ewsieg

Quote me in error? I’m in the mountains right now so Internet has been sketchy, not sure if there is something there or if it’s actually blank.

If only Padilla had the decency to act better, like MTG and public hand job girl.

Guys, I protested in Denver today! And by protested, I was in a really nice bus to go to an event at Meow Wolf (weird but kind of neat) and we drove through a protest with a car next to us that had a Mexican flag...hence I was part of the 'caravan'. Luckily for me and everyone on the bus and the entire city of Denver, 4 motorcycle cops had everything under control and we just continued on our way to the event. That said, they had busses going back and forth and as we went to leave to head back to the hotel the bus apparently got caught up in the continued protest and we ended up having to take a rickshaw back to the hotel. Props to the gents at Great Plains Telecommunications that allowed me to tag along with them. At 11pm local, there were still a couple of hundred folks walking through the streets in Denver, peacefully from what I could see.

I'm in Denver for a conference and just got back to my hotel room and the first news station I saw was FoxNews. I put it on and they were showing live coverage of police and national guard trying to push a crowd back and arresting those that resisted. Then they go to another guy that has 'breaking' news. His report: "Oh my, just out of nowhere we have this caravan of vehicles that just came out of nowhere (cars in one direction slowly moving, in the one time I went to LA I had several times that I was apparently in a caravan myself as traffic just stopped all the time). Sorry i digress, back to the news report.... "most of these cars have flags and they aren't US flags, they are Mexican and other country flags, it's just crazy! I don't know why we're not seeing a police presence to address this"

I have two responses for this and I'm not sure which one is more appropriate. 1) Tell me you don't know about Ro Khanna without saying you don't know anything about Ro Khanna or 2) This goes back to MB complaining about Tlaib. He represents Silicon Valley, it simply makes sense that he's going to be more empathetic to issues that tech companies face, which employs the people he represents. If Dem politicians can't represent their constituents if those constituents happen to do something the DNC claims to dislike, then stop even bother running Dem candidates to represent Silicon Valley, or anything rural, or anything down south, or any area that has large businesses, especially if they are financial or pharmaceutical, or don't employ union jobs, or employ union jobs but also have CEO's that make a fat paycheck, or..... on and on.

Credit to my buddy that texted me last night with "Taylor's song on this break up is going to be epic."

See, if you go back far enough, the root of the problem is always elite democrats wanting more for themselves. 😉

I still would like to see them improve in some areas, but your point is legitimate.

I'm not saying Trump isn't in the Epstein files, I'm just saying the level of involvement he had is probably what has already been reported. I believe the same for quite a few others tied to him like Clinton and Gates. More salacious stuff came out on Prince Andrew. Ultimately I suspect Epstein was what I would guess most pedophiles are like, scared that someone will find out. Thus he liked to stay around powerful people in the hopes that would help him, but unless he saw a real opportunity, like he did with Prince Andrew, he didn't let people know his other side. Maybe he dropped some hints when you look back on it, but that's about it, IMO.

My best guess is we already know 99% of the Epstein stuff and there really isn't anything further being hidden that would hurt Trump or anyone else. 1) If Biden had dirt on Trump, how could he not release it? 2) Look at Trumpers in power that would be responsible for Epstein files. Patel, Bongino, Bondi, etc have come out and said there is nothing there. These are folks that truly believed their was something being hidden, but once they get the files they try to 'dump' everything that was released already like it was a big deal and hoped that would satisfy the people they brainwashed. 3) Elon is a drug addicted hot head, he would have tweeted the evidence today if he had it. All that said, it is kind of fun to say 'Epstein did not kill himself'. I wouldn't be shocked if I was wrong though.

Elon is out there claiming the Epstein files haven't been fully released due to Trump's involvement now. I have stuff to do tonight, but I just want to get some popcorn and watch this.

Tasty? possibly, but unlikely. Elon already supplanted his own 'deep state' in multiple agencies through his work with DOGE. He'll end up getting whatever he wants and everyone around Trump will lie to him saying that they hurt Elon 'very badly' to get Trump to move on from yelling at Elon. That said, I am all for an all out Elon vs Trump civil war.

Noem has been focusing not only effort, but money on the border as well, to the detriment of other Homeland security issues. I know people loved to mock Trump by teasing that President Musk was really in charge. I'd take President Musk over President Miller though.

The issue many of those constituents have is what has been the de facto US policy for many many years, across many different political parties has largely been the same. In recent history, I will say the general thought is that the GOP has been more pro-Israel, but in reality, the DNC has been pretty pro-Israel as well. There is certainly much more lip service towards the Palestinians from the DNC, but what policies can you point to that shows there is a difference between the two parties in the last 30 years, minus the last 5 months. Meanwhile, Trump was out there saying he is anti-war, regardless of which war. That was appealing to the many in Dearborn area. As you may be aware, I don't hold Trump to any high esteem but even I was surprised that his solution would be to let Israel clear out all Palestinians and build hotels on the coast. But even with that, it's not like Tlaib endorsed Trump, she just simply refused to endorse Harris.

To go further, like every district in the US, there are some unique aspects to each. Some much different then others. If Kamala can only win by getting the full support of a Socialist Democrat's district, my guess is she would lose votes elsewhere based on that platform. IMO, you really want to increase your odds of winning in 2028, find a ton of folks on the left that are willing to not go lock-step with the DNC in every district that is considered hard red. Don't force litmus tests on abortion and guns. Find people that lean left but still sound and act like the same people they are running to represent. And let them say they don't agree with the 2028 Dem nominee on some aspects, but then give the reasons why they think they should still support democratic candidates at all levels.

But again, did Tlaib run against her own party's nominee, or did Kamala run against Tlaib's own constituents in this district?

There are politicians that I don't agree with AND I don't like. Tlaib is one of them. I don't think she is a good person AND I don't think she's particularly smart. But blaming her for Trump....hahaha. That's hilarious. Because she wouldn't fall in line with Harris...just laughable. Kamala lost ground on middle eastern voters in Tlaib's district because many shared Tlaib's outrage regarding Gaza. Instead of Kamala finding a way to bridge that gap, she felt those votes were still guaranteed and chose to pander to the opposite side, trying to get more votes there. Honestly I haven't even looked at the numbers, it may not have even been that bad of a decision. Ultimately that was a DNC/Kamala determination though.

One of the best - No Doubt while opening for Bush late 90's at the Breslin Center. 35-40 minutes of pure energy. Probably helped that I was really into Ska at the time too. One of the worst - No Doubt as a headliner a year or two later, it was basically the same show, but they drug out quite a few of the songs with stupid crowd play to get it to a 80-90 minute show. Boring Most surprising show - AJR. Saw them at Pine Knob a few years ago because my daughter liked them. I knew some of the songs from my kids playing it in the house, but really didn't know them well. Very visual show and was impressed by the music as well. Saw them at LCA and honestly expected a let down thinking a lot of it had to be the same, nope, still very visual, but whole new concept.

My buddy Tony told me a story about parking on a street for a show at Harpo's and he sees an interaction with a guy that got out of a car ahead of him and another guy on the sidewalk and the guy leaving the car tells the guy on the sidewalk to screw off. Guy on the sidewalk then looks at Tony and says "It costs $5 to park here". Tony hands him five bucks and another friend of his tries to say they don't have to pay, but Tony just ushers his buddy away. Fast forward to after the show and they are walking back to the car and see a large group just standing around the street. Everything that refused to pay the guy $5 came back to find no guy and no car. Tony jumped in his car and drove off.

I was seeing reports of this early this morning but not from any accounts I knew or trusted. With it being underwater I wonder how difficult it'll be to get an assessment on how successful it was. Guess we'll have an idea by how long they choose not to use that span.

MAGA likes to talk about American greatness but we just watched a country, which even Zelenskyy would admit has had it's fair share of issues even prior to Russia interference, embrace US assistance many years ago to get legitimate training by US/Nato allies, and now three years after war with the 2nd most powerful army in the world (At least at the time this started in 2022) they are not only holding their own, they are able to make these types of attacks. That right there is American greatness. That alone shows what a supportive foreign policy can do. I still hate that the US and/or the EU haven't found a way to force an end to this war, but props to Ukraine for being so innovative and persistent.

https://www.newsweek.com/cory-booker-responds-nazi-salute-accusation-2079527 i did not expect Cory Booker to be the next person after Elon to come out as a Nazi.

The Bad: Week of 5/26 - So no clear cut winner IMO for this week. We heard some more grifting news, right down to the allegation that the Trump plane wasn't given, but more or less provided in a possible 'shake down'. Tariff ping pong is back with China plus the administration attacked the judiciary over a ruling regarding across the board tariffs. He's mad at Putin, which he expresses by saying he's disappointed and then flipping over to admonishing Zelenskyy. So it's really just been an across the board continuation of some of the worse things he's already done. So with none of that standing out above the rest, I'm going with the Student Visa decision by Trump. Note: I'm going to address this on the 'vote for your best interest' mantra many subscribe too. There may be a legitimate argument that schools that take public dollars may be taking in too many foreign students. From a capitalistic point of view, I could see schools doing this as those students by enlarge aren't getting discounted tuition, so it's a cash grab. From a 'let's weaken the US further' view, foreign students are mostly the best and brightest from their country and many end up choosing to stay here, bringing new expertise and knowledge, which leads to better research/jobs for the United States. If anything, I could see other countries being more upset about this then us as basically we act as their 'brain drain' taking their best and brightest and having them benefit our society more than theirs. The cruelty around it though is what makes it the winner this week for me.

I agree with you that there is no comparison between Trump and the next worst president we ever had, regardless of who you may put at the #2 spot, let alone Biden or any other recent democratic president, of which I wouldn't even think of if we're talking top 10 worse presidents ever. Yet i'm told there is no issue with criticizing democrats, but if I agree with another poster on a 'soft' criticism of all recent presidents (because that includes some D's too), even as i'm making a point they are not nearly as bad as Trump, and then go further to dump on the MAGA followers that conflate karma with payback, the response is somehow "....but Trump!".

Truthfully I know most of you don't think that, since TheCouga isn't here anymore, probably all. But often, my guess is because of the fact that some of you had well over 10 years of me being one of the conservatives on this forum, criticizing a democrat has been met with "...but Trump!" As pointed out in this thread, I criticized the GOP and still got a "...but Trump!"