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8 hours ago, Hmbre97 said:
On 9/4/2024 at 7:10 PM, tx 3 putt said:
 

Jesse doth protest too much about masculinity. The reality is he probably has a secret grinder account and likes to eat snickers bars upside down so the veiny part is on his tongue.

lol wow

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On 9/12/2024 at 12:26 AM, Hmbre97 said:

Jesse doth protest too much about masculinity. The reality is he probably has a secret grinder account and likes to eat snickers bars upside down so the veiny part is on his tongue.

Not something I could’ve conceived. 

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I’m visiting my father and have watched about 15 minutes of Fox News. I’ve learned that housing costs are the fault of illegal immigrants, Kamala’s policies as VP are the cause of all your problems, this country is being overrun with illegal immigrants who are ruining your life, this country has a huge problem with illegal immigrants, and flip-flopping Kamala’s open borders policy is ruining your life and causing all your problems.

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38 minutes ago, Bookman said:

I’m visiting my father and have watched about 15 minutes of Fox News. I’ve learned that housing costs are the fault of illegal immigrants, Kamala’s policies as VP are the cause of all your problems, this country is being overrun with illegal immigrants who are ruining your life, this country has a huge problem with illegal immigrants, and flip-flopping Kamala’s open borders policy is ruining your life and causing all your problems.

Not at you, but

Go hire a painter or plumber in Austin right now. Then consider prices when Trump deports everybody. Then consider his tarrif policy. Our economy would be a smoldering clusterfuck and all these "serious" bastards are completely clueless about it.

GOP policy only works as grievance. If they actually implement anything it's a real dog catches car moment.  Like Dobbs.  They need to run on deporting people; but if they actually do it they are fucked. 

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19 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Jesse Watters said yesterday on air that he has never heard of Mark Robinson. Tens of millions of Americans take this horseshit as gospel.

Annoying that so many would believe him, but I take it as he’s distancing himself because he knows Robinson is finished.

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Annoying that so many would believe him, but I take it as he’s distancing himself because he knows Robinson is finished.

He’s either 1) Lying through his teeth, which of course he is, or 2) Shockingly uninformed with no business being on air talking about politics.

Which is it, morons? (not y’all)
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12 minutes ago, Red Five said:

He’s either 1) Lying through his teeth, which of course he is, or 2) Shockingly uninformed with no business being on air talking about politics.

Which is it, morons? (not y’all)

He’s lying. It’s all about denial, distance, and deflection. Trump will later announce that he didn’t know him either.

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On 9/20/2024 at 8:37 AM, Bookman said:

I’m visiting my father and have watched about 15 minutes of Fox News. I’ve learned that housing costs are the fault of illegal immigrants, Kamala’s policies as VP are the cause of all your problems, this country is being overrun with illegal immigrants who are ruining your life, this country has a huge problem with illegal immigrants, and flip-flopping Kamala’s open borders policy is ruining your life and causing all your problems.

Talking to a guy I know. He said Kamala Harris was unqualified(she has 21 years on office and has worked for all three branches). He then said she was the border czar, and she didn't do her job there. I asked what her job was exactly and he knew, stating she was in charge of solving the migration from the Northern Triangle of Central America. I showed him how she decreased contacts by people from those countries by 70%. He then stated that all problems down there are her fault. MAGA

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On 9/20/2024 at 6:37 AM, Bookman said:

I’m visiting my father and have watched about 15 minutes of Fox News. I’ve learned that housing costs are the fault of illegal immigrants, Kamala’s policies as VP are the cause of all your problems, this country is being overrun with illegal immigrants who are ruining your life, this country has a huge problem with illegal immigrants, and flip-flopping Kamala’s open borders policy is ruining your life and causing all your problems.

This reminds of a video I saw back when Obama was in office.  It showed a guy stubbing his toe, a woman dropping a tray of food, a kid getting his term paper back with a failing grade, a guy with a flat tire, and several more.  Each of them says sounding irritated “Thanks Obama!” right after their bad event happens.

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He’s either 1) Lying through his teeth, which of course he is, or 2) Shockingly uninformed with no business being on air talking about politics.

Which is it, morons? (not y’all)

Watters might be that stupid to not know he interviewed him previously. He’s Fox News Don Lemon.
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On 9/12/2024 at 12:26 AM, Hmbre97 said:
On 9/4/2024 at 8:10 PM, tx 3 putt said:
 

Jesse doth protest too much about masculinity. The reality is he probably has a secret grinder account and likes to eat snickers bars upside down so the veiny part is on his tongue.

Letting you know I stole and posted this on Twitter and tagged his ass. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

'What Dictators, Corruption and Threesomes Have to Do With a Lawsuit That Could Kneecap Fox News'

Interesting article on Smartmatic's upcoming defamation trial against Fox News.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/04/voting-machine-fox-pr-lawsuit-00181257

Interesting quote to end the article from Smartmatic's CEO:

“We’ve participated in elections in, I think, 37 countries, many of them in the developing world — immature democracies, or whatever you want to call them,” he said. “Like Venezuela, which is not a democracy anymore. Or the Philippines or Kenya, places that are definitely at a different stage in their democracies and in their socioeconomic development. And I think what’s been happening in the U.S. recently, and more specifically with the last election, was kind of a regression into that stage. So the U.S. has basically behaved as if it was any other developing country on the political front.”

Full article:

Quote

To combat a smear based on lies, the CEO of the voting machine firm Smartmatic may have to lean into a totally different set of ugly stories — involving alleged corporate bribery, ties to a foreign strongman and his own role in a threesome hookup app called Feeld.

Antonio Mugica, whose firm was slimed by unfounded far-right conspiracy theories about a stolen 2020 election, made a confidential settlement last week in his defamation suit against Newsmax, months after scoring another confidential settlement in a proceeding against OAN. But he’s due in court early next year for a case against the biggest conservative network of all: Fox News, which Smartmatic is suing for $2.7 billion over alleged false claims related to former President Donald Trump’s loss.

And that matter is still being fought over — especially in the court of public opinion.

In fact, no sooner had the Newsmax settlement been announced last Thursday than Fox’s PR operation was out with a statement seemingly unrelated to the question of whether or not the voting-machine company was defamed in 2020: “Smartmatic’s President and Co-Founder, as well as one current and one former executive, were federally indicted for bribery” involving a Philippine government contract.

It wasn’t so different from the communications strategy deployed by Newsmax right up until they settled: Talk a lot about things that have little to do with 2020. Days earlier, the pro-Trump network had put out a statement slamming Mugica’s firm as “the preferred election company for Venezuela’s brutal Chavez/Maduro regime” and sniffing that the court should never have allowed “a company with such a sordid reputation to pursue a defamation claim against a media company.”

You can expect to hear a lot more like that — and beyond — as Fox and Smartmatic gird for battle.

That’s because the thing about defamation suits is that they’re premised on the idea that the plaintiff actually has a good name that can be besmirched. And that premise, in turn, encourages unfriendly parties to air dirty laundry ahead of trial.

Mugica’s PR team knows this, which is surely how I found myself talking to him last month not just about election sanctity, but about cringier subjects he’d rather avoid: That bribery case; those alleged ties to his country’s autocratic late president Hugo Chavez; and Mugica’s personal views on sexual monogamy and what they have to do with his dating app investments, among other things.

On paper, they seem awfully far afield from the question of whether a news organization devastated Mugica’s business via defamatory lies about the 2020 U.S. election. In the real world, it’s a different story.

These days, a political trial can look a lot like a political campaign, complete with communications pros, oppo research and gobs of dollars. Sources familiar with the case against Fox say it could cost Smartmatic upwards of $100 million (a figure that the undisclosed recent settlements may help reach). Given that Dominion Voting Systems scored a nearly $1 billion settlement from Fox News in a similar case last year, that could prove a good investment.

“The business of power is messy,” Mugica said. “Politics is messy. It’s definitely an extreme sport. And unfortunately for us, we’re in the middle of it.”

And to win at this particular extreme sport, he figures, it’s time to start talking about some of the muck likely to come his way as the trial nears.

Unlike the allegations that Smartmatic rigged the 2020 elections, these stories aren’t all make-believe. Mugica’s firm really did handle elections in Venezuela, his home country as well as that of his Smartmatic co-founders. One was a controversial recall election that Chavez won. “There are a million reasons to criticize President Chavez,” Mugica said. “I think for me, the biggest one is, he destroyed the country. But one thing that he didn’t do is he didn’t tamper with these results.”

On the other hand, when the opposition boycotted a national assembly election under successor Nicolás Maduro — allowing the new president’s allies to run essentially unopposed — Mugica blew the whistle on the regime’s manipulation of voter turnout numbers. “And, of course, immediately we were politically persecuted out of the country,” Mugica said, noting that the firm moved dozens of local employees out. “I have never been able to return to Venezuela.”

For good measure, Mugica also said the regime stiffed Smartmatic on $100 million in payments and expropriated its local business. It’s a history that, his team thinks, makes it pretty tough for opponents to cast him as a hatchet man for the dictatorship. Or maybe not: The Venezuela questions are all over the briefs Fox has filed in the case.

The Philippine indictments, which earned significant press this summer, are also likely to get an encore during the trial. According to federal prosecutors, three top Smartmatic executives, including president and co-founder Roger Pinate, violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by conspiring to funnel $1 million to the head of the country’s election commission in order to snag a lucrative elections contract.

The company wasn’t indicted, and the alleged crime didn’t involve tampering with elections. But the whole thing still looks sleazy — in just the way you’d want if you’re a defense lawyer who needs to beat back Smartmatic’s claims that its reputation was damaged.

Here, Mugica spoke cautiously. “I’m not aware of that being true,” he said of the alleged bribe. “I’m very confident that my executives are going to clear their names.” He was less circumspect when it came to some things he thinks are fishy about the case, starting with the size of the alleged bribe (“kind of a really small amount compared to what they usually prosecute, which is hundreds of millions or billions of dollars”) and the long-ago timing (the contract in question was for a 2016 election) as well as the context (he says it involves a longstanding vendetta against the election commissioner on the part of the incumbent Philippine president). The case has yet to go to court.

But when you’re talking about something as fuzzy as a company’s reputation, the supposed shortcomings of a federal indictment only matter so much to the general public.

Ditto the ostensibly unrelated parts of the boss’ investment portfolio and personal life.

Take Feeld, the dating app for “polyamory, consensual non-monogamy, homo- and heteroflexibility, pansexuality, asexuality, aromanticism, voyeurism, and kink,” according to its website. Mugica is a top investor in the service, which he praises as a female-led company that’s filling a need in a little-noticed community that happens to be part of his own life.

“I’ve always been more of an open-relationship type of person,” Mugica, a separated father of two, told me. “That’s one of the reasons the couple that founded this company came to me, and I thought, look, there is a big market of people that have more of an open mind about these things. … And it proved to be right,” because the app is growing rapidly.

So far, Mugica’s involvement in Feeld hasn’t been part of any pretrial publicity campaign. He suspects that won’t be true for long. One odd coincidence that might complicate efforts to tar him by association: One of the highest-profile mentions of Feeld in U.S. media was a rapturous 2021 Vanity Fair item headlined “Three-Way Sex With Couples Has Made Me a Better Person.” The author was Caroline Rose Giuliani, whose father Rudy is also a focus of Smartmatic’s defamation actions. (The younger Giuliani this week endorsed Kamala Harris.)

“It’s been very tough because I’m running the business at the same time that I need to manage the litigation against Fox and Newsmax,” Mugica told me. “What I tell my friends is, it’s not the legal battle, which I think I have an excellent team of lawyers, but it is more the invisible battle that happens under the table, people trying to bring you down. … These are the things that have really taken the fight to a different level.”

Mugica said he hasn’t resorted to raising money specifically for the litigation. But Smartmatic recently took in a multimillion-dollar investment from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor. At the time, a Hoffman advisor told reporters that the investment was a good business opportunity but that it also was a way “to provide capital that would allow the truth to be found in the courts.”

One of the ironies of the whole affair is that London-based Smartmatic never did much American business. In 2020, its only U.S. contract was in Los Angeles County, far from the states where Donald Trump’s supporters claimed fraud. But, Mugica said, America’s prominence meant the disinformation had “obliterated” his business, which just had its worst revenue year in 21 years.

“To take the biggest company in the election technology space that has never had a breach in 25 years, and to say they rigged the U.S. election is devastating,” Mugica said, claiming the falsehoods dried up scores of opportunities after the firm had invested millions in growth. “I think that lie was actually devastating not only for our company. It was devastating for the industry as a whole. So many countries that wanted to bring technology into their elections said, ‘We don’t want to be in that situation.’”

In its complaint, Smartmatic is demanding a massive $2.7 billion for economic and reputational damages. It is also asking the court to hit Fox with punitive damages, which could theoretically bump up the award to a devastating $5.4 billion (double) or $8.1 billion (triple). There’s no cap on punitive damages in New York.

I wouldn’t go spending those extra billions just yet: Before the Newsmax matter settled, the judge in that case had ruled out punitive damages, saying the network hadn’t set out to harm Smartmatic even as it aired false statements. The Fox case, of course, involves a different company and a different jurisdiction.

Fox has denied defaming anyone and says free speech could be damaged by a lawsuit against a news organization that was merely reporting on allegations. “Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on their face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms,” the company declared.

Mugica, who lived for a decade in the U.S., has family here and still visits frequently, including recent trips to prep for trial. In a conversation, he sounded confident about the American legal system.

All the same, the fallout from 2020 has added a sense of danger to the United States, too, something Mugica never expected to see. Election deniers wielding megaphones shouted outside Smartmatic’s U.S. offices. Anonymous messages and emails threatened rank-and-file employees. “Location acquired … here we come,” read one. The company’s Los Angeles office got a package in the mail featuring photos of mangled human remains. “The 14-year-old son of my co-founder received a call saying, ‘We’re going to kill you and your family for what you have done,’” Mugica told me.

I asked Mugica, whose firm works elections around the world, to compare America to other countries he’s watched. Whatever you think of Fox News’ culpability for the falsehoods of 2020, his answer ought to give you pause.

“We’ve participated in elections in, I think, 37 countries, many of them in the developing world — immature democracies, or whatever you want to call them,” he said. “Like Venezuela, which is not a democracy anymore. Or the Philippines or Kenya, places that are definitely at a different stage in their democracies and in their socioeconomic development. And I think what’s been happening in the U.S. recently, and more specifically with the last election, was kind of a regression into that stage. So the U.S. has basically behaved as if it was any other developing country on the political front.”

 

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4 hours ago, C-Man said:

'What Dictators, Corruption and Threesomes Have to Do With a Lawsuit That Could Kneecap Fox News'

Interesting article on Smartmatic's upcoming defamation trial against Fox News.

 

I'm confused - so now Fox News is saying that relationships with "Dictators, Corruption and Threesomes" is damaging to reputations???  That seems inconsistent with what I've been hearing out of the propaganda arm of Fox News for the last 9 year.  I mean, it seemed like their position was more ...

3a82e8f9-2ecd-44b3-99bb-6015cf574f45_tex

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7 hours ago, C-Man said:

To combat a smear based on lies, the CEO of the voting machine firm Smartmatic may have to lean into a totally different set of ugly stories — involving alleged corporate bribery, ties to a foreign strongman and his own role in a threesome hookup app called Feeld.

snl eyebrow raise GIF by Saturday Night Live

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4 hours ago, yoladu said:

Dictators, Corruption and Threesomes? Sounds like the GOP may have found their heir apparent to Trump. 

No. This one is bad. He's from Venezuela. 

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On 9/20/2024 at 8:37 AM, Bookman said:

I’m visiting my father and have watched about 15 minutes of Fox News. I’ve learned that housing costs are the fault of illegal immigrants, Kamala’s policies as VP are the cause of all your problems, this country is being overrun with illegal immigrants who are ruining your life, this country has a huge problem with illegal immigrants, and flip-flopping Kamala’s open borders policy is ruining your life and causing all your problems.

What do these idiots think will happen to housing cost when the cheap labor goes away?

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14 hours ago, Bookman said:

Next on Fox News: How flip-flopping Kamala's open border policies make hurricanes worse and cause all your problems. 

1. “Kamala’s Diabolical Scheme: Annihilate the Police, Crush the Heartland’s Lifeblood, and Replace Your Holidays with Rituals of Woke Obedience”

2. “Harris’ Wicked Assault on the Heartland: Turn Your Children into Pawns of Marxist Indoctrination, While Drugs Flow Freely and Morality Burns”

3. “Kamala’s War on Faith: Desecrate Churches, Force Obedience to Radical Gender Ideologies, and Erase the Very Soul of Religious America”

4. “Harris Unleashes Chaos: Starve Farmers, Open the Gates to Lawless Hordes, and Drown Small Towns in a Wave of Criminal Anarchy”

5. “Kamala’s Depraved Plot: Rip Guns From Citizens, Shatter Communities, and Turn the Heartland Into a Wasteland of Surveillance and Control”

6. “Harris’ Dark Covenant: Shred the Constitution, Impose Tyrannical Taxes on Families, and Force a Soulless New Order Upon the Heartland”

7. “Kamala’s Election Nightmare: Blood in the Streets, Souls Corrupted by Drugs, and Power Won Through the Ashes of American Democracy”

8. “Harris’ Green Tyranny: Eviscerate Midwest Jobs, Crush Farmers Beneath the Weight of Solar Slavery, and Brainwash Children with Gender Insanity”

9. “Kamala’s Dark Plan: Plunder the Wealth of Hard-Working Americans, Elevate Illegals to New Heights, and Fund a Legion of Radical Climate Zealots”

10. “Kamala’s Vision of Hell: Farmers Replaced by Cold Machines, Illegals Granted Dominion, and Christianity Torn from the Very Fabric of America”

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So then I guess I'll ask, what exactly is Trump going to do or has he proposed that he will do to bring down the price of groceries? Tariffs on imports? Grocery stores will just magically lower their prices because he takes over?

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3 minutes ago, mdmost said:

So then I guess I'll ask, what exactly is Trump going to do or has he proposed that he will do to bring down the price of groceries? Tariffs on imports? Grocery stores will just magically lower their prices because he takes over?

Bro, you know the drill - "concepts of a plan" to fix it, will be unveiled in 2 weeks (or right after the election), etc.  We're too stupid as a country to exist if he wins.   

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7 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Kelce is 35.  His game should be declining.

I had to root for the fucking Chiefs in the Super Bowl last season because the shear amount of mouth-breathing morons who would have made their loss about COVID vaccines and Taylor Swift being Yoko Ono would have been intolerable.

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28 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

 

But they're using using their husband's credit card. Am I right guys?? Haha, high five. 

That's the discourse level on the most watched news network in the country. So cool.

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9 minutes ago, mdmost said:

So then I guess I'll ask, what exactly is Trump going to do or has he proposed that he will do to bring down the price of groceries? Tariffs on imports? Grocery stores will just magically lower their prices because he takes over?

He has no plan.  For anything.  He is LITERALLY the charlatan running for 6th grade class president who promises to ban homework, have the cafeteria serve pizza and ice cream every day, and ban any grades lower than a B+.  It's all lies and magical thinking.  Remember, this is the fucking psychopath who promised that COVID "one day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear."

Everything he says is made up bullshit/lies that simply cannot happen.  And FOX gives him a total free pass.  "See, he said it -- inflation is going away, we'll actually have deflation.  There you have it, that's what a Trump presidency will do."  Fucking lying propaganda.  If FOX news was based in a foreign country, we'd have bombed it by now.

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1 hour ago, mdmost said:

So then I guess I'll ask, what exactly is Trump going to do or has he proposed that he will do to bring down the price of groceries? Tariffs on imports? Grocery stores will just magically lower their prices because he takes over?

Glad you noticed this. Also, before I start, I noticed Fox doing some nice editing there.

"How will you make groceries more affordable?"
"Well, I gave you guys the biggest tax cut in History."

He basically said "I already fixed your problem, fuck you." And either no one noticed, or pretended not to notice. You already gave us that tax cut, motherfucker, and it wasn't repealed or expired under Biden, and groceries are still fucking expensive. SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW? 

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1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

Glad you noticed this. Also, before I start, I noticed Fox doing some nice editing there.

"How will you make groceries more affordable?"
"Well, I gave you guys the biggest tax cut in History."

He basically said "I already fixed your problem, fuck you." And either no one noticed, or pretended not to notice. You already gave us that tax cut, motherfucker, and it wasn't repealed or expired under Biden, and groceries are still fucking expensive. SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW? 

The only solution Republicans ever offer is tax cuts. Economy doing too well? Tax cuts. Economy doing poorly? Tax cuts. That non-flip happened during the GWB admin. When your primary constituency is billionaires who want to be able to poison people without liability and also not have to pay for the social structure that prevents their heads from being cut off that's all your party has to offer.

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7 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

 

Weird. I just got back from HEB while my wife stayed home. Prices are through the roof.  I also have a functioning brain so I don’t think that is Joe Biden’s fault, but more importantly, I don’t think that the obviously grifting con man carnival barker will be able to bring those prices down. 

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10 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

 

Fuck you.

I go to the grocery store. My wife wouldn’t be caught dead in Costco or HEB. I know the coupon calendar at Costco and remember when a case of Kirkland water was 1.99 and when HEB sparkling water was 2.99 a 12 pack.

But also, I feel sorry for those who don’t get to go shopping by themselves at the grocery store.

I get to 2-3 hours of by myself if I double up on Costco and HEB. 
 

$2 hotdog and Pepsi for lunch. A
Beer while shopping at HEB. 

Bonus pts for An accessional hot mom in yoga pants or a braless chick in the refrigerated fruit section at Costco.

There are worse ways to spend your time.

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