Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Here are a few news items to talk about. Feel free to share anything that you think might interest readers. Please make sure to include links.
First news item
“I was sick to my stomach,” Bush said in a taped interview broadcast Thursday for the SXSW conference out of Austin, Texas.
While he did not mention former President Donald Trump by name, Bush said he was disgusted “to see our nation’s Capitol being stormed by hostile forces.” The attack “really disturbed me to the point where I did put out a statement, and I’m still disturbed when I think about it,” he said.
“It undermines rule of law and the ability to express yourself in peaceful ways in the public square,” Bush told interviewer Evan Smith, the CEO of the Texas Tribune. “This was an expression that was not peaceful.”
On the election:
“I think the election, all elections, have some kind of improprieties,” Bush said at one point, but he added “the results of this election, though, were confirmed when Joe Biden got inaugurated as president.”
Asked specifically if he thinks the election was stolen, Bush said: “No.”
Second news item
Former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club has been partially closed because of a Covid outbreak.
That’s according to several people familiar with the situation, including a club member who received a phone call about the closure Friday. A receptionist at the Mar-a-Lago club confirmed the news, saying it was closed until further notice, but declined to comment further.
Third news item
Hear what #KamalaHarris thinks about legalizing marijuana 💬 pic.twitter.com/YGZlCAKUZ0
— The Breakfast Club (@breakfastclubam) February 11, 2019
Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the situation.
The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District of Columbia—where cannabis is legal. Sources familiar with the matter also said a number of young staffers were either put on probation or canned because they revealed past marijuana use in an official document they filled out as part of the lengthy background check for a position in the Biden White House.
In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign.
Third news item:
Hey, Condé Nast, your hypocritical. classist, and very unattractive underpants are showing:
And as happens in too many of our increasingly stupid media sagas, the mob immediately moved to cancel McCammond for old, bad tweets.
The bad tweets in question include obviously racist stereotypes about Asians and homophobic slurs. McCammond, who is black, also evidently wrote them a decade ago, when she was presumably a 17- or 18-year-old high school student. She had already apologized for them in 2019, and in her adult life, there hasn’t been any other allegation that McCammond engaged in or expressed racism, homophobia, or any other kind of bigotry.
And yet, more than 20 staffers at Teen Vogue called for her ouster before McCammond even began the job. In less than a month, she announced that she “decided to part ways with Condé Nast.”
…
Consider that few people on the planet are more responsible for transitioning and empowering the American aristocracy into the 21st century than Anna Wintour, the global chief content officer of Condé Nast, who oversaw the creation of Teen Vogue. A trust fund baby from a landed gentry family, Wintour was placed in a journalism job first by her father, despite never actually being a reporter or a writer. In her post at Vogue, she (reportedly) has kept black models off of fashion’s most important cover and black journalists out of her newsroom. She famously refuses to hire fat people and single-handedly revived the fur industry.
Sniff!
Fourth news item
President Vladimir Putin reacted on Thursday to President Joe Biden’s agreement with a description of the Russian leader as “a killer” by suggesting Mr. Biden reflect on America’s own bleak history, as Moscow pulled its ambassador home from Washington and other Russian officials demanded an apology…
“In the history of every nation, every state, there are many very difficult, very dramatic and bloody events. But when we evaluate other people, or when we evaluate even other states, other nations, we always seem to look in a mirror,” Putin said. He elaborated by using a Russian expression often used by children, which can be translated: “One who calls names is himself called that name.”
He said the mass killing of Native Americans and the United States’ early reliance on slavery had led to present-day problems, linking them specifically to ongoing calls for racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Speaking more directly about Mr. Biden, whom he said he knows personally, Putin said: “I would say to him: I wish you good health. I say that without irony or joking.”
Fifth news item
Those who commit hateful but noncriminal conduct should be confronted by the NYPD.
“I assure you, if an NYPD officer calls you or shows up at your door to ask about something you did, that makes people think twice, and we need that. I think that has an educating impact on people; I think that has a sobering impact that we need.”
Sixth news item
…Today, defending the proposition that Joe Biden is instinctively a moderate but that his party is the problem is akin to defending the proposition that Macbeth is a peaceful man but that his wife is the problem. In a highly technical sense it is defensible, and yet in practice it means nothing of consequence, for no amount of vehemence will bring Banquo back to life. We are now 45 days into Biden’s presidency, and his accomplishments and ambitions are being openly compared to FDR’s. Having spent $1.9 trillion on progressive priorities on the waning pretext of COVID-19, Biden, we are now told, has his sights on another $2–$4 trillion in spending on infrastructure; on a public option of the sort that could not get through a filibuster-proof Senate a decade ago; on the wholesale (and likely unconstitutional) rewriting of the American election system; on a federal takeover of local police departments; on the national prohibition of the right to work, which has been explicitly protected since 1947 and was protected de facto before 1935; on a $15 minimum wage; on the dramatic narrowing of traditional freelance work; on the prohibition, and maybe confiscation, of the most commonly owned rifle in the country; and on the first major tax hike since 1993 — all on the heels of a flurry of hard-left executive orders so relentless and so prolific that even the New York Times urged him to tap the brakes. A reasonable polity can debate the efficacy and desirability of these measures without fear or favor, but a reasonable polity will not misdescribe them — and “moderate” is by no means the mot juste.
Seventh news item
This is just so horribly wrong:
Hate has turned my once proud and confident Asian-American mother into a shut-in.
It’s not because of the virus as Covid-19 continues to rage in my home state of California. It’s because she is absolutely certain that as an older Asian woman with a limp she will be targeted by violence.
THIS is the America she left her homeland for?
…
Back in February last year, my mom started to self-isolate during the outbreak just to avoid the comments and stares she received while wearing a mask outside.
She told me on FaceTime with a self-deprecating chuckle, “It’s allergy season too. I’m too afraid of sneezing or ‘coughing while Asian.'”
But the micro-aggressions continued: people coughing in her general direction, someone saying “you must be from Wuhan,” another asking, “Why are Asians so paranoid?”
As the pandemic dragged on, such casual slurs have morphed into next-level bigotry. Asian senior citizens have been robbed, slashed and killed as the number of hate crimes against Asian-Americans spiked.
Eighth news item
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance for schools. On Friday, the agency announced it “now recommends that, with universal masking, students should maintain a distance of at least 3 feet in classroom settings.”
Previously the guidance stated, “Physical distancing (at least 6 feet) should be maximized to the greatest extent possible.” The new guidelines still call for 6 feet of distance between adults and students as well as in common areas, such as auditoriums, and when masks are off, such as while eating. And the 6-foot distancing rule still applies for the general public in settings such as grocery stores.
…
“We didn’t see any substantial difference in cases among students or staff in districts with 3 feet versus 6 feet, suggesting that we can open the schools safely at 3 feet, provided that some of the mitigation measures that were present here in Massachusetts are in place,” said Westyn Branch-Elliman, a co-author of the study and an infectious diseases specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “Our study adds to a growing body of worldwide data about the safety of 3 feet in school settings.”
Predictably, the NEA says not so fast:
“For the sake of public trust and clarity, we urge the CDC to provide far more detail about the rationale for the change from six feet to three feet for students in classrooms, clearly and publicly account for differences in types of school environments, new virus variants, differences in mitigation compliance, and how study participants were tested for the virus. We are concerned that the CDC has changed one of the basic rules for how to ensure school safety without demonstrating certainty that the change is justified by the science and can be implemented in a manner that does not detract from the larger long-term needs of students.
Ninth news item
Being kind and reaching out costs you nothing:
When Nic Dyson got a Facebook message from an alias account claiming to be his long-lost third cousin — and CNN anchor Jake Tapper — he assumed it was fake news.
“I thought, why does he know so much about my family?” Dyson said.
“He started throwing out names and stuff and I was like, maybe this is some creepy, stalkery stuff.”
But when the high-profile American journalist told his 3.3 million Twitter followers about the “amazingly talented” third cousin he just discovered on Ancestry.com, things got real — fast.
Just discovered on @Ancestry my third cousin @nicdysonmusic who is an amazingly talented musician
Check him outhttps://t.co/8p3EU0ggbX
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 17, 2021
And when Tapper shared Dyson’s music with his millions of followers it meant a lot.
“As a disabled musician, I don’t really get out of the city much,” said Dyson, 27, who lives with cerebral palsy. He got his driver’s licence two years ago with the help of hand controls.
“It’s really hard for me to grow my audience, especially without any backing.”
So when that backing came, it was unexpected, but much appreciated.
“This is just immediately global, pretty much with the click of a button, and that’s just amazing to me,” Dyson said.
I love the quiet simplicity of this story. Simple in that one person found another person, and as a result, they have already enriched one another’s life. This is a sweet story that cuts through the grueling grind of the pandemic. Make sure to give Dyson’s music a listen. Its soft, soulfulness makes you lean in just a little bit more to catch whispers of gold dust wafting through the air.
Have a great weekend.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/19/2021 @ 9:23 pmWow. Imagine that 28-year-old who farted around in college for a bachelor’s and master’s degree then went to work at a relatively low wage for some progressive think tank for a few years. They put in their time and played loyal Democrat and even though maybe they really liked Bernard Sanders or Elizabeth Warren last year they were pleased when Joe Biden won and they got some low-level office job paying $48,000 per year but placing them in the heart of the Washington DC maelstrom, where they always wanted to be. So they gave up their rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan or Boston or Sacramento or wherever and lit out for our nation’s capital where they found that they had to beg mom and dad to put down the first and last month’s rent as well as a deposit so they could afford a two-bedroom, one bathroom place that they ended up having to share with three other people. And now they are being sent back home because that cool chick from the Biden Victory Campaign assured them that habitually smoking weed was no big deal but here they are having realized that anything coming from Slow Joe and his friends is not to be taken literally at all.
JVW (ee64e4) — 3/19/2021 @ 10:56 pmNice sarcasm, JVW!
I still can’t believe that a Democratic administration is going all hardliner over weed. I wonder if this isn’t just a lever some are using in the midst of bureaucratic infighting.
norcal (01e272) — 3/19/2021 @ 11:06 pmWell. Look at who is now “denying science.”
Joking aside, this is one case in which I am 100% on the side of the teachers’ union. It’s not as if CDC has been completely perspicacious or convincing in the various new guidelines that they issue from time to time. If indeed the standard for schoolkids is now three instead of six feet, perhaps they can do a more thorough job of explaining how social distancing for adults moved from six to eight feet this past autumn and why double-masking is now all the latest rage. Because if there is one thing that is well-known about schoolkids, it’s that they aren’t in the least at risk for transmitting communicable diseases.
JVW (ee64e4) — 3/19/2021 @ 11:07 pmJVW,
I’m afraid our country is so hidebound and concerned about liability that it’s virtually impossible to get anything done these days. Meanwhile, China can build a hospital in a week.
There has to be a sweet spot somewhere between the two.
norcal (01e272) — 3/19/2021 @ 11:20 pmLOL I can vividly see this guy, probably smoking up right now.
Dustin (4237e0) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:23 amFWIW, it doesn’t actually make any exposure difference for teachers if the kids are sitting at 6 or 3 feet from eachother. Even if the kids are coming at 25% or 50%, the teacher is still seeing their full complement of students across the week. The 6 ft vs 3 ft only makes a difference for the students. We are currently working at the state standard of 4-6 ft.
I would try to care about the national security employment of people who regularly smoke weed, but I can’t.
I would also try to care about what someone said 10 years ago as a teenager (or even a college student) but I can’t. I know too many teenagers. They are idiots. I like them, but their brains are not all there yet.
I would try to care that Biden said that former KGB agent Vladimir Putin was a killer. But former KGB agent Vladimir Putin was a killer, and I can’t.
The NYPD should not be showing up at your door to talk to you about anything other than crime. That’s what the police are supposed to do, police crime. They are not supposed to police how rude or not rude a person is. Also, I would be really really really surprised if they showed up at my door because I am not in NYC. I would probably assume they were criminals and call the police.
I don’t think the National Review is defining “moderate” the way most moderates would define “moderate”. Spending on infrastructure is not radical. Also, I think their argument would be more convincing for someone who doesn’t already agree with them if they characterized the various bills and executive orders as they are rather than as the NR can pretend so they can run around yelling that the sky is falling. Someone on here a while ago said that many conservatives really don’t understand where the middle of the country is any more, and I think that that is the case for the NR’s article.
And that is the problem with calling it “the Wuhan flu” or “the Chinese flu”
That was really cool of Jake Tapper.
Nic (896fdf) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:31 amCan’t we get back to the good old days when the donor class, chamber of commerce and the multi national corporations ran the republican party. With koch brothers funded think tanks and magazines espousing milton freedman’s libertarian free trade capitalism’s anti working class open borders. Dubya.
asset (3ac849) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:53 am@asset@8 I feel like there must be republican voices somewhere that isn’t either “Yes, darling, we can get a new yacht this year.” and “Fvck Yoooooouuuuuuuu! Where’s my confederate battle flag!!!!” Can we please find them?
Nic (896fdf) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:08 amThis story almost brought a tear to my eye.
Almost.
I don’t know about you, but it breaks my heart to think that President-Reject Trump won’t be able to fly around on his personal 757 with 24-karat gold-plated seat-buckles, and headrests embroidered with the family crest in gold thread, as he travels America on his crusade to save the downtrodden working man.
But wait, there’s hope:
Send more cash, patriots!
Dave (1bb933) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:47 amI’m with you on the borders, asset, but you couldn’t be more wrong about free trade and capitalism. Those two things have brought about the prosperity of the modern world.
norcal (01e272) — 3/20/2021 @ 3:35 amI understand that some Republicans are dead set against democratizing the American election system but I don’t understand why they think that would unconstitutional.
When I read the Constitution I find this provision:
Congress has the authority to doe whatever it wants regarding selection of federal legislators. I guess states could, if they wish, run two separate election systems, one a gerrymandered vote suppressing system for state and local elections, and a fair one for federal elections. But even that should run afoul the 14th, and 15th amendments, properly interpreted, and an actually enforced Voting Rights Act.
Victor (4959fb) — 3/20/2021 @ 3:43 amWhats mindless, simple and fun to watch on the stairs? you peoples moron slinky joe.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/20/2021 @ 3:48 amI wonder if your joe knew it was his feet?
mg (8cbc69) — 3/20/2021 @ 4:28 amPeople cheated for this pos. sad.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/20/2021 @ 4:32 amDopers and drunks are security risks. It’s not hard to understand.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:26 amhttps://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/senate-narrowly-confirms-becerra-after-confirmation-fight/
Radical extremist chosen to head health and human services.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:29 amhttps://freebeacon.com/campus/skidmore-college-refuses-to-recognize-club-due-to-troublesome-pro-israel-stance/
Racism is alive and well as long as it’s anti-white or anti-Israeli.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:31 amhttps://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2021/03/11/rutgers-prof-whitewashes-genocide-of-hindus-rutgers-calls-it-academic-freedom-n1431768
Could you imagine the university engaging in this kind of support for academic freedom if it was excusing other genocides?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:33 amhttps://spectator.org/critical-race-theory-schools/
The corruption has burrowed itself deeply into the heart of our education system. It must be purged.
California passed this anti-American indoctrination.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:37 amhttps://legalinsurrection.com/2021/03/chauvin-pre-trial-day-10-thirteenth-juror-seated-1-more-needed/
Andrew Branca doing daily reporting on the Chauvin case and the best analysis of the voir dire that I’ve found.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:39 amhttps://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/03/19/trump-was-right-michigan-judge-rules-states-2020-almost-anything-goes-ballot-signature-rule-was-invalid-n1433600
Michigan’s Democrat Secretary of State made up the law when she unilaterally changed it to loosen election security laws last November.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:43 amGenerally yes, but I actually think “social” drinking is a higher risk than toking up. One, it tends to be more social, which puts lowered inhibitions in public, where weed tends to be more anti-social, i.e. done at home.
One is illegal federally, one is not, so that should make you fail the background check just from a purely technical matter, but my last poly didn’t ask, but it’s still on the SF86.
If tobacco is legal, alcohol is legal, I have no problem with legal pot, if you’re going to draw a line on drugs of abuse, alcohol is probably worse. I’m not giving up a good hazy IPA, or it being spring today, a fantastic Saison Dupont, or a summer wheat. We’re cracking open a Parker’s Heritage #7 this afternoon, and I’d much prefer that to smoking or edible weed; tried a gummy over Christmas, didn’t like it, not a bit.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:43 amBush’s phrasing on the election seemed a bit shy of emphatic and unequivocal. I’m glad the interviewer followed up with a direct question, but wish it hadn’t been necessary.
JRH (52aed3) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:54 amI agree, Herr Kommandant.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:54 amGood morning, Dana. Shall we continue our contest of dueling love poems? Just to liven the day, here are a few choice selections from The Mason Williams Reading Matter.
LOVE ARE WINE
Love are wine
It tickles my mind
And I’m
Always got drunk
Evertime
On love
Oh how life fizzes
In fact
The whole world is
Real good
When it whizzes
Along
On love
Ladies is grapes
I are feet
When togathered
We’re complete
We make wine
The sweet kind
And it feels
So fine
Just to get
Stoneblind
On love
Pretty love
Turtle dove
I’m thinking of
Lovely love
The kind you shove
Up your soul
And feel a whole
Lot like
Red roses
Look
Love are wine
LOVE POEM NO. 2
Come to me
Do not hesitate
I am not funky
Please be mine
Let our hearts entwingle
Like honeysucker
Jump around me
Scuff my boots
Fingerpoke at me
Skippy-toe by
With owl-growls
And Fa-la-la’s
Love with me
All your grits
As I love you
TALKING A BATH
I liked that,
Sitting on the bathroom floor,
Watching you take a bath,
Talking to you.
I stuck my hand
In the water and slowly
Moved my fingers along
The softness of you thigh.
I took handfuls of water,
Spilled them over your
Milk and silken shoulders,
Enjoying the gentle
Sensuousness of your skin,
Slick with water.
You had your hair pinned up
In lovely disorder
To keep from getting it wet.
And you played as you talked,
Little splashes
With your fingertips.
Talking a bath,
I liked that,
And I don’t even remember
Anything we said.
[UNTITLED]
Love is a journey
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:04 amThe moment it begins
The journey’s all it is
No matter where it ends
For those who don’t click links:
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:11 amThe point of the post is: other people care deeply about what others did as teenagers, and we are seeing a destructive trend in our culture as a result. All of us have been stupid teenagers and made bad choices. That is par for the course. It is one thing when we reap the natural and immediate consequences of the dumb season, but it is an entirely different thing to be on the receiving end of non-sensical consequences decided upon by a small army of smug, self-righteous scolds. And in the case of Conde-Nast, elitist, racist-endorsing prigs.
I am unable to write it off because, at one point or another, they will come for someone you love who was a foolish kid but naturally matured out of said foolishness to become a responsible adult.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:29 amWhat’s sad, is “patriots” will.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:32 amIn the “Where is Chevy Chase” department. Biden stumbles several times walking up the AF One stairs.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/2544133/joe-biden-falls-stairs-air-force-one/
I’m willing to bet that SNL doesn’t have this in their cold open.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:34 amSend more cash, patriots!
But Trump = Country, you subversive nutter! They don’t call it the Fuhrerprinzip for nothing!
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:36 amOld people have trouble with steps. Bathtubs too.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:08 amHint –
BillPasadena (5b0401) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:17 amDon’t admit you do something against federal law if you want to work for the federal government.
Old people have trouble with steps
Sure. But SNL didn’t give Ford a break.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:19 amHard to believe this isn’t a parody:
Also, the term “Cancel” has lost all meaning.
Davethulhu (6ba00b) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:47 amAnybody who thinks monarchies are cornerstones of Western democracy probably wouldn’t know the difference between Shinola and something else, either, Davethulhu.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:57 amSpeaking of Gerald Ford and monarchies, did you know that Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr.? His mother’s marital sojourns were even more peripatetic that Bill Clinton’s. Would history have been different, I wonder, with a President King?
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:13 amIf he had remained Leslie Lynch King Jr. for his future campaigns, particularly in the 50s and 60s…would his campaign signs been seen as a dog whistle and coveted as a redneck collector item?
urbanleftbehind (7475ab) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:25 amIn fairness, on the whole, the British monarchy has been a pro-Democracy institution since 1688 (yes, yes, all that rubbish with the stamps and the tea, but still…)
Dave (1bb933) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:39 amIn French woods, rivals take aim at senator’s WWI research
……..,
(Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug) Mastriano had a deep interest in (Sgt. Alvin C.) York long before he led anti-mask protests last year, fought tirelessly to overturn then-President Donald Trump’s reelection loss and showed up outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.
Mastriano’s research into York helped earn him a doctorate in history from the University of New Brunswick and a publishing deal with the University Press of Kentucky, but critics argue his work does not hold up to scrutiny.
……..
For more than a decade, other researchers have questioned Mastriano’s claim to have conclusively proved exactly where York was when his lethal marksmanship played out in October 1918. They argue his research is plagued with errors and that a walking trail to the battle location he helped build actually takes visitors to the wrong spot.
In the past two months, University of Oklahoma history graduate student James Gregory has filed complaints with Mastriano’s publisher and with the Canadian university.
“Any work done using Mastriano is built upon poor, false research,” Gregory wrote.
Both institutions have told Gregory they have opened preliminary reviews.
……..
The 57-year-old Franklin County Republican, first elected two years ago and currently pondering a 2022 run for governor, seemed to emerge out of nowhere last year to become a one-man force in Pennsylvania politics.
He has boasted of speaking with Trump at least 15 times and organized an election hearing in Gettysburg that featured Rudy Giuliani and a phone call appearance by Trump.
He was even scheduled to speak on the U.S. Capitol steps during the early afternoon on Jan. 6 and had organized charter buses to Trump’s speech. Despite calls from some Democratic Senate colleagues to resign, Mastriano has maintained he broke no laws the day of the Capitol breach and has not been charged.
Before Mastriano entered the political limelight, he attracted attention for his claim to have pinpointed the precise location of York’s famed battle. He organized construction of the 2-mile (3-kilometer) “Circuit du Sergeant York” trail, lined with interpretive markers and dedicated amid fanfare in 2008.
But a multidisciplinary team that conducted its own surveys of the general battle area concluded the correct spot is very likely about a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) south of Mastriano’s purported location.
“The issue is not about a few meters’ difference between the two sites,” said Dutch journalist Stephan van Meulebrouck, who has written about the York site controversy. “It is about good research versus bad research and the inability, or even the unwillingness of certain parties in this debate to admit to that fact.”
Rip Murdock (d6be77) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:45 am………
After an Associated Press review found additional questionable footnotes, Gregory sent the Kentucky publisher 35 citations he considers fraudulent. In early March, he made a nearly identical complaint to the University of New Brunswick, where the York research figured prominently in Mastriano’s doctoral studies.
………..
Judge tosses journalist’s surveillance lawsuit against Rod Rosenstein
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that longtime television journalist Sharyl Attkisson filed last year alleging that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other ex-officials carried out illegal surveillance against her as she reported on Obama administration controversies about a decade ago.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bennett, who is based in Baltimore, permanently dismissed Rosenstein and former FBI official Shawn Henry from the suit. The judge said Rosenstein was protected by the doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which blocks suits against public officials unless their alleged actions violated a clearly established legal right.
………
“The Amended Complaint is devoid of any factual allegations with respect to actual conduct related to the alleged surveillance which occurred in Maryland,” Bennett wrote in his 20-page decision, issued on Tuesday. “The conclusory statements that the alleged surveillance was performed by individuals in Maryland, unsupported by any factual allegations, lie in contrast to the Plaintiffs’ numerous assertions regarding conduct performed and events which occurred in the Eastern District of Virginia.”
……..
Attkisson filed a new suit in federal court in Baltimore last year, asserting that a source had come forward to confess involvement in the wiretapping. Attkisson said that source said the effort was an outgrowth of a Baltimore-based federal law enforcement operation targeting illegal activity on the so-called dark web, the Silk Road Task Force.
The source was initially anonymous but later identified by Attkisson’s attorneys as Ryan White, an alleged former FBI informant. White is a QAnon conspiracy adherent who appears to have been the source of bizarre child-abuse allegations that Georgia attorney Lin Wood leveled at Chief Justice John Roberts last year, according to a report in the Daily Beast.
Rip Murdock (d6be77) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:52 am…………
Fox News Says Washington Post Story Published After Georgia Runoffs Could Have Swayed Georgia Runoffs
Fox News hosts raised a disturbing prospect on Wednesday: The false Washington Post story on Donald Trump’s call with a Georgia elections official, which was corrected this week, could have swayed the Senate runoff elections in Georgia.
There’s just one problem: the Post story was published on Jan. 9, four days after the Georgia elections.
………
(Maria Bartiromo on the show Outnumbered) mistakenly conflated the corrected Washington Post story with an accurate story published the week before on Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The accurate story, which included audio of Trump urging Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” and thereby overturn the results, was published on Jan. 3.
“The Washington Post had to correct this fake news that they reported that you told the secretary of state of Georgia to find the fraud and find the votes right before the Senate race,” Bartiromo said, conflating the two calls.
Trump replied: “It was. And it probably affected the Senate race.”
Rip Murdock (d6be77) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:01 am………
But that false comment from Trump was still the basis for an Outnumbered segment that aired Wednesday, which featured a chyron that read: “TRUMP: WAPO STORY PROBABLY IMPACTED GA RUNOFFS.”
………..
30.In the “Where is Chevy Chase” department. Biden stumbles several times walking up the AF One stairs.
President Plagiarist is known for his short trips; seldom left his Wilmington Bunker… and he knows his final trip will be a mere 6 feet… toward his buds in China.
… and Hunter $miled.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:06 amhttps://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/march_2021/75_support_voter_id_laws
75% of the public supports voter ID. Who knew there were so many racists according to the left.
NJRob (6bfeee) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:18 amThere is absolutely no logical reason to oppose a voter ID requirement. Granted it should not be hard or expensive to get ID (I would say it should just be free). But this idea of same day voter registration and no voter ID requirement is evil.
Dustin (4237e0) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:23 amThe philosophical inconsistency between “the police are doing too many things that are better handled by social workers and we should partially defund the police and put the money into social workers instead” and “we should send the police to intimidate people into changing their legal, but bad, behavior” is … breathtaking.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:25 am@32. Compare the set of steps President Ford and President Plagiarist used; Ford was descending a wet metallic stairway of much lesser construct amidst a drizzle in Austria w/his wife and slipped once; OTOH, our current feeble stumble bum was climbing a much more substantial and carpeted stairway alone at Andrews AFB and eve w/a hand on the rail, and fell not once, not twice, but THREE times– the tried to steady himself on the opposite railing to complete the ascent but could not reach it.
Even the benign folks at The Weather Channel chided the White House for trying to blame “the wind.” Unless the WH is saying the Old Fart broke his own wind so hard he knocked himself off his pins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Mwc12LtRY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jsu_qgVuhg
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:30 am16.Dopers and drunks are security risks. It’s not hard to understand.
Unless you’re ‘Snowman’ Kudlow.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:37 am@2. Yet this GOP darling got all the breaks. If any of you dabbled in as much coke as this SOB did, you’d still be in prison.
But then, “life is unfair.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/03/business/a-wall-st-star-s-agonizing-confession.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/04/business/economist-is-said-to-enter-a-six-month-drug-program.html
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:46 amI still can’t believe that a Democratic administration is going all hardliner over weed. I wonder if this isn’t just a lever some are using in the midst of bureaucratic infighting.
Whereas the GOP looks the other way; Snowman Kudlow was a Reagan man.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:50 amFord was 61 years old, Biden is 78.
If you want to compare and contrast, look at the media restraint about Ford’s family history versus Bill Clinton’s less than 20 years later.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:07 pm@Dana@28 I wasn’t meaning to imply that you shouldn’t have posted the article, I was responding to the situation itself. I’m not a big fan of purity culture (everyone and everything must be pure for you to like it, I think it’s a better term than “cancel culture” and I think it’s closer to what is going on with the gen Z kids. It is also a thing done by people who don’t think anyone should talk about the various imperfections of our founding fathers). I don’t think it’s healthy to always be bringing up things people did or said when they were kids and I’ve maintained that people should just be able to day “you know what? I did some dumb things when I was 16/19/22. I am not that person today and looking back, I wish I had made a better decision at the time.” and have everyone go “fair”.
@45 I don’t think most normal people’s concern abt voter ID is necessarily the ID itself, it’s more that the process of getting or having the ID might be a problem and less than equitable. That is certainly my concern. Also, getting ID is a problem. When I was getting my TSA clear check a few years ago I had a choice between waiting 6 months for a local appointment or driving 5 hrs to to another regional center and getting it much sooner (I drove, but not everyone has the time or money to do that). Passports can take months to come back. Even Real ID appointments aren’t exactly quick or easy to get. To make it equitable there would need to be a ton of VoterID offices everywhere, well staffed, open during non-business hours. It would need to be like the DMV, but with more of them for more hours with more staff.
Nic (896fdf) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:12 pmDamn Reagan did it again guys.
Dustin (4237e0) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:18 pmThe only politician who could truly empathize with the downtrodden working man is the one who spent his life trying to get everyone to acknowledge how much richer and better than them he is.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:19 pmThe language looks clear-cut. But some conservatives now argue that textual originalism is a bad thing if it doesn’t lead to the results they deem properly conservative. So the rules are they rules, until they aren’t.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:20 pmIf registration were automatic, and everybody issued an ID free and automatically, and those who showed up to vote without an ID were allowed to vote a provisional ballot, to be used when ID was confirmed, then requiring ID wouldn’t be a problem.
But every obstacle and difficulty in getting an adequate ID simply means that a portion of the population will find voting more difficult or impossible. And politicians are smart enough to figure out that that slice of the population will have certain partisan leanings or results. What we see is Republican politicians insisting on ID requirements under circumstances where that will likely lead to fewer anti-Republican votes.
And this is pretty obvious to everyone. Which is why Republican appeals to neutral principles of voter security ring hollow. If they really wanted everybody to vote and the voting to be secure, they could take some steps in that direction. But all the Republican voting legislation in the past years has been in the same direction – making it more difficult to vote for portions of the population likely to vote against them.
Victor (4959fb) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:21 pm@51. Ford was an ex-athlete; college football; agile and slipped on wet stairs. The current stumble bum is just too damn old and feeble for the gig. Hell, even FDR managed to stand and ‘walk’ w/leg-braces on.
The alarming thing here is the ‘blame the wind’ thing. They’re clearly trying to hide what is obviously failing before our eyes. The day before it was another ‘President Harris’ flub.
So “here’s the deal:” keep putti a pair of deuces in Putin’s hand and he’ll keep winning pots.
@53. Yes-he got a pass; ‘just say no’ to ‘just say no’: If you dabbled in as much illicit coke as Kudlow did as a Ronnie man, you’d still be in prison, Dustin.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:45 pm@56. It’s easier to buy a gun in Georgia than it is to vote.
… and Putin smiled.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:50 pmTapper has always struck me as a decent guy.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:52 pmBTW, Mrs. Montagu and I just had shot #2, and she starts in-person teaching on April 12th.
Wokeness is largely a cheap way for people to claim moral superiority by taking advantage of any possible occasion to call someone else a bigot and seek punishment. If the woke moral scold is much more privileged than the target, then it’s an even more powerful mark of virtue.
Someone whose name I’ve forgotten tweeted that if Twitter had existed when he was a teenager he would now be facing charges at the Hague.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:01 pmDSCA,
You really seem to deeply care whether Putin is happy or not. I still don’t get it.
Victor (4959fb) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:18 pmNot so! “Cancel” now means “criticize” — unless it’s us criticizing you.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:23 pmIt’s pretty obvious to everyone that there are no obstacles to getting ID and the other reason someone could be against ID is because it would hurt their votes. The only way it could hurt their votes is if they were depending on votes that are from nonexistent people.
NJRob (b51969) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:28 pm@9 the middle are populists who voted for obama twice and then voted for trump. Many are minorities as trump got many more minority votes the corporatist romney. Stop republican party vote suppression of minorities to protect corporate incumbents. In the long run most minority voters are populists too! The democrat party will tear itself apart between AOC / bernie wing and clinton/biden wing. Let every citizen vote and appeal to their populism that is the republican partys future.
asset (a6a67c) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:49 pmTapper has always struck me as a decent guy.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 3/20/2021 @ 12:52 pm
I find this unsurprising.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:50 pmIt’s easier to buy a gun in Georgia than it is to vote.
Is it really? You can buy a gun without an ID? Do they have gun vending machines or something?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:52 pmIf registration were automatic, and everybody issued an ID free and automatically, and those who showed up to vote without an ID were allowed to vote a provisional ballot, to be used when ID was confirmed, then requiring ID wouldn’t be a problem.
Right up until someone sues to “count all the ballots!” and the count the provisional ones, even though confirmation failed.
But every obstacle and difficulty in getting an adequate ID simply means that a portion of the population will find voting more difficult or impossible.
Skid row bums find a way to get the IDs they need for MD and Tbird. How hard can it be? This is just a figleaf argument for “we don’t want to have IDs for reasons we don’t talk about.”
And this is pretty obvious to everyone.
Except 75 % of people, apparently.
Which is why Republican appeals to neutral principles of voter security ring hollow. If they really wanted everybody to vote and the voting to be secure, they could take some steps in that direction. But all the Republican voting legislation in the past years has been in the same direction – making it more difficult to vote for portions of the population likely to vote against them.
While the Democrats have been making it easier and easier for those with no right to vote, or intending to vote multiple times.
Now you may say that last is untrue, but it is no more untrue than your silly claim.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:57 pmIt is harder to get drunk in California than vote.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 1:58 pmIf you want to compare and contrast, look at the media restraint about Ford’s family history versus Bill Clinton’s less than 20 years later.
Or Gingrich or Trump or…
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 2:00 pm@11 Prosperity to the rich at the expense of the american working class. That is why trump took over the republican party with his populist message. Free trade helps the multi national corporations and their donor class at the destruction of america’s working class. Nafta has destroyed the farmers of mexico forcing them to drug dealing and illegal immigration. Manufacturing jobs are sent out of the country and displaced farmers who can’t compete with large industrial farming come here. How can you buy a cheaper imported vehicle if you lost your manufacturing job and have no money? The mid west has been devastated by free trade which is actually subsidized trade not only by foreign governments ;but thanks to corrupt politicians our government subsidizes sending our jobs overseas!
asset (a6a67c) — 3/20/2021 @ 2:00 pmOne is illegal federally, one is not, so that should make you fail the background check just from a purely technical matter, but my last poly didn’t ask, but it’s still on the SF86.
The SF86 asks about 1) drugs/alcohol in the last 7 years, or 2) drugs ever while holding a clearance or 3) having ever gone through treatment for alcohol or drgus (separately). I would have to answer YES to 24.3 but the rest not. The “completion” part of that would involve 33 years of sobriety.
It didn’t seem to be a problem last time.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 2:13 pm@61. Whether you realize it or not, Uncle Sam’s Yankee is getting Doodled almost daily by him.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 2:22 pmAs the pandemic dragged on, such casual slurs have morphed into next-level bigotry. Asian senior citizens have been robbed, slashed and killed as the number of hate crimes against Asian-Americans spiked.
It’s a problem when the difference between a virus that originated in China is conflated with a virus spread by Chinese. Having a Presidnet with a two-digit IQ who uses small words and simple concepts doesn’t make it any easier.
But then I look at the manufacturing of this as a moral crisis and wonder which side’s idiots are more to blame.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 3:18 pmNR is spot-on in pointing out that the Biden administration is increasingly governing from the hard Left. The proposals that are coming forth need translations, since the press is dead-set on hiding the lead.
Gun Safety = Gun registration, gun-owner licensing (with strict criteria), gun taxes, elimination of gun types and confiscation of bad one.
Voter’s Rights = Same-day registration, automatic registration, repeal of all ID laws, two weeks of early voting, expanded mail ballots, Election Day a holiday, pre-registration of children, prohibition of voting roll purges for past non-voting, and allowing felons to vote.
Labor Rights = everything the unions ever asked for
And of course trillions of new spending and the 70% tax rates that we had in the 70’s.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 3:34 pmIn recent months I’ve been enjoying reading the U.S. version of The Spectator — the oldest weekly magazine in the world — and their pseudonymous columnist Cockburn I think gets to the heart of what makes the Teen Vogue/Andrea McCammond matter different from the other notable cancellations:
I’ve written it here before: the craftiest move the crybullies have made is in bringing Asian-Americans into the Oppression Olympics. But this suggests that this group isn’t always going to be the shy and docile junior partner that they were expected to be.
JVW (ee64e4) — 3/20/2021 @ 4:54 pm@70. Shorter: Reaganomics.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 5:06 pm12. Victor (4959fb) — 3/20/2021 @ 3:43 am
The House is gambling that states won’t want to run two separate election systems, most likely on a different day. Only a few states, like Louisiana, do that.
Congress of course can only specify how districts can be drawn for Congress. Qualifications to vote can be dealt with by creating a separate supplemental list.
This is a little bit based on the reduction of the voting age to 18. In 1970, when Congress extended the 1965 voting rights act, they reduced the voting age to 18. This went to the Supreme Court, which split 4-4-1. Four justices said Congress had the power to do that, and four justices said it did not. The determining opinion was that of Justice Hugo Black, who said Congress could do that for federal elections (actually I think only elections for Congress) but not for state elections.
This would have created an administrative nightmare or so they said. So Congress quickly passed and the states ratified the 26th amendment reducing the voting age to 18 for all elections. It was sent to the states on March 23, 1971, and ratified by July 1, 1971. In just over three months.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/20/2021 @ 6:25 pmAs a counter example; in 2015 AL closed down the DMV in majority black counties as part of a cost cutting measure. It’s not a insurmountable obstacle. But if you poor and don’t drive, and as a renter tend to move more frequently, having to go to another county by bus to keep your ID current is a huge PITA.
If you’re base is comprised of people like that this has an impact on your turnout.
Time123 (c9382b) — 3/20/2021 @ 6:31 pmLink to support my claim about AL
https://www.governing.com/archive/alabama-demands-voter-id–then-closes-drivers-license-offices-In-clack-counties.html
Time123 (c9382b) — 3/20/2021 @ 6:32 pm42. Rip Murdock (d6be77) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:01 am
I also conflated the two Washington Post stories, which were about two different telephone calls. The one that was corrected was not really publicized nationwide.
It concerned a December 23 call to (or about) a female Georgia election official, not Raffensperger. He never spoke to Raffenesperger till January 2.
“Find the fraud” isn’t far distant from what Trump was looking for in all of his calls, except that he was asserting it truly existed, and telling them where to find it; but the Washington Post also falsely quoted him as saying she would be a hero.
The transcript of that other call was released in late February – it took the Washington Post nearly a month to run a correction.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/20/2021 @ 6:42 pmCould be wrong but I think it was Tom Nichols.
lurker (59504c) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:43 pm” Shorter: Reaganomics.”
DCSCA: 831,143 Windmill: 0 (still) Boom!!!!
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:51 pmI think it was somebody else on his TL.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:56 pm@82. ‘Voodoo economics.’
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 7:59 pm@75. Does this mean a Chinese financed Caddyshack in blackface won’t get greenlighted? Denzel Washington in ‘Black Ty’ would be Zen; Eddie Murphy’s the perfect ‘putts’ to play Al Czervik and James Earl Jones would bring due justice to Judge Smails. As for Bill Murray’s Carl Spackler, he can reprise the role w/t help of a little burnt cork– [controversy sells tickets.] Recasting the brown gopher may be a problem– OTOH, the trades say Pepé Le Pew, late of Warner Bros., is looking for work. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:30 pmNow that you mention it, that sounds right. If my google-fu were stronger I’d confirm it, but alas….
lurker (59504c) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:33 pmdirty greecer alphabet ruled unworthy of naming hurricanes
Dave (1bb933) — 3/20/2021 @ 8:57 pmRoss Douthat makes a persuasive argument (to me at least) that the bad faith each side ascribes to its opponents in these voting rights/regulations wars is mostly impotent. It’s much ado about nothing all around.
lurker (59504c) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:21 pmJust between us, I don’t think the hurricanes give a hoot.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:29 pmMaelstroms, on the other hand, can be touchy.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:31 pm@89. Their response is always the same: ‘Blow me.’ 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:03 pmMaelstroms, on the other hand, can be touchy.
Maybe. But certainly nothing like Femalestroms.
JVW (ee64e4) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:14 pmI actually did a brief search and I came up with a lot of people named Hague who are on Twitter.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:27 pmBut what about the Greeks?
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:30 pmBoy, that’s the truth.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/20/2021 @ 10:59 pm@78 In many states you can’t get a state id if you owe fines, child support, state taxes and other assorted dutys.
asset (81816d) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:27 pmRoss Douthat makes a persuasive argument (to me at least) that the bad faith each side ascribes to its opponents in these voting rights/regulations wars is mostly impotent. It’s much ado about nothing all around.
Bad faith? Perhaps not, but they’re just wrong. What possible reason do we need 2 weeks of early voting for? For people trapped in a coal mine or something? I don’t get it. ALL early voting does is distort the election with some voters having different information than others.
If there are a few people who would be greatly helped by this, there are thousands disenfranchised when the candidate they voted for dies/is arrested/exposed/taken deathly ill.
Surely there is some common reform, like voting Friday-Sunday instead of Tuesday (you have to have been idle rich to choose Tuesday).
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:29 pmAlso in most states if you don’t have a birth certificate you can’t get a state id.
asset (81816d) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:29 pm> Dopers and drunks are security risks. It’s not hard to understand.
Yes, but just as not all alcohol users are drunks, not all pot users are dopers.
My real life social circles consist of an overlap of the tech community, the festival and live music community, the legal community, the poly community, the role playing gamer community, and the sanderson fan community. Most of the people I know in real life use marijuana to some degree, and this doesn’t make them security risks any more than having a glass of wine with dinner makes the people I know who drink a security risk.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:33 pmNJRob at 22: yes and no.
what the court found — i read the decision — was that the secretary of state’s office issued an order demanding that counties use a particular *perfectly valid* interpretation of an ambiguous clause in the state election law, but that the order itself was not issued following the procedural rules for issuing such orders.
the *policy* was a valid interpretation of the law and there would have been no problem if the counties had themselves individually decided to adopt the policy. the issue was that the process used to order the counties to do it was broken.
the substantive election law was not violated. the procedural requirements of the state’s administrative procedures act were.
there is no basis in michigan law for overturning the election results on these grounds. the remedy for promulgation of an administrative order in violation of the state’s APA is to *void the order*, nothing more.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:37 pm> In many states you can’t get a state id if you owe fines, child support, state taxes and other assorted dutys.
that’s a terrible decision as a policy matter, given that a lot of jobs require you to have a valid drivers’ license — punishing people for failure to cough up money they are require to cough up by making it substantially harder for them to earn money so that they can cough it up is just *dumb*. and in bad cases it can leave people caught in an inescapable poverty trap.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:42 pmBut what about the Greeks?
Greeks think “Greek alphabet” is a tautology. And it is.
nk (1d9030) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:57 pmI think it should be limited to a few set weeks for early/mail/absentee ballots, and the first Tuesday in November is a holiday. Also, I don’t see a need for jungle elections, special elections, etc, at most the national voting day, and a spring provisional day.
With the widespread societal requirement for valid identification, a standard “id” card should be no cost, near enough to everyone already has a federal id number assigned anyway, a state ID card isn’t really a stretch, and it’s also pretty cheap, a few hundred million a year, so shave off a few F35s and call it a day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, number of the beast and all that.
BTW, did I wake up early or late today, I can’t tell?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:22 amGo back to bed, Colonel. Nothing to see here.
norcal (01e272) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:36 amhttps://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/the_battle_of_burbank_.html
mg (8cbc69) — 3/21/2021 @ 3:50 amSome Californians have balls, the rest of you need a pair.
Perhaps the staffers were canned because they did not demonstrate the ability to know when to lie about something. An important requirement for a high level government job. All they had to say was “no”.
Echo (89ce42) — 3/21/2021 @ 6:56 amIt’s pretty clear to me that foreign leaders have no respect for Biden. None. Putin essentially laughed at Biden’s description of him as evil, a murderer, and someone with no soul (Biden showing us he is, of course, a true Catholic with that one…).
China is basically showing no respect to this administration either. Iran as well.
It’s like they all know Biden is teetering on dotage, if not already there. (Will someone please put anti-slip strips on the stairs?)
At least Biden has cured the border crisis. Who knew it was as easy as just saying there was no crisis?
Hoi Polloi (b28058) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:11 amPutin must have respected Trump all to hell when Bill O’Reilly called Putin a killer and Trump called Americans killers just like Putin did now.
Sheee!t, dude! Ain’t been no President less respected by foreign leaders whose respect you’d want than Trump.
And “dotage” is an interesting word. Did you know that a sufferer is called a dotard? Kim Jong Un does.
nk (1d9030) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:24 amThousands is a huge overstatement.
Time123 (797615) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:30 amThe fact that our opponents and enemies like Trump better then Biden isn’t really a strike against Biden.
Time123 (797615) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:31 amHere is some love:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/bush-fishing-with-putin-2016-4%3famp
Two presidents???
BuDuh (e707e9) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:40 amThe PJ Media badly overstates what happened. The MI SOS passed an rule without following the proper process so that rule was, correctly, struck down.
-The Court did not find that the rule was illegal.
-The Claimant’s did not assert that this rule cause them, or anyone else, to accept a fraudulent ballot.
I haven’t seen a good explanation of if the rule clarified what was already in place or changed it.
From what little I know of signature verification the way we do it for elections is so flawed as to be silly. For purposes of verifying signatures on collectables they compare the signature to multiple versions and look for consistency of common elements. Because people sign their signatures differently from time to time you can’t make a very good decision based on only 1 sample. It get’s worse if the signature is on paper and the sample was done on a tablet. In the collectable space they also use information about habits of the person whose signature is in question. If they’re known to typically use a Sharpie or never add notes for example.
That said, having people sign ballots / envelopes is a good process. If necessary you can ask people if the envelope submitted in their name has their signature. It also raises an impediment to large scale voter fraud. Monitors at the absentee voter board have the opportunity to notice if tens or hundreds of signatures come in with similar hand writing. After the fact investigations (as have happened in other elections) can also be aided by this.
That said, so far in 2020 they number of fraudulent ballots that have been found seems to be in the double digest, and for both candidates.
Time123 (dba73f) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:44 amIt’s amazing the extent to which conservatives support Putin over Biden. Biden, accurately, called Putin a killer, something Trump refused to do. Putin gets huffy and demands a fairly stupid and childish thing, an instant debate (regarding what?). (and by the way the Kremlin is backing off from that)
And America’s conservatives, true patriots, think Putin is being “stronger” here. It’s pretty clear many would prefer he was president.
Victor (4959fb) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:09 amDid you hear about the chickens touring by Stormy Daniels’ house? They heard she laid Trump.
nk (1d9030) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:15 amAlso in most states if you don’t have a birth certificate you can’t get a state id.
When I moved to New Mexico, there were several hurdles in registering to vote. First, I had to get a state ID. In order to get that I had to produce an identity proof (birth certificate or passport), a Social Security number proof (this required me to get a replacement social security card, a separate struggle), and two proofs of residency (this was fun because we were house-hunting and living in temporary housing).
Once I had the state ID (a RealID, actually), I had to mail an application, along with a copy of the ID and a utility bill, to the Secretary of State in order to register the first time to vote.
Given all this, which has not changed even after the Democrats took complete control of the state government I really have no patience for those who say that presenting a valid ID to vote is an issue.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:19 amThousands is a huge overstatement.
Oh, BS. If there is an election where a candidate dies, or beats his wife, or whatever, two week before the election, every person who voted for that person has cast a vote they would want to reconsider, but can’t. In a Congressional or state legislative election where they open the polls a month ahead of time, this number could easily be in the thousands. In a statewide election, it could be in the 10s of thousands.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:28 amAre we supposed to want Biden and Putin to become penpal chums, writing letters expressing fondness for one another? Do Republicans want to hear Biden describe Putin as a “great guy,” a “terrific person,” a “strong leader” and behave like a fanboy toward a…murderer – like Trump did after the G-20 in 2019?
Would that make Republicans happy?
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:29 amIn Missouri in 2000, a dead mad was elected to the Senate, having died 3 weeks earlier in a plane crash. No data on how many had voted early, but the dead man won with over a million votes.
Then again, it might have helped his campaign as it made it easier to vote against the other guy.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:30 amWould that make Republicans happy?
What, he asked, is a Republican, and washed his hands.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:31 amDana, my post about both Bush Presidents fishing with Putin, after GW asked his dad to arrange the play date, seems to be stuck in moderation.
BuDuh (6a3cb4) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:37 amDid you mean is *not* an issue? Because, based on your story, it sounds like it very well can be an issue.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:40 amNothing pleases me more than for Putin to whine about the US president, because he knows he’s punching up. I never want an American president that is as friendly to the world’s very worst people as our last guy was. I want more Reagan, less Jane Fonda.
Dustin (4237e0) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:48 amAh:
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:48 amTrump would be “returning to social media in two or three months”
But, but, but … wasn’t Trump sworn in as President yesterday?
nk (1d9030) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:55 amHeh. That, nk, and it confirms that he knows he won’t be allowed back on Insta, FB, or Twitter any time soon.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:57 amhttps://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/thomas-sowell-on-slavery-and-this-fact-there-are-more-slaves-today-than-were-seized-from-africa-in-four-centuries/
Facts that are no longer allowed to be mentioned in public today.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:11 amKevin,
So you went through a huge amount of hassle to get registered to vote and therefore you think that other people should go through some amount of hassle too?
I don’t really understand the theory that voting is so important and valuable that people have to struggle to earn the right. (Though I guess some official in Arizona claimed the important thing is the quality of the vote, not the quantity)
Voting is important because it’s a method of translating the will of the people into determining who the leaders are. To that end you want the most people voting, not the fewest.
Victor (4959fb) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:18 amThe much prettier and nicer Dana wrote:
Translation: the suppression of speech continues apace.
The Dana in Kentucky (fa23a0) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:20 amWe have been told, ad infinitum, that masking up — now double masking — and social distancing were required, required! to fight the evil scourge of COVID-19. But we had some devastating floods in the Bluegrass State, with Beattyville and Lee County hit the hardest. My nephew, a volunteer fireman — and no, I don’t use the politically correct term “fire fighter” just because some women work as firemen — and former EMT, has been doing the rescue and clean-up work. Few people have bothered with masks or distancing, because there has been just too much work to do to save lives and jobs and property, yet Lee County has a very low COVID-19 infection rate.
With the rampant disregard of Reichsstatthalter Andy Beshear’s draconian orders in Lee County — and Lee Countians gave 81.15% of their votes to President Trump — shouldn’t it be a hotbed of coronavirus?
The Dana in Kentucky (fa23a0) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:27 am@123. Certainly the rent in so many heads was due. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:30 amWould that make Republicans happy?
Reaganomics; Reaganaurics; Reaganoptics.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:31 am106.Perhaps the staffers were canned because they did not demonstrate the ability to know when to lie about something. An important requirement for a high level government job. All they had to say was “no”.
Unless your name is Kudlow.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:33 amSo you went through a huge amount of hassle to get registered to vote and therefore you think that other people should go through some amount of hassle too?
Way to twist words. What I said was that it is almost always hard to get your first ID in a state, or registered to vote. But once you do it, there is no incremental problem in producing something you already had when you got registered. Even if you need to update an address (and most people don’t bother), it takes only a few minutes at a website to do that in most places, even here.
Or, what? Are you proposing no IDs ever to register to vote? Never mind that people without IDs are excluded from almost all aspects of life, from banking to booze to airports to entering most public buildings.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:34 amI want to see more Americans participating in our elections. I also want to see Voter I.D. I think it would safeguard the voting process. However, as Kevin M. explained, it is not necessarily an easy feat to get the proper I.D. needed to vote. What can be done to make it more timely, accessible, and less financially prohibitive? I think it’s possible to believe that we need both Voter I.D. and more accessible and affordable methods to obtain the necessary I.D. This is the United States of America. Surely, that is not beyond our abilities. I would like to believe that both major political parties want to see as many Americans vote as possible and to know that everything has been done to assure that their votes are counted and the elections are secure. If any party resists methods to see that outcome, then that’s a very telling black eye on them.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:34 amVoting is important because it’s a method of translating the will of the people into determining who the leaders are. To that end you want the most people voting, not the fewest.
I want people who are at least slightly informed to vote. There is no benefit to an uninformed vote. People who vote because of their horoscope or “red” being their favorite color or their god told them to are useless noise in the system.
It is terribly insulting to those that actually do care about their vote to insist that the polls be subjected to the possibility of fraud in order to accommodate people who really don’t give a sh1t.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:38 amBut, but, but … wasn’t Trump sworn in as President yesterday?
No, it was March 4th. Just like in the original Constitution before Lincoln ruined it.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:43 amIn checking my state’s DMV, it costs $83 to get a driver’s license and $35 for a Real I.D. card. I’m reluctant to say that that is not cost-prohibitive to some people because clearly, it might be. The process for the Real I.D. card is here:
Depending on one’s circumstance, it might be fairly simple or take some work depending on the state. I am in California, and we processes are easily accessible and online. From what I’ve read, this isn’t so in any number of other states.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:46 amDana,
Given the need for valid IDs, I see no good way to get original IDs that does not require some level of effort. I guess one could institute a permanent national ID, based on DNA, created at time of birth, and that would solve most of the access to ID, ID replacement, etc issues. But I suspect there are civil liberty arguments against that.
So, you need to have some original documents available and getting replacements for them is a hassle, as is conveying them to the ID-issuing authority, getting a picture taken, etc.
How would you issue IDs without some documentation? How would you hand out a ballot without knowing who you handed it to, where they lived, what their age or nationality was, etc? The honor system? That went out with “no locks on doors.”
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:50 amI think the requirements for a RealID are set by federal statute. There are other IDs you can get in some states, like CA, that serve the same purpose but do not guarantee legal residency.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:53 amPresent proof of your Social Security number, such as an SSN card, W-2 or paystub with full SSN.
It turns out that this is mostly “SSN card” since the full SSN is usually redacted on most correspondence these days.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:55 amOff-topic:
It appears that quoting MLK, Jr is off-limits for whites now. It seems that the color of one’s skin is what is important now, not the content of one’s character. And to say otherwise is racist.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:58 amActually, no. The very fact that Trump is starting up his own social media platform demonstrates that free-speech is alive and well and opportunities for it abound. And as a private company, Trump will be able to ban commenters that break whatever guidelines they institute.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 11:21 amBut like everything else, the Romans did it better.
Dave (1bb933) — 3/21/2021 @ 11:21 amI was told the adults would be back in charge once we elected Trump. We’d have a sane foreign policy. So what did the old codger do? Call the leader of Russia soulless and a murderer. Putin laughed, dared Joe to a debate and Joe said no.
Then creaky old Joe tries to flex his muscles with China and of course, the Chinese don’t blink.
So now we have Macho Joe trying to act tough but no one believes him. He’s an old codger who can’t walk up the stairs and thinks his macho act really worries foreign leaders.
Most people understand China has the goods on his son, so Joe’s talk about China is nothing but rhetoric. Russia is not afraid of Joe as he leads the party of “Russian Reset” and “The 1980s want their foreign policy back” The Russians know the Democrats only cared about Russian interference when Trump was in power.
Now that Trump is out of power, the Democrats have moveon.org from the constant drumbeat of Russia!Russia!Russia!
Hoi Polloi (b28058) — 3/21/2021 @ 12:09 pmShot #1 scheduled for Tuesday. After a couple unsuccessful (and not-very-determined) attempts to set it up through the state’s vaccination website, my HMO – finally recognizing my status among the ivory-tower elite – texted me to make an appointment and come in.
Dave (1bb933) — 3/21/2021 @ 12:16 pmThe president of Tanzania, a dictator who cheated in his re-election campaign last October and reported he won with 84% of the vote (results in the 80s are now popular – dictators used to claim it used to be 99%( a man who disparaged protective measures against the coronavirus and also the vaccine has died last week, probably of Covid.
He claimed that vaccines don’t work. He asked in January: If the white man had vaccines then how come there wasn’t a vaccine against AIDS. How come there wasn’t a vaccine against tuberculosis? How come there wasn’t a vaccine againt malaria? How come there wasn’t a vaccine against cancer?
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 12:21 pmDave @144:
I know someone who walked into a Walgreens;s within the last week and was offered a shot of the Pfizer vaccine – people who had caacelled appointments or not sown up – they had two left – otherwise it would have been discarded. I think he is still under 60.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 12:31 pmSounds good. Why would the US president debate a soulless murderer? Russia is only relevant because of the damage the do. They are not leaders in the world and we don’t care what Putin has to say. Breath of fresh air from Trump’s licking of Putin’s boots all the time.
Dustin (4237e0) — 3/21/2021 @ 12:35 pmAll those Roman copies of Greek sculpture raised the art to a higher level. Or something.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/21/2021 @ 12:38 pmI’ll admit that the Latin language can make anything sound extraordinarily elegant. Then I think of how the Romans went around subjugating everyone they could for centuries, and of the kind of entertainment they enjoyed in the imperial era, and it seems hard to square with people speaking Latin.
139. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:55 am
It’s on the W-2 forms.
I don’t think there’s even a partial Social Security number on pay stubs (or pay stub reports if direct deposit is used) Just name and address.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:03 pmIt turns out that getting a vaccine can be a cure for long Covid (about one third of the time – maybe closer to one sixth for a full cure.)
It could also make things worse. Sometimes first worse and then better, maybe after a second shot.
The reason – and where this might apply and not apply – is not clear.
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210317/some-with-long-haul-covid-see-relief-after-vaccination
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:16 pm3. norcal (01e272) — 3/19/2021 @ 11:06 pm
Joe Biden, or his people, believe they won only because of special circumstances. They don’t want to do anything that would catch the attention and opposition of conservatives, unless it is something they really want. Tolerating marijuana smoking among employees is something that could attract much criticism from people who might otherwise vote for a Democrat, they think> It’s not a hill to die on.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:29 pmMr M wrote:
I would be quite happy to return to 1792, when the franchise was restricted to white male property owners. It sure seemed to produce better government!
The Dana in Kentucky (fa23a0) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:44 pmKevin M (ab1c11) — 3/20/2021 @ 11:29 pm
This can happen after an election too, but the thing is, the imminence of an election creates a strong push to get information and ideas out.
One thing in particular that can happen is an endorsement, or dropping out of the race. Another is newspaper stories. Usually you find out the most the day after the election. Early voting actually sometimes makes one or two weeks in advance equal to the day after the election. When early voting starts you get stories – sometimes on the Internet – about what an election means. So there’s an advantage to it, provided almost nobody does it.
Or provided you can change your vote. This can be done with absentee ballots. Best is if in person votes take priority and automatically cancel an absentee ballot. The sate legislature in New York wants to change that. I don;t know if that is still on. That system also means you won’t know the results till after Election Day because no absentee ballots are logged in as valid until after the polls close on Election Day.
Early voting is in-person voting – one long Election Day – now how would it work there?
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:48 pmI am in California, and we processes are easily accessible and online. From what I’ve read, this isn’t so in any number of other states.
there’ even DMV ‘vending machines’ is grocery stores to process DMV paperwork, a la lottery machines. Pretty amazing– and quite convenient.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:49 pmThere were elections for more than 3,000 federal offices since and it wasn’t an issue, and it wasn’t an issue for the previous 18,000. With that being the case, why even take that as a consideration, it happens a few times a century, and there are processes to address it in every state.
Oh, and there was no early voting in Missouri at the time, there was the normal absentee ballot situation, but no one is/can/will get rid of that…military vote and snow birds, GOP core constituents, well, until recently.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:58 pmThe Dana in Kentucky (fa23a0) — 3/21/2021 @ 1:44 pm
Not quite:
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-nys-history-of-black-voter-disenfranchisement-20210302-5lndjww6gnhw7bw5iv67a6darq-story.html
In New York, emancipation actually had been postponed because it would also have given former slaves the right to vote.
From earlier in that article:
As the article says later, emanicipation didn’t become law till 1799 and then it was gradual with the last slave being freed in 1827.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 2:06 pmThe 15th amendment meant something in New York – and in the south too, in 1870.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 2:09 pmone of the election law “reforms” proposed in one state was to close the polls an hour earlier on Election Day.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 2:15 pmDems in HR1 are trying to tilt things the other way – particularly demanding that all states legalize ballot harvesting.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 2:17 pm110. Time123 (797615) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:31 am
China reportedly couldn’t decide who to help, or was afraid it could backfire, and so did nothing in the 2020 presidential election.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 2:23 pm33. BillPasadena (5b0401) — 3/20/2021 @ 9:17 am
Then you break the law again. Now nobody will investigate minor marijuana use that took place years before if this is not something already known, but it could become a problem if someone aspires years from now to a job requiring Senate confirmation. And leaves room for blackmail.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 2:28 pmSomebody went to some trouble to fake a Facebook post from the Atlanta murderer that he did it because he hated or wanted to punish Asians
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/technology/how-anti-asian-activity-online-set-the-stage-for-real-world-violence.html
Kast two paragraphs:
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 3:32 pmOr at least that believed things that might make such a motive plausible. Facebook would have kept it up only because they believed that the purpose of circulating it was NOT to endorse the views in it.
The anti_Chinese stuff, with calls for violence, picked up only after the November election. It’s got to be organized.
This contains what it reads:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/18/facebook-posts/anti-china-post-supposedly-written-atlanta-shootin/
The absird thing in that fake Facebook post is:
Otherwise there’s nothing much objectionable about it at all. There is a cover-up, even Biden’s national security people think so. Of course trying to get people to throw out the bathwater with the baby might have been the idea.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/21/2021 @ 3:42 pmHave the words “I am terribly insulted!” Ever swayed a jury, a judge, the law?
This line of reasoning might lead a casual observer to conclude that “innocent until proven guilty” would, likewise, terribly insult those who care about law-and-order with the prospect of the guilty being so favored as to allow one criminal to escape justice.
I would argue that people who don’t”give a sh1t” also don’t vote. I would agree that protecting their non-vote from possibly being cast fraudulently is an important concern. But that clearly implies that there are people who care so much about their (another, not their own) vote that they would engage in such fraud. Every citizen should have the right to cast their own vote any way they wish if anyone’s vote is to count. The insulted be dammed.
felipe (484255) — 3/21/2021 @ 4:41 pmTrump requests mail-in ballot ahead of local Florida election despite baseless fraud claims
Sounds legit.
Dave (1bb933) — 3/21/2021 @ 5:03 pmAs long as a Trump-loving Republican does it, everything’s cool. The rules are different for everyone else.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/21/2021 @ 5:59 pmI didn’t realize this. Nation wide?
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 6:18 pmWhen Trump shamelessly says that mail-in voting is fine in Florida because Republican governors controlled the system, and he doesn’t realize how weird it sounds to put the matter in partisan terms, he’s actually revealing his self-referential ethical code once again: What he regards as his side or his team (to the limited extent he plays on a team) is always in the right, by virtue of being aligned with him.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/21/2021 @ 6:21 pmIt is exhausting to keep trying to get this point across. If people don’t see it by now, or can’t bring themselves to admit its truth then I think they never will. And for a cherry on top, they’ll continue to give him money too.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/21/2021 @ 6:27 pmTrump seemed to imply that Republican-run states with existing mail-in voting programs were secure but that Democratic-led states establishing or expanding mail-in voting during the pandemic were not.
Heads I win. Tails you lose.
It’s tremendous!
norcal (01e272) — 3/21/2021 @ 6:58 pmBTW, Mrs. Montagu and I just had shot #2
I had the second on Friday. In and out in 30 minutes.
My wife had the first shot last Wednesday during a procedural meltdown at the vaccine site that had people waiting in lines of cars for over 4 hours without a toilet in sight.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:11 pmEarly voting is in-person voting – one long Election Day – now how would it work there?
Polls open Friday morning, close Sunday night (and sure, overnight too). If you are really going to be out of town, you do what they did in 1960 — get an absentee ballot. If you are going to be suddenly called out of town, well, 3 weeks of early voting isn’t going to be any help since it’s in the past now.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:17 pmI am in California, and we processes are easily accessible and online. From what I’ve read, this isn’t so in any number of other states.
This is pretty new. Here in NM, there are private companies and municipal-government storefronts to process almost all MVD paperwork (e.g. conveying a title from and out-of-state lease). I’ve never had to spend more than a couple of minutes or drive more than a mile to deal with even the most complicated motor vehicle licensing problem. But getting that first ID required some legwork. I think maybe it should.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:21 pmTrump requests mail-in ballot ahead of local Florida election despite baseless fraud claims
Had Trump supported mail-in ballots for last November’s election, he probably would have won all those close states and been re-elected. By telling his supporters to wait until election day he basically did the opposite of GotV.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:32 pmIt’s mind-boggling how so many people can keep insisting that Trump is not at all a self-centered narcissist, when that is the most obvious thing about him — aside from obesity, ridiculous hair, a garish spray tan, and vulgar speech patterns. Maybe all those other things are his Teflon. If you criticize him on any grounds, the faithful will claim it’s just the superficial stuff that offends your elitist prejudices.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:47 pmI’ll admit that the Latin language can make anything sound extraordinarily elegant (quoting myself) – except for pulchritude (pulchritudo). If there’s an opposite of onomatopoeia, that’s it.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/21/2021 @ 7:51 pmIt’s been an unfortunate word ever since Publius Claudius Pulcher drowned the sacred chickens, Radegunda.
nk (1d9030) — 3/21/2021 @ 8:30 pmClick this link for lawyer joke cartoon. At large free archive of comic strips.
nk (1d9030) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:04 pmhttps://patterico.com/2021/03/17/eight-dead-at-atlanta-area-spas-suspect-in-custody/
It turns out that Aaron Rupar lied again.
https://redstate.com/bradslager/2021/03/21/vox-pillow-fight-matt-yglesias-calls-out-the-fake-news-of-the-atlanta-sheriff-but-then-learns-his-writer-was-the-source-n347520
BuDuh (8ed7d3) — 3/21/2021 @ 9:14 pmTrump is also a terrible liar. For the first 70 years of his life no one ever called him on it and he thinks he’s just too clever.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/21/2021 @ 10:05 pm@178 Loved the joke, nk. The cherry on top was the boat’s name.
norcal (48e6f0) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:41 amCompletely off-topic, but I went not to one but two (completely opposite) movies this weekend in a theater-Tenent and Nomadland. Social distancing was easy (only a few other audience members) and while the theater’s rules required mask wearing during the show, there was no enforcement. So good to see a movie in the theater again, because no matter how big your TV is, a movie screen is bigger and the sound is better.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/22/2021 @ 10:03 amIt produced substantially worse government if you weren’t a white male property owner. Which is such an obvious point this has to be sarcasm.
Time123 (c9382b) — 3/22/2021 @ 10:17 amThere’s an op-ed piece i the New York Times that says Napoleon was really bad – for black people in the Caribbean. (it still has to make him slightly worse or describe it in a somewhat worse manner than it was. He mostly did not succeed in restoring slavery.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/france-year-of-napoleon.html
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/22/2021 @ 11:41 amDr. SCott Gottlieb on where the CDC guidelines for Covid rotection are wrong. He’s much too kind to the CDC. They made assumptions and since then any changes require studies. He says they should adjust ther guidelines much more often and limit what they ask people to do.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wheres-the-science-behind-cdcs-6-foot-social-distance-decree-11616358952
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:03 pmEurope’s regulators apparently actually thought that their back and forth on the Astra Zenica accine builds public confidence. Actually it makes it worse. It tells people that what they thought at one time was wrong – and then that that correction was wrong.
I read that Astra Zenica wants to put a warning it can cause blood clots in its labeling in the UK. That is precisely wrong! It increases the risk of bleeding, as they themselves have said.
because in some people it destroys platelets.)
AStra Zebica, which may be ineffective against the South African variant of the virus (or maybe just of limited effectiveness) is heading toward approval in the U.S. Meanwhile the Biden Administration, having declined letting European countries have any Astra Zenica vaccine, is releasing about one third of the stockpile to Mexico and one fifth to Canada.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:12 pmR.I.P. Elgin Baylor, Laker all-star, 86.
He holds the record for most points in an NBA final game, 61 points against the Celtics in 1962.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:30 pmThe Pfizer vaccine is also less effective against the South African variant so maybe it’s all of them. (naturally acquired immunity I think should work just about as well though) The vaccine exposes the body to a limited portion of the virus – just the spike protein – and the antigens on the South African variant are somewhat different from those the body makes antibodies against.
Also: (previously posted) The Eli Lilly antibodies don’t work against the South African variant and only one of the two in the Regeneron antibody cocktail does.
This could be fixed, but not fast if they go through the whole rigamarole of testing again.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:30 pmRecall petitions certified: Governor Newsom will have to face the voters again soon. CA SoS certifies petition signatures as being 80% valid and 300K over the needed number, according to email from Carl DeMaio
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:32 pmIt produced substantially worse government if you weren’t a white male property owner. Which is such an obvious point this has to be sarcasm.
I would like to point out that only the middle two paragraphs in Time’s quoteback were from me. The idea of reverting to the pre-Jackson voting rules is Dana in KY’s. I agree with Time on this one.
I would like every adult citizen to vote, so long as they made even a half-assed attempt to become knowledgeable bout the issues and/or candidates. Even if all they do is determine which party tends to favor their views. But I do NOT think we need to force, or even encourage, people to vote who don’t give a crap.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:36 pm(naturally acquired immunity I think should work just about as well though)
Then you have no idea how this works, Sammy.
The mRNA vaccines, as well as the adenovirus carrier vaccines present a protein common to all variants, one that is used by the virus to enter and corrupt cells and without which it isn’t actually a virus (since it can’t make copies).
With these, the body is trained on finding and destroying any foreign DNA which expresses that protein. A common denominator approach.
Vaccines based on attenuated or deactivated viruses train the body to detect that entire virus. The immune system may also become sensitive to variants, but that isn’t guaranteed. Since post-infection immunity similarly trains the system to the entire virus, it also has no clear benefit towards variants.
This is why flu shots are so hit and miss. In the future, when they apply mRNA techniques to the flu (or HIV or HPV, etc) expect those vacciens to be far more effective.
As for “why [some vaccine] is less effective against variants” it is that the variant is more aggressive at taking over cells. An equal immune response to a more aggressive virus will result in more, and more severe, cases on average. But still quite a bit better than without the vaccine at all.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:47 pm191. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:47 pm
No, they don’t.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-science/virus-variants-found-to-be-deadlier-more-contagious-some-may-thwart-vaccines-idUSKBN2B92U7
That;s the main thing where the variants are different. There’s mutations on other parts of the virus, but they are only concerned about mutations on the spike protein.
They can classify variants 3 ways:
1) By the geographhical location where something they are concerned about (where the virus could act differently) emerged or circulated.
2) By a number. In one case they used the same number to cover two different unrelated mutations
3) By a name for the actual mutation they are concerned about, like E484K.
That was the idea. But there can be a few variants in that – maybe one thing is key but it’s too small.
Flu mutates far more rapidly than coronavirus. It’s true the body develops immunity toward rrelevant parts of the flu virus and if it was the key part it couldn’t change.
I understand, in the case of the UK variant, the virus seems to lack the protection that orevents Covid-19 from infecting people. It’s usually covered. In the case of the South Afrucan variant something seems to make it more successful into entering into cells. These changes are all on the spike.
Let me see something:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/coronavirus-variant-tracker.html
I said natural immunity might be more effective because the places on the virus targeted are more random.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/22/2021 @ 1:14 pmDidn’t think it was you.
Comment from upthread, another benefit of democracy is that it helps build consent in the legitimacy of the government.
Time123 (c9382b) — 3/22/2021 @ 1:40 pmhttps://campusreform.org/article?id=17068
Vandals upset that someone tells the truth about socialists.
NJRob (f03c04) — 3/22/2021 @ 2:13 pmIf this is not an incentive to get vaccinated, nothing is.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/22/2021 @ 3:05 pmI’ll pass. A year’s supply of Beaufort cheese would do it, though.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/22/2021 @ 4:28 pmHeh. It’s like rewarding people who protect themselves from COVID by giving them a heart attack.
I had a lovely County Cork cheese (Dubliner) with my salad at lunch, Radegunda, and wondered why I even bothered with a pretense of healthy greens and veggies when it’s truly only about the cheese.
Dana (fd537d) — 3/22/2021 @ 4:33 pmI had college dorm cherry pie. Seven Nilla vanilla cookies at the bottom of the bowl, three or four tablespoons of canned cherry pie filling spooned on top of the cookies. Ate it with the spoon. My thanks to the folks at FDA for the rule that guarantees that all cherry pie feeling is premium.
And just to show that I do have some restraint, I thought about getting a can of Reddi-Wip along with the other stuff at the grocery store and decided against it. This time.
nk (1d9030) — 3/22/2021 @ 5:15 pmAnd I just saw that Philadelphia Cheese makes a no-bake cheesecake filling. So that, and strawberry filling and Reddi-Wip on the grocery list next time.
nk (1d9030) — 3/22/2021 @ 5:20 pmhttps://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1374100890181902340
What do we call people who did conclude they were statements of fact?
Davethulhu (6ba00b) — 3/22/2021 @ 5:45 pmWhile we worry about all the ephemera, the hard Left revolution is just gaining steam:
Biden Team Prepares $3 Trillion in New Spending for the Economy
Welcome to the command economy and the opening days of the New Green Deal. Congrats to all you Biden voters, who will now claim that this isn’t their fault. Congrats to Trump and his minions who sabotaged the GA runoffs, who will also say this isn’t their fault.
And, of course, congrats to the American people who are going to get 51-50 shoved up their ass a nickel at a time.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 5:54 pmHey, inflation does exist. Trump was publicly saying he was going to create a $2T infrastructure spending bill…in 2016-17-18-19-20…
Biden is delivering on Trump’s promise.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 3/22/2021 @ 6:27 pmDana, at 169: in the eyes of his fans, this isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. They get to be always right, on everything, as long as they align with him. Ethics don’t matter, facts don’t matter, only loyalty does, and that’s not a big price to pay, is it?
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/22/2021 @ 9:51 pmSammy, at 158: yes. these ‘reforms’ are using the shield of claimed concern about election security to adopt measures which have nothing to do with election security, and which are intended to make it more difficult to vote.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/22/2021 @ 9:53 pm> In Missouri in 2000, a dead mad was elected to the Senate, having died 3 weeks earlier in a plane crash.
yes, and? the provisions of federal law governing the distribution of ballots to deployed military mean that it’s too late to reprint the ballots whether or not the state has no-excuse absentee voting.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/22/2021 @ 9:55 pmhttps://legalinsurrection.com/2021/03/report-democrats-going-all-in-to-take-iowa-house-seat-they-lost-by-six-votes/
Leftists going to steal a seat they lost. Voting only matters when they deem it (aka they win).
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/22/2021 @ 10:34 pm“Leftists going to steal a seat they lost. Voting only matters when they deem it (aka they win).”
Are they going to storm the Iowa Legislature if they don’t get their way?
Davethulhu (6ba00b) — 3/22/2021 @ 11:02 pmyes, and? the provisions of federal law governing the distribution of ballots to deployed military mean that it’s too late to reprint the ballots whether or not the state has no-excuse absentee voting.
So, heck, it’s already bad, let’s compound the error.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 11:15 pmAnd when I can have a HD video call with 30 people on 3 continents, nearly for free, why does it take weeks for the military to cast ballots? Answer” because nobody gives a crap about bringing voting into the 21st century. The people who run this stuff still use fax machines.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 11:17 pmInfrastructure has an outside chance of passing if they can buy enough Republican votes. But I doubt it.
The rest is performative appeasement for the progressive wing and will never see the light of day.
Dave (1bb933) — 3/22/2021 @ 11:45 pmBecause an election decided by 6 votes and an election decided by 6 million votes are the same thing…
There are 22 specific ballots in dispute in this case. I take no position on the merits of the challenge, but it’s a far cry from “I just want to find 11,780 votes”.
Dave (1bb933) — 3/22/2021 @ 11:50 pmMost states have a rule about what happens when a candidate dies after the ballots have been printed but before the election. The voters knew that the new governor, Mel Carnahan’s lieutenant governor, would appoint Carnahan’s replacement for two years, and he did in fact appoint Carnahan’s widow. Missourians did not vote for a dead man, they voted against Ashcroft.
nk (1d9030) — 3/23/2021 @ 4:51 amWe have been sovietized by your inbreeding of a commie thought process. You lincoln projectiles really should have your heads examined.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/23/2021 @ 5:51 amKevin M: #201:
The choice between a would-be dictator and a would-be socialist is regrettable but easy. You can oppose and block the Socialist. The definition of dictatorship makes opposition harder.
Appalled (ba57e7) — 3/23/2021 @ 5:52 am204.
I don’t know how the proposed earlier closing of polls was touted – this partcular provision may not have been touted as an election reform, but maybe touted as a cost saving measure, and thhrown into an election measure that did some other things the news reports did not cover. This was in Iowa.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/542216-iowa-governor-signs-bill-to-shorten-early-voting-close-polls-earlier
How? Whatever some counties were doing different than others, it does not seem to have been hours of voting.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 3/23/2021 @ 8:00 amBoris Johnson dares to say that capitalism and
the invisible hand of the marketplacegreed help develop the Covid vaccines, and all left-thinking people in Britain come out against vaccines.https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/uk/boris-johnson-greed-gaffe-eu-vaccine-row-intl-gbr/index.html
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/24/2021 @ 10:49 amhttps://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/03/vaccine-breakthrough-cases/618330
(No vaccine should be expected to be 100% effective)
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/03/americas-coronavirus-catastrophe-began-with-data/618287
They’ve now stopped.
Sammy Finkelman (6975b4) — 3/25/2021 @ 9:13 am209. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 11:17 pm
It has to do with maintaining ballot secrecy and security. It has to be done with paper ballots.
Now of course they could give this mail priority..or there’s probably a way to encrypt it securely. Against anything likely to be tried.
Meanwhile the united States postal service has plans for slowing down first class mail even more.
Postmaster eneral Louis Dejoy wants to to lengthen the standard delivery time, and also stop sending any mail within the continental United States (48 sates) by air.
The main change he did last year was to have mail delivered earlier in the day but later in the week. Although this was done to cut overtime, it actually might be no loss and maybe a gain. Mail delivered after 4 pm might as well be the next day for many purposes.
Mail more and more occasionally comes in bunches and some days only letters come and some days only magazines and catalogs. Today is a day for both, which is still the usual. I just received a replacement paper fr a weekly that was not delivered . It was put into the mail last Thursday, maybe Friday. It’s all local – the same post office zip code. A re-delivery failed last Thursday but did succeed last Friday. I have to call them up and tell them.
Sammy Finkelman (6975b4) — 3/25/2021 @ 11:01 am