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A story about a pathetic man's downfall


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On 4/26/2022 at 5:28 PM, High Plains Drifter said:

 

 I hate to insult jelly fish or parasitic worms but these fucks don't have a spine between them. More worried about re-election than democracy itself.

 

 

...he portions of the book reviewed by The Post detail how leading Washington Republicans loathed or were skeptical of Trump behind the scenes — yet capitulated repeatedly to his demands, fearful of his powerful and loyal base and his ability to damage them politically.

 Throughout the book, countless Republicans bad-mouth Trump in private, highlighting his erraticism and devious behavior, only to heap praise on him publicly.

That night, with the attack seared in his mind, McConnell took a strident tone against Trump and his desire to slash his influence going forward, according to the book. Citing the 2014 midterm elections, where McConnell attacked some of the fringe far-right candidates, he said he would take Trump and his ilk down in the 2022 midterms.

McConnell tells his staff that Trump is a “despicable person” and says he will take him on politically.

The most searing indictment of today’s GOP is this— their leaders’ worst political nightmare is to get caught saying something that’s true or ethical.

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Valentin Broeksmit, an informant who worked with federal authorities investigating former President Trump’s relationship with the German financial giant Deutsche Bank, was found dead Monday on a high school campus in the El Sereno neighborhood.

Broeksmit, 46, was reported missing by friends and family a year ago, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. He was last seen driving a red 2020 Mini Cooper around 4 p.m. on April 6, 2021, on Riverside Drive at Griffith Park. His car was found, but Broeksmit remained missing — until Monday, when the L.A. County coroner’s office identified his body.

Cleaning crews at Woodrow Wilson High School found Broeksmit’s body just before 7 a.m., according to Sgt. Rudy Perez with the Los Angeles School Police Department.

Perez said classes resumed while investigators isolated the scene. Broeksmit appeared to be homeless, according to Perez.

 

The coroner’s office did not reveal a cause of death pending an investigation.

There was no evidence of foul play or unusual circumstances, according to Capt. Kenneth Cabrera with the Los Angeles Police Department.

 

Broeksmit, the son of Deutsche Bank executive Bill Broeksmit, handed off a trove of confidential documents to federal authorities who were investigating the troubled financial institution, according to a 2019 profile in the New York Times. His father had killed himself in 2014, and Valentin Broeksmit went on to share his father’s files with numerous journalists and government investigators, including a trip to an FBI office in Los Angeles, the newspaper reported.

Forensic News Network journalist Scott Stedman said he was one of the journalists who received documents from Broeksmit, which highlighted the bank’s “deep Russia connections.” Broeksmit was reported missing in 2021, but Stedman said they talked in January.

“It is very sad,” Stedman wrote on Twitter. “I don’t suspect foul play. Val struggled with drugs on and off.”

Broeksmit was born in Ukraine and adopted by Bill Broeksmit, his mother’s second husband, according to the New York Times. As an adult, Valentin had a history of opioid abuse and was a member of an unsuccessful rock band. He referred to himself on Twitter as a “comically terrible spy.” The U.S. House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed him numerous times during its examination of Deutsche Bank and its relationship with Trump.

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13 hours ago, 'stache said:

I know this has been posted before, but it's so goddamned spot on it should be posted every few pages here. Every word is completely unassailable. Even the most ardent trump supporter could not credibly find a single misstatement or untruth. I often struggle to fully articulate the problems with this man because there is seemingly something dumber every second. This summary is just so fucking right.

 

This is a great piece. Parenthetical, the Marquess of Queensbury had a lot in common with Trump.  He was a total asshole with multiple divorces, philandered, and once left a note that read “to Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite.” Misspelling in the original. That ended up with Wilde being imprisoned and dying. Boxing was really looked down upon  and his association with that and all the rest made him a pariah in London. There’s almost no record of any hint of kindness or humor.

On the other hand, he did apparently sincerely believe in something (atheism) and that’s more character than Trump. 
 

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14 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I somewhat disagree.  He is a savant when it comes to self-promotion.  It's not a "genius" thing, per se -- it's just his "gift."  Kind of like how some people have a gift for engaging you in conversation in a way that makes you feel like you're the most important person they've ever met.  That's usually not a product of careful study, or high IQ -- it's just something wrapped up in their innate way of being in the world.

Well, Trump has an innate way of being in the world that makes him a gifted con man and manipulator.  It's truly amazing to watch -- he performs at the highest level in that regard.  The truth is cold, but still true: a multiple-times failed businessman who is not very bright at all managed to convince tens of millions of people not just to vote for him but that he is literally anointed by God to be the leader of all men.  There's no questioning the level of his accomplishment there.  That those gifts were given to someone who is pure id, completely amoral, and perhaps the most pathological selfish narcissist in human history is humanity's very, very, very bad fortune.

If bullshit was music, he’d be a symphony. But that crap doesn’t work on or for everybody.

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On 4/27/2022 at 10:55 AM, Brisketexan said:

I somewhat disagree.  He is a savant when it comes to self-promotion.  It's not a "genius" thing, per se -- it's just his "gift."  Kind of like how some people have a gift for engaging you in conversation in a way that makes you feel like you're the most important person they've ever met.  That's usually not a product of careful study, or high IQ -- it's just something wrapped up in their innate way of being in the world.

Well, Trump has an innate way of being in the world that makes him a gifted con man and manipulator.  It's truly amazing to watch -- he performs at the highest level in that regard.  The truth is cold, but still true: a multiple-times failed businessman who is not very bright at all managed to convince tens of millions of people not just to vote for him but that he is literally anointed by God to be the leader of all men.  There's no questioning the level of his accomplishment there.  That those gifts were given to someone who is pure id, completely amoral, and perhaps the most pathological selfish narcissist in human history is humanity's very, very, very bad fortune.

Even that gives him too much credit. I don't think he did it knowingly or with any real thought. I think he started being outlandish for attention to sell steaks and fake college admissions. He ran for president for the headlines and cameras. At any other time in history he would have been laughed off the stage and he'd still be doing shitty tv shows and his fake college would probably still be a thing. He struck at a time when people started paying attention to systemic racism, income inequality, runaway excesses of capitalism, which some right wing thinktank labeled as "woke" and trumphe just happened to be the literal embodiment of the opposite. He was saying things that ordinary uneducated white trash had been largely holding back since the 70s and gave them free reign. It was all intentional from the smart folk who have been manipulating morons for decades to vote republican, this classless fat fuck just happened to take a stage at the moment in time it went way too far. There's no turning back now. McConnell et all complaining behind closed doors can literally fuck their own faces. They did this knowingly, they just never expected that an abject moron would be the primary beneficiary. 

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45 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

Trumps is an atheist too he just lies about it.

It fascinates me that people refuse to believe that he can't believe in anything that isn't right in front of his ketchup- riddled, painted television face.

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34 minutes ago, Satchel said:

With atheism, how is belief different from knowing?

I’m not sure what you mean. Faith is the opposite of knowing. Faith is based on believing that which you don’t have reason, facts, and evidence to believe. And the faithful think there’s virtue in that. (And what better scheme could there be to convince someone to believe in bullshit?) The faithful don’t know, they just believe and pretend they know.

I’m not a believer. I’m quite convinced that religion is a man-made socio-political institution. All the evidence says so. But unlike the faithful, I can answer the question, “If you’re wrong, how would you know?” Easy. I’d have to see a miracle. I’d have to see magic happen. Lay your hands on me, tell me what ails me, and cure me. Or let me at least see a burning bush that isn’t consumed by the fire and let me hear the voice of God. And let me capture it on video. Why should Moses see that and not me? I’m not from Missouri but you’re still going to have to show me.

Don’t try to drag me into some epistemological trap about what is knowledge. There’s nothing I claim to know that can’t be changed if new facts and evidence come to light. That’s the best a rational, thinking person can do. The faithful don’t do that. They have their belief, plug their ears, and go, ‘La la la la la’!’ and shut off their minds to any other possible reality.

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48 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I’d say atheism is the affirmative belief that there is no god. 
 

whereas agnosticism is more like a lack of belief. 

It would seem there is a place for affirmative belief in both atheism and Christianity.

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50 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I’d say atheism is the affirmative belief that there is no god. 

whereas agnosticism is more like a lack of belief. 

If you’re an agnostic and someone asks you, “Do you believe in God?” What’s your answer? Yes or no?

Agnostics are atheists because they have to answer “No.”

If God exists then he knows where I live. He’s welcome to present himself anytime.

I’d like to ask him why he’s been doing such a shitty job. 

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6 minutes ago, Satchel said:

It would seem there is a place for affirmative belief in both atheism and Christianity.

I can affirm that Christianity is the only one of the Abrahamic religions whose prophet wasn’t a member of the religion. At least Moses was a Jew and Muhammad was a Muslim. 

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15 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I’m not sure what you mean. Faith is the opposite of knowing. Faith is based on believing that which you don’t have reason, facts, and evidence to believe. And the faithful think there’s virtue in that. (And what better scheme could there be to convince someone to believe in bullshit?) The faithful don’t know, they just believe and pretend they know.

I’m not a believer. I’m quite convinced that religion is a man-made socio-political institution. All the evidence says so. But unlike the faithful, I can answer the question, “If you’re wrong, how would you know?” Easy. I’d have to see a miracle. I’d have to see magic happen. Lay your hands on me, tell me what ails me, and cure me. Or let me at least see a burning bush that isn’t consumed by the fire and let me hear the voice of God. And let me capture it on video. Why should Moses see that and not me? I’m not from Missouri but you’re still going to have to show me.

Don’t try to drag me into some epistemological trap about what is knowledge. There’s nothing I claim to know that can’t be changed if new facts and evidence come to light. That’s the best a rational, thinking person can do. The faithful don’t do that. They have their belief, plug their ears, and go, ‘La la la la la’!’ and shut off their minds to any other possible reality.

Not my intention at all. I just see faith and the need to believe as essentially the same things. 

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45 minutes ago, Satchel said:

Not my intention at all. I just see faith and the need to believe as essentially the same things. 

The difference is that the rational person doesn’t choose what they want to believe. I want to know the truth, I don’t care what the truth is. It’s not my opinion that penicillin kills bacteria. It’s not my opinion that the world is round or that the sun will rise in the East tomorrow. I don’t choose what I believe. The faithful do. 

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10 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

If you’re an agnostic and someone asks you, “Do you believe in God?” What’s your answer? Yes or no?

Agnostics are atheists because they have to answer “No.”

If God exists then he knows where I live. He’s welcome to present himself anytime.

I’d like to ask him why he’s been doing such a shitty job. 

The binary answers are the faith and atheism sides of the “is god real?” coin. Agnostics don’t have to provide a binary answer, because they don’t believe either way. Atheism requires the same belief without proof that faith does. 

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4 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

The binary answers are the faith and atheism sides of the “is god real?” coin. Agnostics don’t have to provide a binary answer, because they don’t believe either way. Atheism requires the same belief without proof that faith does. 

No it doesn’t. 

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26 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Mythology talk not going away.

The myth of Trump being a savvy businessman, a capable deal maker, and a strong leader is sort of central to the topic at hand, isn’t it? Then there’s also the reality that so many self-proclaimed Christians believe in such an utterly un-Christian man, at least “Christian” as defined by the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Bible.

Speaking of myths, I moved about six months ago and when I was cleaning out my attic I located my long misplaced copy of The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. It’s worth a read.

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Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

Yes it does!

This isn’t an argument!

Funny.

Agnosticism means you don’t know. Atheism means you don’t believe. If you don’t know then you don’t believe. It really is that simple. Atheism isn’t a belief system anymore than off is a tv channel.

Replace “god” with Bigfoot, unicorns, leprechauns, Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny and the concept is exactly the same, and maybe easier for some to grasp. 

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22 hours ago, 'stache said:

Even that gives him too much credit. I don't think he did it knowingly or with any real thought. I think he started being outlandish for attention to sell steaks and fake college admissions. He ran for president for the headlines and cameras. At any other time in history he would have been laughed off the stage and he'd still be doing shitty tv shows and his fake college would probably still be a thing. He struck at a time when people started paying attention to systemic racism, income inequality, runaway excesses of capitalism, which some right wing thinktank labeled as "woke" and trumphe just happened to be the literal embodiment of the opposite. He was saying things that ordinary uneducated white trash had been largely holding back since the 70s and gave them free reign. It was all intentional from the smart folk who have been manipulating morons for decades to vote republican, this classless fat fuck just happened to take a stage at the moment in time it went way too far. There's no turning back now. McConnell et all complaining behind closed doors can literally fuck their own faces. They did this knowingly, they just never expected that an abject moron would be the primary beneficiary. 

and he got to run against hillary, who had been getting dragged by rush and fox news for two decades. they did the heavy lifting. 

he learned you don’t run on ideas, you run on fear and pinning impropriety on your opponent. thats why he withheld aid to ukraine. that’s why he’s so mad the hunter laptop story didn’t “work”.

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22 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

And I'm super high and  admit i probably used the wrong terminology but you fuckers know what i mean and i love you all. Probably not all all, but you know who you are. 

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