seven billion dollars and 18 years
We are getting a sparkly new aircraft carrier! That someone in the future will have to pay for.It's not just France, it's everyone. Modern politics is all about short-termism. Soundbites not policies. What looks good today rather than what is good tomorrow. This is partly due to sensationalist media coverage and partly due to elections coming around every few years, bringing new people into power. Governments want to look good right now, in order to maintain their support; they are disincentivised from doing something that might be costly right now but reap huge rewards in five or ten years' time... because whoever is in power at that future time will doubtless take all the credit, whilst condemning their 'fiscally irresponsible' predecessors who actually initiated the beneficial change. Not sure what the answer is. You'd think that maybe the situation would get worse and worse until it reached the level of absurdity, at which point it would all collapse and we'd start again with a more responsible approach to governing... but arguably we are well past the point of absurdity already. Ah this really does strike the nail on the head about the short term thoughts of our current political structure. People don't even know what the long term effects of decisions will have, nor do they even care, short term benefit has taken over pretty much every facet of our lives. Stock market returns? The shareholders DEMAND short term growth over long term sustainable growth. Government Policies? The people DEMAND action now, even if that action will hurt them in the long run. People like flashy headline grabbing stuff, that's just how people work sadly. Why in gods name does France need a nuclear aircraft carrier that'll cost a ton of money? Nobody knows, it's just something that countries do. Could there be an argument about global influence and this aircraft carrier? I guess, but is France going to be peddling this thing around the world threatening countries to work with them or be attacked? Who the hell knows. The military industrial complex is happy though. But at this point saying that is just like saying the sky is blue. |
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no. hospitals wont send patients a bill.
hospitals charge the government/insurance company.
insurance companies do allow for vaccines for free
Yeah that's not how it works in the US. Hospitals (if someone is unlucky enough to get the vaccine in a hospital) will definitely send massive bills for everything except perhaps the vaccine itself, so $10k - $10 = $9990 billed to the patient. Pharmacies that usually do vaccines for flu etc often subsidize those as loss leaders... not sure if that's going to work for COVID-19 though. Insurance companies don't "allow" shit. If by some miracle they make it "free" it will be rolled into next year's premiums.... Some things Franky should really shut up on. This is why the US cannot succeed with socialized medicine, the established power structures would bleed people dry. It'd be 120% for them not for the people. Regardless, what Trump said was the vaccine would be free, but when I saw the list of operations that would be dispensing it, like CVS and Walgreens, it's hard to believe that. Maybe if you present an insurance card, then it's 0 copay. Maybe. But a lot of people are never, every going to pay 35 or 50$ or any sum for this flu shot. I mean when the sitting President of the United States is saying that the vaccine should be free, he should ensure that it can be fully free for people. Free from any administrative expenses or anything along those lines. CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, and so on are going to benefit from the government not only paying for them to administer this vaccine but they're providing an influx of people to enter your store. Free marketing which should translate into other sales for a good amount of people as well. But we'll see what this roll out looks like in the coming weeks / months. Would hate to see certain groups left out just because they can't pay the administrative fees for some BS paperwork requirements. |
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Probably, if Trump doesn't activate the Insurrection Act, nobody else will do anything in a big way.
The time is near where Trump will have to activate the Insurrection Act, or otherwise forget it.
I don’t think the insurrection act will do much for trump. The military was not on Trumps side during the summer when there was riots and a legitimate need to invoke the insurrection act, or at least the top of the military was not on his side. Trump trying to use the military to stay in power is not going to end well for the US, and would probably not turn out well for Trump either. Like, what the fuck is this even at this point. Why do people think that it's okay that Donald Trump is going to activate the Insurrection Act -- this man would literally be declaring martial law and and destroying the democracy that we've built to this point. Conservatives for years yelled about Obama and how he was going to takeover American democracy to further his own interests. He NEVER declared martial law and he never attempted to takeover the country. I don't think he'll do it, but if he does that's a truly horrible thing that should never be done. EVER. |
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Awww.... The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.
Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.
Trump's gonna be upset. Edit - of course:   So he's whining that he got more votes than other presidents... someone should tell him that (a) he was running against Biden, not against other presidents, and (b) Electoral College. Or don't tell him. Clearly he doesn't care about anything other than keeping the scam going and we got nothing better to do than to see him melt down. Keeping the scam going is the only thing that matters at this point. Ensure that the people (Republicans in his case) continue to believe his narrative and dump money into his PAC. Guy has raised $300M+ from this entire thing. If he is able to keep the fundraising going during a Biden presidency then he'll be able to continue his grip on the party. Crazy. |
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NBC says the source is an email from Rudy Giuliani’s Attorney...apparently they had this information prior to the election? Obviously Giuliani is pro Trump, I'm surprised he would not have released this earlier. I don't think it would have made any difference considering the entire story barely picked up any media attention, but it sure as hell would have put a rest to the myth that Joe Biden is this squeaky clean politician. Sure looks like he let his son license out his last name for metric ass loads of cash. The part that strikes me is that even though the source is Rudy Giulianis attorney, they still think the story is credible enough to be run with. What's changed from the before the election NY Post story to now to make it 'credible enough' for the rest of the mainstream news companies to run with it too. Yet again, all of this smells of a problem being hidden to ensure that Biden wouldn't lose to Trump on those last minute voters either deciding to not go out and vote or to go for Trump. |
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He's done in four years what no one has done.
so true  OOF. I guess you could add in continuing to say that he won the election and is refusing to concede the race. Guy still hasn't made the phone call to Joe Biden and hasn't begun to call for the country to unite behind the winner. I do still think that he's going to leave the WH without any sort of issue. He'll just walk right out while calling it a fraud and then try to start his own little news company or whatever. He raised around 200-300m off this entire thing. |
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....
i feel all potential nominees need to submit their tax returns before even starting the primaries/caucuses
to atleast give people and IRS many months to find out how dodgy someone is at handling money. managing things, honesty and trust
Tax returns don't show any of those factors. Totally true, tax returns don't really show a lot of substance anyway. At least for most people. Ehhhhh. I still think the Trump phone call to Zelensky still looks pretty good because it points to a sitting President directing an investigation into a political enemy for the reason of wanting to take them out of the race. Even if he was doing something wrong, you really don't want the President to be directing who is getting investigated and who isn't. I think it's a bit of a different story though if the President learns of people in the DOJ trying to cover up the story / stop the investigation due to some deep state conspiracy. Though I haven't seen any stories about that. |
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Some breaking news out of today that I assume everyone has already seen: Hunter Biden, President-Elect Joe Bidens son, is under federal tax investigation relating to his international consulting / business dealings. We're not really sure exactly how long this investigation has been ongoing, I've heard some reports that it's been open since 2018 but this is the first time the DOJ has said something to the Bidens'. I'm not a legal expert, though I'm pretty sure that this case was probably open prior to the election. There was no leaks for this particular investigation, and I think if there was it would've been another attack avenue for the whole Hunter Biden corruption thing that the Trump campaign was trying to do. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/hunter-biden-under-federal-investigation-over-taxes.html"Prior to the election" Yes, I've read that it was ongoing and certainly before 11-3. Maybe it was six or twelve months earlier. But it was related to the cases where associates of his were convicted and he was not. I've seen some of this as well, though I haven't been able to get any reputable sources to back this. Pretty sure ZeroHedge said something like this on their twitter, so I guess that works. Gotcha though, even without reputable sources backing this the investigation had to be started prior to the investigation. So he's qualified to run for president in 2024 and doesn't have to disclose his taxes because audit? I think that's how IRS investigations work  No, that's certainly not how "IRS investigations work", when you are (although certainly not admitting it) talking about the weaponized, targeting of conservatives during the Obama regime, which is the time of the audit in question. So are you pro weaponizing the IRS to target people of certain political inclinations? Never mind, don't bother trying to dodge the issue. It'll start up soon enough again if Biden gets in. Not sure if you're noticing that he is making a joke about President Trump here -- about the fact that he kept pointing to an audit that was ongoing for years as the reason for not showing people his tax returns. That's that. The joke is about how precedent would allow for Hunter Biden to run for Pres now and no one should have issues with his taxes. |
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They're trying to maintain the dominance of Trump on the GOP and that's the only thing they're trying to do here.
Also convince people to give Trump money (that they think will help him win a second term but actually goes to pay off his debt). Just to be completely transparent, that is to pay for debt from the campaign. Not for personal debt, business debt, or anything along those lines. Very common for campaigns to use debt as a way to leverage themselves, though the lack of transparency when it comes to 'election fraud security payments' being used to pay mostly campaign debt is the bullshit part here. Not sure what the split is in regards to how much is servicing debt and how much is going to the lawyers, but yeah. Trying to ensure that no one can try to cut up your argument on some BS technical point. |
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Some breaking news out of today that I assume everyone has already seen: Hunter Biden, President-Elect Joe Bidens son, is under federal tax investigation relating to his international consulting / business dealings. We're not really sure exactly how long this investigation has been ongoing, I've heard some reports that it's been open since 2018 but this is the first time the DOJ has said something to the Bidens'. I'm not a legal expert, though I'm pretty sure that this case was probably open prior to the election. There was no leaks for this particular investigation, and I think if there was it would've been another attack avenue for the whole Hunter Biden corruption thing that the Trump campaign was trying to do. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/hunter-biden-under-federal-investigation-over-taxes.html |
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Not really sure how the court actually makes a decision on this, though I think that because this is Altios 'area' in regards to where court cases come from he may have some sort of control of these cases. Even then, the court probably couldn't get a majority to agree on bringing this up because it's garbage anyway.
Alito takes emergency cases from his area and decides to refer them to the full court or not... in this case he did. AFAIK they don't need a majority to accept it, only 4 (or is it 3?) in favor is enough. Ah yes, this is what I was talking about. I think it is actually think it is 3 instead of 4. You'd think that the conservative bloc of ACB, Alito, and Thomas (or Roberts/Gorscheuh - spelling) would be able to easily 'give it' to Trump if there was at least some merit behind this case. Everyone was screaming that the Conservative block was going to give it to Trump, and they didn't. That's really the end of it for the campaign in regards to legal challenges. PA was kind of the best bet for them, and that's not working out. Results are certified, as the safe harbor deadline is today -- or was yesterday -- and that's the end of the road. Not really sure what else is being planned for this marketing stunt, but it's really done now. |
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Two United States District Court judges blocked Trump campaign election challenges in Georgia and Michigan Monday, slamming them for their overreach and presumption. The dismissed Georgia case was the infamous “Kraken” lawsuit filed by Trump attorney Sidney Powell.
So that's it, the Kraken has been slain. And it didn't even take the head of Medusa to cast a gaze and turn it to stone. Just a couple frumpy judges reiterating what the intelligent masses have already known: Trump is out of his mind. Little bit more then that. Trump and his legal team is out of their mind... THAT EXPLAINS IT! Nice that you've made it so clear to us all. It never would have occurred to me that they were all out of their mind. Oh, wait, this is just more Trump hate and Trump ridicule. I mean if you want to argue a point here then that's something. I'm really giving the Trump admin/campaign the benefit of the doubt when it comes to why they're doing all of this. I don't think the admin thinks they'll be able to overturn the elections, and I don't think the intention of any of these lawsuits was to do that. They're trying to maintain the dominance of Trump on the GOP and that's the only thing they're trying to do here. Can we agree on that? Or no? |
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Two United States District Court judges blocked Trump campaign election challenges in Georgia and Michigan Monday, slamming them for their overreach and presumption. The dismissed Georgia case was the infamous “Kraken” lawsuit filed by Trump attorney Sidney Powell.
So that's it, the Kraken has been slain. And it didn't even take the head of Medusa to cast a gaze and turn it to stone. Just a couple frumpy judges reiterating what the intelligent masses have already known: Trump is out of his mind. Little bit more then that. Trump and his legal team is out of their mind. Though I think they know EXACTLY what they're doing. Rudy Giuliani is not someone you have around when you think you're going to win a legal case and be done with it. He's someone you have around when you're trying to make a media spectacle of the whole thing. If this was a real case this wouldn't be the case. But the reason for this is that this has the intention of raising money and keeping Trump relevant, nothing more and nothing less. |
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no. hospitals wont send patients a bill.
hospitals charge the government/insurance company.
insurance companies do allow for vaccines for free
Yeah that's not how it works in the US. Hospitals (if someone is unlucky enough to get the vaccine in a hospital) will definitely send massive bills for everything except perhaps the vaccine itself, so $10k - $10 = $9990 billed to the patient. Pharmacies that usually do vaccines for flu etc often subsidize those as loss leaders... not sure if that's going to work for COVID-19 though. Insurance companies don't "allow" shit. If by some miracle they make it "free" it will be rolled into next year's premiums. in america medical insurance companies are willing to pay this $30-$50 because its far cheaper to pay upto $50k for 1000 people than to not.. because by not they then later have 400 asking them for mild symptom meds and 150 that require hospital care/intensive care. as those costs to the insurance company would be more than $50k
If that's how it worked, the US would be the healthiest nation in the world. But it isn't. Go figure. It's almost as if the for-profit healthcare and insurance industries found ways to make money off sick people. All of this is totally true, they'll charge you about $500 for the 'device used to control bleeding' which in regular terms is just a 'Band-Aid' and crap like that. I think we all see a story or two about that stuff every so often. The only way companies would allow this is if government would force them into fully ensuring that the vaccine is free, which is not something we know much about right now. I'm expecting public outrage to be large enough that this will be the case in the end though. As to the part about premiums, not something we'll know now. But that's a sneaky way to handle things and I assume that'll probably be the way things go as a way to hide it from the customer. |
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I believe people still have rights to prove fraud even if election is over
If you bury such evidence without justice or fixing the problems , an evil entity could still repeat thesame fraud without fear of consequences.
Well, I strongly believe they will not succeed to legally remove the current President with the frauds
There is nothing to bury because zero evidence was presented. 40+ lawsuits have been tossed out for that exact reason. The US legal system is extremely transparent - you can look up most state and federal cases online and see for yourself. There's also one part of this whole thing that does not make sense. The sitting US President does, kinda, have the full force of the US DOJ behind him when it comes to putting some pressure on them to investigate cases. Trump did use this to pressure Barr into investigating these cases, which he did. Barr instructed prosecutors to seek out leads about election fraud and found nothing. Barr came out and said there'd been nothing found that would change the fate of the election. That's that. If new information comes along in the future everyone would be happy to hear it to ensure that this process is legitimate. But as of right now the legal claims of the campaign/admin have no legs. |
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That's all that is really needed though, there is no substance to this case and there is literally no reason for the SC to take up the case. If they did it would probably end up being a 9-0 decision in favor of the lower courts decision blocking what the Trump admin wants. Not really sure how the court actually makes a decision on this, though I think that because this is Altios 'area' in regards to where court cases come from he may have some sort of control of these cases. Even then, the court probably couldn't get a majority to agree on bringing this up because it's garbage anyway. |
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At the risk of ruining the joke if you're actually trolling and not merely stupid (it's getting harder to tell these days), I'd like you to check whether the word "satire" appears in the latest edition of the OED. Just a shitty joke that has been repeated on the internet time and time again to show people that they're being 'gullible' for thinking that they would remove the word 'gullible' from the dictionary. If it was anyone else writing this then it'd be easier to say that they were joking, but you're totally right when it's said that it's hard to tell. Here is the first page of Google results on the matter:  |
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She definitely made it far from her small European home town to the white House in USA. I didn't read her book and but it looks like she negotiated a pretty good deal for her son compared to Trumps other kids. I don't understand why the media keeps on gateing6on her and wants to ruin the relationship of her and Donald trump.
Not sure what you're talking about, unless you're talking about the prenup that was rumored to have been in negotiations during the first year or so of Donald Trumps presidency. I didn't see any info relating to what was in that prenup though. His other kids seem to be making out pretty well, lol. They'll be running the Trump empire when he goes as they're running it right now. |
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Agreed. I think before this can even be touched we need to fix healthcare in the US first. Hospital stays can be far more damaging and charging $100 an aspirin is straight up corrupt.
...
Actually, the current state of student loans is not well understood. Almost all today, are federal direct debt, or federally insured. They are at a substantial interest rate. Let's say for discussion here, 6-8%. Who gets the profit? To the extent it's the federal government, they have zero cost in the money printed for the loan, and thus make the profit from nothing invested. "Out of thin air." Now if the fed "forgives the loan," it does not lose the principal, that essentially never existed, it loses the interest/profit. When the FED printed money to the point where it could not pay the interest at market rates, then it had to take steps to force interest rates to near zero. Student loans became a nice source of income for the fed. CBO estimates that the government is losing a substantial chunk of change on student loans every year, see here: The cost of federal student loan programs is widely debated. The CBO provides two different estimates based on low discount rates and "fair value" discount rates. If you rely on the fair value estimate, the government loses approximately $100 billion to $250 billion per year, including $40+ billion in administrative costs. In other words, the government does not recoup the value of the loans, putting present and future taxpayers in the position of guarantor. Government hadn't always taken on these loans though, back in 2010 when the ACA was passed the government began to do this though. Prior to this, the government would guarantee the majority of loans and have them held by private banks while only holding a bit. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, a majority of student loans originated with a private lender but were guaranteed by the government, meaning taxpayers foot the bill if student borrowers default.
The main culprit is student loans, which the federal government effectively monopolized in a little-known provision of the Affordable Care Act, signed into law in 2010. Many different people say different things though, as I've seen many sites quoted by people saying that government makes tons of money off of these loans. Pretty sure that is also one of Elizabeth Warrens talking points. |
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