American Politics XIV: The Dawning of the Age of the Pumpkin

[The Alma Mater]

In other words only your side should be allowed to govern. You don't believe in Democracy at all. You want a one party dictatorship and elections to give the illusion of choice.

until people stop being so needlessly stupid

So you want the eliminate the dull party so that the party of mental patients can rule - in the hope that people will become less stupid?
Contrived. But hey.

[Sordhau]

why not 400 acres of land? in a country as vast as america there is literally no reason to have people crowded together. you have more space than you know what to do with.

Because space isn't infinite.

and strangely, with all the advancements in mental healthcare, the rate of mental illness is not going down. it's going sharply in the other direction.

Yes, because our society is toxic and depressing and doesn't take care of those in need. This is a direct consequence of free-market capitalism.

you could always just stop fighting human nature and instead move with it.

This is nonsense and doesn't mean anything.

[Finalis]

losing the race to what?

The countries that invested in more efficient technologies who will then use those technologies to gain economic, diplomatic, and military advantages at our expense. This is why being cutting-edge is important.

crowding is not cutting-edge. crowding has existed for centuries.

believe it or not people do like space and living amongst animals.

Yet ruralization takes up space and drives animals to extinction. Consolidation of the population into urban settings is far better for the environment and ecology, as it gives rural lands back to nature. We can expand our preserves and national parks tenfold, ensuring that our nation's natural beauty is left untainted for future generations to enjoy - with an added benefit of a healthier environment.

strangely not better for people though. more mental illness and transmissible disease.

[Sordhau]

The countries that invested in more efficient technologies who will then use those technologies to gain economic, diplomatic, and military advantages at our expense. This is why being cutting-edge is important.

crowding is not cutting-edge. crowding has existed for centuries.

Moving the goalposts is a sign that you don't have an argument.

strangely not better for people though. more mental illness and transmissible disease.

You act as if those problems can't be addressed when I already explained to you that they can.

[Finalis]

why not 400 acres of land? in a country as vast as america there is literally no reason to have people crowded together. you have more space than you know what to do with.

Because space isn't infinite.

true, but america is not in danger of running out of space anytime soon. you're attacking a non-existent problem.

and strangely, with all the advancements in mental healthcare, the rate of mental illness is not going down. it's going sharply in the other direction.

Yes, because our society is toxic and depressing and doesn't take care of those in need. This is a direct consequence of free-market capitalism.

yeah, it crams them all together in high-rise apartments when perfectly good houses with plenty of space are abandoned.

you could always just stop fighting human nature and instead move with it.

This is nonsense and doesn't mean anything.

only if you lack an even basic level of understanding of other people

[American Legionaries]

until people stop being so needlessly stupid

Are you merely saying this because they don't share you values or vote for your candidates?

It's not necessary to share beliefs to respect other people's rights.

[Finalis]

crowding is not cutting-edge. crowding has existed for centuries.

Moving the goalposts is a sign that you don't have an argument.

oh no.

anyway...

strangely not better for people though. more mental illness and transmissible disease.

You act as if those problems can't be addressed when I already explained to you that they can.

lol. i already explained to you that the advancements in mental healthcare have not led to a reduction in mental illness.

you just did the ole side step around it

no argument and whatnot.

[Stellar Colonies]

Being in a city is hellish to me, even for a temporary stay.

Suburban or small town is less efficient but I’m happiest in that environment. Rural also works.

[Valrifall]

Being in a city is hellish to me, even for a temporary stay.

Suburban or small town is less efficient but I’m happiest in that environment. Rural also works.

Do not resist optimization, citizen, the process is (almost) painless.

[Gravlen]

Over 300 classified documents so far found at Mar-A-Lago

The initial batch of documents retrieved by the National Archives from former President Donald J. Trump in January included more than 150 marked as classified, a number that ignited intense concern at the Justice Department and helped trigger the criminal investigation that led F.B.I. agents to swoop into Mar-a-Lago this month seeking to recover more, multiple people briefed on the matter said.

In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I. in the search this month.

The previously unreported volume of the sensitive material found in the former president’s possession in January helps explain why the Justice Department moved so urgently to hunt down any further classified materials he might have.

And the extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Mr. Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both.

The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.

The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.

Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.

The Justice Department investigation is continuing, suggesting that officials are not certain whether they have recovered all the presidential records that Mr. Trump took with him from the White House.

Even after the extraordinary decision by the F.B.I. to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, investigators have sought additional surveillance footage from the club, people familiar with the matter said.

It was the second such demand for the club’s security tapes, said the people familiar with the matter, and underscored that authorities are still scrutinizing how the classified documents were handled by Mr. Trump and his staff before the search.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.

Mr. Trump’s allies insist that the president had a “standing order” to declassify material that left the Oval Office for the White House residence, and have claimed that the General Services Administration, not Mr. Trump’s staff, packed the boxes with the documents.

No documentation has come to light confirming that Mr. Trump declassified the material, and the potential crimes cited by the Justice Department in seeking the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago would not hinge on the classification status of the documents.

National Archives officials spent much of 2021 trying to get back material from Mr. Trump, after learning that roughly two dozen boxes of presidential records material had been lingering in the White House residence for several months. Under the Presidential Records Act, all official material remains government property and has to be provided to the archives at the end of a president’s term.

Among the items they knew were missing were Mr. Trump’s original letters from the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and the note that President Barack Obama had left Mr. Trump before he left office.

Two former White House officials, who had been designated as among Mr. Trump’s representatives with the archives, received calls and tried to facilitate the documents’ return.

Mr. Trump resisted those calls, describing the boxes of documents as “mine,” according to three advisers familiar with his comments.

Soon after beginning their investigation early this year, Justice Department officials came to believe there were additional classified documents that they needed to collect. In May, after conducting a series of witness interviews, the department issued a subpoena for the return of remaining classified material, according to people familiar with the episode.

On June 3, Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterespionage section of the national security division of the Justice Department, went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, and retrieve any remaining classified material to satisfy the subpoena. Mr. Corcoran went through the boxes himself to identify classified material beforehand, according to two people familiar with his efforts.

Mr. Corcoran showed Mr. Bratt the basement storage room where, he said, the remaining material had been kept.

Mr. Trump briefly came to see the investigators during the visit.

Mr. Bratt and the agents who joined him were given a sheaf of classified material, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Corcoran then drafted a statement, which Ms. Bobb, who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed. It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned, according to two people familiar with the statement.

Mr. Corcoran did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Ms. Bobb did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Soon after that visit, investigators, who were interviewing several people in Mr. Trump’s circle about the documents, came to believe that there were other presidential records that had not been turned over, according to the people familiar with the matter.

On June 22, the Justice Department subpoenaed the Trump Organization for Mar-a-Lago’s security footage, which included a well-trafficked hallway outside the storage area, the people said.

The club had surveillance footage going back 60 days for some areas of the property, stretching back to late April of this year.

While much of the footage showed hours of club employees walking through the busy corridor, some of it raised concerns for investigators, according to people familiar with the matter. It revealed people moving boxes in and out, and in some cases, appearing to change the containers some documents were held in. The footage also showed other parts of the property.

In seeking a second round of security footage, the Justice Department want to review tapes for the weeks leading up to the Aug. 8 search.

Federal officials have indicated that their initial goal has been to secure any classified documents Mr. Trump was holding at Mar-a-Lago, a pay-for-membership club where there is little control over who comes in as guests. It remains to be seen whether anyone will face criminal charges stemming from the investigation.

The combination of witness interviews and the initial security footage led Justice Department officials to begin drafting a request for a search warrant, the people familiar with the matter said.

The F.B.I. agents who conducted the search found the additional documents in the storage area in the basement of Mar-a-Lago, as well as in a container in a closet in Mr. Trump’s office, the people said.

Mr. Trump’s allies have attacked the law enforcement agencies, accusing the investigators of being partisan.

The intense public interest has now spurred a legal fight to see the search warrant’s underlying affidavit. On Monday, a federal magistrate issued a formal order directing the Justice Department to send him under seal proposed redactions to the affidavit underlying the warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago by Thursday, accompanied by a memo explaining its justifications.

In the order, the judge, Bruce E. Reinhart, said he was inclined to release portions of the sealed affidavit but wanted to wait until he saw the government’s redactions before making a decision.

So, it's a lot more: in those 15 boxes that were handed to the National Archives back in January, there were 700 pages of classified material. That excludes what the DOJ and FBI took in June and August of this year. In fact, they couldn't even look at these documents until May as it took the DOJ asking Biden to authorize their release to them and due to extended negotiations with Trump's Lawyers:

“As you are no doubt aware, NARA had ongoing communications with the former President’s representatives throughout 2021 about what appeared to be missing Presidential records, which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes of records to NARA in January 2022,” Wall wrote. “In its initial review of materials within those boxes, NARA identified items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials.”

NARA aides did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter, and Corcoran could not immediately be reached.

The correspondence shows that even though NARA retrieved the 15 boxes in January, Justice Department and FBI investigators didn’t see their contents until May, after extended negotiations with Trump’s representatives. The letter also shows that in the interim, DOJ asked President Joe Biden to authorize NARA to provide the records to investigators despite an effort by Trump to claim executive privilege over the records. Wall indicated she had rejected Trump’s claim because of the significance of the documents to national security.

“NARA informed the Department of Justice about that discovery, which prompted the Department to ask the President to request that NARA provide the FBI with access to the boxes at issue so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them,” Wall wrote.

Biden, according to Wall, then delegated the privilege decision to her, in consultation with the Justice Department.

That letter is written by one angry archivist. Pretty persuasively, too.

I don't get how John Solomon thought releasing this was going to help Trump look better...

By the way, the letter in its entirety can be found here.

[Gravlen]

Ousted Republican reflects on Trump, democracy and America: ‘The place has lost its mind’

It's interesting how he repeatedly says his party is going down the path of fascists.

[Sordhau]

Because space isn't infinite.

true, but america is not in danger of running out of space anytime soon. you're attacking a non-existent problem.

Actually, we are. Radical shifts in climate will make certain regions of the country (and the world, even) unlivable, leading to a mass exodus of populations. Primarily from the desert and coastal regions, but also from the plains and wetlands as well. When shit hits the fan we are very much going to run out of a lot of livable land.

yeah, it crams them all together in high-rise apartments when perfectly good houses with plenty of space are abandoned.

You make it sound like living in a high-rise apartment is a terrible experience when... it's really not. I've lived in apartments and condos most of my life, my dude.

only if you lack an even basic level of understanding of other people

Yet another nonsensical statement which means nothing.

lol. i already explained to you that the advancements in mental healthcare have not led to a reduction in mental illness.

And I already explained to you that the problem lies with these advancements not being utilized, and the reason they're not being utilized is because they're expensive. This is, once again, a direct consequence of free-market capitalism.

[Free Algerstonia]

Ousted Republican reflects on Trump, democracy and America: ‘The place has lost its mind’

It's interesting how he repeatedly says his party is going down the path of fascists.

my main interpretation from the article is that he thinks the republican party might be becoming fascist

[Finalis]

true, but america is not in danger of running out of space anytime soon. you're attacking a non-existent problem.

Actually, we are. Radical shifts in climate will make certain regions of the country (and the world, even) unlivable, leading to a mass exodus of populations. Primarily from the desert and coastal regions, but also from the plains and wetlands as well. When shit hits the fan we are very much going to run out of a lot of livable land.

climate doomsday prediction #318965473

yeah, it crams them all together in high-rise apartments when perfectly good houses with plenty of space are abandoned.

You make it sound like living in a high-rise apartment is a terrible experience when... it's really not. I've lived in apartments and condos most of my life, my dude.

ah, so that's the origin of the problem. you like living a certain way and in turn expect everyone else to live in much the same way

only if you lack an even basic level of understanding of other people

Yet another nonsensical statement which means nothing.

oh no.

anyway...

lol. i already explained to you that the advancements in mental healthcare have not led to a reduction in mental illness.

And I already explained to you that the problem lies with these advancements not being utilized, and the reason they're not being utilized is because they're expensive. This is, once again, a direct consequence of free-market capitalism.

pretty sure they are being utilized. we've got more people on psychoactive drugs than we ever have before.

how cute it must be to imagine that we've got a cure-all for mental illness that we just aren't using.

[Finalis]

until people stop being so needlessly stupid

So you want the eliminate the dull party so that the party of mental patients can rule - in the hope that people will become less stupid?
Contrived. But hey.

weird, since mental illness rates are higher among leftists than those on the right

[Kazak Yeli]

So you want the eliminate the dull party so that the party of mental patients can rule - in the hope that people will become less stupid?
Contrived. But hey.

weird, since mental illness rates are higher among leftists than those on the right

That's another trend that I have been noticing; staggering rates of mental illness among people on the left.

[San Lumen]

So you want the eliminate the dull party so that the party of mental patients can rule - in the hope that people will become less stupid?
Contrived. But hey.

weird, since mental illness rates are higher among leftists than those on the right

Once again you make generalized statements without a single ounce of proof.

[Finalis]

weird, since mental illness rates are higher among leftists than those on the right

Once again you make generalized statements without a single ounce of proof.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog ... ous%20post)

"Higher rates of mental illness have been found on the far left. Previous research in political psychology has suggested that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better physical health than their liberal counterparts (Chan, 2019)"

[Finalis]

weird, since mental illness rates are higher among leftists than those on the right

That's another trend that I have been noticing; staggering rates of mental illness among people on the left.

as much as they pretend to like science it's one of the many scientific facts they'll never acknowledge

[San Lumen]

Once again you make generalized statements without a single ounce of proof.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog ... ous%20post)

"Higher rates of mental illness have been found on the far left. Previous research in political psychology has suggested that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better physical health than their liberal counterparts (Chan, 2019)"

Notice how it said far left.

[Finalis]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog ... ous%20post)

"Higher rates of mental illness have been found on the far left. Previous research in political psychology has suggested that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better physical health than their liberal counterparts (Chan, 2019)"

Notice how it said far left.

and the very next sentence which i conveniently quoted for you and you conveniently ignored:

Previous research in political psychology has suggested that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better physical health than their liberal counterparts

[American Legionaries]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog ... ous%20post)

"Higher rates of mental illness have been found on the far left. Previous research in political psychology has suggested that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better physical health than their liberal counterparts (Chan, 2019)"

Notice how it said far left.

And what makes a Leftist far?

[The Two Jerseys]

Notice how it said far left.

And what makes a Leftist far?

Obligatory "but Democrats are right wingers in the rest of the world!"

[Sordhau]

ah, so that's the origin of the problem. you like living a certain way and in turn expect everyone else to live in much the same way

I didn't say I liked it. I would much prefer to have my own home tbh. But a single-family home is a waste of space, and my desire to have one is less because I want "space" and more because I'm a socially awkward introvert who prefers solitude over community.

pretty sure they are being utilized. we've got more people on psychoactive drugs than we ever have before.

Drugs alone do not prevent mental illness.

how cute it must be to imagine that we've got a cure-all for mental illness that we just aren't using.

Strawman.

weird, since mental illness rates are higher among leftists than those on the right

Liberals aren't Leftists.

"Higher rates of mental illness have been found on the far left. Previous research in political psychology has suggested that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better physical health than their liberal counterparts (Chan, 2019)"

That's because conservatives spoon-feed themselves lie to convince themselves that the world is a better place than it actually is. Leftists don't.

[Finalis]

And what makes a Leftist far?

Obligatory "but Democrats are right wingers in the rest of the world!"

he said it! he said the thing!