2020 American Political Scene

[JRT]

Trump raises China concerns as reason to veto defense bill

by Darlene Superville
12 December 2020

(Washington, D.C.) — President Donald Trump offered a new rationale Sunday for threatening to veto the annual defense policy bill that covers the military’s budget for equipment and pay raises for service members: China. He did not outline his concerns.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers say the wide-ranging defense policy bill, which the Senate sent to the president on Friday, would be tough on China and must become law as soon as possible.

Both the House and Senate passed the measure by margins large enough to override a potential veto from the president, who has a history of failing to carry out actions he has threatened.

“The biggest winner of our new defense bill is China! I will veto!” Trump said in a new tweet.

The White House did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Trump’s specific concerns about China.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said the bill would help deter Chinese aggression. Other GOP backers of the measure, including Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate leader, and Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, have tweeted that the bill would counter threats from countries such as China.

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump’s declaration that China is the biggest winner in the defense bill is false. Reed also noted the shifting explanations Trump has given for the veto threats.

“President Trump clearly hasn’t read the bill, nor does he understand what’s in it,” Reed said. “There are several bipartisan provisions in here that get tougher on China than the Trump Administration has ever been.”

A potential override of a veto would be a first for Trump and would come not long before he leaves office Jan. 20. A two-thirds vote is needed in each chamber for the bill to become law without Trump’s signature.

The president has made numerous threats over Twitter to veto the bill over a requirement that military bases honoring Confederate leaders eventually be renamed. He also threatened a veto to try to force lawmakers to include provisions — unrelated to the military and national defense — to punish social media companies he claims were biased against him during the election.

Congress has approved the bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, for nearly 60 years in a row. The current version affirms 3% pay raises for U.S. troops and authorizes more than $740 billion in military programs and construction.

The measure guides Pentagon policy and cements decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, military personnel policy and other military goals. Many programs can only go into effect if the bill is approved, including military construction.

McConnell, in a rare break with Trump, had urged passage despite Trump’s threat to veto it. McConnell said it was important for Congress to continue its nearly six-decade long streak of passing the defense policy bill.

In addition to the budget and pay raises it would provide, McConnell said the bill will “keep our forces ready to deter China and stand strong in the Indo-Pacific.”

Gallagher tweeted last week that the United States was at the beginning of a “New Cold War” with China and that the defense bill “takes important steps to help us meet these challenges and ultimately win this competition.” Thune had said in a tweet that the measure would help the U.S. defend against threats from China and Russia. “It’s important for this bill to become law ASAP,” he said.

Trump tweeted last Tuesday that he will veto “the very weak” defense bill unless it repeals Section 230, part of the communications code that shields Twitter, Facebook and other tech giants from content liability. The White House said in a policy statement that “Section 230 facilitates the spread of disinformation online and is a serious threat to our national security and election integrity. It should be repealed.″

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[TopHatter]

Loeffler campaign condemns photo with white supremacist

ATLANTA (AP) — The campaign of Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is condemning a photo circulating on social media of her posing with a longtime white supremacist at a recent campaign event, with less than a month to go until the runoff elections that will determine the balance of the U.S. Senate.

Loeffler did not know who Chester Doles was when she took a picture with him, her campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said in a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday. The picture was taken Friday at a campaign event in Dawsonville, Georgia.

“Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for,” Lawson said.

Doles is a longtime white supremacist who spent decades in the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi National Alliance. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Doles was sentenced to prison for the 1993 beating of a Black man in Maryland and again on weapons violations in Georgia.

Doles is also associated with the Hammerskins, a racist skinhead gang, with whom he marched in the 2017 United the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In response to a message from AP, Doles said Sunday he had “publicly renounced racism on several occasions in the past couple of years.” Doles added that he attended a “redemption service,” standing “in front of an all-Black congregation and told my story and renounced all racism and asked for God’s forgiveness.”

Doles posted the picture of him and Loeffler to his account on VK, a Russian social networking site where he has posted pictures of himself posing with other Georgia politicians, including Republican Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, the paper reported.

Doles has attempted to insinuate himself into Republican politics over the past year, claiming to have renounced his past while maintaining ties with longtime friends in the white supremacist movement.

In 2019, Doles started a new organization called American Patriots USA, a group supportive of President Donald Trump but deeply tied to the far-right militia movement. Doles endorsed several longshot political candidates in the 2020 election, but also attempted to tie himself to Greene, who had Doles removed from an event in September in Ringgold.

Both major parties and activist groups are plowing tens of millions of dollars into Georgia ahead of Jan. 5, when David Perdue and Loeffler bid to hold off Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, respectively.

Republicans need one victory to maintain their Senate majority. Democrats need a Georgia sweep to force a 50-50 Senate and position Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking vote.

A flurry of top-flight surrogates has underscored the stakes of the race. President Barack Obama headlined a recent virtual rally for Democrats. President-elect Joe Biden plans to visit Atlanta this week to campaign for Ossoff and Warnock. Vice President Mike Pence was in the state last week and plans to return Thursday.
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Yeah, sure you didn't know who he was. Just like Trump "didn't know" who David Duke was

[TopHatter]

Alex Jones Vows Biden 'Will Be Removed One Way Or Another' At Pro-Trump Rally

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones denounced President-elect Joe Biden’s White House victory before a crowd of Donald Trump supporters on Saturday, declaring that “we will never recognize” Biden and that he “will be removed one way or another.”

“We will never back down to the satanic pedophile globalist new world order and their walking-dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden. And we will never recognize him,” the far-right radio host shouted from a stage at the second so-called Million MAGA March in Washington. He added: “So I don’t know who’s going to the White House in 38 days, but I sure know this: Joe Biden is a globalist, and Joe Biden will be removed one way or another.”

Jones’ comments appeared to echo the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon, which alleges without evidence that Satan-worshipping pedophiles are plotting against Trump. His use of the word “globalist” also raised concerns about anti-Semitism, as the term has been increasingly used in xenophobic and anti-Semitic contexts.

David Weissman, who is involved with the anti-Trump Republican group The Lincoln Project, was among those highlighting Jones’ choice of language and warning that his speech appeared to be a call for violence.

“This antisemitic trope should also be considered a threat, and Alex Jones should be arrested for incitement,” Weissman tweeted, echoing similar tweets that tagged the FBI.

Trump still refuses to concede the election, claiming without evidence that the election was stolen from him.

“We’re going to continue to go forward,” he said of his unsuccessful attempts to reverse the election’s result in an interview with “Fox & Friends” that aired Sunday morning.

Trump’s remarks followed the Friday action by the Supreme Court, which became the latest court to dismiss a lawsuit by his campaign alleging widespread voter fraud.
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"Globalist"....where have we heard that one before....

[TopHatter]

Kelly Loeffler just posed for a photo with Chester Doles, a former KKK leader who runs the white supremacist American Patriots USA.

In 1993, Doles nearly beat a Black man to death.

In 2017, he marched in Charlottesville. (One of Trump's "very fine people")

[TopHatter]

Trump wants Congress to approve stimulus checks for 'more money than they're talking about'

President Donald Trump is spending his final weeks in office urging Congress to include another round of coronavirus stimulus checks in the next relief package.

Speaking to Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, Trump said he wants stimulus checks to be approved for "more money" than the options currently on the table.

"I'm pushing it very hard, and to be honest with you, if the Democrats really wanted to do the deal, they'd do the deal," Trump said in the interview, which aired Sunday morning.

"Right now, I want to see checks - for more money than they're talking about - going to people," he added.

After months of stalemate and inconclusive discussions, Congress has once again resumed relief talks, this time turning to a $908 billion bipartisan package that does not include any money for stimulus checks.

In October, the Democratic-led House passed a $2.2 trillion package. But Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell struck it down and proposed a $500 billion bill as an alternative option. Then discussions reached another stalemate, as Democrats disagreed with the severe downsize in the amount of money allocated and Republicans refused to budge higher.

The last time Congress passed a stimulus was in May, which gave millions of Americans $1,200 each to offset the financial difficulties brought on by the pandemic. Since then, various signs, such as a dip in grocery spending, have suggested that Americans are hurting for cash.

With President-elect Joe Biden scheduled to take office on January 20, it's unclear whether Congress will even negotiate the $908 billion measure in time for the bill to make it to Trump.

The proposal was intended to be a compromise between the two parties. But Republican lawmakers, including McConnell, are signaling that they are opposed to the package.

The Republican Senate leader said Trump would not want to sign off on the current package as it stands.

"At the risk of repeating something we all know, making law will require not just the Senate's approval, but also the signature of the President of the United States," McConnell said in a statement earlier this month.

He said his own plan - which is a slimmed-down version of the $908 billion proposal - would go through.

As Business Insider's Mia Jankowicz reported, neither the $908 billion package nor McConnell's proposal includes additional money for another round of stimulus checks.

The White House has been pushing for a second round of checks for weeks.

Two senators are echoing the president's pleas to Congress. Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley have teamed up to urge Congress to allocate enough money in the next stimulus bill to cut every American who earns up to $75,000 a $1,200 check.
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Maybe...and this is just a thought, but stay with me here...Trump could send out invites or something, to the senior Congressional leadership, both Houses, both Parties, and get them in the same room...I dunno if he has anything available, maybe a white house or something...no, scratch that, it'll just become a super spreader event for that hoax that's somehow managed to kill 300,000 Americans...damn, if only we had the technology to meet "virtually" or something. Then maybe Trump could do an agreement or covenant or...deal. Or something. You know what we need! A businessman! Someone who does this thing all the time!

Eh, what do I know.

[DOR]

Can we start a list of all the people who said COVID-19 was a hoax, or it would vanish in a miracle, or it wasn't any more serious than a normal flu, or that George and Bill are going to microchip folks?

Since there isn't going to be enough vaccine to go around for many months to come, I'm thinking these people will volunteer to go to the back of the line, so that those who accept science can let the rest of us get on with living in the real world.

Just a thought.

[TopHatter]

Small City of Murdock Minnesota approves conditional permit to allow use of church building by a Whites-only group

Trump's legacy will be the gift that keeps on giving. Not unlike herpes.

[JRT]

Small City of Murdock Minnesota approves conditional permit to allow use of church building by a Whites-only group

by Kay Jones and Leah Asmelash
10 December 2020

(Benson, MN) - The city council of a small city in Minnesota has allowed a Whites-only religious organization to use a vacant church purchased by that organization.

Murdock, a town of fewer than 300 people, passed a conditional permit Wednesday to allow use of a church building bought by the Asatru Folk Assembly.

The Asatru Folk Assembly describes Asatru as "the religion by which the Ethnic European Folk have traditionally related to the Divine and to the world around them." The website says that it is part of the "great Aryan religiosity."


The Anti-Defamation League describes them as an "extremist group."

City leaders said the passage of the permit was due to First Amendment rights.

"We as the leaders of the City of Murdock want it to be known that the City of Murdock condemns racism in all of its forms: Conscious, Unconscious, any place, any time, now and in the future," Mayor Craig Kavanagh said during Wednesday's meeting. "We are committed to building a community that promotes equal justice and opportunity to every single person regardless of their race."

"The Conditional Use Permit for the AFA is very controversial if you want to make it about religious beliefs, but what is failing to get mentioned is this vote was not about beliefs," Kavanagh said in a statement sent to CNN.

"This vote was about a zoning permit to let an old abandoned church be used for exactly what it was built for "a church." Now I understand the beliefs of who will be using the church are much different from one another, but that is every person's 1st amendment right according to the Constitution."

The local chapter of the AFA thanked the city for its vote, in a statement posted on their Facebook page.

"To the City Council of Murdock, thank you. We know there was a lot of pressure on you to deny us our permit and right to worship," the post said. "We appreciate your fairness and this opportunity."

Kavanagh's statement said the topic was a main topic of discussion at council meetings as well as in the community over the past few months. A public meeting was held in October and while the vote was originally scheduled in November, it was postponed so the mayor could bring in the city attorney and explain the legal ramifications, it said.

"I can assure you that nobody thought we would have to deal with a topic like this in our little town, but nothing is predictable in the year 2020, it seems," he said.

The AFA includes in its statement of ethics the following:

"We in Asatru support strong, healthy white family relationships. We want our children to grow up to be mothers and fathers to white children of their own. We believe that those activities and behaviors supportive of the white family should be encouraged while those activities and behaviors destructive of the white family are to be discouraged."

Kavanagh's statement went on to say that the city was advised to pass the permit, saying the circumstances could be a "substantial burden."

"This town is still the same town it was before this CUP approval took place," Kavanagh said. "The vote last night had nothing to do with beliefs or race, it was strictly a zoning issue the council felt like it needed to legally abide by or it would have caused a substantial burden to the town. We as a council still want what is best for the City of Murdock and will always do so."

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[TopHatter]

Brian Kemp Cast His Lot With Trump, and Has Now Paid the Price

ATLANTA — Few politicians have been both elevated and diminished by the vicissitudes of President Donald Trump like Brian Kemp, Georgia's Republican governor.

Kemp rocketed from hard-right underdog candidate to the governor’s mansion two years ago on the strength of a surprise endorsement from Trump, and an argument that the president was right about a lot of issues facing the country.

But these days Kemp is facing daily reminders of the perils of deciding that Trump is actually wrong.

In recent weeks, Kemp has infuriated the president for resisting his demands to help overturn the election results in Georgia, a state Trump lost by roughly 12,000 votes. The president’s outrage has spread to many of his supporters in Georgia as he persists in his extraordinary intervention into the nation’s electoral process.

At a news conference in the state Capitol on Tuesday to discuss the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, Kemp was confronted by Trump loyalists asking why he had refused to call a special session of the legislature, as the president has requested, so that lawmakers can reallocate the state’s 16 electoral votes to Trump. The question crowded the screen of a Facebook live feed of the event. As he departed the event, Kemp was stopped by a small group who presented a bag that they said was filled with 2,000 petitions making the same plea.

“If he doesn’t call a special session, he’s definitely a one-term governor, no doubt about it,” said one of the activists, Erik Christensen, CEO of a moving company, who said he voted for Kemp in 2018.

Kemp is now the most vivid example of the battle-scarred and even shellshocked conservative Republicans who once basked in Trump’s glow but now find themselves derided for enforcing their state election rules and laws. Republican governors like Kemp and Doug Ducey of Arizona, and lower-level state officials like Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, have emerged as a new kind of institutionalist in the face of the Trump attacks on the election system: They are refusing to bend procedures to the will of Trump, and potentially paying a political price for it.

As Trump continues to grope for a way to undo his electoral loss to President-elect Joe Biden, he is also engaged in a furious effort to torpedo Kemp’s political future.

Trump has called Kemp “hapless,” mocked him for a supposed dip in popularity, and suggested, at a recent rally, that U.S. Rep. Doug Collins should challenge Kemp in the primary when he seeks a second term in 2022.

“I’m ashamed that I endorsed him,” Trump said in a Fox News interview.

The president’s willingness to threaten the governor’s fervently pro-Trump voter base demonstrates how challenging it may be for Republicans to navigate a post-presidency in which the mercurial Trump could choose to play kingmaker, de facto party head and potential 2024 candidate.

Republican politicians, strategists and party officials are anxiously watching the turmoil in Georgia, fearing that the civil war the president started among Georgia’s Republicans could spread throughout the country. That would complicate the political dynamics for incumbents like Kemp, who plans to run for reelection two years from now.

In November’s election, Trump expanded the party base, driving up margins in rural areas, winning a larger share of Latino voters and capturing a record number of Republican votes. Whether those new voters will transform into loyal Republicans when Trump is not on the ticket remains one of the biggest uncertainties facing the party. And much may depend on what Trump tells Republicans to do.

“Any operative is wondering right now whether this is what the future looks like,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican committeeman from Mississippi and an influential voice in the party. “We don’t know, but the party has a tremendous opportunity going forward to build on what the president has accomplished.”

Kemp, 57, has not been the only target of Trump’s wrath. Republican politicians and officials across the country who have defended the integrity of the election — and resisted bending to the will of the president — have faced a backlash from their own party.

In Arizona, Trump has criticized Ducey for certifying Biden’s win in that state, and suggested he would also pay a political price for it. (“Republicans will long remember!” he wrote in a recent tweet.) While term limits prevent Ducey from seeking another term, he is among those mentioned as a potential presidential contender in 2024.

On the day that Ducey was selected to head the Republican Governors Association, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona said in a column on a conservative news site that Ducey had “harmed the common cause of the Republican Party."

“The Duceys and the Kemps of the world, they may have some difficulty if they want to seek elective office within the Republican Party,” said Michael Burke, chairman of the Republican Party in Pinal County in Arizona. “People will remember what happened here,” added Burke, who worked at Trump’s properties before becoming involved with politics.

Allies of the president have begun issuing veiled threats toward Kemp, warning that what they see as his insufficient loyalty to the president could carry a political price.

“If you’re not fighting for Trump now when he needs you the most as a Republican leader in Georgia, people are not going to fight for you when you ask them to get reelected,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an appearance on Fox News.

Democrats are trying to exploit these divisions. MeidasTouch, a progressive national political committee, announced plans this week to put up billboards in Georgia emblazoned with a Trump tweet that reads, “Why bother voting for Republicans if what you get is Ducey and Kemp?” Biden plans to travel to the state next week to campaign for the two Democratic candidates, who would give his party control of the Senate if they won runoffs against Republican incumbents on Jan. 5.

Kemp’s descent from Trump’s circle of approval is particularly striking. Throughout his career, he has taken pains to demonstrate his conservative credentials: In one particularly unsubtle ad that ran during his 2018 run for governor, titled “So Conservative,” he demonstrated his desire to “blow up government spending” with actual explosives, and “cut regulations” with a real chain saw.

It was Trump’s positive tweet just days before the Republican primary runoff that helped Kemp gain the nomination. Then in the general election, Kemp became one of the Trump era’s most enduring villains in the eyes of the left after his narrow victory over Stacey Abrams, who was vying to become the nation’s first Black woman governor.

Abrams and her allies argued that Kemp, then the secretary of state, engineered a “stolen” election by supporting policies that Democrats said amounted to voter suppression and in some cases targeted minorities.

Since then, much of Kemp’s political personality had been borrowed directly from Trump. Billing himself as a “politically incorrect conservative,” Kemp has echoed Trump’s hyperbolic message about the violent threats immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally pose to American citizens.

Despite his rhetoric, Kemp has not played the role of radical disrupter the way doctrinaire former Republican governors like Sam Brownback of Kansas or Bobby Jindal of Louisiana did. But he has delivered for his conservative base by supporting and signing an anti-abortion “heartbeat” law, which was permanently enjoined by the courts.

Other policy actions, including a raise for public schoolteachers, and a slew of appointments reflecting the state’s burgeoning diversity, suggest some movement on Kemp’s part toward a practical center. But much of that has been overshadowed by criticism of his reopening of the state in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic and his conflicts with the Democratic mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, including over her efforts to implement a mask mandate.

Still, this generally conservative track record has not stemmed the torrent of criticism that is engulfing the governor from the right. Nor have Kemp’s delicate — or perhaps awkward — efforts to praise Trump while steadfastly declining to give him the overturned election results he wants. At the news conference on Tuesday, for instance, Kemp talked about how “grateful” he was for the Trump administration’s “unprecedented and incredible achievement” of making the vaccine available.

A Republican consultant in Georgia familiar with Kemp’s thinking said that while the governor agrees with many of Trump’s policies, the president’s request that he work to overturn the election — a request Trump made in a phone call with the governor last weekend — crossed a line.

Kemp’s office declined to make him available for an interview.

Kemp’s relationship with the president began to seriously deteriorate late last year when he defied Trump’s wishes and appointed Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy Atlanta businesswoman, to an open Senate seat. Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue are the Republican candidates in the Georgia runoffs in January.

Kemp will have to run on a ticket in 2022 with whoever wins the Senate seat. By choosing Loeffler, he was most likely trying to craft the image of the state Republican Party in a way that he thought would reflect Georgia’s evolving politics: a female candidate who he believed could win back more moderate voters in Atlanta’s populous northern suburbs. He also considered Loeffler, a political novice, a good fit for his brand, which he considers to be pro-business, outside the establishment and conservative.

Trump preferred that the Senate seat go to Collins, the conservative Georgia Republican who had passionately defended Trump against impeachment. Collins subsequently jumped into this year’s race, losing in the first round of voting but pushing Loeffler far to the right to prove her conservative bona fides.

A similar dynamic could emerge if Trump backs a primary challenger in the 2022 governor’s race. That could lead Kemp to lurch rightward after he has made some effort to move to the center. Such a shift might help Abrams, who may challenge Kemp in a rematch.

But all of these projections are clouded with questions about the president himself. Will he get involved in 35 local and statewide races, or concentrate on two or three? Will he settle old scores? Kemp’s political future may depend on the answer.

“I’m 100% Donald Trump. I’m 100% Brian Kemp,” said former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., a Trump ally. “I believe it’s just something that we’ve got to get through.”
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That's what's known as "juggling with chainsaws while blindfolded and drunk", Governor Kemp. But at least you finally came down on the side of the law.

[TopHatter]

It will be a number two with a splash. Trump will veto the bill, and there will be adequate bipartisan support in both houses to support overriding that veto.

It's one thing to pass the bill, it'll be another thing in entirely for a sufficient number of Republicans to so dramatically and publicly defy the will of their cult leader.

If they do, it would be pretty extraordinary, not to mention endlessly entertaining. It would also show that Trump's grip on the party might last too far past January 20th. His grip on the cult however...

I forgot Option #4: Trump sits on the bill and does nothing for 10 days, at which point it becomes law regardless.

[JRT]

Ahead of the House vote on the bill earlier this week, Trump tweeted: "I hope House Republicans will vote against the very weak National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which I will VETO. Must include a termination of Section 230 (for National Security purposes), preserve our National Monuments, & allow for 5G & troop reductions in foreign lands!"
________

Three possibilities:

1. Trump meekly signs the bill
2. Trump vetoes and the GOP overrides him
3. Trump vetoes and the GOP once again surrenders

Place your bets ladies and gentlemen, place your bets...

It will be a number two with a splash. Trump will veto the bill, and there will be adequate bipartisan support in both houses to support overriding that veto.

Trump said that he will veto the bill if it did not include X, and the bill does not include X.

Trump's decision to follow through on the veto has nothing to do with X, rather it has to do with continued support of the Red-Hatted Mob and more donations into his slush fund.

It is not a small amount of Trump's future money at stake. Trump's slush fund received $207.5 million in donations a 30 days interval after the election.

Trump will get more support from the Red-Hatted Mob if he follows through on the veto threat, and less if he does not. So Trump will veto the bill.

Congress does not much care about advancing donations into Trump's slush fund, rather they have their own individual seats to save, and that is the highest priority of each individual above all other considerations. For most of them, passing the NDAA is the better political decision. Some Republican "fiscal conservatives" want less spending in everything, and some "progessive" Democrats want to spend the money on something else, and some individuals from both factions will take opportunity to make a show of that for their political base.

As groups, both parties in both houses passed the NDAA with numbers indicating a veto-proof majority; and when it is vetoed, both parties in both houses will follow through with the veto override.

[DOR]

Contribute into attributions much? I have no idea what is going on in that kind of yours Tops? I am talking about the evils of an attempted central globalist government the wishes to undermine the USA and its founding ideals.
But that goes over one’s head and it becomes something else?

central
globalist.
government.

that is all

[Bigfella]

Another shitty right-wing website? That's what you want me to "open my mind to"? And Soros as the bogeyman....should I start posting crap about the Rothschilds while I'm at it?

Republicans don't seem to much like recycling when it is for the benefit of the environment, but have no issue recycling old fashioned anti-semitism when Jews dare to disagree with them.

[TopHatter]

GOP-controlled Senate defies Trump and easily passes $741 billion defense bill despite the president's veto threat

The Republican-controlled Senate on Friday passed the National Defense Authorization Act, a $741 billion defense bill, with a veto-proof majority. GOP senators overwhelmingly supported the legislation despite President Donald Trump's threats to veto it.

"This annual bill will unlock the training, tools, and cutting-edge equipment that our servicemembers and civilian employees need as they bravely defend American lives and American interests," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a tweet after the vote.

The Senate voted 84-13 to approve the bill, which provides appropriations to the Defense Department and defense-related activities in other federal agencies. The Democratic-controlled House also passed the bill with a veto-proof majority.

Friday's Senate vote could set up a showdown between Trump and Congress in the final days of his presidency. If he makes good on his threat, it appears the bill has enough support in both chambers to override a veto, in what would be a first for Trump.

Trump has objected to a provision in the bill that opens the door to rename military bases commemorating Confederate leaders. More recently, the president has demanded that the bill repeal Section 230, a part of the Communications Decency Act that protects social-media companies from being held liable for content posted on their platforms. Trump has accused social-media companies like Twitter and Facebook of being biased against conservatives.

But Section 230 has nothing to do with national defense, and Republicans have been urging Trump to support the defense bill. The NDAA has passed in Congress without much opposition for 60 consecutive years.

Ahead of the House vote on the bill earlier this week, Trump tweeted: "I hope House Republicans will vote against the very weak National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which I will VETO. Must include a termination of Section 230 (for National Security purposes), preserve our National Monuments, & allow for 5G & troop reductions in foreign lands!"

It's unclear whether Trump will follow through and veto the bill, given the overwhelming support for it in Congress. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Trump has issued eight vetoes during his presidency, and none has been overridden.
________

Three possibilities:

1. Trump meekly signs the bill
2. Trump vetoes and the GOP overrides him
3. Trump vetoes and the GOP once again surrenders

Place your bets ladies and gentlemen, place your bets...

[TopHatter]

Contribute into attributions much? I have no idea what is going on in that kind of yours Tops? I am talking about the evils of an attempted central globalist government the wishes to undermine the USA and its founding ideals.
But that goes over one’s head and it becomes something else?

You're spreading conspiracy theorist bullshit. Spread it somewhere else.