U.S. Electile Dementia paralytica 2024

[Dr Sardonicus]

Here in the good ol' USA, one of the demands from the Anarchist 20 to which Kevin McCarthy acceded to gain their acquiescence to him becoming Speaker of the House, was that there be a floor vote on a plutocrats' wild fantasy called the "Fair Tax Act."

Earl LeRoy "Buddy" Carter (R-GA) has already introduced this bill (HR 25). It calls for abolishing the income tax, capital gains tax, corporate taxes, and the IRS - and making up for the loss in government revenue with a national 30% sales tax.

McCarthy, however, never promised to support this measure, and he has publicly stated that he opposes it. Enough other R's also oppose it that it is very unlikely to pass in the House.

Even if it passed in both the House and the Senate, President Biden would veto it. There are certainly not enough votes to override a veto, so this will not become law.

Proponents are resorting to a mind-bogglingly stupid trick to try to pretend the proposed rate is less than 30%.

Under the proposal, if you bought something priced at $10.00, you'd pay $3.00 in sales tax. That's a 30% sales tax. "No, no!" say these lying weasels. "That $3.00 is only 23% of the total $13.00."

No. What would be taxed is the $10.00. And the proposed tax really is 30%.

I'd have to review How to Lie With Statistics to see if it has a similar "shifting the baseline" example...

[rogue]

Watching the House of Representatives in DC is like watching a circus with many Republicans looking like subjects of the freak show.

[Dr Sardonicus]

The Chinese spy balloon tracking across the US has prompted one of the most idiotic suggestions I've seen in some time:

If Joe Biden and his administration are too weak to do the obvious and shoot down an enemy surveillance balloon perhaps we just let the good people of Montana do their thing... I imagine they have the capability and the resolve to do it all themselves.

-- Donald Trump, Jr. Feb 3, 2023

The lowest altitude I've seen this thing reported at is 46,000 feet, which is well over 8 miles (13 km) high. What kind of weaponry Junior imagines "the good people of Montana" might possess is beyond me.

And amidst all the Republican Biden-bashing for not ordering the military to shoot the balloon down, one prominent Republican offered a reason to be cautious that goes far beyond official concerns about falling debris harming civilians. On a Friday Feb 3 interview on Fox News, James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said:

My concern is that the federal government obviously doesn't know what's in that balloon. Are there Bioweapons in that balloon, did that balloon take off from Wuhan? We don't know anything about that balloon.

At this point, if the military were to shoot the balloon full of holes, it would probably splash down after the better part of a week, far out in the Atlantic Ocean.

UPDATE: The US military did shoot the balloon down after it drifted off the US East Coast. But they didn't just "shoot it full of holes." They blew it out of the sky with an air-to-air missile fired from an F-22.

[Dr Sardonicus]

I suppose Kari Lake could next go to Federal court. Oops, I got a little confused. Lake had simultaneously filed appeals with the Arizona Supreme Court and the Arizona Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals got the case first. Now that it has affirmed, Lake can appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. She has said she would (and BTW here's a handy link to donate money). Got to keep fleecing those suckers, you know.

And she has conned them out of over two and a half million dollars since election day - so far.

But I guess the Arizona Supreme Court will be the end of the line for this particular gravy train.

IN THE
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION ONE
KARI LAKE, Plaintiff/Appellant,

v.

KATIE HOBBS, et al., Defendants/Appellees.
_________________________________

KARI LAKE, Petitioner,

v.

THE HONORABLE PETER THOMPSON, Judge of the SUPERIOR
COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA, in and for the County of
MARICOPA, Respondent Judge,

KATIE HOBBS, personally as Contestee; ADRIAN FONTES, in his official
capacity as Secretary of State; STEPHEN RICHER, in his official capacity
as Maricopa County Recorder, et al., Real Parties in Interest.

No. 1 CA-CV 22-0779
No. 1 CA-SA 22-0237
(Consolidated)
FILED 2-16-2023
_________________________________

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. CV2022-095403
The Honorable Peter A. Thompson, Judge

AFFIRMED; RELIEF DENIED

Kari Lake appeals the Maricopa County Superior Court's ruling rejecting her request to set aside Katie Hobbs’s 17,117 vote win in Arizona's 2022 gubernatorial election. Lake's arguments highlight election-day difficulties, but her request for relief fails because the evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court's conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results.

Accordingly, we affirm.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

I suppose Kari Lake could next go to Federal court. Oops, I got a little confused. Lake had simultaneously filed appeals with the Arizona Supreme Court and the Arizona Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals got the case first. Now that it has affirmed, Lake can appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. She has said she would (and BTW here's a handy link to donate money). Got to keep fleecing those suckers, you know.

And she has conned them out of over two and a half million dollars since election day - so far.

But I guess the Arizona Supreme Court will be the end of the line for this particular gravy train.

I did some more checking, and I guess I'm right to be confused. Kari Lake is now claiming she told her marks supporters she would take her case "all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court." She's lying, of course. She originally told them she would take her case "all the way to the Supreme Court." Without a qualifier. It's in a bunch of her tweets.

But wait - there's more:

After her case got thrown out of Maricopa County Superior Court, she did say she'd take her election contest all the way to the US Supreme Court in an interview, as posted January 9, 2023 to Sean Hannity's web site:

Maria Bartiromo: You a minute ago said they sabotaged you. How did they do it and how far are you willing to take this lawsuit?

Kari Lake:<snip>
And we’re taking it to the Appelate Court now and we will take it to the Arizona Supreme Court and we will take it to the United States Supreme Court if we need to but we will not allow our elections to be stolen in Arizona.

So - why has she backtracked on her original promise, to the point of lying about having made it? I can only guess. My best guess is, none of her attorneys are willing to risk being sanctioned by taking a bogus case to any Federal court.

It seems that state court judges almost never sanction attorneys for frivolous court filings. This is because they undergo periodic "performance reviews" conducted by - guess who, attorneys - and so are beholden to attorneys for being able to stay on the bench. Federal judges, however, are under no such constraint.

[Dr Sardonicus]

In case you haven't heard - the most recent former occupant of the White House - who is seeking once again to occupy the White House - has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.

Although the exact charges will remain secret until the defendant is arraigned, it seems that they have to do with falsifying business records, with the intent of circumventing federal campaign law in the 2016 election campaign. Basically, the charges revolve around disguising the source of "hush money" payments to a porn star so she wouldn't tell the public about her adulterous affair with the then-candidate.

Of course, the State of New York can't bring federal charges against anyone, so the charges won't include violating federal campaign law. It would appear that the federal law is only involved for the sake of establishing criminal intent.

Predictably, Republicans are rallying around their personality cult leader. Before the indictment even came down, Republican US Representatives began demanding all sorts of things from the Manhattan DA with regard to the case. He told them to fk off.

BTW, the only reason our 37th President, Richard Nixon, wasn't prosecuted after leaving office is that he was pardoned for any federal crimes he may have committed, by his successor, Gerald Ford.

Curiously, Nixon is the only person in the history of the United States to be twice elected Vice-President and twice elected President, and Ford is the only man to serve as President without having been elected either as President or as Vice-President.