Free Republic

“A plausible vernacular interpretation is: “I need you to locate/identify 11,780 votes’ worth of ballots that were improperly accepted under unconstitutional procedures—ballots that, if invalidated, would restore the result I actually won.”

I hate to break it to you but that interpretation could easily be construed as election interference because what you wrote infers he was asking to invalidate only enough votes against him to give him the lead Asking instead to invalidate all questionable votes either for or against would not be seeking an unfair advantage but it also means he still could have lost in the end.

“Since they are paid at at least 200% over comparable private sector jobs”

Where did you get that ridiculous statistic ?

Federal employees nationwide make about 15-20% less than their private sector counterparts in similar professional positions. Some of the lower Federal GS & Wage grades do make more but those are generally filled by contractors now.

In the last year Venezuela has threatened to use their military to seize oil rich lands in next door Guyana that the Venezuela regime claims as their own. Guyana has oil reserves three times larger than Saudi Arabia, which only recently have begun to develop commercially and the oil is primarily high quality light sweet crude.

“You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.”

I am pretty sure the good old boys/gals working at Tobyhanna would disagree. They repair some of the military’s most sophisticated electronics, except for opening day of deer season when everyone is out in the woods.

“Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) calls Ukraine the most corrupt country in the world,”

That is a FR myth that keeps recirculating. The IMF does not rank countries by corruption. The organization that does that is Transparency International. It currently ranks Ukraine at 105 out of 180 (180 being the most corrupt, 0 being the least corrupt).

Russia is ranked 154 out of 180, far more corrupt than Ukraine. The three most corrupt countries in the world according to TI’s ranking are Venezuela, Somalia and South Sudan which is totally believable.

Ukraine has been ranked the second most corrupt country in Europe, right behind Russia which has consistently held the Number 1 position for decades.

“I guess nobody told ‘em last time President Reagan fired their asses.”

Reagan fired Air Traffic Controllers because they went on an illegal strike (Federal employees are one of the few classifications of workers who legally are not allowed to strike).

You can’t fire someone for taking sick leave since they earned that leave and it is part of their pay. And if you did fire them, who do you propose would perform their work ??? We are already short of qualified controllers, more are retiring every week and it takes years of training and experience to work that kind of job in a high traffic region. 99% of people could not do that job.

Just buy water at a government run grocery store LOL.

There are still 500+ applicants for every student opening. 99% of students and parents don’t care about something as ridiculous as this class and it’s instructor.

It still has a great reputation. A silly anthropology class nobody really cares about will not change that.

“They didn’t flip anything from red to blue.”

You are absolutely correct.”

You are both wrong.

Democrats flipped 13 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates from Republican to Democrat, they flipped 2 Special Statewide Commission Seats in Georgia fro R to D, they won numerous County and local races in Republican areas of NJ. Independents broke to the Democrats by an average of 15 points.

You “nothing to see here” guys are like a person who has weird growing black mole on their body but who keeps telling themselves it’s just a birthmark. You might be right but you also might have melanoma and you’d be a fool not to make sure.

“this doesn’t fully excuse the population’s embrace of socialist/leftist candidates”

I totally agree with you but the Trump administration and many Republicans have so eagerly embraced the AI industry to the point of even proposing legislation that strongly benefits that industry. That is a really bad look for many average Americans who view AI as a direct threat to their future economic well being. The fear of being unemployed because of AI is very real and the current admin and republicans in general are being identified as big supporters of the AI revolution. There are sound reasons (e.g. National Security) to promote development of AI but that doesn’t ease the fear of average people who think it might cause them to lose their jobs and livelihoods.

For right or wrong they view leftist candidates as more of a security blanket in uncertain times.

Trump is not on the ballot in 2026 either. Will that be your excuse if we lose the House then too ????

Try to understand this. What happened yesterday was that Republicans got defeated not just at the state level but they got trounced down to the local level in areas that were typically red. The Virginia House of Delegates lost 13 Republican seats yesterday. Those seats were held by Republicans in districts that typically vote red but we got crushed. In New Jersey numerous local races in Republican areas were won by democrats by huge margins and with independents breaking heavily for the rats. Some of the democrat victories were in areas that had been Republican for decades.

If you think that is just a “blue state voting blue” and not something to seriously worry about then you have a happy day !!!

Then explain what you wrote so us English speakers can understand.

You’re the one who wrote it dumba$$

“ Some “election sweep.” Deep blue states voted deep blue. Stop the presses.”

That is not what entirely happened but you keep thinking that if it makes you feel good.

Unfortunately you are not correct. We got slaughtered down to the local level. Three towns in my immediate area flipped from red to blue and at the county level, the Dems had a clean sweep here. These are areas that had been Republican for decades. It sucks.

If losing 13 Republican seats last night in the Virginia House of Delegates doesn’t worry you, then you are an eternal optimist.

Claiming everything is fine for 2026 is whistling past the graveyard. We are in trouble in too many districts we cannot afford to lose and time is running out to turn things around. Denying there is a problem only makes the problem worse.

“Why not just charge the decontamination $30 fee when entering”

Because the state probably does not want to pay employees waiting around to decontaminate boats that may or may not show up on any given day. I would think it is cheaper for them to have set times to decontaminate a known number of boats at one time.

We fired over 160 FAA Air Safety professionals earlier this year, including safety inspectors. Let’s hope that did not contribute to this.