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Hi, my name is Brayden Harrington and I am 13 years old. And without Joe Biden I wouldn't be talking to you today.
About a few months ago I met him in New Hampshire. He told me that we were members of the same club: we stutter. It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became Vice President.
He told me about a book of poems by Yeats he would read out loud to practice. He showed me how he marks his addresses to make them easier to say out loud. So I did the same thing today.
And now I'm here talking to you today about the future, about our future. My family often says, “When the world feels better,” before talking about something normal, like going to the movies.
We all want the world to feel better. We need the world to feel better. I'm just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time Joe Biden made me more confident about something that's bothered me my whole life. Joe Biden cared.
Imagine what he could do for all of us. Kids like me are counting on you to elect someone we can all look up to, someone who cares, someone who will make our country and the world feel better. We're counting on you to elect Joe Biden.
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@Vader
Generally, I agree. Elected officials have less right to immunity from civil protest than non-elected citizens, not more. It's hard to get behind any executive order designed to exclusively benefit one executive.
I recall in June that 500 protesters tore down a gate to enter the private neighborhood of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson. When Mark and Patricia McCloskey stood armed on their front porch in a (melodramatic) defense of their property and the story went national, some left-wing pundits defended the tactic of taking the protest to that Mayor's doorstep. I wonder if those same pundits will criticize Lightfoot's exceptionalism.
Overall, I'm not an advocate of taking civil protests into residential and business venues. The context is always supposed to be demanding government action and all non-violent action should be closely predicated on achievement of that action. Going to the Mayor's house is provocative and escalatory, it inconveniences neighbors and creates unpredictable hazards for legit city work like policing and fire fighting.
Nevertheless, a civil protest is a sacred American rite and Lightfoot requires far heavier justification for interrupting that right than mere personal safety. Of course, Lightfoot has the right to protect her wife and daughter but as the Mayor she enjoys many options and abundant protection. The most effective action she could have taken would have been to simply advise the mob that she was at work in the Mayor's office and any protest at her home would fail to achieve the objective of her attention.
Most of the reports I see of violence in Chicago seem well distanced from political protests. Certainly, this most recent looting was just an opportunistic mob and under age to a remarkable degree. Police shot a few people, right? so I am wondering what increase in force you're looking for? Shooting a bunch people would be the next level of escalation but I doubt a massacre would achieve the peace Chicago seeks. Blaming Lightfoot for increased violence also strikes me as pretty disingenuous. Lightfoot has been in office for a year while Chicago has been the most violent top 10 US city for more than 20 years. It seems to me that the Cartels' drug war is the primary contributor to violent crime in Chicago and that sort of crime has proved fairly impervious to police escalations and mayoral decrees.
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Biden read Seamus Heaney at the end of his speech tonight. Heaney is a particular favorite of mine.
Doubletake
Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home
History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
if there's fire on the mountain
or lightning and storm
and a god speaks from the sky.
That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
by Seamus Heaney
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@MisterChris
look it up. It's an inset of Robert Grosseteste who was a fascinating figure about which I knew nothing. Those 12th century bottle-eyed glasses are awesome.
Robert Grosseteste (/ˈɡroʊstɛst/ GROHS-test; Latin: Robertus Grosseteste; c. 1175 – 9 October 1253)[n 1] was an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian, scientist and Bishop of Lincoln. He was born of humble parents at Stradbroke in Suffolk. Upon his death, he was almost universally revered as a saint in England, but attempts to procure a formal canonisation failed. A. C. Crombie calls him "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition".
I've been meaning to ask Math about his interest.
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@crossed
Isaiah 32:5 is saying that liberalism is a virtue, which is of course quite correct.
"The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful."
liberal is to vile
as
bountiful is to churl (a churl is an impolite and mean-spirited person)
vile bad
churl bad
bountiful good
liberal good
This passage endorses the liberal.
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@MisterChris
Not sure where the "nothing but" comes from. I think it's a neat logo.
I agree - it is graphic and punny and matches fauxlaw online voice well. One of my favorites has always been AKmath's pic
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By DAVID KLEPPER and LORI HINNANTJune 21, 2020 GMT
They say he hires protesters and rents buses to transport them. Some say he has people stash piles of bricks to be hurled into glass storefronts or at police.
George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist who has long been a target of conspiracy theories, is now being falsely accused of orchestrating and funding the protests over police killings of Black people that have roiled the United States. Amplified by a growing number of people on the far right, including some Republican leaders, online posts about Soros have skyrocketed in recent weeks.
They have been accompanied by online ads bought by conservative groups that call on authorities to “investigate George Soros for funding domestic terrorism and his decades-long corruption.”
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Soros, 89, has donated billions of dollars of his personal wealth to liberal and anti-authoritarian causes around the world, making him a favored target among many on the right. The Hungarian-American, who is Jewish, has also been the subject of anti-Semitic attacks and conspiracy theories for decades.
Such hoaxes can now travel farther and faster with social media.
Over just four days in late May, negative Twitter posts about Soros spiked from about 20,000 a day to more than 500,000 a day, according to an analysis by the Anti-Defamation League.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London think tank focused on extremism and polarization, also found a pronounced jump on Facebook, where there were 68,746 mentions of Soros in May. The previous record of 38,326 Soros mentions was in October 2018, when angry posts alleged he was helping migrant caravans headed to the U.S.
The new wave began as nationwide demonstrations emerged over George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Some insist Soros financed the protests, while others say he colluded with police to fake Floyd’s death last month. But all available evidence suggests the protests are what they seem: gatherings of thousands of Americans upset about police brutality and racial injustice.
“I think partly it’s an attempt to distract from the real matters at hand — the pandemic, the protests or the Black Lives Matter movement,” Laura Silber, chief communications officer for Soros’ philanthropic Open Society Foundations, said of the theories. “It’s pretty demeaning to the people out there protesting when someone says they’re all paid. It’s insulting.”
A look at some of the claims:
- — Soros pays protesters. No evidence has been presented to suggest demonstrators were paid by Soros or his organizations. It’s a new take on an old hoax: past versions claimed Soros paid for a long list of other events, including the 2017 Women’s March held just after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
- — Soros pays to transport protesters. Last week, a photo claiming to show two buses emblazoned with the words “Soros Riot Dance Squad” got widespread attention. The photo was cited as proof of Soros’ involvement in the protests, but it was bogus. The original photo showed two unmarked buses; someone later doctored it to add the language supposedly implicating Soros.
- — Soros organizes stashing piles of bricks near protests. Several false claims involving stockpiles of bricks have been debunked, and no evidence has turned up showing they were purposefully placed.
Experts who study conspiracy theories say the new claims about Soros are a way to delegitimize the protests and the actual reasons behind them. Some see anti-Semitism, or a new spin on the age-old hoax that a shadowy cabal of rich men — whether it’s the Illuminati, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, Bill Gates or Soros — is manipulating world events.
The theories have had real-world consequences. In 2018, amid news of caravans of migrants making their way toward the U.S.-Mexico border, online misinformation about Soros was linked to violence. Cesar Sayoc, a Florida man who was obsessed with Trump, mentioned Soros dozens of times on social media before mailing pipe bombs to newsrooms, top Democrats and Soros himself.
Despite significant scrutiny, no evidence was ever found to tie the caravan to Soros. Trump, however, helped fan the flames when asked whether Soros was involved.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. A lot of people say yes,” the president said.
Still, some Republicans have begun pushing back on false claims of Soros’ connection to the protests and those spreading the rumors. After several Republican Party chairpeople in a Texas county shared posts claiming Soros was behind the demonstrations, the state party leader called on them to resign.
Experts say conspiracy theories can become a problem when they lead to threats of violence or cause people to lose trust in important institutions. They can fade into the background only to reemerge at times of crisis.
“Conspiracy theories are like themselves viruses,” said Josh Introne, a Syracuse University information studies professor who researches conspiracy theories. “The characters may change a little, and the theory itself may mutate. But they stick around.”
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@Dr.Franklin
If you are an eligible voter than you are old enough to remember the peace and prosperity of 2016 as contrasted to the political and economic free fall of 2020. Democrats are already in the bag. The Trump voters now bear the burden of accountability for all of Trump's corruption and chaos. Trump has already promised to cheat and contest and disrupt and discredit the most fundamental pillar of American Democracy. Trump has openly deployed cynical, sinister attacks on our foundation. The only way to prevent that civil turmoil is to present Trump with an indisputable show of no confidence. That is your job to do, not mine.
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@Intelligence_06
I don't know... Don't you think dissing other people's states is akin to sports teams? Look at all the New Jersey jokes in "Hamilton" but I don't hear any serious Jerseyans boycotting Hamilton.
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@Dr.Franklin
- Obama addressed everybody, he was talking to you. As you say, Biden already has my vote.
- Obama did not argue "bad," he warned of threat.
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None of this should be controversial. These shouldn't be Republican principles or Democratic principles. They're American principles. But at this moment, this president and those who enable him, have shown they don't believe in these things.
Tonight, I am asking you to believe in Joe and Kamala's ability to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better. But here's the thing: no single American can fix this country alone. Not even a president. Democracy was never meant to be transactional – you give me your vote; I make everything better. It requires an active and informed citizenry. So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability – to embrace your own responsibility as citizens – to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure.
Because that's what at stake right now. Our democracy.
Look, I understand why a lot of Americans are down on government. The way the rules have been set up and abused in Congress make it easier for special interests to stop progress than to make progress. Believe me, I know. I understand why a white factory worker who's seen his wages cut or his job shipped overseas might feel like the government no longer looks out for him, and why a Black mother might feel like it never looked out for her at all. I understand why a new immigrant might look around this country and wonder whether there's still a place for him here; why a young person might look at politics right now, the circus of it all, the meanness and the lies and crazy conspiracy theories and think, what's the point?
Well, here's the point: this president and those in power – those who benefit from keeping things the way they are – they are counting on your cynicism. They know they can't win you over with their policies. So they're hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote does not matter. That's how they win. That's how they get to keep making decisions that affect your life, and the lives of the people you love. That's how the economy will keep getting skewed to the wealthy and well-connected, how our health systems will let more people fall through the cracks. That's how a democracy withers, until it's no democracy at all.
And we can't let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy. Make a plan right now for how you're going to get involved and vote. Do it as early as you can and tell your family and friends how they can vote too. Do what Americans have done for over two centuries when faced with even tougher times than this – all those quiet heroes who found the courage to keep marching, keep pushing in the face of hardship and injustice.
Last month, we lost a giant of American democracy in John Lewis. Some years ago, I sat down with John and the few remaining leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement. One of them told me he never imagined he'd walk into the White House and see a president who looked like his grandson. Then he told me that he'd looked it up, and it turned out that on the very day that I was born, he was marching into a jail cell, trying to end Jim Crow segregation in the South.
What we do echoes through the generations.
Whatever our backgrounds, we are all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. Great grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped. Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote.
If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life.
I've seen that same spirit rising these past few years. Folks of every age and background who packed city centers and airports and rural roads so that families wouldn't be separated. So that another classroom wouldn't get shot up. So that our kids won't grow up on an uninhabitable planet. Americans of all races joining together to declare, in the face of injustice and brutality at the hands of the state, that Black Lives Matter, no more, but no less, so that no child in this country feels the continuing sting of racism.
To the young people who led us this summer, telling us we need to be better – in so many ways, you are this country's dreams fulfilled. Earlier generations had to be persuaded that everyone has equal worth. For you, it's a given – a conviction. And what I want you to know is that for all its messiness and frustrations, your system of self-government can be harnessed to help you realize those convictions. For all of us.
You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You're the missing ingredient – the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.
That work will continue long after this election. But any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win. So we have to get busy building it up – by pouring all our effort into these 76 days, and by voting like never before – for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for – today and for all our days to come.
Stay safe. God bless.
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Good evening, everybody. As you've seen by now, this isn't a normal convention. It's not a normal time. So tonight, I want to talk as plainly as I can about the stakes in this election. Because what we do these next 76 days will echo through generations to come.
I'm in Philadelphia, where our Constitution was drafted and signed. It wasn't a perfect document. It allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women – and even men who didn't own property – the right to participate in the political process. But embedded in this document was a North Star that would guide future generations; a system of representative government – a democracy – through which we could better realize our highest ideals. Through civil war and bitter struggles, we improved this Constitution to include the voices of those who'd once been left out. And gradually, we made this country more just, more equal, and more free.
The one Constitutional office elected by all of the people is the presidency. So at minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us – regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have – or who we voted for.
But we should also expect a president to be the custodian of this democracy. We should expect that regardless of ego, ambition, or political beliefs, the president will preserve, protect, and defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for; fought for and died for.
I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.
But he never did. For close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.
Now, I know that in times as polarized as these, most of you have already made up your mind. But maybe you're still not sure which candidate you'll vote for – or whether you'll vote at all. Maybe you're tired of the direction we're headed, but you can't see a better path yet, or you just don't know enough about the person who wants to lead us there.
So let me tell you about my friend, Joe Biden.
Twelve years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I didn't know I'd end up finding a brother. Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about Joe Biden is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. Joe's a man who learned – early on – to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: "No one's better than you, Joe, but you're better than nobody."
That empathy, that decency, the belief that everybody counts – that's who Joe is.
When he talks with someone who's lost her job, Joe remembers the night his father sat him down to say that he'd lost his.
When Joe listens to a parent who's trying to hold it all together right now, he does it as the single dad who took the train back to Wilmington each and every night so he could tuck his kids into bed.
When he meets with military families who've lost their hero, he does it as a kindred spirit; the parent of an American soldier; somebody whose faith has endured the hardest loss there is.
For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision. He made me a better president – and he's got the character and the experience to make us a better country.
And in my friend Kamala Harris, he's chosen an ideal partner who's more than prepared for the job; someone who knows what it's like to overcome barriers and who's made a career fighting to help others live out their own American dream.
Along with the experience needed to get things done, Joe and Kamala have concrete policies that will turn their vision of a better, fairer, stronger country into reality.
They will get this pandemic under control, like Joe did when he helped me manage H1N1 and prevent an Ebola outbreak from reaching our shores.
They'll expand health care to more Americans, like Joe and I did ten years ago when he helped craft the Affordable Care Act and nail down the votes to make it the law.
They'll rescue the economy, like Joe helped me do after the Great Recession. I asked him to manage the Recovery Act, which jumpstarted the longest stretch of job growth in history. And he sees this moment now not as a chance to get back to where we were, but to make long-overdue changes so that our economy actually makes life a little easier for everybody – whether it's the waitress trying to raise a kid on her own, or the shift worker always on the edge of getting laid off, or the student figuring out how to pay for next semester's classes.
Joe and Kamala will restore our standing in the world – and as we've learned from this pandemic, that matters. Joe knows the world, and the world knows him. He knows that our true strength comes from setting an example the world wants to follow. A nation that stands with democracy, not dictators. A nation that can inspire and mobilize others to overcome threats like climate change, terrorism, poverty, and disease.
But more than anything, what I know about Joe, what I know about Kamala is that they actually care about every American. And that they care deeply about this democracy.
They believe that in a democracy, the right to vote is sacred, and we should be making it easier for people to cast their ballots, not harder.
They believe that no one – including the president – is above the law, and that no public official – including the president – should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters.
They understand that in this democracy, the Commander-in-Chief does not use the men and women of our military, who are willing to risk everything to protect our nation, as political props to deploy against peaceful protesters on our own soil. They understand that political opponents aren't "un-American" just because they disagree with you; the free press isn't the "enemy" but the way we hold officials accountable; that our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic depend on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up.
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@Speedrace
You modded. I was saying I think it was ragnars first game on site. I’m not suggesting Ragnar modded. I don’t know if he’s ever modded.
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1,000th post in ARTISTIC EXPRESSIONS. I wonder what percent of those are mine.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I might give it another try if I'm idling Friday
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@Vader
what the stuff about too many kids on this site? Don't take it personally- you can't do anything about your age and I guarantee you'll feel the same way about kids when you are older. not worth holding a grudge over.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
thx
there are some weekly games of live mafia every Friday night you may have heard
funny because hearing was the problem when I tried to join last Friday. I am hard of hearing and I think I need to set up a different computer if I'm going to join- I can't get it loud enough on my phone. Is it just audio?
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@Vader
@warren42
@Discipulus_Didicit
what's the dope on TUF? is he all right?
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@BearMan
Iron Man was so ironic-
alien, vibranium, electronic
but no iron... what the hell
what Iron Man was- that's the tell
My ROLE was compulsive INVENTOR. I had that exact same ROLE earlier in the year- Ragnar's first game if I remember right.
So, what Iron Man was is INVENTOR.
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WASHPO:
August 18, 2020 at 10:11 AM EDT
Opinion by Greg Sargent
President Trump unleashed a torrent of rage tweets about Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention that was spectacularly cringeworthy even by his standards — but it only underscored how effectively the former first lady made the case against him, in ways that are significant but not immediately apparent.
The strength of her scorching indictment of Trump — delivered on Monday night — resides in the fact that everyone, or at least a majority, knows it is true. As Trump’s meltdown shows, his only available response is to swap in an entirely invented tale, one hermetically sealed off from reality in just about every conceivable way.
Her case, boiled down, is that Trump inherited a country that, for all its deep problems and lingering inequalities, was on the mend following another previous crisis. Trump proceeded to utterly wreck the place through his incompetence, malevolence, corruption and depraved conviction that stoking as much civil conflict and racial incitement as possible helps him.
Trump’s substitute tale, reflected in a series of tweets, runs as follows: Trump won the White House only as a reaction to Barack Obama’s failures — to “the job done by your husband,” as he sneered. Trump then built the “greatest economy” in the known universe, then voluntarily turned off that economy in a benevolent and responsible effort to save “millions of lives.”
Now, goes this story, Trump is “building an even greater economy.” And the real failure in handling pandemics was by “ObamaBiden” on H1N1. Obama and Joe Biden presided over the “most corrupt” administration ever, including launching the Russia investigation.
Trump’s story is pure disinformation
Here’s the reality: Trump largely inherited the economic trends he enjoyed for three years. Trump was compelled into acting on the novel coronavirus only when his efforts to lie the crisis out of existence grew impossible to sustain. His dithering helped cost tens of thousands of lives, while the handling of H1N1 was relatively smooth and effective.
Trump is by far the most corrupt, self-dealing president of the modern era. And the Russia probe uncovered important truths about a foreign attack on our democracy that actually happened, to his benefit, an accounting he corruptly tried to derail.
If anything, Michelle Obama’s account was charitable. She declared that Trump is “clearly in over his head” and “cannot meet the moment.” That’s all true, but it undersells his malevolent intent.
The former first lady also noted the long stretch of job creation during the past administration, the expansion of health care to 20 million people and the grounding of the response to infectious-disease crises in science and expertise. She then contrasted that with the loss of more than 150,000 lives and the resulting economic catastrophe.
She rightly noted that Trump mocks Black Lives Matter even as people of color keep dying and cited his moral equivocating about white supremacists and the violent removal of protesters for Trump’s Bible photo op. She charged that Trump brings only “chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy.”
Trump has no response
The truth of all of this is everywhere, all around us, confirmed daily. Trump can substitute only pure invention. Indeed, his campaign ads proceed as if the coronavirus and economic crises simply do not exist.
But this shows weakness. The fundamental premises of his alternate history are rejected by large majorities, who disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, say it is not under control, believe Trump acted too slowly on it, view the recovery negatively and prioritize containing the virus over herding people back to work, which Trump wants to do.
Which brings us to one last way the former first lady told the truth:
Right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. They’re closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods. They’re purging voter rolls. They’re sending people out to intimidate voters, and they’re lying about the security of our ballots.
And this means:
We’ve got to vote early, in person if we can. We’ve got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow-up to make sure they’re received. And then, make sure our friends and families do the same.
After the speech, Trump retweeted a bunch of nonsense purporting to debunk claims that he’s trying to sabotage mail balloting. But Trump himself confirmed the truth of her allegation when he said on Monday: “The only way we lose the election is if the election is rigged.”
Similarly, Trump has explicitly said mail balloting will inevitably mean the outcome is rigged. If Trump loses amid a lot of mail balloting, which people will utilize to protect themselves from the pandemic he exacerbated, the results cannot be legitimate.
Even as the U.S. Postal Service pursues operational changes that the USPS itself says could delay the delivery of mail ballots, Trump is telegraphing that he will seek to dismiss all late-arriving ballots as illegitimate. Meanwhile, GOP lawyers are working to protect laws that will invalidate those ballots, even if they arrive late due to pandemic conditions and operational delays — through no fault of the voters.
So Obama’s ultimate claim, stated indirectly, is right: Faced with his inability to make his catastrophic record disappear with lies, Trump is plainly persuaded he cannot win a free and fair election. So he’s trying to corrupt it.
As she noted, to overcome that effort to evade an uncorrupted election, Democrats may have to win overwhelmingly. That this may be required is a terrible thing to contemplate. But that very fact itself stands as searing an indictment of Trump’s record — and his efforts to evade accountability for it at the hands of the voters — that anyone could ask for.
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@fauxlaw
-> @oromagiAm I archaic in doing most of my work on my iMac?
Yes but if you are achaic then I am an anachronism since I am on an iMac 7,1 with 20" screen, circa 2007.
I hate the tight little keyboard, too. The best keyboard ever was a Sun Microsystems type 5 which was the standard when I learned UNIX admin in the 90's. It had such a great tactile punch and took a tremendous beating. It was also very loud but as I am very deaf so that never bothered me.
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"In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain"
.............................
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
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St. Peter And The Angel
Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained--
unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening--
out!
And along a long street's
majestic emptiness under the moon:
one hand on the angel's shoulder, one
feeling the air before him,
eyes open but fixed...
And not till he saw the angel had left him,
alone and free to resume
the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of
what he had still to do,
not till then did he recognize
this was no dream. More frightening
than arrest, than being chained to his warders:
he could hear his own footsteps suddenly.
Had the angel's feet
made any sound? He could not recall.
No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit.
He himself must be
the key, now, to the next door,
the next terrors of freedom and joy.
--Denise Levertov
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I really like the improvement in text wrap around. Now I can put two skinny screens side by side so I can read my opponents argument more readily as I compose a response.
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Empathy: that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The ability to walk in someone else’s shoes; the recognition that someone else’s experience has value, too. Most of us practice this without a second thought. If we see someone suffering or struggling, we don’t stand in judgment. We reach out because, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It is not a hard concept to grasp. It’s what we teach our children.
And like so many of you, Barack and I have tried our best to instill in our girls a strong moral foundation to carry forward the values that our parents and grandparents poured into us. But right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another. They’re looking around wondering if we’ve been lying to them this whole time about who we are and what we truly value.
They see people shouting in grocery stores, unwilling to wear a mask to keep us all safe. They see people calling the police on folks minding their own business just because of the color of their skin. They see an entitlement that says only certain people belong here, that greed is good, and winning is everything because as long as you come out on top, it doesn’t matter what happens to everyone else. And they see what happens when that lack of empathy is ginned up into outright disdain.
They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo op.
Sadly, this is the America that is on display for the next generation. A nation that’s underperforming not simply on matters of policy but on matters of character. And that’s not just disappointing; it’s downright infuriating, because I know the goodness and the grace that is out there in households and neighborhoods all across this nation.
And I know that regardless of our race, age, religion, or politics, when we close out the noise and the fear and truly open our hearts, we know that what’s going on in this country is just not right. This is not who we want to be.
So what do we do now? What’s our strategy? Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, “When others are going so low, does going high still really work?” My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.
But let’s be clear: going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.
And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold, hard truth.
So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.
Now, I understand that my message won’t be heard by some people. We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention. But enough of you know me by now. You know that I tell you exactly what I’m feeling. You know I hate politics. But you also know that I care about this nation. You know how much I care about all of our children.
So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: if you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.
I know Joe. He is a profoundly decent man, guided by faith. He was a terrific vice president. He knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic, and lead our country. And he listens. He will tell the truth and trust science. He will make smart plans and manage a good team. And he will govern as someone who’s lived a life that the rest of us can recognize.
When he was a kid, Joe’s father lost his job. When he was a young senator, Joe lost his wife and his baby daughter. And when he was vice president, he lost his beloved son. So Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair, which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents. Joe knows what it’s like to struggle, which is why he gives his personal phone number to kids overcoming a stutter of their own.
His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward.
Now, Joe is not perfect. And he’d be the first to tell you that. But there is no perfect candidate, no perfect president. And his ability to learn and grow — we find in that the kind of humility and maturity that so many of us yearn for right now. Because Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life without ever losing sight of who he is; but more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are, all of us.
Joe Biden wants all of our kids to go to a good school, see a doctor when they’re sick, live on a healthy planet. And he’s got plans to make all of that happen. Joe Biden wants all of our kids, no matter what they look like, to be able to walk out the door without worrying about being harassed or arrested or killed. He wants all of our kids to be able to go to a movie or a math class without being afraid of getting shot. He wants all our kids to grow up with leaders who won’t just serve themselves and their wealthy peers but will provide a safety net for people facing hard times.
And if we want a chance to pursue any of these goals, any of these most basic requirements for a functioning society, we have to vote for Joe Biden in numbers that cannot be ignored. Because right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. They’re closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods. They’re purging voter rolls. They’re sending people out to intimidate voters, and they’re lying about the security of our ballots. These tactics are not new.
But this is not the time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning. We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We’ve got to show up with the same level of passion and hope for Joe Biden. We’ve got to vote early, in person if we can. We’ve got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow-up to make sure they’re received. And then, make sure our friends and families do the same.
We have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because we’ve got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to.
Look, we have already sacrificed so much this year. So many of you are already going that extra mile. Even when you’re exhausted, you’re mustering up unimaginable courage to put on those scrubs and give our loved ones a fighting chance. Even when you’re anxious, you’re delivering those packages, stocking those shelves, and doing all that essential work so that all of us can keep moving forward.
Even when it all feels so overwhelming, working parents are somehow piecing it all together without child care. Teachers are getting creative so that our kids can still learn and grow. Our young people are desperately fighting to pursue their dreams.
And when the horrors of systemic racism shook our country and our consciences, millions of Americans of every age, every background rose up to march for each other, crying out for justice and progress.
This is who we still are: compassionate, resilient, decent people whose fortunes are bound up with one another. And it is well past time for our leaders to once again reflect our truth.
So, it is up to us to add our voices and our votes to the course of history, echoing heroes like John Lewis who said, “When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something.” That is the truest form of empathy: not just feeling, but doing; not just for ourselves or our kids, but for everyone, for all our kids.
And if we want to keep the possibility of progress alive in our time, if we want to be able to look our children in the eye after this election, we have got to reassert our place in American history. And we have got to do everything we can to elect my friend, Joe Biden, as the next president of the United States.
Thank you all. God bless.
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Good evening, everyone. It’s a hard time, and everyone’s feeling it in different ways. And I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right now or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that. But I am here tonight because I love this country with all my heart, and it pains me to see so many people hurting.
I’ve met so many of you. I’ve heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country’s promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to their toil and sweat and blood, I’ve been able to live that promise myself.
I’ve met so many of you. I’ve heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country’s promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to their toil and sweat and blood, I’ve been able to live that promise myself.
That’s the story of America. All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in their own times because they wanted something more, something better for their kids.
There’s a lot of beauty in that story. There’s a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine whether or not we honor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive the very possibility of finishing that work.
There’s a lot of beauty in that story. There’s a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine whether or not we honor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive the very possibility of finishing that work.
I am one of a handful of people living today who have seen firsthand the immense weight and awesome power of the presidency. And let me once again tell you this: The job is hard. It requires clearheaded judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass, and an ability to listen — and an abiding belief that each of the 330,000,000 lives in this country has meaning and worth.
A president’s words have the power to move markets. They can start wars or broker peace. They can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cannot fake your way through this job.
As I’ve said before, being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are. Well, a presidential election can reveal who we are, too. And four years ago, too many people chose to believe that their votes didn’t matter. Maybe they were fed up. Maybe they thought the outcome wouldn’t be close. Maybe the barriers felt too steep. Whatever the reason, in the end, those choices sent someone to the Oval Office who lost the national popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes.
In one of the states that determined the outcome, the winning margin averaged out to just two votes per precinct — two votes. And we’ve all been living with the consequences.
When my husband left office with Joe Biden at his side, we had a record-breaking stretch of job creation. We’d secured the right to health care for 20,000,000 people. We were respected around the world, rallying our allies to confront climate change. And our leaders had worked hand-in-hand with scientists to help prevent an Ebola outbreak from becoming a global pandemic.
Four years later, the state of this nation is very different. More than 150,000 people have died, and our economy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we’ve turned our back, not just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower.
And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black life matters is still met with derision from the nation’s highest office.
Because whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy.
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Might as well be graffiti for all the reasoning or wisdom displayed. This little gang of super self-likers seem to have learned their dialectic from bathroom walls.
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@zedvictor4
I was just pointing out that Simon Peter is an anglicised corruption of a Semitic myth, as is the English version of the Christian bible. As was the cockerel.
You were just calling Westerners anti-Semitic.
I don't understand American speak.
That's bad form in any language.
Explain
What am I explaining? You are the one with the mysterious claims. Whether the Bible is truth or myth has no impact on its value as a subject for poets.
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immediately, the cock
crew thrice when the lies
of the night lightened
suffering's anticipation
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A perfect summary of the utopia of unaccountable personal lifestyle choices. Perhaps the daughter should be also held responsible as a person in authority for not caging her dad in an internment camp, preferably one with diet food since he looks rather obese in the political emotion photos.
FROM Michelle Obama's 2020 Democratic Convention Keynote Address
"Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, 'When others are going so low, does going high still really work?'
My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.
But let’s be clear: going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.
And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold, hard truth."
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@WaterPhoenix
how do male roosters row oars?
clenched firmly between spur and toe while flapping vigorously
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@WaterPhoenix
Etymology 2
Verb
- (Britain, archaic) simple past tense of crow Made the characteristic sound of a rooster.
- It was still dark when the cock crew.
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@Intelligence_06
transcript from last night's Democratic Convention
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Hi, I'm Kristin Urquiza. I'm one of the many who has lost a loved one to COVID. My dad, Mark Anthony Urquiza, should be here today, but he isn't. He had faith in Donald Trump. He voted for him, listened to him, believed him and his mouthpieces when they said that coronavirus was under control and going to disappear, that it was OK to end social distancing rules before it was safe, and that if you had no underlying health conditions, you'd probably be fine.
So in late May after the stay-at-home order was lifted in Arizona, my dad went to a karaoke bar with his friends. A few weeks later, he was put on a ventilator. And after five agonizing days, he died alone in the ICU with a nurse holding his hand. My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.
I am not alone. Once I told my story, a lot of people reached out to me to share theirs. They asked me to help them keep their communities safe, especially communities of color, which have been disproportionately affected. They asked me, a normal person, to help because Donald Trump won't.
The coronavirus has made it clear that there are two Americas, the America that Donald Trump lives in and the America that my father died in. Enough is enough. Donald Trump may not have caused the coronavirus, but his dishonesty and his irresponsible actions made it so much worse.
We need a leader who has a national coordinated data-driven response to stop this pandemic from claiming more lives and to safely reopen the country. We need a leader who will step in on day one and do his job-- to care. One of the last things that my father said to me was that he felt betrayed by the likes of Donald Trump. And so when I cast my vote for Joe Biden, I will do it for my dad.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I don't know much but my brother had a 55 gallon tank for years and years and I had a boyfriend who had several big tanks
- start small- 10 gallon. Even if you plan to go bigger you will need a good small tank for cleaning/fish separation etc
- introduce fish one at a time with six week intervals
- too much cleaning is as toxic as too little
- stable tanks are seldom flashy
- flashy tanks are seldom stable
- fish won't fight so much if they have different territories/ecosystems
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@BearMan
When applied to a standard minimax tree, it returns the same move as minimax would, but prunes away branches that cannot possibly influence the final decision.
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@Crocodile
what the hell happened to lunatic?
- I do not know what you are saying.
- I do not know the man!
- I do not know the man.
am i missing out on something
- coo-koo-ri-koo!
- coo-koo-ri-koo!
- cock-a-doodle-doo!
Good Morning
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@Intelligence_06
Wait is this from the bible?I found whatever this isJesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.”
Yes, this is from the Bible.
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@zedvictor4
Interesting how "Westerners" feel the need to Anglicise Semitism.....it's sort of Anti-Semitic.
I think u butt-dialed
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@MisterChris
should make sense to anybody who knows the story of Simon Peter
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@Intelligence_06
--> @oromagiI thought you said it first
who said what first?
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@Intelligence_06
--> @oromagiimmediately, the cockcrew thrice and the liesof the night enlightensuffering's anticipation.
oh do they now?
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immediately, the cock
crew thrice and the lies
of the night enlighten
suffering's anticipation.
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immediately, the cock
crew thrice and the lies
of the night whitened
by suffering's anticipation.
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