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I've reread my original post a few times and don't see it as a defense of what Republicans are doing, in fact my post was a criticism of what the GOP is doing, I simply started the post agreeing to something Oblong said (pardons have gotten out of control in the last 30 years or so). In fact the 2nd paragraph starting out saying that Trump was taking it to a new level. I don't see how that is drawing an equivalence between them. All that said, my dem complaints I used in follow up are all legitimate. Small potatoes compared to Trump, but legitimate none the less.

Also Dems “we need more gun laws”.

“Hunter Biden had initially agreed to plead guilty to a negotiated misdemeanor tax charge as part of a deal with the Justice Department. That deal would have seen the gun charges dismissed in a diversion agreement as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years and likely would have come with a recommendation for no prison time. The agreement collapsed last year after a federal judge in Delaware questioned several unusual aspects, including how it was packaged” Apnews.com

It's an entire thread dedicated to just trying to pick the worst thing he's done during a specific week. I did this because there is so much bad that he does day to day, it's often difficult to remember the worst things as he always does something else bad to redirect from that previous bad thing. More than willing to discuss all the bad things Trump has done, i've done it for almost 10 years now, but i'm not going to pretend Dems are infallible even if their misdeeds are the fraction of the level Trump has done.

I hope there is a day where most people in DC wouldn't do the same thing and let their kids deal with the consequences of their actions. I think you managed to get out every possible Dem talking point on the subject though. I was asked to show something that Biden did involving bribery (despite me clearly stating that I didn't think Biden had done anything different than most recent presidents and stating Trump was taking it to a new level). So yes, I threw in that little jab to document a clear monetary reason for Biden not to have his son go to jail. It's a reach, I'm not pretending it isn't, but if you think this was the first time Hunter used his dad's name to grift and in return, passed some money back to Dad as a thank you, you're kidding yourself. Any proof Biden allowed that though, or even did it when he was in a position of power? Nope. But is that because it never happened or because MSM put the same amount of effort into finding out then they did when they took the 50 intel officers letter like the gospel and declared everything fake? Sorry, I will stop now. I'm realizing all i'm doing is burying my original point, which is I hope both sides can see things they don't like the other side doing and make the choice to do the right thing when in power. MAGA would probably still get riled up over Marc Rich, but they defend pardons from other convicted felons where bribery is transparent. One of Whitmers top talking points was adding more transparency, once she gets into power, she deflects. Rules for the, not for me. The motto of most long standing politicians.

Gee, I wonder what the implication was for them to say that. We also have reporters, (they aren't fake just because they found stuff you don't like), that took the time and effort to vet information believed to be from the laptop and specific to that email, they verified it was real. I brought up Hunter specifically because I was asked to give examples of Biden pardons that were questionable and that one certainly was. I was perfectly fine pointing out 'both sides' in recent history leading up to Trump 2.0 had pardon issues and still pointed out Trump 2.0 is taking it to a new level. But hilariously, some of you that claim to see things so clearly, can't help but get so defensive when a democrat may have done something wrong, even if it's become more of a modern norm. I see you're newer here. Not sure if new or new account, but you're not going to find a Trump apologist in me. I am a republican and only recently decided that (again). I have never voted for Trump and after he took over my party I figured I was an independent, despite mostly voting for Democrats (voted for Candice Miller in 2024 for a county seat, but did check to see if she had endorsed or even said anything positive about Trump before doing so). Ultimately though, **** Trump. The GOP is mine, not his. Doesn't look like I'll win, but I'm going to fight for it.

I'm just glad to see some of you guys are admitting it is true and no longer trying to discredit the laptop or rely on 50 intelligence officers said....

I was keeping it generic as I felt most could agree that recent history of Presidential pardons has gotten out of hand. But if you want specifics, I just dug a bit and see that Biden gave more acts of Clemency than any other president in our history. Granted a large number was clemency related to drug offenses and I think most reasonable people were fine with this. Another chunk was related to Covid related concerns. But let's focus on 3: Hunter Biden - you can argue all you want that they focused on him wrongly, but he was guilty and anyone else that had those issues would have faced consequences. Blatant bribery? Can't say that, although 10% for the big guy might have helped. (I kid, IMO he did it because he loves his kids and felt this was the best thing for him). Pre-emptive pardons - again, not related to bribery, but with this he expanded the power of the presidency which based on recent history, and now Trump, it will become common place IMO going forward. Michael Conahan (D) - A judge that imposed harsher than normal sentences which included sending kids to for-profit organizations and in return he'd get a kickback. Made millions doing this. The left will say he was just part of a group that was granted clemency due to Covid conditions in the jails. The right will say he was included in that because it was convenient to explain it that way. If Trump had commuted this guy and he had an "R" next to him, for a day or two, you would have all know his name and implied that it proves how corrupt Trump is. Is any obvious bribery in place, no. But I was never arguing that Biden was equal to Trump, I was just saying both sides had gotten out of control leading up to Trump 2.0. Going back to my original point, I would just like all pardon's, regardless of who provided it, fully vetted by the media to get the real story out, not a 'but he did it first so don't complain about my guy' mentality. By scrutinizing it, maybe we'll revert back to the good 'ole days where "bribes" were directed to campaign funds and everyone involved could simply point to that to show they didn't do anything wrong.

As already mentioned, in recent history, pardons on both sides have been out of control. I can't think of anyone specific right now, but I do remember Biden getting railed on for a few of his pardons and I'm confident if you go through all of them, there will be some 'bad' ones. "Both Sides" can be valid AND Trump can be taking it to a new level as well. Both can be true. I mentioned this recently and wish people would think about what they truly want our country to be rather than really hoping for some 'karma' to hurt their enemies. If you are that upset over Marc Rich, then don't do the same thing. The reasoning that 'Well Billy did it' shouldn't be tolerated, not even by mom's dealing with their toddlers using the same excuse. Unfortunately it's not even tolerated under Trump, he's going on TV and celebrating it. He just flat out owns it and that has done two things 1) normalized it to the media, so it doesn't get the attention it would have in the past and 2) proven how bad partisan politics have become, or at least if you want to resist that, how bad at least 1 party has become. Granted you guys were ready to put in Biden (I was too) despite the fact it was obvious he was no longer able to do the job.

Yup, sounds completely different from his later stuff. My guess is most Michiganders don't even know the song so I think you're still good.

"?" , at least that's what the Bob Seger System taught me.

The Bad: Week of 5/19 - Grift made a strong move back to the number #1 spot this past week, beating out additional 1st amendment attacks and a host of other things. His banquet for the largest (mostly foreign) investors into his ****coin is simply another level of grift. Even worse than accepting a plane. NYT had a nice article detailing his grift so far this presidency. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/us/politics/trump-money-plane-crypto.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KE8.dSur.2i4gPq7W3xNE&smid=nytcore-android-share And let me note this, I am somewhat sympathetic when I listen to Trump defenders say this is nothing new, politicians always grifted. This is true, but they did it legally through campaign donations and as this article reminds us, the same folks went crazy over that and even today campaign finance reform polls favorably, regardless of the party. So broken system with some checks and balances is not acceptable, but some how Trump can bypass it all together and not lose support. I will never understand this.

I was honest in that I said I didn't know the meaning of it either, but it doesn't sound good and sometimes taking things on their face turns out correct also. Additionally, I heard this number from a very sympathetic voice to democrats (Bulwark). Breaking Points has discussed some challenges they'd had, like all new homes have to be electric only - based on newer California laws, despite that law not really put into law based on these circumstances. California is working at it, but it simply sounds like they legislated themselves behind an eight ball and then these fires dropped on top of it. It took Bill Maher 1131 days to get a solar system installed and go live. This was way before the LA fires. The progressive left, which hates people on their side that call for incremental change versus asking for everything and getting nothing, mocked him as an old man for complaining about it. For people dealing with this stuff though, it's difficult. I hope California was able to fix everything over the last few months to help all these folks get back into their own homes, but that doesn't appear like it's happening anytime soon.

I'm going to keep my companies name out of this post, but I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before. Regardless, nothing I'm saying is confidential. My company needed some gov't approval related to a company we're buying out. Exec mgmt was telling us everything was on track but we weren't seeing any news about it. We get an invite to an all hands call where they tell us we're eliminating DEI.... not eliminating DEI programs, but it definitely came out in a way that is sounded like we're basically going to do a "find all" for DEI and just delete it. The employee resource groups remain and we're encouraged to join one or more and we will not change in regards to hiring the best person for the job with the understanding that differences amongst our team fosters "inclusion, innovation, and collaboration" We received approval to move forward later that day.

To be fair to Trump, that's what he's been saying all along. And while I'd like them to step up, sad that we aren't standing up with them.

I would probably need a list of the biggest artists as I wouldn't have even thought of Jethro Tull. I know they play a flute and beat out Metallica for album of the year, that's about it. I would gather you would probably really enjoy Springsteen's solo work. Much of it has a folksier feel. It actually helped me appreciate his E Street albums more as well. Quick plug for the Drew Lane show, one of the guys on the show (Jim) does his top ten list for every Friday show. Just a top ten of whatever thing Jim happened to think about that week. As he goes through the list and they'll discuss/argue. My point on this though is by listening to this, I've realized how little I know about bands that I thought I knew about. It's impressive just how much Drew knows about music.

I wonder about the legal implications of the FDA stating this. Does this mean insurance companies won't pay for boosters or can't? Covid is now essentially the flu. I really don't have a problem taking the booster at this point or not, but the option should be there. Honestly is it still a booster at this point? If i'm not mistaken, isn't the formula being updated regularly based on current Covid virus patterns? It's basically equivalent to a flu shot now, right?

I mean in my fictional world where this could work, other companies would also be afraid of dealing with the same wrath as Walgreens and 'eat the cost' too. So fast forward to 4 years from now, when a democrat wins, he can go to the public sector and say hey, you essentially accepted a 17-19 percent tax increase (average of 10% from everyone and 38% on the roughly 1/3 of products incoming from China), We're going to eliminate the tariffs and replace with a simple 12% increase to the corporate tax rate. Essentially codifying it. Obviously I don't believe this, but I'm going to choose to believe this is the ultimate goal/outcome for my own well being.

I mean.... I'm just sayin' 😉

Never a Trump voter (clarifying as I can't believe I'm about to defend Trump/GOP twice in a row (well last post was kind of a fiction tale), and will admit I only saw one camera angle, but it looked like a tense situation and the protestors were inside of the gate at one point with law enforcement agents telling them they can't come in and for the 30 seconds or so I saw, they weren't listening and leaving. I definitely would be interested in full length body camera footage though. I saw a friend of a friend argue that Comey should be arrested for posting the 'seashells 8647' because some person was arrested and jailed for a meme/joke on Twitter. Apparently some influencer had a following on Twitter and told people to vote for Hillary by texting a number and it was determined that was election interference. She was outraged that a person would be sent to jail for a joke and there is an argument that if you want to vote, it's your duty to learn how to vote. Getting fooled because your ignorant shouldn't be an excuse. The above is the same to me. I don't want to live in a world where we all agree 1 side did something wrong, so now the other side gets to be wrong too. How about we all agree 1 side did something wrong, learn from it, and just not do it again.

To preface this, I need to reiterate that I don't think Trump is a smart man. That said, what if he is backing into a good position with these tariffs? Here me out. As I've noted before, I think Trump is a democrat. Anytime he speaks about the economy he reminds me of the democrats I grew up with. Granted they didn't sound as dumb, but overall he thinks the gov't should have a bigger role in the economy (at least when he's in charge), has lots of trouble with trade, thinks only blue collar work is real work (except for his cronies and himself as they eat on gold plates), likes tariffs, and doesn't care about the budget, etc. But good or bad (you know my opinion), he can captivate and make changes that could be considered unthinkable and laughable days before. Like the fact that we're pretty much settled in with 10% tariffs across the board and 38% on China and everyone is like 'whew, at least it wasn't where he started'. So let's look at Walmart this week coming out and saying that they will be passing on the tariff costs to consumers and Trump comes out and tells them to eat it. This is the exact post: "Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected," As we all know, these tariffs are a tax. Throughout history, these taxes were passed on to consumers. He's telling corporations to buck up and pay the tax. Granted he can't force them to do so, but look at Tesla and how buyers fled from Elon. Heck, some socially conscious people were so put off on Elon that they went back to gas powered cars. So what if Walmart does choose not to pay the tax that Trump says is for them to deal with? How much damage can Walmart handle if Trump blames Walmart and his followers start to boycott? (another thing that was traditionally a democrat thing) Unlike Tesla that likely had some help from anti-EV folks that decided Tesla is now awesome, I can't think of too many democrats that would be supportive of Walmart passing that tax onto consumers to the point that they would start going out of their way to go to Walmart. In short, could Walmart be forced to accept that their tax rate went up? Granted for this to work Trump can't buckle when Walmart deposits 50 million in his ****coin. Plus even if it worked in year 1, you're essentially granting the power of determining the tax rate on the business itself. Eventually they would start chipping into that tariff tax. The pressure on Walmart would have to be significant too for it to work with them and spur the same with others. But hey, we've seen crazy things with Trump. I get this is crazy talk, but I guess I'm just searching for some hope that 1) we will recover from Trump and 2) it won't be as painful as I imagine.

The Bad - His Grifter tour in the middle east has now become so common that unfortunately it's just another daily headline you pass by. There is an argument it should have been the winner of the week of 5/12/25. But.... I'm going with his Trump and his admins attacks on Comey and other critics of his presidency, such as Gabbard calling for jail. The 8647 stuff is wild, at least IMO. I worked in a kitchen in high school so it's a term I was used to. Trump over the weekend called for investigations into celebrities that have been critical of him. I thought it was liberals that got butt hurt and were snowflakes. I even remember Palin or maybe it was her PAC putting out democrat candidates pictures in crosshairs and I do remember the left and media getting upset, but I don't remember anyone calling for jail, just that they felt it was distasteful. TJ Rollercoaster made a point that Trump/GOP see this as an opportunity to get the media focuses on this rather than what they are trying to do with policy, and in part I agree with him, but rather he's doing it just to get focus off of him or not, he is still attacking the 1st amendment.

Truth. I made the mistake to respond to a old high school buddy who posted something about Comey and is 'OUTRAGED' over it. I pointed out that I recently told my daughter to 86 the bananas we had as they were going bad. She simply grabbed them and put them in the trash, she did not pull out a gun and shoot them. I pointed out that as a Dad, if I still had young kids, I'd feel better explaining a 8647 sticker on a car then a '#$%$ Joe Biden' sticker. I also stated OP sounded like a liberal snowflake to complain about it. My post was removed, but not before some other buddy of his pointed out how insane my 'analysis' is and how could I defend Comey. Almost responded with '#$%$ your feelings', but decided I shouldn't be on facebook with that crap anyway.

The same party that thinks 86'ing something means assassinate and not to throw out/eject also wants you to take their word on how they interpret tattoo's. Sigh.

Yeah, this is LA county specific and to Gehringer, I don't know the full details, just heard the 450 years or so at this pace on the report. I thought Newsom waived clean up permits, or made them much easier. Regardless, even if outside his direct authority, if LA County fails, it'll look like a dem failure to those that publicize it. Newsom needs to push LA to get moving.