mspart

I don't think you can expect any D senator to vote to convict period. You might have a few R's not do it either. You need 67 senators to convict. I don't think it can happen unless there is incontrovertible evidence and the public is behind it. Senators would have to feel the heat and I just don't see that with the way the media is turning everything upside down in support of Biden. mspart

That's not the question. The question is how will the 48 D senators vote? How I would vote in immaterial, it's how they will vote. I maintain they will vote to acquit unless, and only unless, incontrovertible evidence is presented and it has to be so hard that the public will be up in arms over it. I just don't see that happening. mspart

Ouch!! Foiled again. mspart

What chances are there for Biden to be convicted? What is the purpose of doing an impeachment and not getting a conviction? What would it take to get 67 senators to vote for conviction? I'm looking at this with what I am saying. I don't think there is much to gain to impeach and not get a conviction. It is just a show trial and could likely be frowned up by the electorate in this election season. mspart

ionel - Those are right wing crazy websites saying that. Ha ha!! mspart

Ah, Col. Flagg. One of the best characters of MASH along with Sidney. mspart

We are doing our part by having the highest gas prices in the nation here in WA. Is it helping? Cap and trade nonsense. Our Gov Inslee, yeah the one that briefly ran for Pres, got a cap and trade tax passed and is saying the gas companies are gouging us. Just us, just WA. His law is costing an additional $0.49/gallon currently. Like the gas companies are going to swallow that. mspart

That's why Nike started making them with color so you hillbillies could buy them with no shame. mspart

Dear Mr Dead guy and copy and paste guy, I didn't say that. Nike and REI said that. You are not wrong regarding centralized warehousing having cost advantages. So why are the Nike stores in outlet malls not closing down? Why is the REI in Redmond and Issaquah WA still in business? Why does Costco still have brick and mortar stores all over the world? If what you say is true, these would all have been quick to be shutting down as in Sears and KMart. But that is not what we see is it? Please explain that based on your hypothesis. So what you are saying is that they will pick and choose which stores they will close and which ones they will leave open as an effort to centralize their warehousing. Like that makes any sense. Keep your eyes closed and believe what you want to believe. I will keep my eyes open and believe what they tell me. mspart

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-playing-fire-oil-reserves-165205457.html Zahra Tayeb Wed, September 13, 2023 at 9:52 AM PDT The US is "playing with fire" as its oil reserves drop to a 40-year low at a time when crude prices are surging, Larry McDonald warned in a post on X. "Queasy, indeed..." the markets guru wrote in a previous post illustrating falling US strategic petroleum reserves. The Biden administration has been draining the SPR since the start of the Ukraine war to help cap energy prices. The US is "playing with fire" as its oil reserves plunge to a 40-year low at a time when global crude prices are rallying again, markets guru Larry McDonald said. The founder of "The Bear Traps Report" has taken to X, formerly known as Twitter, to warn about the steep drop in US oil inventories. "Queasy, indeed...," he wrote in an earlier post with a graph showing a steep drop in US strategic petroleum reserves. McDonald is a former Lehman Brothers trader and the author of "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense," which chronicles how the investment bank ended up collapsing in September 2008 and sparking a global financial crisis. The plunge in oil stocks highlights the mounting risks to America's energy security. Low domestic reserves could increase the US's reliance on imports, potentially making it more vulnerable to supply disruptions and price volatility in the global oil market. Energy security is national security. Should not be an R or D thing. National security is in everyone's best interest. mspart

This is exactly what I was saying in the first post. There are people who deny the obvious. In the article I posted, they cite theft and crime as the reason Nike and REI are closing. Yet, it must be for some other reason. It couldn't be rampant shoplifting, no that couldn't be it. Even though they said it. It is all just a conspiracy. mspart

You are just supposed to know. Did the cashiers look at you like you were crazy!! My son recently worked for Target as a security guy. He was told not to engage anyone. So he was able to see lots of theft going on. mspart

No they are not based on the facts. Which is why the case has to be incontrovertible to get anyone to move from their position of acquit as a knee jerk reaction to convict. Again, I don't see that happening. The only way it does is if Joe becomes more physically and mentally frail than he is now and they have to take some action if the cabinet doesn't. Long odds on that one. Do I think he should be kicked out of office? I surely don't want Kamala as President. But that is a purely partisan reason. I have not seen evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors while he has been President. Lying just doesn't cut it anymore. mspart

Well, I'm conflating it because the US citizen will conflate it. Yes Impeachment is political. But the "crime" must be proven beyond all unreasonable doubt to get a conviction. No one in the Senate believed Clinton did not lie under oath. But it did not rise to the level of egregiousness to convict. If the House does not present a fact filled and totally acquittal proof case, there is no turning around the D's and/or I's Senators to turn on Biden. The evidence must be indisputable that he did something wrong while President, such that, no one can dismiss the facts. That is the only way to make it happen. It would have to incite the public to want Biden's head such that the Senators could not do otherwise than give it to them. I don't see this happening. It will be a dog and pony show that will not do anything but waste time. I don't disagree the investigation should continue, it should. I think this is a matter for DOJ to handle until it becomes clear that Biden did something wrong while President. Who cares what he did before? Unless "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" has not time limit. I assume these need to be done while he is President. I think the public would see it similarly. mspart

Yes, the Cortez. I always wanted a pair and my mom wouldn't because they were white and would not be white long the way I treated shoes. Actually, I'm still that way. I even make black shoes look dingy. mspart

San Marino and Cape Verde. Crazy!! mspart

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/nike-closes-beloved-portland-store-due-to-crime/458921 By Madeline Garfinkle • Sep 12, 2023 Key Takeaways After first closing in October, seemingly temporarily, Nike announced its factory store in Portland, Oregon will permanently close. Other businesses in Portland and across the country have also been affected by theft. As theft and crime continue to wreak havoc in the retail industry, another big-name company has announced it will close a once-cherished location. Last week, Nike announced that it would permanently close its factory store in Portland, Oregon, due to ongoing theft. The Portland factory store first closed in October 2022, with no official statement aside from a message on the store's website stating "closed for the next 7 days." However, the store has remained closed and now, the company said it will shut its doors permanently. "Nike's commitment to supporting and uplifting Portland's North and Northeast community is unwavering," Nike said in a statement to The Street. "We are reimagining Nike's retail space, permanently closing our current location at 2650 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and considering future locations as part of this community's long-term revitalization plan." The store, which had been open since 1984, had a dedicated following among locals. ...Rampant theft had been an ongoing problem for the athletic brand's Portland store and, in 2022, a KGW-TV analysis found that Nike's factory store had the second-highest rate of reported shoplifting incidents since 2019, behind Target. In addition to the Nike factory store, several other businesses in Portland have been affected by theft. In March, Walmart announced that it would be closing its remaining two stores in Portland and, in April, REI said it would close its storefront in the city's Pearl District by next year. "Last year, REI Portland had its highest number of break-ins and thefts in two decades, despite actions to provide extra security," the company said in an email to REI members in April. "In recent years, Portland has been dealing with increased crime in our neighborhood and beyond." I remember some on here were arguing that theft is not a big problem. Nothing to see here. The people of Portland disagree and have lost their beloved Nike Factory store, all Walmarts, and REI is going away - All due to theft and rising crime in the area. Lots of smaller businesses have also been similarly run out of business in the area. There is a fix for this folks. Enforce the law and prosecute. Period!! No more tolerance of theft. mspart

In the mid-1990s, the influential Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer described left-wing authoritarianism as “the Loch Ness Monster of political psychology—an occasional shadow, but no monster. ” Subsequently, other psychologists reached the same conclusion. Big ouchie there for BB. In other excerpts from the Atlantic: An ambitious new study on the subject by the Emory University researcher Thomas H. Costello and five colleagues should settle the question. It proposes a rigorous new measure of antidemocratic attitudes on the left. And, by drawing on a survey of 7,258 adults, Costello’s team firmly establishes that such attitudes exist on both sides of the American electorate. (One co-author on the paper, I should note, was Costello’s adviser, the late Scott Lilienfeld—with whom I wrote a 2013 book and numerous articles.) Intriguingly, the researchers found some common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a “preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.” Published last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Costello team’s paper is persuasive, to the point that you have to wonder: How could past researchers have overlooked left-wing authoritarianism for so long? “For 70 years, the lore in the social sciences has been that authoritarianism was to be found exclusively on the political right,” the Rutgers University social psychologist Lee Jussim, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told me in an email. Yes we see where Ban is getting his "information" and obviously swallowed it hook line and sinker. I have to wonder at a person, especially a supposedly educated person such as these academics that would have believed that authoritarianism only exists on the right. What idiots!! May I name a few on the Left: Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez. These were certainly not on the right and if these idiots can't see that they were Authoritarian beasts, then there is no reason anyone should listen to them at all. It is patently obvious as I said before that authoritarianism is to be found on all sides of the spectrum. Anyone who denies this is an idiot (I don't know how to say this any softer so sorry if I ruffle a few feathers) and not thinking right and shouldn't be in positions of influence at all. Common sense is lacking with these people. mspart

I feel much better about it, don't you!! Caveat: I'm not on Twitter (x) and have no skin in the game. If what he says is true, it is a good thing. mspart

I believe Joe has lied throughout. Like I said, that is not an impeachable offense. What he did while VP has no bearing on his High Crimes and Misdemeanor while President and I don't believe he can be impeached for that now. Getting the DOJ to treat his son differently might be a corruption thing but that would have to be proved beyond a shadow of doubt and I have seen no evidence pointing to that. It is possible the DOJ did that on their own initiative or it could have been directed. I doubt it was directed by anything other than non-traceable verbal or non-verbal cues. Certainly, nothing would have or should have been in a text or email. That would be enough to impeach and the D's might have to go along with that at that point. But I don't think the House is to that point yet and the Senate is almost evenly divided and certainly there won't be 67 Senators going along with conviction. That means some combination of the 48 Ds and 3 I's would have to vote for conviction assuming all 49 Rs do, and that is not a given. Fool's errand. It will be looked upon by the left the same way the impeachment of Trump was looked upon by those on the right. As a game and stupid waste of time. mspart

There are those that would dispute your assertion. I believe if the R's want to impeach, that will happen. I believe in order to move the Ds in the Senate, there will have to be some ironclad evidence that the whole country can recognize and it would be suicide for a D Senator not to vote to convict, something on the order of Nixon. They are not there yet as most of the evidence I have seen is circumstantial. Nothing directly tying the President to anything like treason or corruption while President. He obviously lied on the campaign trail and while President. But that apparently is not reason for dismissal - See Bill Clinton. mspart

Sorry for the consecutive posts. mspart

Not worthy of a ban mspart

Not liking what he does. mspart

I'm not for banning Ban. mspart