Hodad

I'm not sure what you think you posted here, but that's not remotely similar. ^^The 2000 Florida recounts were just that: recounts. And the Supreme Court playing referee. Nobody said that Trump shouldn't be allowed to embarrass himself with 60+ failed court cases. But should be be able to threaten and pressure state or local election officials to "find" him enough votes to win? No, that's radically different Should he lead and his cronies a conspiracy of "fake electors" and pressure the VP to count them instead of the certified electors? Obviously not. That's fraud, and a brazen attempt to overthrow democracy in America. And this is the behavior that you think is equivalent to a recount? GTFO!

Yes, federally you can vote without ID. You establish eligibility when you register. You have to show up at your specific polling place, give them your info and match signature. No, non citizens cannot vote in federal elections, or most elections in general. It's a fictional problem. FUD.

We all know he runs his own account. This is just who he is, and who he's always been.

You "saw" my abhorrent public statements by the President's inner circle and then "raised" with something some rando on Twitter posted about some other rando. Touche. I guess your really do know how this works.

True. Amazing stuff on the head, very little in it.

Are you farking kidding? Those aren't even fringe views in MAGA world. Trump's woefully unqualified secretary of defense reposted a video from his vile pastor about how women shouldn't vote. Trump's buddy Steve Bannon is on record that only land owners should vote. It's not just some kook in the Alabama state house. This shit is coming from in and around the white house. Those are the people you want in power. You might as well own it.

Lost what, dummy? You don't even make sense.

When your wife sends you out to buy apples, do you come home with watermelons instead? These are comically bad comparisons. The falsest of equivalences. I don't know whether you don't understand or are deliberately misrepresenting what it means to delegitimize and election, or to demand loyalty to a leader rather than an institution, etc. etc., but that ain't it. For example, saying that Trump + Russia conspired to manipulate voters is VASTLY different than saying that vote counts were manipulated to rig the outcome. The first statement says that you can't trust Trump. The second says that you can't trust American democracy. And if you can't spot the difference between the two, that's a big problem. Good luck with your watermelons!

A. You would observe a change in states that passed voter ID laws. (didn't happen) B. You would spot it in signature matching. C. You'd have a lot of instances of two people trying to vote using the same identity. D. I know you love Trump, but do you love him enough to give up year(s) of your life in prison to get him JUST ONE vote? Nah? Because that's crazy. Nobody sane is taking that risk. And yes, I know that mail in ballots are also being targeted, but that's not the conversation we were having about voter ID. And it's telling that instead of trying to legislate secure remote voting best practices they are, again, just trying to make it more difficult to vote. Hey, if you can't restrict voting to white, male land owners, at least we can restrict it to people who have easy transportation and flexible work schedules. 🙄

It has to come down! It just HAS to! Because the economy runs on wishes and dreams instead of supply and demand. So let's not move so quickly past the fact that you had the relationship between interest rates and the strength of the dollar ass backward, because it's a good segue into why the rest of this is also backward. None of that is subjective. It's basic economics and even more basic common sense. Saying Trump’s tariffs didn’t damage the U.S. brand is like saying a food fight doesn’t make a mess because technically the walls are still standing. Sure, the country didn’t collapse, but the global perception of the U.S. as a stable, rules‑based trading partner took a pretty obvious hit. Tariffs aren’t inherently disastrous. When applied rationally, they are just tools. But Trump didn’t use them like tools. He used them like mood swings. One day China gets hit, the next day Europe, then Mexico, then maybe not, then maybe yes, then maybe we’ll “think about it.” Markets don’t love “we’ll see.” They love predictability. And nothing about those trade wars was predictable. That’s where the “brand damage” comes in. (Well, that and threatening war on our NATO allies. And general, persistent, overwhelming repugnance.) Investors don’t just look at interest rates; they look at stability, consistency, and whether the world’s largest economy is being run like a G7 nation or Trump's stupid reality TV show. When you’re slapping tariffs on allies, threatening supply chains, and announcing major economic policy on Twitter at 2 a.m., you’re not exactly projecting “safe, reliable global anchor currency.” Exports took a hit because foreign partners retaliated — as they always do — and because uncertainty itself is a tax. Companies don’t expand when they have no idea what tomorrow’s tariff list will look like. And yes, that kind of chaos weighs on the dollar. High interest rates can overpower a lot of noise, but they don’t erase the noise. The dollar didn’t strengthen because of Trump’s trade wars; it strengthened despite them. High rates pulled capital in, while the tariff circus pushed confidence out. It’s like driving with one foot on the gas and one on the brake and then bragging that the car still moved forward. And the idea that this was all some master plan? That's total bullshit. So yes, the brand was damaged. You can’t run trade policy like a bipolar chihuahua and expect people to want to hold the currency as much as they have in the past. Stability is the product. Predictability is the product. And Trump’s trade wars were the opposite of both. And Trump is the one who appointed Powell as fed chair, FFS. He doesn't have TDS (though like most people, I'm sure he finds Trump repugnant). The idea that Powell--and the rest of the Fed governors--are doing anything to spite Trump is freaking hysterical. I mean, what do a group of the world's best economists know about economics that you and Trump don't? The only possible answer is that they're out to get him.🙄 The magic of the Trump cult is that he's convinced you guys to take economic advice from a man who's bankrupted six businesses--including casinos. Casinos, FFS!

Thanks for helping to prove my point. Whether that anonymous account is real or fiction, I can't say, but they guy who got caught was cheating for a Republican--and not through voter impersonation. 🤣 Not sure that went the way you intended. Per your own links, Voter ID is not helpful or necessary. Just another hoop to make it harder for people to vote. Fewer voters is a the Republican dream.

The idea that Trump and MAGA are “moderate” because they occasionally stumble into positions that sound less extreme doesn’t magically erase the broader pattern. Every rising authoritarian movement has a few policies that look centrist on paper. Mussolini built public works projects. Franco liked trains. That didn’t make them moderates. The real tell isn’t the policy menu — it’s the behavior. And MAGA’s behavior reads like a greatest‑hits compilation of classic authoritarian moves: Delegitimizing elections Casting political opponents as existential threats Demanding loyalty to a single leader over institutions Flooding the zone with conspiracy theories Painting any accountability as persecution Insisting only they represent “the real people” That’s not centrism. That’s the preface to every “How It Started” documentary about collapsing democracies. (And when a guy starts renaming shit after himself and wants to put his own face on Mt. Rushmore you know it's not about the country. You know we're in trouble.) If anything, the pattern we’re seeing — the leader‑worship, the grievance‑fueling, the mythologizing of a lost national greatness, the insistence that only one movement represents the “true nation” — lines up with the historical rise of authoritarian right‑wing regimes far more than anything happening on the left. But hey, if someone wants to cosplay as the reasonable middle while marching in lockstep behind a guy who tried to overturn an election, that’s their business. Just don’t expect the rest of us to pretend the costume is convincing.

Nah. Trump is a megalomaniacal narcissist who is happiest when he's monologuing about his favorite subject: himself. That wouldn't work for me. A pretty face is great, but unless it comes with a fully realized person I'm not remotely interested. Yawn. The reaction to first ladies is honestly a window to the conservative soul. All they wanted to talk about was how Michelle Obama, an educated and accomplished woman, wasn't pretty enough. And all they want to talk about with Melania, an uneducated and unaccomplished woman, is how pretty she is. I guess at least the shallowness is consistent.

The best money can buy! I think Trump custom ordered her with high cheekbones and low standards.

A. It is, actually. You can slice and dice it into more stages, but that's the journey. B. It's not created to mimic MAGA, it's just the playbook MAGA is using. Good on you for spotting the similarity though.

I'm curious, what could possibly make you think that is a good article? Do you really believe that the United States, by divine mandate or "might makes right," should be able to do anything we want to any nation in the Western hemisphere? That the rest of the people of this hemisphere exist to serve American interests and should be manipulated and forced to do so? Do you think you'd like living under a puppet regime, a people deprived of a voice and bent to serve US interests? Or is that just for brown people?

Don't be ridiculous--a big ask. It's not just an open voting machine where anyone can vote with no record. That's nonsense. If you think voter impersonation is a rampant problem, you have to believe someone is committing a felony for the payoff of one (1) vote while navigating a system already booby-trapped with safeguards. Here’s what they’d have to slip past: Voter registration You don’t just wander in off the street and vote. You have to be registered in advance, with your info checked against government records. Poll books When you check in, your name gets crossed off a list. That list’s entire job is “make sure this person hasn’t already voted.” It is extremely good at its job. If someone else tries to vote in that name, one or both get "caught." Signatures You sign something. That signature can be compared to the one on file. Congrats, your crime now involves handwriting analysis. One vote per human Once you vote, that’s it. You don't get to go again somewhere else. (you have one shot at one location that you have to know ahead of time.) Provisional ballots If anything seems off, your vote goes into the democracy equivalent of airport secondary screening. It only counts after you prove who you are. Voter roll maintenance States regularly clean voter rolls to remove duplicates, people who moved, and people who are no longer alive and therefore pretty unlikely to vote. And we'd certainly notice when they do. Bipartisan poll workers and observers The polls are staffed by people who do not trust each other politically and are thrilled to catch funny business. Post-election audits Paper trails, audits, and recounts exist specifically to catch irregularities after the fact. If something weird happened, it doesn’t just vanish into the ether. Felony penalties Voter impersonation is a serious crime. The risk–reward ratio here is years in prison for zero practical impact. Super dumb. So yeah — before we even get to voter ID laws, the system already assumes people might try something dumb and plans accordingly. And yes, occasionally someone DOES try something dumb, because they are not aware of all the measures in place, but it's beyond obvious that this is NOT in any way a reasonable way of cheating in or rigging an election. The manual effort of it alone is infeasible. If someone actually had the will to cheat, this would be the very last method on the list. Republicans have been lying about stolen elections for so long that they sown FUD in the population. Congratulations, I guess? But regardless of how people feel about it, the facts are that it's pointless. All cost, no payoff. And while the generally public might have been fooled by the FUD, the Republican legislators know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it.

I think you'll have several problems trying to frog-march Stephen Hawking anywhere. I assume this is just a list of names that appear somewhere in the files, no? Are you implying that there are actual allegations against, say, Katie Couric?

Really dumb take. Nobody "benefits" from voter impersonation fraud because it is virtually nonexistent--and certainly irrelevant to outcomes. Factually, it's not a problem, so what is this law really trying to accomplish? Excluding more voters.

You are such a useless turd. Again, America is not celebrating $2 gas because we don't have $2 gas. Not even in a single state, let alone nationally.

Yes, I regularly provide you with authoritative evidence to have you wave your hands and ignore it. 🙄

Maaaaaybe. But during different administrations we've seen some pretty high gas prices go unresolved even when it was politically damaging. If presidents could turn the dial up and down so easily I suspect we wouldn't have seen those prolonged periods. What do you offer the king/prince/sheik who has everything? (I probably don't wanna know.)

You really are such a clown. You can't identify any "common sense policy" that lowered gas prices, but you'd wait in line all day to rim Trump because he told you he's responsible. Just as it was true when Biden was president (and every other president), outside of starting a war in the middle east, Trump has almost zero short-term influence on gas prices. (Oil is tariff exempt.) It's a global commodity in a global marketplace driven by global supply and demand. I suppose Trump's silly tariffs have spiked the prices of many import goods, cooling demand, leading to less shipping and less oil consumption, but I don't think people view paying less to get to Walmart and paying much more in the store as a win.

And? The average in Texas is $2.46. You know, there are real sites that track fuel prices. I gave you a link already. You don't need randos..

You should always ask. Consent is very important.