The Real timschochet

Love how in your last post you offered reasons for the drop and now you doubt the drop:

Always amazes me that anyone could believe this. Even if one puts aside 2020 and Trump’s incompetent response to Covid. It’s just amazing to me that anyone thinks Trump did a good job and even more amazing that people think Biden has been horrible.

I think you’re missing the point. Maybe it is because of Abbott and not Biden. I doubt it, but at the moment I don’t have enough information to say one way or the other. But what’s important is this: if the numbers stay down it takes the issue off the table for November. And that’s what I want, frankly. I will never agree with most people in this forum about the issue of undocumented immigrants and what to do about them. Furthermore your point of view represents the majority of the American people. I get that. So the solution, for Biden, is to get this issue off the front pages. Give Biden credit, don’t give him credit, doesn’t matter. Just stop talking about it. Because another Trump presidency will be a calamity for this country IMO and so we need Biden to win again.

It’s a fair question and it’s a difficult question, and this was basically the theme of Steven Spielberg’s Munich and dozens of other movies and books. And it haunted us in our 19th century struggles against Native Americans and then in Vietnam (fighting against the Viet Cong) and Israel ever since its founding and even before. I don’t have a good answer for you. All I can say is that when you stare into the abyss, at some point it stares back.

I don’t expect anything out of Hamas. They are evil murderers. Your question is interesting to me. I’ve gotten similar questions whenever I am critical of police. I am asked what I expect of criminals. The answer is I don’t expect anything. They are criminals. I believe Israel are the good guys. Not Netanyahu in particular but Israel. So like the USA, like our police, I hold them to a high standard. I don’t hold Hamas to any standard at all.

Biden is trying to do what he can and it seems like he’s doing a pretty good job. But yeah, the Republicans prevented a long term, more permanent solution to this issue because they thought it would hurt Trump’s election chances.

I expect them to die.

Because we asked them to? Why not read the various articles?

I don’t know that they’re not. The ones legally seeking asylum aren’t the problem, the ones crossing the border without papers are.

Hopefully the ones that deserve it will get it.

Not sure why you bring up the 6 million number, that’s dead people. Undocumented immigrants only cost us money in the short term, when they come here in too large numbers at once. Long term they’re a net cost benefit. So if we can control the flow and keep it down they don’t cost anything at all.

I read that wrong: not 50%, 40%: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-06/migration-at-us-southern-border-slumps-amid-regional-efforts Still a pretty big number.

Israel is bombing Hamas who hides behind civilians. That makes things very difficult for Israel. But Israel is also not being as selective or as careful as they could be. Israel has overreacted and I believe they have committed some war crimes here, just as we did in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

We’re actually not too far apart here. Except that you place a little too much emphasis on Alinsky.

Thank you. Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL was on Morning Joe today. He argued that the organizers of the protests were out there after October 7 congratulating Hamas. And thus was well before Israel invaded Gaza. I have no doubt this is true. To Greenblatt, this proves that all or most of the protestors are pro-Hamas and virulently anti-Semitic. But what Greenblatt ignores in making this argument is that although the organizers were there at some campuses, the protests were tiny, maybe a few dozen people. It wasn’t until Israel invaded Gaza, and started bombing civilians, that the protests grew very large in size. What does that tell us? Not that the protestors are necessarily right, but that they’re responding to what they believe is an injustice. The organizers may be radical, in support of Hamas, the bulk of protestors are not. And this also has a bearing on “from the river to the sea” as well. The organizers lead the students in this chant. Some of them really do want the eradication of Jews in the region. Others probably see it as a legitimate cry for Palestinian independence. But I am skeptical that the students who are chanting it have given any thought to what it means beyond “we want Israel to stop bombing civilians.”

White nationalism is evil. White supremacy is evil. Communism is evil. Marxism is evil. Socialism isn’t evil but it doesn’t work, and almost always leads to bad outcomes. Conservatism is not white nationalism. Conservatism is not white supremacy. Liberalism is not Communism. Liberalism is not Marxism. Liberalism is not socialism. See how easy that was?

Are there any McCain Republicans left in your state? Any Goldwater Republicans? Two men, very different in terms of policy, but one thing they both had: tremendous integrity. They were two of our greatest American statesmen. What happened to that party?

This isn’t “Biden’s Vietnam.” While there are some apt comparisons to the Vietnam protests, it’s not the same for one major reason: there’s no draft. Students may be sympathetic to the Palestinians but they don’t have to fear being sent to the Middle East.

I have trouble believing that a lot of Democrats would go out of their way to vote.

Once again you skip over the direct evidence (the tape). And then you change the subject again. Oh well, let’s see if the jury agrees with you. Who knows? Maybe they will. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

Biden is withholding arms because he doesn’t want Israel to invade Rafah. I agree with this. Wait- did Biden call Netanyahu and demand incriminating evidence against Trump (fabricated if necessary) in exchange for releasing the arms? Because THAT would be an impeachable offense, don’t you agree?

Next, jon, let’s take your point #1: you assert that Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels without any direction from Donald Trump. Cohen is obviously going to testify otherwise, but putting that aside: what possible motivation would Michael Cohen have to give $140,000 to Stormy Daniels if not at Trump’s direction? Can’t we (and the jury) use a little common sense here?

You didn’t address any of my responses to you. Let’s take your points #3 and 4. You claim in these two points that Trump had “no known involvement” in the payments that reimbursed Michael Cohen. Yet there has been repeated testimony that Trump knew about and directed every payment that left his office. More specifically there is a tape in which Trump discusses the exact reimbursement with Cohen and how it is to be handled. How do you square this with your assertion of “no known involvement”?

I certainly don’t take any opinions as facts. But I do enjoy listening to MSNBC. (On my phone or in my car through Sirus; I rarely have time to actually watch.)

You felt the need to post this twice? it’s interesting to me that you call anyone who disagrees with you bootlickers and yet this is a long list of everything Trump’s fiercest supporters are telling us about this case, which apparently you have swallowed without question: I’m not going to break it all down but it’s absurd to believe that Cohen paid off Daniels without Trump’s knowledge or direction. Also, you ignored continual testimony that Trump looked at and questioned every check and payment that left his account, so it’s also absurd to believe that his company repaid Cohen without his direct knowledge (proved in a taped conversation as well.)