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Thursday 18th of April 2024

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Asslickers say I'm coordinating with White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this. Mitch McConnell, guaranteeing Republicans like himself would acquit Trump despite overwhelming evidence he abused his power and obstructed Congress © 2020 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say I don't even know what he tweets. William Barr, Trump's lapdog Attorney General © 2020 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say I'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody. William Barr, Trump's lapdog Attorney General © 2020 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus It turns out that liberalism does not by definition breed egoism and irresolution. A lot of the easy calumnies against it (“We could never fight a war now”) appear less certain. And if the “horizontal” bond among citizens is a bit stronger than assumed, so is their “vertical” cord with government. Anti-elitism – the spirit of the age, we thought – is broad but it can also be shallow, or at least selective. The speed with which people deferred to the medical and bureaucratic establishment was telling. The crisis has found nothing more wanting than our cynicism. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, May 13, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Economic growth We are bringing our country back and a big focus is exactly that, with the, uh, minorities, specifically, if you look at, uh, the Asians. Donald Trump, May 19, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations I love the Bangles! You know that song Walk Like an Egyptian? Donald Trump, on being told the president of Egypt called to congratulate him on becoming president © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing During the boom years, IndyMac charged high interest rates (defined by the government as more than 3 percentage points above prime) to 24 percent of its white borrowers, but 36 percent of Hispanics and 43 percent of African Americans. Aaron Glantz, Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing This is what the recovery from the 2008 crash looks like. People scrambling to pay rent for decrepit houses, houses that let everyone cash in except the occupants: the company that bought the home, the investors that financed that company, the bank that securitized the home's debt, the bondholders who bought those securities, and the speculators who make bets on whether the bonds will pay out or not. Francesca Mari, New York Review of Books, June 11, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment “Let the jury consider the verdict,” says the King in the trial scene in Alice in Wonderland. “‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’” With Trump's trial, there is a refinement on this order: verdict first, trial afterwards, sentence never. Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books, February 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The reason why evidence is irrelevant to Trumps' trial is not just that the evidence is inconveniently damning. It is that this doctrine of the president's will as the source of all authority must not be undermined by the manner of the trial. At the heart of Trump's defense is the jus- tification that underlies all authoritarian rule. The leader is special. He is not like us because he has unique instincts. His gut (or divine inpiration or mystical ability to discern the true will of the people) leads him to make the right call. And the gut cannot be questioned: the job of everyone else in government is to accept what the leader does first and find the reasons for it later. Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books, February 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Income inequality In 2018, the median household income for a black family was $41,361, having grown 3.4 per cent over the previous decade, according to the latest US Census Bureau data. This compared with a median income $70,642 for non-Hispanic whites which had grown 8.8 per cent since the 2008 crisis. Financial Times, June 4, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Calculate the minimum wage as follows: MW = CMHI / CMHS × WPY × HPW where: MW = Minimum Wage CMHI = Current Median Household Income, e.g., $65,000 CMHS = Current Median Household Size, e.g., 2.1 people WPY = Workdays Per Year, e.g., 240 HPW = Hours Per Workday, e.g., 8 [MW would be $16.12 using data above] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Leadership roles In total, there are just four black chief executives among the 500 largest companies in the country. New York Times, June 6, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Post-2018 Senate shituation 15 states (Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2018 population: 40,056,961 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,335,232 people — 1 state (California) 2018 population: 39,776,830 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,888,415 people 19,888,415 / 1,335,232 = 16, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth 16 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 6% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2018 population = 573,720, therefore: 1 Senator per 286,860 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's © 2016 Kwiple.com
Racism America's internal schisms are being used against it, and used well, with the soft touch and irony that autocrats are meant to lack. But then there is so much to work with. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, June 3, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Racism The past is not dead. It is not even past. William Faulkner © 2020 Kwiple.com
Resisters say tiny hands, HUUGE ASSHOLE Popular refrigerator magnet availablfe from many websites © 2020 Kwiple.com
Selfie I'm not a baby. Donald Trump © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot I'm sick of being a wet nurse for a 71 year old. Donald Trump portrayed by Steve Bannon in 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot When you make political ads, half the fun is wondering if the other guy will be dumb enough to take the bait. Trump never disappoints. That dog chases every car. Donald Trump portrayed by Stuart Stevens, 9:51 PM - May 24, 2020, commenting on Trump's angry tweet about a Biden ad showing him socially distancing by playing golf during a pandemic © 2020 Kwiple.com
Social media The dose makes the poison. toxicological adage © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people –does not even pretend to try. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. James Mattis, The Atlantic, June 3, 2020, 69-year-old former Secretary of Defense commenting on Trump's threat to deploy active-duty military to "dominate" protesters protesting George Floyd's 9-minute suffocation by four policemen in Minneapolis © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. Barack Obama, inaugural speech, January 20, 2008 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Taxes I hear people talk in the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but then almost no one raises the real issue: tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share. It feels like I'm at a firefighters' conference and no one's allowed to speak about water. Rutger Bregman, 2019 World Ecnomic Forum, Davos, Switzerland © 2020 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats The president, Barr argued, has “complete authority to start or stop” investigations and can “give direction” on individual cases, including those that touch on his political or financial interests. “The Constitution itself places no limit on the president's authority to act on matters which concern him or his own conduct,” Barr wrote. Law enforcement, he argued, was a power exclusively held by the president, because “he alone is the executive branch.” Mattathias Schwarta, New York Times Magazine, June 7, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
 
Wealth inequality With black individuals deeply underrepresented in Silicon Valley and largely absent at the highest levels of major corporations, little of the wealth created in the stock market or the technology boom has gone to black families. Today, typical black households have just one-tenth the wealth of typical white households, according to Federal Reserve data. New York Times, June 6, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com