American Politics

[Canada]

I thought this was more or less obvious, but perhaps I was wrong, so let me explain these variables using myself as a real-life example.

1. So, I was in Sao Paulo in May & June 2026 having a real good time with my branca mistress every night and hitting the SP clinicas every other afternoon for a little variety. But then I started thinking it was a fucking long time since I was in the LOS, and I kind of missed the place.

2. But the Iran War was kicking up a fuss (the interruption of gulf oil tanker flow) and WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil prices had gone over $100/ barrel. I knew that would have a negative effect on Airline tickets to BKK, but I took a look see anyway and yep, prices were sky high, so I put my idea on hold.

3. In July I was back home in the free state of Florida (mango season) and all the news was about a possible deal between the USA and the Mullahs and WTI (crude oil) prices were back around $72/ barrel, so I took a look at Airline ticket prices to BKK again and guess what? They had gone down more than the price of crude. I guessed that demand for air travel and declined substantially when oil was above $100 and had not picked up sufficiently YET since oil was back under $75/ barrel and thus the airlines' nonlinear profit maximizing algorithms were telling the airlines to lower their seat price to sell a bunch of tickets and stimulate demand. In other words, I saw an opportunity to get what I wanted, a ticket to BKK as part of an around the world series of flights at a really good price..

It is good to see a sensible and common sense post on this site. I don't even read most of the posts from the loser socialists. Oil prices will definitely drop soon and be below $70 a barrel. South America seems like a good alternative to Asia. I was in BKK last month and it was great though. It will be great when Iran is subdued and it will be great to go to the Middle East again. I spent a lot of time in the Middle East in the past but most of my lingering was with the Russian and East European ladies. Did get one Iranian girl in Dubai though and look forward to another one.

[Elvis 2008]

"The Constitution is a framework charter, NOT a codified code", as exemplified and argued by Chief Justice John Marshall.

What a complete crock of shit made up by some lawyer. SC makes the comment about the Constitution and racism and citizenship so in some ways this to me is the most important sentence in the Constitution. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. And no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This is not just about the white citizens who could vote. The word in the 4th Amendment is people, and the 4th Amendment applies to all Americans: black people, brown people, women even back in the 1700's. The government cannot steal people's stuff and kill them. Before any of those things can happen, there has to be due process with a neutral magistrate presiding. Is that happening now?

Fuck no. Government is not getting warrants; since 9-11, they are doing subpoenas with gag orders. The cops are accusing not the person with money but the money itself. A cop claims he smells marijuana and seizes a vehicle as it probably is involved the drug trade. Fuck due process.

And if government violates the Constitution, the judge lawyers have carved out an excuse, qualified immunity. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for the citizens but the government dickheads can get out of being sued for constitutional violations because they might not have known the law. Since qualified immunity was made the law by dickhead judge lawyers, there have been two successful lawsuits against government workers. So if the government steals your shit, the road to getting it back is long and hard. Civil rights no longer exist.

But there is the ultimate Constitutional clause, the second amendment. The best way to think of the second amendment is enforcement of the others. The reason we have a 2nd amendment is so if the government violates the other amendments, we can kill them. It is not about guns; it is self-defense for dickhead government officials who claim the Constitution is not iron clad but flexible, and the government dickheads are doing all they can so they have a monopoly on violence.

The reason Eric Snowden lives in Russia now is he found a document written up by VP Cheney and his lawyer that essentially eliminated the protections of the 4th Amendment, and he went to journalists and showed them what he found. He did not take this "top secret" document and show it to the world. The dickhead government workers and their judge friends went into overdrive. Snowden was an uneducated no gooder: he broke the law; he needed to be jailed.

Snowden was a genius; he outsmarted the government dickheads at every turn. Snowden said he would come back to the USA and stand trial as long as he was allowed to have a jury of his peers as is his right under the Constitution. Nope, the government dickheads and their "framework" Constitution dickhead judges said that his trial would be a military tribunal, so he stayed in Russia. Of course, I would have found Snowden innocent. He was more patriotic than anyone working in government.

So is this a surprise that a dumb Dem who leeches off his fellow citizens as badly as you do Spidy is for the government stealing from its citizens? Hell no. You do not live in the USA. All you care about is that the government sends you a check. If that check just happens to be made up of stolen funds from the American people, you do not give a fuck. So in your eyes, if the Constitution has to be "modified" so you get cash, that is fine with you, and that is why people like yourself who live abroad and live off government handouts should not have the right to vote.

[SubCmdr]

Last year, 10 Death Row inmates filed suit against Tennessee, saying that its primary method of execution, the injection of a drug called pentobarbital, amounted to the cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Constitution.

Christa Pike made the same argument earlier this year in a filing in which her lawyers requested execution by firing squad and said, we have serious reservations about the State of Tennessees ability to prevent a torturous execution.

In retrospect, the filing seems prescient. Its hard to describe the events of the past 24 hours as anything other than cruel and unusual.

Within an hour, Pike was again readied for an execution that, like too many others in recent years, failed to occur. She was still alive after being injected with two syringes of pentobarbital, and according to witnesses, was audibly snoring, per The New York Times. The execution was halted and Pike was taken to a hospital; there has been no formal update on her condition.

Why trust them with my well being while I am living?

Neither Party is Mine!

[SubCmdr]

Whether it is a data center losing billions in down time or a refrigerator with $100 of food in it, it is not just the cost of generation but the reliability of the generation that affects cost, and sun and wind are not reliable. Uh, everyone in the world who uses electricity? To a dumb Dem, math is now political.

Solar power is inherently variable, dependent on daylight and weather, while wind fluctuates with atmospheric conditions.

Renewable energy production can vary based on the source and season. Solar is less effective in the winter (and obviously useless in the dark), while wind speeds and river flow can change throughout the year. Most of northern Europe can sometimes be hit by dunkelflaute events, which are periods of low wind and little sunlight, and this can make it tricky for solar panels and wind turbines to be effective. Tidal energy is more reliable since tides happen twice a day, but it's significantly more expensive compared to other sources of renewable energy. It can also be challenging to find suitable locations for projects because of its potential harm to biodiversity. Biomass energy also needs a continuous supply of organic matter, which can lead to deforestation around the world. In 2023, biomass was the second largest source of renewable energy in the UK after wind power, contributing to 5% of the total electricity supply. The best way around this is to use a mixture of renewable energy sources, so that if one isn't working particularly well, others can step in. For instance, a country cant run on solar farms throughout the winter, so wind farms can provide backup. Its also vital that the global switch to renewable energy makes use of battery storage. This enables countries to store up excess electricity, ready for use in emergencies when there simply isn't enough new electricity generation.

Renewable energy systems aren't completely clean.

https://www.sunsave.energy/blog/pros...newable-energy

I don't consider electricity a political issue. Republican or Democrat if they don't keep the lights on then they will find out from the first principles document called the Constitution of the United States that true power resides with the people.

Neither Party is Mine!

[SubCmdr]

In a move designed to decrease the institutional knowledge, weaken the US Military, sidelining experienced commanders, discouraging dissent and appointing more officers loyal to the current Article 2 to the ranks, for the upcoming second civil war, The current Secretary of War is taking the following actions:

Why is Hegseth cutting 20 percent of US general and admiral positions?
United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced plans to cut the number of positions in the military reserved for generals and admirals by 20 percent, raising concerns about political interference in the militarys leadership amid strained relations with senior Pentagon officials.

Speaking on Wednesday at the US Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth argued that the reduction was long overdue and necessary to purge woke elements from the US armed forces."You cant change a culture with the same people who enabled it", he said. Personnel is policy at every single level.

He added that "no fatties, no trannies, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals, just warriors would be allowed in the US armed forces".

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/...iral-positions

[Elvis 2008]

Hey Elvis, let me know how the flight on Azul goes if you decide to fly with them. They fly out of FLL which is a big plus as far as I am concerned because MIA is such a hassle. My only issue with Azul is trying to book an enlarged legroom seat is difficult on their website. But the idea of flying into VCP sounds intriguing because I would take advantage of that arrival destination and visit Fazendinha Night Club for a few nights at long last before driving down to SP.

P.S. My Brazilian cleaning lady flies Azul and she says the airline is OK.

I have never done Azul. I looked at a round trip and it is $400 cheaper if you go through Bogota and use Avianca and then Gol.

Pardon the rant, but I saw this video, and it triggered me, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZxgreSvAAQ&t=29s

The woman who made this video is as objective and as level headed as anyone I have seen. These are the talking parts of the new and more popular manosphere, facts and studies to back up what is rational action and not hatred for women.

She did a great job of nailing five things I had issues with my ex-wife and I have friends, a majority of them, who had the same issues with their wives. The first, and the best predictor of divorce, is contempt. This is just talking shit about your spouse. I am sure both sexes do it but for me, the women are much more open. The next is women trying to compete with men in marriage.

The next was women do not reciprocate. This was written in the comments section, and IMO was hilarious. In university, I had a seminar on political corruption. We read and discussed a study that found that men tend to create networks of corruption whilst women did not. Of course the women in the seminar loved this, because they were biased and it confirmed their worldview that men are just worse. We read and discussed the study further and it turned out, that women did not choose to not create networks of corruption, they were unable to create them, because a network of corruption is based in reciprocity, a favor for a favor etc. And the researchers found that female politicians only took favors and gave nothing back, so no reciprocity and therefore no networks.

The fourth was that women cared more about the attention of the masses and being popular and less about what their husband thought of them.

And the final one was about how women can be emotional and violent and men are supposed to be stoic and not violent when women act like complete idiots.

Thing is if the role of wife is to cook, clean, and have sex with you, what guarantee is there for guys that she will continue to do so? How many guys get married and have kids, and the wife becomes fat, lazy, frigid, financially irresponsible, and insulting, and the only reason the guy sticks around is for the kids? IMO the majority of marriages with children have a wife with one or more of these elements.

What gets me is when some mongers want to play in this space. She likes me for me they say. Isn't that what every husband in the above marriage thought too?

To me, it was way smarter getting a cleaning service, a meal service, and paying for sex than having a wife / GF? And the reason is if one of the following does not perform, you quit paying them and get rid of them.

Well, what about having children? We need women there right? I think the Lindsay Clancy case showed we do not. A mother kills her kids, and women want to say it is not her fault? It's the husband, the medical profession, the drug companies, but it is not her. And you see the mothers rallying in support saying it is okay for mothers to kill their kids. So do you even want mothers now over day care or nannies?

This story did not get much publicity, but the last gold medal winner in figure skating did not have a mother. American figure skating champion Alysa Liu was born via gestational surrogacy and an anonymous egg donor, and was raised by her single father, Arthur Liu. And by the way, the outcome of children raised via a single father is equal to that of a married couple. It is the children of single mothers who have the worst outcomes.

I kept seeing the same pattern with American women. Oh, they might try to convince you they are long term worthy for a few months but just with sex alone after a few months, things cooled off, so I was doing the sugar daddy thing: no honey, no money.

So it is not that women are evil; it is that they are not being held accountable when they perform poorly. Even when bragging about how good they are as mothers / parents, the outcomes are shit, so it is rational to keep things short term with them.

The reason guys go abroad is the values are better. The women look better, perform better, and are much less of an expense and a legal system risk. And in today's age, American women do not even have to do that much. How hard is it to load a washer and a dryer and fold and hang clothes? How hard is it to buy a rotisserie chicken and throw some vegetables in the microwave, buy a packet of pre made salad, and have dinner? How hard is it to give a blowjob? And how hard is it to look better and perform better than the American hooker of today? The bar is so fucking low now, and women still gripe and cannot meet it.

Thing is the platonic women in my life got pissed when I did the sugar thing and treated women as disposable when they did not perform, but here is the thing. I was happy unlike so many of my married and miserable friends stuck with their female leeches.

When I got divorced, I would come home and there was this marvelous feeling of peace. I didn't miss my ex. I was pissed I lived in a home that was so fucking stressful for so long, and I was paying for it!

It should not be that I have a unicorn who looks better and fucks better than most hookers, who keeps a clean place, does the laundry, is a good cook, is fun to be with, and does not put me down. She does all that and does not need a legal piece of paper that says she can beat me up if I withdraw from the arrangement. She knows if she takes care of me, I will take care of her.

The funny part is with all the amazing looking and performing women I had as sugar babies there were so many times I had to break it off because they quit performing and like my ex, I had no regrets in doing so. With this woman, I know I would have regrets if I broke it off.

So that is why I am not going to Brazil, dude. I do not have to do so to get a quality woman and have quality sex. My gal should not be a unicorn, but it is not going to get better until guys learn not to commit until they find a woman like I have. Until then, have fun looking, brother! Mongers are the winners not the losers. The losers are the guys being sucked dry by their parasitic wives / GFs. Mongers keep looking for better.

[SubCmdr]

Returning from vacation? The government can search your phone without a warrant.

Argentinian-American writer and immigration advocate recently sued the federal government, demanding that it delete data that he believes was copied off of his phone when he re-entered the United States earlier this month.

According to the seven-page complaint, Thomas Kennedy said that a Customs and Border Protection agent at Miami International Airport physically searched his bags, questioned him about his books and magazines, and then demanded that he hand over his phone.

(The agent) threatened me, saying that if I didn't give him my phone, my interrogation was going to take much longer and they could retain my phone indefinitely, Kennedy wrote. I felt like I had no choice, so I handed my phone to the CBP agent.

The agent took the phone away and only returned after approximately 45 minutes, during which Kennedy believes that data on the phone was copied. He was then released with no charges.

The activist says there is a significant amount of sensitive personal and professional information on his phone, and he is now seeking that the government delete this data.

He collaborates with multiple nonprofit groups, including the Florida Immigration Coalition, Amnesty International and the Community Justice Project. He now believes that he was targeted for this work, in part because he was asked repeatedly what he did for a living and if he was an immigration attorney.

I believe CBP flagged me because of my organizing and political work around immigrants rights in Florida, he wrote in his court filing. This isnt the first time that law enforcement targeted and harassed me because of my political viewpoint: in 2021, after speaking out against Governor (Ron) DeSantis, the Miami Police were surveilling me and barring me from press conferences.

Suppressing political speech, infringing upon the legal right to vote, depriving individuals of their constitutional rights by shooting them down in the street like dogs, yep sounds like the work of Republicans.

Neither Party is Mine!

[SubCmdr]

I own it whether I like it or not. Same as some other investments.

Didn't you write this? Did you know exactly what you owned that you didn't like?

Because you quote my post about Bitcoin where I didn't reference you are anything you wrote at all EihTooms.

This is the first sentence of my quote from the linked article telling you what I am referring to owning in that fund. And it isn't bitcoin, right?

What exactly was your meaning and how did it relate to the title of your post.

Did you really not know that meant owning a share of indirect crypto currency exposure and not directly owning Bitcoin?

I knew the meaning exactly. But I decided to clear up the word play and games that you often use whenever you reply to my posts.

I'll have to be very wary of accepting what you "teach" us about Bitcoin, crypto, the stock market and land investments from now on.

Good! I provide accurate information to those who are interested. I do NOT make investment recommendations. Not trying to teach a 73 year old man that knows everything anything.

I stand by my original statements. Both undisputed facts!

You don't own any Bitcoin and neither does Vanguard!

Bitcoin has delivered significantly higher historical returns than stocks

[Axel Heyst]

The corrupt Brazilian Communist really put his foot in his mouth this time. The election is on Oct 4. The hope is Brazil will follow the recent election pattern set in the rest of SA.

The headline reads "Lula in Bizarre Pre-Election Rant: Girls Learn to 'Get Touched' from an Early Age."

Socialist President of Brazil Luiz Incio Lula the Silva this week claimed that Brazilian girls learn to "get touched" from a young age in what his party affirms are comments on the subject of cervical cancer screening. KKK!

"Lula's outrageous remarks have sparked widespread condemnation from Brazilian politicians and healthcare professionals.

The controversy arose on Monday night during a presidential campaign rally held in the city of Belm, Para one of the president's last scheduled public events before the October 4 presidential election in which Lula is seeking to be reelected for a fourth term. The now-controversial rally took place some hours after the Brazilian president visited the So Joo de Deus Hospital in Belm and toured its renovated facilities, including a new robotic surgery unit which can perform complex surgeries such as those related to prostate cancer.

Poder 360 detailed that during the rally, Lula recounted the story of his mother, Eurdice "Dona Linda" Ferreira de Melo, who passed away from cervical cancer at a time when treatment procedures were more "precarious. " After affirming that men are "cowards" for not undergoing prostate cancer screening, Lula then claimed that women instead learn to "get touched" from a young age. "

Election day is October 4! Can't wait. I will be there on the 6th to party.

[Spidy]

The Constitution is a framework charter, NOT codified code

I disagree!

What part of that sentence are you disagreeing with? That "The Constitution is a framework charter..."? Or that, "...it is NOT codified code"? Or both parts of the sentence, which concisely describes essentially, what the Constitution is?

The Constitution of the United States of America is the first principles document that governs the entire political structure of the Dis United States of America The concept of first principles thinking in the context of the The Constitution of the United States of America, refers to the foundational, self-evident truths from which the entire structure of the Dis United States of America government is derived.

These principles are not merely procedural rules but the essential standards that answer fundamental questions about who rules, for what ends, and how power is structured. These first principles are "first" in two ways:

1. They must be addressed chronologically before other subjects.

2. They deal with the most important matters of a political community.
...

You say you disagree, but then present the same "foundational" conclusion. That being, The Constitution is foundational and NOT a code, but reached through a different theory. Yours being first principles verses mine being framework and interpretation..

• In the landmark Supreme Court case, Chief Justice John Marshall himself, in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819,) where Marshall is famously quoted, that a constitution cannot contain, "an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution. For if it did, it, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code."
  
  "Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves." https://teachingamericanhistory.org/...-v-maryland-2/
  
  This is Marshall, explicitly distinguishing The Constitution, from code. Basically saying, The Constitution marks "great outlines", but leaves the details to be deduced.

I standby my statement that, "The Constitution is a framework charter, NOT a codified code", as exemplified and argued by Chief Justice John Marshall. Whether you call its foundations "first principles" or a "structural framework," is fine, but it is NOT codified code, that leaves details to be deduced, as the operative legal meaning still comes from the constitutional law and interpretation (argued in the courts by lawyers before justices) and not just from the text alone.

[SubCmdr]

And your case is batteries are cheaper? You are out of your damned mind.

Batteries are not cheaper. Nor is everyone happy with their use and application. Even in the great state of California there is pushback.

California is ground zero for the growing battery backlash

The US is in the midst of a battery boom critical to keeping the lights on amid heat waves, winter storms and surging electricity demand from artificial intelligence. But developers are increasingly encountering an implacable foe: communities afraid that large lithium-ion storage farms could spontaneously burst into flames.

As installations grow larger and are placed closer to neighborhoods, on farmland or in high-risk wildfire areas, local opposition is growing. That puts many states in a bind as they depend on renewable energy to meet rising electricity demand and to achieve climate targets. The expansion of solar and wind energy is tied in part to batteries, which can store electricity for use after the sun sets and the wind stops blowing. Theyre also key to the growth of data centers, which face rising resistance as well.

https://www.ocregister.com/2026/04/23/california-is-ground-zero-for-the-growing-battery-backlash/

Energy production is political only because political parties make it so. I don't care who is in office. Does not matter to me. But whoever it is Republican / Democrat, they better keep the lights on!

[EihTooms]

I do not see the words indirect crypto currency exposure.

Owning Bitcoin technically means possessing the private key that grants exclusive control and the ability to sign transactions for a specific balance recorded on the blockchain. Unlike traditional assets, Bitcoin is not a physical object or a file stored on your device; it is a record in a decentralized public ledger where ownership is defined by cryptographic proof rather than a central authority. Bitcoin has delivered significantly higher historical returns than stocks

Plain Language. ROTFLMAO!

This is the first sentence of my quote from the linked article telling you what I am referring to owning in that fund. And it isn't bitcoin, right?

Vanguard has become the largest shareholder of the most established Bitcoin equity play.

Did you really not know that meant owning a share of indirect crypto currency exposure and not directly owning Bitcoin?

I'll have to be very wary of accepting what you "teach" us about Bitcoin, crypto, the stock market and land investments from now on.

[SubCmdr]

Because the Afrikaners are being persecuted and victims of genocide in South Africa.

Back your statement up with some facts.

FACTS

White South Africans are, on average, wealthier and more ​likely to be employed than Black South Africans.

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-summons-us-ambassador-again-over-undiplomatic-conduct-official-says-2026-09-30/

Thirty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa's economy remains deeply divided by race, spurring political debate on the extent to which its flagship Black economic empowerment law has worked.
Here are some facts about South Africa's racial divide:

UNEMPLOYMENT
South Africa has struggled for years with low economic growth and high unemployment. The official unemployment rate was 33.5% in April-June of this year.
During that period, the unemployment rate was 37.6% among Black South Africans and 7.9% among white South Africans, according to the statistics agency. It was 23.3% among South Africans of mixed race.
The unemployment rate among Black people has consistently been higher than the national average over the past decade, and has risen more than nine percentage points since 2014, Statistics South Africa said.
MANAGEMENT CONTROL
In the private sector, white people occupied 65.9% of top management level posts while Black people occupied 13.8% in 2022, according to South Africa's Commission for Employment Equity.
South Africa's population of 64 million is about 8% white, official data shows.
The statistics show that the percentage of Black people increases as the job level goes down to senior, professional, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled.
At the unskilled labour level, white people occupied 0.9% of jobs in the private sector and Black people 82.8% in 2022.
OWNERSHIP
Average Black ownership of companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was almost 30% in 2022, according to the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Commission, which includes other minority groups such as mixed race and Asian people in its count.
However, the report is based on a small sample size of firms that submitted their information. One economist calculated that actual Black ownership among listed companies was about 1%.
Board membership on listed companies was around 47% Black in 2022, the Commission said in its latest report, adding that this showed potential progress but that limited data meant it did not necessarily represent industry performance.
"No entity registered 100% Black-owned within the JSE listed companies," it said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/racial-divide-south-africas-economy-2024-09-23/

Every man has a right to an opinion but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts - Bernard Baruch, 1946.

[Elvis 2008]

Vertical Solar?

2026 The Year of the Battery.

All the other suggestions are bullshit. Putting solar panels out in the ocean requires a huge and costly infrastructure to set them up and a huge and costly infrastructure to get electricity to land.

Vertical is a way to get more square footage without sacrificing land area, and you could put these in places where infrastructure is already built. The problem? You are depriving others of sunlight, and what gives anyone the right to do that? I cannot even imagine the legal issues with that.

The land in Texas is only 2% owned by government. You go to states like Nevada and it is 85% owned and the state gets a ton of sun and outside of Las Vegas, the state is mostly bare. The bullshit you keep falling for is power generation. You can put a thousand of the panels I mentioned out in the desert and be generating 3 million watts per day but so what? You are forgetting the most expensive parts. You have to have batteries to store said power when it is night, and you have to get people to move to Nevada or build up a huge infrastructure to move the electricity. That is the part you do not get.

But that is not even where the electricity demand is going to come from. There is nothing wrong with slapping up a few solar panels to lower electricity costs or in my case charge the batteries on a RV, however that does not work if you need constant power, and data centers are going to be the big drivers of electricity use, and they cannot afford down time, and neither can people shipping goods that require refrigeration.

I have given you constant examples of how paltry the amount of energy that can be stored in batteries versus nat gas or coal or oil or diesel or gasoline, and you still do not get it. If you do solar with batteries, you still have to back them up with a fossil fuel power source like natural gas or nuclear. So why do it all?

I have 12,000 watts of batteries in my RV and am increasing it to 20,000 but they take hours to charge. When I really need power and do not have time, I can wait hours to charge up the batteries or I can flip a switch and turn on the generator.

With even a climate change nut like you, if you are in my RV, when it is 100 outside and 110 degrees inside, you are going to flip the generator switch on. You can lie and say you are not but you will.

[SubCmdr]

Homeland Security taps $20M in taxpayer funds for pro-Trump ads

WASHINGTON (AP) The Department of Homeland Security has tapped $20 million to pay for the campaign-style ads glorifying President Donald Trump that have drawn widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats as a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars that likely runs afoul of anti-propaganda law.

In a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, two top Democratic senators said that the money is being drawn from Trumps so-called One Big Beautiful Bill and was supposed to go for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

We should not have to remind you that using government funding to create or air political ads like the ones that have been running over the last few days is illegal and a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars, wrote Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee that handles Homeland Security funding.

The senators demanded answers within the next 48 hours about how this president is literally stealing their tax dollars to air campaign ads celebrating himself.

They asked the secretary if the department plans to use additional federal funds to air these ads or create new ones, and if so to share contracting information with Congress. They also asked Mullin if he had spoken to Trump about using the taxpayer funds for the ads.

The political uproar over Trumps hagiographic ads, which started running last week during popular TV shows, including college and National Football League programming, has not abated as critics on the left and right raise alarms about the use of taxpayer funds, particularly so close to the midterm elections.

The White House has defended the advertisements, which disclose that they are funded by the U.S. government, as public service announcements.

Asked for a request for comment Tuesday on the senators letter, Homeland Security referred to the earlier White House response.

Ad spend is up to $2.5m as criticism and legal scrutiny grow
The unusual commercials, which echo the GOPs midterm election slogans, against imagery of Trumps tenure in office one with a Love me, Love me song refrain in the background appear to violate a law against congressionally appropriated funds being used for propaganda.

Experts also have said the ads, which are airing on network and cable TV and streaming, differ from other administrations PSAs because they arent designed to help Americans access any specific program.

Over the weekend, a new ad promoting the president resembles a black-and-white video from his own 2024 campaign that shows Trump walking down a hallway as his voice can be heard warning of a final battle against globalists and warmongers. It ends with Trump staring straight into the camera lens with the Paid for by the U.S. Government message printed.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, has compared Trumps ads to those used by authoritarian former leader Viktor Orban of Hungary. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said it shouldnt be paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Data from the outside firm AdImpact shows more than $2.5 million was spent on the three ads over the past seven days. The actual amount spent could be significantly more, depending on whether networks classified the ads as political.

The senators said in their letter that DHS has committed $20 million to the campaign.

A person who was not authorized to discuss the situation and who was granted anonymity confirmed the findings, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Trumps ads use taxpayer dollars, likely skirting the law
The unusual ad campaign comes as Republicans face an increasingly volatile midterm election season with their control of the House and Senate and Trumps future agenda all at risk.

Voters say they are struggling with high prices of gas and groceries, and are concerned about the lengthy U.S. war against Iran, now in its seventh month. Democrats are gearing up for vast oversight of Trump and his administration if they seize power, and impeachment is not off the table.

House Democrats said Trumps director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, moved $20 million from Homeland Security resources to the ad campaign on Sept. 19.

The next day, a $20 million contract for a National Media Campaign was awarded to the Maryland-based LMD Agency, Inc., according to federal data. LMD Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Homeland Security funds are part of a whopping $175 billion Congress gave the department in the Big, Beautiful, Bill as part of Trumps immigration enforcement and deportation agenda. Democrats voted against that package, which Trump signed into law last summer, in part because of its steep cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security subcommittee, said that after gutting $1 trillion from Medicaid and social services and more than quadrupling funding for mass deportations, it turns out the Trump administration used Republicans One Big Beautiful Bill to pay for President Trumps political ads.

They said if the Democrats regain control, they will work to uncover and reverse misuses of taxpayer money like this and hold those who abused their power accountable.

Whats also striking about the administrations use of taxpayer dollars for the ads is that Trumps own political campaign committee, MAGA Inc., is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars of funding that could be used during the midterm season. Groups aligned with MAGA Inc. have started shelling out funds for the House and Senate races.

The administration has defended the use of taxpayer dollars for the ads and shown no signs of changing course.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-ads...109ae175ee9e5c

Democrats kill crypto legislation Republicans spending my tax dollars for propaganda in the Dis United States of America. Yet senior members have the nerve to ask me: Which party is doing the most for the The Cmdr?

Neither Party is Mine!