Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
It’s still mind-numbingly hot where I’m at, and I suspect where you are too. Well, a number of you anyway. It seems to me that Sourtherners paint the most colorful pictures when describing the hundred-and-hell degree weather:
It’s so hot the swimming pool is boiling.
It’s so hot the ice cream truck melted.
If it gets any hotter, I’ll have to take off stuff I really ought to keep on.
I’m burning slap-up.
Crank up that A.C. till it’s blowing snowballs.
You could fry an egg on the hood of that car.
It’s so dang hot that I just saw a hound dog chasing a rabbit—and they were both walking.
Hotter than a pepper sprout.
Hotter than a $2 pistol.
Of course, my favorite description of the wretched heat is from Harper Lee in To Kill A Mockingbird:
Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
So, from your softly wilted teacake of a contributor, let’s get started. Share what you like but make sure you include links.
First news item
Throwing down the gauntlet across the nation:
Schools have begun reopening in the U.S. with most states leaving it up to local schools to decide whether to require masks. California, Louisiana, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington state intend to require masks for all students and teachers regardless of vaccination status. At the other end of the spectrum, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah have banned mask requirements in all public schools.
Second news item
Dark days in the Sunshine State:
More Floridians are contracting COVID-19 and filling hospital beds than at any point since the pandemic started 17 months ago.
The state recorded 134,506 cases between July 30 and Aug 5, according to data released Friday by the Florida Department of Health.
That’s an average of more than 19,000 cases every day — the highest infection rate in a single week since the start of the pandemic. Adjusted for population, only Louisiana had a higher infection rate last week.
Florida hospitalizations also reached their highest point in the pandemic this week, with over 12,864 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the hospital as of Friday, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Florida parents will be allowed to apply for vouchers and move their kids to another school if they perceive any type of “COVID-19 harassment” against their child in connection to district rules on masking, testing and isolation due to exposure, under a new emergency rule approved Friday.
The rule, approved unanimously by the State Board of Education, was hastily crafted by state education and health officials in response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order last week that called for rules that would protect parents’ decisions on whether their children should wear masks in K-12 schools.
Florida Department of Health officials unveiled new protocols that detail how the spread of the virus should be controlled in school settings.
Third news item
Crazy haps in the Last Frontier State:
Former President Donald Trump’s political apparatus is reinforcing its support for Alaska Republican Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka, as former Gov. Sarah Palin floats herself as a potential contender for the same seat.
Donald Trump, Jr. is set to release a fundraising appeal Friday evening expressing his support for Tshibaka, the former state commissioner of administration who is challenging Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. It comes just days after Palin, who rose to national prominence as the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, was quoted as saying that “If God wants me to” run for Senate, “I will.”
The former president and his son have endorsed Tshibaka over Murkowski, a Trump critic who voted in January to remove him from office over his role in the Capitol riot. Neither Trump nor his son have spoken out against Palin, and a person close to the younger Trump said that he and his father had warm feelings toward the former Alaska governor and that the appeal was in the works prior to Palin floating her candidacy.
Fourth news item
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia known for espousing debunked conspiracy theories, plans to appear this month at the Iowa State Fair, according to people familiar with her plans. The gathering is a traditional platform for White House aspirants.
It’s not a prime pre-presidential year in Iowa (that will be two years from now), and as Jacobs notes, there probably won’t be a Soap Box (an area traditionally set up by the Des Moines Register to accommodate political speakers who stand atop bales of hay). But Greene does seem to be a woman in a big hurry
Fifth news item
A falling empire in the Empire State:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo remained in hiding at the Executive Mansion Friday but sent out a team of lawyers to publicly attack some of the 11 women he’s accused of sexually harassing — and to claim that Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation was rigged against him.
“The governor deserves to be treated fairly and he must be,” insisted Rita Glavin, Cuomo’s personal defense lawyer in a Zoom press conference that was also broadcast on the governor’s official state website.
“That did not happen here. This was one-sided and he was ambushed.”
We will not be intimidated.
— Lindsey Boylan (@LindseyBoylan) August 6, 2021
Sixth news item
Democratic Arizona state Sen. Tony Navarrete has been arrested on suspicion of charges accusing him of sexual conduct with a minor, police said Friday.
Police received a report on Wednesday about sexual contact that allegedly occurred in 2019. Navarrete, who represents a west Phoenix district, was arrested Thursday after detectives interviewed a juvenile victim and witnesses, police said in a statement.
The juvenile boy was 14 years old at the time.
Seventh news item
The Texas House Democratic Caucus could not account Tuesday for two of the members who broke quorum and fled for Washington, D.C., over Republicans’ priority elections bill, while a Texas Monthly reporter said the members were on vacation in Portugal.
State Reps. Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch and Jessica González of Dallas were not with other House Democrats on Tuesday in the nation’s capital, according to a person familiar with the situation. On Tuesday evening, Texas Monthly reporter Jonathan Tilove tweeted that he “can confirm [Johnson] and her wife & [González] and her fiancé are in Portugal for a vacation they had been planning, with non-refundable tickets, for a year-and-a-half.”
In a text exchange though with the San Antonio Express-News on Tuesday evening, González referred to the Portugal trip as “rumors” and said “no one has shown proof.”
“These are rumors, period,” she said. “End of story.”
Their absence from Washington does not affect the lack of quorum that the House has in Austin that prevents the chamber from passing an elections bill. But it is at odds with House Democrats’ insistence that they would use their time away from the state Legislature, which they left in July, to advocate for federal voting rights legislation in the nation’s capital.
There should be a steep price to pay for any elected official in any political party who chooses to run away from fulfilling their duties, no matter how challenging or distasteful they may be.
Eighth news item
Nearly 1,800 Americans directly affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are opposing President Joe Biden’s participation in any memorial events this year unless he upholds his pledge to declassify U.S. government evidence that they believe may show a link between Saudi Arabian leaders and the attacks.
The victims’ family members, first responders and survivors will release a statement Friday calling on Biden to skip 20th-anniversary events in New York and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon unless he releases the documents, which they believe implicate Saudi officials in supporting the acts of terrorism. The group says that as a candidate Biden pledged to be more transparent and release as much information as possible but that his administration has since then ignored their letters and requests.
Ninth news item
Biden administration flies illegal immigrants to deep Mexico:
The United States on Thursday began flying Central American and Mexican families to southern Mexico in an effort to deter migration by bolstering a COVID-era expulsion policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, a person familiar with the matter said.
Nearly 200 Mexican and Central American family members were expelled deep into Mexico on Thursday in what are expected to be regular flights, the person said. The flights, which will include adults, aim to disrupt a pattern of repeat crossings under a U.S. border policy known as Title 42.
U.S. President Joe Biden has reversed many of the restrictive immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, but has left Title 42 in place amid 20-year highs in border arrests.
Although health experts, pro-migrant advocates and some Democrats say the policy cuts off access to asylum without a clear health rationale, Biden officials argue it is necessary to keep U.S. detention centers from becoming overwhelmed during the pandemic…The Biden administration also announced last week that it would subject migrant families to a fast-track deportation process known as “expedited removal” to their home countries from U.S. detention centers.
MISCELLANEOUS
Summer storm beating back the summer heat:
Have a great weekend!
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (174549) — 8/6/2021 @ 6:22 pmthe ninth news item makes it sound like flying migrants to southern mexico is something new
it’s only new to biden, as the linked article states
Under Trump, some Mexican migrants caught at the U.S.-Mexico border were flown to southern Mexico. But the use of the strategy under Biden – and under the Title 42 order – is new, according to the person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss government operations.
the flights are a drop in the bucket, but great as a photo op
if biden really wanted to do something about the border he’d reinstate trump’s highly effective policies including remain in mexico
but he doesn’t, and he won’t
the border mess is exactly what he wants as long as he doesn’t take a political hit
JF (e1156d) — 8/6/2021 @ 6:44 pmLove your use of b/w photography, Dana. You should post a few more of them. Very serene.
Reminds me of image to print from high contrast Kodak Plus-X Pan 35mm negatives back in the day. Really pops the clouds desn’t look like a polarizing filter was used either. Little grain in your image like you’d get from ol’Tri-X.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/6/2021 @ 6:45 pm‘Washington is responsible for this’: Texas mayor reveals 1,500 of 7,000 migrants released into his city tested positive for COVID – and 1,800 are crossing every DAY
A mayor on the Texas-Mexico border is slamming Joe Biden and his state’s federal lawmakers after he was forced to declare a disaster over the surging number of migrants infected with COVID being released into his city.
In a video posted to Facebook Wednesday, McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos fumed at the White House after 1,500 migrants tested positive for COVID out of 7,000 left in his city by Border Patrol last week.
The city commission voted on Tuesday to set up emergency tents to house the overflow of migrants, but moved it to a county-owned facility further away from residents angry over its location.
‘Lately we’ve been getting about 1,800 immigrants a day,’ he said. ‘Then, coupled with the fact that 15 percent of the immigrants have COVID, have caused substantial problems to our great city of McAllen.’
JF (e1156d) — 8/6/2021 @ 6:52 pmShocking photos show scores of illegal immigrants packed into holding cells in breach of COVID caps while hundreds of infected are treated in special army tents
Shocking new photos reveal the overcrowded and filthy conditions illegal migrants are living in after being intercepted while crossing the US southern border.
According to Fox News there are approximately 5,300 migrants currently in custody with between 40-60 people in each pod, breaking a COVID cap of 10 per pod.
The photos revealed more than 1,000 immigrants shoved under a bridge in Anzalduas Park, in Mission, at the state’s far southeastern border, in the midst of all 100-degree F heat and disgusting bathroom conditions with facilities with overflowing waste.
Meanwhile, the Rio Grande Valley processing station – which has space to hold 600 migrants for processing – is currently housing 12,000, with no end to the onslaught of people in sight.
‘The White House said migrants are being handled in a humane and orderly way,’ former commissioner Mark Morgan said.
‘This isn’t humane or orderly, and it’s not the Border Patrol’s fault. They are doing all they can to deal with the disaster created by Biden.’
JF (e1156d) — 8/6/2021 @ 7:05 pmJust as we could learn from comparing death rates from COVID in different nations (as long as we choose those nations intelligently), so we can learn from comparing US states.
And one of the most instructive comparisons is between Vermont (417 deaths/million) and South Dakota (2317 deaths/million).
Although we don’t often think of the two together, the states are similar in important ways, when we are evaluating the performance of their governments: The have cold, or at lest cool climates; both are rural, mostly white, and both have Republican governors. But Vermont’s Phil Scott followed the advice of medical experts, and Kristi Noem followed her ambition — and Trump.
(Oddly enough, Governor Noem appears to believe her terrible failure qualifies her to be president; as far as I know; Governor Scott has no great ambitions for higher office. But we ought to vote for people who aren’t trying to get us killed, or so I have always believed.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/6/2021 @ 7:32 pmDonald Trump may soon have international legal troubles, as well as those here.
Britain has an interesting recent addition to its laws: unexplained wealth orders:
Trump has two money-losing golf courses in Scotland. Some Scottish politicians, having seen some of his tax troubles here, are advocating that courts there find out where he got the money to buy those courses, and where he is getting the money to subsidize them. I am no expert on British law, so I can’t guess how likely it is that he gets a UWO — but I can say this: Such an order would be very popular there.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/6/2021 @ 7:42 pm@6 scoreboarding covid deaths based on cherry picked data is the left’s new favorite pastime
that and the “i didn’t get vaccinated and now i’m dying a gruesome covid death” schadenfreude boosting storyline
JF (e1156d) — 8/6/2021 @ 7:43 pmhttps://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/tucker-carlson-opening-statement/
Family. History. Tradition. Language.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/6/2021 @ 7:43 pmJim Miller “if it saves one life” so you should be fully on board of banning abortion.
Glad to have you on the team.
Are speed limits going to be set to 25 too?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/6/2021 @ 7:44 pmHow soon we forget: 2021 was also the 50th anniversary of a wave of bombings that included the Senate cloakroom in the Capitol, arguably worse than what happened on Jan 6th. Yet not only was the leader of the perpetrators not locked away for life, he has remained free all this time, mostly due to the lawyers his multi-millionaire father bought to defend him.
You would think that any US President who palled around with the guy would be forever condemned for consorting with such a [quite literal] traitor. But no.
I try to keep this in mind when we talk about Jan 6th. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but sometimes one does.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 7:56 pmAnd yes, governors who prevent their citizenry from protecting themselves against a plague will never, ever, get my vote. It is one thing to say “I will not protect myself.” It is quite another to say “You may not protect yourself.”
I would like the Stand Your Ground law tested here.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:00 pmSuch an order would be very popular there.
Boy, I sure want to live under a regime that prosecutes people based on how popular the prosecution would be.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:03 pmI wonder if there is a mandate requiring all asylum seekers to be immunized for Covid. The J&J shot is pretty quick and easy. I also wonder how many ICE agents are refusing the vaccine.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:04 pm#8 JF – Would you please provide a link to a solid statistical study showing those numbers are “cherry picked”.
Otherwise, people are going to suspect that you are just asking not to be confused by mere facts.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:11 pm#10 As it happens, I have been more on the pro-life side for decades — ever since I thought hard about the pro-abortion arguments I have seen. (I would, for example, favor an outright ban on abortions after viability. And I am still thinking about the three exceptions in the 1980 Republican platform: rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Interestingly, the Catholic Church agrees an exception can be granted in the third case.)
But I am not interested in discussing the subject, since I have never seen a useful Internet discussion on abortion.
Now, are you willing to be on the pro-life side in our fight against COVID?
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:21 pm@15 you’re confused by the term cherry pick, jim
you could’ve chosen new york vs florida or new jersey vs ohio or any of hundreds of other comparisons
you chose extremes, strained to dress it up as the perfect comparison, and drew sweeping conclusions as the payoff
you’re not alone
every partisan hack is doing it
JF (e1156d) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:25 pm#13 Kevin – The sad fact is that prosecutors everywhere decide which cases to bring — and which cases not to bring — partly in reaction to public opinion. It is possible you live in a state that does not have such prosecutors, but I doubt it.
And by now, you should recognize that when I say something is likely to happen, you should not conclude that I want that thing to happen.
Here’s a very large example: I think it very likely that the Trump/Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan will result in one or more genocides — and I very much hope I am wrong.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:31 pm#17 As some one who picked cherries in his youth, I am hardly confused by the term.
But let us compare the two pairs of states you suggested: Yesterday, there were 199 COVID deaths in Florida, 9 in New York; 8 deaths in Pennsylvania, 9 in Ohio.
I hope you will agree with me that it is possible that Governor DeSantis of Florida is not currently following the best pro-life policies, with regard to COVID.
(If you disagree with me, you really need to come up with a link to a statistical argument — if you can find one.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:45 pmThe J&J shot is pretty quick and easy.
So is a S&W, right at the border, as they break in. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:47 pm@19 so you compare total deaths in your @6
then, cuz your chosen metric doesn’t work for you in my comparisons, change the metric to something else entirely
lol can you make a covid point without cherry picking, jim?
JF (e1156d) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:54 pmSure. I can be even more pro-life than your position. I think people should get the vaccine if they are at risk of harm from the virus. That doesn’t include the young and healthy of course. Exceptions carved out. You should approve.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/6/2021 @ 9:50 pmGod told me that you shouldn’t run, Sarah.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:26 pmHere’s a very large example: I think it very likely that the Trump/Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan will result in one or more genocides — and I very much hope I am wrong.
I think it more likely that the Obama-era refusal to confront Iran will end in the genocide of Iranians, when the Israelis retaliate for the destruction of Tel Aviv. Hope I’m srong there, too.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:43 pmI’ve stated my solution to abortion in the past: a Constitutional amendment that spits the baby, so to speak.
1. An adult woman may get an abortion in the first 4 months of pregnancy, for any reason.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:48 pm2. No one else shall be forced to pay for any abortion, directly or indirectly.
3. Other matters concerning abortion are devolved to the states or the people thereof..
The Democrat House majority leader of NM has resigned, following charges that she ran a decades-long scam against the ABQ public schools, where she worked (legislators are part-time here). While it was originally believed that she was in cahoots with a software firm, it is coming out that she was that firm as well. The FBI is now on the case.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:52 pmThe J&J shot is pretty quick and easy.
“I walked all the way to America, and all I got was this lousy vaccination! And a plane flight to the Yucatan”
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:53 pmKevin,
How about just devolving all matters concerning abortion to the states? It would do wonders for the travel industry.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/6/2021 @ 11:13 pmHow about just devolving all matters concerning abortion to the states? It would do wonders for the travel industry.
Yeah, well, it’s been suggested and no dice. You have to offer both sides something. My plan takes it off the table forever. The whole debate has gotten rather frozen and lends itself to terror for both sides every time a justice gets old.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 11:20 pm@29 It does have something for both sides–a variety of states where it is and isn’t legal. 🙂
norcal (a6130b) — 8/6/2021 @ 11:22 pmHotter than a 2 peckered billy goat
mg (8cbc69) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:40 amNo hypocrisy on the Vineyard. Happy Birthday to the Kenyan.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:52 amIt’s so hot in Chicago, it almost feels like June.
nk (1d9030) — 8/7/2021 @ 3:39 amBritain has an interesting recent addition to its laws: unexplained wealth orders:
Watchoo tink civil asset forfeiture in all its 51 flavors, state and federal, is?
As for “recent”, maybe in the same sense that water sold in plastic bottles is recent. The practice (enacted into law by Parliament, to be clear that I’m not talking about the whims of robber barons) dates as far back (as I could be bothered to look) to at least Henry VIII and Cromwell’s reformations.
And seeing as this is an open thread, so do ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, most definitions of treason, lese majeste, burning at the stake, drawing and a quartering, and a whole lot of other things forbidden by our Constitution. (Again, enacted into law by Parliament, and not mere feudal banditry.) There’s nothing new in Airstrip One.
nk (1d9030) — 8/7/2021 @ 4:18 amTrump’s Repeating Donation Tactics Led to Millions in Refunds Into 2021
[Registration wall.]
nk (1d9030) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:35 amThe Democrat House majority leader of NM has resigned, following charges that she ran a decades-long scam against the ABQ public schools, where she worked (legislators are part-time here). While it was originally believed that she was in cahoots with a software firm, it is coming out that she was that firm as well. The FBI is now on the case.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:52 pm
Sure, that’s how the grift works, and it’s an old one–you don’t have your name on the letterhead, you make sure a relative/cousin/friend is running the company that you’re laundering money from. The NGO game in particular is notorious for these things, but it’s been going on in the GOCO field for a long time, too. The Santa Fe Ring made it an art form.
Factory Working Orphan (a6f340) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:49 amNo, the Catholic does not agree, in any way, with an exception for abortion in saving the life of the mother. The Catholic Church teaches, unequivocally, that intentional abortion is always a grave sin (murder). The nuance, of the Church, that many mistake for agreement is (and I parahrase) this:
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:50 amLeft out a word [in italic]…
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:52 amIt’s so hot in Chicago, citizens are dropping like flies and – surprisingly – it ain’t from teh gunshots this time.
Colonel Haiku (476741) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:01 amBut the guns are still going nuts… Chicago’s city leaders are floating a plan to pay the gun community to initiate positivity programs…
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-gun-violence-461-shootings-reported-in-july-up-15-from-last-year/2575176/?amp
Colonel Haiku (476741) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:07 amI find this to be gruesome. As a wise man once observed (Sowell?) “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”
Solomon’s wisdom was lost on the selfish woman, who approved of cutting the baby in half. While that same wisdom revealed the real mother, who put the life of the most vulnerable, in the dispute, above her own wishes.
It is not unlike the mediator who advises a compromise between Israel and those who seek its total destruction; just how much destruction is “just?”
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:39 amKevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:53 pm
Ha! That’s funny.
Here’s my contribution to the “heat” humor:
Johnny Carson: Wow, it was so hot today!
Audience(in unison): HOW HOT WAS IT?
Johnny: It was so hot that Paul Williams bought a pint of ice cream – and got in!
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:52 amHow about just devolving all matters concerning abortion to the states? It would do wonders for the travel industry.
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:52 amBecause if it’s murder at the national level, it’s murder at the state level too.
Do it… for teh children, RIP.
Colonel Haiku (476741) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:55 am#37 Felipe – Thank you for that correction.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:57 amAttendees at (MTG) Republican event cheered Alabama’s low COVID vaccination rate
………
Media were made to leave the July 23 fundraiser, held by the Alabama Federation of Republican Women at the Civic Center in Dothan, when Greene began to speak, but in a leaked video of the event, tweeted by the political radio and YouTube host David Parkman showed Greene saying, “I hear Alabama might be one of the most unvaccinated states in the nation.”
The crowd, who paid $100 each to hear Greene speak, cheered exuberantly and clapped at her comments.
Alabama is tied with Mississippi in having the lowest percentage of fully COVID-19 vaccinated residents in the nation. The unvaccinated accounted for 97 percent of recently hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Alabama, according to UAB. Of the 2,379 COVID-19 deaths confirmed in Alabama between Jan. 19 and June 30, unvaccinated individuals accounted for 99 percent, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health.
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:05 am……..
Greene also said that President Joe Biden would be sending “one of his police state friends” to knock on Alabamians’ doors and ask about their COVID-19 vaccination status, saying that because of Alabama’s love of the Second Amendment, “they might not like the welcome they get.”
………
Video at link.
43, ehhh, would you now have “clinic vultures” in addition to “spring break vultures”? The abominable last Jay and Silent Bob film opened with the title characters hatching a scheme to pick up “known sluts” outside of a Planned Parenthood.
urbanleftbehind (137910) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:08 amTucker Carlson’s Self-Loathing International Tourism
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:15 amTucker Carlson is spending a week in Budapest in order to annoy Americans and everybody else who believes in the ideals of America: the rule of law, a free press, free elections, the conviction that democracy is preferable to autocracy. Showing how much he despises the United States, its Constitution, and its heritage, the Fox News host is celebrating the achievements of a petty Central European autocrat, Viktor Orbán. He seems to believe that by paying homage to Hungary’s assault on democratic institutions, he will make people angry at home, just as his host does. The good thing about Orbán, Carlson told a dinner party in Budapest, is that “you’re truly hated by all the right people.” And yes, “all the right people” includes everyone who still has some faith in the American dream.
……..
The aggrieved Americans who now find their way to Orbán or Vladimir Putin also dislike their own country, albeit for different reasons. They cannot abide its racial diversity, its modern culture, its free press. Those who dream of a white-tribalist alternative—one that also puts pressure on gay people and uses anti-Semitic tropes in its propaganda—believe they have found this nirvana at dinners and think-tank events in Budapest……….
……….
The irony, of course, is that under Orbán, it’s impossible for a Hungarian equivalent of Carlson—a loud television pundit, critical of the government, watched by millions of people—to exist. In Hungary, the ruling party doesn’t merely influence the press. It owns the bulk of the press, and not metaphorically. This is not some subtle form of influence: A few years ago, owners, even pro-government owners, were forced to “donate” their media properties to a holding company controlled directly by people close to Orbán. ………
……….
Carlson, whose father was the head of the agency that ran Voice of America during the Cold War, surely knows all of this. He understands he is following directly in the footsteps of the old communist fellow travelers, the men and women who made regular pilgrimages to the old Soviet Union,………
……….
43, ehhh, would you now have “clinic vultures” in addition to “spring break vultures”? ……
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:19 amDon’t particularly understand the reference, I would just ban abortion completely and prosecute the women who seek the killing of their unborn child and the doctors who perform the killing. I’ve never understood why pro-life laws make the distinction (except for political reasons). It takes two to tango.
We have definitely beaten the ChiComs for total medals at the Olympics; at present we are leading 108-87, and we have a chance to catch them in the gold medals, where they lead 36-38.
(Those who know more about sports than I can better assess our chances in the remaining events. If I understand the odd graphic at FiveThirtyEight, they are predicting that we will win four more medals, and the ChiComs 1 more.)
Not so incidentally, we and our allies are way ahead of our enemies in both the total medal count and the gold medal count.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:27 amJim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:57 am
You are most welcome.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:30 amNewsmax’s Greg Kelly Defends Cuomo: ‘I Can See a Freakin’ Witch Hunt When It Happens’
………
“Mob mentality has formed yet again around Andrew Cuomo this time,” Kelly told his audience on Tuesday night, before referencing the attorney general’s report.
“Here’s the thing,” said Kelly. “I’m not buying it.”
The host said he’s “not a fan” of Cuomo, “but he’s no sexual predator.”
“What is said about him can be said about a lot of people, actually. And if he goes down, I think a lot of people will be at risk. Isn’t it wild that this guy is suddenly a monster, yet we’ve all seen Joe Biden grab and smell and grope people for years and the left elevated him to the presidency?”
……….
“I’ve been through the report,” he said. “It’s a couple hundred pages long, but the meat of it? I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s there.”
………
“I believe him,” said Kelly. “And I know stuff that happens. I can see a freakin’ witch hunt when it happens and that’s what’s happening here. ”
Kelly added, “There are some things in here that are disturbing maybe, but I think he’s being railroaded.”
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:30 am………
Cue obligatory Seinfeld reference. Kelly is the son of former NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, and was briefly investigated for rape.
#48 Rip – The current Worldometers count makes Hungary the European leader in deaths per million, at 3,118.
Perhaps Carlson is there to learn from Orbán’s “success” in coping with the pandemic.
(Yes, I know, there are dubious numbers in that compilation, most notably Russia’s.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:38 am48 is pure leftwing propaganda. Orban is doing what is necessary to protect his nation and provide a future for Hungarians. He is not an autocrat. Budapest is currently run by a socialist. But they do believe they have a responsibility to the Hungarian people and not to the invaders trying to destroy their culture and their nation.
If only we had a leadership that was responsive to the American people instead of trying to replace them.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:08 amFelipe, do you believe that a woman seeking an abortion should incur a criminal penalty? Also, do you think that someone who does not share your religious perspective on pregnancy and may arrive at a different philosophical conclusion of when during a pregnancy life should be valued, should be legally compelled to follow your dictates? Do you believe the autonomy concerns of a vaccination shot are much more important than the autonomy concerns of continuing a pregnancy? So many questions…
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:15 am54… agreed! I watched Carlson’s interview with Orban and he came across as a reasonable man. As he’d mentioned, the countries that had been under Soviet domination have an approach to border security and governance that differs from the leftist EU norms.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:18 am54/56-
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:22 amNot a surprise from either of you.
@29 It does have something for both sides–a variety of states where it is and isn’t legal.
One side has it all their way now, but tenuously. Giving them less, also tenuously, isn’t very attractive.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:27 amIt’s so hot in Chicago, it almost feels like June.
It’s so hot in San Francisco, it almost feels like summer.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:28 amGod has spoken
mg (8cbc69) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:29 amRip,
it doesn’t surprise me that you’d speak out against those that suffered under Soviet socialism.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:32 am@37:
While a religion might demand that the mother be willing to die to save her child, the law cannot, nor can it force those in attendance to make that choice for her.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:34 amBecause if it’s murder at the national level, it’s murder at the state level too.
If murder is a legal term, it’s not that anywhere, at any time, for any reason now.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:37 amFOR THE FBI, A SHAMEFUL ANNIVERSARY.
Five years ago, on July 31, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened Crossfire Hurricane, its investigation of the presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump. Some parts of the bureau had been looking into allegations of collusion between the campaign and Russia even before the investigation began. But on July 31, the FBI started the process that led to a million leaks, enormous damage to candidate Trump, and then President-elect Trump, and then President Trump, the abuse of the government’s secret surveillance court to wiretap a low-level Trump adviser, efforts to impeach the president, more leaks, media hysteria, and, finally, the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller, who could not establish that collusion — he called it “conspiracy” or “coordination” — ever took place, much less that Trump or anyone associated with him was involved with it.
It was a multi-year wild goose chase. And it did incalculable damage to the country. Certainly, some portion of the distrust of the FBI that exists today is the direct result of the bureau’s fruitless pursuit of Trump.
But you say: What about all those convictions and guilty pleas Mueller won? Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos, Stone, and more. Remember: Those were mostly crimes of personal corruption, such as tax evasion, or process crimes, such as lying to investigators. Mueller never charged anyone with playing any role in any Trump-Russia plot because he could never establish that any such plot existed.
For that, the FBI sacrificed its standards and reputation. It did appalling things. One of the worst examples: In the fall of 2016, it hired Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the sensational and false dossier on Trump. Steele had, of course, been commissioned and paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. But then the FBI hired him to continue his partisan, anti-Trump digging for the U.S. government. For anyone concerned about the ethics of law enforcement, it was an astonishing moment. As it turned out, the FBI had to back out of the deal when it became clear Steele was talking to the press in a desperate attempt to publicize his false charges before the election. But then the FBI established a back channel to Steele and kept using his material anyway.
The top FBI officials involved in the anti-Trump effort showed inexcusable bias. In August 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, the leader of Crossfire Hurricane, FBI official Peter Strzok, was texting with the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair, fellow FBI official Lisa Page. Page texted to Strzok, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right?” Strzok responded, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” Strzok later testified, under oath, that he could not remember saying that. No recollection at all. But no matter. The inspector general of the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, concluded that the text messages between Strzok and Page “raised serious questions about the propriety of any investigative decisions in which Strzok and Page played a role.” Indeed, they did.
In January 2017, the FBI’s actions led to one of the most atrocious scenes in recent political history, or perhaps all political history. The nation’s top intelligence chiefs, including FBI Director James Comey, went to Trump Tower to brief President-elect Trump on the results of what was known as the Intelligence Community Assessment, that is, the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. As the briefing ended, Comey asked to speak to Trump alone.
When it was just the two of them, Comey relayed to Trump the most salacious, destructive, and ridiculous story in the Steele dossier: The allegation that, in 2013, Russian intelligence recorded a video of Trump in a hotel room watching prostitutes perform a “golden showers” routine on a bed that had once been slept in by President Barack Obama. The person who fed Steele the story later said he thought it was a joke, the kind of thing people talk about in bars. But Comey, and other top intelligence officials, took it seriously, even though, at that very moment, FBI experts were failing in efforts to verify the dossier. No mind: Comey confronted Trump with it anyway.
Trump, taken aback, denied that it had ever happened. Finishing the meeting, Comey raced downstairs to a waiting FBI car, where he wrote down his version of the conversation as he traveled across town to report what he had learned to other members of the Crossfire Hurricane team. Within days, the story was leaked to the media, which reacted with a fit of hysteria, and the entire dossier was published on the internet. The Trump presidency, which had not even begun yet, suffered irreparable damage. And it went on and on.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-for-the-fbi-a-shameful-anniversary
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:38 amGreene also said that President Joe Biden would be sending “one of his police state friends” to knock on Alabamians’ doors and ask about their COVID-19 vaccination status, saying that because of Alabama’s love of the Second Amendment, “they might not like the welcome they get.”
Is this incitement? She must know that there are some in the crowd who would act on it. They did in 1964 when some civil rights advocates came around.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:42 amrip snort or buck snort
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:45 amit is all just wind in sails
monkeys on parade
@52: Any supporter of Donald Trump must favor other sexual predators.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:46 amGod has spoken
But everyone hears it differently.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:48 amAs an American, I have seen how the madness of gender studies has migrated in the blink of an eye from a once-fringe academic discipline to a commanding ideology of the Western ruling class and its institutions. Along with critical race theory, gender ideology is tearing American apart. To dissent from gender ideology in any way — even, as J.K. Rowling did, as a left-wing feminist — is to risk your career. Academic freedom is an important liberal value, but it cannot be society’s suicide note.
In late spring, I spoke with Peter Kreko, a widely admired Budapest professor who is a well-known liberal critic of the Orbán government. He told me that he strongly opposes the government’s policies against gay marriage and gay adoption, but added, mildly, that ‘I don’t follow the logic’ of transgenderism. Later in our interview, he conceded that for all his criticism of Orbán and Fidesz, he can say whatever he likes in his classroom without fear of retribution.
I pointed out to him that in many American universities, he could not say what he had earlier in our talk — that he strongly supported gay rights, but was slightly uncertain about the trans phenomenon — without facing swift denunciation from his students, and pressure to resign. The college administration probably would not stand by his right to academic freedom, and would find some reason to cut him loose. His reputation as a bigot secured, he would never work in academia again.
None of this would come from the state. It would all come from the militant, illiberal ideology that has seized control of American academia. So who is more free to speak his mind: a professor in Orbán’s Hungary, or a professor in the US?
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/viktor-orban-winning-culture-war-hungary/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:58 amOne of the rising stars in Democrat Arizona just brought up on charges involving underage children.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:16 amHow did that go unnoticed by our local newsman!?!?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:18 amRip,
it doesn’t surprise me that you’d speak out against those that suffered under Soviet socialism.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:32 am
I have complete sympathy and admiration for those who suffered and survived Communism. However, Orban’s illiberal policies are not in the Western democratic tradition, unless press censorship, jailing of political opponents, having the judiciary answer to political parties (in Hungary, Fidesz), are hallmarks of democracy.
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:21 amHaiku, your article continues to blur history and ignores why exactly Trump was a huge security liability….that at minimum begged investigation….but should have initiated immediate rejection by normally conservative, cautious, and risk-averse Republicans.
So even though no evidence of direct Russian conspiracy surfaced (more a confederacy of dunces too dumb to collude), Trump was still found to be badly compromised. This included his questionable business dealings, the hush money paid on his behalf to silence women, shady transactions at his charity and, most importantly, “his lies about his Russia dealings,” including his secret 2015 effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow even as he told the world that he had no business with Russia. Add in Manafort’s shady Ukraine dealings, Trump’s persistent fluffing of Putin during the campaign, the fact that team Trump was dutifully looking into getting dirt on Hillary from Russian operatives, and finally the firing of Comey over that “Russian thing”….and the notion that everything was a witch hunt becomes quite absurd…..and a weird sort of paranoid propaganda.
Putin knew Trump had lied about Trump Tower….and Trump knew that Putin knew…..that’s called leverage by one of our greatest adversaries over the President of the United States….and all Haiku wants to talk about are Golden Showers. SMDH. Muller’s investigation ended up weak-kneed, not because it was a baseless witch hunt, but because it failed to thoroughly investigate the counter-intelligence questions…specifically did Trump borrow money from Russian Oligarchs….and were there financial irregularities that made Trump subject to blackmail. Most mistakenly assumed this was going on.
Finally we get this theater of the absurd…that these echelon FBI figures, some highly decorated, were trying desperately to take down Trump by all means necessary….yet they didn’t leak the fact that the FBI was investigating through much of the 2016 election whether Trump and his aides were under the sway of a foreign adversary. To be a Republican these days, you truly do need to shed all common sense….
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:23 amhttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/6/tony-navarrete-arizona-democrat-arrested-accused-o/
For those who want to know who was arrested. It’s worse when you read his background and who with whom he was affiliated.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:26 amFor those who want to know who was arrested. It’s worse when you read his background and
whowith whom he was affiliated.NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:26 am
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:28 amRecall leaders sue to stop Newsom from calling them Republicans, Trump supporters
……..
The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, said state election law bars ballot arguments in the voter information pamphlet that are false and misleading. The recall campaign said many of its supporters are not Republican and nearly half the candidates who want to replace Newsom are not Republicans.
“This case is purely about making sure the taxpayer-paid voter information guide contains the truth,” said Eric P. Early, the lead lawyer for the recall campaign and a declared Republican candidate for state attorney general in the 2022 election.
……..
The suit said 24 of the candidates who want to replace Newsom are Republican, 10 have no party preference, nine are Democrats, one is a Libertarian and two are members of the Green Party. The named individual plaintiffs in the suit are recall leaders Orrin E. Healie and Mike Netter.
……..
UC Davis law professor Christopher S. Elmendorf said he would be “shocked” if the suit succeeded.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled that the 1st Amendment generally disallows any state effort to regulate ‘truth’ or` “falsity’ in campaign speech,” he said. “The forum provided to Newsom in the voter guide is a forum to which the 1st Amendment applies.”
………
This just shows how toxic the Trumplican brand is in California.
UPDATE:
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:32 amTo be a Republican these days, you truly do need to shed all common sense….
You gave us Biden. You can take it good and hard.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:33 amIn other Grifter News, it appears the North American Man Boy Lincoln Association – NAMBLA for short – has shuttered their main office in Park City.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:37 amMore York… “ Now it has been five years. Has anyone learned anything? It’s hard to say. The FBI spent years stonewalling congressional investigators looking into Crossfire Hurricane. Mueller tried to act as if the Steele dossier never existed. Many Democrats continued to maintain they were right about collusion all along, no matter what Mueller failed to find.
And now, many Republicans, Trump supporters, and some people who are simply fair-minded, are deeply suspicious of the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community. If you want an example of that, just look at their reaction to the Justice Department’s investigation of the Capitol riot and the cases prosecutors have made against more than 500 suspects. It doesn’t take a very long memory to recall the FBI relying on entirely fabricated information in a politically charged investigation. Why trust them now?
That’s the kind of harm the FBI did to itself in the Trump era. It has now been five years since a key date in that self-harm, the founding of Crossfire Hurricane. And it is not clear whether the FBI will ever fully repair its reputation.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:41 amNo. Absolutely not.
This question is worthy of ridicule, regardless of the individual to whom it is addressed; a religious, an agnostic, or an atheist. This is my answer, because I can only imagine the question being entertain by one influenced by an authoritarian, totalitarian spirit.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:43 amDueling headlines:
Biden Administration Planning to Require Foreign Travelers to Be Vaccinated
(Gov. Ron) DeSantis: Requiring foreigners to get vaccinated before they enter the U.S. will do more harm than good
Rip Murdock (959b72) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:43 ambecause I can only imagine the question being entertained by one influenced by an authoritarian, totalitarian spirit.
Well… isn’t that special… I wonder… who could it be? Could it be…SATAN?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:49 amFrom mid July:
Has this been debunked? Sure seems like an important data point.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:49 amHmmm. That wouldn’t post with the link written as a link maybe this will work?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:51 amTo be a Republican these days, you truly do need to shed all common sense….
Shorter: Reaganomics; Reaganoptics; Reaganoptics: Trump is a Reagan Creation.
FIFY.
Glorious.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:09 pmVideo at link:
Seems like a pretty good question.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:11 pmLet me give voice to certain specifics on the following:
Not only do I think that others with a differing perspective, may arrive to a different conclusion from my own, but they in fact, do!
What an absurd idea! But in reality, isn’t this what every litigant seeks when suing another party for satisfaction? To legally compel another’s action? Isn’t this very question to be decided in court, by others, not the suing party? Do you really think a dictator (dictates) is a champion of the law?
Yes, so many questions about the words you use to load your questions to me.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:11 pmHAHAHA! Thanks for Dana Carvey flashback, Colonel! Come to think of it Didn’t Dana do a great Biden?
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:20 pmback at Jim Miller 6
Thomas Arvo Wiita (7d252b) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:22 pmComparing Vermont and South Dakota could only be done by someone who isn’t familiar with S. Dakota, in particular to say the two states are both “mostly white.”
Vermont non-white percent of population: 6%
S. Dakota: 16%
Rates of non-vaccination, severity of illness, death rates from illness all related to covid are all much worse with non-white individuals, including Native American non-white individuals who make up a lot of the 16% in S. Dakota.
88… yes, Carvey does many great impressions of people, Biden included. What a funny man he is, felipe!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:35 pmPeople who admire Orban and say we’re being unfair to Putin use “liberalism” as a blanket term of disparagement, and they don’t just mean the (often illiberal) leftist ideology that led to Woke attacks on freedom of speech. Sometimes they also mean the whole Enlightenment tradition and classical liberalism, regarding them as solvents of a supposedly “natural” order based on a holistic paradigm of human society in which everyone is united under the same religion, favored (if not actually imposed) by the state, and nobody questions ancient tradition. Putin promotes the Russian Orthodox Church, which seems to excuse the assassination of critics and opponents.
People in the New Right today will complain bitterly about restrictions on their freedoms — including mask mandates and vaccine requirements and the oppressive laws against fighting your way past a police line and breaking into the Capitol to intimidate legislators into overturning an election — but then turn around and suggest that we need our own Caesar or Salazar because the electorate makes the wrong choice too often. I’ve seen slyly approving references to the Neo-Tory critique of democracy per se in the early 20th century, because it lets the wrong sort of people gain power. Some New Rightists would evidently prefer a monarch or dictator who agrees with them and rules the country like a stern but loving father. They’re the mirror image of the leftists who have glorified communist dictatorships for so long.
I’ve seen rightists lament the fact that our Constitution allows people to choose their own religion or none, and some fanciful imaginings about how harmonious and healthy and vibrant societies were when everyone was “unified” in religion. How religious unity could be achieved in America today is mostly left unsaid, but the integralists apparently aren’t leaving coercion off the table.
Radegunda (8af762) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:35 pmI see your straw men!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:37 pmHas anyone here written that “we’re being unfair to Putin”? NeverTrumpenistas, leftists and their grifter associates are being unfair to Americans. Putin can go pound sand with all of them.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:42 pmGood comment, Thomas. If one ignores the contribution by illegals, crossing the border, to rises in the virus rates in Texas, the already sizable percentage of people of color in the Lone-star state may explain its total number of cases and the status it confers.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:43 pmHaiku: “You gave us Biden. You can take it good and hard.”
I didn’t give you anything. You chose to ride a twice-impeached candidate with stratospherically high negatives….who came across as incompetent during the pandemic. And as it looks, you want to ride that horse yet again. There’s just no learnin’ some people….
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:58 pm“Which brings us to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. It is quite sensible that Tucker Carlson and other conservatives would want to figure out what the leader of this small, relatively poor Central European country has done to hold off those like George Soros and the woke leadership of the European Union, to defend his country and its sovereignty. With our own conservative establishment either neutered or sidelined by pointless lib-owning enthusiasms, thinkers of the American Right who actually care about saving our civilization ought to be coming to Hungary and Poland to study these places, and to make common cause with these people. They could use our solidarity — and we can certainly use theirs.”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/tucker-to-hungary-nixon-to-china/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 12:59 pm@96. Except you did.
You chose to ride a twice-impeached candidate with stratospherically high negatives….who came across as incompetent during the pandemic.
Trump is a Reagan Creation. Three decades of cheapening ‘impeachment’ into a carnival side-show; just another example of morality as a transient.
Reaganoptics.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:07 pmYes, I agree the that the law does not make “choices” for anyone, on any pareticular quiestion, but it certainly takes sides with someone’s choice. Remember Terri Schiavo? The law (congress and the courts) was involved.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:08 pmUgh, failure to correct misspellings.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:09 pm#89 You may wish to consult a dictionary for the definition of “mostly”.
It is true, of course, that there are difference between the two states. But there are enough similarities to make comparisons of policy choices reasonable — unless of course you are one of those people who believe that any criticism of Trumpista policy choices is sacrilege.
Moreover, some of the differences between the two states are to South Dakota’s advantage in fighting COVID. It should be obvious that South Dakotans have more space per person. It is less obvious, but South Dakota was hit by the virus about a month later than Vermont, giving the government in South Dakota more time to prepare. (Vermont borders on two states that were early epicenters, New York and Massachusetts.)
But, if you want a different comparison, try South Dakota’s neighbor, Montana, which has a large Native American population, but a significantly lower deaths per million from COVID (1611).
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:14 pm@91. Or see commies on SCOTUS or under your bed… and fear the fluoridation of drinking water.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:17 pm50 years ago today: August 7,1971–when America truly, truly was great- and didn’t need a red ht or lie about driving 18 wheelers to show it :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn6Rv80VfBo
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:26 pmSome groups, and even organizations, have found it useful to have “swear boxes”, or “swear jars”.
A similar idea would be useful here: Every time DCSCA repeats one of his stock Reagan phrases, he (she? it?) should contribute to the site.
How much? I’ll leave that to others, but I think it would be sensible to use a sliding scale, with the amount increasing with each infraction.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:26 pmThere are professional reasons why I can’t disclose the exact source of everything there (as some of the specifics are not yet published) — but I have very recently read assertions that Putin is a “bogeyman” because we “misunderstand” his goals, one of which is to restore the Russian Orthodox Church to greatness — whereas our decadent “liberals” are “attacking” religion under the guise of freedom of religion. I have seen very weird claims that “religious solidarity” is a central feature of every successful civilization.
Maybe you haven’t seen published New Right complains about “secularism” or praise of Salazar and suggestions that a new Caesar might be beneficial and a real military coup might be necessary to save our civilization from the ravages of “liberalism,” but they aren’t awfully hard to find.
My comments said nothing about Trump, so it’s pretty funny to see my Wrongthink diagnosed as a symptom of not liking Trump.
Radegunda (8af762) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:30 pmThe Keyboard Gestapo never sleeps, eh DCSCA.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:42 pm@104. Reagan now a cuss word to Righties??
Glorious!
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:42 pmWho was it that openly said he trusted the word of Putin over the American intelligence agencies? Who defended those statements of trust in Putin and distrust of American institutions?
Now that Trump has been brought into the discussion (but not first by myself), I’ll observe that the “intellectual” admirers and defenders of Donald Trump have, to a large extent, taken the position that just about every American institution is corrupt or degraded or “sociopathic,” and that drastic measures are needed to restore the “real” America.
I suspect that many of them realize that Trump lost the election fair and square. As Alyssa Farah said, it was known in the White House because the result was consistent with the Trump campaign’s internal polling. But just as Trump wrote the “fraud” narrative ahead of time to rationalize everything he did after the election, some of the Trumpistas are probably using the “stolen election” conceit to justify a “by any means necessary” approach to winning in politics.
Radegunda (8af762) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:44 pm@106. It’s the New Conservatism, mg.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:47 pm67 – Kevin M. Are you saying that about me?
mg (8cbc69) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:47 pm@101 or you could compare south dakota to just about any other northeastern state
such as massachusetts, connecticut, rhode island, new york, new jersey
all of which have higher per capita covid death rates
but it wouldn’t be a Jim Miller comment without cherry picking
JF (e1156d) — 8/7/2021 @ 1:53 pmAs the Col refers to them DCSCA, Nambla.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:00 pm#111 Maine (670 deaths per million) and New Hampshire (1022 deaths per million) are just as much northeastern states as Vermont.
I see you have been unable to come up with a statistical argument, or even a link to one.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:27 pm#107 You are either unable or unwilling to read carefully. I carefully did not say you should pay for saying “Reagan”; I said you should pay for saying one of your “stock Reagan phrases”.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:31 pmYou could always ignore him, Jim.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:33 pmThere is good news in this table.
And for those interested in our foreign policies, some interesting inclusions and omissions. For instance, the Philippines and Vietnam, which both have disputes with Communist China, are getting large vaccine donations.
(Americans have mostly forgotten that China invaded Vietnam in 1979 — but the Vietnamese haven’t.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:42 pm#115 BuDuh – I mostly do, and sometimes make a point of reading the comments from the bottom for that very purpose — but I think he (she? it?) owes something to Our Gracious Host.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:45 pm@ 96 Haiku: “You gave us Biden. You can take it good and hard.”
Which is more than Melania can claim.
nk (1d9030) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:46 pmThis is definitely limp both in wrist and down there, though:
urbanleftbehind (137910) — 8/7/2021 @ 2:51 pmhttps://news.yahoo.com/california-gop-decides-against-endorsing-201300797.html
Western democratic tradition, unless press censorship, jailing of political opponents, having the judiciary answer to political parties, are hallmarks of democracy.
We do that here, just not often. Some would have us do it more often. Example: calls to pack the Supreme Court, demands on Facebook to censor more. and certain prosecutions (or lack of same) and tax audits.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 3:10 pm67 – Kevin M. Are you saying that about me?
No I’m saying it about the Trump supporter who supports Cuomo.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 3:12 pmYes, I agree the that the law does not make “choices” for anyone, on any particular question, but it certainly takes sides with someone’s choice.
It’s more than that. The law CAN NOT criminalize someone’s choice to live, outside of some military situation.
Remember Terri Schiavo? The law (congress and the courts) was involved.
Schiavo was incapable of choosing, and was clinically incapable of ever choosing ever again. She had no brain function. Dead is dead. The court made the right decision.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 3:16 pm121 – Didn’t know if you wanted to meet.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/7/2021 @ 3:23 pmWhat on earth has gotten into you? I said nothing about criminalization, but your inclusion of the obvious military situation is honest of you.
Can we please remember what you wrote?
The law did not make anyone chose anything. The parties involved in the court matter had already made their own choices, and the courts were enlisted to settle the matter. The point of the Schiavo link was to illustrate this and to support my statement about the law deciding the matter in favor of one party over the other (taking a side, if you will). How the courts came to their decision (right or wrong in your opinion or mine) is not about* consciousness of even competence of the patient. The point was that the law does decide whose choice is respected.
I prefer not to deal with anyone’s baggage, thank you very much.
* the debate between right-to-live advocates vs right-to-die advocates.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 4:11 pmI said:
While a religion might demand that the mother be willing to die to save her child, the law cannot, nor can it force those in attendance to make that choice for her.
Two statements. The first says “the law cannot demand” which means that if she does not do it, sanctions will be applied by the state. And similarly, those in attendance cannot force her choice either.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 4:41 pmNow, God may have some sanctions to apply, but that depends greatly on things beyond the power of Man or the State.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 4:42 pmIt’s so hot that Cuomo sits on his hot seat to cool down.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/7/2021 @ 4:50 pm@114. “You are either unable or unwilling to read carefully. I carefully did not say you should pay for saying “Reagan”; I said you should pay for saying one of your “stock Reagan phrases”.”
Hmmmm. Which somehow have the term ‘Reagan’ in them.
Perhaps it is you who should get your vision checked-[avalable under Obamacare BTW].
“There you go again.” – stock Reagan phrase sans Reagan.
“Well”… feel better now, Jimbo?! 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 4:52 pm@113 nor have you, jim, but i was never waiting for it
but per your request, here’s the stats and link
south dakota seems like a most mild mannered state, jim, but you certainly have it in for them
JF (e1156d) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:01 pmFor Jimbo:
“It’s so hot in Southern California, Stalin told Reagan at lunch he can’t tell if they’re in Heaven or Hell.”
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:01 pm@115, good advice BuDug
Time123 (9f42ee) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:03 pm#129 I want all Americans to be protected against a deadly pandemic. I think all states deserve governors who will do that, rather than put their political ambitions ahead of the safety of their citizens.
Among others, Andrew Cuomo, Kristi Noem, and Ron DeSantis do not pass that basic test. It is because I wish most New Yorkers, almost all South Dakotans, and most Floridians well that I wish they had better governors.
We have lost far too many people because ambitious politicians followed the leads of corrupt New Yorkers like Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:13 pmKM@120-
We do that here, just not often. Some would have us do it more often. Example: calls to pack the Supreme Court, demands on Facebook to censor more. and certain prosecutions (or lack of same) and tax audits.
Tour response is pretty weak tea. Calls to do “something” is not same as government control. Political debate about the number of members of the SC is not the same as a government coercion of court decisions and whether Facebook should censor more or less have no legal consequences. No one in the US is in prison for their political viewpoint or activities, the 1/6 trespassers beliefs notwithstanding. And their is no evidence that court rulings are the result of government coercion. All of which occurs in Hungary.
Rip Murdock (3d4257) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:23 pm#132 sure, jim, i believe that
really
you’ll call out a perv democrat who’s half way out the door
and blame desantis when florida isn’t even in the worst 25 based on the metric you chose
and we’re blaming governors now only cuz a democrat is president
JF (e1156d) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:28 pmKeeping the lower orders placid and productive has never been an easy task for any ruler and given how many of them there are these days ….
nk (1d9030) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:30 pmKevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 4:41 pm
Let me get this straight. We agree that you wrote:
First, let me get this out of the way. If the religion is Christianity, then you have it wrong; Christianity says (not demands) that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another (one’s friend). A willingness to die for another is a sign of the greatest love, and worthy of one’s free choice to make, but nowhere is it demanded or even recommended.
Now let me show you what I understand your statement to say:
Now what do you mean by:
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:45 pmI completely agree with you. This is nice.
felipe (484255) — 8/7/2021 @ 5:47 pmThere will be a reckoning… https://youtu.be/jifaNxq7IG8
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:30 pmI know that some people are absolute on this issue (on both sides), but I don’t get as bothered by the termination of a pregnancy the day after conception as I do one at eight months.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:39 pm@115/@131. ROFLMAO. Exactly what 15 weenies did when the Trump steak – albeit a fatty one- was tossed on the grill.
Glorious.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:41 pmJihadists flood pro-Trump social network with propaganda
Just weeks after its launch, the pro-Trump social network GETTR is inundated with terrorist propaganda spread by supporters of Islamic State, according to a POLITICO review of online activity on the fledgling platform.
The social network — started a month ago by members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle — features reams of jihadi-related material, including graphic videos of beheadings, viral memes that promote violence against the West and even memes of a militant executing Trump in an orange jumpsuit similar to those used in Guantanamo Bay.
The rapid proliferation of such material is placing GETTR in the awkward position of providing a safe haven for jihadi extremists online as it attempts to establish itself as a free speech MAGA-alternative to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Rip Murdock (3d4257) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:42 pm……..
…….. POLITICO found at least 250 accounts that had posted regularly on the platform since early July. Many followed each other, and used hashtags to promote the jihadi material to this burgeoning online community.
……..
…….. The social network has touted a “free speech” policy that, purportedly, would allow users to fully express themselves without the censorship of tech giants.
………
……… Days after GETTR was launched on July 1, Islamic State supporters began urging their followers on other social networks to sign up to the pro-Trump network, in part to take the jihadi fight directly to MAGA nation.
……….
……..,.[T]he fact that such jihadi material was readily available on the social network, and GETTR’s failure to clamp down on such extremism, underlined the difficulties that the company faces in balancing its free speech ethos with growing demands to stop terrorist-related material from finding an audience online.
………
@141 “Free speech” websites are akin to public toilets. They are places where people’s worst behavior comes out.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:52 pm@141 yeah rip, if only GETTR could purge jihadi content like FB has
https://in.news.yahoo.com/nia-takes-over-case-propagation-142527174.html
whoops
let’s hope they at least get a handle on racist covid lab leak conspiracy theory disinformation
JF (e1156d) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:55 pmCuomo did it; Packwood did it; Ailes did it; O’Reilly did it; Kavanaugh did it; Andrew Napolitano did it; Matt Lauer did it; Ed Henry did it; Letterman did it; Clinton did it; Franken did it; Spacey did it; Hoffman did it; Moonves did it; Weinstein did it; Bolling did it; Charlie Rose did it; Cosby did it… what-the-hell: O.J. did it.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:55 pm“Free speech” websites are akin to public toilets. They are places where people’s worst behavior comes out.
Among other things. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 6:57 pm@141-
Rip Murdock (3d4257) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:01 pmWhat does an Indian investigative agency have to go with anything here?
Tour response is pretty weak tea.
Hey, I’m not defending anyone, just saying that your paean to the glories of western democracy rings a little hollow these days.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:07 pmWhile a religion might demand that the mother be willing to die to save her child
Well, actually Catholicism sometimes gets close to that, such as in the excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride. In the end the excommunication was reversed, but she (and everyone else) chose to save a dying woman at the price of her 11-week fetus.
But that was exactly what the Bishop was demanding.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:13 pmIMHO, that Bishop is evil.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:14 pmKavanaugh did it;
Never mind it was a baseless claim for political reasons. Conflating his case with ones with proof is beneath you.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:16 pmI know that some people are absolute on this issue (on both sides), but I don’t get as bothered by the termination of a pregnancy the day after conception as I do one at eight months.
When you consider that every woman born after about 1940 has had the option of elective abortion at some point during her child-bearing years, it is absurd to think this genie is going back into the bottle unless women demand it. I don’t see that happening.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:19 pmUSA Basketball faced a lot of questions at these Olympics. Its answer? Kevin Durant.
……….
Durant should be viewed as an American hoops hero. His talent for basketball is obvious and overwhelming. But his commitment to playing in the Olympics is more important than his abilities. He is here because he cares. For him, this is not a burden. It is an opportunity.
………
“It brings me a lot of joy,” Durant said Saturday. “I really enjoy it.”
When gold medals are expected — as they are with USA Basketball — joy can be drowned by expectation. Appreciation is fleeting. Yet watch Durant on Saturday — draping himself in an American flag after the United States’ 87-82 victory over France in the gold medal game of the Tokyo Olympics — and the smile is telling. Others stayed home? Fine. Don’t tell me they’re not missing out.
………
….. … What should be unquestioned is that his legacy is enhanced — significantly — by the golds he has in three Olympics. Only Carmelo Anthony can say the same.
……….
Among those not draped in an American flag Saturday at Saitama Super Arena: Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Kyrie Irving and James Harden. Each can and does have a different reason for not committing to the Tokyo Games, and — particularly in the midst of a pandemic — this isn’t a criticism of any of them. But it is a homage to Durant, who not only sacrificed selflessly on the court en route to gold. He sacrificed selflessly to commit to the program again.
……….
………. In the gold medal game in 2012 in London, he scored 30 points and the United States beat Spain by seven. In the gold medal game in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, he scored 30 and the United States beat Serbia by 30. In the gold medal game Saturday, he scored 29 — 21 in the first half — and the United States won by five.
………
………Durant’s performance Saturday — and really, since that first game — featured every offensive skill a player can have. He dunked. He hit three threes. He pulled up off the dribble to float in elbow jumpers. He cut to the back door. He threw backdoor passes. He led the break. He got out on the wing and ran. He is five players in one.
“He’s the most skilled basketball player ever, and I mean it,” said U.S. assistant Steve Kerr, who coached Durant to those two titles with Golden State. “There’s nobody who’s his size — 6-11 — who combines shooting and ballhandling skills and athleticism. We’ve never seen it before. This tournament was a perfect example of why you need the best players to win it, to win championships. Kevin was the best player in the tournament.”
Rip Murdock (3d4257) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:26 pm……….
Durant was the straw that stirred the drink. The team’s appreciation representing America at the Olympics was palpable. And nary a knee or protest during the whole tournament.
You missed the saltier understory:
urbanleftbehind (7738d0) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:36 pmhttps://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/kevin-durant-draymond-green-kendrick-perkins-team-usa/1ngyw49onkwft1ej7j4ghvj69l
There’s an Olympics?
nk (1d9030) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:44 pmDon’t Want a Vaccine? Be Prepared to Pay More for Insurance
……..
…….. Get a Covid-19 shot to protect your wallet.
Getting hospitalized with Covid-19 in the United States typically generates huge bills. Those submitted by Covid patients to the NPR-Kaiser Health News Bill of the Month project include a $17,000 bill for a brief hospital stay in Marietta, Ga. (reduced to about $4,000 for an uninsured patient under a charity-care policy); a $104,000 bill for a 14-day hospitalization in Miami for an uninsured person; possibly hundreds of thousands for a two-week hospital stay — some of it on a ventilator — for a foreign tourist in Hawaii whose travel health insurance contained a pandemic exclusion.
Even though insurance companies negotiate lower prices and cover much of the cost of care, a more than $1,000 out-of-pocket bill for a deductible — plus more for copays and possibly some out-of-network care — should be a pretty scary incentive.
In 2020, before there were Covid-19 vaccines, most major private insurers waived patient payments — from coinsurance to deductibles — for Covid treatment. But many, if not most, have allowed that policy to lapse. Aetna, for example, ended that policy on Feb. 28; UnitedHealthcare began rolling back its waivers late last year and discontinued them by the end of March.
……..
…….. [There’s logic behind insurers’ waiver rollback: Why should patients be kept financially unharmed from what is now a preventable hospitalization, thanks to a vaccine that the government paid for and made available for free?
……..
The Affordable Care Act allows insurers to charge smokers up to 50 percent more than what nonsmokers pay for some types of health plans. Four-fifths of states follow that protocol, though most employer-based plans do not do so. In 49 states, people who are caught driving without auto insurance face fines, confiscation of their car, loss of their license and even jail. And reckless drivers pay more for insurance.
The logic behind the policies is that the offenders’ behavior can hurt others and costs society a lot of money. If people decide not to get vaccinated and contract bad cases of Covid, they are not only exposing others in their workplace or neighborhoods; the tens or hundreds of thousands spent on their care could mean higher premiums for others as well in their insurance plans next year. What’s more, outbreaks in low-vaccination regions could help breed more vaccine-resistant variants that affect everyone.
Rip Murdock (3d4257) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:48 pm………
……..[W]hat if the financial cost of not getting vaccinated were just too high? If patients thought about the price they might need to pay for their own care, maybe they would reconsider remaining unprotected.
>>>>>>>>>>
The ideologically unvaccinated want to have their cake (insured health care) and eat it too (remaining unvaccinated).
12. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:00 pm
I think what they are saying in Florida is: “I will not allow others to force other people to protect themselves or other people.”
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:54 pmThis is the explanation of Joe Biden saying 350 million Americans have been vaccinated. That is the number of shots that have been administered. Of course, many got two. The total number of different people vaccinated is 191 million. (actually somewhat less, since some got a 3rd shot by not telling the people giving the shots that they’d been vaccinated)
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:58 pm@155 I’ve been saying this for quite a while now. Nothing is as easy as spending other people’s money. Make them pay for the consequence of refusing the vaccine, and watch how fast they change their tune.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/7/2021 @ 7:59 pm@150. Pfffft. ROFLMAO Ignoring his own boozy scribbings is beneath you. Like ignoring the Big Dick’s own words on his tapes, Kev.
He did it. Get over it. Karma gets ’em all one way or the other in the end.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:08 pmThomas did it, too.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:09 pmIMHO, that Bishop is evil.
A celibate and a monastic in disagreement over childbearing and childbirth is one of the “Πολλά τα δεινά κουδέν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει”, the simultaneously wondrous and terrible things humans are, that Sophocles meant in Antigone, I think.
nk (1d9030) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:11 pm@159 So what if he did? They were both under 18 and at a drinking party. It would be more surprising if nobody got wild.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:12 pm“I will not allow others to force other people to protect themselves or other people.”
Next up, bars prevented from stopping service to the obviously drunk, or preventing them from driving.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:46 pmLike ignoring the Big Dick’s own words on his tapes, Kev.
Oh, I don’t. Dick Nixon was very flawed. But he STILL stood head and shoulders above incompetents like Carter and Trump in foreign policy. It was his plan that won the Cold War, starting with prying China away from the USSR.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:49 pmRip–
The feds have been attempting to coerce health providers to treat Covid cases at a discount or free. Those “charity-case” discounts you mention are part of it. Government-run hospitals especially, who all have to take Medicaid “payments” in return for equal service. There’s a reason those rack rates are so high.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:52 pmThis is the tortured explanation of Joe Biden saying 350 million Americans have been vaccinated.
FIFY. I made the same comment yesterday, but it remains a weak defense of our innumerate president.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 8:53 pmIf God told Trump to endorse Tshibaka before Palin got into the race, then that is her word from God.
Link as per your demand http://www.God.com. Good luck deciphering it
steveg (ebe7c1) — 8/7/2021 @ 9:35 pmhttps://thenationalpulse.com/analysis/politicos-gettr-hit-piece-was-covertly-funded-by-big-tech-giants/
In short, POLITICO failed to disclose that the primary detractor in their story is funded by GETTR’s competitors in the tech and social media marketplace.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:00 pmYou’ll get what you wish since the left tucked a precursor to a mileage tax as well as a breathalyzer starter component into every new car in their “infrastructure” bill.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:02 pmSo Obama had hundreds of guests and no masks for them at his birthday bash.
I’ll start taking the panic seriously when our “rulers” start imposing upon themselves the same laws they wish to impose upon us.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:06 pmhttps://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1424170738060300289
Antifa attacks a Christian prayer group. Destroys the prayer groups equipment and attacks the prayer group with mace and weapons. Police were called but never showed up.
Antifa runs Portland and is the left’s violent brownshirts.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:11 pm@171 Antifa and the capitol stormers are on either side of the same stupid coin.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:17 pmNorcal,
yet the media calls one group traitors and focuses on the need to prosecute them while they completely ignore and absolve the other’s atrocities.
So come again…
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/7/2021 @ 10:24 pmGood point, Rob.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:09 pmFun claim: The eviction order violates the Third Amendment.
https://reason.com/volokh/2021/08/06/the-third-amendment-lawyers-association-thala-opposes-eviction-moratorium/
Volokh is skeptical.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:19 pmbreathalyzer starter component into every new car in their “infrastructure” bill.
70’s redux. I remember seatbelt interlocks (and when that didn’t work, automatic seatbelts). Not to mention the buzzer that went off when you exceeded 55MPH.
I can just imagine what the rental car companies will say about their renters having to put their mouth on a breathalyzer.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:24 pmWhat people did in the 70’s was either disable the things, or with the automatic seatbelts, not buy a car that year. I guess they could tax you for not buying a car.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:25 pmAlthough, Rob, I’m not sure what you are saying. Do you think that a bar should give the obviously drunk “one for the road”? Currently, bars are liable for serving the very drunk, and in some cases have been held liable for patrons who leave and then drive drunk.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:27 pmBack in 2010, Palin anointed Joe Miller as a challenger to Murkowski. Joe won the GOP primary. Murkowski ran a write-in campaign in a 3-way race, and beat both Joe and the Democrat.
So, good luck with that.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/7/2021 @ 11:31 pm“Antifa attacks a Christian prayer group. Destroys the prayer groups equipment and attacks the prayer group with mace and weapons. Police were called but never showed up.”
As is usual for Ngo, he omits part of the story. Specifically that the Proud Boys were also present, hired as security. The pastor in charge of the event, Artur Pawlowski, was obviously looking for a fight, perhaps to fundraise off of, or to distract from his legal troubles back in Canada.
https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/517933-413825-proud-boys-antifa-clash-at-rally-in-downtown-portland
“Antifa runs Portland and is the left’s violent brownshirts.”
Who on the left is giving orders to antifa, Rob?
Davethulhu (aa6793) — 8/8/2021 @ 12:39 amhttps://pjmedia.com/columns/mark-ellis/2021/08/06/are-michael-wolffs-troubling-revelations-about-fox-news-and-the-rnc-true-n1467685
mg (8cbc69) — 8/8/2021 @ 2:50 amAny nitwit could see that fox and the rnc have been deplorable for years.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/maskless_in_washington.html
mg (8cbc69) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:04 amRead it and weep.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/06/americas-generals-lied-lost-wars-and-looted-the-people-they-pledged-to-serve/
mg (8cbc69) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:19 amI know a few Captains and a master sergeant who will concur.
@166. He’s an idiot. And a bum.
______
@154.There’s an Olympics?
Not after tonight. “Closing time” at all Tokyo High Bars.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:36 amKevin,
I’m talking about the camel’s nose in the tent.
If someone is obviously intoxicated and they are served that’s one thing. If someone blows a .09 that’s another.
Let me know when they hold pot establishments liable for DUI’s.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/8/2021 @ 6:04 amhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-mandate-natural-immunity-lawsuit-covid-19-coronavirus-11628281507?st=7ihb8k2eglrvpqx&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/8/2021 @ 6:11 amhttps://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/08/05/cdc-eviction-moratorium-has-no-binding-authority-hamilton-county/5504793001/
The CDC broke the law.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/8/2021 @ 6:18 amDemocracies win at the Olympics! We should all be delighted by the American team’s victory at the Olympics, winning both the most medals overall, and the most gold medals.
But there is another, larger reason to celebrate. Our democratic friends and allies did very well, too. The Chinese Communist dictatorship came in second and the Russian autocracy came in third. But the next seven in total medal counts are: Britain, Japan, Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. And both Britain and Japan won more gold medals than Russia, 27 and 22, respectively, to 20.
The democratic pattern continues as you look further down in the medal counts. The next outright dictatorship is Cuba at 18th, and so on.
One of the oldest and smallest democracies, San Marino, won three medals, one silver and two bronze.
“Emperor” Xi and “Czar” Putin will not be pleased with these examples of democratic success.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/8/2021 @ 6:41 am24. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:43 pm
You;re wrong. It wouldn’t stop there if that happens, and there is a high probability Israel will act before Iran actually gets the bomb.
If it drops one on Israel, 2 billion or more lives could be at stake. If Israel responds in kind, it will get condemned by the United Nations. And the result will not just be anti-Semitic riots in many parts of the world, But China feeling emboldened to use an atomic bomb on Taiwan – and there’s no clear end to the escalation.
And if it doesn’t drop a bomb, then too, the theory of nuclear deterrence will be exploded (unless the government of Iran surrenders fast and/or is decapitated) and China may feel emboldened to use an atomic bomb on Taiwan – and other places later,
Taiwan first because a lot of the world does no regard it as an independent state. And what about Pakistan? And India?
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 7:07 amAnd in celebrating our Olympic wins, we should pay attention, Marc Thiessen says, to athletes like this daughter of an immigrant:
And we should all be delighted to have such an enthusiastic representative.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/8/2021 @ 7:13 amHighly Vaccinated States Keep Worst Covid-19 Outcomes in Check as Delta Spreads, WSJ Analysis Shows
………
A Wall Street Journal analysis shows sharp geographic divides in vaccination and hospitalization levels, with every state that has an above-average vaccine rate showing below-average hospitalizations, including in well-vaccinated New England. In the South, meanwhile, fewer people are vaccinated on average and hospitalization rates are climbing faster.
………
During the Delta surge, however, younger people who aren’t as thoroughly vaccinated are flooding into hospitals. In states with more than 25 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents over the past week, hospitalization numbers are at roughly the same levels they were at peaks in January, but ages are different.
“What the data tell me is even if I were 22 years old, I’d be scared if I wasn’t vaccinated,” said Philip Landrigan, an epidemiologist who directs the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. ……
………..
Even though vaccinated people can catch and in some cases spread Covid-19, data suggest vaccines provide protection against infection and transmission. In Santa Clara County, Calif., the recent seven-day average of daily cases among vaccinated people was roughly 6.8 per 100,000 people on Aug. 4; the case rate among the unvaccinated was nearly four times higher.
Data from about half of states on Covid-19 infections among vaccinated people, collected by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that less than 1% of fully vaccinated people have reported experiencing a breakthrough infection in 2021.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 7:58 am………
Loosened restrictions, less mask-wearing, summer travel and people heading inside in the hot-weather South are factors—along with a slowed vaccination push—that made it easier for Delta to spread, epidemiologists say. Prior infections also confer some level of protection against the virus, but health officials and immunologists still recommend vaccines for recovered people to boost their immune responses.
………
Delta’s heightened contagiousness is one reason epidemiologists and health authorities say that so-called herd immunity, or societal protection against the virus, is likely to elude the U.S. They say vaccines still make Covid-19 a less dangerous and more manageable disease for the American public.
………
Team USA’s Tokyo Olympics Medal Tally: Women Soar, Men Sink
………
The U.S. finished the Games with 66 medals in women’s events, the most ever for any nation. Women’s medals made up 58.4% of Team USA’s total of 113 overall, which topped the medal count at the Olympics.
……..
The U.S. women won 23 gold medals to fuel the U.S. gold total of 39—one more than China and the most overall in Tokyo. Much of the world uses the gold-medal ranking as the ultimate measure of Olympic success.
……….
The 41 medals in men’s events was the fewest for Team USA in modern Olympics history, which began in 1896—even though it led all men in the world. The biggest medal drops came in track and field, where the U.S. won six fewer men’s-event medals than at the 2016 Rio Games, and swimming, where the U.S. men won five fewer medals than last time despite Caeleb Dressel alone winning five golds.
……….
The reasons for the U.S. women’s improvement is two-pronged. The federal Title IX law that bars gender discrimination in schools and colleges has driven explosive growth of girls and women’s sports over the past four-plus decades.
And the International Olympic Committee has continued to add women’s events to the Games—the event schedule is now close to 50-50—which creates more opportunities for standout American women to win medals.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 8:08 am……..
In swimming, Team USA’s overall medal count dropped by three from 2016 to 30 but the women’s total increased. U.S. women’s swimmers won 18 medals in Tokyo and men won 12—although eight of them were gold.
………
On the track, the U.S. men failed to win an individual gold medal in a running event, despite winning four such medals two years ago at the world championships. It took until the last night at Olympic Stadium for the U.S. men’s runners to win a gold—running away with the 4×400 relay, a race they have long dominated.
………
Overall, the U.S. track and field team won 26 medals in Tokyo, 10 in men’s events and 15 in women’s events. The U.S. also won bronze in the 4×400 mixed relay, which includes two men and two women.
………
Jim Miller @190-
And she probably wouldn’t have been there without Title IX. From the article posted in #192:
Though I think if girls do want to challenge themselves by competing against boys (in any sport) they should be allowed to do so.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 8:15 am#193 Rip – Two more fun facts about Tamyra Mensah-Stock: She wrestled for a Houston area high school, and then for Wayland Baptist University. As did her husband, Jacob Stock.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/8/2021 @ 9:30 amLet me know when they hold pot establishments liable for DUI’s.
Don’t start me on pot stores. They should be regulated like liquor stores. If I had my way, ONLY specially licensed liquor stores could sell pot and their liquor license would be hostage to good behavior.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 9:36 amIf I had my way, ONLY specially licensed liquor stores could sell pot and their liquor license would be hostage to good behavior.
Here in California marijuana dispensaries are heavily regulated both by the state and counties, to the point that it still encourages an illegal market. In some counties legal marijuana is still banned.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 10:40 amRIP Markie Post (70). Way too young.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 10:44 amOoops.
It wouldn’t stop there if that happens
From Demon by John Varley
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 10:48 amIgnore the comment in moderation. Replaced with one fewer words
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 10:48 amHere in California marijuana dispensaries are heavily regulated both by the state and counties, to the point that it still encourages an illegal market. In some counties legal marijuana is still banned.
Can’t speak to that, since I escaped in 2018. But I remember the “medical” pot stores would pop up illegally near the local college, get closed after several complaints, and then pop up again in the same spot under a new name. Whackamole. I hope they are doing it better this time, because before L.A. had no clue whatsoever.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 10:53 am‘The ideal minimum wage is $0.00.’ Leading candidate to replace Newsom wants no requirement
………
During a wide-spanning interview with McClatchy’s California editorial boards on Tuesday, Elder expounded on his plans for governing California, which he argues are based on “common sense” principles that “Joe and Joan Sixpack” can agree with.
………
“Why two people who are adults can’t determine what the price of labor ought to be, is beyond me, and why a third party feels it is his or her business to interfere with that is also beyond me,” he said.
……..
If he does win, Elder said his first actions will be around homelessness, school choice, and crime.
Elder said he would declare a statewide emergency on homelessness in order to waive the CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which he says will quickly facilitate low-cost housing construction across the state. He would also take action to implement school choice in California, so that state dollars “follow the child rather than the other way around.”
When it comes to rising crime, Elder said he would use the governor’s bully pulpit to address the issue, and criticized some district attorneys for being “soft on crime.” …….
………
During the hour-long interview, Elder also said he has received the COVID-19 vaccine, though he would not mandate it for Californians. He also said he believes in climate change, but is not an “alarmist” like some Democrats, and would like to expand the use of nuclear energy in the state.
If elected, Elder would have less than a year in office before facing reelection and would be battling a supermajority of Democrats in the Legislature.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 11:19 am……….
Given the fact of a very limited tenure in office and a Democratic legislature, Elder’s plans are very ambitious, since many of his ideas would need legislation, or voter approval. Expanding nuclear energy in California is a non-starter, simply because of thousands of earthquake faults.
Larry Elder is an above average radio show host.
steveg (ebe7c1) — 8/8/2021 @ 11:28 amI do not think he can win a regular election, but I wish him good luck at it
Biden supporters plead guilty to hate crime after attacking pro-Trump protesters, stealing MAGA hat from crying child
Biden supporters Camryn Amy and Olivia Winslow pleaded guilty to theft, child endangerment, and hate crimes for attacking pro-Trump protesters and stealing a Make America Great Again hat from a crying child near the Democratic National Convention in Wilmington, Delaware, last year.
In the initial incident, the young pro-Trump family was confronted after leaving a peaceful counter protest and waiting for a table at a nearby restaurant.
The 21-year-olds at the time were identified on camera in the robbery investigations involving the juvenile victim and his pro-Trump mother.
“That’s someone else’s hat!” the 7-year-old boy shouts in the footage as the Democrats retorts with expletives. He pleads for his property back, to which one of the women fires back at the child: “Your mom f—ing likes Trump.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/biden-supporters-plead-guilty-hate-crime-maga-hat-child-attack?utm_campaign=64470
Colonel Haiku (0c588c) — 8/8/2021 @ 12:00 pmMaybe the nuclear power option becomes more practical using the Bill Gates’ funded Small Modular Reactor project (still a few years away)….which is being billed as being pretty safe…..how safe (earth-quake safe?) I haven’t studied…but adding more nuclear into the mix will help California’s challenge of integrating so much solar between 8am and 6pm….otherwise they just can’t get there without a lot of natural gas….or a significant amount of energy storage…..to fill the required power ramp rate.
I like Elder’s focused agenda…..and his climate position is wonderfully pragmatic. The question would be, does it sell to enough Californians? He isn’t an experienced politician…which is both a plus and a minus. Ultimately you have to be able to get things done…..and understand the horse-trade process….and how to avoid planted minefields. You really need to choose competent staff. Can he?
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 8/8/2021 @ 12:04 pmI like Elder’s focused agenda…….
Given the obstacles (short term in office and a Democratic legislature) his plans have no chance of realization. He will need to focus on his election campaign in 2022.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 12:38 pmElder is smart in not appearing to touch a certain third rail, at least in a 14 month (?) first term.
urbanleftbehind (e7d41b) — 8/8/2021 @ 12:46 pmJim Miller, I know you have these numbers from a different source, but here is the link anyway.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/
Florida
Link shows CA is 6 places better than FLA in deaths per 100,000 (difference is roughly 10%)
So FLA possibly traded 1 year of freedom for a 10% higher death rate from covid but that should be offset by less depressive disorder deaths. I don’t know of any website that has better than guesses about those numbers of depressive disorder deaths, so I have no link.
South Dakota
steveg (ebe7c1) — 8/8/2021 @ 12:48 pmHere is a link to the Indian Health Services (Federal Government)
https://www.ihs.gov/coronavirus/
I don’t know if it is fair to compare SD and Montana without noting that although they are adjacent states, they are not in the same IHS area. Montana is in the Billings area and SD is in the Great Plains area. Also SD is in the Great Plains area of the BIA (Federal Government) while Billings is in the Rocky Mountain area.
SD is Very heavy on Sioux
Rockies Region is Crow, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Chippewa
South Dakota
https://doh.sd.gov/COVID/Dashboard.aspx?
2050 deaths
Age
80+ 1087 out of 5278 cases
70-79 477 out of 7359 cases
SD daily deaths 1
MT daily deaths 2.3
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/us-coronavirus-deaths-by-state-july-1.html
steveg (ebe7c1) — 8/8/2021 @ 1:03 pmBiden administration considers withholding funds and other measures to spur vaccinations
……
The effort could apply to institutions as varied as long-term-care facilities, cruise ships and universities, potentially impacting millions of Americans, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.
……..
There is a particular focus in the discussions on whether restrictions on Medicare dollars or other federal funds could be used to persuade nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities to require employees to be vaccinated, according to one of the people familiar with the talks.
………
But such drastic moves are likely to trigger further backlash from many Republican-leaning regions where vaccine hesitancy has been highest, agitating conservatives already skeptical of the Biden administration and its use of federal power. The administration has already said that federal workers and contractors must be vaccinated or wear masks, and the Pentagon is considering similar requirements.
………
“I think wisely using the federal spending power is absolutely right,” said Lawrence Gostin, who directs Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and said he has discussed the idea of using federal funds as an incentive with Biden administration officials.
Gostin said he has suggested the White House use its power judiciously, not by “bludgeoning the private sector” but rather by “starting with high-risk settings with an absolute ethical obligation and legal obligation to keep your workers and your clients safe.”
……..
……[T]he president has been hesitant to use the full powers available to him to push Americans to get vaccinated, which experts say could include requiring Americans to show they have been vaccinated before flying or before traveling between states.
…….
A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity earlier this week to be frank, said the White House does not believe Biden has the authority to institute a nationwide mandate for vaccinations.
……..
“The federal government can’t directly mandate a vaccine,” said Gostin, the Georgetown law professor. “It can use its spending power to say to a state, ‘You mandate vaccinations. And if you don’t, we’ll withhold certain federal dollars.’ ”
The federal government exercised the power of so-called conditional spending by requiring states to increase their drinking age to 21 years old to receive full highway funds, he said.
Gostin noted that there are constraints on the federal government’s power to use funding to push states on policy matters, citing the Supreme Court’s 2012 determination that Congress and the Obama administration went too far in threatening to withhold Medicaid funding if states did not greatly expand health-care coverage.
To stay on safe constitutional footing, Biden would need to use money that is directly related to health and be sure that the totals are “not so extensive an amount that it appeared coercive,” Gostin said.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:08 pm………
Prediction: Should Newsom be recalled, there will be a “grass-roots” initiative on the 2022 ballot to remove the recall from the state Constitution. This is being set up now by all the MSM stories about how the recall is opposed by a majority, but the Deplorables are going to flood to the polls.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:11 pmExpanding nuclear energy in California is a non-starter, simply because of thousands of earthquake faults.
I would be against building 1950’s era heavy-water reactors too. But there are other approaches. I would at least want the state invest in research into thorium and other molten-salt reactor schemes. It is terrible that the Chinese will own that if it pans out. Maybe use the “screw-you-W” stem-cell money.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:17 pma certain third rail
Which? There are several. Abortion and Sanctuary Cities come to mind. No politician who seeks statewide office will go there, and really they shouldn’t — both are federal matters now.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:19 pmBiden administration considers withholding funds
Trump had no luck trying that with ICE cooperation. Then again that was Bozolaw.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:20 pmI would at least want the state invest in research into thorium and other molten-salt reactor schemes.
Why waste taxpayer dollars on research? Let the private sector fund the research.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:48 pmYou know, I think Biden can be pushed around.
Sometimes it is because of the illogicality of his policies, but they were illogical because he was being pushed around in the first place, or anticipated pushback, or wanted to compensate for something.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:06 pm#207 steveg – It is good to see people starting to think about the numbers, and trying to draw conclusions from them, however tentative, about how to fight our enemy.
What bothers me about Florida is that the trend there is terrible. On Friday, there were, officially, 199 deaths from COVID in the state, and, if you make a simple projection, it will be significantly worse by next Friday.
The Worldometers site lets you look at those projections, as well as the data, for each American state. To look at the data for a state, you just click on the name of the state; to look at the projections, you click on the last column, “projections”. (To make comparisons easier, I almost always right click and open them in a new tabs.)
(Because Worldometers closes its numbers at midnight GMT, I almost always look at yesterday’s numbers, or even earlier, instead of the current ones.)
In contrast, the projection looks much better for South Dakota, in part, I assume, because so many people there have had the disease.
For the record: I know, of course, that these projections are tentative. I think of them as “guesstimates”, rather than hard and fast estimates. And they might be too low, as well as too high. The “Delta” variant has changed my guesstimates for the worse and, as far as I can tell, those of most epidemiologists.
(Those really interested in the numbers should look at the estimated “excess deaths” for the different states. The Economist has similar estimates for many nations, as well as US states; that’s how we know, for example, that the official COVID death estimates for Russia are way too low.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:07 pm210. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 3:11 pm
That won’t pass. They probably won’t bother. They may try to modify the rules.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:08 pmRip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 11:19 am
He says that was one reason he hesitated on running, but then he decided that no bill has been successfully overridden since 1979, when Jerry Brown was Governor, and if he vetoed a bad bill, with an explanation, the state Senators and members of the State Assembly would start receiving letters from their constituents asking why they were for this (and the veto might be sustained)
Also he would insist he wouldn’t sign any bl that didn’t have any Republican votes so that would modify them in the first place (I think he said)
But now he’s not the plurality winner in a poll, and the Democrats have a candidate.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:14 pmThey’re not so slowly facing up to the reality in Afghanistan where the choices seem to be between a quick Taliban takeover, or a takeover with a last stand by some forces in one or a few small locations that may last up to two or three months, followed by a massacre. (not that they could avoid a massacre by surrendering sooner.)
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:18 pm73.
His interest wasn’t secret; no deal was reached, which means he had no business dealings with Russia; the only issue was when he dropped the matter – apparently Michael Cohen kept trying on his own for awhile; and the deal would not have significantly affected his wealth one way or the other.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:25 pm@188. Have been to San Marino. Lovely locale.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:26 pm215.You know, I think Biden can be pushed around.
In a wheelchair; off camera and on weekends after the transfusion around the bunker.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:28 pmKevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 10:48 am In what century are tbese events in Demon by John Varley supposed to take place?
Talking about Burama, the government s playing games with ATM machines:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/world/asia/myanmar-cash-coup.html
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:34 pmome people are being medically advised not to get the vaccine because of heart problems etc (one person. I know got antibody infusion, and that’s another reason for him not to get it)
People who recovered from Covid by and large do not need it, and could suffer too much of an an immune stimulation
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-mandate-natural-immunity-lawsuit-covid-19-coronavirus-11628281507
His university even has what he calls a bizarre policy of accepting low value Chinese vaccines but not antibody tests.
He writes also:
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:38 pmDr. Scott Gottlieb, on Face the Nation, wouldn’t say that all children ages 12-17 should get the regular vaccinations. He said parents should consult their pediatrician. Some are giving only one dose of the mRNA vaccines – others are spacing the two shots further apart.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:41 pmAMLO tells lots of lies about Covid in Mexico, including that it was his decision, or he gave his consent, to forgo getting Pfizer vaccines back in January. They ised to be able to determine excess deaths by looking at the latest number on death certificates but in March the government stopped making them searchable by certificate number.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/8/2021 @ 4:44 pmWhy waste taxpayer dollars on research? Let the private sector fund the research.
Most of the time it does. The stem cell craps was just to spite W. But sometimes the private sector doesn’t see any return in their time frame. That’s why NASA was needed in 1960 but isn’t now; a SpaceX never would have happened in 1960, and even Orbital Sciences was too soon.
The Chinese government is funding molten-salt research reactors, and if it is going to work it will work long before any private firm can get into the game.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 5:04 pm……. no bill has been successfully overridden since 1979, when Jerry Brown was Governor, and if he vetoed a bad bill, with an explanation, the state Senators and members of the State Assembly would start receiving letters from their constituents asking why they were for this (and the veto might be sustained)
Brown vetoed bills in 1979 and 1980, and was overridden four times over an eight month period. After that, Brown would veto bills but the legislature decided not to override. The same pattern has happened under Newsom. I’ll bet the legislature will not extend the same courtesy to the Republican winner of a recall election.
It will be war in Sacramento. Democrats in Sacramento will just stall any Elder initiatives by ignoring them or overriding vetos. With their super majority stranglehold on legislature, Elder is revealing his ignorance (like Schwarzenegger) in dealing with far more experienced politicians. Elder will only have a 9 months before the June 2022 primary to accomplish anything with a legislature that won’t be willing to do any favors for him.
Schwarzenegger had more time to be captured by the political establishment, Elder will be run over by it.
Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 5:21 pm@228 Even so, it beats the lame status quo, and would be interesting to see.
norcal (a6130b) — 8/8/2021 @ 5:37 pmCovid-recovered individuals have been mostly excluded from the vaccine clinical trials, rendering any claims about the purported safety for this group largely speculative.
But let’s speculate anyway:
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 5:52 pmMoreover, clinical evidence has suggested that Covid survivors suffer more-frequent and more-serious side effects from vaccination than those who have never been infected..”
In what century are tbese events in Demon by John Varley supposed to take place?
A hundred years or so. It’s the third book in his Gaean trilogy that starts with “Titan.” Gaea, in this case, has nothing to do with any earth religion.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 5:55 pmMy preference would be that they take out New Mexico. The state of Utah is much more scenic.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2021 @ 5:58 pmMy preference would be that they take out New Mexico. The state of Utah is much more scenic.
Well, a few weeks later in that story, they probably did.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 7:17 pmIrony alert: I had a conversation the other day with a former heroin addict who won’t get the vaccine because he’s worried about the risk of putting that into his body. You really have to wonder.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/8/2021 @ 7:34 pm‘But sometimes the private sector doesn’t see any return in their time frame. That’s why NASA was needed in 1960 but isn’t now; a SpaceX never would have happened in 1960, and even Orbital Sciences was too soon.
Ignorance is bliss. Be happy!
“You really have to wonder…”
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/8/2021 @ 9:56 pmFloriduh is now biden’s fault. he is alowing desantis to get away with not protecting the children.
asset (bb23ba) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:35 amDearest Vaccinated,
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:31 amTrust your vaccine and shut up.
Only the vaccinated would trust a Cantafoedya election.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:33 amHow can you people not recognize those 18 republicans that voted for this liberal money drop are rino pos?
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:09 amAnyone worse than Trump/2024
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/08/08/where-is-your-god-now-portland-cops-do-nothing-as-antifa-attacks-prayer-event-led-by-persecuted-christian-pastor-n1467987
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:01 amhttps://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/joe-biden-enemy-of-religious-freedom.php
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:26 amVictoria Taft is an award-winning journalist, writer and terrestrial radio talk host,
Terrestrial?
nk (1d9030) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:48 amHow can you people not recognize those 18 republicans that voted for this liberal money drop are rino pos
Hey, mg, define “rino.” You use it a lot.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/9/2021 @ 7:48 amMike Fanone! Come on down!
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/whoa_julie_kelly_rips_the_capitol_polices_michael_fanone.html
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 7:49 amThe night is young, the skies are clear
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 8:01 amSo if you want to go walking, dear
It’s delightful, it’s delicious, it’s DeRosa
Just understand the reason why
Your allegation is left to die
It’s spiteful, it’s salacious, it’s DeRosa
It’s clear about Antifa and their, or, contributions to mayhem, but according to urbanist CW, Portland had gentrified all the blacks away years ago…
urbanleftbehind (3cdcf6) — 8/9/2021 @ 8:08 am#234 Kevin – That reminds me of this bit of wisdom from Mark Twain.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/9/2021 @ 8:42 ammg – If you are wondering what a RINO is, here’s a famous example.
(If I were a fan of conspiracies, I would say that Bill Clinton encouraged him to enter the presidential race in order to damage the Republican Party. As he has done.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/9/2021 @ 8:49 amHang in there, Never T… gooder and harder is a-comin’ your way…
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020210809%2000.jpg
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:07 amFlorida church reeling after six members die within 10 days amid spike in cases
For George L. Davis, a bishop at Impact Church in Jacksonville, getting vaccinated against the coronavirus was an act of faith. He says that he believes in divine creation, and that the shot is a miracle — a sign of God guiding scientists in their attempts to curb a devastating virus. Yet, for his nondenominational congregation, the provenance of a lifesaving tool was not as obvious.
The hesitancy was clear from the beginning. When cases surged, some of Davis’s congregation, which numbers more than 6,000 parishioners, had a different idea of the pandemic’s effects. One spat back false information to the pastor. Others did not trust government and health officials. Davis said he tried to bridge the gap — enacting safety measures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, encouraging vaccinations when doses were made available, and discussing the virus on social media.
Still, he said, some did not listen. Six of the church’s members, Davis said, died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in 10 days. Four of them were healthy and younger than 35; all were unvaccinated.
………
Unvaccinated young people are increasingly among the most severe cases of the coronavirus’s easier-to-spread delta variant, Mary Mayhew, president of the Florida Hospital Association, told The Washington Post on Wednesday.
“We now are seeing healthy 25-year-olds in the hospital in intensive care and on ventilators,” she said. “The delta variant has been ripping through a younger unvaccinated population and putting them into the hospitals.”
Cities with young populations have seen significant spikes in cases. Jacksonville faced a surge representing “200-plus percent of their previous highest peak,” Mayhew said last week.
According to data from Baptist Health, the number of children admitted in July more than quadrupled from June. Across Baptist Health’s five-hospital system, 579 covid-19 patients — including 19 children — were reported Sunday. Among the 116 patients in intensive care, five were children. An unvaccinated 16-year-old with no underlying health problems died Thursday at Baptist’s Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, the company said.
The increase in hospitalizations is not unique to Jacksonville. With 13,793 patients — a 30 percent uptick since last week — Florida is the state with the most hospitalized people in the country, according to data from The Post’s coronavirus tracker.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:11 am………
“ Our leaders have such a long list now of crimes against the people of this country, or abuse of their office, or stepping over their Constitutional authority that I’ve been waiting for the people in this country to stand up and say, ‘no more’. The Left made the phrase ‘resist’ trite by calling anyone President Trump and anyone who disagreed with the Left, authoritarians, tyrants, etc. They were playing the game ‘resist’ before he was even inaugurated. But reality shows a much different story.
I won’t list all of the issues here, but you all have eyes. You can see what is happening to your country. Even as the ‘sophisticated vaccinated’ nobility parties on Martha’s Vineyard- we watch as our schools are turned into indoctrination centers, that is, IF Randi Weingarten allows the schools to operate at all. We watch as our police are defunded, leaving in droves, and those left, getting shot at, killed, attacked. We watch as Antifa gets free rein in Seattle and Portland and have destroyed those cities, while leaders smile on approvingly. We watch as homeless take over large chunks of our cities. We watch our open borders, opening our doors to anything and anyone- covid or not- by the hundreds of thousands.
And we watch as China sends a virus around the world, killing our economy, opening up the door to government seizure of power in this country and others, while China continues to work on its military and sends computer viruses and hackers to attack our cyber-structure.
We watch as Nancy Pelosi puts citizens accused of- at best- misdemeanors, into prison with no bail, no rights, for an undetermined length, while thousands of felony actors in the 2020 riots were bailed out multiple times by Democrats, among them, our Vice President, Ms. Harris.
I’m waiting for the middle to stand up and say, ‘no more’. And by middle, I’m referring to the middle and south of the country. Let the coast rot at this point. Let them play as actors in their own play. Let the sophisticated vaccinated live under their own policies. Let them stew in their own mess. The rest of us need to stand up and do what we need to do. I’m glad Sen. Paul is among the first to stand up and say the words. It’s time. There is much more wrong with this country than people not getting vaccinated or wearing masks.”
—- Temujin
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:14 amJudge rules Florida can’t ban Norwegian Cruise Line ‘vaccine passport’
A judge ruled on Sunday that Norwegian Cruise Line is permitted to ask customers to show proof of vaccination before boarding a ship, dealing a blow to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) law that prevented “vaccine passports” from being utilized in the state.
The nearly 60-page preliminary ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in the Southern District of Florida said that the state law barring the use of vaccine passports is likely unconstitutional under the First Amendment and jeopardizes public health.
The judge ruled that Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees, whom Norwegian filed a lawsuit against over the vaccine passport ban, cannot enforce the law with the cruise line, giving Norwegian the greenlight to carry out its safety measures starting Aug. 15, when the company plans to resume passenger cruises from the Sunshine State.
………
[Norwegian] contended that the state’s legislation against vaccine passports was a violation of the First Amendment because it blocked communication between business and customers.
The cruise line also argued that the law breached the 14th Amendment because it limited the company’s ability to keep its employees and customers safe.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:21 am……….
Anti-Vaxxers Got Fooled by Fake ‘Snitch on Your Unvaccinated Friends’ Site
A website purportedly offering money to people willing to snitch on their unvaccinated family, friends, and neighbors for breaching vaccine mandates has gone viral in anti-vaxxer circles.
But just like so many other things shared in these groups, the “anonymous unvaccinated reporting system” is completely fake.
Not only that, the website was designed and built by David Bramante, a realtor and a Republican candidate running for governor in California’s recall election, who says the website was simply a piece of “political satire” designed to highlight what he views as unconstitutional vaccine mandates.
The website, which claimed to be run by two experts hoping to establish a database of anti-vaxxers for the government, launched last week. It quickly gained traction in the anti-vaxxer community, where it was taken at face value: many likened it to the Nazis asking people to inform on their family and friends.
“This is real,” one Twitter user said about AURS. “This is so #OldSovietBlock that it is difficult to believe it exists. Land of the Free? Apparently not.” Another said “this is quite literally the slide into a dystopian hell.”
On Facebook, …… one commenter said: “See what’s happening to our Country it’s becoming a Communist Country. Is this what we are becoming, where we turn on each other?”
……..
The site became so popular towards the end of last week that it crashed, and only the landing page was viewable, leading to further confusion around the real purpose of the project.
………
Visitors to the AURS landing page are greeted with the message “Welcome to the future.”
The site then says: “Earn extra cash! Report unvaccinated Family, Friends & Neighbors (FFNs) anonymously online. Every name you submit gives you a chance to win $2,500 in our monthly sweepstakes:”
Clinking (sic) on the “File a Report” button brings you to a page with a number of fields seeking information about the person you are snitching on, including their email address, phone number, and address.
Bramante says over 2,000 people have already sent data through the website. When asked what happens to the data, Bramante told VICE News that when people contact him because they also hate vaccine mandates, he urges them to support his gubernatorial campaign.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:30 am………
Gullible fools.
72 people shot in Chicago over the weekend. Perhaps this fast-decaying city is just one more sign of the times we live in.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:33 amVictoria Taft is an award-winning journalist, writer and terrestrial radio talk host,
242. nk (1d9030) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:48 am
Not satellite radio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_broadcasting
But since when is satellite radio, or even, if you want to include as non-terrestrial, [*] Internet radio or podcasts, the norm?
———————-
* In which case you’d say broadcast radio to distinguish it.
Until 1987 she was a talk radio show host for eight years on KPAM (860 AM) in Portland, Oregon.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:35 am248. TThat would make Trump a Frankenstein’s monster created by Bill Clinton, not a RINO.
That would have been his second attempt to build up someone for Hillary to lose to. The first one was Barack Obama.
He was more successful in 1984, when running for re-election as Governor of Arkansas. That time, his principle opponent on the Democratic primary was Orval Faubus. Yes, that Oral Faubus, then aged 74. Some previous donors to Clinton financed him.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:40 am208, Rip Murdock (9710ae) — 8/8/2021 @ 5:21 pm
That 2018 LA Times article ends the period with March 24, 1980. Perhaps the last override was of a bill vetoed in 1979.
The LA Times said he vetoed fewer bills. On the other hand the legislature did not like to challenge them (perhaps because they needed his co-operation inn appointments. Also it was only after the 2012 that there was a Democratic supermajority in both houses.
That would fire up an Elder re-election campaign, and contests for the state legislature. They’d have to be careful what hills they chose to stand on.
And I do think he’ll have a tough time getting re-elected. He will only have gotten in by getting something between 20% and 30% in a crowded field with no major Democratic candidate. For re-election he needs to make the runoff (possible) and then 50% in a two-person runoff.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:52 am@243. ‘How can you people not recognize those 18 republicans that voted for this liberal money drop are rino pos.’ ‘Hey, mg, define “rino.” You use it a lot.’
‘Rino’… pronounced ‘renault’— as in Captain Renault; defined:
“I have no conviction, if that’s what you mean. I blow with wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy.” – Captain Renault [Claude Rains] ‘Casablanca’ 1942
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 9:59 am225. Link
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-dr-scott-gottlieb-face-the-nation-08-08-2021
It goes back to April. At that time they said the test costs $139.50.
This iso one of those things, though approved by the FDA, is just not being done.
Feb 18, 2021:
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Despite-federal-approval-saliva-COVID-testing-15954539.php
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:00 amShock headline: The U.S. troop withdrawal opened the door for the Taliban’s offensive.
Well, a shock from the NYT anyway.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:07 amHang in there, Never T… gooder and harder is a-comin’ your way…
Hang in there, Never V… gooder and harder is a-comin’ your way…
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:10 am(If I were a fan of conspiracies, I would say that Bill Clinton encouraged him to enter the presidential race in order to damage the Republican Party. As he has done.)
I have said that Bill Clinton wakes up every morning and spends the first few minutes laughing all over again.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:12 amHere is the link to the New York State Attorney General’s report on Governor Cuomo’s possible sexual harassment:
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.08.03_nyag_-_investigative_report.pdf
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa Derosa, resigned last night. She’s had it.
They like to say that Derosa is mentioned as many times in the report as Cuomo [187] and that three of the Cuomo mentions are in the title and the Table of Contents but that’s not quite accurate.
Many of Derosa’s mentions are in footnotes citing her interviews. Four of the mentions of “Cuomo” are Chris Cuomo. But the phrase “the Governor” is mentioned 1,279 times.
Most of the mentions of “Cuomo” are in footnotes (press conferences or interview transcripts cited or URLs given.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:14 amIf there is a to be a diplomatic solution, (like a partition) it is going to have to be reached with Pakistan, and maybe also China. But what inducement could the U.S. give to have them prevent the Taliban from taking over the whole of Afghanistan and executing lots of people? Only the threat to come back if they don’t or to put heavy sanctions on Pakistan.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:18 amGovernor Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa Derosa, resigned last night. She’s had it.
No doubt that pool side blonde has ‘had it,’ too– No quitter she. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:19 amrino – any hack that would vote for the UniParty collectivist garbage.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:28 amCuomo/Newsom/2024
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:31 am@260-
I can’t wait for Republicans to run on “Who lost Afghanistan” in 2022. Not quite the resonance of “Who lost China” in the 1950s.
(The answer, of course is “the Afghans lost Afghanistan.” The country was never ours to lose. We accomplished our mission there, and should have left when we were ahead. Instead GWB’s messianic nation-building enterprise kept us there far too long. You can only rebuild a nation once its enemies were totally vanquished, which of course never happened, and the populace embraces change. But outside the cities, the population rejected Western values and modernity. Shoving it down their throats wouldn’t work. Trump at least had the courage to negotiate a withdrawal and Biden implemented it.)
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:38 amArtickle about Covod and Mexico:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-07-15/mexico-covid-crisis-amlo-government-s-response-ahead-of-delta-variant
I noticed several things in here of interest to those who want to attribute Covid spread from Mexico to migrants. (they are, of course, not the only people crossing the U.S.-Mexican border)
Also:
And
There are some fake Sputnik vaccines being sold in Mexico and Central America.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:47 am268. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:38 am
That is something the British understood in the 19th century, which is how they acquired an empire “in a fit of absent-mindedness.” They had to go after the sanctuaries.
There were sanctuaries in Pakistan and support, so the Taliban came back. I don’t think the population was against it. Might does not stem from right or popular support. The Taliban government is a tyranny.
Biden did not understand or expect what would happen. On paper the Taliban were no match for the Afghan army. He was wrong.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:53 am265. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:19 am
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 10:59 amIs Governor Badabing’s time up?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:06 amMelissa Derosa has been caught up in lies. Also an award winning performance:
Cuomo deserves a best supporting actor nomination for this scene.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:09 amShe has taken off her flip flops.
Baby take off your coat
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:12 amReal slow
Take off your ring
Make my pierced nipples sing
Baby, take off your dress
Yes, yes, yes
You can leave your hat on
You can leave your hat on
You can leave your hat on
Rip, the cost to keep a presence was pretty minimal (2,500 troops which leveraged another 9,000 NATO troops…price tag around $1B/month). Since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom at the end of 2014, there have been 94 U.S. military deaths (sad certainly, but not exactly eye popping…how many people have died in Chicago this summer?). The logistical support…especially for air operations….will be sorely missed. What did the commanders on the ground recommend….and why? A lot of courageous Afghani allies and civilians are going to die because we left….and the ensuing chaos will breed more opportunities for terrorists to organize with impunity. It’s a rather cheap investment for some stability and influence. Once again, Biden is simply wrong on national security…but you and he now own the consequences….
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:15 am272. The Givernor has until Friday at the close of business to submit further arguments to the New York State Assembly Judiciary Committee. After that they start their impeachment inquiry. The minority Republicans want to include the nursing homes, and there’s the help in writing his book. The cover-up of problems with the new Mario Cuomo bridge has been dropped because it will take too long to develop. The Buffalo billion wasn’t even on the menu. Or of course, the way he annoyed people.
The Assembly will probably vote to impeach before Labor Day, at which point the governor loses his power [this is more like the 25th amendment to the U.S. constitution than the federal impeachment procedure] He does not lose his salary or his right to live in the Governor’s mansion.
The trial must begin 30 to 60 days later – say around September 30. The jury consists of 61 state senators (all but the president pro tem) and the 7 members of the New York State Court of Appeals. two thirds of those voting are needed to remove.
I think there’s a possibility one or two of the charges, especially the one that started the ball rolling, are false, at least in part.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:18 amExecutive Assistant #1 is Brittany Commisso, aged 32, now going through a divorce.
She went public on Sunday/Monday. She is the only one who claims that Governor Cuomo actually groped her, and she’s the one who filed a criminal complaint with the Albany DA late last week.
She put up with it at the time because she didn’t want to lose the overtime. (work on weekends)
She is on record as being in the Executive Mansion on Monday November 16, but the Governor’s aides said his schedule was too tight that day for him to have time to molest her. She says she’s not sure about the date.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:27 am@275-Under your scenario, what is victory? Since the 11,500 troops weren’t engaged in combat (only training and intel), what was the point of their presence (except to be sitting ducks for insider attackers)? To use them as tripwires? Afghanistan would have collapsed anyway. The Afghan Army (and government), notoriously corrupt, isn’t interested in fighting and defending their country. If they aren’t why should we? NATO at one point had 100,000+ troops in combat, and still couldn’t defeat the Taliban. Do you think the Afghan Army could?
The vast majority of the Afghan population either doesn’t care or actually supports the Taliban. Why should the US support a vastly corrupt regime that is more interested exploiting the population for personal gain rather than improving the country?
Once again, Biden is simply wrong on national security…but you and he now own the consequences…. Please note that it was Trump that negotiated the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Biden is merely enforcing that agreement. I don’t see any protests in the US advocating we remain in Afghanistan.
Please note I didn’t vote for any Presidential candidate in 2016 or 2020.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:33 amFootmore on page 46 (at the Danny Boy story)
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:41 amthe Governor’s aides said his schedule was too tight that day for him to have time to molest her.
He made time, baby. Ifa dey ain’tah teh geecha, he gotta teh salsiccia!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:41 amTexas judge blocks arrest of Democratic legislators who fled the state to stop voting restrictions
……..
State District Judge Brad Urrutia, a Democrat, signed a temporary restraining order late Sunday in a case newly filed by 19 Texas House Democrats against Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan, both Republicans who have called for arrests to restore a quorum in the House. The lawsuit argues that the state’s “power to arrest and incarcerate cannot be used for political purposes” under the Texas Constitution and the rules of the Texas House.
The Austin-based judge agreed that Democrats would suffer “imminent and irreparable harm” if Republicans are not barred from ordering arrests, which they threatened to do if members of the minority party returned to the state. …..
It “clearly appears” that Abbott and Phelan have “erroneously interpreted Texas law and legislative rules to permit the detention, confinement, or other restriction [of state legislators] … in response to a call for quorum,” Urrutia wrote in the order.
The order, which could expire in 14 days without an extension, specifically bars Abbott and Phelan from issuing warrants or ordering law enforcement to “detain, confine, or otherwise restrict” House members’ movement within Texas. A hearing on the order is scheduled for Aug. 20.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:45 am……..
@275. ‘Once again, Biden is simply wrong on national security…but you and he now own the consequences….’
^Ideological conservative bullsh!t.
U.S. COSTS TO DATE FOR THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN, 2001-2021
Since invading Afghanistan in 2001, the United States has spent $2.26 trillion on the war, which includes operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Note that this total does not include funds that the United States government is obligated to spend on lifetime care for American veterans of this war, nor does it include future interest payments on money borrowed to fund the war. – watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/
Counting the costs of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan
The Afghan government keeps the toll among its soldiers secret to avoid undermining morale, but Costs of War estimates the war has killed 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan troops. The war has forced 2.7 million Afghans to flee abroad, mostly to Iran, Pakistan and Europe, the U.N. said. – abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/counting
And ideological conservatives wonder why their ideology is deader than rotting Reagan in his cement sealed tomb.
“To dream the impossible dream; To fight the unbeatable foe; To bear with unbearable sorrow; To run where the brave dare not go; To right the unrightable wrong…” – ‘The Impossible Dream’ Darion/Leigh, 1965
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:49 am278. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:33 am
Well, no, not that. And e’s still leaving the United States embassy and its guards as sitting ducks. The Taliban will surely want the embassy out of there.
There was an airbase, enabling air support, (which is now supposed to come completely to an end afteruesday, August 31) and there was the sense of confidence the U.S. troops there gave.
What an amazing coincidence it happens now.
They needed to take the war into Pakistan to do that.
Trump negotiated a withdrawal to be completed May 1. Biden, moderate that he is, extended the deadline to September 11, intending to out before, maybe in July, and now the hard and fast date is August 31. The Taliban will have to kill some Americans to force out the embassy and its Marines too unless they leave the United States there till after the government falls. But then there’ll be another Saigon airlift, except that maybe they’ll kick people off the helicopters.
There are protests against the Taliban, ad (abroad) about not being granted visas.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:54 amOr make credible threats to Pakistan. W actually did in 2001.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:55 amRe: Afghanistan
Obligatory Twilight Zone reference.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 12:08 pm285. I don;t really follow the Twilight Zone reference unless the idea is that the United States gets attacked because it is supposed to be the best.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 12:15 pmRe: Afghanistan
Obligatory Vietnam reference[s].
“I see light at the end of the tunnel.” – Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967
“We should declare war on North Vietnam. . . .We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas. – Ronald Reagan, 1965
“I’m not going to be the first American president to lose a war.” – –The Big Dick, Oct. 1969
source- https://www.quotesandsayings.com/general/vietnam-war/
Idiots.
“Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world’s policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world’s midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war.” – Jeane Kirkpatrick, 1979
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 12:28 pmWhen the world’s policeman abandons his post, you get the same bad consequences as you get when defunding the police in American cities. Of course there are lots of places the United States never went into in the first place. I think the Taliban attacked the Pentagon in 2001 to get their Afghan enemies to abandon hope of U.S aid.
This withdrawal may not be enough. They may want to drive home the point.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 12:59 pmhttps://nypost.com/2021/02/13/cuomo-aide-melissa-derosa-is-related-to-top-fed-prosecutor
She also used to be great friends with Elise Stefanik.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/14/fight-over-gov-cuomo-ended-elise-stefanik-and-melissa-derosas-20-year-friendship
Actually they weren;t life-saving – they were often life endangering, what the Covid patients needed was oxygen not ventilators, but they were thought to be vital by people who didn’t listen to dioctors who had something different to say.
They both attended Albany Academy for Girls, a private school where they both served on the student council. DeRosa attended Stefanik’s 2017 wedding.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:08 pmhttps://nypost.com/2021/08/07/dems-should-keep-their-grubby-paws-off-americans-retirement-savings/
They’re getting ready to steal all of our retirements. They will start with the wealthy, but you know where the money is. Just like leftists always pull.
NJRob (7a872e) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:08 pmRip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:33 am
They are corrupt because the Taliban followed a policy of targeted assassination of all the good people.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:14 pm285. I don;t really follow the Twilight Zone reference unless the idea is that the United States gets attacked because it is supposed to be the best.
Even though the episode was broadcast in 1962, it is an explicit reference to how the US is called upon to respond to every upstart nation (or terrorist group) that seeks to prove it is better than the us.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:28 pm@291-
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 11:33 am
The Afghan Army (and government), notoriously corrupt, isn’t interested in fighting and defending their country.
They are corrupt because the Taliban followed a policy of targeted assassination of all the good people.
They are corrupt because it is easy to rob a poor country of its wealth for their own personal fortunes.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:32 pmThe Duranis have always been at war with the Ghilzais. For control of Afghanistan.
And, no, it is not a 1984 reference. It is history.
nk (1d9030) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:34 pmAnd it probably dates back to even before Alexander parked his alcoholic ass in Herat while his mercenaries foraged and looted, and alternately fraternized and skirmished with the indigenous bandits in the countryside.
nk (1d9030) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:39 pmThis young man probably can’t be persuaded to get vaccinated against COVID:
The grandson doesn’t want to put “poison in his blood” for his grandparents’ “peace of mind”.
(Amy advises the grandparents to go somewhere other than the wedding.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:46 pmFlashback: The Afghanistan Papers
A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
…….
…….[M]ore than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.
“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
……..
With most speaking on the assumption that their remarks would not become public, U.S. officials acknowledged that their warfighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous sums of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation.
The interviews also highlight the U.S. government’s botched attempts to curtail runaway corruption, build a competent Afghan army and police force, and put a dent in Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade.
…….
Since 2001, the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have spent or appropriated between $934 billion and $978 billion, according to an inflation-adjusted estimate calculated by Neta Crawford, a political science professor and co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
Those figures do not include money spent by other agencies such as the CIA and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is responsible for medical care for wounded veterans.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:47 pm………
The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.
………
Sound familiar?
It is easy to set up a corrupt system where there is no good government. Like Haiti.
Terrorist/guerilla groups turn into criminal groups when there is no outside support like in Peru.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/9/2021 @ 1:56 pm293. The episode originally aired on October 13, 1961.
And there was an alternate ending which was used in the 1980s remake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_of_Pool_(The_Twilight_Zone,_1959)
The original ending:
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:00 pm298. This underlines that wars are largely won or lost by intelligence and the U.S> never ha d good human intelligence. But the ISI was world class.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:02 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9KnhUu7Ba4
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:12 pmAnd now this.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/08/09/what-mitt-romney-said-about-this-trilliondollar-wasteful-spending-spree-is-why-he-lost-in-2012-n2593817
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:37 pmThis is a rino
“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
There are dummies; there are imbeciles; and then there are idiots in the United States Army practicing “military intelligence.”
In 1843 British Army chaplain G.R. Gleig wrote a memoir of the disastrous (First) Anglo-Afghan War He wrote that it was:
“…a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.” -source, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:44 pm“I see light at the end of the tunnel.” – Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 2:46 pmToo bad it was an oncoming train.
Paul Wolfowitz – Disastrous
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:00 pmColonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 8:01 am
Outstanding Colonel! How De lovely!
felipe (484255) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:02 pmSuch a pity they didn’t take advantage of Ella’s stellar improvisational skills.
Felipe – Great selection.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:17 pmhttps://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2021/08/09/man-shouts-n-word-at-colorado-rockies-game-no-wait-its-just-more-leftist-hysteria-n1468256
mg (8cbc69) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:23 pmget used to it
Thanks mg – Ella rules, and I drools.
felipe (484255) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:24 pm302. He’s partially right and partially wrong and there are certain things I’m not sure he’s right on.
“Contrary to all rules of science” – I think actually they have acknowledged that the virus is soread by aerosols and what they say about masks now is that it can mitigate exposure but to really stop thins you need an N95 mask or maybe double masks. They just won’t mandate that. I saw an Op ed article in te Wall Street Journal where somebody wrote that mass are fourth down on the list of mitigation measures that could help – maybe fifth if you count vaccines as a mitigation measure. The three things ahead of masks are:
1) increased ventilation
2) social distancing
3) Pods.
Numbers 2 and 3 are really the same thing. Interacting closely with fewer people. They are also what lockdowns are supposed to produce.
He says that making sure levels of Vitamin D ivermectin and zinc are high can reduce the effects of being exposed to one quarter the level they otherwise might be. Probably true. The CDC doesn;t recommend it beecause it asn’t gone through placebo controlled double blind trials, and no one will undertaake karge scale trials of course since there’s no profit to be made since none of that can be patented. Maybe acombination can, but the whole thing would take time and it’s not an idal approach.
He claims NO BENEFIT from giving the vaccine to someone who already recovered. Studies do show a rise in antibodies, from ONE injection (not two on the regular Pfizer or Moderna schedule but it could be correct that that doesn’t matter – the antibodies are already high enough to avoid SYMPTOMS and HOSPITALIZATION. He adds that there are 3 or 4 times as many people getting side effects. This shoold be true since the side effects come from the immune system getting stimulated too much.
He says Covid has animal reservoirs: This is probably not true or China would have found one or created one. Covid 19 only infects some animals with difficulty and further transmission may be limited so it can be ignored.
Flu does, but it is actually a slightly different version of the flu. Flu mutates readily, coronovirus much less.
He says there is no hope of completely getting rid of it. That may not be true. The 1889-90 flu epidemic is now thought by many to have become tamed version of a coronavirus which noqw only causes disease categorized as as colds. (and may confer some immunity to COVID-19)
He says no vaccine ever stops infection Absolutely true. But that doesn’t mean that vaccinated people can become the principle source of infection.
He ever explained why the vaccine should make things worse. Some vaccines do. Probably not this one.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:34 pm306… thanks, felipe! mg’s right, Ella is a great choice…
I have a friend who – before he finished his work career in an unrelated industry – was the Food and Beverage chief at one of the Las Vegas hotel/casinos that no longer exists. He also had to make sure the needs of the performing artists appearing in showrooms were taken care of. The guy had a lot of interesting stories (mostly funny, some scary) and I remember him saying that Miss Fitzgerald was eccentric and a bit moody, but could be exceedingly nice when the mood struck.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2021 @ 3:52 pmAm I following this correctly? The unvaccinated grandson is calling the vaccinated grandparents “Republicans and Nazis?”
I wonder where this unvaccinated person shows up in the polling spectrum?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/9/2021 @ 4:03 pmYesterday I passed by someone standing under an awning over a store, He sait;s 7:59 and the weatherman said rain would stop at 8 pm (and it didn’t)
It was over by 8:35, though)
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/9/2021 @ 4:26 pmThat boy needs a dose of old man fighting skills. Probably a pot smoking essential oils kids with autism old school AV’er. If he was older, probably helped flip a congressional seat for 2 years over the SALT reduction.
urbanleftbehind (47189e) — 8/9/2021 @ 4:56 pm#312 BuDuh – I don’t know where the grandson is on any spectrum (or in any n-dimensional space), but I thought readers here might like a reminder that you can find almost any set of opinions in this vast nation of ours.
(I could be wrong about this, but I believe that — pre-Trump — anti-vax opinions were more common on the nature-is-good Left than elsewhere. Gallup or Kaiser might have some info on the question, if anyone want to research it.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/9/2021 @ 4:57 pmGov. Greg Abbott asks Texas hospitals to delay nonessential procedures as COVID-19 patients strain capacity
………
………Abbott announced he had written to the Texas Hospital Association asking hospitals to “voluntarily postpone medical procedures for which delay will not result in loss of life or a deterioration in the patient’s condition.” …….
…….. And he said the Department of State Health Services “will be utilizing staffing agencies to provide medical personnel from out-of-state to Texas health care facilities to assist in COVID-19 operations.”
That is a reversal for the state. In July, the state told cities and counties it would not send additional health care workers to aid hospitals with the latest surge of COVID-19 patients, like it had earlier in the pandemic. …….
In recent days, key coronavirus indicators have spiked to levels not seen since the winter. Texas reported 5,377 new cases on Sunday and 9,027 hospitalizations a day earlier, both on a level that tracks with the last surge during the winter. The state’s positivity rate — the ratio of cases to tests — stood at 18.4% on Saturday, far above the 10% threshold that Abbott has identified as dangerous.
Vaccinations started ticking up last month, though Texas continues to lag nationally in percent of people fully vaccinated, which stood at 44.4% as of Saturday.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 5:00 pm……..
The first announcement from the office did not show any change in Abbott’s refusal to take new statewide action on masks, vaccines or business shutdowns. He also is not shying away from his refusal to let local governments or other public entities, like schools, require masks or vaccines.
……..
Mesa County’s election equipment passwords end up online, prompting state investigation
………
Secretary of State Jena Griswold believes the alleged breach occurred May 25 during the installation of new Dominion Voting Systems software. On Aug. 2, images of the software were posted to the social media site Telegram and conservative blog The Gateway Pundit. Dominion has been a target of conspiracy theories that claim it changed votes in the 2020 presidential election.
The social media and blog posts do not mention Colorado or Mesa County but, according to Griswold’s order, the images include “passwords specific to the individual hardware stations of Mesa County’s voting system.”
…….
…….She has ordered Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters to allow the Secretary of State’s Office to change equipment passwords and turn over all surveillance footage of the election equipment between May 24 and Aug. 9, along with access logs and chain-of-custody logs.
The sweeping order also requires Peters to hand over any communications, including texts and voicemails, in which she or her staff discussed Dominion or the alleged breach, along with all background checks on clerk’s office employees. Peters must do so by Thursday.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 5:05 pm……….
Kids sick with Covid are filling up children’s hospitals in areas seeing spikes
……
Multiple doctors in the half-dozen children’s hospitals NBC News reached out to said they have seen children infected because a member of their household, often a parent, brings the coronavirus home. Oftentimes, it is because an adult in the home is unvaccinated.
……..
The Covid-19 spike hit the Baton Rouge children’s hospital in mid-July and brought its monthly total to 75 cases — the highest number of coronavirus hospitalizations during the entire pandemic. With 27 children admitted to the emergency room over the first four days of August, the hospital has already seen more child hospitalizations than it saw in the entire month of June.
…….
Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock had 23 patients under 18 admitted to its system last week. Ten were in the ICU and five were on ventilators.
St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri saw 13 kids come to the ER for Covid in the last week of July, and then it saw 20 who needed beds in the first week of August.
At Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Covid positivity rates have risen from around 3 percent to above 10 percent among kids. The number of hospitalized children was in the single digits several weeks ago but rose to more than 30 last week.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Friday that there are 13 children hospitalized with Covid at Children’s Hospital New Orleans, including six under the age of 2. Four children are in the ICU, including a 3-month-old boy, a 23-month-old girl, an 8-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy.
“Children in Louisiana have died of Covid and more unfortunately will die,” said Dr. John Vanchiere, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, as he stood next to Bel Edwards at a news conference last week. “This is not a time for politics, for fighting or threatening lawsuits about masks. Masks save lives. And if you’re a pro-life Louisiana resident like I am, wear your mask.”
At least 81 children in the U.S. died of Covid between March and July, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and many doctors warn that the situation is likely to get worse.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 5:23 pm……..
But, but, but, according to some people here children couldn’t get COVID.
305.Paul Wolfowitz – Disastrous
If you dropped Wolfowitz and a feather from a 10 meter platform on the moon- which would hit the surface first?
Of course with the absence of air resistance on the moon, Wolfowitz and the feather would strike the lunar surface at the same time.
But denied a spacesuit, the vacuum of space would pull air from the human body; any air left in the lungs would cause them to rupture. Oxygen in the body will also expand. Paul would balloon up to twice his normal size, but wouldn’t explode due to the elasticity of human skin which is enough to hold a body together. Any exposed liquid would begin to vaporize, so the surfaces of the tongue and eyes would boil. Blood as well. And w/o air in the lungs, blood will stop sending oxygen to the brain. He’d pass out after about 15 seconds. 90 seconds after exposure: asphyxiation.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 5:40 pmWho writes to Dear Amy for advice on deeply personal family matters?
nk (1d9030) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:07 pm“In a time of crisis, character is revealed.” – Cancun Tedtoo
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz flies to Cancún amid his home state’s winter weather disaster
While millions of Texans struggle with a lack of power, heat and water amid deadly winter weather, Sen. Ted Cruz flew to Cancún, Mexico. – yahoonews.com
IDIOT.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:18 pmWho said that?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:55 pmhttps://twitter.com/AsaHutchinson/status/1424832448081403905
In other, surely unrelated Arkansas news, 90,000 doses of the vaccine expired on July 31.
Davethulhu (aa6793) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:56 pmhttps://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2021/08/09/will-we-resist-institutional-fraud-or-submit-to-the-ruling-class-n1468310
mg (8cbc69) — 8/10/2021 @ 3:09 amHow Dare You
Obama and the sophisticated vaccine crowd….
mg (8cbc69) — 8/10/2021 @ 4:40 amBut, but, but, according to some people here children couldn’t get COVID.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/9/2021 @ 5:23 pm
Woof, that strawman burned so bright, our missile warning satellites picked up its heat signature. Sort of like the lie you pushed that the Tennessee and Texas anti-cultural Marxism laws banned books.
Factory Working Orphan (2775f0) — 8/10/2021 @ 4:57 amThe TN legislature didn’t ban books. They did require that the civil war and segregation be taught impartially. So everyone that’s tired of slave owners being looked down on should be happy.
The TX Bill didn’t ban anything. It just created a very long list of mandatory items. The list didn’t include anything written by women or non-white people. The original list wasn’t such a white wash, but they realized it was too long and trimmed it.
So no books banned, just terrible laws in other ways. But the Anti-CRT team has some wins in their effort to white wash history.
Time123 (c904e5) — 8/10/2021 @ 6:01 amBIDEN’S APPROVAL FALLS AS FAUCI WARNS OF THE COVID CASELOAD MORE THAN DOUBLING: Meanwhile, the Lambda Variant Continues Being Escorted Into the US and Seeded Among Small Towns Throughout the USA.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/466821/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/10/2021 @ 7:16 am327–None of what you wrote negates the fact that the journalist lied about what was in the laws, and that Rip repeated that lie. In fact your response to me pointing that out was to claim that “you just don’t want to learn about racism,” another lie, until you actually bothered to read the bills themselves.
When left-liberal journalists feel the need to blatantly lie about the content of legislation that they directly link on their own articles, and other left-liberals and cultural Marxists parrot those lies while adding lies of their own about the people pointing this out (indeed, you continue mischaracterizing these laws by claiming they allow the “whitewashing” of history, which they don’t actually do), then the claims that these are “bad” laws simply have no credibility.
But this is to be expected, as cultural Marxism is a mendacious, deceitful, gaslighting, cultish, ideology that hollows out societies from within. Laws like this are simply a form of vaccine for what is essentially an intellectual and cultural virus. If these were bad laws, their critics wouldn’t have to lie about what the legislation actually says and does.
Factory Working Orphan (ea71f6) — 8/10/2021 @ 7:25 am@329, I read the bills from TN and TX. I’ve quoted the relevant sections in past comments. My summary above is accurate.
Time123 (8619a2) — 8/10/2021 @ 7:44 am330– You only bothered reading the bills *after* I pointed out the lie and had proceeded to lie yourself about my own intentions for doing so.
Characterizing these as a “whitewash” so that people don’t have to look down on slaveowners (does this include black and indigenous slave owners, too?) is a loaded, prejudicial statement, rendering your summary inaccurate.
Factory Working Orphan (ea71f6) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:10 amHave you read them?
Time123 (e30070) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:13 amhttps://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2021/08/10/oregon-removes-reading-writing-math-requirements-for-high-school-graduation-n407779
Communist-lite Oregon bans requiring proficiency in reading, writing and math because it’s racist.
That frees up more time to focus on CRT and Critical Race indoctrination.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:16 amTime123,
no one agreed with your interpretations on the bills and actually showed how they were inaccurate by citing materials that were being used that would’ve been banned in your interpretations.
Please go back and read the original discussions instead of reposting inaccurate information.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:17 am322. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:18 pm
The land orders between the United States and Canada or Mexico were closed to tourist travel, but not airplane flights. Commercial travel was OKayed, and also commercial shioping from all over the world..
Of course the virus can distinguish. Not!
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:21 amBut have you read them?
Time123 (e30070) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:23 am332-Yeah, I read them before you did. That’s why I pointed out that the claim they banned books was a lie after Rip posted the article. Maybe you should have read them *before* making the absurd claim that “you just don’t want to learn about racism.”
Factory Working Orphan (ea71f6) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:27 amIf so what do you think the requirement in TN that controversial events be taught impartially means? How do you do that for slavery and Jim Crow?
Time123 (e30070) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:29 amVery amusing!
Colonel Haiku (0c588c) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:30 am324. Davethulhu (aa6793) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:56 pm
Of course this was scientific nonsense.
Either some vaccine spoiled before, or it didn’t spoil at midnight, July 31. Since the FDA and pharmaceutical companies are always very conservative with expiration rates, most likely the vaccine was just as good on August 1 as it had been on July 31.
Johnson and Johnson applied for an got an extension:
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/28/1021992894/fda-extends-expiration-date-johnson-johnson-covid-vaccine-6-months
Pfizer has more in stock and plenty manufacuring capability would prefer that vaccines be thrown out so they can be sold again at higher prices than to less developed countries.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:33 am338–Why did the journalist and Rip lie about what the bills actually said? Why did you lie when you asserted I “just don’t want to learn about racism” before you even bothered reading the bills yourself? Why did you then claim that these “whitewash” history when they do nothing of the sort?
Factory Working Orphan (ea71f6) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:43 am@338 the tennessee law is in response to race based topics (e.g., segregation) and race-based books being taught to k-2 grades
anyone who thinks that’s age appropriate is going to be a terrible judge of this law
JF (e1156d) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:44 am341–Why did the journalist and Rip lie about what the bills actually said?
I did not lie. I merely quoted an article on the subject, which you are free to disagree with (and have). Any errors are the responsibility of the author. Please withdraw your accusation.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/10/2021 @ 9:08 amGovernor Cuomo’s people were sounding out people – more before the release of the Attorney General’s report than after – about not running for re-election in exchange for not being impeached but were finding no takers. Of course his political standing is such that he would be unlikely to recover in time. He apparently hasn’t totally given up hope of being re-elected, though.
Melissa Derosa told the Governor early on Sunday that she wanted to resign – reportedly because she
did not want to defend the governor in public -and Andrew Cuomo spent most of Sunday trying to persuade her not to quit.
Two more women have contacted the New York State Attorney General’s office but they were told the investigation is over and if they want to lodge a complaint they should go to the relevant district attorneys.
The Assembly Judiciary committee plans to hold hearings, both public and private. Maybe they are most interested in testimony on the nature of sexual harassment and what are grounds for impeachment. The committee will meet on Mondays.
They may not be much interested in fact finding. Sort of like Donald Trump’s first impeachment when they didn’t call any factual witnesses. I think they may be afraid that if they investigate too much and too many issues, something may impact other people. I mean that would be a reason to want him to resign. Although the governor seems to have stopped doing his job mostly.
The AG is gradually turning over its evidence. Cuomo didn’t see it before the release of the report.
He seems to have two defenses – one by his aides and one by himself against the accusation by Brittany Commisso. The one by his aides was that the only day in November she was in the Executive Mansion was November 16 and Cuomo was surrounded by his aides too much. The one by Cuomo is that anything that happened was initiated by her.
She actually put a stop to it pretty quickly, although not before being groped. She had to tell him that they could get in trouble and that he was crazy. She spent some time in her car after that getting over it before going to her usual place of work. She was possibly relieved, and lived with it.
But when Cuomo said in March that he never touched anyone inappropriately, she told two other people in the office (superiors?) that that was not true: She was touched inappropriately, (apparently twice, once on December 31, 2019 and once probably November 16, 2020.)
She didn’t intend to file a complaint, but the office then being alert to not following up, reported it, and she co-operated with inquiries.
Assembly Speaker Carl Hastie has never brought anything to the floor without getting a majority, using only Democrats. That means getting 76 out of the 106 Democrats. (or 5/7 of them. Democratss are about the same percentage of the full Assembly – that is just over 70%. But he may use Republican votes for this if he needs them. All 44 Republicans can be considered ready to impeach.
The trial cannot begin before 30 days after the vote to impeach. That means, if the impeachment vote takes place Friday, September 4, the trial cannot begin before Monday October 4. The impeachment vote surelyy won;t happen before Monday August 31.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/10/2021 @ 9:08 amSpeaking of which:
Did you figure out who is a member of the group “some people here?”
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/10/2021 @ 9:12 amhttps://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/joe-biden-enemy-of-religious-freedom.php
The constant attack against Christians and His followers from this administration proves once again how radical they are.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/10/2021 @ 9:13 amhttps://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/new-york-gov-andrew-cuomo-resigns-n1260310
Allegedly after 14 days. Can I have that in writing? Where are the criminal charges?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/10/2021 @ 9:18 amTwo weeks seems to be about the maximum that Cuomo could postpone things without any more publicity.
Kathy Hochul was discussing her possible appointments and consulting with members of the legislature.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/10/2021 @ 10:07 am343-You literally repeated the journalist’s lie that the books had been banned in your italicized comment following the article post. I’m willing to concede that you merely parroted his assertion, but uncritically accepting a false narrative proffered by a biased source is hardly a better look
Factory Working Orphan (ea71f6) — 8/10/2021 @ 11:06 am345-. It’s like he thinks we can’t actually see those little italicized asides during the rare occasions where he decides to comment on them. Sort of undermines the whole “jus’ tryin’ to provoke conversation here” schtick of his.
Factory Working Orphan (ea71f6) — 8/10/2021 @ 11:14 amDominion is having a little fun at the expense of Newsmax and OAN.
It sounds like Dominion is not afraid of discovery. And then there’s the mathematical “expert” who appeared on OAN.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 8/10/2021 @ 2:02 pmhttps://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-supreme-court-allows-for-arrest-of-democrats-who-dont-show-up-to-legislature
Obvious since the Constitution grants them the explicit right. The judge that tried to play partisan politics to exempt the fleebagggers should be impeached and removed.
NJRob (10777c) — 8/10/2021 @ 6:57 pmItwas raining here around 7:15 pm – with lightning at 7:36 which continued past 9 pm.
There’s a tropical depression in the Caribbean which will be named Fred when it becomes a tropical storm. It will pass over some islands and weaken but then pass over water, and strengthen and should head over to Florida where it will pass offshore off the west coast and most likely make landfall by the panhandle around Monday. I think that will cause rain 1,000 miles away.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:19 pmIt’s late in coming, but cool photo, Dana.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 8/10/2021 @ 8:43 pmhttps://fox40.com/news/local-news/documents-college-professor-set-fires-near-dixie-fire/
Ecoterrorist.
Wonder if he’s going to be an awful arsonist or a delusional save the world by destroying it type.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/10/2021 @ 10:04 pmhttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/10/rand-paul-suspended-youtube-forced-remove-video/
Left wing indoctrination.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/10/2021 @ 10:09 pmOne limitation I would put on Section 230 is allowing suits for removing true statements on a public forum, while claiming they are false.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/10/2021 @ 10:47 pmhttps://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/dr-ryan-cole-what-the-vaccine-spike-protein-does-to-the-body/
mg (8cbc69) — 8/11/2021 @ 3:21 amNever shoving that serum in me or my family.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/08/surge-in-pediatric-respiratory-cases-appear-to-stem-from-rsv-infections-not-covid-19/
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/11/2021 @ 4:46 amThat’s not cricket! What is it with Chicago!?! When they’re not shooting people dead, they’re biting nipples off…
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/08/man-bit-off-motorists-nipple-during-road-rage-clash-on-lake-shore-drive-prosecutors-say.html
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/11/2021 @ 7:09 am360. https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/high-risk/infants-young-children.html
They are not working “hard” if “hard” means trying to do it quickly.
So we see, it’s normally prevented in infants considered high risk, but this was not the season, and they’d rather not give a drug.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/11/2021 @ 8:07 amBut, but, but, according to some people here children couldn’t get COVID.
Who said that?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/9/2021 @ 6:55 pm
I couldn’t find the comment that triggered my recollection, so I am not going to name names without proof.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/11/2021 @ 4:22 pmI kinda figured that.
BuDuh (7bca93) — 8/11/2021 @ 4:49 pmInteresting study on vaccine effectiveness.
TL:DR it works and everyone that can safely get it should do so.
Time123 (545f4b) — 8/11/2021 @ 4:59 pmhttps://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.21261707v2
Wups, missed the link
Time123 (545f4b) — 8/11/2021 @ 4:59 pmTLer;DRer
nk (1d9030) — 8/11/2021 @ 5:06 pmIt works. I got it. Is that lemon cream pie fresh, Miss?
R.I.P. Pat Hitchcock, actress and daughter of Alfred
Icy (6abb50) — 8/11/2021 @ 5:07 pmhttps://acasignups.net/21/08/11/weekly-update-us-covid19-vaccination-levels-county-partisan-lean
Correlation of counties vaccination and political lean based on 2020 presidential election.
Time123 (545f4b) — 8/11/2021 @ 5:25 pmRIP Donald Kagan (89).
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/11/2021 @ 5:26 pmWell, we all make mistakes:
Gilead makes remdesivir.
I look forward to further explanations from the Pauls. (Incidentally, he is not the only senator who made some suspicious stock transactions early in 2020.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/11/2021 @ 6:41 pmAt about 8:30 pm, there was lightning, but no thunder. At about 8:48, it started to rain. Not all that heavy. I heard on 9 pm radio news that thunderstorms were moving into Staten Island. No mention of Brooklyn. Rain tapering off now, it predicted for most of the evening.
Tomorrow is forecast hot.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/11/2021 @ 6:44 pmRemdesivir is basically a cure in search of a disease. It’s not that helpful.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/11/2021 @ 6:47 pm#372 Sammy – The drug may have helped Gilead. From the article: “The drug brought in $2.8 billion for Gilead last year.”
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/11/2021 @ 7:29 pmGoodGreat news story of the day!“Matthew Rupert, 29, of Galesburg, Ill., has been sentenced to nearly 9 years in federal prison after being convicted for his role in the Minneapolis BLM-Antifa riots last year,” Andy Ngo reported Tuesday. “He handed out explosives & set a store on fire.”
According to Ngo, Rupert’s prison sentence is the longest thus far for those involved in the radical Black Lives Matter/Antifa riots, Daily Wire reported.
“Convicted #BLM arsonist Matthew Lee Rupert drove more than 400 miles from Illinois to riot in Minneapolis on 28 May, 2020,” Ngo wrote. “In addition to handing out shell explosives to rioters, he doused lighter fluid over a pile of boxes inside a store & set it on fire.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/11/2021 @ 7:42 pmWhoops… https://www.lawofficer.com/minneapolis-rioter-matthew-rupert-receives-9-year-prison-sentence/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/11/2021 @ 7:43 pm374. Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/11/2021 @ 7:29 pm
Yes it helped Gilead, but that has more to do with their knowledge of the FDA appproval process than with is potential as a drug. There were other things that were much better.
Of course, by late February, people knew about Covid.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-remdesivir-treat-covid-19-begins
The next day Rand Paul revealed Wednesday Rand Paul and his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/12/2021 @ 6:30 amNew Yorkk Yankees and the Chicago White Six to play each other tonight in Iowa – in the “field of dreams.” (actually near there)
The game was originally scheduled for Aug. 13, 2020.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/465099-can-baseballs-historic-field-of-dreams-game-inspire-a-new
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/sports/baseball/field-of-dreams-yankees-white-sox.html
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/12/2021 @ 6:36 amMore numbers on COVID and vaccinations from the Washington Post.
The “Cases in states” graph should be studied by anyone who wants to see what strategies are working in our war against the virus — and which ones aren’t.
(Reminder: To its credit, the Post provides all its COVID stories for free.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 8/12/2021 @ 7:10 am