All_Pro_Bills

I agree. So where does that leave us as a nation? We consume more than we produce incurring big trade deficits year after year. Our businesses are not cost competitive as other nations have cheaper labor and business costs aided by things such as weaker environmental and work safety rules. One conclusion is eventually there needs to be an adjustment in our overall standard of living. A downward adjustment to re-balance the economic and business realities of global trade..

I think raising taxes to cover the government's entire fiscal year budget and eliminating borrowing is a great idea. I also think the 50% that don't pay any federal income tax should start paying their fair share. Getting 100% of the benefit with 0 costs doesn't seem fair. Make rich people pay more too. And the middle class. Higher corporate and business taxes too. Because getting American's to pay for the entire federal budget instead of pushing the costs off onto younger workers and future generations through massive federal debts to the tune of 2 to 5 to 7 trillion dollars each year will wake everybody up to the obscene cost of government. Hitting them in the wallet for the entire annual tab might suddenly convince everyone of the idea we need to get control of out of control spending. And free health care, free housing, free food, free education, free everything, is not free.

Identity of Democrats 2028 Presidential candidate revealed!

I think a lot of players simply see no upside in expressing their political and social opinions. If I look at the Bills and Sabres, and other NFL and NHL teams I have no clue player views. Nor do I care to hear them. A Russian player criticizing Putin will most certainly be viewed by his countrymen as parroting American narratives. Kind of the opposite treatment of what anyone critical of the war gets here.

Liberal myth and folklore absent any tangible evidence but still repeated today because they continue believing Russian disinformation defeated Hillary in 2016.

I expect a good deal of Zelensky's reluctance to accept any type of "peace deal" is the difference between the public nature of this conflict and the "secret" activities and drivers under the covers. In essence, Pentagon/CIA war planners were running the show and using Ukrainian forces to execute the plan. Given the war in such a scenario belongs just as much if not more to the US and its objectives (not the support for democracy theme many continue to fall for), why should his country that bore cost of casualties and lost territory agree to Trump's demands for mineral rights and other concessions for US support. In reality, the war was the child of America. Some excerpts from the NYT story (and interesting timing on this revelation too!). Americans overseeing "kill chain" One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said. The partnership’s guiding idea was that this close cooperation might allow the Ukrainians to accomplish the unlikeliest of feats — to deliver the invading Russians a crushing blow. Biggest battlefield feats were actually the CIA/Pentagon An early proof of concept was a campaign against one of Russia’s most-feared battle groups, the 58th Combined Arms Army. In mid-2022, using American intelligence and targeting information, the Ukrainians unleashed a rocket barrage at the headquarters of the 58th in the Kherson region, killing generals and staff officers inside. Again and again, the group set up at another location; each time, the Americans found it and the Ukrainians destroyed it. Farther south, the partners set their sights on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet loaded missiles destined for Ukrainian targets onto warships and submarines. At the height of Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive, a predawn swarm of maritime drones, with support from the Central Intelligence Agency, attacked the port, damaging several warships and prompting the Russians to begin pulling them back. Overreach The Ukrainians sometimes saw the Americans as overbearing and controlling — the prototypical patronizing Americans. The Americans sometimes couldn’t understand why the Ukrainians didn’t simply accept good advice. Where the Americans focused on measured, achievable objectives, they saw the Ukrainians as constantly grasping for the big win, the bright, shining prize. Failed 2023 counteroffensive actually hatched at American HQ Yet at arguably the pivotal moment of the war — in mid-2023, as the Ukrainians mounted a counteroffensive to build victorious momentum after the first year’s successes — the strategy devised in Wiesbaden fell victim to the fractious internal politics of Ukraine: The president, Volodymyr Zelensky, versus his military chief (and potential electoral rival), and the military chief versus his headstrong subordinate commander. When Mr. Zelensky sided with the subordinate, the Ukrainians poured vast complements of men and resources into a finally futile campaign to recapture the devastated city of Bakhmut. Within months, the entire counteroffensive ended in stillborn failure. Biden banned clandestine operations in public, while crossing red lines in secret Time and again, the Biden administration authorized clandestine operations it had previously prohibited. American military advisers were dispatched to Kyiv and later allowed to travel closer to the fighting. Military and C.I.A. officers in Wiesbaden helped plan and support a campaign of Ukrainian strikes in Russian-annexed Crimea. Finally, the military and then the C.I.A. received the green light to enable pinpoint strikes deep inside Russia itself. In some ways, Ukraine was, on a wider canvas, a rematch in a long history of U.S.-Russia proxy wars — Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Syria three decades later. Task Force Dragon The defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and General Milley had put the 18th Airborne in charge of delivering weapons and advising the Ukrainians on how to use them. When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed on to the M777s, the Tony Bass Auditorium became a full-fledged headquarters. A Polish general became General Donahue’s deputy. A British general would manage the logistics hub on the former basketball court. A Canadian would oversee training. The auditorium basement became what is known as a fusion center, producing intelligence about Russian battlefield positions, movements and intentions. There, according to intelligence officials, officers from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency were joined by coalition intelligence officers. The 18th Airborne is known as Dragon Corps; the new operation would be Task Force Dragon. All that was needed to bring the pieces together was the reluctant Ukrainian top command. Debate over plausible deniability Soon the Ukrainians, nearly 20 in all — intelligence officers, operational planners, communications and fire-control specialists — began arriving in Wiesbaden. Every morning, officers recalled, the Ukrainians and Americans gathered to survey Russian weapons systems and ground forces and determine the ripest, highest-value targets. The priority lists were then handed over to the intelligence fusion center, where officers analyzed streams of data to pinpoint the targets’ locations. Inside the U.S. European Command, this process gave rise to a fine but fraught linguistic debate: Given the delicacy of the mission, was it unduly provocative to call targets “targets”? Some officers thought “targets” was appropriate. Others called them “intel tippers,” because the Russians were often moving and the information would need verification on the ground. The debate was settled by Maj. Gen. Timothy D. Brown, European Command’s intelligence chief: The locations of Russian forces would be “points of interest.” Intelligence on airborne threats would be “tracks of interest.” “If you ever get asked the question, ‘Did you pass a target to the Ukrainians?’ you can legitimately not be lying when you say, ‘No, I did not,’” one U.S. official explained. CIA and assassinations of Russian top officers The White House also prohibited sharing intelligence on the locations of “strategic” Russian leaders, like the armed forces chief, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. “Imagine how that would be for us if we knew that the Russians helped some other country assassinate our chairman,” another senior U.S. official said. “Like, we’d go to war.” Similarly, Task Force Dragon couldn’t share intelligence that identified the locations of individual Russians. The way the system worked, Task Force Dragon would tell the Ukrainians where Russians were positioned. But to protect intelligence sources and methods from Russian spies, it would not say how it knew what it knew. US operations room directly oversaw HIMARS strikes Wiesbaden would oversee each HIMARS strike... HIMARS strikes that resulted in 100 or more Russian dead or wounded came almost weekly. Russian forces were left dazed and confused. Their morale plummeted, and with it their will to fight. And as the HIMARS arsenal grew from eight to 38 and the Ukrainian strikers became more proficient, an American official said, the toll rose as much as fivefold. “We became a small part, maybe not the best part, but a small part, of your system,” General Zabrodskyi explained, adding: “Most states did this over a period of 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. But we were forced to do it in a matter of weeks.”

Its like a Rugby scum and I wonder if some football guy watching a match got the idea for it there?

Truth about the "sides" is the only difference between Nazi's and far-left organizations like Antifa is the uniform. Neither are desirable.

Interesting in the Le Pen case the court stated per the misuse of EU funds. "It was found that all these people actually worked for the party, that their deputy did not commission them any tasks,” said the judge. Assistants then “passed from one deputy to another.” A violation that sounds awfully similar to what the US Democratic party has done with putting party workers and political activists on the Federal payroll. No arrests here though. Yet....

Last night 60 Minutes did a lengthy and detailed story on cuts at VOA. It would be nice to see them commit the same amount of time and effort to laying out the case for what appears to be billions in systemic fraud, waste, and abuse going on at SSA. But I suspect the bosses at CBS network have no desire to give Trump anything close to a "win".

Not treasuries. Energy stocks like CNQ, SU, XOM, some funds, recently PR. Gold miners like AEM. NEM, GDX, NGD. Royalty streamers WPM, RGLD, OR. Utilities fund. Hard asset funds. Solid dividend payers. Growth and income funds. Emerging market funds. And sure some SP500 and NASDAQ exposure. Raised cash to about 20% to take advantage of opportunities like Friday. The theme, higher and longer inflation is here to stay. We went through a 40+ year deflation phase, that's over. The reverse of that started in earnest in 2021. The street with few exceptions hasn't caught on yet. They think it's transitory. It's not. It's permanent.

Not wanting to influence the election means withholding the truth from the American public and robbing them of the ability to make up their own minds armed with facts rather than inaccurate and false opinions.

Because those leftist maniacs controlling the party wouldn't allow it.

Whining posters don't care about a recession. They're upset that their personal investment portfolios loaded up with overvalued stocks trading at huge multiples to earnings are taking a hit.

No I rely on expert market sources and my own experience and knowledge of the financial world and economics. You just want it to be about Trump so bad to the point of an obsession that your mind can't process or consider alternatives or other factors. Its hatred driven by pure emotions.