WarGamer
WarGamer's JournalPresidential Immunty, not a black and white issue... lots of gray area.
Unconditional immunity is a non-starter, obviously.
But can a former POTUS be charged with crimes involving legitimate use of Presidential powers?
How many times have US missiles accidentally hit a wedding party or some thing?
Remember Anwar al-Awlaki?
an American-Yemeni Islamic scholar and lecturer who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government. U.S. government officials argued that Awlaki was a key organizer for the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda, and in June 2014, a previously classified memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Justice was released, justifying al-Awlaki's death as a lawful act of war. Civil liberties advocates have described the incident as "an extrajudicial execution" that breached al-Awlaki's constitutional right to due process, including a trial.
How many would advocate for ZERO Presidential immunity?
Certainly the al-Awlaki strike was justified but if not for Presidential immunity, some future political foe might prosecute for something like this?
So here's the GRAY AREA.
There must be a mechanism to extend immunity when legally appropriate and deny immunity when the acts aren't covered by law.
That mechanism is probably the Federal Court System.
Watching some Fox News... war monger bastards.
Each and every guest suggesting US forces directly strike Iran or their proxies to protect Israel...
Ever notice the bully is at his worst when his big friend is with him?
If the US cut off Israel... maybe they'd try to find PEACE in their neighborhood?
US Mortgage Rates Surge to Highest Since November, Hitting 7.1%
This is important.
When polling shows the unpopularity of the economy...
Pretty much no one is judging GDP, UE numbers and certainly not the economies in other countries.
Average Americans spend money on food, shelter and transportation.
Food is crazy expensive and housing and automobiles are a lot more expensive than they were a few years ago.
Here are the details:
COVID pushed mortgage rates to sub 3% territory...
But the average between 2015 and 2020 is around 4%
So you were home shopping in 2019, before COVID...
With your income level, the bank will approve you for a 387,000 loan. With a 20% down payment, that's a $484,000 house.
$1848 payment.
So today... That 484,000 house, depending on region has appreciated 40-50% and now costs... approx $700,000
So a $140,000 down payment, $560,000 mortgage...
$3800 payment.
Oh and that new car...
2019 Toyota Camry, 3.9% interest rate.
30k car, assume no down, $468/mo
2024 Toyota Camry, 7.9% interest rate.
30k car, assume no down, $525/mo
Food, Housing, Transportation... that's what 90% of the population perceives as the "economy"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-mortgage-rates-surge-highest-160000474.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKX5dMH2MLLnDOnPVW33q7vuODRIj7csMRwenuXcX9EZ9o48g_WoizQzAv_o_dY-3aNffUuOgma_ER6qLpi9opBVpI-_h2fxlcEHc5y41wGTH9dyizy3jt6b_0qeDvHkW9pjnSFNtqBcAA-Z-qe818q4QQl1U8wH6kWC2VRtHZMy
The average for a 30-year, fixed loan was 7.1%, up from 6.88% last week, Freddie Mac said in a statement Thursday.
Buyers are confronting a tough market with tight inventory. Rising borrowing costs and high prices have pushed the median monthly housing payment in the US to a record, according to Redfin Corp. That’s weighed on home sales, with transactions for previously owned properties dropping 4.3% in March from February, National Association of Realtors data showed.
“As rates trend higher, potential homebuyers are deciding whether to buy before rates rise even more or hold off in hopes of decreases later in the year,” Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in the statement.
Biden Seeks To Triple Tariffs On Chinese Steel And Aluminum
Is that "inflation neutral"?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-triple-steel-tariffs_n_661f446be4b015646f79b610
“The president understands we must invest in American manufacturing, but we also have to protect those investments and those workers from unfair exports associated with China’s industrial overcapacity,” Lael Brainerd, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said on a call with reporters on Tuesday night.
Even as he seeks to eat into Trump’s support in industrial regions, the very authority that Biden is tapping to potentially expand tariffs on Chinese imports speaks to the extent to which he has sought to continue and expand upon the more hawkish trade policies of his predecessor, Trump.
Biden is calling on the office of the U.S. Trade Representative to examine whether its authority under Section 301, which permits the U.S. to impose trade sanctions on trading partners that produce an “unreasonable” burden on U.S. commerce, permits it to triple the tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum. Trump had invoked Section 301 to levy tariffs on Chinese imports to the delight of domestic industries and labor unions who represent workers in those industries.
Apparently Wall Street likes "Canceled TV shows"... DJT up 15%
Yesterday they announced the rollout of their new TV streaming services on mobile app first, and TV next... like Hulu or Freevee, etc...
Apparently a platform dedicated to content likely to be "cancelled" by other platforms.
Some possible programs:
The News Hour with Steve Bannon
The Late Night Show with Stephen Miller
Cooking with Nazis
The Unattractive Undesirable Bachelor
The Five, with Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, Roseanne Barr, Kevin Sorbo and Scott Baio.
Who wants to be a Defendant?
An absolutely fantastic summary of the NYC "Hush Money Trial" of Donald Trump
I've been looking for something like this for days... this is good. All the legal nuts and bolts.
https://news.syr.edu/blog/2024/04/16/pitch-legal-analysis-of-hush-money-trial-facing-former-president-donald-trump/
There are several layers that I believe District Attorney Bragg must show to convict Trump of committing a felony under Penal Law § 175.10.
First, Bragg must show that Trump made the false business records with intent to commit “fraud,” otherwise Trump would not be guilty of a crime at all, because falsifying business records for non-fraudulent purposes is not a crime under the statute.
Second, the District Attorney must show that the reason for Trump’s false entries was to commit or cover up a separate crime, presumably separate from the fraud. If the separate crime is the election law violation, Trump would have had to know that the payment was an election law violation, and to have falsified the records to cover it up that crime. It seems to me that the election law violation would be stronger, not weaker, by making it look like Cohen was the one making the payments for Trump. Disguising the payments through Cohen made it look more like an election law violation by a supporter, not less. Or was Trump trying to disguise the payments to prevent his family or the public from knowing about the embarrassing allegations, rather than covering up an independent crime?
I believe the District Attorney must show (1) that the payments were disguised as attorney fees to commit a fraud on someone, (2) that the underlying payments constituted an independent crime, (3) that Trump knew that the underlying payments constituted a crime, and (4) that the reason he covered up the payments was to disguise that crime. Those are going to be hard things to prove.
There. Now you know more than the content creators on the MSM attempting to tell you about the case.
Were you in favor of Trump hitting/killing Iranian General Soleimani in Iraq?
Pretty similar to the Nuttyahoo/Israeli strike in Syria...
I thought both strikes were stupid on the political stage.
Just wanted to fill in some detail about the trading of DJT.
Seems to be a LOT of confusion about the stock and it's trading so... here I am.
To start, DJT is a tiny company.
It's split into 137 million tiny slices called SHARES.
Donald Trump owns 79 million shares... a few other co-founders hold a few million shares.
So, about 2/3 of the shares are held by insiders who can NOT sell for 6 months due to a lock up period.
Who else owns DJT?
Not institutions. Won't find Vanguard or CALPRS holding any of it.
Total institutional ownership is only 2.3 million shares.
Some of those institutions, call them hedge funds or small investment firms... hold them for the income earned by lending out the shares to folks who want to SHORT the stock.
So there's 4-6m in volume each day. Who's buying and selling?
It's mostly retail investors and small firms trading short term.
How is it being traded? And how does that affect the price action we've seen recently?
You see, if you buy 1000 shares at 35 dollars and it hits 45 dollars the next day, you've made $10k
Recently we saw it run up to nearly 80/share but that was a large enough number that people started to sell their positions to take the money. DJT started the year around 17/share and popped into the 30's when the merger vote date was announced.
Right now it's back to the 30's which seems to be an area of support. So now you will see firms buying in at 30 something and looking to sell when it rises by a few dollars... that's the volatility you see in meme stocks.
Speaking of meme stocks.
DJT has little to no value. Neither did Gamestop but Hedge Funds lost BILLIONS of dollars shorting it.
The retail investors, or as the pros call them "dumb money and ret&rds" are trading the stock "cause they like it" or they're just short term TRADERS making a buck.
The "shorts" you keep hearing about?
DJT actually only has around 11% short last I saw... not that much.
And since the VAST majority of shares are insider owned on lockup and most of the remaining shares are owned by TRADERS just looking for a buck...
There can't be an effective and powerful force to short the stock down.
Why did it go from 79 to 30?
Profit taking.
People will load back up when they see a support level.
I expect this see-saw to continue until the election. It will drop down to support levels and rise again until it's high enough for traders to take profit.
At one point or another we might see foreign buyers take positions... but I think we'll see those around dates like the GOP convention and formal nomination, etc...
To sum it all up. DJT is NOT META. No one is buying DJT as an investment. It's a TRADING commodity only at this point and the daily price action tells the story of who is buying and selling.
Excellent poll out today... II/Tipp, Biden +3 head to head, TIED in 5-way...
Slow and steady improvement for Biden over the last few weeks...
National polling isn't very instructive... but it's good for observing trends.
https://issuesinsights.com/2024/04/08/independents-third-party-candidates-loom-as-election-deciders-in-2024-ii-tipp-poll/
If no other candidates appear on the ballot, the results show Biden 43%, Trump 40%. With the margin of error, it’s basically a dead heat. Significantly, however, 9% responded “other,” while 9% answered “not sure,” for 18% of the total vote.
But the fact is, Trump and Biden are not opposing against one another in a vacuum. I&I/TIPP asks a second question about voters’ presidential preferences, this one adding in the three major third-party and independent challengers who are also running: Independent author, activist and lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., independent former Harvard University professor Cornell R. West, and Green Party standard-bearer Jill Stein.
When those others are added, the numbers change, Biden takes a hit. With the non-Democratic, non-GOP challengers running, Biden and Trump are dead even at 38% each, with Kennedy taking 11%, West 2%, and Stein 1%. “Other” in this case falls to just 2%, while “not sure” remains at 9%.
Thinking about the PowerBall tomorrow and how it relates to Taxation and Wealth.
So in California the jackpot after taxes is just under $400m
We all ask ourselves "what would you do with it?"
You see... 400m is fairly difficult to spend.
Can't really buy a Bezos size yacht or you'd be broke in 10-20 years.
So most people would peel off like $300m and buy Federal Gov't Bonds.
You see... a 10- year Bond returns around 4.5% annually.
Or around $14 million a year. Risk-free.
But think about it.
You've taken money out of the circulating money supply... money that was in someones pocket at the 7-11
And you've buried it. Hoarded it.
Some will say... "That money isn't hoarded, it's invested in the USA"
Well... who pays my $14m a year? The US Gov't you say? Who's that?
The married couple paying 20% of their income in Federal Income Tax?
Single dude paying 15%?
Isn't the hoarding of wealth really a transfer of wealth TO the rich?
Through Gov't debt?
The US gov't is 35 trillion in the hole...
16% of ALL Federal spending, 450 billion a year... goes towards servicing US Gov't debt...
Meaning... paying interest to rich people hoarding wealth.
#WealthTaxNow
PS I'll still accept the Grand Prize.
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Name: JGender: Male
Hometown: SoCal
Home country: USA
Current location: Socal
Member since: Mon Feb 1, 2021, 09:27 PM
Number of posts: 12,439