No. Large numbers of Americans aren't. Corruption and abuse of power is why we we have millions of people protesting. It may not be covered on the mainstream news but I was on the ground in Chicago where I easily saw a quarter of a million protestors. New York, Los Angeles and other big cities had similar numbers.
it's telling that travelling "first class"
means more leg room , a wet towlett, and microwaved slop, but all in all is just bieng pushed through a big metal tube, like everybody else, and the important people are gone, as they travel private, bank private, go to private clubs, etc
Hard working generational busineses and farm familys are now explisetly, second class, and even having millions will only get you an airplane with propellors and not the required jet, with the rapidly changing and irrational policys making those smaller, hard won fortunes, precarious.
It's a situation where the "base" is waking up under threat from all sides and will start to make exceptionaly, pragmatic decsions.
Exactly. An Etsy shop and a CNC will only get you so far. The tariffs are killing businesses bottom lines and either they raise prices or close up shop. If they raise prices, they anger their customers. If they close shop, they anger their customers. My friends are furious that they are in this position.
Then there’s a few local farmers who basically sold their land to housing and gone are 150 year old heritage sites. Replaced with a Ryan Homes banner for townhomes starting in the low $400k’s.
It’s back to the point where only generational wealth will survive and the American dream of working hard to achieve it is gone unless you scam people with AI slop or fake accounting. The back and forth over what’s “true”. As if truth itself has no solid underlying footing in reasoning and science.
No. It all doesn’t make sense because ReasonGPT is down…
If "We the People" means anything anymore, the blatant, pervasive criminality, incompetence, and corruption of this ghoulish administration will be judged harshly in the midterm elections.
But it would take significant change in the US to regain the international trust that the country formerly enjoyed among allies.
This too, shall pass, but we need to make it happen. I am looking forward to the day when we spit on their remains, destroy their ballroom, torch his painting and turn this administration into a footnote in history that future historians will hold up as an object lesson. Let's hope it happens without too much bloodshed, but we fought too hard and for too long to watch this happen to this once great republic.
> But if you reran the 2024 election today you'd likely get the same result. Nothing has happened to change anyone's mind.
I don't think this is true. Trump's approval rating among independents has dropped 20%+. There's a reason he lost the 2020 election, but voters had 4 years to forget those reasons and look back with rose-colored glasses. Now they remember.
> They were very clear about their priorities, and those who voted for it accepted that.
I don't think this is true either. (I did not vote for Trump, to be clear.) Project 2025 were very clear about their priorities, but before the election Trump tried to pretend that he had no knowledge of or involvement with Project 2025. After the election, he changed his tune.
Trudeau got a lot of hate, but won next election. But your point stands, covid was turning point in Trudeau's popularity, Liberal's kept power between Trudeau stepping down more gracefully than Biden, Carney being a very centralist candidate (it's a compliment when your opposition is down to accusing you of stealing their policy ideas), & Trump's recent victory giving many the ick towards Poilievre
There is a wall in place that causes people to believe things others don’t, and vice versa.
To those seeing awful corruption here, Hunter Bidens $500k Ukrainian gas job was legitimate. They were not outraged by the emails describing a 10% cut for ‘the big guy’. Joe Biden joining business conference calls was fine.
It seems like the end of the world, but it’s no worse than we’ve seen, historically. It’s always been there.
Doubtless Hunter Biden's job was a naked nepo quasi-bribery thing, and he said and did all sorts of ridiculous things. Dude is indefensible.
But on one hand you have a president joining a conference call and not discussing business, and on the other hand you have a president literally demanding tribute, gold bars, a ballroom, firing all available oversight, blackmailing all of the universities to toe his ideological line, installing crypto and antivax scammers, and looting like it's going out of style, and meanwhile all of his kids are becoming millionaires trading openly off the name and the power.
"Barron’s first major business move came in 2024, when he co-founded World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture launched with his father and older brothers. He is even credited inside the family with explaining basic crypto concepts to his father. After Trump won the presidency, the company exploded in value. Forbes estimates it added more than $1.5 billion to Trump family wealth—about 10% of which belongs to Barron." (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/net-wort...)
Given your statements about Hunter, I believe you have decent visibility into both sides of the issue. Kudos to you.
I don’t disbelieve what you say about Trump and his family. I am certain they are cashing in on his time in office, at a tremendous pace. ( It has to be worth it, given the damage being done to the Trump corporate brand. )
I’d like your opinion on something. What do you make of these allegations?
1) Romania: On September 28, 2015, Vice President Biden welcomed Romanian President Klaus Iohannis to the White House. Within five weeks of this meeting, a Romanian businessman involved with a high-profile corruption prosecution in Romania, Gabriel Popoviciu, began depositing a Biden associate’s bank account, which ultimately made their way into Biden family accounts. Popoviciu made sixteen of the seventeen payments, totaling over $3 million, to the Biden associate account while Joe Biden was Vice President. Biden family accounts ultimately received approximately $1.038 million. The total amount from Romania to the Biden family and their associates is over $3 million.
2) China- CEFC: On March 1, 2017—less than two months after Vice President Joe Biden left public office—State Energy HK Limited, a Chinese company, wired $3 million to a Biden associate’s account. This is the same bank account used in the above “Romania” section. After the Chinese company wired the Biden associate account the $3 million, the Biden family received approximately $1,065,692 over a three-month period in different bank accounts. Additionally, the CEFC Chairman gives Hunter Biden a diamond worth $80,000. Lastly, CEFC creates a joint venture with the Bidens in the summer of 2017. The timeline lays out the “WhatsApp” messages and subsequent wires from the Chinese to the Bidens of $100,000 and $5 million. The total amount from China, specifically with CEFC and their related entities, to the Biden family and their associates is over $8 million.
3) Kazakhstan: On April 22, 2014, Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakhstani oligarch used his Singaporean entity, Novatus Holdings, to wire one of Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca entities $142,300. The very next day—April 23, 2014—the Rosemont Seneca entity transferred the exact same amount of money to a car dealership for a car for Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden and Devon Archer would represent Burisma in Kazakhstan in May/June of 2014 as the company attempted to broker a three-way deal among Burisma, the Kazakhstan government, and a Chinese state-owned energy company.
4) Ukraine: Devon Archer joined the Burisma board of directors in spring of 2014 and was joined by Hunter Biden shortly thereafter. Hunter Biden joined the company as counsel, but after a meeting with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky in Lake Como, Italy, was elevated to the board of directors in the spring of 2014. Both Biden and Archer were each paid $1 million per year ( note: I am quoting a source here. I’ve always seen this number at 500k, not 1M ) for their positions on the board of directors. In December 2015, after a Burisma board of directors meeting, Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden “called D.C.” in the wake of mounting pressures the company was facing. Zlochevsky was later charged with bribing Ukrainian officials with $6 million in an attempt to delay or drop the investigation into his company. The total amount from Ukraine to the Biden family and their associates is $6.5 million.
Are people that ignore these ‘feckless traitors’? Why or why not?
Why do you think that I'm going to defend Biden? Politics are not sports, and I don't have a "favorite team". Your silly gotcha questions won't work on me because I don't reflexively defend people just because they are supported by corrupt political organizations.
Two wrongs don't make a right, and one person's crimes do not excuse another's. Arrest them all.
We need fundamental changes in our political system, and we're not going to be able to achieve anything if you keep pretending like these whataboutisms are worth anyone's time. Wake up.
How is Hunter Biden writing a letter to an embassy the same as untraceable investments into Trump's meme coin? No deals or payments ever materialized from the Burisma letter or "the big guy" email... while Trump and his family have literally amassed billions (with a B) in profits and net worth from crypto grifting.
To compare these things to what is happening now is disingenuous. I believe you know that, but you choose loyalty to MAGA over any principles or ethics.
Hunter was paid $500k per year by a gas company. He has no expertise in the domain, and does not even speak the language. To pretend this is not corruption is amazing.
I believe you know this, but are not mentally acknowledging it because that would lead to uncomfortable internal reckonings.
What special deals did Burisma get for having Hunter Biden on their board?
Nothing about the right wing obsession with Hunter makes me uncomfortable. He has never held public office and was investigated for multiple years (along with his family) by Congress.
It’s odd that you complain about untraceable transactions in Trumps favor, but hold Biden blameless in spite of amazingly obvious corruption.
The icing on the cake is Bidens conviction on tax evasion and gun charges ( against a Democrat! The irony is too rich ). Of course Joe Biden issued a pardon, so Hunter did not go to prison.
Did you miss the part in that article where he paid back all taxes and penalties? We got a real criminal on our hands! Untimely tax payments because you were a drug addict? Straight to jail.
The gun charges were the result of a fishing expedition; rarely is anyone ever charged with those things stand-alone[0].
But that's okay, keep ignoring my questions and applying the highest scrutiny to a former drug addict and private citizen who has never held public office. Trump might give you a medal for your service in deflecting to Hunter Biden slop anytime Trump's unprecedented corruption is brought up.
Hunter Bidens crimes ( which he was convicted of ) had a 17 year sentence associated with them. Yes, that was serious jail time.
You overlooked an important aspect, one that a fair view would reveal.
Hunter Biden was central to all the business deals with foreign interests. He introduced people to Joe Biden, he brought Joe onto phone calls with them, he received and distributed millions of dollars. Hunter Biden had intimate knowledge of all these visibly corrupt dealings with President Joe Biden.
And he faced 17 years in prison. A drug addict with a history of indiscretions, yet central in all these shady dealings.
Of course he never saw jail for the crimes he was convicted of. Joe Biden pardoned his business partner. His weak link business partner.
Did that thought ever cross your mind? You throw fits about things you can’t prove about Trump, but find ways to justify and diminish anything bad about ‘your side’. Your brain is playing tricks on you.
All of what I have written is provably true. Yet you will find ways to ignore, justify, diminish.
It’s not uncommon, many people do it. For either side.
The pardons were completely justified in the face of endless political witch hunts done by Republicans in Congress and the upcoming (at the time) revenge tour from the second Trump administration.
I’m sorry, I truly believe you are incapable of seeing truth when it is in front of you. It is an amazing phenomenon of today’s bifurcated political culture.
> throw fits about things you can’t prove about Trump,
What things aren't proven? He's running a meme coin while in office, he started a mobile service provider while in office, he's pardoned crypto fraudsters, accepted a $400M jet as a "gift" from Qatar, dropped a case against Eric Adams in a quid-pro-quo attempt, and said he'd put the President of Indonesia in contact with his son for business questions. I'm sure there is much more that I'm missing but I'll ask again: how does that compare to the "Biden crime family" who's apparently sooo corrupt that they let the investigations and cases against Hunter play out under Joe's DOJ? Meanwhile Trump is literally assigning insurance lawyers to go after people because no serious prosecutor will take the case; that's a revenge tour and everyone saw it coming.
Again, the corruption is unprecedented. Whatever the Biden criminal masterminds were doing is tame in comparison to this.
EDIT: don't forget the Whitehouse dinner for investors of the meme coin either.
First: we agree, the things you have listed about Trump look like corruption to me, too. What we seem to disagree on is the corruption in the Biden administration. You seem to be unable to see that.
About the Trump allegations ( again, which look like corruption to me ): is there any more firm evidence of corruption than there was against Biden? It looks to me like both sides are accepting money, diamond rings, jets (!), luxury automobiles, etc. for similar consideration. ( Namely, access to the Executive branch of the US government ).
So why is the corruption on one side totally obvious and evil, and on the other side doubtful and excusable?
But, I always say, once is a aberration. Twice is democracy speaking.
Of course, many many people are opposed but, in the end, you have to own it. And by that I mean, not complaining that it's not your fault, but by doing anything you can to oppose it.
Those of us who live in countries that banned gerrymander decades ago, made discriminating against voters a crime, and use something other that first past the post have a quibble about you calling the USA a beacon of democracy. One citizen, one vote, one value has never been a priority there.
Having a high percentage of participating voters invariably drags the outcome towards the centre. It's almost certain if the USA had of bothered to get their democratic institutions in order sometime in the past 2.5 centuries Trump would not have won. But as the citizens of the USA demand they have the freedom to not participate in their democracy, it's unlikely it will be fixed any time soon.
Trump admin is a godsend. He just does what everyone before him did, just openly. Which is better in a way - before him the upper classes in the west were quite adept at hiding corruption.
The presidential libraries, the foundations, the speaking fees, the books, the revolving door between companies and regulators - was it any different in essence?
It is not, the west corporations history of corruption in Latin America, Africa and Asia is at this same level but was heavily under-reported/persecuted, for obvious reasons.
The important difference is not the price, but the extent of the corruption. A politician whose public persona is clean, law-abiding, respectful of norms and institutions, and generally benevolent will be limited in how far they will go to abuse their power and sell out their country -- even if they are secretly very cynical and amoral. A politician who is openly corrupt, above the law, norm breaking, and vindictive will be free to do much more damage.
The Netflix deal with Obama for $50M and book deals for $65M are a bit blatant. Certainly a $8B crypto rug pull is far worse by a few orders of magnitude. I think it’s weird that these are the new standards, I really hate presidential politics. Perhaps Jimmy Carter was the least damaging and he was forced to give up his family farm.
One difference is that the few on the right that I know (I’m sure a biased sampling) think that what Trump did is wrong but those on the left seem to have forgotten all about Obama’s deals or worse they think that its kosher.
Maybe you can explain why the Netflix deal is corruption? The deal was signed after he was out of office (2018). Did he or people in his administration create policy that benefited Netflix in exchange for this deal? Was there any sort of quid pro quo? Where is the abuse of office?
The ability for Netflix to operate as it does is entirely dependent on banks lending it vast sums of money, the same banks that staffed the Obama admin who continued the bailouts. Corruption doesn’t have to be a direct quid pro quo, that’s the standard needed for bribery, I did not suggest Obama was bribed. Because it’s in the interest of the corrupt to hide their practices the general way of avoiding it is to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and on that standard I believe Obama has failed.
There's a difference between favors and corruption, there has always been. It's something called regulations. We the people must tolerate a certain amount of favors, but there's a line: You cannot accept these favors while in office, particularly so when the exchange involves a public good or decision. You must sell your peanut farm before you hold office. You can't accept a plane from a foreign government in exchange for use of an airbase while in office. The things you do in office must be for the people. The things you do after may be immoral but they don't impact your decisions while in public service.
I don't know where this narrative comes from. He wasn't forced to do any such thing. He voluntarily put his family peanut seed business into a blind trust when elected, with his personal lawyer as trustee. He subsequently only gave up the business once he took control again after his presidency, because it was in massive debt.
I’m assuming the property was mismanaged during his presidency, which means it largely amounts to the same thing. Evidence I would be looking for would be evidence that it wasn’t mismanaged, or that if Carter had retained control that the farm still would have gone bankrupt.
In the general case it’s near impossible to find a third party who can run your family farm as well as you can, a task made more difficult if that person also has to be a lawyer.
You must see the difference between making money from books/speaking fees and using the full power of the US government to create policy that directly benefits your investments (possibly at the detriment to your competitor).
