Biden can occasionally be great, like in this @nytimes group interview, regarding Facebook and big tech—how as VP he was “meeting with the leaders in Silicon Valley trying to work out an agreement protecting intellectual property for artists....” 1/4 nytimes.com/interactive/20…
“...And one of the little creeps who was close to a billionaire told me he was an artist because he was able to come up with games to teach you how to kill people. And then one of these righteous people said to me....” 2/4
“You know, ‘We are the economic engine of America. We are the ones.’ I said, ‘You have fewer people on your payroll than all the [job] losses General Motors just faced in the last quarter. So don’t lecture me about how you’ve created all this employment.’” 3/4
“In every other revolution that we’ve had technologically, it’s taken between six years and a generation for a government to come in and level the playing field again. This is gigantic. And it’s a responsibility of government to make sure it is not abused.” 4/4
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Reading the indictment. So many gems. Here are five.
This from the introduction.
1/5
A summary of the classified documents he illegally kept and hid from the government, 31 of which (among those 21 marked Top Secret) are detailed in each of 31 of the total 38 criminal counts.
Been studying up on migration. Some key facts I learned.
Hundreds of thousands each year move here by getting standard immigration visas.
Another small group, about 40,000 a year recently, are granted
refugee/asylum status—what the people now massing at the border want. 1/3
To move here as refugees or “asylees” they must convince screeners they’ve been persecuted or have “a well-founded fear” of it because of political opinions, or bigotry against their race, religion or caste. They can either apply abroad and get it, or just show up and hope. 2/3
Of the apply-here people who got asylum in 2021, half were from 5 places: Venezuela, China and Turkey, plus 2,800 from El Salvador and Guatemala. Six countries supplied the 3/4 of the apply-abroad refugees admitted in 2022—Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine. 3/3
On trial for defaming his alleged victim, he posted 2 rants on his site by 10 am. The judge soon warned his lawyer:“Your client is endeavoring to speak to his public about things he's not supposed to speak about. But more troublesome, to the jury.” 1/4
Defense lawyer: "I will address them with my client, to the degree I have an ability to."
Judge: “I hope you’re successful, because we’re getting into an area where your client might be tampering with a potential new source of liability. And I think you know what I mean.” 2/4
Plaintiff lawyer later, after Trump Jr. posts similarly: "We are wondering about what remedy––it's inappropriate."
Judge to defense lawyer: "Remedies may go beyond those of this court. I suggest you speak to your client. There are relevant U.S. statutes here." 3/4
Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome is when mentally ill attention-hungry caregivers invent or cause illnesses in order to heroically cure them. It has been Trump’s main presidential tactic.
1/4
He made the migrant crisis worse, then blamed migrants and Democrats and judges. He tried to destroy Obamacare so he could save health care. He threatened war with North Korea, then became Kim’s BFF. He imposed tariffs that hurt farmers, then paid off farmers. 2/4
Encouraged cops and MAGAs to escalate confrontations with BLM protesters, inciting violence to put down. Spread election-fraud fantasies to fundraise off them.
If he signs the covid relief bills necessary to save lives and livelihoods, it will be the final instance of that. 3/4
Prompted by @DanBarryNYT's good piece about Trump's driving lifelong horror of people thinking he's a loser, I looked at his 337 tweets containing the slurs "loser" or "losers."
2/5 He became more promiscuous during 2012, going from one "loser" every month or two to tweeting about this or that loser, or losers in general, every two weeks on average--then ramped up to twice a week in 2103, and then weekly during 2014 and 2015.
3/5 But after he clinched the nomination in 2016 and won the election, he was suddenly using "loser" just once every six weeks, a slowed-down rate that continued for the first two years of his presidency.
Because he felt he'd finally convinced people that he wasn't a loser?
Just before the Constitution was written, Thomas Jefferson wrote of religious tolerance in our nation-to-be: “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” 1/5
One's religion— Islam, atheism, membership in the tiny Christian sect People of Praise, whatever--should prevent nobody from holding any public office. But it's perfectly legitimate for citizens to examine and discuss the full mental apparatus of any Supreme Court nominee.
2/5
Barrett is Catholic, and everyone more or less knows what Catholicism is. But she's also a member of People of Praise, part of the Christian "charismatic" church movement that arose in America in the 1960s as a countercultural multi-denominational rebranded pentecostalism.
3/5