The Goat Pen

The Lamestream media chimes in. Oh wait, this is Fox News:

The Trump Mar-a-Lago search was justified

Here's the truth about the FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on August 8

What also is true is that Trump had particular legal obligation as the former president to properly turn over presidential records to the National Archives and Records Administration. That is mandated by the Presidential Records Act because those records are the property of the United States. They are not Trump’s personal property.

In a competent White House, this process would have started within days of his election loss and would have been completed well in advance of his departure for Florida on January 20, 2021. It was not.

Trump spent his final two months desperately trying in the courts, and later through state legislatures and ultimately the January 6, 2021 rally, to reverse his election loss. Document archival was not high on his priority list.

The result was apparently more than 25 boxes’ worth of presidential records were shipped to Florida and stored in a basement at Mar-a-Lago. If this were a mere issue of simply recovering unclassified presidential records, though, there likely never would have been a criminal element to this matter. But buried into those boxes were countless properly marked classified documents. Those documents lacked any markings indicating that Trump had ever declassified them. No actual substantiated evidence indicates Mr. Trump ever declassified them. No one viewing those records would have any reason to view them as anything other than properly classified documents.

The government tried to recover the documents peacefully and quietly. They spent one year discussing the matter with Trump’s staff, and 15 boxes were sent back to NARA in February.

After identifying more missing records, the government returned in June with a subpoena and found more boxes of records that should have been returned. Both times, properly marked classified documents – up to and including documents marked as Top Secret and requiring Sensitive Compartmented Information access eligibility – were located within the boxes.

A Trump lawyer swore out an affidavit promising there were no more documents. The government gathered evidence that the Trump lawyer was not being truthful, and on August 8, 2022, a court-authorized search warrant was executed that, sure enough, located several more classified documents.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-m ... -justified

I haven't seen Sauls finalie yet so I'm not sure if he's alive anyway.

People in blue states live longer than people in red states...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-02.pdf

Rankings:

1) HI

2) WA

3) MN

4) MA

5) CA

6) NH

7) VT

8) OR

9) UT

10) CT

42) SC

43) NM

44) OK

45) AR

46) TN

47) KY

48) AL

49) LA

50) WV

51) MS

aTm wrote: ↑Tue Aug 23, 2022 7:58 pm China and India’s economies have been growing the fastest. They must be stealing all the central american dream!

I suspect geography does have a lot to do with central american troubles, although very little to do with the US.

Even among all those central american countries though, Nicaragua is the absolute worst one. Because its the most corrupt one with the least economic and political freedom. Im sure if you ask Ortega or his wife or whatever other motherfuckers are in charge there, they will gladly tell you all about how it’s the United States that fucks their people over…certainly not them…no siree.

The US is in a decline like all late stage empires go through. China is obviously on the rise. They're not decimating their economy with wars around the globe, offshoring most of their industrial jobs so a few folks at the top can make more money, or putting a motley collection of paid stooges and imbeciles into powerful government positions, up to and including POTUS.

You are an idiot if you don't understand how the US deals in South and Central America.

Political freedom like how we have the luxury of voting for two parties in the US, both that back corporate power & the security state, Wall St, and warmongering around the world? Ortega rules like a neoliberal, not a Sandinista btw. But that's got nothing to do with the article I put up a few days ago.

China is the one country that I am positive will not exist as a unified state at some point in our lifetime.

"The US is in a decline like all late stage empires go through."

We've been an empire for 2000+ years now, I like our chances...

Ortega rules like a neoliberal, what an oxymoronic quote.

Very neoliberal of someone to "rule" over a country. Suspending constitutional term limits so you can stay in power, having your wife be the vice president, shutting down newspapers and universities, violently cracking down on the protests that arise from these actions so that tens, if not hundreds of thousands of your people flee across the border to Costa Rica for asylum....all very neoliberal. Hes taking care of the dengue fever though.

I assume you're using "neoliberal" to mean favorable to capitalism or whatever, but the idea that the Sandinistas are moving toward capitalism or neoliberalism is dumb. If anything, what happens over the generations is that the longer a corrupt and repressive regime is in power, the remaining elites and oligarchs that oppose him, eventually move toward supporting him so that they can stay rich. So what you have is the rich kids support him and in return some quid pro quo comes back to them in terms of economic freedom to make shitloads of money. That doesn't make him neoliberal though, it makes him corrupt, and if needed he could take away those policies in a heartbeat.

hedge wrote: ↑Wed Aug 24, 2022 12:32 pm "The US is in a decline like all late stage empires go through."

We've been an empire for 2000+ years now, I like our chances...

Good lord. And yes I realize you added an extra 0.

aTm wrote: ↑Wed Aug 24, 2022 12:44 pm I assume you're using "neoliberal" to mean favorable to capitalism or whatever, but the idea that the Sandinistas are moving toward capitalism or neoliberalism is dumb. If anything, what happens over the generations is that the longer a corrupt and repressive regime is in power, the remaining elites and oligarchs that oppose him, eventually move toward supporting him so that they can stay rich. So what you have is the rich kids support him and in return some quid pro quo comes back to them in terms of economic freedom to make shitloads of money. That doesn't make him neoliberal though, it makes him corrupt, and if needed he could take away those policies in a heartbeat.

You make some weird side points that don't appear to be anything but grasping at straws.

I like how you realized a post later that you don't know what "neoliberal" means.

And as we have seen in the US, neoliberalism and corrupt are not mutually exclusive.

Neoliberalism and a politically repressive regime are mutually exclusive as far as I am concerned. You arent a neoliberal if you are implementing an authoritarian state politically and imprisoning opposition etc. There is no neoliberal style economic freedom in a country like Nicaragua, there is only capitalism for friends of the regime to run the slave labor maquiladoras or whatever as long as they support the regime.

"Good lord. And yes I realize you added an extra 0."

Well in that case, what do you know about "late stage" empires? We've been rolling along for 2000+ years, what other empire has lasted that long? What other "late stage" empires are you comparing us to? There aren't any...

Meanwhile, we know very well what late stage dictatorships look like, a great many of them didn't even last 10 years and many more lasted less than 100. Meanwhile, we just keep rolling along, your mewling about what "late stage" empires look like notwithstanding...

I'm guessing your model of "successful" upendings of a previous regime is the French and Russian revolutions...

Funny thing is the US government is ultimately an authoritarian regime (think Debs, Assange, and potentially Snowden) with most of the citizens living paycheck to paycheck. We just usually use propaganda to control our people rather than brute force and imprisonment, but the latter will always be there as needed. But anyway if a country is letting corporations and investors exploit their people while the leaders get paid, it's neoliberalism in all its glory, regardless if it's first or third world. It happens in the US and Nicaragua and most other places around the globe, with safety nets varying from place to place.

Oooh there's some lovely filth down here!

Maybe you're just not cut out for this world...

Hedge, you are one stupid mofo. The idea that you're going to type a word like "mewling" and get people riled up is internet trolling from 20 years ago. The world has moved on without you, you clueless jackass. Keep posting your usual dribble though and we'll all keep scrolling through.