chaos

[Softball Bat]

FBI raids offices, home of Trump's personal lawyer: sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday raided the offices and home of U.S. President Donald
Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, law enforcement sources said, in a dramatic new development in a series of probes
involving close Trump associates.

Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen M. Ryan, said that U.S. prosecutors conducted a search that was partly a referral by the Office of Special
Counsel, Robert Mueller.

Mueller is investigating whether members of Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia during the U.S. presidential election.
Trump has called the probe a “witch hunt” and denied any collusion...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1HG336




Meanwhile the drums of war are picking up.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

...colluded with Russia...

Just stop already. This is fucking embarrassing.

[Softball Bat]

So the U.S. is going to start bombing Syria?
Maybe.


Article 1 Section 8: The Congress shall have power to declare war


Oh, it's not war.
We're just droppin' some bombs.
An "attention-getter."



:|

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

When the master yanks the leash, the dog heels, or gets the rolled up newspaper.

[Screw_Michigan]

I'm reserving judgment until Trump ball lickers 88, Rooster, Left Behind and et al weigh in...

[Softball Bat]

Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will
be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who
kills his people and enjoys it!

- Don (via Twitter)

[Softball Bat]

Tweet at 3:15 am...


Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!
In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the
region of ISIS. Where is our “Thank you America?”

- Don






Stfu, you f@t, ridiculous windbag.

[Mikey]

TR said:

"Speak softly and carry a big stick."

DT heard:

"Shout like an idiot and wave your dick."

[Softball Bat]

And now the Comey book.

[Softball Bat]

James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the
terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted.
He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible
Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down
as one of the worst “botch jobs” of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!

- Don (on Twitter)








A predictable melt.

[Goober McTuber]

President Melty.

[BSmack]

When does the bombing begin?

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

When does the bombing begin?

Around 7AM every day when Goober logs in.

[Softball Bat]

Don is ordering military action in Syria.

To keep us all safe, ya know?

Don't you feel better now?


Trump voters, is this the chickenshit you voted for?

Great going.

[Softball Bat]

[Derron]

Music to my ears. Old school town sirens like this used to summon the volunteer firefighters back in the day. I lived about a block from the station and would run down there and get on the engine or rescue unit.

Of course they had to do away with these since they disturbed people. Pussies.

[Softball Bat]

A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!

- Don







bwaaa...

[Mikey]

[Softball Bat]

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/25/poli ... index.html

Michael Cohen will plead the Fifth Amendment.

bwaaaa hahahaha!!





Donad Trump is quite simply -----> screwed.

[Softball Bat]

Just listen to this unhinged, coked-up freak.














Just.
Wow.

[Diego in Seattle]

Music to my ears. Old school town sirens like this used to summon the volunteer firefighters back in the day. I lived about a block from the station and would run down there and get on the engine or rescue unit.

Of course they had to do away with these since they disturbed people. Pussies.

Still used in Yosemite for the VF in Yosemite Valley, and it's tested every Wednesday at noon. One of my funnier memories from the park was once being at work when it was tested & my co-worker yelled "air raid!" while there was a busload of Japanese tourists nearby.

[Goober McTuber]

Music to my ears. Old school town sirens like this used to summon the volunteer firefighters back in the day. I lived about a block from the station and would run down there and get on the engine or rescue unit.

Of course they had to do away with these since they disturbed people. Pussies.

A lot of places still use sirens.

[BSmack]

Music to my ears. Old school town sirens like this used to summon the volunteer firefighters back in the day. I lived about a block from the station and would run down there and get on the engine or rescue unit.

Of course they had to do away with these since they disturbed people. Pussies.

Those things were obsolete as soon as pagers came out. Of course it is still in use in my hometown because we have yet to find the tradition that we won't hang onto with out last dying breath. They still test it every week at noon.

[Left Seater]

When we moved to a Philly suburb our second night we awoke to what we thought was the end of the world. Turns out it wasn’t for us but it was for another family. I get tradition, but screw that when lives are on the line.

The other question this brings up is how in this day and age are metro Fire Departments still manned by volunteers? Aw did y’all see that the Jones placed burned down the other night? Turns out Steve and his two boys were down in Florida on vacation, Roger and his boys were drunk from the wedding reception of Roger’s daughter and Jose had to work a mandatory double shift at the plant. That left only old man Wall and he couldn’t do everything on his own, much less drive the truck.

I heard the excuses in PA and MA that Fire Departments are expensive. While that is true so is the economic loss due to higher insurance rates due to lack of Fire services. What with all those crazy taxes in PA there should have been plenty of money for a FD budget.

[BSmack]

Not sure about other places but in my hometown there are 60 or so members of the local volunteer fire department and they require a turnout rate of over 75%. They've had a couple of calls in my neighborhood since we moved in. Always seen a good compliment of members.

[Left Seater]

So do you live in a city or town? There must be a pretty dense population if you can find 60 volunteers in an area. Why not have the city/town/county operate it?

[BSmack]

So do you live in a city or town? There must be a pretty dense population if you can find 60 volunteers in an area. Why not have the city/town/county operate it?

I live in a village. The volunteer departments are subsidized by the local governments, particularly for capital expenses, but they also raise their own money via fundraisers like BBQ chicken sales and carnivals. I can't even imagine how high our taxes would be if we had to pay for firemen.

[Derron]

It varies a lot on where you are at. In Bris hood there is still a lot of volunteer departments and they do turn out members quite well, and the population densities help out. But those areas also have their problems in getting people to volunteer on a consistent basis. If you have a department that is only running 200 or 300 calls a year then you can get away with it. But when you call volume gets above 400 you need full time staff.

In our district they have full time employees and run 5 people on a shift. Bare minimum and they run 5,000 calls a year. My son is a paramedic in Central Oregon at a local department and they run 450 calls a year. He can be a paramedic one minute, an engineer the next and function as the officer too. They get stretched pretty thin some times.

The NFPA of 1987 drastically changed how you deliver fire services. We used to go in on fires with 2 guys and left the engine pumping and put the fire out. Now you have to have a minimum of 3 in and 3 out ready to rescue the 3 in if need be. No more tail boards, you wear SCBA at all times, and you don't go into burning buildings as much. More people work away from their home areas, and cannot leave work to go fires or medical calls. Departments depend upon interns and limited volunteer response to deliver services. If you start getting double or triple stacked on calls then you need your neighboring departments to help out.

Our district runs 3 man engine crews and a 2 man medical unit. They routinely get triple stacked on calls every week and can run over 20 calls on a 24 hour shift. To our east is the City of Hillsboro who runs 4 man crews and 9 man shifts. No thanks to Intel and their 100 million cap on property taxes on several billion dollars in property. The volunteer thing is that they have to have comparative levels of training now and a minimum of 24 days of dedicated training, usually 3 months of Saturday / Sunday drills and classes. Pretty hard to get people to commit to that level any more. People will vote for tax levies, in our area, fire and LEO levies are always voted in and we have some of the best police protections in the state.

There is no doubt that a lot of the volunteer and intern dependent models are not working well any more, and at some point in time people need to stop depending on "volunteers" to deliver fire and ems services on the same level as paid departments,and to step up and fund those services. Yes, here is a conservative advocating for increase taxes to fund fire, ems and police services.

[Derron]

So do you live in a city or town? There must be a pretty dense population if you can find 60 volunteers in an area. Why not have the city/town/county operate it?

I live in a village. The volunteer departments are subsidized by the local governments, particularly for capital expenses, but they also raise their own money via fundraisers like BBQ chicken sales and carnivals. I can't even imagine how high our taxes would be if we had to pay for firemen.

East Coasters seem to have a much more macho attitude about the volunteer fire services. We did back in the day, it is a fucking competition, us against the fire, us against the clock, get out there and get shit done. The community aspect of it in the East Coast and in the upper East Coast areas is pretty strong. Very steeped in tradition.

And you are right, if you had to pay each firefighter more than the $ 10 each call they get, your taxes would go up. When the demographics change and those numbers of turn out start dropping, and the services suffer, then that is what you will be looking at.

[Left Seater]

So do you live in a city or town? There must be a pretty dense population if you can find 60 volunteers in an area. Why not have the city/town/county operate it?

I live in a village. The volunteer departments are subsidized by the local governments, particularly for capital expenses, but they also raise their own money via fundraisers like BBQ chicken sales and carnivals. I can't even imagine how high our taxes would be if we had to pay for firemen.

I also live in a small community. My taxes are slightly higher than San Antonio but not substantialy so. For that we get more services. Our small community also has its own Police and Fire Departments. I wonder what the difference in services between our places is? I do know that we have the highest fire protection rating per the ISO which has a direct impact on homeowners insurance premiums.

Anywho, not saying your guys suck or anything, I just find it surprising that I get far more services here for a lower tax rate than I did in PA. (Town sizes were within about 1000 of population.)

Interesting info Derron, thanks for sharing. As for you comment on taxes and a tax increase I would tend to agree with you. I have no problem paying for things in my local community. I tend to support most bond issues and school taxes unless they are just idiotic. I think more of our taxes should be local. For example the Federal Gas tax should go away. Let the states fund our own road/Transportation infrastructure. But a topic for another thread.

[BSmack]

I'm pretty sure in Texas you don't have to rebuild your roads after 10 years. That's a huge expense. Plus Highway snow removal and salting. Maybe we'll get some global warming and lower our taxes.

[Left Seater]

6 of 1...

Many Texas roads are rebuilt far ahead of the national average due to the truck traffic that comes along with oil and gas exploration and production.

Both cases though make a good arguement as to why a national gas tax should die and states/counties should handle all the road funding and construction.

[BSmack]

6 of 1...

Many Texas roads are rebuilt far ahead of the national average due to the truck traffic that comes along with oil and gas exploration and production.

Both cases though make a good arguement as to why a national gas tax should die and states/counties should handle all the road funding and construction.

Then maybe Texas can handle all of its rebuilding from the hurricanes and tornadoes that it gets.

[Left Seater]

I personally wouldn't have an issue with that. But what is good for Texas would also be good for NY and their hurricane recovery.

Bottom line is when natural disasters happen we as a people tend to put all the crap aside and help our fellow man. I don't see this changing if we did away with FEMA. Crap holes before a storm would have a harder time, see Puerto Rico, Mississippi, Floribama, etc. But should a crap hole before an event be completely rebuilt to non-crap hole standards?

[Derron]

Our small community also has its own Police and Fire Departments. I wonder what the difference in services between our places is? I do know that we have the highest fire protection rating per the ISO which has a direct impact on homeowners insurance premiums.

The slow trend is for the police and fire to consolidate into larger districts or departments. The days of having 5 or more fire and police departments in an area 15 miles by 15 miles square are going away. Each of those departments each had a chief, assistant chief, captains, lt's, and may pieces of duplicate equipment. The resistance of course was from these REMFs and upper level people that their higher wage positions would be eliminated in a consolidation of services, and the actual cost of services would go down. While this would probably not result in a tax reduction, it certainly would result in more boots on the streets in both disciplines.

It also brings a consistent level of services, it spreads overhead out of a much larger tax base, and generally lowers ISO ratings. We have a couple examples locally where the local Sheriffs agency now provides services to a couple of cities that formerly had their own departments both police and fire. The former police agencies were under funded,and were mere training grounds for larger agencies, had very high turn over and high crime. When the SO took over, they eliminated the chiefs and assistants positions and put Captains in there. The fire deparmen'ts up staffed and added equipment.

There are still some hold outs, but their service levels pale in comparison to the economies of scale achieved with the larger departments.

[Softball Bat]

OMG!!

This is great.


Of course Donald said a couple of week ago that he didn't know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels.
He didn't know why Michael Cohen did it.
He didn't know where MIchael Cohen got the money.








Now we have today, Donald's lawyer (Rudy the lying weasel) saying (0:22 to 0:56) that Donald REIMBURSED MIchael Cohen for the payment over the course of several months.
You know, the payment that Don never knew about.








!!





Slurp away, Derron!

[Softball Bat]

Now Donald is up and spinning/freaking out on Twitter. lol

He is circling and -----> he knows it!



:)

[Softball Bat]

A couple of friggin' weirdos.









Time to take out the trash.

[Mikey]

Now Donald is up and spinning/freaking out on Twitter. lol

He is circling and -----> he knows it!



:)

Exactly.

If Cohen made the payment out of his own pocket, it's an illegal campaign contribution.
Now they're claiming that Trump knew about it but it came from his personal funds, so no illegal contribution.

They're making this shit up as they go along, and not doing a very good job of it.

[Bucmonkey]

Bringing Giuliani in is the fucking cherry on this comedy gold shit cake.