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C-Man

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by C-Man

  1. 8 minutes ago, Longhornlove said:

    Look, you know me......a little anyway but I came in this thread to call out a lie that you yourself have clearly confirmed and that is that the left doesn't lie and make shit up out of thin air. Nothing I say or post will be taken seriously, I know that. I am half trolling these people anyway. Sometimes it is fun to kick the hornets nest and watch them follow and neg all my posts across the site. You see how they are, they attack you just because you defended me once. Remember, they will never forget that.

    Whatever I say/post will get twisted into something that it isn't just like it always is. I openly admit Trump is a pandering lying politician and you say the same for Biden but Biden gets a pass, go figure. Both Candidates are pieces of shit and we disagree on which one is worse. For all the people in here that think I'm some kind of unicorn in the way I think. That may be the case in here but it sure as hell isn't in the real world. The polls clearly show that not to mention my own experiences. Now I will leave you to it and go put on my tin foil hat and wait for more of my conspiracy theories to come true. Hopefully you got some of your street cred back from these CR Junkies but I doubt it.

     

     

    6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Disagree.

    I have much more respect for people who just have kinks than people who are delusional conspiracy theory-spouting morons.

    Put whatever you want up your ass, but quit with the fucking sociopathic lies.

    100% agreed and I had that basically written out and deleted it. Pegging fetishists are WAY up the rankings ladder ahead of these moronic MAGA types.

    ba47ba61-31d2-48dc-ace1-9b545f641d3f_tex

    I was implying that I haven't seen somebody commit Surly Seppuku quite so spectacularly as this. Those were better days when a simple pegging fetish was enough to "banish" somebody to the hinterlands. Goddamn this simulation.

    • Haha 2
  2. 1 hour ago, Longhornlove said:

    Not that there is any real need but I will indulge you since you seem to be so ignorant......... I know you aren't ignorant, you are an intelligent individual whom is just trying (I assume) to get a rise out of me and get your fellow CR junkies riled up here in your pristine little echo chamber.

    This is a fairly long video that may not be able maintain the groups attention span. I chose this because he equally bashes Trump for the same thing you appear to believe Joe Biden doesn't do.

    Just a few others off the top of my head.

    • Vaccines are safe and effective
    • Covid started in a wet market
    • Masks prevent the spread of covid
    • 6ft apart prevents the spread of covid
    • If you get the vaccine, you can't get or spread covid
    • Uncle Bosie was a pilot that got shot down and eaten by cannibals (Recent Biden)
    • Rode across the Francis Scott Key bridge via train many, many times. (Recent Biden)
    • He saved 6 people from drowning while a lifeguard(Biden)
    • Joe Biden was a civil rights icon, raised in the black, Puerto Rican, Jewish, Greek, Italian, Catholic and polish communities. Which is is, It can't be all of them?
    • Joe Biden was once a generational athlete
    • Jo Biden was a Truck Driver(someone once gave him a ride in one)
    • Bloodbathgate 
    • The Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation
    • Alpha Bank collusion
    • Trump Campaign wasn't spied on
    • Steele dossier being factual

     

    I could go on but why bother?

    image.gif

    P.S. You're a moron. This is @NowThis-like Surly self-immolation.

    • Hook 'Em 4
  3. 10 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Housing inventory won’t be a problem, given the number of foreclosures due to a shitload of businesses going under and people getting laid off.  Of course, food will get really fucking expensive, as would gas, and the service industry, etc.

    It’s interesting to ponder - imagine just a single industry that relies heavily on illegal immigration.  Either imagine that industry collapsing or at least raising their labor costs drastically.  Imagine what that does to their customers’ buying habits and imagine what it does to the companies that rely on them.

    Remember this moron: https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-restaurant-owner-desantis-supporter-forced-fire-undocumented-staff-2023-8

    (Full disclosure -- I actually went to one of this guy's restaurants in Tampa many years ago when I was there for a wedding with my wife. It was quite good. But, oops, those unintended circumstances. Forced to pay $500K fine and let go all of his undocumented employees.)

    • Fuck Around and Find Out 2
  4. BTW, caught Owen Newkirk on one of the spare midday Ticket shows when I was out running an errand earlier. He said Faksa took part in the optional pregame skate yesterday, which indicates he's closer to returning to the lineup than Marchment, who took part in activities before the optional workout. Newkirk said Faksa is probably a player as soon as he can get back in but also doesn't discount what fill-ins like Dellandrea and Craig Smith have given the team in the two games in Vegas.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  5. 2 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

    hold on i need to check Newsmax. 

    you come at me with ad hominem bullshit like that and expect civility?

    go fuck yourself. 

    biden is a boomer doing or allowing cruel boomers to do boomer things. 

    did i miss where he decried our governor sending in goons to back up a peaceful protest? he's always had a tough on crime old school boomer mindset. that's why he isn't succeeding with the youth. 

    but keep telling kids about infrastructure I'm sure they fucking love that

    Read what @Dbeasy says below. Remember the old saying: You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

     

    2 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

    I have a vague recollection of you as a reasonable poster. But your unsubstantiated and wrong attack on Biden regarding young people is just flat out loony, and I’m not a Democrat.

    He is one of the most genuine Presidents we’ve had in a long time and he has absolutely pursued policies to help young people, as several posters above have listed. If you think he should be doing a lot more, than you’ve forgotten that he also has to balance his decisions against other constituents, like Jewish Americans, minority groups, the aging, etc. Please go find your common sense. You sound completely unhinged.

    Perfectly said.

    And cross-posting because I think it's worth seeing Carville's thoughts in a couple different places:

     

    • Hook 'Em 1
    • Like 1
  6. 7 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

    Run this ad …..

     

    Handmaids Tale June GIF by HULU

    Here's the article in full: https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/

    Quote

    In exclusive interviews, the former President lays out a second-term agenda that would reshape America and its role in the world.

    Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.

    We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?

    As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.” 

    Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.

    What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

    Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”

    Read More: Read the Full Transcripts of Donald Trump’s Interviews With TIME

    The courts, the Constitution, and a Congress of unknown composition would all have a say in whether Trump’s objectives come to pass. The machinery of Washington has a range of defenses: leaks to a free press, whistle-blower protections, the oversight of inspectors general. The same deficiencies of temperament and judgment that hindered him in the past remain present. If he wins, Trump would be a lame duck—contrary to the suggestions of some supporters, he tells TIME he would not seek to overturn or ignore the Constitution’s prohibition on a third term. Public opinion would also be a powerful check. Amid a popular outcry, Trump was forced to scale back some of his most draconian first-term initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant families. As George Orwell wrote in 1945, the ability of governments to carry out their designs “depends on the general temper in the country.”

    Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”

    Trump steps onto the patio at Mar-a-Lago near dusk. The well-heeled crowd eating Wagyu steaks and grilled branzino pauses to applaud as he takes his seat. On this gorgeous evening, the club is a MAGA mecca. Billionaire donor Steve Wynn is here. So is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who is dining with the former President after a joint press conference proposing legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting. Their voting in federal elections is already illegal, and extremely rare, but remains a Trumpian fixation that the embattled Speaker appeared happy to co-sign in exchange for the political cover that standing with Trump provides.

    At the moment, though, Trump’s attention is elsewhere. With an index finger, he swipes through an iPad on the table to curate the restaurant’s soundtrack. The playlist veers from Sinead O’Connor to James Brown to The Phantom of the Opera. And there’s a uniquely Trump choice: a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a choir of defendants imprisoned for attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, interspersed with a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. This has become a staple of his rallies, converting the ultimate symbol of national unity into a weapon of factional devotion. 

    The spectacle picks up where his first term left off. The events of Jan. 6, during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. “I call them the J-6 patriots,” he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely.” As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor.

    In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.

    Read More: Fact-Checking What Donald Trump Said In His Interviews With TIME

    Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms. But Trump, burned in his first term by multiple investigations directed by his own appointees, is ever more vocal about imposing his will directly on the department and its far-flung investigators and prosecutors.

    [video id=FlgFv0Ze autostart="viewable"]

    In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”

    Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)

    Read More: Trump Says ‘Anti-White Feeling’ Is a Problem in the U.S.

    Such moves would be potentially catastrophic for the credibility of American law enforcement, scholars and former Justice Department leaders from both parties say. “If he ordered an improper prosecution, I would expect any respectable U.S. Attorney to say no,” says Michael McConnell, a former U.S. appellate judge appointed by President George W. Bush. “If the President fired the U.S. Attorney, it would be an enormous firestorm.” McConnell, now a Stanford law professor, says the dismissal could have a cascading effect similar to the Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon ordered top DOJ officials to remove the special counsel investigating Watergate. Presidents have the constitutional right to fire U.S. Attorneys, and typically replace their predecessors’ appointees upon taking office. But discharging one specifically for refusing a President’s order would be all but unprecedented.

    Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”

    Read More: The Story Behind TIME’s ‘If He Wins’ Trump Cover

    For an operation of that scale, Trump says he would rely mostly on the National Guard to round up and remove undocumented migrants throughout the country. “If they weren’t able to, then I’d use [other parts of] the military,” he says. When I ask if that means he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians—Trump seems unmoved by the weight of the statute. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he says. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He would also seek help from local police and says he would deny funding for jurisdictions that decline to adopt his policies. “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump says, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”

    As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.

    Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to “the moment of fertilization.” I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. “I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump says, “because we now have it back in the states.”

    Presidents typically have a narrow window to pass major legislation. Trump’s team is eyeing two bills to kick off a second term: a border-security and immigration package, and an extension of his 2017 tax cuts. Many of the latter’s provisions expire early in 2025: the tax cuts on individual income brackets, 100% business expensing, the doubling of the estate-tax deduction. Trump is planning to intensify his protectionist agenda, telling me he’s considering a tariff of more than 10% on all imports, and perhaps even a 100% tariff on some Chinese goods. Trump says the tariffs will liberate the U.S. economy from being at the mercy of foreign manufacturing and spur an industrial renaissance in the U.S. When I point out that independent analysts estimate Trump’s first term tariffs on thousands of products, including steel and aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines, may have cost the U.S. $316 billion and more than 300,000 jobs, by one account, he dismisses these experts out of hand. His advisers argue that the average yearly inflation rate in his first term—under 2%—is evidence that his tariffs won’t raise prices.

    Since leaving office, Trump has tried to engineer a caucus of the compliant, clearing primary fields in Senate and House races. His hope is that GOP majorities replete with MAGA diehards could rubber-stamp his legislative agenda and nominees. Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, a former RSC chairman and the GOP nominee for the state’s open Senate seat, recalls an August 2022 RSC planning meeting with Trump at his residence in Bedminster, N.J. As the group arrived, Banks recalls, news broke that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by the FBI. Banks was sure the meeting would be canceled. Moments later, Trump walked through the doors, defiant and pledging to run again. “I need allies there when I’m elected,” Banks recalls Trump saying. The difference in a second Trump term, Banks says now, “is he’s going to have the backup in Congress that he didn’t have before.”

    Trump’s intention to remake America’s relations abroad may be just as consequential. Since its founding, the U.S. has sought to build and sustain alliances based on the shared values of political and economic freedom. Trump takes a much more transactional approach to international relations than his predecessors, expressing disdain for what he views as free-riding friends and appreciation for authoritarian leaders like President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, or former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

    That’s one reason America’s traditional allies were horrified when Trump recently said at a campaign rally that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country he believes doesn’t spend enough on collective defense. That wasn’t idle bluster, Trump tells me. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he says. Trump has long said the alliance is ripping the U.S. off. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg credited Trump’s first-term threat to pull out of the alliance with spurring other members to add more than $100 billion to their defense budgets.

    But an insecure NATO is as likely to accrue to Russia’s benefit as it is to America’s. President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks to many in Europe and the U.S. like a test of his broader vision to reconstruct the Soviet empire. Under Biden and a bipartisan Congress, the U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine to defend itself. It’s unlikely Trump would extend the same support to Kyiv. After Orban visited Mar-a-Lago in March, he said Trump “wouldn’t give a penny” to Ukraine. “I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing,” Trump hedges in our interview. “If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They’re much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don’t.” (E.U. nations have given more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine as well.)

    Read More: Read the Full Transcripts of Donald Trump’s Interviews With TIME

    Trump has historically been reluctant to criticize or confront Putin. He sided with the Russian autocrat over his own intelligence community when it asserted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Even now, Trump uses Putin as a foil for his own political purposes. When I asked Trump why he has not called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly held on spurious charges in a Moscow prison for a year, Trump says, “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.” Gershkovich should be freed, he adds, but he doubts it will happen before the election. “The reporter should be released and he will be released,” Trump tells me. “I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released.”

    America’s Asian allies, like its European ones, may be on their own under Trump. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister recently said aid to Ukraine was critical in deterring Xi from invading the island. Communist China’s leaders “have to understand that things like that can’t come easy,” Trump says, but he declines to say whether he would come to Taiwan’s defense. 

    Trump is less cryptic on current U.S. troop deployments in Asia. If South Korea doesn’t pay more to support U.S. troops there to deter Kim Jong Un’s increasingly belligerent regime to the north, Trump suggests the U.S. could withdraw its forces. “We have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position,” he tells TIME. (The number is actually 28,500.) “Which doesn’t make any sense. Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country.”

    Transactional isolationism may be the main strain of Trump’s foreign policy, but there are limits. Trump says he would join Israel’s side in a confrontation with Iran. “If they attack Israel, yes, we would be there,” he tells me. He says he has come around to the now widespread belief in Israel that a Palestinian state existing side by side in peace is increasingly unlikely. “There was a time when I thought two-state could work,” he says. “Now I think two-state is going to be very, very tough.”

    Yet even his support for Israel is not absolute. He’s criticized Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has called for the nation to “get it over with.” When I ask whether he would consider withholding U.S. military aid to Israel to push it toward winding down the war, he doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t rule it out, either. He is sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once a close ally. “I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump says. In his telling, a January 2020 U.S. operation to assassinate a top Iranian general was supposed to be a joint attack until Netanyahu backed out at the last moment. “That was something I never forgot,” he says. He blames Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people amid acts of brutality including burning entire families alive and raping women and girls. “It happened on his watch,” Trump says.

    On the second day of Trump’s New York trial on April 17, I stand behind the packed counter of the Sanaa Convenience Store on 139th Street and Broadway, waiting for Trump to drop in for a postcourt campaign stop. He chose the bodega for its history. In 2022, one of the store’s clerks fatally stabbed a customer who attacked him. Bragg, the Manhattan DA, charged the clerk with second-degree murder. (The charges were later dropped amid public outrage over video footage that appeared to show the clerk acting in self-defense.) A baseball bat behind the counter alludes to lingering security concerns. When Trump arrives, he asks the store’s co-owner, Maad Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, about safety. “You should be allowed to have a gun,” Trump tells Ahmed. “If you had a gun, you’d never get robbed.”

    On the campaign trail, Trump uses crime as a cudgel, painting urban America as a savage hell-scape even though violent crime has declined in recent years, with homicides sinking 6% in 2022 and 13% in 2023, according to the FBI. When I point this out, Trump tells me he thinks the data, which is collected by state and local police departments, is rigged. “It’s a lie,” he says. He has pledged to send the National Guard into cities struggling with crime in a second term—possibly without the request of governors—and plans to approve Justice Department grants only to cities that adopt his preferred policing methods like stop-and-frisk.

    To critics, Trump’s preoccupation with crime is a racial dog whistle. In polls, large numbers of his supporters have expressed the view that antiwhite racism now represents a greater problem in the U.S. than the systemic racism that has long afflicted Black Americans. When I ask if he agrees, Trump does not dispute this position. “There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” he tells TIME, “and that can’t be allowed either.” In a second term, advisers say, a Trump Administration would rescind Biden’s Executive Orders designed to boost diversity and racial equity.

    Trump’s ability to campaign for the White House in the midst of an unprecedented criminal trial is the product of a more professional campaign operation that has avoided the infighting that plagued past versions. “He has a very disciplined team around him,” says Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. “That is an indicator of how disciplined and focused a second term will be.” That control now extends to the party writ large. In 2016, the GOP establishment, having failed to derail Trump’s campaign, surrounded him with staff who sought to temper him. Today the party’s permanent class have either devoted themselves to the gospel of MAGA or given up. Trump has cleaned house at the Republican National Committee, installing handpicked leaders—including his daughter-in-law—who have reportedly imposed loyalty tests on prospective job applicants, asking whether they believe the false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. (The RNC has denied there is a litmus test.) Trump tells me he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits Biden won: “I wouldn’t feel good about it.”

    Policy groups are creating a government-in-waiting full of true believers. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has drawn up plans for legislation and Executive Orders as it trains prospective personnel for a second Trump term. The Center for Renewing America, led by Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is dedicated to disempowering the so-called administrative state, the collection of bureaucrats with the power to control everything from drug-safety determinations to the contents of school lunches. The America First Policy Institute is a research haven of pro-Trump right-wing populists. America First Legal, led by Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller, is mounting court battles against the Biden Administration. 

    The goal of these groups is to put Trump’s vision into action on day one. “The President never had a policy process that was designed to give him what he actually wanted and campaigned on,” says Vought. “[We are] sorting through the legal authorities, the mechanics, and providing the momentum for a future Administration.” That includes a litany of boundary-pushing right-wing policies, including slashing Department of Justice funding and cutting climate and environmental regulations.

    Read More: Fact-Checking What Donald Trump Said in His 2024 Interviews With TIME

    Trump’s campaign says he would be the final decision-maker on which policies suggested by these organizations would get implemented. But at the least, these advisers could form the front lines of a planned march against what Trump dubs the Deep State, marrying bureaucratic savvy to their leader’s anti-bureaucratic zeal. One weapon in Trump’s second-term “War on Washington” is a wonky one: restoring the power of impoundment, which allowed Presidents to withhold congressionally appropriated funds. Impoundment was a favorite maneuver of Nixon, who used his authority to freeze funding for subsidized housing and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump and his allies plan to challenge a 1974 law that prohibits use of the measure, according to campaign policy advisers.

    Another inside move is the enforcement of Schedule F, which allows the President to fire nonpolitical government officials and which Trump says he would embrace. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he says. A senior U.S. judge offers an example of how consequential such a move could be. Suppose there’s another pandemic, and President Trump wants to push the use of an untested drug, much as he did with hydroxychloroquine during COVID-19. Under Schedule F, if the drug’s medical reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration refuses to sign off on its use, Trump could fire them, and anyone else who doesn’t approve it. The Trump team says the President needs the power to hold bureaucrats accountable to voters. “The mere mention of Schedule F,” says Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”

    It can be hard at times to discern Trump’s true intentions. In his interviews with TIME, he often sidestepped questions or answered them in contradictory ways. There’s no telling how his ego and self-destructive behavior might hinder his objectives. And for all his norm-breaking, there are lines he says he won’t cross. When asked if he would comply with all orders upheld by the Supreme Court, Trump says he would. 

    But his policy preoccupations are clear and consistent. If Trump is able to carry out a fraction of his goals, the impact could prove as transformative as any presidency in more than a century. “He’s in full war mode,” says his former adviser and occasional confidant Stephen Bannon. Trump’s sense of the state of the country is “quite apocalyptic,” Bannon says. “That’s where Trump’s heart is. That’s where his obsession is.”

    These obsessions could once again push the nation to the brink of crisis. Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.” When I ask what he meant when he baselessly claimed on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump responded by denying he had said it. He then complained about the “Biden-inspired” court case he faces in New York and suggested that the “fascists” in America’s government were its greatest threat. “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” he tells me.

    Toward the end of our conversation at Mar-a-Lago, I ask Trump to explain another troubling comment he made: that he wants to be dictator for a day. It came during a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, who gave Trump an opportunity to allay concerns that he would abuse power in office or seek retribution against political opponents. Trump said he would not be a dictator—“except for day one,” he added. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

    Trump says that the remark “was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically.” He compares it to an infamous moment from the 2016 campaign, when he encouraged the Russians to hack and leak Hillary Clinton’s emails. In Trump’s mind, the media sensationalized those remarks too. But the Russians weren’t joking: among many other efforts to influence the core exercise of American democracy that year, they hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers and disseminated its emails through WikiLeaks.

    Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. “I think a lot of people like it.” —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein, Simmone Shah, and Julia Zorthian

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  7. 42 minutes ago, The Royal We said:

    What is deporting 11 million people going to do to inflation and the economy!? JFC, you think things are expensive now, how much is it going to cost to frame a house/buy a package of strawberries/go out to eat/literally everything that laborers touch?

    The same stupid fuckers who say things like "no one wants to work anymore" can't see any problems with this?

    Not to mention the pure evil of ripping that many families apart, but they don't care about that. (probably a welcomed side effect actually)

    My post immediately before yours. They see a problem that there are too many "illegals" who are sucking up local resources so let's get rid of them ASAP. It's especially a big deal in our Texas economy that depend on these folks to work in our restaurants, build homes, do yard work, clean houses -- all the shit we do not want to do ourselves. Guess what -- run these people off and you're either doing it yourself or paying somebody MORE to do the job.

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    • Prepare your anus 1
  8. So much tent talk. Sheesh. Personally, I think camping tents indicate that protesters are setting up camp and plan to sleep/live there for the duration. It's not about getting out of the sun, etc. It's to antagonize. Let them set up canopies if they must but break them down or vacate them at a certain time each day. There is middle ground on this deal -- and I say that with full realization that Abbott/Hartzell and his goons may not give two-shits about finding middle ground and are reverting to fascist tendencies.

    But the minute "infintada" or "pro-Hamas" shit comes up on the West Mall, this thing needs to be shut down with extreme prejudice (no head-cracking, just clearing them out peacefully) as it's no longer simply support for the innocent Palestines in Gaza. (I also say this with full-on hatred of Netanyahu and what the opportunism 10/7 has given him to -- in his mind -- eradicate as many Palestinians as he can reasonably get rid of before he's told to stand down or else.)

    This is a gigantic shit sandwich and is threatening to take our collective eyes of the real (and scary) issues that our country is facing if we allow it.

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  9. 1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

    This.  It is readily apparent that we swim in a fucking ocean of stupidity, with functionally no rafts to cling to.  It's stupid, in every direction, as far as the eye can see.  Right, left, all of it.  Stupidity is our brand.  We might as well just put "WE ARE SO FUCKING STUPID" on all of our coinage.

    It's more that people can't see much further down the road than what is immediately in front of them, causal effects be damned (if even considered).

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  10. 1 minute ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

    He also gets the hardest matchups. it's almost like we're playing the champs or something.

    anyway, does VGK have another gear? because I think the Stars do and if they really get clicking like we know they can, VGK is in trouble. We've won the last two ugly, but with overall very solid play and limited mistakes - something that cannot be said for games 1 and 2. I like the progression we are making, and I think we've been doing it since game 1. VGK on the other hand, seems to be playing the same game without much adjustment. HUGE contest tomorrow. important enough that I think whoever wins it takes the series.

    I don't think it's that simple. He's playing nearly 30 mins per night. He's getting ALL the matchups. He just doesn't look his usual silky smooth self and I think it might be because of Vegas' style of play. It's rough and rugged with big defenders who pack the slot tightly in the defensive zone. However, Miro was the best-rated skater on the ice in Game 3.

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  11. 57 minutes ago, Skipper said:

    Interesting.  My eyes didn't see him playing that poorly.  His minutes have been absurd.  Concerning if he's wearing down.

    Also, and I'm trying to remember exactly but I don't think he looked particularly good last year in the Vegas series. I could be wrong. (I checked -- he was a team-worst -7 in the WCF last season.)

  12. 19 minutes ago, Skipper said:

    Biden is lucky the election isn't this month.  Hopefully this entire issue is out of the news cycle by then.   Because the radical left is completely fucking him over at the moment.  If they don't show up and vote for him they are fucking him.  And by having these losers protesting lead off national news daily they are fucking him.   A big reason Biden won was he carried the college educated white vote and in particular women.  Are all these women still going to show up and vote when the face of the "other team" is campus takeover nonsense with a risk junior's commencement is cancelled?  Biden is doing absolutely nothing wrong but it doesn't matter.  People can put their head in the sand all they want but liberalism run amok is absolutely going to help Trump get back in office.    

    Yeah, I'm starting to become worried that this could spiral into a real issue for the fall election. I'm hoping it will die down over the summer as many kids go home and we (hopefully) get a cease-fire of some sort in Gaza. But the shit's getting worse at Columbia and at other campuses across the nation. I'm sure Trump is loving the chaos. We cannot lose focus and that is doing whatever it takes to defeat Trump in November.

  13. 38 minutes ago, Skipper said:

    Interesting.  My eyes didn't see him playing that poorly.  His minutes have been absurd.  Concerning if he's wearing down.

    I didn't think he looked great last night but, yes, the minutes might be taking an effect especially since we're rolling with just five defensemen.

  14. 1 hour ago, Longboard Horn said:

    Predators, Capitals and Lightning are eliminated. Hopefully the Maple Leafs tonight. 

    Man, I've always thought of the Maple Leafs as my Eastern Conference team -- great uniforms, great (albeit old) history. I was a huge Doug Gilmour fan and then Mats Sundin in the early 00's when I was actually helping cover hockey for a living. I've been waiting on their "Boston Red Sox moment" for 20+ years. But it's gotten tiresome to see the same old team year after year after year. The Leafs really are Charlie Brown trying to kick the football and I might actually be rooting for their demise tonight. I don't mind Boston and happy to see Jim Montgomery's career resurgence so I think I'm pulling for the B's.

    Florida-Boston in R2 would be delightful. Rangers-Carolina on the other side and that's a hell of a East Final Four. So I'll take that -- and Dallas-Colorado, Vancouver-Edmonton in the West. I think I'd like that very much.

  15. 1 hour ago, 4th&Five said:

    He still won’t go to the graduation. 

    And that will be hilarious.

    @Francisco 2.0, mucho gusto for posting the NYT blog entries. Remind me, though. Don't they read from the bottom up from how you're copying/pasting? I think that's how they were last week but a few seem like they could be read "normally." Again, thanks for doing God's work on this.

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  16. My apologies for not posting these for Games 2 and 3. Here's the Dallas skater stat card for Game 4:

     Screenshot2024-04-30at10_02_18AM.thumb.png.064f0d980a75704ae5ef8085362ea219.png

     

    According to this, Tanev was our best skater last night. Can't really argue with that. He was +3 after all and I thought he was extremely solid, especially considering the way we bunkered down to protect the 3-2 lead. Going down this list, I noticed Lindell a couple of times as well, perhaps most when he got a stick in to break up a chance in the third that was about to be a dangerous scoring chance down low to Otter's left. IIRC, it was basically a wide open net if Lindell doesn't lift the Vegas' player's stick. I liked Duchene and Dadonov's game too. That said, we cannot have names like Miro, Robo, Harley and Hintz at the bottom of this list. Roope had a heroic final 60 seconds after a dreadful game prior to that. Miro's chart is putrid -- probably one of the worst of the season. He had a game-worst -3.80 game score.

    As I said a couple of times last night, that game was not very pleasing aesthetically. It is not one you show to non or casual hockey fans who you're trying to convert BUT a win is a win is a win. And we got it. If we can get by the Knights, I think the next round likely against Colorado could be some breath-taking hockey and I hope we get to see it. But I digress ...

     

    Screenshot2024-04-30at10_29_13AM.thumb.png.6f000fe4100886ee5950904b06e0e3a1.png

    The full game stat card shows Otter was solid, it not spectacular. He gave up two goals -- one pretty soft one -- and had an XGA of 2.92. On the other side, Logan Thompson continues to outplay his XGA. In G3, it was near six and he gave up only three. Last night it was 4.64 and he let in three -- two were greasy AF "puck luck" goals off the side of his head and Dellandrea's shoulder. Still, he looks like he's completely out of sorts in some scrambles and I'm wondering if they use the eye test and throw Cup-winning Adin Hill out there to change things up. Then I look at Thompson's stats and it appears he's playing brilliantly.

    At any rate, the Stars should be commended for getting this series back even after it looked really fucking bleak last week. It's a best-of-3 and the Stars have (shudder) home ice advantage.

  17. 1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

    The infrastructure bill helps everyone, young people included. The chips bill helps everyone, young people included. Strengthening unions helps all workers, young people included. Wages for everyone are higher when unions are strong, union and non-union workers alike. Global warming is a problem that will affect young people more than it will affect me. Biden acknowledges it and is trying to address it. He’s not doing enough, but the other side denies that the problem even exists. The repeal of Roe v. Wade affects young people, not grandma and grandpa. Biden wants to codify abortion rights into law. Young women (and real men) should be turning out in droves to oppose the GOP.

    What the fuck more do young people want? The next perfect president will be the first perfect president. The alternative is such a looming fucking disaster that it’s insane it’s even a question among decent, normal, educated people about whom to vote for.

    Basically what I wanted to say but couldn't at midnight last night. Well put. The current alternative to a less-than-perfect Biden is terrifying.

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