Trump the Chump (Part 1)

Or that such a ‘pardon blitz’ won’t do a damn bit of good against state charges.

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Has anyone tried MAGA2024 yet?

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At the same time, however, they have announced they will not be pursuing a prosecution because he acted ethically.

See, that’s how you prosecute computer crime: by looking at the spirit of the law, not its letter.

ETA: or any crime, really

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Boyhood Home Update: Nobody is Contributing. :sob:

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Maybe they would have more interest if they blow it up.

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Good!
But that article includes a bunch of phrasing that is a particular pet peeve of mine:

It was built by Fred Trump,

And:

the family moved into a 23-room McMansion around the corner that his father put up.

I used to work construction and still do a lot of DIY and have always found it really annoying how people seem to purposefully misuse words around this stuff. It wasn’t built by Fred, he paid other people to build it, he had it built.
It seems to be quite specific to construction type stuff, too. No one ever says, “I changed the oil in the car today,” when they brought it to the garage, they say they had the oil changed. No one ever says, “I cut my hair today,” they say they had it cut. I don’t get it.
(End rant.)

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many, if not most, of the people i know use that phrasing to mean that someone paid to have a house built to a custom design instead of buying a pre-existing house. i never worked construction but that always irritated me as well because on january 1 of 1974 my family moved into a new 4 bedroom/2.5 bath house which my father, mostly, built. i was 11-12 while construction went on but i helped to the extent an intelligent 11 year old could help.

he built the foundation framing and he and i did the foundation plumbing. a family friend who was a cement contractor poured the foundation. my father and his brother-in-law framed up the house. a family friend who was an electrician came and helped dad wire the house. dad did the sheetrock and did the ceiling joists. i helped with that by operating a hydraulic jack to get the beams in place while dad was above using a level and hammering things together.

dad hired a cousin of ours who was a carpenter to help with the roof, rafters, and lathing for the shingles. dad hired a couple of guys to help him with the shingling. although mom and dad hired a bricklayer to do the exterior, the fireplace, and the chimney, dad laid the brick floor in the front half of the house. dad did the paneling in the front of the house along with the paneling in my bedroom, the only paneled bedroom because i liked it. we hired a painter to finish the cabinets in the kitchen, the front paneling, and the exterior. dad wired all of the fixtures and outlets.

by doing all of the work he did and by getting much of the major work done at or near cost because of friends in various parts of the construction trades, mom and dad ended up paying right at $24000 for a house that would have cost around $55-60,000 other wise. They also got a 7.5 year mortgage at remarkably favorable terms from a local finance company because mom and dad, as teachers, had been extremely helpful to the owner’s son and daughter. For one thing, they wrote mom and dad a motgage half as long as anything they normally provided and second they shaved 1.5% off of the lowest rate they offered anyone else. mom and dad ended up paying it off in 6 years.

all of which is to say, i can’t stand hearing people say they “built a house” when what they meant to say was that they “signed the mortgage.”

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Yes. Also reminds me of how people speak of “their” (mortgaged) house, or “I finally bought a house!”

Um, no, a bank bought it, and you paid a tiny portion upfront too (that “downpayment”), and now you’re going to end up paying a fuckton more than the purchase price, assuming you stay in it for long. You’re basically still renting, except that now you have to pay as well for repairs, insurance, etc.

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when mrs. navarro and i made our last mortgage payment i called a friend and used almost those exact words-- “we finally bought a house!” he was confused for about two minutes.

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I’m with you. I did roofing as a summer job during college. When someone says “I put a new roof on the house” I can’t help but respond, “Did you? Funny, I didn’t see you up there.”

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Just like renting, where you are also paying a mortgage, just not yours. That upfront capital is the difference. It’s how the middle classes buy into capitalism, even if they are buying a pup they aren’t getting absolutely shafted.

Disclosure I sold my government scheme affordable housing flat (which you can’t profit from) after saving cash while paying a low mortgage at the start of the crash and rented for a few years at low rents (while we were having children) and then we bought our house at the absolute bottom of the market. Like half price. In 2013 because the recession was endless.

So I became successfully middle class through a cheap housing scheme and pure fluke in the market.

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Careful out there, Trump Chumps is everywhere!

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Sexy is being f’d in ass while reading trump?

Hard pass.

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Welp, a Trump stamp is one way to be pegged as a Trump supporter.

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Bastard beat Roger Stone to it!

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image

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