Patterico's Pontifications

1/7/2022

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 1:48 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Hold them accountable:

Second news item

MAGA masculinity in action:

Ted Cruz on Thursday walked back his use of the word “terrorist” when describing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol during an intense back and forth with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly questioned the validity of the Republican senator’s explanation.

Cruz was lambasted during Carlson’s Wednesday night show for describing Jan. 6 as “a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol.” During his Thursday night appearance, when Carlson asked him why he used the word “terrorist,” Cruz brushed off his previous phrasing as “sloppy” and “frankly dumb.”

“You told that lie on purpose, and I’m wondering why you did,” Carlson said.

“What I was referring to are the limited number of people who engaged in violent attacks against police officers. I think you and I both agree that if you assault a police officer, you should go to jail,” Cruz said. “I wasn’t saying the thousands of peaceful protesters supporting Donald Trump are somehow terrorists. I wasn’t saying the millions of patriots across the country supporting Trump are terrorists.”

Looks like Cruz has made a habit of being “sloppy” and “dumb” when it comes to discussing Jan. 6:

Cruz’s use of “terrorist attack” was not some sort of one-time accident. In fact, he had described the Capitol riot as a terrorist attack or broadly described rioters as terrorists over and over for months — at least 17 previous times in official written statements, in tweets, in remarks at Senate hearings and in interviews.

Third news item

California working hard to encourage residents to leave:

It would increase the top marginal income-tax rate to 18.05 percent. That’s 7.05 percentage points higher than Hawaii, the next highest state, and 12.75 percentage points higher than the national median. It would increase taxes by an average of $12,250 per household. “All told, the new tax package is intended to raise an additional $163 billion per year, which is more than California raised in total tax revenue any year prior to the pandemic,” he writes.

It’s not just income taxes, though. The state wants to implement a payroll tax as well, with the top rate applying to taxpayers making only $49,990 in annual income.

On a side note, how crazy is California? About $295 million worth of crazy:

…high above a quiet Bel Air cul-de-sac known as Airole Way, and surrounded on three sides by a water-filled moat, the main residence features 21 bedrooms and an unfathomable total of 49 bathrooms (42 of them full baths, the remainder powder rooms) sprawled across a whopping 105,000 square feet of Kathryn Rotondi-designed living space. Walls of glass throughout offer panoramic views of the ocean, city skyline and San Gabriel Mountains; there’s also a three-bedroom guesthouse and seven-bedroom staff quarters.

Fourth news item

What’s that you say:

Fifth news item

Oh, come on Floridians!:

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, acknowledged Thursday that 800,000 to a million COVID tests had expired in a state stockpile, with the omicron variant spreading and residents facing long lines for testing.

The expired testing kits had become an issue earlier, when Florida Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Nikki Fried said in a Dec. 30 statement: “It’s come to my attention that Governor DeSantis’ Department of Health has a significant number of COVID-19 tests stockpiled that are set to expire imminently.

“Given the Governor’s lack of transparency throughout this pandemic, there’s no known public information about these tests or how soon they expire. With omicron infections exploding throughout Florida, I beg of him to release these tests immediately to local counties and cities, and to stand up state-sponsored testing sites. To let these tests expire while Floridians anxiously wait for hours in testing lines is negligent at best, and heartless at worst.”

…Guthrie said demand for the tests was low in the fall, prior to the emergency of the omicron variant.

“We tried to give them out prior to that but there wasn’t a demand for it,” Guthrie said.

Sixth news item

Democrat and Republican focus groups reveal similar takes on 2024:

The most surprising thing to us was their shaky faith in the Democratic Party itself — and its ability to do anything either to stop Republicans from doing more violence or change the root problems with “the system.” Listening to both focus groups, you really understand that we live in a country that is at once so radical and so conservative, and that what unites the left and the right is a mistrust in people at the top. There was little enthusiasm among the Democrats for President Biden to run again in 2024 — and ditto for the Republicans and Mr. Trump

Seventh news item

New York City’s new mayor keeping it in the family:

Mayor Eric Adams has tapped his younger brother to serve as a deputy NYPD commissioner, The Post has learned.

Bernard Adams, a 56-year-old retired NYPD sergeant, will oversee governmental affairs, he confirmed Friday. But the full scope of his responsibilities was not immediately clear.

Internal documents obtained by The Post show Bernard Adams listed as a deputy commissioner on the official NYPD roster.

Eighth news item

Dazed and confused at the CDC:

The latest messaging setback happened last month when the CDC cut its recommended isolation period for those with Covid-19 to five days, and recommended people who tested positive should continue to wear a mask in public for five additional days. Confusion ensued, with some outside experts urging the CDC to add a recommendation for a rapid antigen test at the end of the first five days.

Behind the scenes, other federal public health officials also questioned the decision not to include testing. Both Dr. Anthony Fauci, the President’s top medical adviser on Covid-19, and US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy publicly made clear clarifications were coming.

Amid the public backlash, Walensky sought to reassure fellow senior federal health officials, telling Fauci and Murthy that the lack of a testing requirement in the isolation guidance was not motivated by the nationwide testing shortage, one person familiar with the discussions said.

Instead, she insisted that rapid antigen tests were simply not a sufficiently reliable indicator of contagiousness and noted to her colleagues that the US Food and Drug Administration had not approved the tests for that purpose.

She told CNN, “We actually don’t know how our rapid tests perform and how well they predict whether you’re transmissible during the end of disease.”

Ninth news item

Sentenced:

The sentences for Travis McMichael, who shot [Ahmaud] Arbery; and his father, Gregory McMichael, do not carry the possibility of parole. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan will be eligible, however, Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley said.

All three men were convicted of murder and other charges by a Glynn County jury in November in the pursuit and fatal shooting of Arbery on Feb. 23, 2020.

Tenth news item

Paging Jen Psaki and Jake Sullivan:

When the Taliban seized power in August, the militant group vowed it would not resurrect the violent religious policing it enforced during its first stint in power. The hard-liners claimed they would limit themselves to preaching Islamic values of modesty and dignity.

But nearly five months after regaining power, the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has reclaimed its role as the enforcer of the group’s radical interpretation of Islamic law.

In a spate of decrees issued in recent weeks, the ministry has imposed restrictions on the behavior, movement, and appearances of residents, particularly those of women and girls.

During the Taliban’s first reign from 1996 to 2001, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice established one of the most brutal reputations of any organization in world history. Its enforcers are the ones who carried out the horrific human-rights abuses that characterized the Taliban regime before the U.S. invasion…

Squads of the ministry’s morality police punished those who disobeyed modesty codes, with beards too thin or ankles that showed. They banished girls from school and women from the workplace and the public eye. A woman could not venture outside without a male guardian.

Radio Azadi reports that this time around, the ministry has ordered shopkeepers to behead mannequins in stores because they consider them idols, and Islam strictly forbids idolatry. (The report also quotes a more mainstream Muslim scholar who says this interpretation is incorrect because mannequins are not idols at all.)

The ministry in December said women who want to travel more than 72 kilometers should not be allowed to do so unaccompanied. It “also directed all vehicle drivers to refrain from playing music in their cars and not to pick up female passengers who did not wear an Islamic hijab covering their hair,” the report says. This order is being enforced by checkpoints all around Kabul.

Evil is as evil does. Always.

MISCELLANEOUS:

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Have a great weekend.

–Dana

442 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Oh hello!

    Dana (5395f9)

  2. Posted this on an earlier thread before the open weekend thread was up- sorry:

    NASA to Host Coverage, Briefing for Webb Telescope’s Final Unfolding

    https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-host-coverage-briefing-for-webb-telescope-s-final-unfolding

    You know, this $10 billion telescope is among the most significant advances in human history, yet our so-called ‘news channels’ barely mention it at all. The astonishing web of intricate complexities necessary to successfully deploy Webb- overcoming the hundreds of possible single-point failures- is a triumph of organization, planning, splendid engineering, competent testing as well as the mind and hand of Man.

    It’s non-political and positive news, too. Something we sorely need in these times. Back in the day, through the turbulent and wretchedly miserable 1960s, human efforts in space were the only truly positive news conveyed– it was a good, positive story; a golden thread woven through a dark decade-long tapestry. Our media at the time latched on to that. But not today. I’m tired of bad news; of poor reporting by drunken news readers, blowhard opinionators and dumb-assed politicians trying to score points. Turning to the mind candy of the Kardashians or a plethora of games shows won’t cut it, either. It’s time we started looking up again and celebrating our accomplishments. Once upon a time, that’s the way it was– and the way it should be again.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  3. Senator Cruz actually had a decent answer for his misstep and that was he was trying to be consistent. He called BLMers terrorists when they attack cops so he’s calling the thugs who last Jan attacked cops terrorists.

    I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that answer. Sorry to those who are offended.

    NJRob (25a29c)

  4. @3 biden and harris never have to explain calling blm and antifa domestic terrorists cuz they never do

    they’re very masculine about it

    yay

    JF (e1156d)

  5. The sad thing about Senator Cruz’s groveling to Carlson is that it will please no one. MAGA will still be mad at him for calling the Trump supporters that assaulted the police to stop the certification of the election ‘terrorists’. Non-MAGA will be mad at him for walking it back.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  6. Kevin M, is Ted Cruz getting a invite for the 3CRP?

    urbanleftbehind (c2e573)

  7. the lack of a testing requirement in the isolation guidance was not motivated by the nationwide testing shortage

    What they don’t tell you in the story is whether this claim was made with a straight face. Since we’re working at the federal level I’m guessing yes.

    She told CNN, “We actually don’t know how our rapid tests perform and how well they predict whether you’re transmissible during the end of disease.”

    But hey, all our data is good and all of those other things we keep telling you are on the up and up. And this is our best excuse for the other thing.

    frosty (f27e97)

  8. Cruz did a good job working for Booosh at the Federal Trade Commission. He was always attempting to roll back regulations on various issues. Too bad he didn’t make that this career.

    mg (8cbc69)

  9. I thought this news item would make the open thread:

    Brett Kimberlin (Speedway Bomber) Loses Attempt to Vacate Long-Past Convictions, Including First Amendment Challenge to Impersonating-Federal-Official Conviction

    https://reason.com/volokh/2022/01/07/brett-kimberlin-speedway-bomber-loses-attempt-to-vacate-long-past-convictions-including-first-amendment-challenge-to-impersonating-federal-official-conviction/

    Mattsky (55d339)

  10. @9 Yay!

    Time123 (d499a8)

  11. Stolen from Twitter

    Q: Where does Ted Cruz keep his balls?
    A: In abasement.

    Time123 (d499a8)

  12. RIP: Lani Guinier, 71

    President Bill Clinton tapped Lani Guinier to serve as assistant attorney general for civil rights but withdrew her nomination after her writings on voting rights drew criticism.

    Lani Guinier, a voting rights scholar and the first woman of color to be a tenured professor at Harvard Law School, has died. She was 71.

    Ms. Guinier died Friday morning surrounded by family and friends, Harvard Law School Dean John Manning said in a letter to colleagues. Her son, Nikolas Bowie, attributed her death in Cambridge, Mass., to complications related to Alzheimer’s disease.

    Ms. Guinier’s writings and studies focused on voting rights, race and gender.

    Before her appointment at Harvard Law School in 1998, she was a tenured professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School; worked in the civil rights division at the Justice Department under President Jimmy Carter ; and headed the voting rights project at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the 1980s. She received her law degree from Yale Law School in 1974.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  13. It would be terrible if Trump’s minions all get it in the neck, but Trump walks away. Trump and his lieutenants need to be charged with the maximum that can be charged.

    I think you could fund the government for a day off the proceeds from a tape showing Trump’s first day in the “yard.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  14. If Trump goes to prison, do his Secret Service guards have to go too?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  15. Oh Come On Florida Reporters!

    DOH Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern, who had previously tweeted that Fried should “get back in her lane,” offered more clarification Thursday evening.
    “To suggest that the Florida Department of Health waited around for these test kits to expire is simply false,” Redfern explained. “The FDA granted the test manufacturer a 3-month extension in May of 2021. The original expiration of the test kits in question was September 2021. The manufacturer has also informed us that they have submitted another extension request.”
    According to Redfern, the pre-packaged COVID tests that Fried was referring to “require trained individuals for administration, with one testing solution for every 40 tests.”

    He says they were not designed for individual use. DeSantis, too, referenced this as a reason for why demand was lower for these particular tests – suggesting facilities wanted rapid testing options that were easier to use.
    Still, Redfern explained, these tests were always available.
    “Since obtaining a supply of COVID-19 test kits, the Department has supported mission requests from various partners, including, but not limited to, county emergency management agencies, county health departments, public safety agencies, hospitals, and long-term care facilities,” Redfern wrote in an email. “Our staff continuously notified our partners of the availability of these tests.”

    Since July 1, 2021, Redfern says the health department has distributed 3.4 million tests statewide.

    https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/politics/nikki-fried-ron-desantis-covid19-test-stockpile/67-c829d682-fb0b-48e2-8175-9e2fdb81ba7e

    BuDuh (392411)

  16. Leftist agent provocateurs BuDuh. They have an agenda first and foremost. I’m shocked they even mentioned there was no demand for the tests.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  17. KAL is not my favorite cartoonist, not even in my top ten — but this brutal cartoon makes a needed point.

    (I suspect that Trump would like it.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  18. Jim,

    yet again, how many people have been tried with insurrection?

    Tell us again how reasonable and moderate you are.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  19. @14. ‘If Trump goes to prison, do his Secret Service guards have to go too?’

    Of course:

    “The White House is the finest prison in the world.” – President Harry S. Truman

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  20. @19 Jim is the guy who calls into radio talk shows claiming to be a longtime republican who then goes off on republicans

    JF (e1156d)

  21. Oh Come On Bidenistas!

    The Answer Is in on Those Tests Biden Promised—and It’s Unbelievable

    Reporter: “What about COVID tests going out to Americans? People are still standing in line.”

    Joe Biden: *looks confused*.

    *video at link*

    Watch this and tell me Biden has EVER used Google before…

    This is “quote” embarrassing.

    *video at link*

    https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/01/07/the-answer-is-in-on-those-tests-biden-promised-and-its-unbelievable-n503331

    BuDuh (392411)

  22. 15, 16,

    You will not that I mentioned that on the post:

    Guthrie said demand for the tests was low in the fall, prior to the emergency of the omicron variant.

    “We tried to give them out prior to that but there wasn’t a demand for it,” Guthrie said.

    Dana (5395f9)

  23. So what is the “Oh Come On…” all about?

    BuDuh (392411)

  24. “The alleged terrorists in Guantanamo had pro bono lawyers from top NY law firms like Cravath or Davis Polk. Ted Bundy, killer of 36 women, had lawyers from DC powerhouse Williams & Connelly to fight death penalty. But the 1/6 guys? No private lawyer will touch them. FUBAR.”

    https://twitter.com/fischerking64/status/1479302243065417730?s=21

    Obudman (84ff09)

  25. “President Bill Clinton tapped Lani Guinier….”

    That sentence didn’t go where I thought it would go…

    AJ_Liberty (3cb02f)

  26. But the 1/6 guys? No private lawyer will touch them. FUBAR.”

    Mr. Trump likes legal defense funds for people who don’t fail him.

    nk (1d9030)

  27. @25, That’s hilarious! Thank you for pointing it out.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  28. Seriously though, US law guarantees them a lawyer if they cannot afford one. So they should be ok.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  29. The proposed income tax increases are worrisome, as California takes a broad view of what is subject to its income tax. I do some consulting work for a Santa Monica company and anything they pay me is considered California income by the CA tax people.

    Thankfully, it appears I do not have to pay the NM gross receipts tax on out-of-state receipts. We’ll find out when I file, as I have to report that income to NM, too, with a copy of the CA tax filing. The courts have said I cannot be taxed on the same income by two different states. I’m sure they’ll find a way around that.

    BTW, NM’s gross receipts tax doesn’t operate like they say in that article. It is, for all intents and purposes, a sales tax on everything and is assessed on the buyer just like a sales tax is. In CA, i suspect that that 2.3% GRT will just be tacked onto your sales tax.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  30. Shorter: Leaving California doesn’t necessarily escape CA taxes.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  31. There was little enthusiasm among the Democrats for President Biden to run again in 2024 — and ditto for the Republicans and Mr. Trump

    “Is Andropov versus Chernenko again comrade! We must not let the wrong Communist win!”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  32. Senator Cruz actually had a decent answer for his misstep and that was he was trying to be consistent.

    It looks like the SS Trump is listing by the forward bow, and the first you-know-whats are heading for the boats.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  33. Let me tell you what kind of a man Ted Cruz is:

    Ted Cruz went to a private hunting ranch in Texas where an usher (ok, a “guide”, the person is just earning his daily bread) took him to a shooting stand near a feed hopper where the ranch-raised deer go for their breakfast, and when one showed up to eat he shot it. (I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he shot it dead, and not merely wounded it and the guide had to finish it.) Then he posed for pictures with it and tweeted “It’s what we do in Texas.”

    That’s the kind of man Ted Cruz is. Forget him!

    nk (1d9030)

  34. Regarding the sentencing in the Arbery case, here is NPR’s headling:

    All 3 white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery are sentenced to life in prison

    https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1070618256/ahmaud-arbery-killers-sentence

    Can you imagine them using a headline with the phrase “All 3 black men” if the situation were reversed, and the victim were white? I can’t either.

    Hey NPR, your biased underpants are showing.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  35. nk,

    There was a long article on Nikki Haley recently, and one of the bits was about the day that Rubio and Cruz showed up for her endorsement. Despite the fact that she hated Rubio’s campaign manager (he had run someone’s racist, sexist campaign against her for governor), and despite the fact that Jeb! was her patron, she endorsed Rubio because, unlike Cruz, he was human and unlike Jeb!, he stood a chance.

    It really wasn’t very nice to Cruz at all.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  36. Can you imagine them using a headline with the phrase “All 3 black men” if the situation were reversed, and the victim were white? I can’t either.

    Historically, it would have read:

    “All 3 [black men] accused of murdering _____ are found hanged from tree.” So, you’re right. A double standard.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  37. On a side note, how crazy is California?

    Quite.

    Hey frogs Californians, the water is getting warmer. Get out while you can. I did, and am better off for it.

    Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  38. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2022 @ 8:39 pm

    Historically, yes. That doesn’t justify NPR’s biased and racist headlines in the here and now.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  39. It really wasn’t very nice to Cruz at all.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2022 @ 8:31 pm

    I have less respect for Cruz than for Trump. Trump has been consistent. Cruz had his principles, but they didn’t work, so he found others.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  40. @37. Historically the Jan/6 reporting would have included more tar, feathers, and rails. Time moves on and we call it progress.

    frosty (f27e97)

  41. Cruz had his principles

    norcal (d4ed1d) — 1/7/2022 @ 8:50 pm

    I’m not sure this is true. Cruz fooled some of the people into thinking he had his principles. Just like Liz and some others are still doing.

    frosty (f27e97)

  42. I think Cruz saw the fervor of that Indiana guy he faced off with, and thought, “Gee, how can I get that kind of support?”

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  43. The sad thing about Senator Cruz’s groveling to Carlson is that it will please no one. MAGA will still be mad at him for calling the Trump supporters that assaulted the police to stop the certification of the election ‘terrorists’. Non-MAGA will be mad at him for walking it back.

    Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/7/2022 @ 2:21 pm

    I suspect that’s more a function of Cruz being one of the most unlikeable people in the Senate,
    rather than whatever his interactions with Carlson are. Seriously, even people who agree with him think he’s pretty slimy, although personally I’ll always appreciate that dunk he had on the Deadspin crew a few years ago. There’s a reason the Texas DNC ran Robert Francis O’Rourke against him in 2018, before O’Rourke went full exceptional with his gun-grabbing during the 2020 campaign.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  44. He called BLMers terrorists when they attack cops so he’s calling the thugs who last Jan attacked cops terrorists.

    And then Cruz groveled in apology, pleading with Tucker that he didn’t really mean it. What a pathetic piece of sh-t.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  45. nk at 34

    Ted was a city boy indeed. I wonder what the deer harvest in Texas is vs Kentucky

    EPWJ (0fbe92)

  46. Secretly, in the days after the New Hampshire primary, Haley’s team reached out to both the Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio camps. Each candidate was invited to have dinner with the governor and bring their spouse and one staffer. Haley didn’t really know Cruz, but he was everything she had expected—awkward, insincere. Over a painfully long dinner, the Texas senator recited line after line from his stump speech. When she asked Cruz, near the end of the dinner, what he would want his legacy to be as president, he responded, “I want to be remembered as the president who repealed every word of Obamacare.” When the senator left, Haley and her staff burst into laughter.

    https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/magazine-nikki-haleys-choice/

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  47. Stolen from Twitter

    Q: Where does Ted Cruz keep his balls?
    A: In abasement.

    Time123 (d499a8) — 1/7/2022 @ 4:38 pm

    Followed by “It’s why he can’t maintain an insurrection” (or similar words to that effect — I’m repeating from memory).

    lurker (59504c)

  48. Cancun ted cruz is a sociopath and like most sociopaths an opportunist who believes nothing except what is good for ted cruz ;however he has a problem faking sincerity almost as bad as hillary clinton does.

    asset (911abb)

  49. From time to time I look at those crazy properties in L.A. and very few of them are places that human beings could live in. From time to time one finds a jewel though.

    Here’s a 1912 Craftsman in Santa Monica for a mere $12.5M. It’s exquisite, but you have to accept the historic status which limits what you can do with it, but that also keeps the property tax “low” (a mere $100K/year) Most of the price is the land (18,000 sf) and location (north of Montana, West of Lincoln).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  50. @50.

    Mere blocks from my hovel. I lower the property value every time I walk past their house.

    lurker (59504c)

  51. she endorsed Rubio because, unlike Cruz, he was human and unlike Jeb!, he stood a chance.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2022 @ 8:31 pm

    Kind of ironic, given how pathetic Rubio has made himself in his eagerness to carry Trump’s jockstrap. Almost as pathetic as Cruz, in fact.

    Almost.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e)

  52. Posted in the wrong thread; copying over

    After hearing Sotomayor’s questions during the mandate oral arguments does anyone think she’d stop a federal rule implementing a CCP style one child policy? If so on what grounds?

    frosty (f27e97)

  53. French historian Françoise Thom is sounding the alarm on Putin’s ultimatum.

    The Russian threat is explicit and directed at both the Americans and the Europeans. If the West does not accept the ultimatum, they will have to face “a military and technical alternative”, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko: “The Europeans must also think about whether they want to avoid making their continent the scene of a military confrontation. They have a choice. Either they take seriously what is put on the table, or they face a military-technical alternative.”

    She ends with this dramatic sentence:

    We are like the Byzantines who were discussing the sex of angels while the Ottoman forces were destroying the city walls.

    (Those who read Russian will want to check her sources.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  54. #34 nk – Interesting story. I assume you know that kind of “hunting” used to be common for European aristocrats (and some wealthy Americans).

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  55. Apparently, Cruz’s “sloppy phrasing” that 1/6 was a terrorist attack happened 17 previous times. It makes his prostrating and groveling to Tucker look even more weak and pathetic.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  56. More on terrorism:

    Has anyone been charged ‘with terrorism’ over Jan. 6?
    No. Mr. Carlson asked Mr. Cruz, “How many people have been charged with terrorism on Jan. 6?” The answer is zero — but that fact is deeply misleading.

    Congress — despite establishing a legal definition for “domestic terrorism” — has not created any stand-alone federal crime called that. As a result, it is not possible for prosecutors to charge any of the Jan. 6 rioters “with terrorism” regardless of whether they committed terrorist acts.

    Might some defendants nevertheless face longer sentences for terrorism-related offenses?
    Yes. Dozens of defendants are facing charges that will give prosecutors the opportunity to ask for longer sentences by invoking the context of domestic terrorism. It is not yet clear how harsh prosecutors and judges will be when it comes time to sentence uncooperative defendants who insist on going to trial and then get convicted, rather than striking plea deals.

    In one statute, for example, Congress deemed about four dozen offenses as eligible to count as a “federal crime of terrorism” if the acts were “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” Under sentencing guidelines, such a conviction can result in a much longer prison term.

    The list includes destruction of government property, a charge that 44 defendants are facing so far, according to the Justice Department’s tally of the Jan. 6 cases. The list also includes a “weapon of mass destruction” charge that may be brought if the F.B.I. finds whoever put pipe bombs outside the Capitol Hill headquarters of both major political parties the night before the riot.

    In addition, two defendants so far have been charged with making false statements. Under a separate law, prosecutors can ask for a sentence of up to eight years, rather than the normal five, if such lies involve domestic terrorism.

    Despite my bringing it up more than once, I don’t have a hard opinion about it. Most of the rioters are ordinary citizens got chumped by the Trump’s lies and, in their blind loyalty to that clown, were impassioned about the election. A good chunk of the responsibility (and less so for the gullible) goes to the Big Liar for fooling his followers, playing on their passions and doing his bidding. We know it was his bidding by his hours-long inaction in not stopping it, not even making one call to the National Guard.

    Savage also notes Tucker Carlson’s hypocrisy.

    Notably, during the nationwide protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Mr. Carlson called on the Justice Department to charge “every single person caught on camera torching a building, destroying a monument, defacing a church” with terrorism.

    “Call them what they actually are — domestic terrorists,” he said, adding: “That would be their new government-approved title. Once they’re charged, it’s official. In fact, they are literally, as a factual matter, accused terrorists. And that would change minds right away.”

    Terrorism for them but not for thee.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  57. When the Russian speakers step up to verify Jim’s story, I ask that they dig into whether or not Russia had equivalent threats during Trump’s 4 years.

    Thanks you, in advance, for doing our homework.

    BuDuh (392411)

  58. Apparently, Cruz’s “sloppy phrasing” that 1/6 was a terrorist attack happened 17 previous times. It makes his prostrating and groveling to Tucker look even more weak and pathetic.

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/8/2022 @ 8:02 am

    Seriously, and really think about this —

    Assuming the Democrats are able to nominate a moderate, non-ridiculous, non-Beto sort of candidate, what is Cruz’s path to reelection in 2024? If you lean right and like Trump, then you must have nothing but contempt for Cruz. People like me, who lean right and DON’T like Trump, now see Cruz as a pathetic weakling who folds like a cheap three-piece suit under pressure…not just from Trump, but now from TUCKER. And he has zero crossover appeal among Democrats, because he is and has always been self-righteously smarmy. (Which used to be a selling point, when he was using his smarm as a Happy Warrior, but now it makes him look so — to steal a word the alt-right loves — beta.)

    I mean, sure, there will be the people who vote straight-party no matter what, and the people who look at the Democratic nominee and say “Even Ted is better than that,” and his family members, and fellow Cancun snowbirds. And I’m assuming Trump will be at the top of the GOP ticket, because when you’re already rocketing toward unavoidable destruction, why tap the brake? So I’m betting he still gets 46-47% on that basis. But imagine a Joe Manchin-style candidate running against Cruz. I have to believe that guy might win.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e)

  59. Speaking of Tucker, if this takes hold, we’ll be asking “are you taking a Covid treatment or are you just glad to see me”.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  60. “Despite my bringing it up more than once, I don’t have a hard opinion about it. Most of the rioters are ordinary citizens got chumped by the Trump’s lies and, in their blind loyalty to that clown, were impassioned about the election.”

    This reiterates my position. I don’t care what language is used to describe the rioters….that debate just distracts from the hard questions about why Trump spun up these supporters….sat and watched the mayhem and chose not to intervene….then provided no televised explanation to the nation afterwards defending or at least rationalizing his action and inaction. And finally, why the GOP abets it all….and continues supporting the Big Lie.

    Standard crimes…including assault, assault with a weapon, resisting, disorderly conduct, civil disorder, and breaking into a secured facility…are sufficient to send a clear message and punish the individuals for their actions. Trump supporters love going down the terrorism rabbit hole precisely because it avoids uncomfortable questions about how they can still support Trump…and why they are unwilling to move on.

    Just think about the current GOP agenda. There’s not much there there. The focus has been to displace Republicans who either resisted Trump’s election maneuvers or spoke out harshly against him. Tack on state laws to make it easier to over-turn a disfavored vote total. This is all to smooth the grand return of Trump in 2024. Yes, the GOP opposes everything Biden…..but at some point the GOP needs to govern and say what it wants to do. A House conservative study group recommends massive cuts to Medicare. Is that what the GOP wants to run on nationally? I kind of doubt it, though wish we might see a serious discussion on debt. I guess being against stuff is enough for some people but the lack of a real platform in 2020 was pretty telling. Slogans go only so far….twitter rants are just juvenile….where are the serious people? Where is leadership?

    AJ_Liberty (3cb02f)

  61. Seriously, and really think about this —

    Assuming the Democrats are able to nominate a moderate, non-ridiculous

    But imagine a Joe Manchin-style candidate running against Cruz. I have to believe that guy might win.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e) — 1/8/2022 @ 8:51 am

    So glad I wasn’t drinking coffee for this one. Seriously, think about and imagine. Would this be a JM candidate on the D ticket? The same JM that the D’s are currently excoriating for being rational?

    frosty (f27e97)

  62. Terrorism for them but not for thee.

    Conservatives made hypocrisy their cardinal virtue when they began idolizing Trump, saying there was no need for him to demonstrate the social and religious values he was supposedly defending, and that his willingness to smash traditional norms was a great asset — but still a sin when other people did it.

    Of course it’s a familiar human failing to be inconsistent and self-interested in applying moral judgment, but the cult of Trump turned moral relativism into a patriotic virtue. Trump is well known for accusing other people of terrible sins, while holding himself to be without fault or blemish, whatever he does. Trumpers took the view that it’s wrong and unpatriotic to hold Trump to the standards they apply to others.

    Then they decided that hours of hand-to-hand combat with police officers and threats of violence against legislators cannot really be so bad if it’s done in service to Trump.

    Radegunda (fae2dc)

  63. Then they decided that hours of hand-to-hand combat with police officers and threats of violence against legislators cannot really be so bad if it’s done in service to Trump.

    Radegunda (fae2dc) — 1/8/2022 @ 9:25 am

    “The crowd wasn’t violent. There wasn’t really a break-in at the Capitol. They were invited in. Well, okay, one door was smashed. But that was antifa. They were mixing in with the crowd in order to make Trump supporters look bad. Most of the people inside the Capitol were just walking around taking some pictures. There was no threat against the government, or against anyone there. Well, I mean, except for the antifa plants. And now we have all these innocent people being mistreated in jail.”

    I have a friend who has said these things to me. Not in this exact order, or all at once. But she has said all of them. And she meant them.

    This is what Trump does. He corrupts. He debases.

    “…he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed, while others reap and sow in his stead.” –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

    Demosthenes (3fd56e)

  64. #57, #61, and #63 – I don’t have much to add to those comments, except this possibility: During the BLM demonstrations/riots in Seattle, it appeared that only a minority of those involved were violent. But I also began to suspect that some — let me repeat, some — of the non-violent were acting as shields to protect the violent from the police. For example, when bottles were thrown at the officers, they always seemed to come from behind other demonstrators.

    It would not surprise me if at least a few in that attack on the Capitol similarly acted as shields.

    (Incidentally, the following tactic was sometimes used at anti-Vietnam War protests: “Chicks up front.” Young women were urged to be at the front of the demonstration, partly for the visuals, and partly, I think, to protect any young men who were misbehaving.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  65. Tucker Carlson is now telling another whopper, saying that boosters don’t work and actually increase your chance of getting Covid:

    Especially when the boosters aren’t working. I mean there’s evidence that people who get the boosters are more likely to get the latest variant.

    Dana (5395f9)

  66. (Incidentally, the following tactic was sometimes used at anti-Vietnam War protests: “Chicks up front.” Young women were urged to be at the front of the demonstration, partly for the visuals, and partly, I think, to protect any young men who were misbehaving.)

    It was not only to shield what young men were doing but also to soften the response by law enforcement and the media. At that time, cute little hippie chicks were harder to vilify than the actual guys committing violence or rioting. It was a more sympathetic front. And the BLM riots had their own Naked Athena.

    Dana (5395f9)

  67. Heh! Up here where I am, there was a month-and-a-half backlog when I made my booster appointment (and I hate to think what it is now). When I get my jab, I’ll picture it and the jabs of all the other people in line with me as jabs in Carlson Tucker’s butt.

    Here’s the deal. The highest number I’ve seen for the clown’s audience is around 4.5 million, and as a percentage of the population that’s below statistical significance.

    nk (1d9030)

  68. “I don’t mean to understate the seriousness of January 6th, even though it’s been absurdly misreported for over a year now. No one from a country where these things actually happen could mistake 1/6 for “a coup .” In the real version, the mob doesn’t take selfies and blaze doobies after seizing the palace, and the would-be dictator doesn’t spend 187 minutes snacking and watching Fox before tweeting “go home.” Instead, he works the phones nonstop to rally precinct chiefs, generals, and airport officials to the cause, because a coup is a real attempt to seize power. Britannica says the “chief prerequisite for a coup is control of all or part of the armed forces, the police, and other military elements.” We saw none of that on January 6th, but it’s become journalistic requirement to use either “coup” or “insurrection” in describing it:

    The endless hyperventilating efforts to describe January 6th as a disaster on the order of Pearl Harbor or even 9/11 has been awesome to behold.”

    https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-authoritarians

    Obudman (84ff09)

  69. RIP: Marilyn Bergman (93), Oscar-winning lyracist

    “The Way We Were” and “The Windmills of Your Mind”

    Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
    Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
    Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
    Like a carousel that’s turning running rings around the moon
    Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
    And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
    Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!

    (originally posted to wrong thread)

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  70. Ted Cruz went to a private hunting ranch in Texas

    Yeah, not great for Ted, but what kind of person runs a place like that? Where is PETA when you need them?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  71. Just like Liz and some others are still doing.

    OK, I’ll bite. What is Liz gaining from her stand? Integrity is doing something right, despire known adverse consequences. Maybe she gains down the road when everyone else is saying they “were just following orders.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  72. Kind of ironic, given how pathetic Rubio has made himself in his eagerness to carry Trump’s jockstrap. Almost as pathetic as Cruz, in fact.

    Yeah. Just following orders, indeed. Trump can break any Florida politician in a half-hour, if he wants. He’ll probably destroy Rubio anyway, out of spite.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  73. But imagine a Joe Manchin-style candidate running against Cruz. I have to believe that guy might win.

    “I’m like Joe Manchin” is not the best way to win a Democrat primary.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  74. Which would be the worst primary competition for Cruz? A Trumpbot? Or a #neverTrump? He seems like low-hanging fruit for an ambitious Republican.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  75. At least Taibbi is consistent about one thing: His hatred for Dick Cheney.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  76. Just like Liz and some others are still doing
    OK, I’ll bite. What is Liz gaining from her stand?

    It’s bizarre to see people trying to argue that Liz Cheney must be acting from purely cynical self-serving motives — to get attention, to get on CNN — but not those who first said 1/6 was really bad and then pivoted to the position that it was really nothing. Moral courage is supposedly marching in lockstep with the Trump cult so the kind of people who stormed the Capitol might vote for you, or not come after you.

    It’s also funny when people who revere Trump pretend to disapprove of people seeking attention.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  77. I have to agree that calling this a “coup” is on a par with calling Nixon’s fall a “coup.”

    ‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words’

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  78. How to tell a politician is running for president: (1) the fat guy loses a ridiculous amount of weight, (2) the ambitious guy proposes a ridiculous sop to his base, having a near certain chance of getting thrown by any competent court. The common word here is ridiculous.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  79. What this was was “acting out” — about what you’d expect from the man-child.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  80. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2022 @ 10:53 am

    She’s trying to gain the same thing Ted is. More time in office. More leverage for grift. She picked the John McCain maverick tactic early on and she’s committed to the image.

    We got this sort of self promotion from Ted and people believed it for a while. We got it from McCain and he fooled some of the people all of the time. Romney gets this same PR and it works on people that don’t know, or care, about Bain Capital.

    I’m not surprised people keep falling for the whole Fortunate Son thing. We’ll see if it pays off in the long run.

    frosty (f27e97)

  81. She’s trying to gain the same thing Ted is. More time in office.

    If she wanted more time in office, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut and not vote for impeachment, like most of the rest of the GOP caucus. Wyoming is one of the safest Republican districts out there, where Trump won by over 43.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  82. But imagine a Joe Manchin-style candidate running against Cruz. I have to believe that guy might win.

    “I’m like Joe Manchin” is not the best way to win a Democrat primary”

    Remember, the party in the White House has it’s convention last…Sinemax and Gabbard would blow out Cruz, if the Dems groveled sufficient ly enough for it to happen.

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  83. but not those who first said 1/6 was really bad and then pivoted to the position that it was really nothing.

    Who are these people?

    It’s also funny when people who revere Trump pretend to disapprove of people seeking attention.

    Radegunda (908c12) — 1/8/2022 @ 11:11 am

    And these people?

    frosty (f27e97)

  84. This is what Trump does. He corrupts. He debases.

    I have seen this happen to people I used to regard as having moral integrity. The rationale is: He has policies I like, so nothing else is relevant, and all the criticism of him is unfair and in bad faith.

    Political leaders don’t need to be saints in their personal lives, but they should display some understanding that what is right doesn’t begin and end with their own desires, and that rules apply to them as much as anyone else. Making a moral hero out of someone with an openly self-centered view of good and bad is corrupting.

    Even the policy judgments are inconsistent. An original argument of the Trump-boosters was that the “libertarian” economics of the old GOP were bad for average Americans, and only Trump understood that more economic paternalism was needed. But they’re happy to crow about the success of supply-side tax cuts and quasi-libertarian deregulation — and ignore the fact that Trump’s tariffs did not bring the advertised benefits.

    When Trump made his deal with the Taliban, undercutting the Afghan government, any Trumpers paying attention insisted that it was the correct America First policy. When Biden completed the withdrawal (which Trump said was his own policy and Biden simply “couldn’t stop the process”), the Trumpers all pivoted to the view that it was a “humiliating surrender” and that only Biden was responsible for empowering the Taliban. They’re not just talking about the problem of getting civilians out (which I very much doubt that Trump would have done better, since it apparently wasn’t on his mind when he was calling for faster troop withdrawal). They’re pretending that Trump would never have done anything so stupid as to let the Taliban come back to power. And it’s a lie.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  85. If she wanted more time in office, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut and not vote for impeachment

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/8/2022 @ 11:28 am

    I’m not sure either route will get her kicked out of office but she’d have taken a hit for that too. It’s not like that was the start of her feud with Trump. To play the R maverick you’ve got to actually play the maverick. If you go that route and don’t commit it cuts into the grift.

    frosty (f27e97)

  86. but not those who first said 1/6 was really bad and then pivoted to the position that it was really nothing.

    Who are these people?

    Let’s start with Ted Cruz, and various other Republican officials and pundits. If you really didn’t notice the pattern of expressing horror right after the attack and then switching to the idea that taking it seriously is a far worse sin — and that the people in the Capitol were behaving like normal “tourists” — then you haven’t been paying attention.

    It’s also funny when people who revere Trump pretend to disapprove of people seeking attention.

    And these people?

    That’s self-evident. “These people” include any and all Trump defenders who have ever huffed that Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger are just seeking attention.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  87. Haley didn’t really know Cruz, but he was everything she had expected—awkward, insincere.

    After the 2016 New Hampshire R primary, most of Ted Cruz’s votes were insincere as well.

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  88. With apologies to the great Tom Lehrer:

    Gather ’round while I sing you of Canadian Cruz
    A man whose allegiance
    Is ruled by expedience
    Call him unprincipled, for changing his views,
    “Principles, Schminciples” coos Canadian Cruz

    Don’t say that he’s hypocritical
    Say rather that he’s quite political.
    “So I said something sloppy, by next week it’s old news!
    Memories are short,” crows Canadian Cruz

    Some have harsh words for his bait and switch views
    But some think their attitude
    Should be one of gratitude
    Like his wife, kids and father; reputations abused,
    So easily betrayed by Canadian Cruz

    To become a conservative hero
    Just show Texans you’ll stand up for zero
    “In Calgary, ‘oder’ Houston, I know how to survive.
    Und I’ve warmed to Cancun,” says Canadian Cruz

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  89. “If she wanted more time in office, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut and not vote for impeachment”

    This is the truth…saying that Cheney is being critical of Trump to curry favor…IN WYOMING….is pretty ridiculous. It’s clear that Cheney is up against the polling numbers trying to persuade people that the party needs to reject Trump…and she is risked her leadership position and now her seat to do that. Cruz is a ludicrous comparison….what principle has Ted ever risked his career for? Comparing McCain and Romney to Cruz is also thin gruel….except if one draws the most general link of them all being self-interested politicians. But how can somebody say McCain caved to public opinion, ideology, or political expediency. You can say a lot about McCain….but he’s not much like Cruz….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  90. It’s not like that was the start of her feud with Trump.

    She voted for Trump in 2020. She voted with Trump on policy 93% of the time. No one saw her as having any “feud with Trump” until he tried to overturn an election he lost, and she took the honorable position that maintaining the integrity of the system overrides policy wishes of the moment and her own political prospects.

    An awful lot of people evidently find that thinking difficult to comprehend, so they assume that she must be operating from bad motives.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  91. Cruz and Rubio destroyed each other in 2016. There was Trump going off about pointy-head elitists running the country and Cruz and Rubio hammered each other in the debates about who had supported which arcane amendments to which arcane bill. Both figured that the other was their closest competitor for Trump’s voters after Trump self-destructed.

    And Joe Sixpack made up his mind.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  92. She’s trying to gain the same thing Ted is. More time in office.

    This is to ignore reality. Cheney has paid a steep political price for her doggedness and integrity:

    *She was censured by her state party and was called on to resign
    *She was removed from her leadership position among House Rs, ousted as conference chair
    *She is being primaried by a Trumper
    *Freedom Caucus pushed for her to be kicked out of Republican conference

    Cheney is currently trailing Trumper challenger by 18% to 38% as a result of her determinedness. If her goal was to stay in office for as long as possible, then she’s dumber than a rock if she thinks standing up for the Constitution and demonstrating unyielding integrity is the way to do it with the GOP. Her efforts to hold Trump accountable are not popular with her party, and her involvement with the 1/6 Committee is doing anything but assuring her of more time in office. No, if she really wanted to stay in office, she’d ignore her oath to protect the Constitution and close her mouth and keep her head down like so many others in the Republican Party do now.

    Dana (5395f9)

  93. saying that Cheney is being critical of Trump to curry favor…IN WYOMING….is pretty ridiculous.

    I don’t if it’s the influence of Trump, or a deeper issue that he only accentuated, but a lot of people in today’s GOP seem to have difficulty understanding the concept of doing what you believe is right even if it works to your own disadvantage.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  94. To be fair, Liz will be on a future national ticket when it comes time to move past the Trump era.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  95. * I don’t know if …

    Radegunda (908c12)

  96. @92. Easy pickings; Rubio hardly showed up for work. And Tedtoo had- and still has- the warmth, likeability and universal charm of a case of poison ivy. “Basketball ring”–in Indiana, of all places.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  97. To be fair, Liz will be on a future national ticket when it comes time to move past the Trump era.

    To be fair, that is not a certainty, and it’s extremely unlikely that she has taken her principled stance in the expectation that it will come to pass like the sun rising tomorrow.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  98. To be fair, Liz will be on a future national ticket when it comes time to move past the Trump era.

    A Neocon who confers with Daddy Darth daily????? Not. A. Chance.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  99. The funny thing is that Biden’s people seem terrified by the prospect of running against Trump, now that they cannot play the “centrist” card. They know that if they had shown their real plans in 2020 Biden would have been roundly rejected (and it would not have taken much to re-elect Trump).

    So, they plan on tearing him down in the press (easy enough), then bringing criminal charges (deserved), but will do so in a way that will be obviously political.

    What they don’t realize is that anyone who is not Trump (but stays more or less on policy) will do even better. A Nikki-Liz ticket, for example. First ever father-daughter VPs!

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  100. This small story of heroism — and revenge — reminds us all that some men have good motives:

    When I was at uni I came across a kind of diary in one of the second shops near the British museum.

    It was a book of letters to and from a brother and his sisters. The brother been a teenage midshipman in the RN. The booked ended with a letter from the ships Captain, telling the story of his death at the hands of a slaver crew he was boarding with his boats crew – the boat had been on detached service from the ship itself.

    There was a further letter, badly spelt and capitalised from a member of the boats crew – about how he’d been a good officer and everyone in the crew had liked him.

    So when he was killed by a shot from the slaver they’d boarded the slaver and killed the entire crew. Including the ones trying to surrender.

    There’s further discussion in the long post (and in the previous post).

    (Britain and the United States banned the slave trade in 1807. The Royal Navy began efforts to suppress it in 1808, and was joined by a small American squadron in 1819.

    I haven’t seen a good account of the suppression of the east African slave trade.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  101. Get your facts straight. She’s a neo-neocon.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  102. I’m not sure either route will get her kicked out of office but she’d have taken a hit for that too. It’s not like that was the start of her feud with Trump.

    How could she have “taken a hit” by staying silent and falling in line with the impeachment vote? Has any other Republican who went along with Trump’s lies taken a hit? I haven’t seen it. Seems to me that the GOPers who voted for impeachment have taken political hits, lots of ’em.
    Cheney voted with Trump 93% of the time, and she voted “nay” in the first impeachment. If 1/6 wasn’t “the start of her feud” (and I question who really started this), where and when did it begin? When she advised on 11/21/2020 that Trump be “respecting the sanctity of our electoral process” should the courts continue to reject his legal challenges? If that kind of innocuous statement is enough to get his vengeance juices flowing, then that’s a real problem.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  103. Britain and the United States banned the slave trade in 1807

    I think the US did it in 1808, since the Constitution forbade any such l;aw until that year (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, and Article V)

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  104. How could she have “taken a hit” by staying silent

    There are a few Republicans who somehow failed to vote (kept silent) and have had some pushback for it. Although Liz et al took the heat off of them.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  105. The funny thing is that Biden’s people seem terrified by the prospect of running against Trump

    The funnier thing is that Biden’s people seem terrified by the prospect of Joe opening his gaff-prone mouth.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  106. But how can somebody say McCain caved to public opinion, ideology, or political expediency.

    Well, given those three options I suppose the choices are limited. That would probably rule out anything like the Keating Five or his Obamacare flip; from McCain’s office after the Obamacare vote in explaining why he didn’t vote to repeal it:

    “From the beginning, I have believed that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with a solution that increases competition, lowers costs, and improves care for the American people.

    I guess the argument is that he was always pro-Obamacare and that didn’t have anything to do with getting back at Trump.

    Or his role in Russia-gate which was certainly not about public opinion, ideology, or political expediency.

    frosty (f27e97)

  107. #104 Kevin – The law was passed in 1807 in both nations, but did not take effect for the United States until January 1st, 1808.

    Remarkably, the two laws were passed in the same month and year, without any coordination between Britain and the United States. (Upper Canada’s parliament banned the slave trade even earlier, in 1793.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  108. Liz will have a contract w/MSNBC as a ‘contributor’… [waking up to putty-faced Liz on ‘Morning Joe’ brings back memories of my late father’s witty observation from the’70s one dark morning, as he sipped coffee, stared at Barbra Walters w/t sound down on ‘Today’– and asked outloud how anybody could wake up in the morning to that face.] Liz could wangle a show once the Reid wreckage is cleared away. Daughter Darth would draw some fresh eyes to the cabler, which is desperate for numbers in the ratings race.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  109. #91 Radegunda – I think those who always assume their political opponents have bad motives are telling us something about themselves.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  110. If her goal was to stay in office for as long as possible, then she’s dumber than a rock if she thinks standing up for the Constitution and demonstrating unyielding integrity is the way to do it with the GOP.

    Dana (5395f9) — 1/8/2022 @ 12:04 pm

    How does this work when we swap the names with Trump; no one ever said she wasn’t dumber than a rock?

    There’s a faction of the GOP that wants exactly that (the wrapping in the Constitution thing) and that is her target audience. Only time will tell if that’s a good choice.

    Feel free to lionize her. But this blows up every time. If she gets close to the Nikki-Liz ticket Kevin is talking about all of the media who love her now for Speaking Truth To Power(tm)(c) will flip the script. And we’ll get a repeat of the heartbreak everyone who really wanted Cruz in 2016 but won’t admit it now had.

    How much of the initial NeverTrump base was crushed Cruz fans? Oh, wait, let’s pretend they were crushed Jeb fans.

    frosty (f27e97)

  111. I guess the argument is that he was always pro-Obamacare and that didn’t have anything to do with getting back at Trump.

    The key verbiage in McCain’s statement was “and replaced”. Neither Trump nor the GOP majority had a credible, coherent replacement for Obamacare. Trump kept promising “two weeks”, which became nearly as big a joke as “this is Infrastructure Week!”

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  112. Jim Miller (edcec1) — 1/8/2022 @ 12:35 pm

    I’ve been saying this about both NeverTrump and the D’s for years.

    frosty (f27e97)

  113. More like crushed Walker fans and crushed Kasich fans, frosty

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  114. @112. Yes. The “and replaced” is the grift I was talking about. Tossing Obamacare would have been the right thing to do but it came with to many downsides for him.

    frosty (f27e97)

  115. Democrats will lose house and probably senate in 2022. Biden pelosi schumer and democrat corporate establishment sad. AOC and progressives especially lefties to busy taking over the democrat party to be sad.

    asset (87bd59)

  116. I think those who always assume their political opponents have bad motives are telling us something about themselves.

    I think that’s often true. But it might sometimes just be that saying “those guys are bad people” is easier than saying “this is why my policy is indisputably right.”

    I’ve dealt with people who disagree politically on a day-to-day basis for many years, which discourages imputing bad motives as a default.

    I’ve also seen people claim that because their guy had “America First” in bold letters, therefore his every action must have been in America’s best interest — and therefore any political authority who chooses differently is ipso facto not even trying to act in America’s best interest. It’s nutty, and lazy.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  117. They know that if they had shown their real plans in 2020 Biden would have been roundly rejected…

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2022 @ 12:14 pm

    I can’t remember where I heard the theory that Biden was happy to promise the moon during the campaign because he expected the Republicans to keep the Senate…in which case, he could just shrug, point at them, say “Well, I can’t give you what I promised, I have to work with them to get anything at all that we want,” and then pursue the more moderate policies he really wanted. But then Trump blew both seats, and Biden found himself trapped.

    I tend to doubt this narrative, if only because I don’t think Biden has any ideology. He’s definitely not a moderate. But he’s not a progressive either. I think he may be a pragmatist, shifting with the wind — like on abortion. He’ll be for or against anything, so long as he thinks the votes and/or dollars are there. That would make him reliable, in a certain distasteful way. President Weathervane.

    I think those who always assume their political opponents have bad motives are telling us something about themselves.

    Jim Miller (edcec1) — 1/8/2022 @ 12:35 pm

    It’s not a hard-and-fast rule…but there does seem to be a lot of truth to the whole Jungian projection thing.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e)

  118. The “and replaced” is the grift I was talking about.

    Was it “grift” to insist that Trump come up with a better replacement to Obamacare, as he promised?

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  119. Brain-damaged Biden speaks wandering words at Reid memorial– politicized remarks; talks about himself. A sick, sad old man.

    Memo to Vladimir: Ukraine ain’t Euchre; your perpetual pair of deuces beats the ol’joker every time; roll those tanks, kid; send in those ‘peacekeepers.’

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  120. @98 don’t get liz cultists angry

    last time she took a principled stance a war broke out eventually won by the taliban

    JF (e1156d)

  121. “I guess the argument is that he was always pro-Obamacare…”

    Of course McCain voted against repeal AFTER his terminal cancer diagnosis….so it’s hard to square it as political expediency…and the vote appears to be more about disappointment with the alternative. Why would a dying man give a rat’s bottom about how his vote would impact Trump’s short-term legacy. You seem to be projecting.

    “What bothered McCain more, though, was his party’s strategy to pass their so-called skinny repeal measure, skipping committee consideration and delivering it straight to the floor. They also rejected any input from the opposing party, a tactic for which he had slammed Democrats when the ACA passed in 2010 without a single GOP vote. He lamented that Republican leaders had cast aside compromise-nurturing Senate procedures in pursuit of political victory.”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/health/obamacare/mccain-hated-obamacare-he-also-saved-it-n904106

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  122. “From the beginning, I have believed that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with a solution that increases competition, lowers costs, and improves care for the American people.

    The vote that was finally offered him was one that would have taken ALL health insurance away from the self-employed and other previously insured, who had already been forced out of their chosen coverage by Obamacare. There was no “replace” involved.

    The bill that would have done what McCain said he wanted (Speaker Ryan’s) was trashed by the uberTrump House Freedom Cockups caucus.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  123. Of course McCain voted against repeal AFTER his terminal cancer diagnosis….so it’s hard to square it as political expediency…

    There’s more to it than just that; McCain had been enduring costly medical issues on the luxury of the government dime– even w/his wealth- since surviving his POW days. He understood the burden.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  124. “Kagan: “the government is paying for the medical services so they have the right to dictate details of those services”

    Best argument ever against Single-Payer.

    Obudman (84ff09)

  125. If 1/6 wasn’t “the start of her feud” (and I question who really started this), where and when did it begin?

    The cooked-up intel report about Russian bounties. Trump was trying to get the troop drawdown in Afghanistan done much quicker than the deadline, and Liz was pushing back on that. When the report came out, she worked with Jason Crow, primarily, to institute legislative hurdles in the NDAA that made the drawdowns much more difficult to execute, if not impossible.

    Support AND opposition to the amendment, interestingly enough, was actually bipartisan on both sides when the committee ultimately passed it. Her specific role in that is what started the rift between her and Trump, and it also led the GOP base to sour on her as just another neocon/Bush-era Republican stuck in the mid-2000s that was content to keep pouring money down the hole in Afghanistan.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  126. It always comes back to the same thing; unlike other nations, primary objective of the U.S. healthcare system is to turn a profit, not deliver healthcare. Guns, butter or band-aids. Socialized h/c is inevitable. And it works.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  127. I had thought that the GOP would try to impeach Biden when they take back the House, an the basis of “The Steal.” And they still might. A better charge (and more useful from my perspective) would be to charge him with “lying to the American People about his goals as President.”

    He said that he would work to put America back to tether and instead he has driven us further apart, governing from the hard left at every opportunity (energy, foreign policy, taxes, size of government, reckless spending, seizing federal control of voting, etc).

    Even Nixon, who all call dishonest, said he would govern from the center, and quite obviously did. The Democrats, whom he triangulated mercilessly, hated him for it and nailed him to the wall when he fracked up.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  128. just another neocon/Bush-era Republican stuck in the mid-2000s that was content to keep pouring money down the hole in Afghanistan.

    just another patriot who thought that the ideology behind 9/11 was something that needed to be crushed without mercy.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  129. Best argument ever against Single-Payer.

    Indeed. One year it’s smoking, the next year it’s weight, and not too long after that they are monitoring your diet and fining you for every hamburger, or skipping your morning run.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  130. And it works.

    Given enough money anything works. Except Democrats.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  131. @126/129 Erring– or actually heiring– to the contracted windfall fortunes from… Daddy Darth’s Halliburton.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  132. Still, that government is paying these hospitals’ overhead with Medicaid and Medicare money does give them some ability to set rules (and these are definitely not the most intrusive ones they have). The providers can always turn off the gravy train if they don’t like what comes with the gravy.

    King’s money, King’s rules.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  133. Daddy Darth’s Halliburton.

    That was tiresome rubbish 15 years ago.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  134. @134. And it’s earned a lot of interest since then, too! She won’t miss a meal.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  135. Feel free to lionize her. But this blows up every time. If she gets close to the Nikki-Liz ticket Kevin is talking about all of the media who love her now for Speaking Truth To Power(tm)(c) will flip the script. And we’ll get a repeat of the heartbreak everyone who really wanted Cruz in 2016 but won’t admit it now had.

    It’s like no one remembers how these same people treated John McCain after the turn of the century–they were happy to boost his signal as Mr. Maverick when he was being a cat’s paw to his own party.

    The minute he came within reach of holding real, actual political power, though, the media and the left absolutely trashed him as a warmongering, sinister, Bush sycophant. After Obama beat him, he went back to being known as Mr. Maverick again.

    Look what happened to Kinzinger. He “stood up for the Constitution” and the Democrats rewarded his stance by gerrymandering his district in to oblivion, thus rendering him unelectable in Illinois going forward. These guys are only promoted by the Democrat/mass media complex insofar as their relative usefulness in hurting Republicans, not because they’re actually respected as principled actors. When they’re not needed anymore, they’re discarded, and if they develop in to a serious threat to the left-liberal status quo, they’re immediately trashed and marginalized.

    The same thing is going to happen to Cheney, in the event that she gets kicked out in 2022. At that point, she’ll either be a woman without a party for the foreseeable future, or she’ll go on the board of the Lincoln Project or The Bulwark and start promoting Democrats for office while wearing a conservative skin suit. Given that she notably established her Wyoming state residence in Teton County–which is ground zero in Wyoming for champagne socialists–when she was prepping her political run in the state, I suspect the latter is far more likely.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  136. A recent poll shows Liz Cheney’s challenger beating her among registered Republicans in Wyoming

    https://crowdwisdom.live/politics/2022-wyoming-house-race-polls/#2022_Wyoming_House_Race_Polls_Latest_Polls

    And the kiss of political death: Neocon Liz gets praise from Kamala.

    MSNBC awaits, Daughter Darth.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  137. I had thought that the GOP would try to impeach Biden when they take back the House, an the basis of “The Steal.” And they still might. A better charge (and more useful from my perspective) would be to charge him with “lying to the American People about his goals as President.”

    If they take back the House, I don’t think they’ll impeach him, because he’s far more useful as a punching bag in his current seat, and as bad as Kamala is, with her in the top position suddenly the media narrative becomes all about her race and gender, not her rank incompetence no matter how bad she messes up. With how badly Biden is messing up, short of a Reagan-type comeback he is going to be the most vulnerable Democratic president since Carter, and the GOP will want to exploit that.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  138. So, wait, we can run nobody but ogres since they’ll call anyone who runs an ogre? I think you miss the point about they will say about Trump or his fellow travelers. They’re calling them “traitors” now. What will THAT morph into?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  139. The cooked-up intel report about Russian bounties. Trump was trying to get the troop drawdown in Afghanistan done much quicker than the deadline, and Liz was pushing back on that.

    All Cheney asked was that the bounty story be checked out, per her statement: “We believe it is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country targeting our forces.”
    And Cheney wasn’t the only person who had concerns about Trump’s surrender agreement, hence the 45-11 vote. If that’s what it took to start a “feud” between her and this president, then it only tells you how thin-skinned and mercurial this person is.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  140. All Cheney asked was that the bounty story be checked out, per her statement: “We believe it is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country targeting our forces.”

    It was also the basis for the amendment, for the express purpose of preventing the troop drawdowns. Crafting legislation based on bad intel, which that report was, is hardly a feather in anyone’s cap, and she was pushing the story to such an extent that she was irritating people in her own party.

    And Cheney wasn’t the only person who had concerns about Trump’s surrender agreement, hence the 45-11 vote. If that’s what it took to start a “feud” between her and this president, then it only tells you how thin-skinned and mercurial this person is.

    The amendment had nothing to do with the agreed-upon May 1st pullout date; it was trying to prevent drawdowns from taking place at all.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  141. Cheney saids she is co- chair of the committee. Liar.
    Said she is the ranking member of the committee. Liar
    She was never appointed by McCarthy. No Republicans nominated her for this. Only Pelosi. Pelosi, my Lord…
    Cheney is just a rank member.

    mg (8cbc69)

  142. The amendment had nothing to do with the agreed-upon May 1st pullout date; it was trying to prevent drawdowns from taking place at all.

    Nice spin. The amendment was about avoiding the kind of clusterf-ck cut-and-run that Biden pulled last summer, but alas.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  143. So, wait, we can run nobody but ogres since they’ll call anyone who runs an ogre? I think you miss the point about they will say about Trump or his fellow travelers. They’re calling them “traitors” now. What will THAT morph into?

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2022 @ 2:06 pm

    No, the point is to recognize the disingenuousness of the Democrat/mass media complex, especially now that the news media is dominated by former Dem consultants, campaign staffers, and other various shills, whenever they complain about the latest Literally Hitler being nominated by the Republicans.

    There’s no sincerity about Democratic complaints that “democracy is on the brink,” because they’ve said the same thing about every Republican since Goldwater and any time they don’t win elections. That their rhetoric has ramped up in the last 20 years is a function of the current political climate, combined with their control of nearly every cultural and political institution in the country.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  144. don’t get liz cultists angry

    I don’t see any liz cultists here. Just people noting that she has taken the correct stance on the matter of an incumbent president trying to hang on to power after losing an election, when any conceivable personal benefit for doing so is highly uncertain, and when almost all her colleagues are acting in fear of angering the Trump cult.

    Trump was trying to get the troop drawdown in Afghanistan done much quicker than the deadline, and Liz was pushing back on that.

    IOW, she saved him from having to bear the responsibility for the “humiliating surrender” in Afghanistan, even though it was unquestionably his policy. His impatience to get all the troops out faster makes it highly dubious that he would have shown great care to evacuate all civilians first.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  145. Nice spin. The amendment was about avoiding the kind of clusterf-ck cut-and-run that Biden pulled last summer, but alas.

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/8/2022 @ 2:29 pm

    There’s no way of knowing how the pullout would have gone had Trump overseen it rather than Biden–who, as you know, skipped past the May 1st deadline to get his 9/11 photo op, only to not realize that the summer is fighting season in Afghanistan and subsequently watch the Taliban force him to leave before September even rolled around.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  146. IOW, she saved him from having to bear the responsibility for the “humiliating surrender” in Afghanistan, even though it was unquestionably his policy.

    LOL, maybe that’s how the press would have spun it, and certainly the spineless, feckless, warmongering neocon geeks, but the reality is that the majority of Americans wanted to leave after 20 years and billions upon billions of dollars wasted for a useless puppet government. The only problem they had with it was the botched way the Biden administration executed it, not the withdrawal itself.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  147. @142. Cheney saids she is co- chair of the committee. Liar. Said she is the ranking member of the committee. Liar. She was never appointed by McCarthy. No Republicans nominated her for this. Only Pelosi. Pelosi, my Lord… Cheney is just a rank member.

    No, just rank.

    Period.

    And a legend in her own mind.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  148. There’s no way of knowing how the pullout would have gone had Trump overseen it rather than Biden–who, as you know, skipped past the May 1st deadline to get his 9/11 photo op, only to not realize that the summer is fighting season in Afghanistan and subsequently watch the Taliban force him to leave before September even rolled around.

    In which alt-universe could Trump’s complete withdrawal by May 1st been any better than the brain damage that Biden oversaw just a few months later?

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  149. @147. Doesn’t matter; we know how it turned out:

    Is Biden Haunted by Vietnam? Should He Be?

    The president said this withdrawal will be nothing like what happened in 1975…

    Except it was.

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/09/is-biden-haunted-by-vietnam-should-he-be/

    Reminiscent of Saigon, Chinook Helicopters Rescue Americans From Embassy in Kabul Despite Promises From Biden It Wouldn’t Happen

    https://djhjmedia.com/rich/reminiscent-of-saigon-chinook-helicopters-rescue-americans-from-embassy-in-kabul-despite-promises-from-biden-it-wouldnt-happen/

    Face it: he’s a bum.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  150. In which alt-universe could Trump’s complete withdrawal by May 1st been any better than the brain damage that Biden oversaw just a few months later?

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/8/2022 @ 2:47 pm

    If you’re just assuming it would have gone badly because Trump was doing it, that’s fine, even if it is nothing more than question-begging. But it’s clear you and the rest of the Bush Republicans were mad about the withdrawal itself, irrespective of who did it or how was executed.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  151. Reminiscent of Saigon, Chinook Helicopters Rescue Americans From Embassy in Kabul Despite Promises From Biden It Wouldn’t Happen

    Fun fact–some of the CH-46s that were involved in the Saigon withdrawal were involved in the Kabul one as well.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  152. The only problem they had with it was the botched way the Biden administration executed it, not the withdrawal itself.

    That is false. Trumpies are claiming that the Taliban takeover was entirely Biden’s doing and that Trump would never have allowed it — as if a different manner of conducting the final phase of withdrawal would have prevented it, when the Taliban had been building power in the provinces ever since Trump made a deal with them that undercut the Ghani government, and said they would be killing terrorists for us now.

    There’s a reason why Trump’s Doha Agreement was called a “surrender agreement” or “capitulation agreement.” It did not include strong conditions against a Taliban resurgence. And Trump was not resolute in enforcing what conditions there were. Mark Esper said that Trump

    “undermined” the agreement and weakened U.S. leverage in negotiations by impatiently calling for troop reductions in the country.

    It’s conceivable though by no means certain that a Trump administration might have done better at getting civilians out — but only because people like Esper were willing to push back against Trump’s rashness. The notion that Trump himself had the wisdom to handle it perfectly is preposterous.

    Here’s what is certain (or at least probable):
    * If Trump had completed his withdrawal process on the accelerated schedule he preferred, it would have been even messier.
    * If he had been reelected and completed the process by his May 1 deadline, there would probably have been civilians not yet evacuated. The question didn’t seem to be on his mind when he said on April 17 that the process should be completed as close to May 1 as possible.

    * The Taliban would still have taken over — and every single Trumper would have been outraged at the suggestion that Trump was in any way to blame, and would have insisted that he did the very best thing for America.

    Taliban takeover under Trump = wise America First policy.
    Taliban takeover under any other president = humiliating surrender and a national disgrace.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  153. just assuming it would have gone badly because Trump was doing it

    Trumpies just assume it would have gone perfectly if Trump had done it. Mostly bizarrely, some claim that he would have evacuated all the Afghans who helped us — even though he obviously has no sympathy for them and mostly wanted to keep them out of America.

    In public statements, and instructions that were made public later, Trump showed himself more intent on a fast withdrawal than a clean withdrawal.

    When people from within the administration attest to Trump’s rashness and the need to slow-walk his imprudent instructions until he forgets about them, and when the persona he presents to the public is so often erratic and crazy, it’s quite rational to be dubious that he would have gotten all civilians out before the Taliban got close to Kabul.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  154. She’s trying to gain the same thing Ted is. More time in office.

    frosty (f27e97) — 1/8/2022 @ 11:18 am

    That’s a howler, frosty. You’re smart enough to know that if the representative from Wyoming (a Trumpy place if there ever was one) wanted more time in office, she would not be doing what she’s doing. Do you ever concede a point?

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  155. Nooo, I’ll give Trump credit for knowing when to walk away, declare bankruptcy, and deduct the loss from his taxes. Really, Afghanistan was a losing proposition from the minute Dubya enlisted the arsonist, that would be Pakistan, as an auxiliary fireman. After that, the only winners were going to be the thieving, opium-peddling, boy-molesting “our Afghan allies”, and the military-industrial complex.

    nk (1d9030)

  156. You’re smart enough to know that if the representative from Wyoming (a Trumpy place if there ever was one) wanted more time in office, she would not be doing what she’s doing

    I think some Trumpers might be secretly uncomfortable with the endless indulgence they give Trump, but instead of choosing to start applying a more consistent standard, they give themselves cover by impugning the motives of anyone who does.

    Radegunda (908c12)

  157. Do you ever concede a point?

    norcal (d4ed1d) — 1/8/2022 @ 3:20 pm

    He doesn’t. That’s why I used Beldar’s script to block him. Go and do thou likewise.

    Part of me really wants to unblock certain comments. But I already know what they’re going to say. Given the subject, for example, DS-CSA is almost certainly mocking Liz Cheney repeatedly. He really needs a new fetish.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e)

  158. So, wait, we can run nobody but ogres since they’ll call anyone who runs an ogre? I think you miss the point about they will say about Trump or his fellow travelers. They’re calling them “traitors” now. What will THAT morph into?

    Surely you’ve thought your positions and strategies out… those that cheered these Biden hyenas on. Doesn’t this ALL end in calamity? How could it not.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  159. Radegunda’

    Trump wasnt totally withdrawing from Afghanistan. The ending troop level was several hundred, guarding the embassy and the contractors flying the afghan airforce. Also if the Taliban advanced, troops would go back in.

    EPWJ (0fbe92)

  160. No, the point is to recognize the disingenuousness of the Democrat/mass media complex

    Do you suppose this is a mystery or something?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  161. I think some Trumpers might be secretly uncomfortable with the endless indulgence they give Trump, but instead of choosing to start applying a more consistent standard, they give themselves cover by impugning the motives of anyone who does.

    Radegunda (908c12) — 1/8/2022 @ 3:27 pm

    Trump has an effect on people unlike anything I have ever seen, Radegunda. It’s like a political religion. Poligion, if you will. It even has catechisms. Just engage a Trumper, and you’ll hear them.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  162. DS-CSA is almost certainly mocking Liz Cheney repeatedly. He really needs a new fetish.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e) — 1/8/2022 @ 3:28 pm

    You should consider a career as a clairvoyant. 😛

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  163. 156-nk

    mg (8cbc69)

  164. 🍻,nk.

    mg (8cbc69)

  165. 156-🍻,nk.
    Indeed

    mg (8cbc69)

  166. wtf-excuse me, even though there is no excuse for me.

    mg (8cbc69)

  167. Have a few too many real beers, mg? 😁

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  168. Regarding the Carlson/Cruz interview, it is apparent that Tucker has become the Torquemada of Trumpism.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  169. Or maybe the Christian Grey, for those from Rio Linda?

    nk (1d9030)

  170. Nah! The SNL Church Lady.

    nk (1d9030)

  171. nk

    I don’t think much of Liz right now, but this idea of yours in post #170 seems like what she might be aiming at for her future.

    steveg (e81d76)

  172. Cheney doesn’t like Trump and is going after him. That much we know.
    She says its about the constitution, but so did Adam Schiff. Doesn’t mean either of them have integrity.
    That word is something people who hate Trump have let her paste on herself because they need to believe their chosen angel of vengeance is pure

    steveg (e81d76)

  173. Radegunda (908c12) — 1/8/2022 @ 3:03 pm

    Radegunda (908c12) — 1/8/2022 @ 3:03 pm

    In the neocons’ alternate universe, we’d still be in Afghanistan, wasting money and lives in the service of an utterly useless fantasy about spreading democracy to Southwest Asia.

    Here’s what is certain (or at least probable):
    * If Trump had completed his withdrawal process on the accelerated schedule he preferred, it would have been even messier.

    More question-begging.

    * If he had been reelected and completed the process by his May 1 deadline, there would probably have been civilians not yet evacuated.

    More question-begging.

    The question didn’t seem to be on his mind when he said on April 17 that the process should be completed as close to May 1 as possible.

    Considering he wasn’t even President on April 17th, it’s rather irrelevant whether the question was on his mind or not. Biden, however, was, and he was determined to get his 9/11 photo op irrespective of agreements made.

    The Taliban notably held to their part of the Doha agreement, which is why no American lives were lost due to Taliban attacks for months up to the May 1st deadline. The Taliban launched their offensive on May 2nd.

    * The Taliban would still have taken over — and every single Trumper would have been outraged at the suggestion that Trump was in any way to blame, and would have insisted that he did the very best thing for America.

    Well, yeah, the Taliban would have still taken over, because Ghani was a puppet with no popular support in the country. Making assumptions about what Trump would have done or not done, or would have said or not said, has about as much substance as the average college freshman creative writing assignment.

    In public statements, and instructions that were made public later, Trump showed himself more intent on a fast withdrawal than a clean withdrawal.

    Funny how it didn’t matter whether it was fast or not when the new guy came in–they tried a “clean” one, and they ended up botching it anyway.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  174. … and if Biden had monkees flying out of his derrière on command, he’d have a potentially lucrative circus act.

    But, alas, he does not… at least not yet. But he does have a record of failure in his first year that is second to none. And we are much worse off for it.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  175. … and if Biden had monkees flying out of his derrière on command, he’d have a potentially lucrative circus act.

    “Fly, my pretties, fly!”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  176. If you’re just assuming it would have gone badly because Trump was doing it, that’s fine, even if it is nothing more than question-begging.

    Um, no. You’re assuming, based on a fictional hypothetical, that Trump could’ve withdrawn all our armed forces sooner and better, despite his spotty record at best of competence in running our government. I recommend avoiding hypotheticals as much as possible.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  177. Gov. Ron DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, acknowledged Thursday that 800,000 to a million COVID tests had expired in a state stockpile,

    They didn’t really expire. The expiration date is artificial. It is for most things medical, and it can go bad, temperature and humidity are probably more important factors.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  178. “The FDA granted the test manufacturer a 3-month extension in May of 2021. The original expiration of the test kits in question was September 2021. The manufacturer has also informed us that they have submitted another extension request.”

    That;s what I said. The expiration date is artificial.

    Most foods don’t use it any more but say “Best by”

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  179. … and if Biden had monkees flying out of his derrière on command, he’d have a potentially lucrative circus act.

    He does; if you follow which end is up to him.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  180. 176. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 1/8/2022 @ 5:39 pm

    Biden…does have a record of failure in his first year that is second to none.

    What about Herbert Hoover? Jimmy Carter?

    Would you argue that in their cases it didn’t happen in their first yea so much?

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  181. Trump wasnt totally withdrawing from Afghanistan. The ending troop level was several hundred, guarding the embassy and the contractors flying the afghan airforce. Also if the Taliban advanced, troops would go back in.

    That’s categorically false. This is what the surrender agreement actually says, and there is no provision for a return of US forces, no matter how badly the Taliban behaves.

    The United States is committed to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces of the United States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel within fourteen (14) months following announcement of this agreement…

    The Taliban negotiated circles around Trump, and the 45th president only made it worse when he murmured about inviting Talibaners to Camp David.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  182. DS-CSA is almost certainly mocking Liz Cheney repeatedly.

    Doesn’t need my help; with Daddy Darth as a crutch, she’s doing fine all on her own.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  183. And let’s not forget that Trump left the Kurds high and dry.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  184. From 2014:

    Liz Cheney, who sold out gay sister, now out of Wyoming Senate race

    https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-liz-cheney-gay-sister-quits-wyoming-senate-race-20140106-story.html

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  185. 32. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/7/2022 @ 7:24 pm

    Craziest conspiracy theory I heard in the last day: Biden and Trump are really the same person.

    This is apparently a real thing, or a distortion of a real thing, and it comes from Iran:

    https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-biden-trump-are-same-person-says-soleimanis-daughter

    Furthermore, Zeinab said that there is no difference between Trump and President-Elect Joe Biden, since they follow the same policies and are the “same person.”

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  186. Yeah, Sammy @187, that is pretty silly. Biden’s hair transplants worked.

    nk (1d9030)

  187. @158. This must be Greek to you; norcal was referencing frosty.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  188. From 2015: Taking Exception to Exceptional

    Dick and Liz Cheney’s unpersuasive new book says exactly what you’d expect it to say

    The Cheneys depict zero U.S. wars as unwise. (Vietnam is presented as a good cause lost by civilian interference with military requests.) The closest they come to expressing any doubt is when they predict the Iran deal will “more than likely” cause nuclear war.

    https://www.cato.org/commentary/taking-exception-exceptional

    Exactly what the Halliburton war profiteering Cheneys would tell you.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  189. Dana (5395f9) — 1/8/2022 @ 9:53 am

    Tucker Carlson is now telling another whopper, saying that boosters don’t work and actually increase your chance of getting Covid:

    Both not lies, but half truths:

    Especially when the boosters aren’t working.

    They mostly increase the speed of your response to the virus (arguably, therefore reducing the risk of further transmission) but do so only for a limited period of time. (in the range of a few months)

    They may be worth something permanently because the second shot of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine comes far too soon.

    If by “work” Tucker Carlson means that it reduces a person’s chances of testing positive in the long run, he is probably right that they don’t “work” but he was probably merely referring to the fact that many people who were vaccinated twice and got a booster were testing positive now.

    They are probably not at all serious cases, and barely contagious, and if contagious will transmit to only a mild case to the first generation even to an un-vaccinated person, but the public health authorities are the ones responsible for making this to be an important defect (also for advising and getting close to mandating a not very helpful in the long run third shot.)

    Tucker:

    I mean there’s evidence that people who get the boosters are more likely to get the latest variant.

    I would guess he has what to rely on, but this would only apply in the first two or three days after getting the booster shot (it’s the same principle on which doctors do not give a flu shot to anyone with a cold – the immune system may not only have to deal with a fire, but a false alarm too – the false alarm being e vaccine)

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  190. Trump wasnt totally withdrawing from Afghanistan. The ending troop level was several hundred

    He didn’t complete the process because he was voted out before May 1, which is when his own deal had committed to a full withdrawal. Before that, he requested withdrawal by Christmas 2020, and then by Jan. 15. He also requested complete withdrawal from various other places by that time. Several hundred troops wouldn’t have kept the Taliban from advancing. They were already steadily building their power base.

    General McKenzie:

    “The signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military, psychological more than anything else, but we set a date – certain for when we were going to leave and when they could expect all assistance to end,” McKenzie said.

    General Austin:

    the Doha agreement also committed the United States to ending airstrikes against the Taliban, “so the Taliban got stronger, they increased their offensive operations against the Afghan security forces, and the Afghans were losing a lot of people on a weekly basis”.

    When Trump left office, there were 2,500 troops. Whether they could have held off a Taliban takeover of Kabul is debated, but it seems to be agreed that anything much less could not have done so.

    As of June 2021, Trump was anxious to claim the ongoing withdrawal as all his doing. He said that Biden simply “couldn’t stop the process” he started. He wanted credit for bringing all the troops home and ending the “endless wars.” In that very same rant, he said that the Afghan government “won’t last” once the process — his own process — was completed.

    IOW, defending the Ghani government from defeat by the Taliban was not a concern of his.
    Trump praised the Taliban as “tough” and “strong” fighters, and said they would be killing terrorists for us. He was less respectful of the Ghani government.

    If he had really wanted to prevent a Taliban takeover, he wouldn’t have pressured the Afghan government into a very uneven prisoner swap with the Taliban.

    Radegunda (225e62)

  191. Biden’s hair transplants worked.

    So well we’re still noticing and talking about it:

    As you see in the photos, Joe Biden hair plugs look pretty unnatural on his hairline…

    https://www.mcanhealth.com/joe-biden-hair-transplant-analysis/

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  192. @155. The problem with this analysis is that it’s based on the idea that she knew it was going to go this way when she made these decisions. Let’s review:

    1) Liz wants more power and influence
    2) the traditional way R’s get this in congress is make deals with D’s
    3) Trump was out of power and losing influence
    4) She’s in a state that reliably votes R
    5) there’s been a faction of R’s complaining about the direction of the GOP
    6) Trump hands her a ready made case of bad optics
    7) D’s are now requiring a rejection of Trump to play along with the R maverick tactic

    At this point she thinks she’s in a safe seat, after all her family has a history in WY. I don’t think she thinks it’s a Trumpy place at all, as much as it’s just a reliable R place, and especially after Jan/6 it’s a place that’s going to vote for a Cheney in power over a Trump out of power. She’s most likely thinking that if she plays it right she can get her own version of Liberty Leading the People and cement her role as the bipartisan role model. The problem is she miscalculated the voters back home at step #4. I’m guessing she didn’t realize that before it was too late. She still may think she can save her seat and maybe she can. But she definitely can’t walk it back now.

    All of these arguments that she wouldn’t do this if she wanted to be safe depend on her thinking this was a huge risk. I think she thought Trump handed her a gift and she just needed to exploit it.

    In my version she’s just a normal politician who miscalculated. In your version she’s a paragon of virtue sacrificing herself to protect the constitution. You’re version sounds romantic but mine sounds more realistic.

    Now, Radegunda, wants to play the mind reading game but the problem is I apply the same standard to Trump. And I’ve said that before.

    frosty (f27e97)

  193. I don’t think she thinks it’s a Trumpy place at all

    frosty (f27e97) — 1/8/2022 @ 6:52 pm

    Agree to disagree. I believe she was and is acutely aware of how much her constituents support Trump. That’s all politicians do–take the pulse of the people.

    The easiest road to re-election was to give her constituents what they wanted.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  194. In the neocons’ alternate universe, we’d still be in Afghanistan, wasting money and lives

    So on the one hand, we’re supposed to praise Trump for the wise choice to get out of Afghanistan — but still protect him from any responsibility for the Taliban takeover?

    Well, yeah, the Taliban would have still taken over, because Ghani was a puppet with no popular support in the country. Making assumptions about what Trump would have done or not done, or would have said or not said, has about as much substance as the average college freshman creative writing assignment.

    You’re admitting that a Taliban takeover was the inevitable result of Trump’s deal. But somehow I’m the one “making assumptions about what Trump would have done or not done” when I note that he set things up for a Taliban return?

    It’s Trumpers who are making assumptions, and not facing the facts about what he actually did.

    Considering he wasn’t even President on April 17th, it’s rather irrelevant whether the question was on his mind or not.

    Not it isn’t irrelevant. It’s evidence against the claim that he would absolutely have made sure that every civilian was out before getting the troops out. He wanted to get the credit for the withdrawal — until he didn’t.

    I have never claimed that Biden did everything perfectly. Nor did the major mainstream news organizations hold back on criticism. I’m pushing back against the claim that Trump had no part in setting up the humiliating surrender” in Afghanistan.

    Radegunda (225e62)

  195. DS-CSA is almost certainly mocking Liz Cheney repeatedly. He really needs a new fetish.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e) — 1/8/2022 @ 3:28 pm

    Stop kink-shaming Deezy.

    Besides, his logic is unassailable. It goes something like this:

    1. Nixon was a liar.

    2. Wookiees are liars.

    3. Joe Biden is a Wookiee.

    4. Underwear gnomes stole the proof that Biden is Liz Cheney’s baby-daddy.

    5. Reaganomics.

    Glorious!

    lurker (59504c)

  196. lurker (59504c) — 1/8/2022 @ 7:09 pm

    Simpler:

    Birchers spawned Goldwater.

    Nixon was a liar and a Big Dick.

    Goldwater spawned Reagan.

    Reagan spawned Trump.

    Biden squints.

    Welcome to 1964!

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  197. 196. And somehow the ones like Liz always get this right. At least when that’s required by the narrative. They only get voted out when they fought the good fight and the people let them down.

    frosty (f27e97)

  198. @200 Anybody with half a pulse and a very partisan district can get re-elected by going along with the Party. Liz is taking a stand, and good for her.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  199. norcal (d4ed1d) — 1/8/2022 @ 7:19 pm

    I’m not comfortable with all that spawning.

    lurker (59504c)

  200. I’m not comfortable with all that spawning.

    lurker (59504c) — 1/8/2022 @ 7:24 pm

    😆

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  201. lurker (59504c) — 1/8/2022 @ 7:09 pm

    How dare you, sir. Your fake logic makes way more sense than his actual logic.

    Demosthenes (3fd56e)

  202. Of course McCain voted against repeal AFTER his terminal cancer diagnosis….so it’s hard to square it as political expediency…and the vote appears to be more about disappointment with the alternative. Why would a dying man give a rat’s bottom about how his vote would impact Trump’s short-term legacy. You seem to be projecting.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/8/2022 @ 1:28 pm

    What am I projecting?

    Prior to the vote he spoke with several D’s and Schumer knew before the vote what he was going to do while it was a surprise to the R’s.

    This idea that him knowing he was going to die made him immune from any sort of influence and no longer interested in politics is another one of those things that works better in stories than real life. He had a legacy he wanted to protect. He put a bit of effort into paving the way for his wife to have his seat. That didn’t work out but it doesn’t look like it was from a lack of trying and she is now a member of the Biden admin.

    If this death makes all men not care about what happens after they die idea worked like you think we wouldn’t have wills.

    frosty (f27e97)

  203. The way I see it, trying to explain to some people why Liz Cheney might no longer be able to stomach Trump, and especially after 1/6, is like trying to explain to buzzards why you don’t find three-day old roadkill appetizing. The buzzards will accuse you of having a four-day old deer carcass hid off somewhere.

    nk (1d9030)

  204. @206 Comedy gold, nk! I wish there were some way I could instantly assemble all your comedic comments in one place.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  205. What about Herbert Hoover? Jimmy Carter?

    Hoover was left a bomb by Coolidge. The markets were so superheated, and margins so low that anything Hoover tried to do to fix it would have made the crash happen faster.

    Carter’s 1977 Iranian visit to undermine the Shah is probably the worst unforced error in the history of the United States. The only person in the region that had our backs, and was leading his people into the 20th century with higher education, women’s rights, a diverse economy and a secular state and what does Carter do but throws the whole region into medieval anti-American theocracy in the name of human rights.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  206. I love it the way the Trump deadenders think that Liz did this to get ahead. Go-along get-along is how you get ahead. Rocking the Boat isn’t generally rewarded. Calling the former president of your party a traitor is almost sure to get you smeared by every dirtbag in the universe. And Trump knows a LOT of dirtbags.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  207. Just variations on a theme many of us here share, norcal. I didn’t say anything about Trump supporters that you did not say in different words just up the thread.

    nk (1d9030)

  208. @119. Short burst copy; ammo makes for ez shootdowns, norcal.

    Conserves electrons, too.

    Glorious. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  209. Some people are going to look around some day soon and wonder what happened to all the Trump rallies.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  210. McCain had a plan for healthcare that he’d been flogging for a few years before 2008. It involved actual reform, with ALL policies being individual and thereby portable. No more company insurance (although they could subsidize yours). He hated Obamacare because it reformed very little and place the entire burden on 5% of the population to subsidize another 5%, and left the other 90% unaffected (but with opinions about how wonderful it all was).

    The Senate plan was to throw the combined 10% out into the snow, leaving the (self-employed) half that had been screwed over twice already, screwed over a third time. Because it was easier.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  211. Calling the former president of your party a traitor is almost sure to get you smeared by every dirtbag in the universe.

    Certainly sealed George Will’s fate, didn’t it:

    Yes, Richard Nixon Was A Traitor

    https://crooksandliars.com/2014/08/yes-richard-nixon-was-traitor

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  212. Cool story: Rolling Stones Altamont concert footage found in Library of Congress archives

    When Library of Congress film expert Mike Mashon heard about newly found reels of Rolling Stones concert footage, he thought they were copies from a show the band did in London in 1969.

    But when the silent, color film was sent to be digitized, his technicians contacted him, and said, “You gotta come see this,” he said.

    The footage was not from the London concert that July. It was from the notorious show five months later at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, where one fan was killed, three others died and, many believe, the social revolution of the 1960s began its end.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  213. Certainly sealed George Will’s fate, didn’t it:

    It did when he said it again. Besides, who can take a guy in a bow tie seriously?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  214. @211 I like how you are good-natured with the ribbing, DCSCA.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  215. It was from the notorious show five months later at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, where one fan was killed, three others died and, many believe, the social revolution of the 1960s began its end.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2022 @ 8:23 pm

    I think the Manson killings were what signaled the end.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  216. I know that all is doom and gloom in Trumpland, but imagine Trump literally victorious in 2024, with a clear and smashing popular & electoral vote win.

    There will be some scores to settle.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  217. imagine Trump literally victorious in 2024

    Hard pass

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  218. Indeed, but the way the Biden folks are going, it is increasingly possible.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  219. So on the one hand, we’re supposed to praise Trump for the wise choice to get out of Afghanistan — but still protect him from any responsibility for the Taliban takeover?

    This is just cope for the fact that the neocons never wanted to pull out in the first place.

    You’re admitting that a Taliban takeover was the inevitable result of Trump’s deal

    The Taliban were going to take over whenever the US pulled out–and that was obvious even to me when I did my first tour at the CAOC back in 2014. It wouldn’t have mattered who was in charge, for the reason I listed. And it’s also irrelevant, because the majority of Americans wanted to pull out, too.

    But somehow I’m the one “making assumptions about what Trump would have done or not done” when I note that he set things up for a Taliban return?

    Yeah, you are. Pretty much every thing you said Trump would or wouldn’t have done is your assumption–for the simple fact that he wasn’t in charge when the pullout happened. Biden was.

    Not it isn’t irrelevant. It’s evidence against the claim that he would absolutely have made sure that every civilian was out before getting the troops out. He wanted to get the credit for the withdrawal — until he didn’t.

    Yes, it is irrelevant, and I never said that. You certainly love burning those strawmen so bright that the missile warning satellites at Buckley SFB can pick up the heat signature.

    I have never claimed that Biden did everything perfectly.

    I never said you did.

    Nor did the major mainstream news organizations hold back on criticism.

    Well, sure, the withdrawal was such a massive cock-up that even they couldn’t cover for him.

    I’m pushing back against the claim that Trump had no part in setting up the humiliating surrender” in Afghanistan.

    It was only a “humiliating surrender” because of how badly Biden and his team screwed it up. You think it’s a coincidence that Biden’s popularity ratings started taking their skydive after he, Austin, Milley, and the rest of the perfumed princes in the Pentagon had actually performed the withdrawal in a competent manner? His handlers took their eye off the ball to get that dumb 9/11 photo op, and it came back to bite them.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  220. Incidentally, it didn’t surprise me at all that Austin got caught flat-footed by the Taliban’s blitzkrieg–because the same thing happened during his tenure as CENTCOM commander, when ISIS was blasting their way through Syria and western Iraq, and his boss was calling them the “JV team.”

    Guys like him, Psaki, Buttigieg, Harris, and Biden are why I call this administration the Peter Principle Presidency.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  221. 222-*performed the withdrawal in an incompetent manner

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  222. The withdrawl from Afghanistan was going to be a charlie-foxtrot whoever ran it. In order for it not to be, the government of Afghanistan and the Afghani army would’ve needed to stand up and fight and even after an entire generation of training and a boatload of our equipment, they didn’t do that. They would’ve had to want it more than the Taliban did and clearly they didn’t. On our end, Biden was more interested in making the date than listening to anyone and had it been Trump, he’d spent so long firing anyone competent and was also more interested in speed than elegance and hadn’t been competent at anything else he did that I can’t see him having been any better than Biden was and maybe worse. Add onto that that the people “deserted” in Afghanistan had months to leave and didn’t, it didn’t matter who the president was, the optics were destined to be terrible. It might’ve been slightly better had Trump and then Biden expedited the moving out of the families of Aghanis who aided us and the people who aided us themselves over the course of the two years before, but it was always going to be bad.

    Nic (896fdf)

  223. The delta variant has now merged with omicron and is called deltacron.

    asset (46a260)

  224. The plan was to leave Afghanistan before “fighting season” so that there would be no rear guard needed. Joe Biden overruled that because he wanted to have his “we turned tail on 9/11” photo-op for some reason known only to Joe Biden. And no one could talk him out of it.

    This is what happens when your country is led by ‘C’s. All the ‘A’s and ‘B’s on staff cannot fix stupid. This is two in a row now.

    Even Obama is looking better.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  225. Even Obama is looking better.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2022 @ 11:23 pm

    I see you’re a fan of low bars.

    norcal (d4ed1d)

  226. @Kevin@227 Even if “fighting season” hadn’t started yet (and I suspect that an american withdrawl at that time would’ve started “fighting season” regardless of the weather) when they left, it would have meant that even more people would’ve been left behind and the optics of that. And the Taliban still would’ve rolled over the Afghani army. It might’ve changed the optics slightly, but a clean exit with either man wasn’t going to happen. I don’t know that a clean exit could’ve happened under any President. Maybe if we’d pulled out right after all the passes closed, but even then I don’t think so. I suspect (no way to prove this of course) that there was enough left of local taliban in every area that they might’ve taken on the Afghani Army anyway (assuming that the local taliban wasn’t also the Afghani Army.) Given the total collapse of the AA, maybe it would have been more effective to take all the local women in each area, given them guns and fatigues, and trained them as local guerrilla militia groups.

    Nic (896fdf)

  227. I see you’re a fan of low bars.

    I wasn’t before 2016 and the two guys that followed. Trump is a limbo bar for snakes. Biden IS a snake.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  228. @229: I would not want to bet my life on the feckfulness of Trump or Biden. But you would think that, somewhere, there’s a Pentagon study of how to do this, written shortly after the fall of Saigon. Also, the spare airlift capacity and the need for airlines to get some extra income could not have lined up better, had anyone been able to get their thumb out.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  229. 168-norcal
    too much espresso. 😎

    mg (8cbc69)

  230. Joe Biden overruled that because he wanted to have his “we turned tail on 9/11″ photo-op for some reason known only to Joe Biden. And no one could talk him out of it.

    That was weird. Like wanting to rub 9/11 in America’s face. And then there was Saule Omarova as head bank regulator. Who is in the Politburo? Do we know everyone? Do we know anyone?

    nk (1d9030)

  231. But I have my own ideas about relative fecklessness, and one of them is that fighting a war with the U.S. military is like rowing a boat with a piece of rope. A President, any President, in the end, can only do what he can do with the tools he has.

    nk (1d9030)

  232. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2022 @ 8:11 pm

    I love the way nevertrump sees a love of trump behind every disagreement.

    I have to imagine if a nevertrump and their spouse are discussing where to eat dinner the nevertrump at some points accuses their spouse of not wanting Mexican because they love trump. Want ice cream for dessert, secretly because they love trump. Disagree over the thermostat setting, secretly because of trump. Didn’t take out the garbage, trump. Pull the sheets at night, definitely trump.

    It’s like those commercials on late night tv. The sham-wow trump love does everything.

    frosty (f27e97)

  233. Now, Radegunda, wants to play the mind reading game but the problem is I apply the same standard to Trump. And I’ve said that before.

    And yet there’s a whopping amount of mindreading about Cheney’s motives. Funny that.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  234. 240. So, you’ve changed your mind about the rule that we have to believe everything people say? Or this only gets applied to the things you like?

    Any thoughts on the trump mind reading? Or the mind reading of everyone “dismissing” Jan/6? Or the mind reading of the “anti-vaxxers”? No? Those get a pass because reasons?

    Don’t look now but the bit about Liz being a true defender of the faithful also involves a bit of mind reading. But that’s perfectly fine because it’s for a Good Cause?

    frosty (f27e97)

  235. @229: I would not want to bet my life on the feckfulness of Trump or Biden. But you would think that, somewhere, there’s a Pentagon study of how to do this, written shortly after the fall of Saigon. Also, the spare airlift capacity and the need for airlines to get some extra income could not have lined up better, had anyone been able to get their thumb out.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/9/2022 @ 2:15 am

    You’d think any post-Saigon AARs would have been among the first items consulted when the drawdown actually began, but you’d be surprised how disinterested most officers are in actually reading about their own history. Most of the brass tend to view history through a “heritage” lens that’s more about celebrating accomplishments or notable individuals. Rarely is it employed for the purpose of using prior experiences to make informed decisions.

    Also, quite a few of the airlines that the military relied on for decades to do contract flights, like Evergreen and World Airlines, went bankrupt as GWOT steadily wore down. Finding people to do those transport requirements has proven to be a significant challenge in recent years.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  236. So, you’ve changed your mind about the rule that we have to believe everything people say?
    Did I ever say that “we have to believe everything people say”? Unserious question.
    I’ll just note that you accused someone of mindreading while doing a fair bit of your own.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  237. So much for a Ron Johnson pledge to stay for only two terms. He should retire because the country is in too much peril. His “just asking the questions” schtick has only served to undermine public health. Are we to go with the “rule” and believe everything he says?

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  238. @243. I didn’t put it in quotes so you don’t get accuse me of that this time. But, yes, that was essentially your argument in the discussion with Jim in a past thread.

    Let’s review:

    I’m criticized for something I didn’t say and a position I didn’t take. You’re ok with that because assigning views to people you disagree with is fine.

    I criticize Liz and her fan club for things they do say and a position they do take. You’re not ok with that and even though I explained my position you’re going to say I’m mind reading because it’s the easiest option.

    This consistent inconsistency is one of the most endearing traits of nevertrump.

    The irony is Liz and her fan club are doing the same thing as Trump and his fan club.

    frosty (f27e97)

  239. Here’s a good financial round-up on what happened in China this past week, little of it good for their economy.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  240. @244. It’s your rule so you’re in the best position to answer it. I like to make up my own mind about things but you’re free to make a decision based on which side you think he’s on.

    frosty (f27e97)

  241. I’m criticized for something I didn’t say and a position I didn’t take. You’re ok with that because assigning views to people you disagree with is fine.

    You were criticized for a cheap shot, for your saying that Jim was hoping for more Covid deaths. You said that. He responded that your comment was false. You basically passed it off that you didn’t believe him, and then you made up a series of hoops that he had to jump through in order for you to change your mind. It was fairly ridiculous.
    I never said that we are to believe everything a person says. You made that sh-t up. But I will say this: I believe him more than you.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  242. Here are a dozen cool engineering things to look for in 2022. The hydrogen plant in Brazil looks interesting, among other things.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  243. Paul: “that he had to jump through in order for you to change your mind. It was fairly ridiculous.
    I never said that we are to believe everything a person says. You made that sh-t up.”

    De ja vu all over again…another day, another rabbit hole. It seems like the best action is to “refudiate” the worst of it…and step over the hole. Life is too short to allow trolls, to any degree, control your mood….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  244. “The hydrogen plant in Brazil looks interesting”

    Yeah the hydrogen economy is getting a big push in the EU (they have a competitive advantage in the electrolyzer arena). I think there are some big infrastructure challenges in storing and moving hydrogen about….the round-trip efficiency also is an impediment. Most such big infrastructure requires significant political support (and prices that make it practical). Whereas natural gas pipelines get eaten up in the political dogfight, maybe hydrogen transport from green sources 9and water) might fair better in the US. Unfortunately we don’t want to emerge from our ideological bubbles long enough to do much substantively about energy. The grid is amazing but it’s also a patchwork. We only think about energy when something breaks….like in Texas this past year.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  245. @248. Having trouble keeping these straight? Are you switching to the Jim issue to avoid the Radegunda thread?

    So, yea, take AJ’s advice because explaining why you’ve got different standards is hard.

    frosty (f46f8a)

  246. Paul,

    you sound really upset about Johnson. I know it’ll make it harder for a leftist to take the seat, but there’s still a chance. Don’t get so upset over it.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  247. “ The “Freedom to Vote Act” would, in effect, federalize all elections. Along with turning Election Day into yet another national holiday, the act would impose early voting rules everywhere and allow voting by felons and attempts to influence those waiting to vote with gifts of food and water. It would make automatic voter registration, same-day registration, and online registration mandatory. It would also end partisan gerrymandering while still protecting often bizarrely shaped minority-majority districts that were created to ensure specific racial groups would dominate them.

    Even more importantly, it would hamstring any efforts to ensure the integrity of the vote by preventing actions like the cleaning of voting rolls to ensure that people who have moved or died aren’t still registered. It would also ban widely popular voter ID rules, expand mail-in ballots, restrict efforts to ensure that their signatures are valid, and legalize vote harvesting. It would also impose new rules on campaign contributions in an attempt to override the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision that protected political speech.”

    Democrats’ Top Priority Before Fall Elections Is Rigging U.S. Voting Rules

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/07/democrats-top-priority-before-fall-elections-is-rigging-u-s-voting-rules/

    Remember, it’s the Democrats and Never-Trumpers who are saving democracy.

    Obudman (685c94)

  248. AJ, I like the idea of keeping the grid, for competitive reasons, where folks can choose buying their electricity from public utilities but also have the option of getting “green hydrogen” fuel cells, along with rooftop solar panels that can contribute to the grid, along with more nuclear power to replace and/or supplement electricity from fossil fuels. It’s too bad there weren’t any nuclear energy breakthroughs in that list.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  249. you sound really upset about Johnson. I know it’ll make it harder for a leftist to take the seat, but there’s still a chance. Don’t get so upset over it.

    Thank you for channeling my feelings, Rob. If you weren’t around, I wouldn’t know what my emotions are.
    FTR, Johnson and his broken promises are Wisconsin’s problem, but his disinformation on Covid and vaccines, undermining our public health, is nationwide.
    I’ll give Johnson credit for this: He wasn’t one of the 147 Republican fascists who objected to certification on 1/6.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  250. @248. Having trouble keeping these straight? Are you switching to the Jim issue to avoid the Radegunda thread?

    No. You’re the one who brought up Jim with your lie that I had some kind of “rule” that I believe everything a should a person says.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  251. It would also end partisan gerrymandering

    Pressing “X” to doubt on that one. What it would really do is make red states “more competitive” by diluting their representation while keeping current gerrymanders in blue states harder to eliminate.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  252. Even more importantly, it would hamstring any efforts to ensure the integrity of the vote by preventing actions like the cleaning of voting rolls to ensure that people who have moved or died aren’t still registered.

    This is the biggest concern about the bill, because it incentivizes the Democrats to play reindeer games on things like ballot harvesting. If they were really that concerned about the integrity of the voting process, they should WANT to ensure that every voter registration is legitimate, active, and that the voter actually lives in that district.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  253. Nic @225 & 229-

    Hear hear. The fact that Afghan Army units had pre-surrender deals with local Taliban units demonstrates they had no intention of defending their country.

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  254. NASA’s Webb Telescope Reaches Major Milestone as Mirror Unfolds

    ‘NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team fully deployed its 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror, successfully completing the final stage of all major spacecraft deployments to prepare for science operations.

    A joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency, the Webb mission will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe.

    “Today, NASA achieved another engineering milestone decades in the making. While the journey is not complete, I join the Webb team in breathing a little easier and imagining the future breakthroughs bound to inspire the world,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The James Webb Space Telescope is an unprecedented mission that is on the precipice of seeing the light from the first galaxies and discovering the mysteries of our universe. Each feat already achieved and future accomplishment is a testament to the thousands of innovators who poured their life’s passion into this mission.’

    https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-webb-telescope-reaches-major-milestone-as-mirror-unfolds

    Glorious. Outstanding job, kids.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  255. RIPs all around:

    Dwayne Hickman (87)

    Marylin Bergman (93)

    Max Julien (88)

    Michael Lang (77)

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  256. @216. Besides, who can take a guy in a bow tie seriously?

    Which explains why Tucka abandoned the look.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  257. Since bringing up Ron Johnson touched a nerve with Rob, here are some of Johnson’s greatest hits.

    “I’m going to actually utilize my own freedom, my own health autonomy, and I’m going to choose not to get the vaccine, and now we are demonizing those people. Around the world, they’re putting them basically into internment camps.”

    Internment camps? Around the world?

    “We do not have an approved vaccine in America. They did it for the Comirnaty — it’s available, I guess, in Europe, but the Pfizer vaccine available in the U.S. is not FDA approved — it’s got an emergency use authorization.”

    Johnson said this on 10/4/2020, over a month after the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine. Same vaccine, different name. It’s akin to a Kirkland Signature label slapped over a tub of Tide detergent.

    “There was no violence on the Senate side, in terms of the chamber.”

    Um, yes there was.

    “I knew those were people (on Jan. 6) that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.”

    They broke the law, they caused over 140 officers to seek medical attention.

    “Generally the deaths are still pretty flat because we’ve flattened the curve.”

    This was on 10/21/2020, at the beginning of the 3rd wave, when pretty much every expert was predicting another wave, and where new cases more than doubled compared to one month earlier.

    Johnson that stated the 1/6 insurrection “didn’t seem like an armed insurrection”. To date, there are 57 who’ve been charged with use/possession of dangerous weapons.

    And let’s not forget how Johnson ran interference in defense of a slimeball like Manafort, and how he contributed to the fiction that Ukraine had a role in interfering our 2016 election, relying on a guy (Derkach) who literally attended spy school in Moscow.

    Good times.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  258. Alan Dershowitz asked Donald Trump to grant Ghislaine Maxwell a pre-emptive pardon
    ……..
    Towards the end of Trump’s time in office the lawyer used his close ties to the president to secure pardons for paying clients.

    ……(Trump) was also reported to have taken a sudden interest in Maxwell’s fate. According to Landslide, by the American journalist Michael Wolff, he asked aides: “Has she said anything about me? . . . Is she going to talk? Will she roll on anybody?”
    ………
    Dershowitz raised the possibility of Trump granting a pardon to Maxwell over crimes for which she might be convicted. The lawyer had discussed the idea of clemency with one of Maxwell’s brothers.

    Last night Ian Maxwell, 65, said he had not paid Dershowitz for his services. He said: “There was one phone call between Professor Dershowitz and a family member during which the generic issue of pardons was touched on.”

    Maxwell added that Dershowitz was not explicitly asked, nor volunteered, to raise the matter with Trump, and that any resulting contact with him was purely incidental.

    Dershowitz declined to discuss his contact with Trump. ……
    …….

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  259. @259, It’s not about wanting the downside. If you voter base is poorer regularly voting roll purges diminish your turnout. Given how rare voter fraud has turned out to be the risk associated with out of date registrations lists seems pretty small.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  260. @264, Yeah, Sen Johnson is a dishonest clown fond of pushing harmful lies.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  261. @242. OTOH, the basic logistics of ‘how to properly withdraw,’ post any conflict, win, lose or draw, would be part of the education and training of any officer placed in a leadership position- from a lieutenant in charge of latrines to the Pentagon brass to the Commander In Chief himself. Seems it’s now SOP to go French and just abandon everything- from people to billions of dollars invested in equipment. But hey, it’s all on Uncle Sam’s credit card– no Afghan War bonds to buy or sell. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  262. Nuclear Power Has a Second Chance to Prove Itself
    ……..
    While there are places where the safety risks and waste problem mean nuclear energy is verboten, notably Germany, most big economies expect to include it in their net-zero energy mix. President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill included at least $8.5 billion for nuclear energy. ……..

    The 20th century’s take on nuclear power warrants skepticism. Despite decades of experience, new large fission reactors remain bespoke megaprojects often dogged by construction delays and cost overruns. According to Lazards, their levelized cost of energy is between $131 to $204 a megawatt hour, higher than nearly all other energy forms. Nuclear has also bucked the trend by getting more expensive over the years rather than cheaper.
    ……..
    Many are working on (small modular reactors) SMRs. Russia’s Rosatom has built SMRs on ships in the Arctic. Oregon-based NuScale has U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for its SMR design, and last month announced a contract to build one in Romania by 2027. British jet-engine maker Rolls Royce recently launched a consortium with Chicago-based Exelon Generation to build SMRs, with the first expected in 2031. China National Nuclear Corporation, EDF and Holtec, among others, also have SMR plans.
    ………
    In 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program co-founded two advanced nuclear reactor demonstration plants to be completed by 2027. The first is designed by Bill Gates -backed TerraPower in partnership with GE-Hitachi. It will feature a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with integrated energy storage on the site of a retiring coal plant in Wyoming. The second will be built in Washington state by X-Energy using four of its 80 MW helium gas-cooled reactors fueled by special uranium pebbles. It could also be used to produce hydrogen or desalinate water. Mr. Biden’s infrastructure bill earmarked $2.5 billion for these two projects.
    ………
    There is also innovation in nuclear fusion—combining atoms to generate energy—which comes with fewer safety and waste concerns. This month, Commonwealth Fusion Systems secured $1.8 billion in funding with promises to build reactors in the 2030s. But many think commercially viable fusion remains a very long shot.
    ………
    Related:
    Nuclear Fusion Attracts Startups—and Skeptics

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  263. @225, I think Biden’s calculation was that the public would lose interest after we were out and that no amount of waiting would make much of a difference.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  264. 208. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/8/2022 @ 8:06 pm

    Hoover was left a bomb by Coolidge. The markets were so superheated, and margins so low that anything Hoover tried to do to fix it would have made the crash happen faster.

    Well, it wasn’t really Coolidge (although I think I read the idea that the reason Coolidge chose not to tun in 1928 was that he knew what was coming – doubtful, but based on the fact that Coolidge didn’t give a reason. And it wasn’t that the stock market crashed, it was that loans were made against stiocks from money banks and others wanted to treat as ready cash.

    I was speaking really of Herbert Hoover’s futile attempts to counter the depression. He promoted a “Buy Now” campaign and said that “prosperity is just around the corner.” He didn’t understand what wa going on. Ben Bernanke did a whole stury of what mistakes the Federal Reserve Board did in 1930 and after and what he did in 2008 was his idea of avoiding those mistakes.

    Basically, the money supply shrank and was in a vicious shrinking cycle.

    Carter’s 1977 Iranian visit to undermine the Shah is probably the worst unforced error in the history of the United States. The only person in the region that had our backs, and was leading his people into the 20th century with higher education, women’s rights, a diverse economy and a secular state and what does Carter do but throws the whole region into medieval anti-American theocracy in the name of human rights.

    Well, the Shah’s police were repeatedly shooting people. It was actually a result of protest tactics that had first been tried out in the West Bank in 1976 (but Israel never got into that terrible cycle)

    And the ultimate cause was the Shah’s arrogance.

    The problem was that the remedy waas not to regard the Ayatollah as the alternative and he shouldn;t have sent General Alexander Haig to counsel the military against a coup.

    Jimmy Carter made mistake after mistake after that.

    The public perceives a president as incompetent, not when he fails to fix things, but when he repeatedly expects things to happen that don’t.

    And there was the completely unnecessary gasoline shortage in 1979. (and in 1977, his energy crisis ideas, which amounted to trying to beat a shortage to the punch.)

    And his “fighting inflation” which resulted in a 20% prime rate and only higher inflation and a recession.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  265. 260. Rip Murdock (9ff85d) — 1/9/2022 @ 10:59 am

    The fact that Afghan Army units had pre-surrender deals with local Taliban units demonstrates they had no intention of defending their country.

    That;s very unfair to them. They had a crisis of confidence, and were threatened with death if they didn’t surrender. They couldn’r defebd their country – they could only live or die.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  266. That;s very unfair to them (the Afghan Army)….

    No it’s not. You join (or are drafted) an army to defend your country. The Afghan Army (which was never very cohesive) failed to do its most basic task.

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  267. I think there are some big infrastructure challenges in storing and moving hydrogen about….the round-trip efficiency also is an impediment.

    Hydrogen from electrolysis has the same issues that electric cars do: how do you create the electricity? If you are burning coal to make hydrogen….

    Hydrogen also (as you imply) has significant storage and transportation problems, due to it’s tendency to leak out of containers. The hydride thing doesn’t work for pipelines, and is heavy for car tanks.

    My personal feeling is that all of this will be niche technology and small scale .. until [if?] we get commercial fusion going and then it will be the largest byproduct of the tritium sea-water sieve.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  268. Ben Bernanke did a whole story of what mistakes the Federal Reserve Board did in 1930 and after and what he did in 2008 was his idea of avoiding those mistakes.

    Which is kind of surprising, since usually they make the same mistakes (and they kinda did with Lehman) then later are surprised to find out just how similar the mistakes were, and how completely they had been predicted.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  269. Hydrogen from electrolysis has the same issues that electric cars do: how do you create the electricity? If you are burning coal to make hydrogen….

    True. From the link, the hydrogen in Brazil will be created by solar/wind. Not a bad thing.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  270. Nuclear Power Has a Second Chance to Prove Itself

    Understand that every US nuclear plant is based on a 1950s design, and most that are still running are past their design life (a consequence of not being able to build new ones). Also, (and this is a terrible and little understood danger) massively radioactive spent fuel rods are stored on site in populated areas, apparently because they are less valuable than a mountain in the middle of the middle of (sic) nowhere.

    Russian plants don’t count.

    The Fukashima reactor was run past its design live and did not itself fail — the diesel engine to pump coolant failed, as it was unprotected when the wave came.

    The modern designs are much safer, and in fact are still being engineered, based on 70 years of nuclear experience.

    But every time the public yhears radiation they think Chernobyl and Fukashima. Or maybe Kryptonite.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  271. @274. Our best bet seems to be to invest in more fission until we can get the fusion going.

    frosty (f27e97)

  272. It would also end partisan gerrymandering

    Yes. Like it did in California, whose “independent commission” somehow wound up with a map that will have the GOP competing for only 15% of the Congressional seats (8 districts out of 52). Hopefully they’ll win some, but the other 85% (44 seats) are Democrat locks.

    The panel was 5 Democrats, 4 “decline to state” Democrats, and 5 RINO Democrats.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  273. It should be clear by now that re-apportionment panels, like any other group of social individuals, is easily bent to the Left.

    O’Sullivan’s law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  274. Well, the Shah’s police were repeatedly shooting people.

    Everything was well in hand until Jimmy went over there and said, basically, that we were not going to support the Shah. After that he was doomed.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  275. And there was the completely unnecessary gasoline shortage in 1979

    Because the Shah wasn’t there sending us oil, like he did in 1973.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  276. I don;t know if anyone noticed, but on Thursday, January 6, 2022, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, in part, both used the exact same set of facts as an argument that the election was stolen and was not stolen.

    [Note: All that Trump has is statistical arguments – that the political outcome is allegedly impossible])

    Biden, of course, given that his main proposition was in line with reality, had the better argument and the Wall Street Journal main editorial on Friday had some additional or different arguments.

    Trump:

    https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/news-wwf22ajmvh1371

    …Does anybody really think that Biden beat Obama with the Black population in select Swing State cities, but nowhere else? That he would lose 18 out of 19 bellwether counties, and 27 out of 27 “toss up” House races, but somehow miraculously receive the most votes in American history with no coattails? That he would lose Florida, Ohio, and Iowa and win, even though it has never been done before?

    Specifically referring to these House races, Biden had said:

    https://www.newamericanjournal.net/2022/01/video-and-full-transcript-president-joe-biden-speaks-to-congress-on-jan-6-2022

    Just think about this: The former president and his supporters have never been able to explain how they accept as accurate the other election results that took place on November 3rd — the elections for governor, United States Senate, the House of Representatives — elections in which they closed the gap in the House.

    They challenge none of that. The President’s name was first, then we went down the line — governors, senators, House of Representatives. Somehow, those results were accurate on the same ballot, but the presidential race was flawed?

    And on the same ballot, the same day, cast by the same voters.

    The only difference: The former President didn’t lose those races; he just lost the one that was his own.

    The Wall Street Journal noted:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-can-never-lose-2020-election-joe-biden-11641511214

    That the reason the Republicans won 27 out of the 27 House races categorized as toss ups was that the election forecasters were wrong. The Democrats were expected to increase their majority in the House; instead they nearly lost control. So all those put in the toss up range went to the Republicans. But the Republicans still lost the House. While winning both the presidential and the House elections don’t go together (and you could add that overall, the House was slightly errymandered to favor the Republicans) why should it be more likely that that the party which lost the House should win the presidency?

    The election was close, so traditionally conservative House districts went to the GOP. There’s no reason to expect that the party that failed (albeit narrowly) to win the House, as the GOP did, should win the Electoral College.

    Trump had reverse coattails.

    As for Biden getting more votes than Obama in areas with black population, that is true in absolute numbers, because turnout was higher in 2020 (and true only maybe in “select” that is, hand picked, places, but actually Trump did better proportionately there (in black areas) in 2020 than he did in 2016.

    It was in mostly white suburban areas that he lost a lot votes.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  277. 282. There was a cutback in Iranian oil production, but it did not much efect the global supply.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  278. From the link, the hydrogen in Brazil will be created by solar/wind.

    Solar is a good source, since the electrolysis doesn’t have to run all the time, but solar is still quote predictable. Wind is completely unknown, is u-gly, costly to maintain, kills birds and did I mention, it’s u-gly.

    It may be a bit of a trick finding open land for the solar array, near lots of water. Deserts give you one, but not the other. And water tends to have plants and people and stuff around it.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  279. [Note: All that Trump has is statistical arguments – that the political outcome is allegedly impossible])

    Biden has the better argument: I got 5 million more votes. Even if there’s uncertainty in the electoral count, I’ll break the “tie” that way, as would quite a few Congresspeople should it go there.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  280. No, Jimmy Carter praised the Shah – for stability (not a usual American value) I guess he couldn;t praise him for human rights. At the beginning of 1978.

    Today Jimmy Carter has an Op-ed in the New York Times about U.S. elections.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/opinion/jan-6-jimmy-carter.html

    After I left the White House and founded the Carter Center, we worked to promote free, fair and orderly elections across the globe. I led dozens of election observation missions in Africa, Latin America and Asia, starting with Panama in 1989, where I put a simple question to administrators: “Are you honest officials or thieves?” At each election, my wife, Rosalynn, and I were moved by the courage and commitment of thousands of citizens walking miles and waiting in line from dusk to dawn to cast their first ballots in free elections, renewing hope for themselves and their nations and taking their first steps to self-governance.

    No mention of what a farce his election monitoring often was. He mentions, without drawing a point from it, that his own (primary) State Senate race was stole in 1962 ballot-stuffing county boss but he went to court and got the results invalidated – maybe the point is a candidate who has an argument with the results should just go to court.

    Maybe someone should remind him that the biggest contributor to the Carter Center was Ryochi Sasakawa, one of the Japanese responsible for Pearl Harbor. And the next was Agha Hasan Abedi, head of BCCI,

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  281. [Note: All that Trump has is statistical arguments – that the political outcome is allegedly impossi

    Trump is arguing that the results are not consistent with each other so there must have been fraud.

    How could Biden lose Florida, Ohio, and Iowa and still win? Biuden;s argument is that the results are even more implausible if you say there was fraud> How could the Republicans accept all the House races and say there was cheating for the presidency on the same ballots, the same day, cast by the same voters.

    What they forgot to steal the Congressional races? They stuffed the ballots with votes cast for Republicans?

    Sidney Powell tried to say there were ballots with votes only for president, but there are such dropoffs in every election.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  282. @270 “I think Biden’s calculation”

    this is an unserious way to begin a comment

    JF (f4072c)

  283. At a tragic fire scene in the Bronx w/19 dead, where government officials from NYC, the NY governor herself and NY Senator Schumer pledge financial assistance on the taxpayer’s dime, American citizens hear this:

    “This is a heavy immigrant community. Your names will not be turned over to ICE.” – NYC Mayor Eric Adams [D]

    ‘Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.’ – The Who

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  284. “how do you create the electricity?”

    Fuel cell: In comes hydrogen and oxygen, out goes water and electricity. The electrolyzer works the other way….in comes current and water and out goes hydrogen and oxygen. The idea of “green hydrogen” is that the hydrogen is produced by electrolyzers powered by PV or wind…..where some envision offshore wind turbines integrating electrolyzers directly. Korea has the largest fuel cell plant in the world. I do believe the fuel cells require platinum which hurts them cost wise.

    I do agree about nuclear….though there needs to be some serious regulatory relief to make it cost effective. I would like to see the GOP make this a policy priority. When you got Bill Gates pushing it….I could see some bipartisanship. There are technical issues with waste disposal….but it’s nothing that can’t be figured out. Nuclear is green…it buys us time for new technology to emerge. If you want to put the left on the defensive….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  285. A co-blogger of mine is a nuclear engineer at NuScale in Corvallis. The technology is safe, and they use Small Modular Reactors.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  286. R.I.P. Bob Saget

    Icy (6abb50)

  287. R.I.P. Bob Saget, 65

    Looks like the Emmy obit reel this year is shaping up to be a ‘Full House.’

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  288. Trump: Where did all those votes show up from in Georgia, where it was just revealed they sold ballots for $10 a piece…

    This is an allegation that Raffensperger (or officials of the state of Georgia) first heard of this past November, one year after the election. It is not an allegation that any votes were cast for ineligible voters, but that some people sold their votes or, probably more accurately, that some people were paid for collecting votes. (that is the voters didn’t get the money)

    Raffensperger can’t say more, other than it is being investigation.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/01/07/fact-check-trump-makes-misleading-claim-georgia-2020-election/9128609002

    The group claims it has video footage of people collecting and delivering absentee ballots, as well as an interview with an unnamed man who alleges he was paid thousands of dollars to collect and submit ballots during the November election 2020, according to a Jan. 4 report from Just the News, a site that has previously shared misinformation about Georgia’s 2020 election.

    The Just the News article notes that True the Vote “does not allege the ballots delivered by couriers were fraudulent,” which Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has reiterated as well.

    “Ballot harvesting, those are still lawful ballots, they’ve just been handled fraudulently. Many states actually allow ballot harvesting,” Raffensperger told the National Desk. “We outlawed it because we think that the only person that should touch the ballot is the voter and the election worker and there shouldn’t be any people and intermediaries in between.”

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  289. 283/Sammy: the House having R gains was a result of both the Ds overperforming in traditionally R districts in 2018 with reversion back to normal vote, and hedgebetting by mid- suburban, outer-suburban and exurban voters balancing a Biden vote with an R congressional vote to suffocate the actual Dem agenda. This is a change from 2016 when the rise toward the end exhibited by R incumbent Senate candidates like Rubio, R. Johnson and Toomey were seen as a split the difference maneuver by reluctant Clinton voters, not as a movement in support of the entire R slate

    urbanleftbehind (c073c9)

  290. I haven’t made a count — and don’t intend to — but I think the most common logical fallacy in the comments at this site is the famous “Tu quoque”, which follows this “template”:

    Person A claims that statement X is true.
    Person B asserts that A’s actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
    Therefore, X is false.

    In reading these comments, it is usually not clear to me whether Hanlon’s Razor applies, whether B hasn’t done the hard work of thinking logically, or whether B’s “malice” explains the error.

    The first is, of course, more likely.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  291. RIP Kelly Ernby (46)
    ………
    “The Orange County district attorney’s office is utterly heartbroken by the sudden and unexpected passing of Deputy Dist. Atty. Kelly Ernby,” Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “Kelly was an incredibly vibrant and passionate attorney who cared deeply about the work that we do as prosecutors — and deeply about the community we all fight so hard to protect.”
    ……….
    Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ernby took a firm stance against a new state law tightening immunization rules for California schoolchildren when appearing in an online town hall on the campaign trail in November 2019.

    “I don’t think that the government should be involved in mandating what vaccines people are taking,” she said. “I think that’s a decision between doctors and their patients…. If the government is going to mandate vaccines, what else are they going to mandate?”
    ………
    During the pandemic, Ernby remained an ardent and vocal opponent of COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

    As recently as Dec. 4, she spoke against such mandates during a rally outside Irvine City Hall. Organized by the UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton chapters of Turning Point USA, the rally drew dozens in attendance, according to the Daily Titan, a Fullerton student newspaper.

    “There’s nothing that matters more than our freedoms right now,” Ernby said.
    ………

    Related: Husband: Kelly Ernby wasn’t vaccinated when she died of COVID-19 complications

    Deputy District Attorney and GOP activist Kelly Ernby wasn’t vaccinated when she died early this week after contracting COVID-19, according to comments her husband has posted on social media.

    …….. Republicans leaders who counted 46-year-old Ernby as a friend and who agreed with her opposition of vaccine mandates said Tuesday that their positions haven’t changed.
    ………
    Her husband Axel Mattias Ernby shared her vaccination status on Facebook in response to false claims about Ernby, whose death has triggered feedback from people around the world on both sides of the political aisle seeking a poster child for their beliefs.

    Many of the comments lament the fact that Kelly Ernby died at 46 from a disease that’s rarely fatal for healthy people who are vaccinated and boosted. Some dug up a previous tweet in which Ernby compared vaccine mandates to rules imposed by Nazi Germany. Some commenters went further, sharing Darwin signs and saying they’ve run out of sympathy for the unvaccinated — particularly those who publicly sow distrust in vaccines — as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 soars above 826,000 people.

    But some GOP activists, such as former Assembly candidate Jon Paul White, shared false information that Ernby had been vaccinated and even suggested that the vaccine itself caused her death. Such comments drew a response from Axel Mattias Ernby, who asked one such commenter to “stop spreading lies.”
    ……….

    Her death and the its exploitation are both tragedies.

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  292. The panel was 5 Democrats, 4 “decline to state” Democrats, and 5 RINO Democrats.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/9/2022 @ 12:40 pm

    Sounds a lot like Colorado’s “bipartisan” Civil Rights Commission that tried to drive Masterpiece Cakeshop out of business (and which continues to be maliciously lawfared by the Denver metro’s LGBT mafia).

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  293. The Covid test by dog is actually getting a little use, but it remains very obscure. There are not too many of them, but they can obviously give a rapid test to very many people (I don;t know if they could get infected themselves)

    https://nypost.com/2022/01/06/virus-sniffing-dogs-deployed-in-the-fight-against-covid-19

    “The dogs have been tested in data collected and published at 99.6 percent accuracy,” program manager Kip Schultz told The Post Thursday. “So, that’s pretty good.” …

    …The trained pups have even found their way to the Big Apple since the pandemic hit — although the NYPD has not trained their police dogs for the virus.

    In October, a Chinatown pet services company, BARK, reached out to BioScent, a Florida company that has been among the leaders in the newfound industry,…

    ….With super-sensitive snouts, the dogs, primarily Beagles, can be trained to detect the scent of the virus, just as they can smell explosives, drugs, and even bed bugs….

    …One downside, Junqueira said, is that once the canines are trained to detect the virus they cannot be re-trained to detect other scents.

    AS for Biden;s promised 50 million tests, they don’t even exist now, and it could take months till they are available,

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  294. Her death and the its exploitation are both tragedies.
    Rip Murdock (9ff85d) — 1/9/2022 @ 5:48 pm

    wean yourself off covid porn, Rip

    JF (e1156d)

  295. Classic karma for AOC, testing positive for Covid after being maskless in Miami.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  296. Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/9/2022 @ 6:11 pm

    more covid porn

    what a bunch of ghouls

    JF (e1156d)

  297. Fool is as does, JF.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  298. Get your own blog, JF!

    nk (1d9030)

  299. Wonder why the GOP doesn’t push-back against the Democrats.? The GOP enjoy being the right wing of the UniParty bird, the Democrats are the left wing. They are both attached to the body of big corrupt gubmint. And they constantly fly over and schiff on us.

    mg (8cbc69)

  300. > after being maskless in Miami.

    one of the most infuriating things about this entire pandemic are the number of people in power who advocate for protective policies AND THEN DON’T ABIDE BY THEM.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  301. Fool is as does, JF.
    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/9/2022 @ 6:16 pm

    is that a confession?

    is this your reaction to someone getting covid?

    or this?

    JF (e1156d)

  302. What wounds me is that comrades who have known me for a dozen years hold AOC up as an example instead of me. I don’t party, and I wear a mask and gloves in public places. Why do they trust AOC and not me?

    nk (1d9030)

  303. is that a confession?
    is this your reaction to someone getting covid?
    or this?

    That skirt’s pretty blown up, JF, triggered by AOC. Usually that kind of response comes from left-wingers.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  304. You were criticized for a cheap shot, for your saying that Jim was hoping for more Covid deaths. You said that. He responded that your comment was false.
    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/9/2022 @ 8:53 am

    it’s not just Jim

    JF (e1156d)

  305. Well, duh, JF.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  306. Did you know aviator Charles Lindbergh was an ‘aspiring dictator’? [ROFLMAOPIP!] Propeller head and shamed plagiarist Fareed Zakaria says so in the CNN documentary, “The Fight to Save American Democracy.”

    Worse, he trots out Robert Kagan as a ‘go to’ guy on “saving American democracy.” Kagan is an American neoconservative, critic of U.S. foreign policy and a leading advocate of liberal interventionism. The nesting ground of the Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Bolton, Kristol types… and still worse, he is a co-founder of the disastrous neoconservative ‘Project for the New American Century’ – the touchstone for perpetual war.

    Long past time for CNN to clean house.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  307. Did you know aviator Charles Lindbergh was an ‘aspiring dictator’?

    He probably was. Most of the Nazis were. Whether their aspirations were realistic is a different matter. He would have had to compete with Avery Brundage for the Reichsleitership of America.

    nk (1d9030)

  308. Anti-Vax Podcaster Who Got COVID at a Conspiracy Conference Has Died
    ……..
    Doug Kuzma, 61, from Newport News, Virginia, died on January 3 after being hospitalized 10 days earlier. Kuzma broadcasted on the FROG News podcasting network, which stands for “Fully Rely On God.” Kuzma and his FROG fellow hosts pushed an array of conspiracy theories ranging from QAnon to COVID denial and election fraud lies.
    ……..
    Kuzma attended the ReAwaken America conference in Dallas on the weekend of Dec. 11, posting a picture of his media pass on his Facebook page. Other images Kuzma posted from the conference show large crowds in confined spaces without any social distancing or masks.
    ……..
    The conspiracy-laden event, organized by Tulsa businessman Clay Clark, was headlined by the likes of disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and former President Donald Trump’s son Eric.
    ………
    Kuzma reported that he was feeling ill, but claimed it was just his chronic bronchitis flaring up again. On December 15 he posted on Facebook that he had a fever and said it was time to call the doctor.

    Someone commented that he should get a COVID test anyway, but Kuzma responded: “No way.” When the commenter said it was better to be “safe than sorry,” Kuzma once again lashed out, writing: “You must have lost your mind, so they can kill me, and try and give me the jab. I’ll die at the house before I go to the hospital.”

    He was reportedly found unconscious at his house on Christmas Eve and rushed to the hospital.……..
    ……….
    Kuzma and Frog News pushed anti-vax conspiracies since the beginning of the pandemic, hosting numerous so-called experts who have shared wildly conspiratorial and outright false claims about the virus and the vaccines.
    …. …
    Kuzma was reportedly diabetic and grossly overweight-in other words, a perfect target for COVID. But he made his choice .

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  309. JF’s “porn” comment will remind many of us of these lines from Tom Lehrer’s “Smut”:

    For filth (I’m glad to say) is in
    the mind of the beholder.
    When correctly viewed,
    Everything is lewd.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  310. SARS-CoV-2 Directly Damages Kidneys, Study Finds
    ……….
    SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – can infect and directly damage the kidneys by causing scarring, according to research in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The resulting scar tissue could have long-term impacts on kidney function, the authors say.
    ………..
    “Our work shows kidney scarring in COVID-19 patients, which provides an explanation why the virus might cause kidney functional decline as demonstrated in other studies,” co-author Katharina Reimer of RWTH Aachen Uniklinik said.

    The team collected tissue samples from 62 COVID-19 patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). When compared to the control groups – ICU patients with a non-COVID-related lung infection and a group of healthy people – the tissue from COVID-19 patients showed substantially more scarring.

    To identify whether the tissue damage was directly caused by the virus, as opposed to inflammation or other systemic effects, the team created “mini kidneys”. Also called “organoids”, they were cultured in the lab from stem cells, containing many different types of kidney cells, with the notable exception of immune cells. Once infected with SARS-CoV-2, the mini kidneys, like the COVID-19 patients’ tissues, became scarred. The team also found evidence of signaling molecules known to be involved in the scarring process.

    “In our study, we thoroughly investigated the causal damaging effects of the Coronavirus in the kidneys. [We] show that the virus directly causes cell damage, independent of the immune system,” (lead author Jitske Jansen of Radboud University Medical Center) added.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  311. It is rather hard to know what to make of Lindbergh’s beliefs, given his secrecy about these personal matters:

    Beginning in 1957, General Lindbergh engaged in lengthy sexual relationships with three women while remaining married to Anne Morrow. He fathered three children with hatmaker Brigitte Hesshaimer (1926–2001), who had lived in the small Bavarian town of Geretsried. He had two children with her sister Mariette, a painter, living in Grimisuat. Lindbergh also had a son and daughter (born in 1959 and 1961) with Valeska, an East Prussian aristocrat who was his private secretary in Europe and lived in Baden-Baden.[211][212][213][214] All seven children were born between 1958 and 1967.[215]

    Ten days before he died, Lindbergh wrote to each of his European mistresses, imploring them to maintain the utmost secrecy about his illicit activities with them even after his death.
    . . .
    Reeve Lindbergh, Lindbergh’s youngest child with Anne, wrote in her personal journal in 2003, “This story reflects absolutely Byzantine layers of deception on the part of our shared father. These children did not even know who he was! He used a pseudonym with them (To protect them, perhaps? To protect himself, absolutely!)

    Given that grand deception, it is reasonable to suspect he may have been deceptive about his political beliefs, too.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  312. Booster dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine required for immune protection against Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, says study
    An additional “booster” dose of Moderna or Pfizer mRNA-based vaccine is needed to provide immunity against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study by researchers at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. The results of this study, reported in the journal Cell, indicate that traditional dosing regimens of COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States do not produce antibodies capable of recognizing and neutralizing the Omicron variant.
    ………..
    ……….. The results were striking. “We detected very little neutralization of the Omicron variant pseudovirus when we used samples taken from people who were recently vaccinated with two doses of mRNA vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson,” says (the senior author of the Cell paper, Alejandro Balazs, Ph.D.). “But individuals who received three doses of mRNA vaccine had very significant neutralization against the Omicron variant.”

    It’s not yet clear why an mRNA booster dramatically improves immune protection against Omicron, but Garcia-Beltran says one possibility is that an additional dose creates antibodies that bind more tightly to the spike protein, increasing their effectiveness. Also, a booster dose may generate antibodies that target regions of the spike protein that are common to all forms of SARS-CoV-2. Both theories may be true, says (the lead author of the Cell paper, Wilfredo F. Garcia-Beltran, MD).
    ………..

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  313. Emergence in Southern France of a new SARS-CoV-2 variant of probably Cameroonian origin harbouring both substitutions N501Y and E484K in the spike protein
    This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

    ……..,. For twelve SARS-CoV-positive patients living in the same geographical area of southeastern France, qPCR testing that screen for variant-associated mutations showed an atypical combination. The index case returned from a travel in Cameroon. The genomes were obtained by next-generation sequencing with Oxford Nanopore Technologies on GridION instruments within ≈8 h. Their analysis revealed 46 mutations and 37 deletions resulting in 30 amino acid substitutions and 12 deletions.……. The mutation set and phylogenetic position of the genomes obtained here indicate based on our previous definition a new variant we named “IHU”. These data are another example of the unpredictability of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, and of their introduction in a given geographical area from abroad.
    ……….
    Related:

    A variant found in France is not a concern, the W.H.O. says.

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  314. Here’s a hydrogen puzzle (at least for me): If you burn hydrogen, you get water vapor — which is a greenhouse gas. (And, if you are burning it in air, you get some nitrogen oxides, too, which are not good for you.)

    Now, burning hydrogen might produce less of an effect on the climate than burning, for example, gasoline, but, without seeing some numbers, I can’t tell for sure.

    But perhaps I am missing something.

    (Hydrogen fuel cells, as I understand it, would not produce water vapor, but I am not sure they have enough energy density to be used in, for example, aviation.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  315. Challenge to Biden Keystone XL revocation dismissed as moot
    A federal judge in Texas dismissed a challenge to Biden’s decision to revoke a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline — saying that the case is moot since the project has already been canceled.

    Judge Jeffrey Brown cited a brief from pipeline owner TC Energy confirming that it was starting to remove the pipeline’s border-crossing segment and was expected to have done so by November.

    “The court takes TC Energy at its word that Keystone XL is dead. And because it is dead, any ruling this court makes on whether President Biden had the authority to revoke the permit would be advisory,” the Trump appointee wrote.

    “Thus, the court has no jurisdiction and the case must be dismissed as moot,” he added.
    ……….
    More than 20 states with Republican attorneys-general sued over the decision, but their suit was ultimately rejected on Thursday.

    In a statement, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen expressed disappointment.

    “It’s unfortunate that the important constitutional question in this case – if the president can revoke a congressionally approved cross-border permit – will go unanswered because TC Energy inserted itself into the court proceedings unprompted.”
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  316. @315. He probably was.

    Except he definitely wasn’t– an ‘aspiring dictator,’ that is. Which is classic selective half-truthing by Plagiarist Zakaria to broadcast to his uninformed and gullible audience… especially as General Lindy ended up training U.S. pilots in WW2 the Pacific as a ‘consultant’ to teach extended fuel usage methods to increase the range of the fighter planes, flew combat missions and sported the Medal of Honor. But he did take a fancy to eugenics– as well several women in Europe– and kept secret mistresses and children– which is as amazing a feat for such a well-known public figure as was his 1927 solo flight. It makes him less an ‘aspiring dictator and more just a-down-to-earth dick:

    ‘Double life and secret German children

    Beginning in 1957, General Lindbergh engaged in lengthy sexual relationships with three women while remaining married to Anne Morrow. He fathered three children with hatmaker Brigitte Hesshaimer (1926–2001), who had lived in the small Bavarian town of Geretsried. He had two children with her sister Mariette, a painter, living in Grimisuat. Lindbergh also had a son and daughter (born in 1959 and 1961) with Valeska, an East Prussian aristocrat who was his private secretary in Europe and lived in Baden-Baden. All seven children were born between 1958 and 1967.

    Ten days before he died, Lindbergh wrote to each of his European mistresses, imploring them to maintain the utmost secrecy about his illicit activities with them even after his death. The three women (none of whom ever married) all managed to keep their affairs secret even from their children, who during his lifetime (and for almost a decade after his death) did not know the true identity of their father, whom they had only known by the alias Careu Kent and seen only when he briefly visited them once or twice a year. However, after reading a magazine article about Lindbergh in the mid-1980s, Brigitte’s daughter Astrid deduced the truth; she later discovered snapshots and more than 150 love letters from Lindbergh to her mother. After Brigitte and Anne Lindbergh had both died, she made her findings public; in 2003 DNA tests confirmed that Lindbergh had fathered Astrid and her two siblings. Reeve Lindbergh, Lindbergh’s youngest child with Anne, wrote in her personal journal in 2003, “This story reflects absolutely Byzantine layers of deception on the part of our shared father. These children did not even know who he was! He used a pseudonym with them (To protect them, perhaps? To protect himself, absolutely!)’

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  317. @319. Given that grand deception, it is reasonable to suspect he may have been deceptive about his political beliefs, too

    Nah. He wasn’t denied rank nor honors from the U.S. government. He wouldn’t have been shooting at the Axis after 12/7/41 either. His draw was the genetics angle- he had a curiosity about that rooted in the 30’s- and his secret families are quite the tell on that as well. But he sure has hell was no ‘aspiring dictator.’

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  318. @319. Jim- have done some extensive research on Lindbergh, chiefly due to a personal find. If you peruse his history, he was training pilots on fuel use in the Pacific Theater around Rabul in WW2- island hopping from base to base in ’44. Some years ago, while looking through an old vintage bookstore in NJ, came across a paperback titled, ‘1944 Aircraft Observation Manual.’ What caught my interest was the original price on the spine was $1– a lot of $ for a paperback book in 1944. Opened the front cover and it was signed ‘Charles A. Lindbergh, Green Island, May, 1944.’ [He had a habit of signing and dating everything.] Closed the cover, went up to the cashier and asked how much for the paperback- she said, ‘it sold for a dollar then, you can have it for $1 now.’ A bargain to be sure. But I literally spent the next six months contacting the NASM in Washington, the San Diego A&S Museum and the Lindbergh Museum in Minnesota to not only verify the signature [it’s genuine] but figure out where the hell Green Island was, what Lindy was doing there and when he signed it. The Minnesota museum told me to get a hold of a published book titled, ‘The Wartime Journals of Charles Lindbergh’ – which is a detailed diary Lindy kept of his service in the PAcific, detailed where he was and when- -which was still in print at the time and available in the bookshop at the San Diego museum. And sure enough, found the entry of the day or two he was training pilots on Green Island near Rabul in May, 1944, when he signed it. He was only flying off the airstrip on that island a few days– but the book and the signature survives to this day.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  319. Here’s a pretty good article on fuel cells and GHG’s. Again, I think the point is that they provide significant reduction….why the EU is pushing them

    https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-does-the-world-need-hydrogen-to-solve-climate-change

    AJ_Liberty (3cb02f)

  320. @326. Postscript:

    In 1944 Lindbergh was able to visit the Pacific Theater of Operations as a Corsair technical rep. Lindbergh left for the Pacific on April 24, 1944, flying to Hawaii in a Navy C-47. From there he moved through Midway, Palmyra and Funa Futi to Espiritu Santo, visiting and flying with Corsair equipped squadrons. After two weeks he moved on through Guadalcanal (Koli) and Bougainville (no strip mentioned) to Green Island. On May 22, 1944, Lindbergh flew his first combat mission, escorting TBFs to Rabaul with a Marine Corsair squadron and strafing assigned ground targets before starting home. Before returning to Guadalcanal on June 10 he had flown 13 missions to Northern Solomon and Rabaul targets from Green and Emirau islands.

    http://charleslindbergh.com/history/b24.asp

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  321. Here’s a hydrogen puzzle (at least for me): If you burn hydrogen, you get water vapor — which is a greenhouse gas. (And, if you are burning it in air, you get some nitrogen oxides, too, which are not good for you.)

    Burning anything in air gets you nitrogen oxides.

    While water vapor is a technically a greenhouse gas, it has utterly no persistence in the atmosphere, returning quickly as precipitation, dew, humidity, etc. The amount of water vapor that is produced daily by the oceans (and is sunk again as rain, snow, etc) is awesomely more than humans could produce in out widest dreams.

    The cycle of water, vapor, rain, back to water is affected by other warming and can amplify that warming locally. But it is not likely to be the cause of warming in and of itself.

    And anyway, even if you get all your energy from pixie dust, there is still 2nd Law that says you will produce heat.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  322. Kuzma was reportedly diabetic and grossly overweight-in other words, a perfect target for COVID. But he made his choice .

    That’s what they want you to believe!

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  323. Tell me again how serious the situation is?

    Nah, I’ve told you enough. That AOC thinks she’s immune does not change that. Stupid is as stupid does.

    She’s out and about, mingling with crowds, thinking she’s immune and mask or no mask (at least not the toy masks that people use) you press enough flesh and you will get this.

    I’m sure she will get the best medical attention — far better than any of those little people that so concern her — and will come through this like the rest of her lot do. Grinning and going right back out there, again thinking she’s immune.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  324. They were selling genuine 3M N95 masks again last summer at Walmart. I picked up a few. And I still wouldn’t go out in the crowds like AOC was doing. It’s just asking to get this thing. Now, at her age the odds are in her favor. But they are not zero.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  325. Get well soon AOC.

    asset (dfbc3b)

  326. Man who involved in cover up the sexual assault of college athletes refuses to cooperate with congressional investigation.

    If you’re someone who believes that character matters I don’t know how you can support his guy in any way.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  327. I think, if Jordan refuses to cooperate, they should expel him.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  328. @334 if you’re someone who believes character matters i don’t know how you write a comment like this

    the report on the sexual assault allegations does not say what you want it to say

    JF (e1156d)

  329. It says he was aware of it did nothing, & said nothing. You OK with that?

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  330. genuine 3M N95

    Is still a bit of theater. It’s better than nothing and it’s better than the cloth ones but it’s still more about feeling safe and signaling than actually being safe.

    Given the videos I’ve seen of what she was doing she would have needed significantly better than n95.

    frosty (f27e97)

  331. Appalled, I disagree with you on this. I think there should be a really high bar for expulsion. The people of his district voted for Gym Jordan. They have right to representation of their choice. I’m very hesitant to taking away their right to have someone of their choice vote for / against bills.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  332. I wonder; after the SCOTUS oral arguments how pro-mandate people feel about Sotomayor being their stander bearer.

    frosty (f27e97)

  333. I’m pro-mandate. Sotomayor isn’t my anything beyond 1 of 9 SCJ.

    Pretty inexcusable for her not to have that fact correctly understood IMO.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  334. the N95 mask is a particulate mask. The N100 is a vapor mask. You need a vapor level mask to stop covid. 3M limited production of the N100 because wearing it for extended periods of time can injure

    EPWJ (0fbe92)

  335. The unwise Latino woman

    EPWJ (0fbe92)

  336. If you’re someone who believes that character matters I don’t know how you can support his guy in any way.

    Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/10/2022 @ 5:37 am

    I don’t have any desire to defend Jordan but this sort of view is a problem.

    This is the argument against the 4th because what does a person have to hide and against the 5th because why wouldn’t they tell the truth.

    It’s the imputation of guilt because a person doesn’t cooperate and then the expansion of that guilt to anyone who “supports [them] in any way”.

    frosty (f27e97)

  337. #339

    I think the high bar is met, Time. Jordan had communications with the President while the riot was going on. He has an obligation to his body to share them. If he can’t meet those obligations, he should not be a member.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  338. Another Hospital System Says Covid-positive Employees Can Come Back to Work

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2022/01/10/arizona-hospital-allowing-covid-positive-employees-to-work-n2601625

    A veritable drunk driving smorgasbord.

    BuDuh (07a4b2)

  339. Given the videos I’ve seen of what she was doing she would have needed significantly better than n95.

    As I said. The N95 masks offer adequate protection for low-density contacts. My physician thinks they’re fine for normal use, where he thinks the cloth or medical-style cheapo masks are only good for protecting others from you. And then only in low-contact-situations.

    AOC, like many people, is simply unwilling to put Covid ahead of her desires. And at this point, I’m not sure she should. If everyone had [long list], we’d be done with this now, but everyone didn’t, so now we have to live with it. That I am not happy with it, or those that “didn’t”, does not alter that.

    You will be seeing some people wearing these masks for the rest of this decade, if not the rest of your life. They may have a good reason.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  340. Who is the Republican appointed Ranking Member on the committee, Appalled?

    BuDuh (07a4b2)

  341. Soylent Green, was now.

    The year is 2022. Our overpopulated planet is experiencing catastrophic climate change, megacorporations have excessive power over the government, and clean living is a luxury only the 1 percent can afford.

    It may read like a scan of the front-page headlines, but these predictions were laid out half a century ago in the dystopian film “Soylent Green.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  342. Another Hospital System Says Covid-positive Employees Can Come Back to Work

    What can go wrong? What do they tell their chemo patients?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  343. Appalled, you present a strong argument.

    Time123 (33cdfa)

  344. @344, I think people who stand by while minors are sexually assaulted are of low character. YMMV.

    I’m fine with him invoking his constitutional rights and never said he shouldn’t be allowed to do that. To date he hasn’t.

    Time123 (33cdfa)

  345. Living dangerously is bred-in in Puerto Ricans. On their island if it’s not hurricane, it’s cholera, typhoid, or half a dozen mosquito-borne diseases. If they move to New York, it’s gang fights or being cast in a production of West Side Story. And if they survive all of those, they get involved with a Puerto Rican girl.

    nk (1d9030)

  346. #348 —

    BuDuh, I understand the point you are making and I believe it is entirely beside the point. McCarthy decided he didn’t want to appoint anyone because Nancy was mean and wouldn’t let Jim Jordan on the committee. Since there is a general rule that a person shouldn’t be a judge and a witness in the same case, Pelosi’s stance was reasonable.

    Jordan’s stance…on the other hand…Not so much. If you are investigating the riots, one of the things you are investigating is what took Trump so long to do anything about it. Jordan — in contact with Trump — has some insghts to share.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  347. The communications from Jordan were already “doctored” by Schiff. Why would he give that liar anything?
    Jordan sent texts quoting long passages from lawyers on how to challenge the election…. I’m confident Gore got similar emails, Hillary got similar texts and emails etc. The difference this time was that it ended in violence, but the sharing of other people’s legal opinions is standard, but Schiff had to pl;ay games with the quote:
    1. Schiff did not make it clear that Jordan was simply quoting someone elses entire work and Schiff acted as if Jordan was saying this.
    2. The quote was cut up in a way that made it read in the worst possible light.

    So no. You don’t give dishonest hacks like Schiff anything.

    They are trying to damage Jordan because if the House flips, he will assume the role Schiff currently has.

    The back story undercurrent behind this is politics that are about using every iota to damage opposition before November

    steveg (e81d76)

  348. They are trying to damage Jordan because if the House flips, he will assume the role Schiff currently has.

    The back story undercurrent behind this is politics that are about using every iota to damage opposition before November

    Well, the GOP is doing the same, as much as it can. Which is the basic problem really — we have a country run by two parties whose number 1, 2 & 3 job seems to be to make the other party look bad, block their initiatives and rig the elections against them.

    If they manage to get something done for the country, it will be only after these other tasks are attended to.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  349. Consider an analogy where there is an air travel duopoly. The two airlines are constantly running ads about how utterly terrible the other airline is, how many people die in their crashes, how they overbook and overcharge, how their mechanics smoke crack, how their pilots are drunk and their flight attendants are disease-laden trollops.

    But you gotta fly, so it’s the le3sser of two evils.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  350. KevinM

    From Harvard regarding breakthrough cases:
    “Yes, someone with a breakthrough COVID infection can transmit the infection to others. But research suggests that people with breakthrough infections are less likely to spread the virus than unvaccinated people who are infected. That’s because people who have been vaccinated shed the virus for shorter periods of time.”

    https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-youve-been-exposed-to-the-coronavirus

    That is a lot different than shedding a weaker viral load

    steveg (e81d76)

  351. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vp-harris-jamal-simmons-george-w-bush-stole-election

    Vice President Kamala Harris’ new communications director repeatedly wrote on Twitter that his former boss, Al Gore, won the 2000 presidential election and that George W. Bush was an “illegitimate” president.

    Jamal Simmons, a longtime Democratic operative and political analyst, was announced last week as the replacement for Ashley Etienne, who left the vice president’s office last month along with other staffers.

    Between 2012 and 2021, Simmons tweeted multiple times about how he believes Bush “stole” the election from Gore in 2000. Simmons, who was the deputy communications director for the Gore-Lieberman campaign, also called Bush’s first term “illegitimate.”

    While we deal with mobys, the left continues to promote their frauds and conspiracy theorists.

    Notice how so many only want Republicans who attack other Republicans and never actually support policies that are to the benefit of American citizens. Just cheap leftists wearing Republican suits.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  352. KevinM

    Of course both parties are doing this.
    I’d never believe otherwise. There are always ulterior motives.
    Biggest reason I’m not for giving Liz sainthood. She is the consumate Washington insider. She is using this as a springboard to other things and will adjust her activities accordingly… she is not doing this to save her Wyoming seat and she isn’t doing it “for the USA, the flag, the Constitution” she is a political beast and we’ll know what she was realing angling for in late 2022 or 2023 when she lands her new gig

    steveg (e81d76)

  353. That is a lot different than shedding a weaker viral load

    No, that’s exactly what it is.

    If you look at it as a Bell(-ish) curve, where the viral load is increasing, reaches a peak then subsides, and there is an absolute level, represented by a horizontal line, required for effective transmission (this level is lower for Omicron), then due to the vaccine:

    1. the rise is flatter
    2. the peak lower
    3. the decay faster

    The peak, representing the viral load, is less.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  354. Past politicians griped about elections they lost. Some sued.
    Every presidential candidate that lost in the last 50 years congratulated the winner when all colorable challenges were exhausted, most by the day after the election and participated in the transfer of power as appropriate. It stood as a symbol of our commitment to our values and our constitution being stronger then to tribe or party. Al Gore presided over the count of the electoral votes in the election he lost. Obama invited Trump to the White House after he won.

    Trump griped about losing, sued, lied about results, pressured state officials to change them, told DOJ to lie, told his VP to toss votes, and riled up a mob of supporters that attacked the police and seized the Capitol to prevent the transfer of power. Since then he’s continued to lie and anyone that challenges his lies are persona non-grata in the party.

    So you can see how these zero out

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  355. Seen on-line:

    “Señorita AOC is not worried about COVID since horse dewormer works fine on her.”

    Obudman (f43ee4)

  356. Very cynical of me, I know.

    steveg (e81d76)

  357. @363 That’s hilarious!! Mocks multiple groups of people (none of whom i have much respect for). I’m glad you shared it.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  358. Thats not what the quote I posted says.
    It says shorter timeframe not lesser viral load.

    I get the logic of what you are saying.
    The vaccine on board makes the load less, thus symptoms are less, but how do we square that with having been told from day one that the asymptomatic can pass on the virus?
    The asymptomatic pre- vaccine had good, probably young immune systems, yet they shed a virulent enough load to give others with compromised immune systems a case that could turn deadly.

    steveg (e81d76)

  359. That could have been a great Bojack Horseman story arc, the title character working his vet to sell ivermectin to desperate party people.

    urbanleftbehind (84b974)

  360. Nk- so they also chose to live by a live fire proving ground and a pharmaceutical conglomerate’s dumping ground (bbottAay, which to be fair, is good to the Ricans in Lake County)? The latter has been blamed for the inherent sexual thirst in the women from there.

    urbanleftbehind (84b974)

  361. “People are thought to be most contagious early in the course of their illness. With Omicron, most transmission appears to occur during the one to two days before onset of symptoms, and in the two to three days afterwards. People with no symptoms can also spread the coronavirus to others.”

    steveg (e81d76)

  362. Hit the button too soon.

    If a person is asymptomatic, the virus is confined, probably in the nose and throat and the body hasn’t had the time to get there in force yet.
    A sneeze or cough at that time may have a heavy viral load even though the body overall has almost zero and with the vaccine onboard is going to be able to mobilize and handle the problem within the next 3-5 days before the person feels sick

    steveg (e81d76)

  363. It was disappointing, but maybe not really as surprising as it should be, that CBS News’ regular go to person on the coronavirus on Face the Nation made what amounts to an elementary blunder – I think this was a blunder rather than towing the line – yesterday in describing the danger or safety of exposirw to Omicron.

    He said:

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-scott-gottlieb-face-the-nation-01-09-2022

    … I certainly don’t think an outdoor setting represents the same level of risk, and that’s been consistent all the way through, but the reality is that your risk is binary.

    You can say that, if you go the statistics the governments of the world have been using, where someone either has or doesn’t have an infection.

    But all infections are not the same (quite apart from the state of someone’s immune system or ability to manufacture proteins (reduced in diabetes because that requires low blood sugar) (antibodies are proteins)

    That could be an somewhat okay but misleading fact, but then he went on to say something worse:

    But the reality is, with an airborne illness like this, if you’re in a setting, a confined saying that poor air circulation doesn’t matter if you’re six feet or 10 feet, you’re going to be at risk of contracting it. And this isn’t like radiation where you have a cumulative risk.

    It’s precisely like radiation, (with the caveat that there is a bigger difference between persons, and between most vaccinated and recovered people and unvaccinated ones) even if you are not talking about the seriousness of the exposure but even getting enough to result in a positive test.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  364. Well alrighty then, and his dad only played in college (wonder if our Minnesotan mg crossed paths with the dad)…

    https://fadeawayworld.net/nba-media/chet-holmgren-has-a-chance-to-become-the-first-white-american-to-be-drafted-no-1-overall-since-1977

    urbanleftbehind (84b974)

  365. Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 1/10/2022 @ 9:59 am

    I think you are giving too much credit to the mistake about the binary risk. It’s not a mistake. A binary analysis underlies a lot of the discussion around covid and it is fundamentally flawed.

    It’s embedded in the assumption about “a”, usually implied/inferred to be all, vaxxed person having a fundamentally different immune response than an unvaxxed person, also usually implied/inferred to be all.

    frosty (f27e97)

  366. Re: Viral load: https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Toxicology.aspx

    The father of modern toxicology, Paracelsus, historically stated “Only the dose is the poison.’ The dose of the substance is an important factor in toxicology, as it has a significant relationship with the effects experienced by the individual.

    This applies to infections also.

    In fact it would be impossible to explain a lot of things about Covid without assuming this.

    The difficulty here is that this is unmeasureable directly.

    We do not have precise information on how much of the virus someone was exposed to, and we cannot ethically = at all – run experiments on human beings where we try to find out what happens with different levels of exposure to the virus.

    Although there are many natural experiments that can approximate it somewhat.

    But still, it is something real even though you can assign no numbers to it. The very fact that the virus circulates undetected every time it hits a new population is a natural experiment that proves that the more viral load there is on average, the worse the cases get. It is surprising maybe that not enough people realize this.

    Here is something where somebody incorporates in their reasoning the idea of level of exposure creating more severe disease. This gets to the idea that the more extensive the epidemic, the worse individual cases are, even all other things being equal.: (He also makes the very faulty mistaken assumption that the average lethality of a virus is only affected by prior exposure and age! Many viruses are simply not as bad, or are worse, than others.)

    But in this paragraph he has a good point.

    https://www.biznews.com/health/2021/08/16/pre-existing-immunity

    …Native Americans were “naive” immunologically. Confronted with European viruses, their immune system was like a new-born child seeing for the first time: it had the hardware, but not yet the appropriate software to fight back. No one being immune, the epidemic “avalanche” was uncontained and unstoppable: everyone cross-contaminating one another repeatedly with higher viral doses.

    Ever higher viral doses. That also explains why smallpox killed many Indians, including children. Although there a;so is the matter of HLAs = which possible antibodies will be tried out first. When the immune system is alerted, the human body tries out all kinds of antibodies on a virtually random basis.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  367. steveg (e81d76) — 1/10/2022 @ 9:41 am

    . With Omicron, most transmission appears to occur during the one to two days before onset of symptoms

    That’s true for almost all infectitious diseases. It is contagious before symptoms arise. Not unique to Covid or Omicron.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  368. That’s why they want to test contacts. But it is really impossible to trace contacts (except when a disease is new and rare)

    DR Scott Gottlieb:

    What’s driving the pandemic right now is the fact that we’re probably only diagnosing somewhere between one and five and one in 10 actual infections. And as a lot of people walking around with mild illness or asymptomatic infection who don’t know it, who are spreading it.

    He’s arguing that it doesn’t really matter too much if a few people who leave quarantine are contagious. The CDC’s recommendation of a 5 day isolation period would still reduce the spread, and reducing the amount and speed of spread is all we can hope to accomplish.

    He indicated that, therefore, a person should be “mindful of what the setting is that you’re reintroducing yourself into. Are you taking care of people who are vulnerable at home? Are you going into a health care setting or another setting where there’s vulnerable people? And if you are, you need to be more vigilant, maybe use a diagnostic test to make sure you’re no longer shedding virus. You certainly wear a mask in that circumstance.”

    He thought, and botched the articulation of the idea that “if CDC was more granular, more descriptive in what they were actually doing and why” it would be better; but he still thought (I think he meant to state that as a fact, not hope) that “CDC was sort of upfront about that premise” that was motivating their guideline.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  369. My point was that the viral load is sufficient for transmission well before the overall viral load is sufficiemt to feel sick.

    steveg (e81d76)

  370. On a funnier, not quite safe for work, but not bad either here is a shout out to the Khazak’s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIV-QdPEx-Q

    steveg (e81d76)

  371. 373. frosty (f27e97) — 1/10/2022 @ 10:13 am

    I think you are giving too much credit to the mistake about the binary risk. It’s not a mistake. A binary analysis underlies a lot of the discussion around covid and it is fundamentally flawed.

    That’s right. But it can be said to be binary in one way: You wither test positive or you don’t. But the probability of testing positive depends on a lot of things and what a positive test means is different for different people.

    Exposure is just like radiation – what happens has a lot to do with dose. If someone gets exposed to merely one virion, in all probability nothing at all will happen, not even noticeable immunity because the body won’t have to ramp up much to totally get rid of it.

    Even hospitalization doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere all the time. People now hospitalized for Omicron stay in thee hospital for an average if 1 points omething days, whereas it was 4 days for Delta.

    It’s embedded in the assumption about “a”, usually implied/inferred to be all, vaxxed person having a fundamentally different immune response than an unvaxxed person, also usually implied/inferred to be all.

    If they did it like hospitals check their staff for immunity to chickenpox, the mandate would look at the level of antibodies, which are still around,a little, even years later. A person can be vaccinated without gaining much immunity; a person can gain immunity without being vaccinated. With chickenpox they also look at year of birth, assuming anyone born before 1957 to be immune. They use vaccinations for Covid because there are good records for that.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  372. Yes, but that’s nothing special for Covid. Many people, of course, never go on to develop enough disease to become contagous, or contagious for more than a mild case (that could be only the first generation from away from the first person)

    One of the worst things they ever did, and that Australia is still doing, is isolating people who could have been infected – not even people who are confirmed to be infected in the same rooms (even if some attempts are made to isolate them from each other.)

    In Hong Kong it’s more like that – different people in isolation in a hotel are not supposed to be near each other (enforced by security cameras)

    It didn’t work for Omicron.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  373. I don;t know enough to figure out what;s going in in Kazakhstan now. I probably would need to read a lot of two and three year old articles.

    Anyway the dictator was replaced in 2019 by a favored successor but still retained some power. Now the government raised fuel prices somewhere in the west and disturbances started there, and somehow also broke out in the capital. Police and others have been killed.

    The interior minister has been fired; the previous dictator sidelined; an order given by the president to shoot to kill looters; Russian troops invited in and Putin thanked by the president; the Internet and telephone service mostly cut off; airports closed except those being run by the Russians; and the Biden Administration has expressed its concerns and has been told by Russia it is none of its business, or at least has nothing to do with Ukraine.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  374. I think, if Jordan refuses to cooperate, they should expel him.

    ROFLMAOPIP – Jordan’s only following Liz’s expressed wishes:

    “Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) confirmed in a new interview that she told Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) during the Jan. 6 riot “Get away from me, you f—ing did this…”

    https://news.yahoo.com/cheney-confirms-she-told-jim-200420839.html

    Anything you say, dear.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  375. I don;t know enough to figure out what;s going in in Kazakhstan now. I probably would need to read a lot of two and three year old articles.

    What’s to figure out. They’re a dictatorship that joined Putin’s Dictators Club, the club that the Ukrainians rejected and which instigated Putin to invade a sovereign state on two fronts.
    Of course the Kazakh president would invite Putin’s thugs to come in and crack some skulls, and the act sends a message to Belarus and across eastern Europe and central Asia.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  376. Mark Steyn show (on a British network)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM6qOGWBtuw

    He was the best Rush Limbaugh substitute host.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  377. Paul Montagu @384

    I can understad the oart about the Kazakh president inviting Putin’s thugs to help (and Putin trying to color the whole thing like a United Nations peacekeeping force)

    What I can’t understand – what I don’t know is what started the wole trouble in the first place – what are the sides.

    This dictator’s club has existed for some time – it was responsible for the resistance to the United States in Iraq after 2003.

    Actually, I think it goes back to 1955 in the form of the non-Aligned Movement (which had a dc-dictator as a member – Nehru of India, but he ran a political machine) They were very careful not to be against dictatorships.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  378. (Reuters) – Symone Sanders, the former senior adviser and chief spokesperson of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, will join Comcast Corp’s MSNBC to host new programs across cable and streaming, the network said on Monday.

    Beginning this spring, Sanders will host MSNBC on the weekends and the Peacock streaming service’s “The Choice from MSNBC,” the network said in a statement. She will be based in Washington, DC.

    Bye-bye, Joy Reid.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  379. 387. They are leaving very early.

    This might be corroborating evidence that working conditions for people working for Kamala Harris are bad – she is said to yell at people, I think – and/or also that they think there’s little hope of transferring to work for the president

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  380. Like with Miller, I’m a fan of The Economist but I let my subscription lapse, but here’s something on the subject. The start of the protests were about the government lifting price controls on natural gas, and Kazakhs are now getting hit hard with inflation. Like with anywhere these days, supply chains haven’t caught up, not enough to bring prices down.
    Also, despite being under the thumb of a dictatorship that has little respect for civil liberties and political rights and was under price controls, their economy is relatively free.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  381. There’s no proof that Ray Epps was an FBI CI or informant or agent. He was an Oathkeeper but is apparently no longer. He is a full-blown MAGA, there’s no evidence he broke the law, hence he’s not on the list of 738 criminally charged. He said “go into the Capitol!” the night before, followed by “peacefully!”
    Finally, Epps was under oath before the 1/6 Committee, under threat of perjury. Why would he face a potential felony conviction and prison sentence by lying?
    This is just another attempt by insurrection denialists to blame-shift, to deny that Trump and his MAGAs were responsible for the riot and shift it over to murky FBI undercover instigators (because they could only find one confirmed socialist in the crowd), and then they move the conversation over to Gov. Whitmer, entrapment and such. Like Trump, MAGAs enjoy a good conspiracy theory, even when there are no supportable facts, especially when there are no supportable facts.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  382. There’s no proof that Ray Epps was an FBI CI or informant or agent.

    That’s generally how CI’s and informants work. Especially for FBI counter-intelligence.

    Finally, Epps was under oath before the 1/6 Committee, under threat of perjury. Why would he face a potential felony conviction and prison sentence by lying?

    The most obvious answer here is that it’s in his interests to do so and because he doesn’t think he’ll get caught. If we find out in one year, or five, that he was do you think anything will happen?

    Why would the director of the CIA lie under oath. Or Harvey Matusow, who was also an FBI informant. Or Weinberger.

    This is just another attempt by insurrection denialists to blame-shift, to deny that Trump and his MAGAs were responsible for the riot and shift it over to murky FBI undercover instigators (because they could only find one confirmed socialist in the crowd), and then they move the conversation over to Gov. Whitmer, entrapment and such. Like Trump, MAGAs enjoy a good conspiracy theory, even when there are no supportable facts, especially when there are no supportable facts.

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/12/2022 @ 6:23 am

    The conspiracy theory trick worked better when it was used less and they didn’t keep turning out to be true. The running joke now is that the easiest way to predict the future is to look at what gets labeled a conspiracy theory the most often.

    frosty (f27e97)

  383. That’s generally how CI’s and informants work. Especially for FBI counter-intelligence.

    He was under oath, frosty.
    Let’s not burden-shift. People on your side are making these accusations, and there’s no proof, just insinuations. Like with “massive fraud” and “stolen election”, y’all made the assertion, so it’s on you to back it up.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  384. Trolls will troll.

    nk (1d9030)

  385. He was under oath, frosty.
    Let’s not burden-shift. People on your side are making these accusations, and there’s no proof, just insinuations. Like with “massive fraud” and “stolen election”, y’all made the assertion, so it’s on you to back it up.

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/12/2022 @ 7:33 am

    It’s almost like it’s impossible for you to read what I wrote and not add whatever you want to imagine.

    People on my side? I haven’t asserted “massive fraud”. I haven’t asserted “stolen election”. I’m not saying Epps is a CI. I literally have not “made the assertion”.

    Why do you complain about people reading more into comments and then do it so often yourself?

    frosty (f27e97)

  386. Paul, Frosty’s doing his trick where he attacks an argument or position without ever clearly taking a position himself. Then when you make reasonable assumptions about his POV he accuses you of putting words in his mouth or mischaracterizing him.

    In this case you’ve assumed that his defense of the idea that Epps worked for the government means he thinks Epps works for the government. That’s a reasonable assumption on your part based on what he wrote. It’s useful to ask him exactly what point he’s trying to make or what his assertion is unless you just want to use his comment to make your position clear.

    Time123 (04046d)

  387. It’s almost like it’s impossible for you to read what I wrote and not add whatever you want to imagine.

    It’s very possible. You insinuated, without a shred of evidence, that “that’s generally how CI’s and informants work”. That is how y’all seem to roll.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  388. Then when you make reasonable assumptions about his POV he accuses you of putting words in his mouth or mischaracterizing him.

    Time123 (04046d) — 1/12/2022 @ 9:01 am

    Ah, so it is ok to make reasonable assumptions about a person’s POV? I guess this depends on who’s making the assumptions and who’s POV?

    You guys really love this whole thing where you get to do a thing because reasons and everyone you disagree with can’t because reasons. And I’m the one doing the trick?

    frosty (f27e97)

  389. Paul Montagu (5de684) — 1/11/2022 @ 8:03 am

    The start of the protests were about the government lifting price controls on natural gas, and Kazakhs are now getting hit hard with inflation.

    I heard two more things: (not sure they are accurate)

    1. The commander of the Russians who went into Kazakhstan is the same person wo commanded the “little green men” who went into Crimea in 2014. (Simferopol International Airport,[2] most military bases in Crimea,[3] and the parliament in Simferopol)

    2. The president of Ukraine is worried about a “color revolution”

    What I don’t know is if this is what it is, or at any rate, a genuine attempted overthrow – or was the whole thing cooked up by Putin in order to drive Kazakhstan into a tighter alliance with Russia.

    Like with anywhere these days, supply chains haven’t caught up, not enough to bring prices down.

    It could take tow years. It’s caused by what’s going on in international trade. There are not enough players, and too many play the same way.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  390. Good points, Sammy.
    The only caution about supply chains and such is that Kazakhstan has a massive oil and gas reserve. They have the raw materials, the question is whether they can produce enough in-house. They’ve had to bring in equipment from Russia to produce their raw materials. If they can’t bring in more resources, or if they’re stuck with relying on Putin for it, then this net oil exporter won’t be able to serve their own people for a while to come.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  391. The president of Ukraine is worried about a “color revolution”

    The current Ukraine president is in office because of “color revolution.” What is more likely is that Putin would face one if his long-suffering citizens saw a successful and prosperous democracy next door.

    Can’t have that!

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  392. I read several years ago that Russia and China are very worried about what they call color revolutions.

    My question is if Putin is trying to scare the ruler of Kazakhstan more than it is worth on the merits.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  393. Why isn’t he in the dc gulag? He was bull horning the crowd on.

    mg (8cbc69)

  394. Sad. Mike Lindell makes another absurd claim:

    “And you talk about evidence,” Lindell added. “We have enough evidence to put everybody in prison for life, 300 and some million people. We have that all the way back to November and December.”

    (The population of the US is a little over 330 million.)

    You could, I suppose, think that he meant that he had multiple pieces of evidence, say 10 or 20 pieces for each illegal voter — but it is still a foolish thing to say.

    I see Lindell as another victim of Trump’s lies. Before Trump came along, Lindell had built a business selling pillows on TV and, from what I know, was, on the whole, doing good for the country. But he believed Trump (and cynical types like Carlson and Bannon), and is now a laughingstock.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  395. Is “300 and some million people” close to any bizarre war dead number that is irrelevant?

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  396. Too much abstinence will do that to a man, Jim. Lindell should treat himself to a night with a woman and a bottle of Jack Daniels. And sleep late the morning after.

    nk (1d9030)

  397. A charitable reading would be that he had a Biden moment. But if I’m right about the Biden moment, Jack Daniels and a woman may be a bridge too far for his erector set…. even if she drinks the entire bottle.

    steveg (e81d76)

  398. I see Lindell as another victim of Trump’s lies.

    Jim Miller (edcec1) — 1/12/2022 @ 5:57 pm

    Cults are funny that way.

    norcal (e32597)

  399. Is “300 and some million people” close to any bizarre war dead number that is irrelevant?

    BuDuh (4a7846) — 1/12/2022 @ 6:01 pm

    Is this like a ‘four scores and seven beers’ ago thing, cause nk’s way ahead of us on that theory.

    Dustin (92952c)

  400. If I’ve ever said anything about Gov. Newsom, I can’t remember it, but I do agree with his decision to keep Sirhan Sirhan in prison.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  401. Is THIS the future of America to pitch??????

    Before the moon landing.
    Before Biden went bald.
    Before McDonald’s sold the first Quarter Pounder…

    It walked among us.
    Stalked among us.
    Talked among us…
    A terror; the most hideous of monsters… that not even time could kill.

    https://www.life.com/people/life-with-hillary-portraits-of-a-wellesley-grad-1969/

    “No pleasure, no pain… no emotion, no heart. Our superior in every way.” – Dr, Carrington [Robert Cornthwaithe] ‘The Thing From Another World’ 1951

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  402. If Biden resigns and Harris is elevated, I’m starting to think that Tim Kaine might be in a good position to get the VP. His predecessor Jim Webb could also have a shot, but at 75 Webb doesn’t have much prospects for 2024….and looking at the field and Harris’ negatives….the DEMs might want to be prepping a VP-horse for all the marbles. HRC could be a filler but the DEMs desperately need an image change….and Hillary will primarily energize the Right. I suspect that she’s even less energetic and more shrill than 2016. The DEM governor pool doesn’t seem especially well stocked with talent. There’s just no way Biden can run in 2024….

    AJ_Liberty (3cb02f)

  403. Kaine – like Sherrod Brown – is boxed in for 4 years starting tomorrow (new R Gov Youngkin). Webb is an open Trumper almost like Blagojevich, you may as well get on bended knee and beg Tulsi Gabbard who gives you almost the same things and checks additional boxes.

    urbanleftbehind (812b8e)

  404. ULB: How is Kaine boxed in from being appointed VP…then building a case for an independent run in 2024? I’m no fan…but he would contribute some heft and competence to a Harris administration. Though easy to look at, I’m not sure if Tulsi brings much stature…her resume doesn’t exactly scream Chief Executive….and I’m not sure the Left wants to prep her for 2024.

    Webb is certainly more independent…a once-upon-a-time Republican…..but I don’t see how he’s an open Trumper….especially with Trump unceremoniously dismissing him from consideration for Sec of Def. “Fake News” as I remember it. He’s certainly far too moderate for the current DEM party, but VP under Harris might just be a throw-away job too….for someone who has enough military credentials to help an administration that needs some of that, but not a player for 2024 when they might want a fresh slate.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  405. There are more than enough writers of military fiction already in government service, I think. And 75 is already 10 years too old.

    nk (1d9030)

  406. 24.2-207. Filling vacancies in Senate.
    When any vacancy occurs in the representation of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States Senate, the Governor shall issue a writ of election to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the unexpired term. The election shall be held on the next succeeding November general election date or, if the vacancy occurs within 120 days prior to that date, on the second succeeding November general election date. The Governor may make a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy until the qualified voters fill the same by election.

    https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title24.2/chapter2/section24.2-207/

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  407. Any luck on a statement regarding your FBI assertion, AJ?

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  408. What nonsense are you on about? I keep seeing you ask this but don’t remember why

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  409. You ask because you want to be relevant.

    You aren’t.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  410. Apparently you aren’t either since he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to you.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  411. That is because he has no answer, Time.

    It is you that has paid no attention. Please see your 7:24.

    All you do is try to stir the pot. You aren’t very good at that either.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  412. Sorry I hurt your feelings by calling your question “nonsense”. Per the blog rules I should have treated your comment more seriously.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  413. You don’t treat anything seriously*. That is why your arguments get torn apart so quickly and thoroughly.

    *(maybe this is your level of seriousness)

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  414. A.J.

    I have no truck with Kaine’s attributes, relative fitness, or receptiveness for the post. I do think the Dems would be wary of letting Youngkin get the chance to appoint the succeeding US Senator, much like they talk themselves out of Sherrod Brown, pre-fillibuster Sinema et al because Gov. DeWine /Gov. Ducey will appoint the next Sen (in the case of the more RINOey governors, it may be tempting to place a more conservative potential challenger out to the pasture of the US Senate).

    But in a way, appointing a D Sen from R governed state and hence control of the Senate might be a trade off that heads off an impeachment or an aggressive pursuit of 25th amendment proceedings.

    urbanleftbehind (812b8e)

  415. @412. Friedman floated a Biden/Liz ticket in an effort to shore up Liz’s R creds.

    frosty (f27e97)

  416. I really upset you with “nonsense”. I didn’t mean it to be that cutting. I’ll be more sensitive in the future.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  417. LOL

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  418. Float is appropriate verb in that context, Frosty.

    urbanleftbehind (812b8e)

  419. Friedman’s suggestion was a floater.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  420. AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 1/14/2022 @ 3:33 am

    There’s just no way Biden can run in 2024….

    Of course he can, if no medical events intervene.

    There’s just no way it can be anybody else.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  421. when Florida Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Nikki Fried said in a Dec. 30 statement: “It’s come to my attention that Governor DeSantis’ Department of Health has a significant number of COVID-19 tests stockpiled that are set to expire imminently.

    The FDA unexpired them.

    I learned this from Colbert’s monologue Wednesday night. He used that to make joke about a can of food he had from 1972.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  422. Imagine taking seriously anything Thomas Friedman says.

    Davethulhu (17e89a)

  423. Nikki Fried, what wasted potential…

    urbanleftbehind (812b8e)

  424. ULB: “I do think the Dems would be wary of letting Youngkin get the chance to appoint the succeeding US Senator”

    I’m tracking now. Good point. You’re right that Kane’s boxed in. I can’t imagine…unless there was some serious horse-trading with the governor….that the DEMs would sacrifice the seat. But I also don’t see many great options for VP….maybe a Deval Patrick as he was at least a governor…but his 2020 campaign was pretty uninspired. The thought that HRC might get plugged in would animate those who love drama…but how depressing….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  425. There’s Whitmere in Michigan. She’s doing a bad job. She’s unpopular, her husband is an embarrassing mess, and she’s not very bright. So there’s a good chance the Dems might pick her.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  426. Joking aside none of the Dem governors have a national profile like Dsantis or Abbot or Haley used to.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  427. @412. If Biden resigns and Harris is elevated…

    The guy hasn’t even been in office a year and the talk of dumping him is already mainstreaming louder and louder. The British do it better; a failing PM would have faced a general election by now and been replaced.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  428. There’s just no way Biden can run in 2024….

    Run in 2024????? He can barely walk NOW.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  429. Harris won’t make it out of the primaries and certainly won’t be the nominee.

    Rip Murdock (9ff85d)

  430. Haaa, Whitmere…that’s funny…get her out of the way!

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  431. “Run in 2024????? He can barely walk NOW”

    Sad but true…I just don’t see how he gets rehabilitated at this point. People’s perceptions are getting solidified…and there have been too many stumbles….both literal and figurative. So even if there is no resignation….I just don’t see the party leadership wanting to ride that horse….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  432. Democrats have done well with dark horses. See the three Democrat Presidents before Biden. And even Biden’s election does not necessarily break the pattern. He ran against a horse’s ass. Of a different color.

    nk (1d9030)


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