Biden rejects military pay raises

@Thinkerbell Are students opposed to military pay raises? Most of them would probably be fine with them or at most ambivalent. It’s not like if we raise military pay, the student loan rate must go up.

@LeopoldBloom

Irrelevant. Biden's handlers figured they would get more votes for the buck with the student loan forgiveness. Doing both would increase the deficit even more and raise the inflation rate, and that's the biggest no-no of all.

@Thinkerbell Yes, I believe you are correct. Democrats know that most military people
are, by and large, Republicans, and college kids are Democrat.

The big difference is, one group volunteers to work their ass off, and possibly die for their country. The other group takes out a loan, to party, and possibly get a degree.

Democrat politicians like John Kerry made it clear, many years ago, how they feel about
military people vs college people.

@Thinkerbell Over half of military service members are Democrats.

@LeopoldBloom

https://www.thesoldiersproject.org/percentage-of-the-us-military-is-conservative/

[Gallup] "...tracking starting January of 2009. Only 29 percent identified as a Democrat."

It is true that as of 2020, there was disillusionment with Trump in the military, but does that mean they are going to flock to Biden?

And how many of them are as woke as Boo-Boo...? 🤔

P.S. And speaking of Boo-Boo, Leo, have you come to agree with him that Israel is committing genocide?

@Thinkerbell I stand corrected. The percentage of Republicans in the military mirrors that of the general population, while the percentage that identifies as Democrats is lower. So there are clearly more independents in the military.

Israel is not committing genocide by the definition proposed by Rafael Lemkin, the man who coined the term. Hamas isn't committing genocide either, but their intentions are definitely genocidal. So no, I don't agree with Boo on this issue even though I oppose Israel's West Bank settlement policy and think Netanyahu may be prolonging the war to stay in office and avoid prison.

One statistic that really surprised me was that the military is not, in fact, the employer of last resort for poor people. Based on zip codes, more people enlist from middle and upper class neighborhoods than lower class.


One trend that 50 years of a volunteer military has produced is the tendency to have "military families" where enlistees tend to join if their parents or other relatives are in the military. During the draft era, everyone had a relative in the military; today that's not the case where many people may not even know a military member, or at least not well. This can foster an "us vs. them" mentality where military people see themselves as fundamentally different from civilians if everyone they socialize with is military, and vice-versa.

I'm not sure what the solution to this is, or if it's even a problem. Re-instituting the draft isn't going to work as the military itself is opposed to that.

@LeopoldBloom Most kids that go into the military, are not affiliated with a political party.

But having spent 8 years active duty, I can tell you that a litmus test would reveal that the
vast majority of enlisted people, see the world through a conservative lens. Everyone
that I served with, and many that I keep in contact with, are now affiliated with the right.

I would say it is about the same percentage as college kids are affiliated with the left.

@DogMan That's probably the result of the development of "military families" where those views tend to be passed along from parents to children. The mistake is assuming that all of these are rabid Trumpers who would gleefully participate in imposing a dictatorship if asked to do so. I'm sure you remember hearing that your oath was to the Constitution, and not the guy who happened to be in charge at any given moment.

@LeopoldBloom

Politicized judges and prosecutors would do well to abide by their oaths to the Constitution, but of course they haven't, Leo.

We are in much greater danger of of a left-wing dictatorship than one of the right wing.

@SW-User

No. Only if Trump gets elected in November; that's from the standard Dem party line.

@Thinkerbell "Politicized" - you mean Judge Cannon dragging out the documents trial until "indefinitely," or the SCOTUS dragging out the presidential immunity decision to make sure the DC trial doesn't happen before the election? Or it's only "politicized" if Orange God actually stands trial?

@DogMan You're right. Trump doesn't have the intelligence or drive to turn the US into a dictatorship, especially in only four years. But he will still be able to do a lot of damage by appointing more federal judges and implementing the 2025 Project.

So now executive orders make the president a "dictator?" Does that apply to your orange lord and savior, or only when a Democrat does it?

@LeopoldBloom


Maybe they are only preventing the politicized prosecutors from proceeding with politicized cases that might influence an election, unlike the corrupt judges Engoron and Merchan, who might as well have been part of the prosecution team in the way they conducted the trials.

BTW, Leo, I STILL haven't seen you refute Dershowitz's critique of those cases and those judges (aside from calling Dershowitz names, that is).

@LeopoldBloom


He almost certainly did. For example, you don't build skyscrapers in NYC without greasing a lot of corrupt (mostly Democrat) palms. But were the corrupt bribe recipients prosecuted? Of course not.


No, Leo, he doesn't support Trump.
Dershowitz says he never voted for Trump and never would.
He supports the Constitution, and criticizes the corrupt prosecutors and judges who don't.

For example, Engoron's absurdly high fine of $450 million was cut by a factor of 3 almost before the appeals process had even begun.

@Thinkerbell Trump isn't being prosecuted for bribing people to build skyscrapers, either. He's being prosecuted for:

Attempting to overturn the 2020 election through fake electors, hacking voting machines, and intimidating poll workers
Refusing to return top secret documents he took when he left the White House that he was not authorized to have
Attempting to illegally change the election result in Georgia after losing the state

Do you think there's no evidence of the above and his prosecutions are "politically motivated?"

Meanwhile, he was:

Found liable for sexually assaulting Jean Carroll and for defaming her
Falsifying property values to illicitly obtain loans
Falsifying business records to cover up a payment to a woman he had an affair with

Engoron's fine wasn't just something he came up with off the top of his head. My own job involves calculating fines for various infractions. There is a detailed process where the base penalty is aggravated or mitigated based on clearly defined factors. What happened is Engoron's initial computations were revised later on. This doesn't mean Trump did nothing wrong or that he shouldn't have been fined at all.

Trump failed to property vet his foreign business partners for the construction of his hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan. He partnered with the Mammadov Brothers, who have been linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He wasn't prosecuted for this but he certainly could have been. Anyone upset over Biden's imaginary profits from deals with Ukrainian companies should be equally upset over this.

Can you direct me to an article describing Dershowitz' objections? I looked and all I could find were unhinged rants. And yes, I'm aware that Dershowitz says he doesn't support Trump and only cares about the Constitution.

@LeopoldBloom


Of course he isn't. That would expose far too much unprosecuted corruption by Democrats. 🙄


I already directed you twice, and you twice dodged coming to grips with Dershowitz's arguments. Here is the clip for a third time:

[media=https://youtu.be/uajn7Xq7oac]


Oh, of course! The "detailed process" was so complicated that His Honor got the answer wrong by a factor of three. Must have happened because His Honor hasn't finished his Ph.D. in mathematics yet. 🙄🙄


"Imaginary"? How did the "poorest man in the Senate" afford those mansions if his profits were "imaginary"? And why did he need all those dummy corporations? 🙄🙄🙄

@Thinkerbell I asked for an article. Dershowitz still knows how to write, doesn't he?

You clearly don't know how civil monetary penalties are computed.

Biden's wealth can be accounted for by adding up his TSP contributions and book deals.

Care to comment on Trump laundering money for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-iran-business-ties-trump-didnt-disclose

I know, nothing was proven and he hasn't been prosecuted. So at least hold Biden to the same standard. It's not like you can accept that your orange lord and savior did anything wrong just because a court said he did.

@LeopoldBloom


You couldn't even answer the points Dershowitz made in the video I posted (three times). What makes you think you could do any better with an article he wrote? And if you didn't find one, you couldn't have looked very hard. 🙄

https://nypost.com/2024/05/21/opinion/i-was-inside-the-court-when-the-judge-closed-the-trump-trial-and-what-i-saw-shocked-me/


And neither does Engoron, it seems.
He proved thereby that he's either incompetent or dishonest (probably both)t for getting the fine 3x too large at first.
Too bad he didn't have an expert like you around to help him get it right the first time.
Oh, wait... you probably would have come up with a $600 million fine. 🙄🙄


He DID?! Quick, Leo! Tell Bragg or James or Willis or Smith or Garland that they're missing the boat ! 🙄🙄🙄


The standard Biden was held to is that Hur wouldn't prosecute because the jury would take Biden to be an old man with a poor memory, and therefore wouldn't convict. Gee...it's too bad for Trump his defense team didn't think of using that defense. Oh, wait... that defense only works for old Democrats in corrupt Blue state venues. 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Nah, if I did that I'd be reported by half a dozen wild-eyed lefties for TOS violations. 🤭

@SW-User

@Thinkerbell

Northwest would find you!