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Regulators and inspectors are police and their job is to keep us safe from industrial criminals. Republicans have repeatedly defunded the police and from what they've told me that means they don't just want less police, they want zero police to be protecting you from environmental polluters.
Under Trump they defunded all of these police
• The US Chemical Safety Board
, which polices
major industrial accidents.
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
, which polices corporations’ compliance with civil rights laws.
• The Consumer Products Safety Commission
, which polices industries to make sure their products don’t harm or kill people. The agency now acknowledges
that its “funding level has been insufficient to keep pace with the evolving consumer product marketplace.”
• The Internal Revenue Service
, which polices the tax system and which is responsible for making sure the wealthy and large corporations pay the taxes they owe. Thanks to this successful effort to defund the police, the agency “conducted 675,000 fewer audits in 2017 than it did in 2010, a drop in the audit rate of 42 percent,” according to ProPublica
. With 30,000 fewer tax cops on the beat
, a recent Treasury Department report found that 800,000 high-income households have not paid more than $45 billion in owed taxes.
, which polices employers and makes sure they aren’t stealing wages, breaking workplace safety rules, ignoring overtime laws, and/or violating workers’ union rights
. Amid this particular Republican effort to defund the police, there are now fewer cops
scrutinizing employers than ever before and workplace inspections have plummeted
– as workplace injuries, deaths and disasters have increased.
• The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
, which polices the accounting industry.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission
’s reserve fund, which was established
after the financial crisis to bolster the agency’s work policing Wall Street. The agency reports
that the number of law enforcement staff “supporting our investigation and litigation efforts remained almost 9 percent lower” today than it was at the start of Trump’s term – and now white collar prosecutions have hit a historic low.
• The law enforcement agencies
that police corporate mergers.
This effort to defund the antitrust police has come as mergers have accelerated (and there has been some recent effort to reverse the defunding).
• The independent law enforcement agency
that policed agribusiness monopolies.
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
, which polices the financial industry and works to protect consumers from fraud.
• The law enforcement offices
that police federal agencies and root out waste, fraud and abuse.
• The federal program
that polices local law enforcement agencies.
• The Environmental Protection Agency, which is responsible for policing polluters. Trump’s first budget proposed to reduce EPA “spending on civil and criminal enforcement by almost 60 percent,” and laying off 200 environmental cops, according to the New York Times
. By the middle of Trump’s first year in office, the EPA had “fewer than half of the criminal special agents on the job” during the George W. Bush administration, according to one environmental advocacy group
noted that Trump’s most recent budget cuts “could hamper the EPA’s efforts to link contamination at hazardous waste sites to companies and others that may be responsible for the pollution.” The result: environmental prosecutions have now hit a historic low.
As many have said, we won't have a civil war. Because logistically that just isn't feasible. We are split far more along rural/urban lines than one giant chunk of the nation against another. Without geographic alignment of opposing forces, there's no logical way for any military to organize. You'd have to have millions upon millions of people up and migrate into one geographic region that would then cecede, and that's just not how anything works at all.
Instead, divided modern Ireland is a better example. You'll have decades of civil unrest. Terrorist attacks, pockets in different states of shit basically being taken over by militias that reject federal authority.
You'll have total stagnation in the federal government as terrorist antagonists win seats in these areas and work against anything and everything. You'll have secessionist movements that go nowhere but cause huge disruption.
The net result is that the country will not be able to make progress on laws, won't be able to keep up with the times, won't be able to spend tax revenue effectively, and will virtually cease to function.
Government, contrary to some radical libertarian delusions, actually is essential. Laws need to be passed. Conflicts need to be resolved, consensuses need to be reached. Government needs to be agile enough to respond to negative externalities caused by new technologies (like social media). We need government, and we need it to not just be empty seats but to conduct its designated functions. It isn't an option, it is an essential, non-negotiable component of large-scale societies.
Terrorism never really aims to win. They aim to hurt, to disrupt, to stall, to inflame. And it's shockingly easy to do that. And that's what Republicans are discovering. They will not win hearts and minds. Most newer generations despise them and they have long abandoned the efforts to win those hearts and minds, resorting instead to theft, organized crime, and radical terrorism, culiminating most recently in an actual coup attempt at the US Capitol.
They were rebuffed, and that has cost them a lot of political capital. I don't see them really being able to pull out of their party's death spiral in the coming decades. They may pick up a handful of additional seats. They may flip the Presidency to them again. But each time they will try to advance their nightmarish dystopian agenda, and they will cement greater unified resistance against them, and they simply don't have the numbers. Much the contrary to their shared delusion, they are far from the majority, and have an aging population of supporters which declines each day, thanks in no small part to the cruelty and neglect inherent in their own policies.
So, absent any realistic ability to cling to power and build coalition in a meaningful way, they will increasingly turn to the levers that remain to them - terrorism, chaos, and disruption.
We will cease to function as a nation, and as such you will have a generations-long brain drain into Europe and other more attractive areas. The best and brightest will leave, innovation and entrepreneurship will go places with less turmoil, and the country will become a husk mired in intractable, widespread and irresolvable civil unrest. This will be exacerbated by climate change and other factors that will put increasing pressure on the population, fueling discontent, anger, unrest and chaos.
The wheel will come to a halt, and in half a century at earliest, maybe a century at longest, the country will likely fracture without any large-scale war, simply under the weight of its dysfunction, into component states or some arrangement that will depend upon the fault and fracture lines that begin to form between rough geographic centers as increasing political polarization creates mass exoduses between states and organizes people more geographically around political ideologies.
Because of our utter inability to legislate, innovate, invent, or do anything other than pay politicians to sit in total gridlock, other countries will rapidly overtake us as our inaction and their forward momentum compound, and eventually they will leave us behind. The dollar will cease to be the world reserve currency, we'll lose economic power and geopolitical clout, and the buzzards will pick at our fringes.
This has happened to every major world order throughout history. Empires boom, then they bust. The world order shifts. Usually through violence. Countries become overcome by the bloat and greed of their administrators and power-holders, and that greed and bloat mires the country in debt and legislative stagnation until it simply falls apart.
The terrorists will not get what they want. There will be no white christian ethnostate, no Jesus codified into law, no magical harmony free from "liberals." They will simply make everyone else as miserable as they are, and a generation or more of Americans will be born into a country of decline, sporadic violence, dysfunction and collapse.
That doesn't have to be where we end up, but it most certainly is where we are headed, all else remaining the same.
They are literally the Pharisees Jesus rails against in the Bible that they also claim is the divine word of god. So yea, they're full of shit and just using religion to justify their hate and selfishness.
"Hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is false, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men." Matthew 15:7-9
”You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God so you can observe your own traditions!” Mark 7:9
"Why do you call me "Lord! Lord!" when you do not do as I say?" Luke 6:46
"Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' fortunes and make a show of reciting prayers. Theirs will be the greater condemnation.” Luke 20: 46-47
"Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter God’s kingdom, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven. On the Last Day many will call me Lord. They will say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not testify in your name? And did we not, in your name, exorcise demons and perform many miracles?' Truly I will say to them, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you evildoers.’" Matthew 7:21-23
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, hypocrites! You would cross land and sea to win a single convert, only to make them twice the child of Hell as yourselves.” Matthew 23:15
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill, and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You could have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former." Matthew 23:23
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but inside contain the bones of the dead and the unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." Matthew 23:27-28
The rest of the Bible also wouldn't be too keen on them:
They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. Titus 1:16
Day after day they seek me and take delight in knowing my way, as if they were a righteous people who did not forsake the justice of God; they invoke righteous judgments; they boast of their closeness to God. “Why have we fasted, and you did not see us? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you ignore us?” Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, while you oppress the workers. You fast with anger and to quarrel, to strike others harshly with your fists. Fasting like yours these days will not make your voice heard on high. Isaiah 58:2-4
Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord! Why do you long for the Day of the Lord? That Day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion, only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall, only to have a snake bite him. Amos 5:18-19
“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me your grain and burnt offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:21-27
“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Jeremiah 7:8-10
“As for you, Son of Man, your people are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear the message of the Lord.’ They come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not practice them. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear what you say, but will not do it. Ezekiel 33:31-32
Its leaders give judgment for bribes; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the Lord and say, “Is the Lord not among us? We are under his protection.’” Micah 3:11
May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! Acts 8:20
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. James 1:22-24
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. James 1:26
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. James 3:1
Whoever says “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. 1 John 2:3-6
“If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” 1 Timothy 6:3-5
”For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." 2 Timothy 4: 3-4
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15
The Republicans are alleging fraud in areas where Dominion election machines were used, like Arizona and Georgia. Arizona and Georgia both performed audits of their machines, and everything came back clean.
The election results in Georgia and Arizona also, coincidentally, were damn near exact matches to all of the polls that were released, showing Biden with a narrow lead, and ALSO matched the senate races, again, almost exactly. Multiple races in multiple states, all dead nuts accurate.
All of the investigations also revealed that Dominion isn't owned or operated by the Democrats (or Hugo Chavez).
But Dominion isn't the only election machine manufacturer. They aren't even the biggest. That distinction goes to ES&S. ES&S has had a littany of issues over the years, and their former CEO quit to run for congress in a state that using his machines. He went from polling way down before the race, to winning by 17%.
Gee, where have we seen that before?
Maybe Maine, where Susan Collins spent the entire last year losing in every poll, by about 8-10%. She won her race by 9%. Roughly a 17% flip.
Who's machines handle all of the ballots in Maine, including the mail in? ES&S. And since the race is soooo far apart, there will never be an audit of the equipment.
But it's just like, one race, right?
No. Of course not. This year, South Carolina spent $51 million on new ES&S equipment. Lindsay Graham went from polling down 1-2%, to winning by 10%.
In Iowa, Jodi Ernst went from polling down around 3 points in nearly every poll, to winning by 6.5%. Just shy of a ten point swing.
In Montana, Daines was within a few points, generally even, with his competitor Bullock. Daines won his race 55-45, another magical 10 point swing for the Republicans.
Every senate race, where ES&S machines were used, we had crazy swings like this, and the results of every ES&S senate race went for the Republicans by so much, that no recount or audit will ever be performed.
Back in Georgia, in the 2018 gubernatorial race, there was quite a bit of tomfuckery too. Kemp "won" a pretty disputed race against the Democrat Stacey Abrams. Part of the issues revolving around the race, were that not only was Kemp overseeing his own election, but he had ties to the company who's equipment they were using. ES&S. The equipment ended up not having any paper back ups, and the results were all erased, so no audit. Oops. For this election, they went with Dominion, after Democrats blocked attempts to purchase more ES&S equipment.
It's not like any of this is a huge secret. ES&S has been getting eyeballed since their tomfuckery in Florida, during the 2000 race. They weren't the hanging chads, they were the ones that "mistakenly" gave Bush a bunch of votes in a county, allowing him to call himself the winner, helping to justify his pushes in court.
Disturbing revelations have been surfacing about ES&S for a while now. Stuff like selling machines that have remote access enabled, allowing anyone from anywhere to access the devices and alter data and configurations as they see fit.
But we will NEVER hear a Republican say they want those machines looked at closely.
The information is out there, readily available, but Dems are lousy at going on the offensive
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
What Americans blather on about when they are talking about their free speech isn't anything resembling free speech. They're not arguing that they shouldn't be unfairly punished by the government for holding or stating a particular belief, ideal, value, creed, philosophy, or allegiance.
They're arguing they should be able to say whatever the hell they want and you just have to listen to it without exception, and that they should not receive any negative response or argument against it. That's not freedom of speech they're asking for, it's freedom from consequences. They want to be able to say anything they like without concerning themselves with inconveniences like accountability or responsibility.
It's true that not all Americans lack an understanding of the concept of free speech. It's not my intention to suggest that the nation as a whole misunderstands it. However, the ones that do understand it tend not to be the ones vocally shooting their gobs off about it. I find the ones that frequently bring up their free speech are the ones doing it in circumstances that have nothing to do with it. Those that do understand free speech generally keep their mouths shut about it because they know it has nothing to do with it most of the time.
https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_2020.pdf
...RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;
Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, decides to fly 3000 miles across country, to drop off 3 MacBook Pros at a repair shop run by a blind guy who charges the insanely low price of $85.
He gets off the plane and drunk drives to the repair shop (because there aren't repair shops in LA). He drops them off, signs a contract for repair and then disappears. The repair shop owner recovers and reads Hunter's private emails, a few of which mention a possible meeting with his dad and is so alarmed, he contacts the FBI.
The FBI arranges to pick up the hard drives, but the computer repair shop owner takes a totally normal step of copying them. Once he realizes the FBI isn't doing anything with them, he calls up the most credible ex-Mayor on Earth and hands them the contents of these drives.
That totally credible ex-Mayor sits on them for months, then chooses to release them 3 weeks before the election. The mainstream media asks to independently verify their validity but said ex-Mayor does what all people trying to prove facts do and ignores these requests.
Is this how stupid we are now?
No one who does data recovery would read through thousands of personal emails, even if the computer is abandoned. You'd just wipe the drives clean and sell the computers used. If these emails were as alarming as it's being pushed, Giuliani wouldn't have sat on them for months.
To anyone who is still pushing this smear-job, please explain these gaping holes in your fake story:
Hunter Biden, for some reason, decides to have 3 laptops repaired a thousand miles from where he lives.
He then doesn’t return to get the laptops.
The repair shop employee has a condition that doesn’t allow him to recognize people, but he decides that the laptops belong to Hunter Biden because of stickers from the Beau foundation.
He then proceeds to search through Hunter’s laptop and finds these incriminating e-mails
He then contacts the FBI, or the FBI contacts him (yes, this repairman claims both) and they issue a subpoena to get the laptop.
Before the laptop is taken by the FBI, this repairman makes a copy of the hard drive.
After months of no news from the FBI, the repairman decides to make the hard drive reach Rudy Giuliani (lol).
Rudy then hands over the hard drive to a Trump supporter that writes for the NYP And the “smoking gun” is published.
Additional info:
The FBI has warned that Russian agents were going to release false e-mails to try and influence the election. Rudy Giuliani has been confirmed by intelligence agencies to have been compromised by Russian agents Metadata of the pdf files indicates that they were created at the time of the impeachment. The moron who forged the e-mails managed to spell the Ukrainian’s first name wrong
These aren't "facts" and this story is Russian ops shit. Period. Anyone who believes this shit is real isn't just stupid, they're wilfully ignorant.
