All_Pro_Bills

One other value I saw was a campaign slogan I saw "Make Crime Illegal Again". I'd say that's a right wing value.

Because unorganized and individual students and citizens are no match for the power and force of the government but its another story if the Governor tries to push around powerful and organized public labor unions?

Imagine the outrage from the very same people that support and organize these events if the headline read "University of New Hampshire hosted special graduation celebration for ‘White Students’ and other ‘non-diverse’ identities." Diversity as currently practiced is divisive and not inclusive. Which defeats the purpose of the whole concept. .

That's about 40% downside. I think most investors would consider something near a 40% drop in their equity portfolio value to be a crash. But don't just focus on equity markets. We need to watch debt markets and currencies too. I mean what would even a 2% rise in interest rates do to the housing and debt markets? What are the consequences of interest payments taking up 1/3 of US Federal budgets? If the dollar suddenly losses purchasing power what implications does that have for a country that imports much of what it consumes?

Absolutely. This is the 3rd speculative frenzy I've witnessed the first two being the dot.com and housing bubbles. I got killed in the first one, partially escaped the second in pretty good share, and have myself in a position to avoid most of the pain of what's coming. This time it's a speculative frenzy of everything and almost every asset class and type courtesy of the Federal Reserves monetary policies. Throw in uncontrolled government debt. 3rd times a charm I guess. While the markets are overleveraged and overvalued it won't be a realization or reaction to those two factors that brings it down. Everybody already knows both those things but everyone thinks they can jump off just at the right time to avoid any big losses. That thinking never changes but rarely works out well. You can chalk it all up to the suspension of risk or the inability of markets to assess and price risk correctly. What triggers the crisis will be something that comes as a surprise. A Black Swan event is one term used to describe that type of event. Could be something like a COVID resurgence in the Fall, the outbreak of war somewhere, the termination of dollar denominating settlement for oil trades, or something else. Biden didn't create this mess and it was going to come to a climax sometime 2021-2022 no matter who won the election but like all Presidents before him he'll get the blame. And if it happens close enough to the 2022 election and negatively impacts the "real" economy in a big way and you can be sure the far-left "experiment" in government and all the social justice causes and virtue signaling attached to it are going to come to a crashing end. I've always concluded the Democrats should have let Trump win and let him take the fall. But their obsession to remove him through any means possible regardless of any consequences or costs couldn't be controlled. They are what people in the markets call "Bagholders". The people that end of holding and taking big losses. In this case left holding the bag of running the government when everything goes to Hell.

I think both are in the right spot and switching them might result in both not performing as well. Mahomes was more ready for the pro game when he arrived in the pro's and had a team that was already built and prepared for him. And being so ready he quickly reached his ceiling. Allen was a raw product out of college and grew into the role while at the same time the team grew and developed around him. He's more a big piece of the puzzle that makes the Bills go than a guy that got plugged into an already there situation.

Yes, the armed forces is trying to recruit woke. But the numbers just don't support the idea. If you or somebody close to you served in the military think of the traits and characteristics that made them a good soldier. Now think of woke values and attributes. They are simply inconsistent. Can you really imagine a combat situation supported by a squad of woke soldiers? Is it possible to return fire in a non-offensive and "safe" manner? The entire idea is absurd.

If any of those 400 serves any serious time I'll be surprised. Its been 5 months and the government hasn't tried one case yet. All they've done so far is hold a bunch of people in jail without bail. That all doesn't seem like due process. I've seen this firsthand at various levels of the courts and what it typically means is the prosecution doesn't have the evidence to make the charges stick. So they stall and put off hearings and discovery motions. And if you get a sympathetic judge it can go on for a while. Like I said the main objective is to drag this out and if possible keep it in the news cycle for the 2020 election. Keep reminding the voters how dangerous these people are and who they vote for and support. Also, as a side topic what is most ironic with 1/6 is how the Democratic Congressional leadership feels the need to spend a lot of additional funds on Capitol Police security to protect them but call for defunding of police in the public domain. What might be called a double standard.

"Sometimes you go for the easy conviction to get the person off the streets." That statement seems like a real cop out here. I gotta call that out. All I hear for the past 5 months is how overwhelming the evidence is and how Trump directed the demonstrators to invade and occupy the Capitol Building. And you suggest the DOJ along with Federal and DC prosecutors are going to plea bargain down to the lowest charges just to get convictions? Frankly that conclusion sounds like avoiding an admission on your end that there is no tangible evidence of the insurrection charges or that Trump directed an attack on the Capitol. Face the truth. The actual facts around the events of that day have not be provided to the public. If the administration had any real proof of anything it would be on the airwaves and social media propagandist would be touted it 24/7. Its all political drama and theater. Basically they know they have little to nothing to make an serious charges stick so they've drummed up this Commission idea as a way to keep the story on the front page for another year without having to actually prove anything. Like I said political theater. Let the courts handle it as quickly as possible and let's get the truth and facts out in the open so we can all understand what and how it happened that day.

China has a lot of influence over the social media platforms and they never hesitate to do the bidding of the CCP by censoring and identifying critics of their government. They block what they're told to block from the public on the mainland. So by extension they have no issue with censoring any stories with "fact checkers" and "mis-information" designations when it comes to COVID origin stories. These tech corporations are also in lockstep with US intelligence agencies and perform information gathering functions for them too. So while they view themselves as "left leaning" and "progressives" they are in reality agents of government oppression. I don't know how others view this but from my perspective traditional liberal doctrine was opposed to big government and oppression not the servant and partner of such nefarious agencies and operatives.

Voter fraud is discussed on another thread. But you know that. So can we stay on topic? At the end of the day this is a legal matter assigned to the judiciary branch plain and simple. So let's see the formal charges, see the governments evidence, call some witnesses, and get down to it.

So you have a problem with a Federal jury trial where the prosecution and defense are governed by rules of evidence and due process that are impartially applied by a judge presided over the trial where a verdict is rendered by a jury of 12?

Well it looks like the commission idea is DOA in the Senate. And as protocol requires the venue for all of this will be the Federal & DC courts where the rules governing the judicial legal system will be followed. I can think of no logical reason why this course of action should displease anyone looking for truth and justice.

The major news outlets and networks have suspended and excluded reality from their reporting. Approved narratives drive their stories while truth and facts are unimportant. Their polling numbers reflect a lack of confidence in their current business model. Their dishonestly centers around the role they've assumed of running cover and being the mouthpiece for all kinds of shady and unscrupulous activities.

Both actually but at this time I'm adding only to my energy sector plays.

As for the consensus of economists the saying "Its hard to get a man to understand something when their job depends on not understanding it" is applicable. Lots of factors in play with inflation. Maybe too complex to explain here. My bet's on a big increase. The low inflation cycle is ending. Everything is cyclical but over time the human mind convinces itself that everything is linear. A trend will continue forever in the same direction at the same rate. Life doesn't work that way. Fed has run out of rope and runway. Government debts too big to service. Treasury department running a Ponzi Scheme. CPI measure is a joke as most increases are substituted or assumed out. Real rate is likely double now. But nobody takes the time to read up on the methodology although its all there to see. Lots of other factors. I've made bet in the markets on higher inflation. So far, so good. Also, it a good thing lots of people don't agree. After all, somebody's got to take the other side of the trade as markets are more or less a zero sum game.

In keeping with the theme of comedy this may be ias offensive question. Have you or any "normal" person you know ever dated anyone that is "woke"? And how did it work out? That might be a good concept for a situation comedy.

More troubling to Lightfoot is the majority of Chicago Blackhawks players are white, the majority of Chicago Bears players are black, and not a single player on the Chicago Bulls roster meets the criteria for being identified as "short". Clearly some sort of diversity and inclusion program is needed to ensure proper representation.

I expected you've been paying attention to events. If you want to end racism what would you propose? Give me your top 5 initiatives and what impact each would have on ending racism.

I think we all can agree that racism exists and is a problem. The debate to me is really on the impact of such behavior. And identifying the right and most impactful cause of the problem in order to apply some "fixes". Because my conclusion is you can "fix" all the racism issues you want and it isn't going to materially change the outcome for most people you are intending to help. That's pretty much it for me. You fix the wrong thing and you still have the same problem. So if you disagree I guess the fundamental question is "do you really believe that racism is the number one factor holding people back in our society in 2021"? Do you believe that other factors have less impact? Like education level, a stable family environment, a safe neighborhood, access to jobs and opportunity, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, avoiding "bad" social influences. And other things. So... If race is truly the key factor how can you explain so many whites living in poverty? if race is truly the key factor how can you explain so many affluent minorities? If race is truly the key factor how can you explain how recent African immigrants are as a demographic much more successful than Americans of African descent? if race is truly the key factor how can you explain how Asians as a group score much higher than Whites in standardized tests (which many claim favor whites) like SAT's and other exams? Just to specify a few examples..

Yup, just like Santa Claus they know when you are sleeping, they know when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! I try to keep as much of my life private as possible (with one exception being a few posts and opinions here) and I am always amazed at the low exception of privacy most people have today. Like they believe its their duty to provide as much information or data about themselves to governments and corporations. There are things you can do to minimize your electronic fingerprints. I'm no expert on it and there are experts in personal privacy and security that know a lot more but things like use VPN, get off social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter (stop things like posting pictures of yourself or your vacations that nobody wants to see anyway), pay cash for things when you can, get rid of personal assistant devices like Alexa (they are listening to everything you say if only for the keyword command "Hey Alexa"), don't use Google search or Gmail (Google parses and "reads" all your e-mails).

Biden bows to Putin and removes Trump era sanctions intended to block the completion of NordStream2 from Russia to Germany. And in the process also hangs Ukraine out to dry. So who's the Russian asset now?

You should check out Fox Networks "Let's Be Real" which airs on Thursday's at 8:30 PM ET. It is pretty funny and violates almost all the "values" of woke-ism and virtual signalling. Appears to have no specific axe to grind or any agenda. The opening episode featured Gov. Coumo encouraging everyone to flatten the curve of sexual harassment instances by following the social distancing rule of maintaining a 6 foot distance between them and the Governor. Also a skit about Trump on Antiques Roadshow trying to pawn all the stuff he heisted from the White House when he left. I did test-drive on a few new comedies that attempted to blend the woke lifestyle with comedy and despite having some good actors in the cast they turned out to be total flops. Like Mr. Mayor. Woke comedy. A contradiction in terms and something that cannot exist in the natural world.

Frankly I trust the CDC a lot more than I trust Fauci. In fact I don't trust him at all. What I do know of him, his comments, and his associations leads me to conclude he has a lot of conflicting interests when it comes to this outbreak. One important thing to be cognizant of is he's more of an "administrator" than he is a "doctor". I've warmed up to the new CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky. She appears to be a straight-shooter with a good grasp of the sciences, data, and statistics behind COVID. Her answers and comments around vaccinated and the un-vaccinated along with the current comments on mask rules appear logical. And the CDC has been very transparent and forthcoming on all the stats and numbers relevant to the virus which are available for anyone to review and reach their own conclusions. I especially like this heat map of underlying conditions and risk. It paints a very informative picture. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#underlying-med-conditions

Now if the evil one who's name shall not be spoken had made this decision? Well we can imagine the level of outrage and calls for investigations and perhaps another impeachment show trial. At a minimum hearings held by Rep. Schiff's committee with lots of cameras and drama along with all the major networks featuring the story 24/7. But as it was JB making the call here the event will be relegated to the back page while social media censors block and delete any negative comments about removing the sanctions. As the pipeline is about 95% complete it was obvious the sanctions were not going to stop the project from going operational. And Germany was adamant that this project be completed. So removing the sanctions make sense from the view that the US is giving its "consent" for the project to be completed rather than looking like a failure when it competes and the sanctions are seen as ineffective. The other thing in play here is how it will impact the balance of power and events in Ukraine where all the revenue the country sees via gas transit fees may soon disappear. It provides the Russians a bit more leverage over the situation by providing a mechanism to divert that gas flow and still get it to its customer in Western Europe. I suspect one of the assurances the US (under both Trump & Biden) gave the Kiev government in return for their obedience with the US agenda here was that the administration would block NordStream2. This is obviously off the table now and perhaps the Ukraine government will begin the question the US strategy which puts them in the firing line? So Putin 2, Biden 0 here.