How is that a human right? Clearly, it's a legal right - but exclusively in criminal trials.

You thought that by “human rights” I meant “the ability to run for president”. Silly.

It is not only a human right, it is stupid to do otherwise. — NOS4A2

Were you being stupid when you claimed Biden lied about Hunter's laptop? You never showed he personally lied.

Yes I did.

You only identified a falsehood by some unnamed White House representative.

I identified a blizzard of lies. You just didn’t want to hear it.

You construed Biden's assertion that he's not been involved with Hunter's business as a lie. Joe can reasonably consider a dinner and phone calls as non-involvement in the true nature of the business- so no lies.

I said he lied about having no knowledge of his son’s business dealings.

If you remove Trump from the equation there would be no attack on the Capitol that day, and no violence. Many Trump supporters who participated in the attack would not be in prison. Ashli Babbitt would still be alive. You ask "Who cares what the politicians say?" Well, we know the effects can be from what politicians say -- right there. Without Trump urging them on, those people would not have marched on the Capitol. Without Trump inviting them there, there would not even have been a "Stop the Steal" rally. And without Trump telling them the election was stolen and how they need to "fight like hell" they wouldn't have been angry and primed for violence. Many of the rioters who were brought up on charges said they believed they were doing what Trump wanted them to do. Trump was the cause of them being there and doing what they did. You can draw a direct line from what happened on that day to Trump's lies and schemes.

The “fight like hell” canard is stupid because each time he uses the word in that speech he does so metaphorically. For some reason they take this one, and only this one, as literal.

I must have missed it. Did Trump tell them to riot in front of the capitol, break in, and put their feet on Pelosi’s desk?

You said all the things I mentioned, and failed to give him a presumption of innocence.

Now you're making a new claim. Point me to a specific quote.

You ask "Who cares what the politicians say?" Well, we know the effects can be from what politicians say -- right there. Without Trump urging them on, those people would not have marched on the Capitol. — GRWelsh

Exactly, it makes no sense to imply that we shouldn't care about what politicians say. How many politicians in history can we argue are responsible and have guilt for leading their followers into destructive and murderous acts? It's absolutely irrational to assume that a leader and his followers acts does not connect. Such arguments are for apologists who disconnect the link for their favorites and connects them for their enemies. It's propaganda, it's rhetoric of the indoctrinators. It's marketing jargon. It's wartime speeches.

When it comes to Trump I think its very simple. Is he someone that is competent for the complexity of steering a large nation like the US? Through calm waters into storms and safely home? We can make the argument for any politician, but in here specifically about Trump, the answer is clearly and absolutely "no". If politicians like him, even after disasters like the Capitol invasion are still considered valid for election, then there's no actual protection of democracy in place.

Democracy shouldn't be "anything goes", it should have demands of competency, it should have a logic behind candidates as representatives of their voters. Otherwise it will be flooded with demagogues who do any manipulative attempt to shape a democratic outcome by their own will. And that is not democracy, that is just autocracy in disguise. Failure to see when such a system is in place is a direct failure of protecting democracy and people who trivializes that do not care about democracy or are incompetent to care for it.

It is not only a human right, it is stupid to do otherwise. — NOS4A2

So I see a man with a knife standing over a dead and bloody body. It would be stupid of me and an abuse of his human rights to presume him guilty and so run away; instead I ought presume him innocent, approach him, and ask him if he'd like a lift home so that he can shower and change his clothes.

Thank God I don't think like you.

You would run away? Jesus. What a good citizen.

No, given the proof the presumption of guilt is warranted. What you wouldn’t do, I hope, is presume some uninvolved party is guilty until proven innocent. But, as we already know, that’s what you do.

You said:

I said he lied about having no knowledge of his son’s business dealings. — NOS4A2

He doesn't say this in the video, and I heard nothing that can't plausibly be interpreted as true (or believed true by Joe)- which one should do when presuming innocence. If I missed something, identify it.

On a related note: do you agree Comer has failed to presume Joe's innocence throughout his investigation?

No, given the proof the presumption of guilt is warranted. — NOS4A2

Proof without an indictment and conviction? Glad you finally recognise that it's possible.

It’s possible, sure, but entirely missing in this case. Not only does it not make sense to presume someone is guilty for a crime for which he has not been proven guilty, it is a double violation to punish him based on these presumptions.

Democracy shouldn't be "anything goes", it should have demands of competency, it should have a logic behind candidates as representatives of their voters. — Christoffer

There definitely seems to be a degeneration in our culture. De-evolution is real, as the band DEVO would say. The American public glorifies crudity and ignorance -- so is it any surprise they love a leader who is like them? I have been reading some of Trump's latest tweets, and they have grammatical and spelling errors, and random capitalizations. They look like they were written by a 7th grader with ADHD. Can you imagine a president or ex-president from 50 years ago, 100 years ago, or any other time in our history, who would write like that? Even if you agree with the tweet -- you have to admit it just looks sloppy, careless, and unprofessional. Each Trump tweet is like a proud celebration of incompetence: "Look, I can tweet without the least bit of proof-reading or care!"

It may seem petty of me to point this out, and indeed it is the least of my concerns about Trump. But he does seem barely literate and to have the emotional maturity of a middle school kid whose favorite thing to do is come up with novel insults and name-calling. You can call him a liar and he doesn't care, but if you say he stinks he flips out. He's like a little kid. But his base seems to love it, because they also are like little kids.

Just watch: NOS4A2 is going to say something like "Trump has been accused of having really bad BO but hasn't been convicted of it"!

House Democrats released evidence that [Donald Trump's businesses] took in at least $7.8 million from foreign entities while in office, engaging in the kind of conduct the G.O.P. is grasping to pin on President Biden. ....

Using documents produced through a court fight, the report describes how foreign governments and their controlled entities, including a top U.S. adversary, interacted with Trump businesses while he was president. They paid millions to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.; Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas; Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York; and Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza in New York.

The Constitution prohibits federal officeholders from accepting money, payments or gifts “of any kind whatever” from foreign governments and monarchs unless they obtain “the consent of the Congress” to do so. The report notes that Mr. Trump never went to Congress to seek consent.

”By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous commander in chief,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, wrote in a foreword to the report.

NY Times - White House for Sale


Sure tops James Comer trying to criminalise Joe Biden loaning his son funds to by a pickup truck.

The American public glorifies crudity and ignorance -- so is it any surprise they love a leader who is like them? I have been reading some of Trump's latest tweets, and they have grammatical and spelling errors, and random capitalizations. They look like they were written by a 7th grader with ADHD. Can you imagine a president or ex-president from 50 years ago, 100 years ago, or any other time in our history, who would write like that? Even if you agree with the tweet -- you have to admit it just looks sloppy, careless, and unprofessional. Each Trump tweet is like a proud celebration of incompetence: "Look, I can tweet without the least bit of proof-reading or care!"

It may seem petty of me to point this out, and indeed it is the least of my concerns about Trump. But he does seem barely literate and to have the emotional maturity of a middle school kid whose favorite thing to do is come up with novel insults and name-calling. You can call him a liar and he doesn't care, but if you say he stinks he flips out. He's like a little kid. But his base seems to love it, because they also are like little kids. — GRWelsh

Interesting. I've been wondering about this. There was a time when people seemed to want more lofty personalities for high office. But I guess populism in the current era has embraced an aesthetic nadir. It seems to me that we are at a point in history where people in many cultures are sick of intellectuals and fed up with the complexities and ambiguities that seem to be required from public life and citizenship. We don't want to be lectured at by technocrats and professors and politically correct celebrities. So there's a kind of counterreformation. A retreat back to old certainties and comfortable prejudices and leaders who give us permission to be unsophisticated, regressive and proud to be so.

Trump appears to be in the mold of Mussolini - the arrogant stances and stern facial imagery. Back then the Italian people wanted someone to come in and bring order out of chaos, and he did, at least for awhile.

I wouldn't be giving Trump a second glance if it were not for the imbecile who is president now and the way he opened the borders of our country and allowed hundreds of thousands to migrate here non legally. I suspect the reasoning was to flood municipalities with people who would probably vote Democratic at whatever levels they could. Cities, counties, perhaps states. This might shift the House into Democratic hands. Non-civilians voting in national elections is problematic.

The irony is that the big Democratic sanctuary cities are losing high income tax payers to be replaced with homeless and welfare subjects.

Don't pay any attention to me. I'm old and doddering, the third stage of the Riddle of the Sphinx.

The irony is that the big Democratic sanctuary cities are losing high income tax payers to be replaced with homeless and welfare subjects. — jgill

Those cities are challenged by the influx of poor people. On what basis should they be seen as replacing people?

When one rich person leaves and one poor person moves in. It's happening. Not necessarily one-to-one. But in general.

I get the idea. How does that actually happen in a place like NYC?

About 300,000 left NY in one year and about 100,000 migrants arrived in NYC. So, actually, the population is decreasing and NY needs more migrants to make the census count to gain or keep seats in the House.

Did those leaving have all the money?

Well, CA and NY seem concerned about that issue.

That is not central to the claim you have made about wealth.

220,000 higher income individuals left CA in 2021. Bye. :smile:

I accept that you are done with this but have to ask,

Where did they go?