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A more valid comparison would be to compare Sweden's performance to that of its Nordic neighbors: Norway, Finland, and Denmark. Particularly the first 2 since Denmark is far more densely populated. https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden

One huge flaw in this analysis is the fact that the Chinese have pretty much forbidden their citizens to travel abroad. In 2019 12 million Chinese visited Thailand. So subtract 12 million from 40 million and that's 28 million. In addition, the more distant the destination, the further in advance it will be planned. France is easily accessible to other Europeans. Also, the high season for Thailand is more or less from October through March. Not so in the case of France., Covid regulations were relaxed too late to affect that seasonal influx. All, in all, a highly dubious piece of journalism. How are bookings looking for October and beyond is more pertinent.

No blinis for those bad boys. Fortunately for them, borscht is actually a Ukrainian thing.

Conservatives are always inveighing against liberal justices for inventing all sorts of rights that are not to be found in the Constitution. Well, nowhere in the Constitution is executive privilege mentioned nor anything like it. The doctrine is, in fact, a construal of the Supreme Court.

Again, I believe it's just because he's infantile and this was his way of showing his resentment. It's also clear from people who know him that he has a hard time understanding that just because he wants to do a particular thing, that doesn't mean he can do it.

Only 12 percent of those polled in the UK think Truss would make a good or great prime minister. There's also this: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/09/01/what-do-people-think-liz-truss?utm_campaign=wp_todays_worldview&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_todayworld

Here's another takeaway from the special master ruling from none other than Donald Trump himself: Trump responded to being granted a special master by one of his appointees by demanding that the 2020 election results be changed so that he can return to the White House. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Now that the FBI and DOJ have been caught in a massive and determinative Election Rigging Scam, are they going to change the results of the 2020 Presidential Election? They should!!!” https://www.politicususa.com/2022/09/05/trump-labor-day-overthrow-government.html

Not going to address your comments that are irrelevant to this topic. But the reason the FBI carted away personal stuff as well as government stuff is simple: they wanted to document how carelessly Trump treated this documents. Part of that is to show how he intermingled personal items with classified information.

Here's a link to back up my claims https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?cid=rrpromo

Well, in 2005, the year for which Trump's tax returns were leaked, he had to pay an alternative minimum tax of 31 million dollars in addition to the 5.3 million he paid that year. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/lessons-donald-trumps-tax-return-and-amt His tax reform bill of 2017 has effectively rendered the AMT mostly toothless. His tax bill also greatly increased the benefits of pass-along corporations. Most of Trump's businesses follow that model His tax bill also reduced the real estate depreciation schedule from 20 to 10 years. 20 years was bad enough. The point of deprecation is to account for loss of value in something over the years. Does real estate generally lose its value? But now, instead of 20 years it's 10. And after those 10 years are up, all Trump has to do is to create another pass along corporation, sell the depreciated building to that corporation, and once again be able to milk it for tax deductions. His salary is chump change compared to the gains he must have made thanks to that tax bill. There as also the case where he claimed he gave a donation to the 9-11 fund. No evidence has yet been uncovered that he gave it anything. Some patriot!

What you don't seem to understand is that all this began with Trump's refusal to return documents that he had no business having including classified documents. All he had to do was return the documents when asked and this would have been over. Instead, he actually refused to comply with a Grand Jury subpoena. He claimed that he was cooperating with NARA but this turned out to be false. His attorneys clearly lied about the absence of all classified documents still in Trump's possession. If this turns into a criminal investigation, as seems likely, it will be entirely Trump's fault. Unless you believe that an ex-President is above the law.

Well, if you mean by excellent that it will delay the inquiry, then you may have a point.

First off, the article you cited is almost 2 months old. A lot has changed since then. Biden's approval rating has been rising. A string of legislative victories has certainly helped. In fact at this point in his presidency, his average approval rating is superior to Trump's at the same juncture. Which in a way is an astonishing achievement as far as Trump is concerned. The world economy, including America's, was doing quite well back then. Yet Trump still managed to achieve negative approval ratings. Also you might want to know that Ronald Reagan's average approval rating at this point of his presidency was also lower than Joe Biden's.

The acting head of Nara sought permission from Biden to disallow claims of executive privilege on the part of trump. Button authorized her to do whatever she thought best. That was the extent of his involvement.

So you're a recidivist.

Thanks for the non-explanation. But that's OK.

First off, he didn't refer in his speech to all 75 million. For one thing, it's 70% of Republicans who believe the elections were stolen. And I don't think it's possible to alienate such individuals further in any significant way. They are already alienated from reality. As for targeting individuals, he called the Justice Dept and FBI "vicious monsters" And you don't think his crazy accusation against Fetterman is going to be replayed over and over again? Trump has succeeded in making his ugliness and his obsessions big issues in the 2022 elections.

Do you understand that you're indicting yourself with this comment also? I just responded to what you wrote. If you were responding to what someone else wrote along this line, that was the time to raise this objection.

Yes. Nothing is stopping Americans from believing that the Earth is flat or that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election. But because Americans enjoy freedom of speech, there is no law compelling such nonsensical beliefs to be treated with respect.

And Trump spends more time hours watching daytime TV than any person with a job has any reason to. But clearly that was more important than intelligence briefings which he regularly skipped. Also, in his daily schedule, there were large multihour blocks of something mysterious called "executive time".

Even if Biden's speech could be characterized as a rant, do you think it's anywhere near the league of Trump's outright vicious and lunatic comments? All Biden has to do now is sit back and watch Trump ruin the chances of so many Republican candidates. Or do you believe that Trump will repent of his ways and only talk sense from now on?

Here's a compelling article from Dan Goldman and the NY Daily News The possible path to prosecuting Trump: Democratic congressional nominee Dan Goldman lays out feds’ likely case "When it comes to information “respecting the national defense” (which is not always classified information), the Espionage Act is a broad statute that does not necessarily require intent to disseminate or distribute such materials. But in weighing whether a set of factual circumstances supports such a charge, prosecutors consider four factors: intent to distribute, clear knowledge of document importance, volume of the material and whether or not investigators have been lied to." https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-possible-path-to-prosecuting-trump-20220904-o7omj3c37zehdi6htwcwrjeb4y-story.html

I guess it's funny that you have no actual facts or reasoning to counter the point I've raised. But more sad than funny.

And he needed all morning to do that? That was his overwhelmingly top priority? It is to laugh.

Really? You think that Trump's performances in Pennslyvania are a plus for Republican candidates? You think that someone so easily triggered is not going to be voicing the same kind of repugnant comments over and over again?