Joe Biden was attending the USAF Academy graduation ceremony today, when he tripped on stage and took a hard fall.  WATCH:

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk has provided some convincing commentary about his willingness to forgo revenue in order to retain “free speech.” However, more recently he has qualified that outlook by saying, “Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of reach.”  Musk noting Twitter will block, remove, censor, shadow ban, deboost, downrank and stop content from amplifying based on the determination of those in charge of Twitter content.

This controlled “freedom of reach” perspective, which is really shadow-banning in practice, is generally accepted and now admitted.  Against this backdrop, it becomes important to understand the priorities of the platform to understand the guidelines of the platform.  Within this context the financials are key to understanding what elements are included within “approved content.” {GO DEEP}

Twitter is now a private company, therefore understanding the financials of Twitter is a little more challenging than when they were required to post their financial statements publicly.  However, Elon Musk gave an interview with the Babylon Bee yesterday and revealed some of the internal financial challenges. [VIDEO HERE]  I am going to summarize the status of the Twitter financial position according to what Musk himself revealed.

♦ Twitter was initially purchased by Musk and his investors for around $44 billion.  The company now estimates its value around $20 billion.  Musk overpaid.

♦ Musk put roughly $30 billions of his own net worth into the purchase and financed the rest.

♦ Current outstanding debt on the financing for the purchase is around $12.5 billion. Per Musk statement.

♦ Current debt service, interest on the loans (from investors), is roughly $1.5 billion/yr.  $120.5 million per month for debt service.  Per Musk statement.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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An interesting series of updates to the FBI whistleblower case of Joe Biden taking a $5 million bribe payment which now looks to have originated in Ukraine.

The background claim is pretty basic. A whistleblower approached congress stating the FBI had a report, an unclassified FD-1023, detailing a conversation with a ‘confidential human source’ (CHS) that outlined Vice President Joe Biden taking a $5 million payment from a foreign national to affect a U.S. policy decision.  The FBI agent responsible for investigating the CHS claim was FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, a sketchy character from the Trump-Russia probe.

The investigative events took place in June and July 2020 during the presidential election year.  The claim is that FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Auten reportedly buried the CHS allegation saying it could not be corroborated, and then wrote an assessment that it was Russian disinformation.  However, the FBI investigative team didn’t see any effort by any FBI member to substantiate it.  Hence a whistleblower, with specific knowledge of the details in the allegation, surfaces and tells congress the FBI is hiding the FD-1023 that outlines the confidential human source allegation of bribery.

Congress requested the FD-1023, the FBI refused to provide it.  House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer then set a compliance deadline while he coordinated with Senator Chuck Grassley.  The FBI still refused to turn it over, saying they would neither confirm nor deny the FD-1023 existence, and said releasing any information like that would potentially compromise Confidential Human Sources (CHS’s).  The proverbial sources and methods excuse.

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According to NBC and confirmed by Politico, former Indiana Governor Mike Pence is scheduled to launch his bid for the GOP nomination in Iowa on June 7th.

Oddly, and speaking to the framework of the larger GOPe operation, Pence isn’t making his announcement in his home state; instead, he is going to launch his campaign during a speech in Des Moines, Iowa.

Mike Pence is a well-known name to voters having previously been vice-president to Donald Trump, and he is currently polling around 3% support according to Monmouth.

In his biggest role as Vice-President, Mike Pence was in charge of the federal COVID-19 emergency response as head of the White House COVID taskforce in 2020.

Pence is a well-known traditional Republican who identifies with voters primarily on social issues.  Pence will make an appeal to the evangelical community in Iowa and is organized in that effort by GOP brand consultant Chip Saltsman, the architect of former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Iowa caucuses victory.

(Via NBC) – Mike Pence plans to enter the GOP presidential nomination fray June 7 with a campaign video and a kickoff speech in Des Moines, Iowa, according to a person familiar with his launch schedule.

The former vice president, a longtime advocate of the priorities of traditional conservatives on social and economic issues, will join the race at a time when his onetime boss, former President Donald Trump, claims a majority in most national polls and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is in a clear second place.

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Apparently, when the Project Veritas board of directors fired founder and CEO James O’Keefe, they didn’t expect the result to be a collapse in their operational business model.  As the kids would say, Veritas f**ked around and found out.

Stunningly, Project Veritas is now suing James O’Keefe, the man they fired, for having the audacity to launch O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), and they are demanding a court order to stop O’Keefe from earning a living. [FULL pdf HERE]

According to the lawsuit, O’Keefe will not stop doing the expose’ journalism and activism that O’Keefe is known for.  Project Veritas is not happy, because many of the donors and supporters have left PV to follow James O’Keefe at OMG.

Veritas demands an injunction against O’Keefe, which may stop people -workers and donors- from leaving PV to join him. The lawsuit is a little extreme in the way it is written as an effort to convince a civil jury to find in their favor. [READ HERE]

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A person who was a teenager when Obamacare was debated and passed is now around 30 years old.  Put another way, if you were 15 years old when We The People defeated Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley with Scott Brown and took the Kennedy senate seat, you are about to turn 30.  Think about the context of modern Republican politics and time.

This context reminds us that a large portion of the generally distracted population has no foundational understanding of modern Republican politics.

This context is also the baseline behind ‘battered conservative syndrome‘.

You will never, not ever, see a professional Republican politician attack a Democrat with the same level of vitriol, hatred, bitterness and anger as they do toward their own base voter.

The Democrat party fears their base; the Republican party despises their base.  The truth of this very visible reality will never change. Professional Republican politicians are not ideologues to principle or policy; they are interested in one thing, money.  That’s it.

If you peel the core of any issue involving conflict with the Republican Party, you will find money at the center of it.  Current Democrat politicians focus on advancing an ideological agenda; they swing for the fences in an effort to maximize control and power.  Current Republican politicians are focused, to the detriment of all other facets, on their personal wealth.

When you introduce a newly elected ‘conservative‘ to the DC world of republicanism, it is like sending a new guy/gal into the room to talk policy, only to be met with every face around the table staring back quizzically and dismissively while replying, “We don’t do that here – we are talking about money.”

Once you reset the Schoolhouse Rocks mindset and accept this is the truth of the thing, then everything else that puzzled you about Republican politics reconciles.

Ballot harvesting doesn’t generate money, so why do it?  We can make just as much money in the minority railing against ‘them’, so why be focused on a majority?  Donald Trump is threatening the financial position of our benefactors, so we hate him.  These are the simple truths of modern Republicans.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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