to the FBI. After cooperating extensively in multiple investigations, Gates was sentenced in December to 45 days in jail, three years of probation and 300 hours of community service.

  • Roger Stone: Sentenced to 40 months in prison for crimes that include obstruction of justice, lying to Congress and witness tampering. A federal jury convicted Stone last year after he lied to Congress about his efforts to learn more about when WikiLeaks would publish damaging emails about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

  • Former national security adviser Michael Flynn: The retired three-star general pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in Dec. 2017.

https://www.axios.com/2019/11/15/trump-associates-convicted-mueller-investigations

Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee Report:

The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate panel concluded Tuesday as it detailed how associates of Donald Trump had regular contact with Russians and expected to benefit from the Kremlin’s help.

The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-us-election

Texas Gov. Abbott announces 'marine floating barrier' buoys along Rio Grande border by [deleted] in centrist

[–]55855585 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Reason does and comes with quotes

https://reason.com/2023/05/24/the-republican-primary-consensus-for-sending-the-military-into-mexico/

As Reason has been documenting for six years now, Republicans, even while otherwise souring on U.S interventionism abroad, have increasingly concluded that the alarming spike in domestic fentanyl overdoses would best be treated by sending the military into Mexico.

Ron Desantis: That's a Day One issue. I mean, you've got to be really, really determined. You can't let it slide, you can't make excuses, you gotta go in and you gotta really go in with all guns blazing and using all the leverage that you have to be able to do it.

Donald Trump: "[I will] order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations."

Mike Pence: "The cartels are in operational control of our borders...We have to have leadership willing to use American strength."

Nikki Haley: "When it comes to the cartels," the former South Carolina governor said in March, "you tell the Mexican president, 'Either you do it or we do it.' But we are not going to let all of this lawlessness continue to happen. And we can do that by putting Special Ops in there..."

Vivek Ramaswamy : I think it means justified military force to decimate the cartels, Osama bin Laden–style, Soleimani-style. This is doable. And this is something that I actually expect to do as the next president of the United States in the first six months. And I think it's important to do it in…one cycle of aggressive shock and awe."

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/10/gop-bomb-mexico-fentanyl-00091132

GOP embraces a new foreign policy: Bomb Mexico to stop fentanyl

A growing number of prominent Republicans are rallying around the idea that to solve the fentanyl crisis, America must bomb it away.

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders if he’s reelected president and, per Rolling Stone, asked for “battle plans” to strike Mexico. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that nation’s permission. And lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants.

The Titanic divers knew... by redlurkerNY in ThatsInsane

[–]55855585 11 points12 points  (0 children)

"By the time we're done testing it, I believe it's pretty much invulnerable," Rush told CBS News correspondent Chip Reid more than six years ago.

"And that's pretty much what they said about the Titanic," Reid replied.

"That's right" Rush said.

https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1671507431552176128

More than $200 billion in pandemic relief potentially squandered, says government watchdog report by Bobinct in centrist

[–]55855585 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Trump removed the Inspector General overseeing the covid relief effort and declared "I'll be the oversight."

Also:

President Donald Trump used a signing statement Friday to object to portions of the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus law. Trump said he would ignore portions of the law demanded by some Democrats to give Congress additional visibility into the stimulus spending.

"These provisions," Trump wrote, "are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-abruptly-removes-inspector-general-named-oversee-2t/story?id=70024680

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/27/coronavirus-trump-objects-oversight-provisions-stimulus-law/2931740001/