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Scottie’s world today

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I just watched a verified video of a Russian tank swerve across the road to run over and sit on a car going the other way on the road.  The intent was clear to kill by crushing the people in the car.   It looks like the man survived.  But that is a war crime.  You do not target or try to kill civilians that are no threat to you.  You simply don’t try to deliberately kill civilians.   The US and the nations must use everything we can to stand up to Putin. 

Gods this is like me arguing with the right wing cult members.  I can not count how many times I have been called evil for quoting facts. 

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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes

The pipeline wouldn’t have helped the US oil situation at all.  If it was running they projected 75% of the oil was going to overseas markets, and 25% was to be charged as an import.   Meaning that when oil prices went up so would the oil in the pipeline and we still have to pay more.   For some reason the right acts like it is free oil given to us that Biden cancelled, it never was that. 

“US Senator Elizabeth Warren put the pieces together when Fed chair Jerome Powell appeared last month before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Offering a lesson in what she referred to as “Econ 101,” the senator from Massachusetts led Powell through a series of questions related to inflation.

“If you’re a corporation that has eaten up most of the competition and cornered the market, is it easier for you to raise prices on your customers and maximize your profits because you don’t have to worry about losing your business?” asked Warren.

Powell replied, “In principle, if you don’t have competition and you’re a monopolist, yes, you can raise your prices.”

“Okay,” Warren continued. “Over the past year, we know that prices have risen because of supply chain problems, unexpected shifts in the demand for goods, and even higher labor costs. But if corporations were simply passing along these costs in highly competitive markets, would the companies’ profits margins have changed much?”

After mumbling something about varying factors that impact such calculations, Powell concluded, “But, in principle, you could be right.”

With that answer in hand, the point was made:

Senator Warren: Well, it’s very much not what we’re seeing right now. Today, nearly two out of three of the biggest publicly traded corporations in the country are reporting fatter profit margins than they reported before the pandemic which doesn’t sound like they’re just passing along costs. So let me ask you: Does that increase in profit margins, combined with greater market concentration in industry after industry, suggest to you that some corporations may be passing along increased costs and, at the same time, charging more on top of that to fatten their profit margins?

Warren made the vital connection that all Democrats should be making as debates about the causes of inflation heat up. Instead of letting Wall Street apologists create the impression that inflation is simply the result of supply chain kinks and pent-up consumer demand after two years of pandemic lockdowns, and instead of letting Republicans suggest that federal and state investments in health care and housing are the problem, Democrats should be speaking like Warren. And like former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, a congressional candidate who declared Thursday:
It’s not “inflation,” it’s price-gouging.Exxon and other Big Oil corporations are price-gouging us at the gas pump.Grocery chains are making record profits price-gouging us at the register.Corporations are bleeding working people dry. Enough.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/inflation-price-gouging/

In 2001, President George Bush issued a truly astounding appraisal of Vladimir Putin, the former KGB agent who has run Russia since replacing Boris Yeltsin in 1999. “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.”

Sure. Ukrainians are dying and you’re complaining about this. That’s your right, but it makes you look pretty self centered, don’t you agree?   Maybe inflation would be better if your shithead POTUS Trump hadn’t screwed up the economy with a trade war with China.   If you don’t see the huge problem with Russia invading Ukraine, you have a problem

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And now some for fun

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Scottie’s world today

I worked on this all day and only got through a third of the web sites.  There is such a back long I did not even get to the fun ones.   I will start early in the morning and try to plow through them to get some more fun ones for everyone.    Best wishes and my very best hopes for the Ukrainians. 

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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes

The right wing wants to blunt the push to lower college costs and to cancel student loan debts.   Look we tell people to get ahead they need an education.   Then we make getting that education very hard to get for most people, well out of their price range.  Then we allow predatory lending practices especially for the fly by night schools that don’t even graduate students or have jobs programs to charge huge fees and interest.   It is all to make sure only the wealthy can get ahead.  That only the wealthy can send their kids to higher educations, while poor families face the fact that their kids will have labor or menial jobs.  The idea is the lower incomes children will work for and serve the higher income’s children.   The other thing this does is promote profit for the lenders instead of that money going to help the economy and giving the people with these loans the chance to live decent lives instead of being financially destroyed by high interest loans. 

This is the right wing misinformation media cartoonist Rivers.   Need I even address it?  While members of the right dress up as Nazis and carry their flag / symbols he accuses the left of doing so.  While the right wing defends Putin invading a free and sovereign nation he accuses the left of being Nazis.   The whole thing is a projection and an attempt to deflect from the actions from the right, tRump, and Putin. 

Now he makes the same claim against Canada’s leader.

Again this is Rivers a far right delusional cartoonist.  Here he makes the claim that Canada is an authoritarian nation worse than the Nazis.   Well he does like Nazis.  

I do not put much stock in this narrative any more.  As the population in rural areas shrink it would seem those able would leave, and it maybe that the remaining older people might be stronger Republicans.    But the population centers and the over all population in the US remains Democratic.  I think this is an attempt to discourage Democrats in the rural areas to keep them from voting and to make the right wing feel stronger than they are. 

The right wing media so badly misconstrued the Durham filing that he has to make a new filing explaining that he did not assert the things Fox and other far right media was saying he had claimed.  The need by / on the right for something to support tRump’s wild claims and show that he never should have been investigated for the crimes and corruption he committed is so great they have resorted to making things up.   But when the rest of the media doesn’t report their fantasys and made up stories they claim the media is bias and wont show things that cast tRump in a good light. 

The Durham filing never claimed Hillary or her people spied on tRump.  This is another creation of Fox media hosts.   The techs looking into the servers at the White House were hired by the White House during the Obama presidency.  But you can not gin up outrage by talking about techs hired to look at the traffic on a server by President Obama so they made up a story that would rile up the base. 

The right wing has such a warped view of science, biology, and pregnancy they think an abortion is the murder of a human.   I have been arguing with a right winger that claims the second of egg and sperm meeting the result is a human baby.   Not the potential for one, but is one right then.   That then leads to any sex is an attempt to make a baby.  

Yes the price of fuel is rising fast.  There is a war happening.   Stocks are tumbling.   Rivers is a right wing media cartoonist who appears to support Putin in this conflict.   It is going to get worse.   But the US and the world has no choice, we can not let Putin get away with invading a sovereign democratic nation.  It will not only embolden him but every wannbe dictator on the planet. 

The sanctions that the US and the other countries being implemented will hurt Russia and the oligarchs badly. I doubt that it will cause Russia to withdraw from Ukraine but as Biden said these are sanctions that will hurt more over time. The longer Putin stays in Ukraine the weaker Russia will get and the weaker Putin’s hold on power will get. I think Putin misjudged the will of the rest of the advanced nations.

Those “sacred cows” didn’t commit treason by attempting to overthrow the government.   And those “sacred cows” are fighting for civil equality and justice, not fighting to overturn a fair election under false pretenses.  It’s sad when someone tries to compare Trump traitors to people who want the right not to be murdered by the police.  

twclix Premium Member about 5 hours ago

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And now some for fun