Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statisics:
Stocks are lower this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up.
Bond yields got pushed down on the softer-than-expected ISM survey yesterday. The market narrative seems to be shifting from persistent inflation to a slowdown.
The manufacturing economy deteriorated in May, according to the ISM report. “U.S. manufacturing activity continued in contraction after growing in March, the first expansion for the sector since September 2022. Demand was soft again, output was stable, and inputs stayed accommodative. Demand remains elusive as companies demonstrate an unwillingness to invest due to current monetary policy and other conditions. These investments include supplier order commitments, inventory building and capital expenditures. Production execution continued to expand but was essentially flat compared to the previous month. Suppliers continue to have capacity, with lead times improving and shortages not as severe. Fifty-five percent of manufacturing gross domestic product (GDP) contracted in May, up from 34 percent in April.
The prices measure improved from April, but is still above February and March.
Construction spending fell 0.1% MOM and rose 10% YOY. Residential construction rose 8.1% on a year over year basis. There is a massive bifurcation in the resi market, with single-family construction up 20.4% YOY and multi-family up 2.3%.
We are seeing signs that multi-family has reached saturation and projects that penciled out in the 0% free-money era of COVID no longer make sense. “We certainly are seeing a decline in construction,” said Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders. “Deals and financing have dried up.”
The boom in multi-family building was the biggest since the early 1970s.
The inventory issue is most acute in the markets which boomed during the pandemic years – Boise, Phoenix, Austin, etc.
For-sale inventory is becoming more aligned with demand, according to the ICE Mortgage Monitor. “With 30-year rates easing and affordability improving entering the year, unadjusted monthly price gains had been running above their same-month 25-year average since the start of 2024,” said Walden. “However, softening price growth in April has dropped us below that long-run average. We’ve seen the rate of appreciation slow on an adjusted level as well, with April’s +0.28% increase in home prices a marked downshift from +0.45% in March.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Interesting piece on Chapter 11 & capping liability for damages.
“The Moral Limits of Bankruptcy Law
June 4, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET
By Melissa B. Jacoby
Ms. Jacoby is the author of the forthcoming book “Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal.””
https://archive.ph/Q8Aoy
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NY Times focus groups are great:
“So now it’s down to voting for the convicted felon or voting for Biden, the super-old, out-of-touch guy. I don’t really like either of those choices, but I think I’m going to go with the old guy losing his mind over the convicted felon who’s probably going to be out for blood as soon as he’s elected. It’s like I’m in Poland trying to choose between the Nazis and the Soviets. I’m just going to flip a coin, but probably voting for Biden. I don’t know if I’ll vote.”
“OK, I’m going to side with Jonathan on this one, saying, what’s the big deal about bribing Stormy Daniels? But I want a president who’s going to be able to cover up a $130,000 bribe to Daniels. If he can’t pull that off, I’m not going to trust him with the nuclear football. This seems like such an easy thing for him to screw up. I’m kind of leaning toward Biden now.”
“Watching the Hindenburg land on the Titanic.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/04/opinion/trump-verdict-focus-group.html
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That was funny!
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What is to prevent the judge from sentencing Trump to prison and not allowing him to be free while appealing the case?
I guess if that happens and Trump is in NY, he will be stuck in red states or else he will get extradited the second he lands in a blue state.
I guess that was the point all along.
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Dude’s getting sentenced to jail.
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McWing:
Dude’s getting sentenced to jail.
I’m a bit baffled by legal pundits who predict a no jail sentence by appealing to what “usually” happens with charges like this. There is nothing remotely “usual” about this case, and the judge has already dispensed with the any adherence to the law and standard practices in order to convict him in the first place. Why would he go so far out of his way to ensure a conviction but then not sentence him to a long jail term?
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The whole point is to prevent him from being elected President again. That’s the calculus that will go into it, does it help or hurt his chances.
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It helps him get elected I think but then increases the odds of him being removed via impeachment. The Republican Party candidates poll well behind Trump and, even though I think it’s impossible Trump will be elected, I am sure that the party will lose control of the House and still be a minority in the Senate. There will be enough surviving Republican Senator who will vote to convict.
I still say that Trump dies in prison, the Republican Party fully implodes and it will be Democratic control from here on out.
It is what it is so make plans accordingly.
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I’m a bit baffled by legal pundits who predict a no jail sentence by appealing to what “usually” happens with charges like this.
I think they are still in denial that we now have officially crossed the rubicon into a political justice system. Public trust in the justice system has been officially trashed for half the population and that genie ain’t going back in the bottle.
I am not going to give a shit about some democrat lawyer’s analysis. It is just gaslighting the right and soothing the left.
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Kind of funny. Shakeup at WaPo.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/washington-post-shakeup
The staffers and journalists are appallingly dumb, conceited, and oblivious to the reality of their situation
““Everyone was pretty shocked with your email last night,” one reporter said at the meeting, according to a source present. The reporter suggested that “the most cynical interpretation sort of feels like you chose two of your buddies to come in and help run the Post, and we now have four white men running three newsrooms”
“Later in the meeting, another reporter asked Lewis whether “any women or people of color were interviewed and seriously considered for either of these positions,” a question that prompted applause.”
““Don’t we need our brilliant social journalists and service journalists as embedded in our core product to make sure that people are actually reading the thing that’s out at the center of the mission of the Washington Post?”
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“We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore,” Lewis said. “So I’ve had to take decisive, urgent action to set us on a different path, sourcing talent that I have worked with that are the best of the best.”
At least he’s not in denial, unlike the rest of them.
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Biden really leaning into the Strengthening Alliances thing.
https://x.com/barakravid/status/1797961518010781866?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
Such a refreshing change from Orange Man Bad.
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This is nuts. Read his answer to the first question.
https://time.com/6984968/joe-biden-transcript-2024-interview/
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Interesting piece on Kendi:
https://archive.ph/lVYjp
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This should be amusing:
https://archive.ph/oR62B
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Climate change data? Relax. Rock.Fucking.Solid.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/06/05/academic-publisher-retracts-over-11300-papers-and-shuts-19-journals-as-it-is-overwhelmed-by-fraud-n2175087
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This made me laugh.
https://x.com/jawillick/status/1798546648827932928?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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The propaganda is completely shameless now:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/health/hunter-biden-drug-addiction.html
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For D-Day:
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Well, uh…. Ok.
https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1799076760707006493?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Trump needs to push this hard.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/inside-most-ridiculous-jobs-report-years
One quip I read in Substack recently is Trump primarily attacks foreigners while Biden primarily attacks Americans (i.e. Republicans).
Not 100% true (Trump lobs plenty of fire at Democrats), but it resonates.
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Similar chart:
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I don’t know about that chart, but in table A-7 of the employment situation report, the number of foreign born people employed in the US increased from 30,259,000 to 30,896,000, while the number of US born people employed fell from 130,744,000 to 130,445,000 between May 23 and May 24.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t07.htm
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Yeesh
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If Trump wants to troll Biden, he should say that any future aid to Ukraine or Gaza is dependent on their holding elections.
https://substack.com/@kenklippenstein/note/c-58465579
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Even the NYT admits it now:
https://archive.ph/O4JtV
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Just as the left completes its Gramscian March Through The Institutions, credibility in them collapses.
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The two may be related.
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In a rational world this would be celebrated and encourage more fracking.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/major-lithium-discovery-fracking-wastewater-080028818.html
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“”moral obligation to wean ourselves off dirty fossil fuels and raise the bar on mining domestically and internationally.”
It is a religion to the left. They can’t get past that. I re-read 1984 and the whole thing about engineered scarcity made me think of the environmental left. It fits with the whole “you will live in ze pod, you will own nothing, you will eat the bug burger and you will be happy.” mentality these people have.
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Their world view is that humans are the problem. We’re parasites and need to be exterminated. In that way, they are very Nazi like.
Bottom line, if given half the chance they’d kill you.
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They are authoritarian and utopian. These types (of all political persuasions) tend to have high body counts.
The last time we saw this mentality riding high was 100 years ago.
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Interesting contrast in answers. And of course progressives are going all in on Alito:
https://ryangrim.substack.com/p/justice-samuel-alitos-unvarnished
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Fuck them. RBG was a raging progressive and the left didn’t care about that.
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I think it’s obvious to everyone who’s not a 1000% committed partisan that this is about power and the content of the rulings, not ethics.
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Panic is spreading over the judiciary:
https://www.vox.com/scotus/354381/supreme-court-sotomayor-kagan-retire-now
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Cory Booker. lol!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/7-democrats-could-replace-biden-202416711.html
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1. Ds should replace Biden but Biden never should have doubled down in the first place.
2. Ds should replace Harris if they don’t have the guts to replace Biden. They would have to go “black” on that one, for sure.
3. Supremes should be bound by same Judicial Code of Conduct as the rest of the judiciary. That was true for RBG and is true for Sam. Not a free speech issue on the one hand, nor an impeachment issue on the other, just an issue about the appearance of impropriety for adjudicating related specific cases. I don’t think many non-lawyers get the narrowness of this issue the way lawyers do.
4. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/election-2024-quiz-poll-ideology-7533f46b?mod=wknd_pos1&mod=wknd_pos1
Journal has an ideology sorter. I came out “libertarian” – essentially low regulation, socially permissive, and somewhat optimistic. Well, I used to be more so on every count. This has been the first 12 months of my life where I used more Medicare benefits than I paid in contribs during the same period. I wonder if that affected my world view.
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I came out as libertarian on the same test.
I think “conservative” has little meaning any more. Conservative meant wanting to preserve venerated institutions. Now that the left has taken them over, I don’t really care what happens to them any more. Do I want to preserve a FBI that has ideological litmus tests and views anyone dissenting from their ideology as the equivalent of Al-Qaeda?
Or a legal system that has two tiers of justice – one that applies the law through an ideological filter?
Or an educational system that thinks it is in the indoctrination business?
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I used to think conservative meant don’t change what ain’t broke and liberal meant tweak everything damn the expense. I also used to be either a pro-civil rights Republican or a pro-defense pro-business Democrat but was never registered as either [no party registration in Texas]. I was free to like several national Rs and Ds where now I like few of either and as you know despise Trump, even while acknowledging that I think the NY case was a puffed up misdemeanor.
I used to think the shortcoming of D politics was that after throwing money at a “problem” that didn’t work their answer was to throw more money at it. I used to think the shortcoming of R politics was that after cutting taxes to grow the economy and lower the deficit if that did not work their answer was to lower taxes more. Now I think the shortcomings of both are much deeper because the parties seem only driven by the next election, on the whole. Singular case in point for me is Lindsey Graham, once a man I seriously thought of as a statesman. Well fuck me.
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Mark:
… even while acknowledging that I think the NY case was a puffed up misdemeanor.
What do you think about a party that “puffs up” misdemeanors in order to put its political opponents in jail? More or less of a threat to the rule of law than Trump?
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How can the Democrats replace Biden & Harris if they won’t voluntarily remove themselves? They did win the primaries after all and my impression was that the rules that the Democrats adopted after 1968 basically meant that the party couldn’t remove the candidates that actually won the primaries.
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What Biden should do is pardon his son out of a sense of familial loyalty, and then step down as the nominee out of a sense of honor for having used his power to benefit his son.
But he won’t. He has no honor.
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Might want to wait until his other trial for tax evasion is over.
That’s the more significant one.
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No pardon, but apparently a commutation isn’t being ruled out:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/us/politics/biden-commute-prison-sentence-hunter.html
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Mark:
Supremes should be bound by same Judicial Code of Conduct as the rest of the judiciary. That was true for RBG and is true for Sam.
That doesn’t tell us what the Judicial Code of Conduct requires in either case, which is the important issue. I don’t think anyone has argued that Supremes should not be bound by the Judicial Code of Conduct.
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Scott: The Supremes refuse to apply a judicial code of conduct to themselves. That is the crux of the issue, not what the press or the public thinks.
Joe: of course it’s too late. If wishes were horses beggars would ride. Following up on Scott’s fantasy, Biden could say that his family matters [Hunter] will take too much of his attention in the next four years so that he has to relinquish the nomination. I do not think that would make Harris the nominee but Chicago would be fun to watch. A young moderate like Beshear would make Trump look like your crazy potty mouthed uncle instead of like the more energetic old guy.
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Mark:
The Supremes refuse to apply a judicial code of conduct to themselves.
If this article is any indication, SCOTUS judges, including Alito, recuse themselves pretty regularly for various perceived conflicts of interest, so it seems they must be applying some code of conduct to themselves. To me the interesting and relevant question is whether or not Alito should be recusing himself now. I haven’t seen a sensible argument that he should.
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I think for the most part Justices have revealed their interests and recused themselves accordingly, and I don’t know a specific case coming before the Supremes [including appeals from the Jan 6 burglars] that would require Alito to recuse under the appearance of impropriety rule [if it were applied]. I don’t have any personal knowledge of which cases historically Justices should have recused themselves but did not, either. None of that excuses, in my eyes, their exempting themselves from rules that they have approved for the remainder of the federal judiciary.
George: Trump’s appeal to people who don’t like him seems to me that that they are less enthused about Biden who makes Trump appear more youthful, energetic, etc. As for people who actually like Trump, that has nothing to do with Biden and is, of course, inexplicable to me.
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Thanks Mark, I wanted to follow-up on this:
George: Trump’s appeal to people who don’t like him seems to me that that they are less enthused about Biden who makes Trump appear more youthful, energetic, etc.
I would bet that a lot of even enthusiastic Trump supporters don’t like him, but really like the policies, and are voting for him based on that. Are you talking about a subset of voters who do not like either candidate and are only selecting their POTUS candidate on the one that appears less decrepit?
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Mark:
None of that excuses, in my eyes, their exempting themselves from rules that they have approved for the remainder of the federal judiciary.
Have they, though? Are there instances of SCOTUS justices doing things that lower court judges would not be allowed to do?
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Mark:
Trump’s appeal to people who don’t like him seems to me that that they are less enthused about Biden who makes Trump appear more youthful, energetic, etc.
I don’t like him and his appeal to me has literally nothing to do with Biden’s lack of relative youth, energy, or even cognitive competence. It is entirely due to policy and ideology.
Far more inexplicable to me than people who genuinely like Trump are people who vote for politicians based on anything other than policy/ideological grounds. Voting for someone because he seems to be a “better guy” than his opponent despite the fact that he wants to implement insane policies strikes me as utter lunacy.
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instead of like the more energetic old guy.
Is this what you think Trump’s appeal is?
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“George: Trump’s appeal to people who don’t like him seems to me that that they are less enthused about Biden who makes Trump appear more youthful, energetic, etc.”
This is the best explanation of Trump’s appeal to people who don’t like him that I’ve seen:
Or you can go with my pithy summation:
“Trump 2024: At Least He Was Found Competent To Stand Trial”
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It is obvious that Biden isn’t running anything.
And that is the problem – because we don’t know who is running the Borg right now.
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Mark,
As for people who actually like Trump, that has nothing to do with Biden and is, of course, inexplicable to me.
I understand it. A lot of people really don’t like the media and the left, and they get frustrated with Washington Generals Conservatives like Mitt Romney who walk around with a “kick me” sign on their backs.
Trump isn’t afraid to punch the left and the media in the mouth, and unfortunately, he is about the only one willing to do it.
Another politician who gets it? Pierre Polievre in Canada.
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they get frustrated with Washington Generals Conservatives
Hat tip to the perpetually losing Washington Generals.
They were generally white players, if I recall. Part of the beauty of the Harlem Globetrotters.
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US drops ban on supplying weapons to Azov Battalion
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/biden-lifts-ban-on-ukraines-azov-unit-using-us-weapons/ar-BB1o0O0w
lol. Arming literal fascists.
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That’s how you save Democracy. Along with cancelling elections.
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The sense of entitlement from the reporters that comes through is amazing.
“The Post at a crossroads: Existential questions in a dire season for news
Critics raise concerns about the values of a new team of executives. Meanwhile, the business woes are real. What does Jeff Bezos want?
By Elahe Izadi and
Sarah Ellison
June 10, 2024 at 11:22 p.m. EDT”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/06/10/washington-post-jeff-bezos-william-lewis/
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Interesting:
BlackRock, Citadel back plans for Texas Stock Exchange
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/blackrock-citadel-back-plans-texas-141632240.html
I would have thought Florida the more logical choice. Miami could compete with New York.
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This substack continues to impress:
https://patrickwitty.substack.com/p/the-dentist-the-anonymous-monk-and
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Cue unanticipated results:
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/medical-debt-credit-score-ban-biden-administration/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/06/11/biden-cfpb-medical-debt/
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Muzzie goat fuckers to busy running Afghanistan and Iraq to answer.
https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1800603345129980172?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Jesus do lefties want to drone their fellow Americans.
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It takes a gulag
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Mark you may find this amusing. This is from the Young Thug trial in Georgia which is the other big RICO case going on down there:
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It is amusing.
I was once held in contempt for attacking the Grand Jury pool in San Marcos Texas because voters under 21 were not considered for it. The Judge told me I had impugned the honor of his District Clerk. I did not withdraw the Motion. I spent half an hour in jail.
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You still need to write a book about your life. Or at least a Substack.
The actual contempt order:
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Serious Trouble episode on it:
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/yslrico
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The contrast in tone of the coverage of the Hunter Biden verdict vs Trump’s should be embarrassing to the media:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/12/hunter-trial-biden-family-dark-moments/
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jnc:
The contrast in tone of the coverage of the Hunter Biden verdict vs Trump’s should be embarrassing to the media:
Lots of things should be embarrassing to the media, but it is shameless.
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Glenn Greenwald posted a video from Biden in the Senate back when he argued that all crack users should go to jail for a minimum of 5 years. Trump should run that video as an ad with no voice over or other commentary.
https://greenwald.locals.com/post/5746148/hunter-bidens-conviction-proves-media-s-2020-disinfo-campaign-joe-bidens-approval-ratings-at
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This strikes me as a good way to get yourself shot.
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This so called sting on Alito’s wife is hilarious, especially the part where she’s saying to her husband, tough shit I’m going all in on flags.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1800364109248245845/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1800364109248245845¤tTweetUser=CitizenFreePres
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Crazy – the UAW apparently represents teaching assistants in colleges in California now.
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