194 Comments
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Jorn Haga's avatar

Not enough of us have been reduced to saying a prayer when we swipe our debit card at the grocery store yet.

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Vermont Farm Wife's avatar

No debit or credit card here, but I know exactly how much cash I have on me when I walk into a store and I keep a running total of everything I spend so I don't overshoot. And a shout-out to those miserable stores that a) don't put prices on individual items and b) manage to mess up or lose the shelf tabs so you never really know what something costs until you're at the cashier.

I recently (last week) read that some big retailers (cough-WalMart-cough) are moving to digital shelf price tabs so that they can adjust (raise) prices without sending a low-wage employee out to replace the shelf stickers.

According to that article, this new digital system will be able to identify customers when they enter the store - via their cell phones? - and provide a "personal" price for each individual based on previous purchases and who knows what other information they've bought.. If that be the case, leave your cell phones in your car when you shop, people.

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NanaW's avatar

Thanks for the heads up! I will definitely be leaving my phone in my car at Walmart. Although I pretty much expect every grocery store to join the party.

I loathe these corportocracies that are leaning all in on the digital prison system building.

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Vermont Farm Wife's avatar

Here's a link to that Business Insider article about all the many ways new technology is being harnessed to separate you from your hard-earned cash:

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-quietly-picking-your-pocket-with-personalized-pricing-2024-7

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Kathy Leicester's avatar

I always do. Good advice.

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sammy's avatar

I use Walmart+. I can get my groceries delivered and I never have to enter the store. It also allows me to use my scan and go to shop in the store, so I don't have to wait in line. It is only $98/year. I also use Amazon alot. We might as well make it as convenient as possible. I hate having to navigate the stupid checkout lane with an incompetent person slowly scanning my stuff, I can do it way faster but they took away all the self checkouts due to theft. Lots of workers are great, but it only takes one boob to totally screw up your day. Anyway, if I can avoid the store completely it's good!

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jean's avatar

You have clearly identified the problem. We have made too many false idols, afterall everyone has their own truth. Truth is truth it is exclusive.

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K2's avatar

Like!

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alwayscurious's avatar

so by authorizing seizing Russian sovereign assets, they (the chess players) must intend to start/ignite/propel the hot war they've been drooling over so that conscription newly passed into law across Europe can take effect; they are INSANE

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VHMan's avatar

There is no other term for it.

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Bridget's avatar

“It’s 50/50 that Joe Biden is out in the garage rewatching the second season of the Rockford Files on his VCR, so maybe he will and maybe he won’t.”

Brilliant.

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carily myers's avatar

lol, like

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NanaW's avatar

So someone one has put things in place to turn over executive powers to the Secretary of State and/or the Secretary of the Treasury?

And those powers appear to specifically have to do with confiscating Russian Assets.

Somebody wants the pressure for armed conflict to keep escalating. (And maybe there’s further money laundering to do.)

Where’s Waldo that they had to delegate presidential authority?

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K2's avatar

Indeed! I remember the embarrassing kerfuffle of folks grabbing authority when Reagan was shot. This is far worse! Although Bamster’s people have been running things anyway ‘to transform the country.’

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AndyinBC's avatar

Holy shit!

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Tian Wen's avatar

How often does it happen that the President delegates his authority to the state and treasury secretaries?

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Chris Bray's avatar

I don't think it's that uncommon, but I'm trying to figure out the specifics.

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Læwis's avatar

Chris this is the Normal, this is how Actual History Works, this is reality, the peace and prosperity was the drug fueled illusion. Welcome the land of the Real World.

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Truman Angell's avatar

Peace is the tiny prize at the bottom of a family size cereal box of iniquity. Digging for it is a challenge.

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K2's avatar

Like!

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Shan's avatar

I have no words.

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Shan's avatar

Wait, I do have words. I am so fucking angry. WTF. As a GenX growing up in the town next to one of the country’s largest steel mills, I spent my entire childhood waiting for that fucking bomb to fall courtesy of the USSR. It was a constant hidden terror always on the edge of existence, ever present but only really discussed at time of crisis. And then the wall came down. Then the Soviets fell. And it was over. GenX could exhale a collective sigh of relief. The threat was over. No more Cold War. No more threat of the men in our lives being drafted. No more BOMB. Go on and live free. And now this shit. From the most incompetent boob of a president in my lifetime. And I lived through Carter. You fucking assholes. Now I have to relive my childhood nightmare again. Only this time I have to worry about my kid and nieces and nephews being drafted into some shitty war or being nuked instead of me. FUCK YOU

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mileytheduchess's avatar

Boomer here. Aside from the get-under-your-desk drills for The Big One, I never gave nukes a second thought while I was growing up, probably because back then, grownups didn't torment children with fear. I spent my childhood pretending I was a horse and drawing pictures of nature and animals. My high school classmates were assigned draft numbers for Vietnam, the draft that ended around the time you were born ('75? guessing). I don't know who broke your childhood. What a waste.

But please don't continue this cycle. Hopefully Trump will be elected, and stop these morons from trying to drive Putin into a corner or start WWIII like the complete assholes they are.

Meanwhile, FIND JOY EVERY DAY. Yes, I'm yelling. Stop wasting your life being afraid of things that are completely out of your control. Be joyful that you have a kid, and nieces and nephews. I have none of those.

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Nancy Benedict's avatar

Amen. When tempted to fear, which is frequently these days, I am reminded of one of my favorite passages of scripture: Lamentations 3:19-25. Our souls are downcast within us but His mercies are new every morning. There is always something to be thankful for.

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Kathy Leicester's avatar

Me, either. I try to have the attitude of POTUS Trump. Does he worry about anything other than what he's trying to accomplish?

Nope.

Be brave.

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okboomer's avatar

I never had those drills. In the 1960s, we knew about air raid sirens, but then they sounded the siren every day at noon so we never knew if we should head for the fallout shelter or the cafeteria. Anyway, I was never taught to fear a nuclear war, or to hate Russians. The big fear in the 1960s was being drafted and sent to Vietnam. In the 1970s Nixon wound down the Vietnam war, ended the draft, and began to ease tensions with the USSR and China, so of course the deep state took him out. The media whipped up fear of nuclear war in the early 1980s when Reagan took office ("Threads", "The Day After", "War"), so maybe that's what Shan experienced.

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mileytheduchess's avatar

We never had air raid sirens in the 60s. Did you live in a city? '

Maybe I didn't go to the movie theater often enough to be scared.

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okboomer's avatar

Yes, I grew up in a city. We moved to the suburbs when I was 10.

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K2's avatar

Like!

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Tardigrade's avatar

Only for Ukrainians? What about us?

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okboomer's avatar

That was bill BS42069, "A Bill to Fund the Military Media Non-Governmental Organization Complex and to Save the Sacred Democracy of Ukraine and For Other Purposes Wink Wink". The bill passed but the record of the vote was lost in the Crowdstrike outage.

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Cathleen Manny's avatar

Exactly my first thought. What In The Hell.

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Blair's avatar

Nancy's "legacy" is a vodka-soaked brain, a lifetime of ill-gotten gains, and lies leaving a wake of destruction.

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

Not surprising as she's a literal Mob princess. Do a deep dive on her brother, her father as mayor of Baltimore, and the cover-up of a gang rape in the 1950s. Now her Devil Spawn nephew Patrick Bateman may continue the family legacy on a national level.

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Regina Filippone's avatar

The disrespect of Bibi is beyond belief. It’s not once been in the news all day today . Isreal is on its own. I wish I was surprised

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Richard Parker's avatar

All the no shows for Netanyahu sends a heck of a message to the Russians and the Chinese and all our other "enemies".

My guess is that at this moment Biden is in such a state as to not be presentable in front of cameras.

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AndyinBC's avatar

Calm down. Morticians today can work wonders.

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Dawn Bernard's avatar

I like the way you think

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mileytheduchess's avatar

ROFL!

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A. Hairyhanded Gent's avatar

Think forward to November.

The Demos have a fundamental problem in attempting to please two traditional and reliable constituencies: the Jewish electorate; and the gentile progressive college-educated wing that is labeled for convenience's sale "woke".

The former, with money and influence, demands support for Israel. The latter, with votes and enthusiasm, demands withdrawal of support for Israel, now perceived as bullies punishing an underdog.

The Demos need to straddle this and will make vague demonstrations, for and against, as their poll numbers indicate.

They just wish the whole thing would go away.

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Randy Farnum's avatar

Politics. Meeting with him wouldn’t play well with all the Muslims in Michigan and Minnesota. At this point they need every state they can get.

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Doggie Dad's avatar

Bingo. They are pandering to the Free Palestine crowd in advance of the DNC convention.

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Richard Parker's avatar

A strange consequence of the Electoral College.

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Richard Parker's avatar

No one (who matters) showed up at the air port? The Secretary of State couldn't fit Netanyahu into his busy schedule?

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Randy Farnum's avatar

He’s probably busy updating his resume.

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Regina Filippone's avatar

These people are trying to destroy Israel

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VHMan's avatar

It’s called the “Drop dead” State Department protocol.

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Richard Parker's avatar

"Drop dead" is the V.P. or the Secretary of State showing up for the effective head of state for an official ally. Not no one.

There are going to be some very lonely U.S. officials standing on the ground, lost and puzzled, at Israeli airports.

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jim's avatar

us officials should have no business in Israel.

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okboomer's avatar

This is how Blinken is treated everywhere he goes so he must have decided that sending an Uber driver is standard diplomatic protocol.

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

No surprise he got on the phone with Trump to find out what the hell's going on.

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Jorn Haga's avatar

Fuck bibi and the rest of Tel Aviv. Go create shekels elsewhere we give israel enough of our money

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Richard Parker's avatar

That may be true, but by the "rules of the games" important foriegn leaders are met at the airport by people of the same rank in every country. Our government couldn't get someone of appropriate rank to the airport is troubling.

Represents a government that is not functioning on a routine basis.

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Michael K.'s avatar

It does, and foreign nations take note, and then the dollar (already plummeting in their nation the past two years) dives again, against the national currency.

If New Amerika insists on the farce long enough, the foreign banks WILL turn their dollars into firestarter. Slowly, then all at once.

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AndyinBC's avatar

Suggested edit: "Represents a government that is not functioning" Period

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J Mann's avatar

The Bibi-Biden relationship has more k-fabe in it than you might think. It plays well to both their bases for their relationship to appear more hostile than it really is. Netayahu was invited by congressional republicans, so I think a little bit of Biden distance was (a) to be expected and (b) is probably good for Netanyahu's home politics as well.

I'm not crazy about some of Biden's decisions on Israel, but *for democrats*, he and Blinken have been fairly supportive.

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jim's avatar

bibi is on his own, lol, lol.... our politicians are more beholden to him than the taxpayers. Doesn't matter who the president is, Bibi will get his shekels, in full.

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Brandon is not your bro's avatar

Brandon was never anyone’s bro . What an unprofessional POS 💩….. all he ever cared about was Biden Inc.

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Jul 23
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Brandon is not your bro's avatar

👍🏼

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alwayscurious's avatar

Coup under a full moon and a full on worldwide, biggest ever, Bill Gates IT meltdown.

Would make a great thriller.

Seems like they're making it up as they go, (the usurpers).

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Jorn Haga's avatar

I cant stand the pedophile Biden but he is the President and as a Marine that does concern me.

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Dawn Bernard's avatar

Seems?

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VHMan's avatar

Yeah. I want the movie rights!

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Tanto Minchiata's avatar

First off - Don’t diss Angel from The Rockford Files.

The Deep Stink just tried to off President Trump. The Secret Service girlboss’ anti-testimony before the Oversight Committee was jaw dropping in its insolence. The Republicans verbally eviscerated her but I thought one of the ladies should have started clawing at her face. I mean if you’re going to stonewall legitimate questions about attempted murder, and you’ve taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, which sort of implies cooperation with Congress in the pursuit of the truth, and you just try to brazen it out and lie with a straight face, quite unconvincingly I might add, would it really be bad if MTG put her in a headlock and gave her a wedgie? Is that too much to ask, FFS? It’s not like a black ops CIA program we’re talking about. We’re talking about the protection of the fmr. POTUS at a public event, so what’s all the secrecy? Of course we already know the answers. This might just be super duper incompetence, but is probably a bunch of Never Trumpers and Deep Stinkers CF’ing their wet work wet dream.

Then Dementia Joe shuffles off this election coil and disappears from sight while Kamala is now in the hot seat until they Deep Stink her for California Dracula or Hillary or some other psychopath salivating in the wings.

Everything is f-g weird and no doubt gonna get a whole lot weirder by the end of the year.

Stay frosty.

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okboomer's avatar

The head of the SS (convenient initials) took the 5th without taking the 5th.

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Brian DeLeon's avatar

Watching even a few minutes of the corporate media is vomit-inducing. Wall to wall Saint Kamala. For years she was a joke, but now she’s the second coming of the messiah. At least for a few weeks, and after her poll numbers don’t rise, they will, as you say, drop her like a hot rock and anoint another lunatic from their stable.

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Tanto Minchiata's avatar

“We need to unite the Democrat party.”

Why? Let it dissolve in its own political acid.

Criminal organization.

Kamala - I’d say her ascendance is a bad joke, but after so many similar jokes since Obama turned the country into a Cultural

Marxist morality play, I’m no longer laughing.

Dumb can be quite harmful. And after a demented political prostitute as fake President, is a dingbat party girl any more absurd?

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

Second coming...heh...

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

The lack of regular press conferences and progress on the investigation is Oliver Stone-level. Every event since seems to be a distraction to this fact.

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VeryVer's avatar

Is Biden alive?

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Chris Bray's avatar

Don't be a conspiracy theorist -- there's at least a 40% chance that he's more or less semiconscious.

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John Geis's avatar

So he’s Schrödinger's cat?

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K2's avatar

Like x 1000!

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mileytheduchess's avatar

Ha! Great minds etc. I said that on the twatters.

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Cathleen Manny's avatar

Chris, I saw the very short video showing Biden getting into a vehicle when he didn’t feel well and was leaving Las Vegas. I noticed his staff had to completely assist him into the vehicle, and apparently positioning his legs and feet for him. Do you think there is a possibility he had a stroke while in Vegas, and maybe that’s why he hasn’t been on camera since? Just wondering.

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Bobby Lime's avatar

50%. The other 50% is that he's reanimated.

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Jorn Haga's avatar

If he isnt that sure does open up his replacement for the election. This is the second Coup d'Etat we gave gone through in four years.

Stop the world i want off.

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carily myers's avatar

me too

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

supposedly he called Kamala a few hours ago to tell her how much he loved her.

the man sounds very unwell, in all ways.

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JT's avatar

Define “alive”…

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

Depends on what the definition of "alive" "is".

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Richard Parker's avatar

It has been very quiet. I don't think that they would hide an actual death.

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AndyinBC's avatar

"I don't think that they would hide an actual death."

I suspect *they* would do ANYTHING that might, just might, help them hang onto power for a few more hours, or minutes - or seconds.

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Jorn Haga's avatar

I dont know about that

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

He's just resting! Pining for the fjords!

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VeryVer's avatar

lol!

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Maria's avatar

Hiding in plain sight, and that’s when you know it’s bad, they don’t think it’s necessary to be discrete because Nancy believes everyone else is a peasant. For now, Nancy is in charge until BHO says so.

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Michael K.'s avatar

Yup it's just more Whatcha gonna do about it? from the Regime.

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carily myers's avatar

AMEN

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William Hunter Duncan's avatar

Biden is trying to decide if he will admit he did not concede the nomination.

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Jorn Haga's avatar

If he evwn said he was out to begin with. The statement came from his chief of staff. NOT on official White House stationary either.

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CB's avatar

I heard the statement was signed "by" Biden, but the signature didn't match his known signature. Maybe someone moved his hand for him. Hope he hasn't gone canoeing.

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Jorn Haga's avatar

It came from his chief of staff.

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MSK's avatar

I mean they lied to us for four years, changed rules and prevented anyone from legitimately challenging Joe in 2020 and 2024, promised us again and again Joe was “as sharp as ever”, classified the Hur report so no one could see the dementia we all knew he had, accused people of cheap fakes, and now are crowning his heir apparent. And that’s only the ways they’ve threatened democracy and the rules on their own side. And anyone who pointed out any of this was gaslighted or accused of misinformation. They have not found a low to which they are willing to stoop to keep control of power.

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Mark In Houston's avatar

Brilliant observations as usual Chris!

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Anne's avatar

The Vietnam Tap Code is absolutely perfect -- unfortunately! I'm not sure how we came to this terrible pass, but as Dorothy Parker said, "Here we are."

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Billy Bob's avatar

You take off for a week in the wilderness and all hell breaks loose.

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Emilio Rios's avatar

Excellent work

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Mary Poindexter McLaughlin's avatar

I'll let AI -- the only painters and filmmakers currently employed -- know it's time to crank out that new psychologically ruptured expressionism. So excited to see what it "creates"!!

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Chris Bray's avatar

Tell it George Grosz and Fritz Lang had a baby, but it grew up to imitate American movie stars.

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Mary Poindexter McLaughlin's avatar

Perfect. Will do.

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Cathleen Manny's avatar

No. AI is not a cute game.

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Cathleen Manny's avatar

No. AI is not a cute game.

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Yuma's Freezing's avatar

That was EXCELLENT, Chris!! Thank you so much! Pelosi just won't go away... unfortunately.

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