benpollard
benpollard's JournalThe Trumps to attend Les Misrables. Talk about being out of touch!
President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, are scheduled to attend the opening night performance of “Les Misérables” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday night.
In some sense it is the culmination of the Trump takeover of the national cultural center. The president appointed himself chairman of the Kennedy Center in February, purged the traditionally bipartisan board and restocked it with loyalists. In March, he took a tour and met with his new board. “We’re going to get some very good shows,” he said at the time. “I guess we have ‘Les Miz’ coming.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/politics/trump-les-miserables-kennedy-center.html
Australian reporter shot with rubber bullet during Los Angeles protests
Source: SIX News Australia
The Greens are calling on Anthony Albanese to speak with Donald Trump about the "deliberate shooting" of Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi, who was hit with a rubber bullet fired by a police officer in Los Angeles.
Read more:
The cop aimed directly at the reporter and deliberately shot her. She was doing nothing but reporting on the event.
Good Night and Good Luck live stream on Saturday
For the first time ever, a performance of a record-breaking Broadway production will broadcast and stream live on CNN and CNN International.
The play, “Good Night, and Good Luck,” stars George Clooney as veteran CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow as he takes a stand against the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s. The story is based on the 2005 film of the same name.
The Tony Award-nominated “Good Night, and Good Luck” will air live on CNN and CNN International and stream live without requiring a cable login via CNN.com/GoodNightGoodLuck and on connected TVs and mobile apps beginning at 7 p.m.
It will also stream live on Max across all subscription plans.
https://www.cnn.com/good-night-and-good-luck-watch-cnn
Today is Presidents Day
What are some good movies about (good) American presidents?
My wife and I will be watching Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, and David Strathairn, which is available on Amazon Prime. That was pretty good from what I remember. I'm old, so it will be like watching it again for the first time. 
What are some others?
Arguments Democrats should make about the border wall funding
Nancy Pelosi needs to stop trying to appeal to people's emotions and make strictly logical arguments about border wall funding.
* We'll fund the wall only after Trump makes his argument in person to Congress on why we need the wall.
* We'll fund the wall only after Trump produces studies showing that spending $5.7 billion on a wall will be effective. * Currently, he just wants a slush fund that he can spend as he sees fit. How do we know that some of that money won't go in his pocket?
* We can't fund any of Trump's pet projects while he is under investigation for conspiring with Russia to steal the election.
* There is too much corruption in the Trump administration to just hand over all that money.
* No president has ever been just handed over such a large amount of money with no oversight on how it will be spent.
According to conservatives, there are 2nd Amendment remedies for abuse of power
“Hillary wants to abolish — essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
~ Donald Trump
“Our Founding Fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules.”
~ NRA chief Wayne LaPierre
Robert Lowry, who ran against Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, stopped by a Republican event that was held at a shooting range. He fired at a human silhouette target with the letters “DWS” written next to the head.
“You know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies."
~ Sharon Angle
“If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend through November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to ‘thin’ the herd.”
~ Brad Goehring (ran for the California statehouse)
“Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 With Jesse Kelly.”
~ Jesse Kelly (ran against Gabrielle Giffords)
“I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family — whether it’s from an intruder, or whether it’s from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important."
~ Joni Ernst
“Failing all other appeals to peaceful means, that the founders’ solution to such tyranny is still available, still potent, and still waiting, for when democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizenry still gets to vote.”
~ Mike Vanderboegh (founder of the III Percent gun militia and an influential speaker in the right-wing patriot movement)
“Their decisions, unlike the Roe v. Wade usurpation, don’t extend to the whole of society, they’re not supposed to, and we may have to reassert that proper constitutional balance, and it may not be pretty. So I’d much rather have an election where we solve this matter at the ballot box than have to resort to the bullet box.”
~ Larry Pratt (former Virginia lawmaker)
We have never seen such an abuse of power as we have with the Republican run Congress and especially with Trump, who seems to be more loyal to Russia than to the U.S.
James Hodgkinson recently took conservatives up on their gun rhetoric when he shot Steve Scalise and other conservatives at their baseball practice.
Things are going to get worse before they get better.
How to control the narrative
Democrats should repeat these facts in each and every interview
* Trump has no regard for our Constitution
* Trump has been in constant violation of our Constitution since the day he took office.
* Three of Trump's executive orders have been ruled unConstitutional.
* Trump would not be president right now if not for Russian interference in our election.
* Trump was guilty of defrauding 1,000s of Trump University students and had to pay $25 million to settle the class action lawsuit.
* Trump lies 71% of the time
Republicans repeat their accusations in each and every interview, and that's how they control the narrative. The difference is: their accusations are not based on facts.
Two members of alt-right accused of making white supremacist hand signs in White House after receivi
Source: Independent
Two conservative journalists have sparked outcry on social media by making what some have interpreted as a white supremacist hand symbol at a recent visit to the White House.
Freelance journalist Mike Cernovich and Cassandra Fairbanks, a reporter for Russian news outlet Sputnik, posed for a picture behind the podium in the White House briefing room. In the photo, they are making a hand sign that can be used to signify “white power.”
...
Alt-right journalist Lucian Wintrich, a writer for The Gateway Pundit, sparked outcry when he flashed the symbol in a similar picture at the White House in February. Notorious alt-right personality Milo Yiannopoulos also frequently flashes the symbol.
The resurgence of the symbol may be traced back to a popular alt-right meme, known as “smug Pepe,” which began circulating on alt-right, pro-Trump message boards in 2015. Mr Trump often uses the symbol when speaking, explaining its significance with the president’s supporters.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/white-power-hand-symbol-cassandra-fairbanks-mike-cernovich-alt-right-white-house-a7709446.html
In a related story, one of Trump’s national security advisors, Sebastian Gorka, will be reassigned due to his being a member of a Hungarian Nazi group.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-aide-sebastian-gorka-may-leave-white-house-n753116
Nazis are running our country!
The Daily Stormer
Has anybody looked at their website (dailystormer.com)? I heard of it but never actually looked at it until just now. RawStory had a link to one of their articles, so I clicked on it.
What I found was something some high school outcasts might have put together. Yet their target audience isn't just kids -- it's uneducated, antisemetic racists of all ages -- people looking for a reason to hate. They celebrate Hitler and post derogatory cartoons of Jews, among other things.
It's pathetic.
How long before drones are used for terrorism?
I'm not sure if this is the right section to post this, but I've been wondering how long it will be before drones are used to commit acts of terrorism. Once they start, it will truly be "terrorism." No place will be safe or defendable -- even the White House.
The U.S. uses drones to bomb locations of suspected terrorists and often, innocent women and children are killed as "collateral damage." The drones can be controlled from pretty much anywhere in the world. We can kill indiscriminately with no loss of American lives. But we're "the good guys."
Several people have already attached guns to drones and proven that you can fire a gun from a drone -- even a machine gun! Here's a video of one by a crazy Russian:
Am I being paranoid, or is this a legitimate concern?
Profile Information
Name: Ben HoffmanGender: Do not display
Hometown: Denver
Home country: USA
Current location: Denver
Member since: Sun Mar 27, 2016, 10:08 AM
Number of posts: 261