Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Getting this up early as I won’t have time later… Also, as a reminder, I post what interests me, and hope might interest you. But if these news items don’t, feel free to post the news items that interest you in the comments. Make sure to include links. Now, let’s go!
First news item
Kevin McCarthy endorses Cheney’s primary opponent:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has endorsed Harriet Hageman, the Trump-backed opponent of incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming – a rare endorsement from leadership in a divisive GOP primary, and one that marks the culmination of a simmering feud between the two powerful Republicans battling over the future of their party.
The gulf between Cheney and McCarthy, summed up by Cheney:
The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy.
Second news item
With the Texas primary looming in less than two weeks, the Houston Chronicle…asked every Republican candidate running for Congress whether or not they believed the 2020 election was stolen or fraudulent.
“Of the 86 with discernible stances, at least 42 have said outright that the 2020 election was stolen, called the results illegitimate or said they would have voted not to certify. Another 11 candidates have said there was enough fraud or irregularities to cast doubt on the results of the election. Just 13 said the results were legitimate.”
…Just 9% of Republicans running for Congress this year are willing to publicly state the fact that the 2020 election was free and fair. NINE percent!
And, that’s not an isolated finding. In CNN’s latest national poll, released earlier this month, 70% of Republicans said President Joe Biden’s victory was not legitimate. Another 45% of Republicans said that there was “solid evidence” to prove that fact.
Third news item
Squad goals “huge problem” to Democrats:
The hard-left politics of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and the so-called “Squad,” once a dominant theme for vast numbers of elected Democrats, is backfiring big-time on the party in power, top Democrats tell us.
…The push to defund the police, rename schools and tear down statues has created a significant obstacle to Democrats keeping control of the House, the Senate and the party’s overall image.
“It’s what we’ve been screaming about for a year,” said Matt Bennett, c0-founder of center-left Third Way, which launched Shield PAC to defend moderate Democrats.
“It’s a huge problem.”
The latest sign of the backlash was the landslide (70%+) recall this week of three San Francisco school board members…
…
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, told Axios: “What I’m hearing at home — and what I’m focused on — are commonsense, bipartisan solutions — from tackling grocery and gas prices, to cutting taxes and fixing our infrastructure, to investing in law enforcement and fighting crime.”
Fourth news item:
Trying to allay Democrat fears:
White House chief of staff Ron Klain promised Senate Democrats that President Biden will deliver an uplifting and inspiring State of the Union address…
Klain’s goal in addressing the Senate Democratic Caucus in person on Capitol Hill appeared to be to give lawmakers something positive to focus on instead of the president’s sagging poll numbers.
In fact, senators said there was no discussion of Biden’s weak public approval rating in battleground states that will decide in this year’s midterm elections which party will control the Senate in 2023.
Klain told senators that Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress next month will tout the president’s accomplishments from last year, which many Democrats believe are being undersold, and set a clear agenda for the rest of the year.
But the conversation, while very positive, was also very general and seemed designed not to make any big news before Biden’s moment in the national spotlight on March 1.
Some concerned centrists wanted Klain to talk about Biden’s weak poll numbers in key states, such as Pennsylvania, where an October Franklin & Marshall poll found that only 32 percent of registered voters their rated his performance as “excellent” or “good.”
…Klain didn’t touch on Biden’s poll numbers and instead tried to pump up Democrats about what he predicted would be a glowing and powerful report on the State of the Union…according to several senators who attended the meeting.
Biden receives negative scores when Americans were asked about his handling of six issues…
• the Supreme Court: 40 percent approve, while 45 percent disapprove;
• the response to the coronavirus: 43 percent approve, while 53 percent disapprove;
• foreign policy: 35 percent approve, while 54 percent disapprove;
• tensions between Russia and Ukraine: 34 percent approve, while 54 percent disapprove;
• the economy: 33 percent approve, while 61 percent disapprove;
• gun violence: 24 percent approve, while 62 percent disapprove.
When it comes to the way Americans feel about Joe Biden:
• 34 percent like Joe Biden as a person and also like most of his policies;
• 21 percent like Joe Biden as a person but don’t like most of his policies;
• 4 percent don’t like Joe Biden as a person but do like most of his policies;
• 37 percent don’t like Joe Biden as a person and also don’t like most of his policies
Fifth news item
“For the past six years, I have watched and listened in disgust that not one single leader of ours with the moral authority, the courage and the will to stand up and say, ‘No, this is not who we are, this is not what America is and it’s not what we want to be,’ has done so.”
The final straws for Luttig were the Republican National Committee’s recent resolution that censured Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating on the Jan. 6 committee and called the insurrection “legitimate political discourse,” and Trump’s attacks on Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell for criticizing the RNC and of Pence for publicly stating “Trump is wrong” to say Pence could overturn the election.
Luttig elaborated by email: “This feels like a seminal moment in America when all of what the country has witnessed and endured for these years seems to be building to volcanic crescendo…. We are in political war to the death — with each other,” and “American democracy hangs in the balance.”
That more Republicans aren’t standing up to “this nonsense, this utter madness,” he said, is “the definition of failed leadership.”
Sixth news item
Before making a run for governor, maybe learn ballot requirements beforehand:
Oregon’s Democratic primary race for governor narrowed significantly Thursday, with the state Supreme Court ruling that former New York Times columnist Nick Kristof can’t run because he does not meet the state’s three-year residency requirement.
The high court upheld a January decision by Secretary of State Shemia Fagan that Kristof did not meet Oregon’s requirement that he have lived in the state since November 2019.
Seventh news item
JVW’s prediction comes true as Jeffrey Zucker’s paramour makes her exit from CNN:
[Allison] Gollust released a comment addressing her exit Tuesday night.
“WarnerMedia’s statement tonight is an attempt to retaliate against me and change the media narrative in the wake of their disastrous handling of the last two weeks,” she said. “It is deeply disappointing that after spending the past nine years defending and upholding CNN’s highest standards of journalistic integrity, I would be treated this way as I leave. But I do so with my head held high, knowing that I gave my heart and soul to working with the finest journalists in the world.”
As JVW told quipped to me: Sounds like she doesn’t plan to take this lying down, which is ironic since it would seem that she attained this position precisely through her willingness to lie down. What disgraceful people; what a disgraceful network.
Eighth news item
The beleaguered Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has been kicked off Amazon’s charity platform for its failure to disclose where tens of millions of dollars in donations it received nearly two years ago have ended up.
AmazonSmile, which gives a portion of eligible purchases on the online shopping site to charities, said it “had to temporarily suspend” the group today, an Amazon spokesperson told The Post.
“States have rules for nonprofits, and organizations participating in AmazonSmile need to meet those rules,” the spokesperson said. “Unfortunately this organization fell out of compliance with the rules in several states, so we’ve had to temporarily suspend them from the program until they come into compliance.”
Ninth news item
I will witness the Games through my unique perspective as an Uyghur-American, but also as the daughter of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur retired doctor and peaceful public servant who spent decades caring for the members of her community until she suddenly disappeared from her home in Urumqi in 2018.
Since the day she vanished, my mother has been detained by the Chinese government in one of what it calls its “re-education camps.” But the world has come to recognize them as 21st century concentration camps.
We have not heard my mother’s voice since 2018, and despite my family’s pleas for even a simple update on her situation, we have received little to no information from the Chinese government. We do not even have proof that she is still alive. It is only hope and my fervent wishes that she will one day meet her three-year-old granddaughter that keeps me moving forward with the fight to see her freed.
My mother is not in prison because she is a criminal. She is in prison for one simple fact: The Chinese Communist Party can’t see past her ethnicity. She is in prison for the crime of being Uyghur.
The Chinese government may dismiss the accusation that it is carrying out genocide against my people and disregard international calls to close the camps and free all those detained Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. But when we know the names and stories of unjustly imprisoned individuals, the perpetrators should at the very least face intense pressure from the U.S. to release those individuals, especially the family members of the American citizens.
It’s a relatively small act for the leader of the free world to say the name Gulshan Abbas. It could change the course of my mother’s life.
Tenth news item
COVID-19 cautionary tale for US:
At the beginning of February, Denmark became the first major country to lift the last of its COVID-19 restrictions and effectively declare its part in the pandemic over.
Around the world, and especially in the United States, Denmark’s “liberation” from indoor mask mandates, vaccine passports and nightclub closures was heralded as a watershed moment — the shape of things to come. Democratic governors across the U.S. started rescinding their own mask rules a few days later.
“This marks the transition to a new era for all of us, because Denmark will once again be an open society, completely open,” said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. “We dare to believe that we are now through the critical phase.”
Since then, however, Denmark has continued to record more COVID-19 cases per capita than nearly anywhere else in the world, and both COVID hospitalizations and deaths have shot up by about a third.
“Not looking good in Denmark,” Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Translational Institute, tweeted Sunday, sharing several charts that terminated in near-vertical upward lines. “Deaths are now 67% of peak, with a steep ascent.”
MISCELLANEOUS
No comment but definitely a smirk at these GOP candidates:
.@JaneTimkenOH, what are you referring to when you say “inadequacies” here? Asking for a friend. pic.twitter.com/VGwGzUXxEe
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) February 18, 2022
“WHO’S THAT COMIN’ DOWN THE TRACK? A BIG MACHINE THATS RED AND BLACK… AINT NOTHIN’ FINER IN THE LAND, THAN A CONSERVATIVE KANDISS TAYLOR FAN!!!!”
Let’s do this… Let’s paint Georgia Taylor RED! ❤️💋👠
See you on tour! 🇺🇸🍑
*Tour schedule is posted on website!* pic.twitter.com/QsxjNw4qeG— Kandiss Taylor (@KandissTaylor) February 17, 2022
Texas GOP candidate Bianca Gracia pledged to be a “mini Marjorie Taylor Greene’ if elected to office.
Gracia, who currently serves as the president of the organization Latinos for Trump, made the comparison to the controversial Republican Georgia representative during an appearance on The McFiles podcast on Wednesday. She praised Greene as “the only one right now that’s really fighting back.”
“They don’t like her. So I might be a little mini Marjorie Taylor Greene,” she said. “I don’t know. They’re going to call me BRG.”
Have a great weekend!
–Dana
Hello!
Dana (5395f9) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:21 amRe: Item #1:
Wyoming GOP move to allow RNC to fund Cheney challenger spurs outrage
Wyoming Republican Party leaders moved to allow the Republican National Committee to support Harriet Hageman, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump in her primary run against Rep. Liz Cheney, on a financial basis.
……..
Republican National Committee Rule 11 prohibits the national party from contributing money or in-kind aid to any candidates before they become nominees through a primary or convention with two exceptions: if the candidate is unopposed after the filing deadline for the nomination or if the three RNC members from the state (the state party leader, the national committeeman, and the national committeewoman) give their written approval to the RNC to support the candidate.
Wyoming Republican Party Chairman Frank Eathorne, National Committeeman Corey Steinmetz, and National Committeewoman Nina Webber did just that, essentially declaring Hageman, an attorney and former RNC national committeewoman, the presumptive nominee……..
“The Wyoming Republican Party Chair, Committeeman, and Committeewoman have signed a letter in accordance with the RNC’s Rule No.11(a) to support the candidacy of Harriet Hageman in the Republican Primary,” an RNC official said in a statement.
“The RNC respects the will of Republicans in Cheney’s home state and agrees that Cheney is working against the best interests of Republicans in Wyoming and nationwide, and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and the RNC as a whole support the Wyoming GOP’s Rule No. 11(a) ruling to support the candidacy of Harriet Hageman,” the official said.
……….
“Frank Eathorne and the other leaders in the Wyoming GOP apparently believe they have the power to anoint our nominee before a single vote has been cast,” Jeremy Adler, a Cheney spokesman, said in a statement. “The right of the people to vote is sacred. This is un-American.”
……….
……….Several Republican challengers dropped out of the race following Trump’s endorsement of Hageman, but a few who are not raising nearly as much as Cheney and Hageman remain.
Two of those, State Sen. Anthony Bouchard and Army veteran Denton Knapp, are also expressing anger at the move to let the RNC fund Hageman.
Bouchard, a firebrand in the state party unafraid to rile up fellow Republicans, wrote in a Facebook post that party insiders “are once again trying to play a trick on the voters.”
“The current GOP Chairman, Frank Eathorne, has been making back room deals since I got in this race. Hageman is an RNC INSIDER. Now the party insiders are breaking the rules once again,” Bouchard said.
Knapp told the Washington Examiner that voters around the state are telling him: “We do have a choice, and we shouldn’t be dictated as to who our representatives gonna be before the election even happens.”
………
Wyoming state law states: “No political party funds shall be expended directly or indirectly in the aid of the nomination of any one person as against another person of the same political party running in the primary election.”
Jack Speight and Stephen Klein, both attorneys with experience in Wyoming election law, told the Washington Examiner that the statute does not prohibit the RNC from spending on Hageman in the primary because federal law supersedes state law and because the race is for federal office. But if the Wyoming GOP directly or indirectly financially supports Hageman, that could open up legal issues.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:42 am………..
Legal political corruption.
On Timkin’s ad —
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:50 amIt’s hilarious to see people trying to present themselves as super tough and strong by boasting about their slavish devotion to the same mentally unhinged narcissist that their opponents are desperately trying to please.
Durham Distances Himself From Furor in Right-Wing Media Over Filing
John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel scrutinizing the investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference, distanced himself on Thursday from false reports by right-wing news outlets that a motion he recently filed said Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid to spy on Trump White House servers.
Citing a barrage of such reports on Fox News and elsewhere based on the prosecutor’s Feb. 11 filing, defense lawyers for a Democratic-linked cybersecurity lawyer, Michael Sussmann, have accused the special counsel of including unnecessary and misleading information in filings “plainly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage and taint the jury pool.”
In a filing on Thursday, Mr. Durham defended himself, saying those accusations about his intentions were “simply not true.” He said he had “valid and straightforward reasons” for including the information in the Feb. 11 filing that set off the firestorm, while disavowing responsibility for how certain news outlets had interpreted and portrayed it.
……….
……….[T]he conservative news media treated……..sentences in Mr. Durham’s filing as a new revelation while significantly embellishing what it had said. Mr. Durham, some outlets inaccurately reported, had said he had discovered that the Clinton campaign had paid Mr. Joffe’s company to spy on Mr. Trump. But the campaign had not paid his company, and the filing did not say so. Some outlets also quoted Mr. Durham’s filing as using the word “infiltrate,” a word it did not contain.
………
…….(Durham’s) explanation for why he included the information about the matter in the earlier filing implicitly confirmed that Mr. Sussmann had conveyed concerns about White House data that came from before Mr. Trump was president.
The purpose of the earlier filing was to ask a judge to look at potential conflicts of interest on Mr. Sussmann’s legal team. Mr. Durham included those paragraphs, he wrote, in part because one of the potential conflicts was that a member of the defense had worked for the White House “during relevant events that involved” the White House.
The defense lawyer in question is Michael Bosworth, who was a deputy White House counsel in the Obama administration.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:53 am………..
Meanwhile, in the People’s Republic Of Canada:
Ottawa Police: “All media who are attending the area, please keep a distance and stay out of police operations for your safety. Anyone found within areas undergoing enforcement may be subject to arrest. There will be a media availability later today at 474 Elgin Street. #ottnews”
https://twitter.com/ottawapolice/status/1494683910411751426?s=21
Not allowing the media to observe arrests….
Which side are you on?
Obudman (f8e026) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:59 am“Not allowing the media to observe arrests….
Which side are you on?”
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/journalists-say-rcmp-blocked-efforts-to-cover-police-raids-on-wet-suwet-en-camps-1.4806267
Where were you 2 years ago?
Davethulhu (b008b2) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:09 amSo on one hand, GOP has a problem of 2020 election deniers. On the other hand, the Democrats have a problem with the Squad and their views.
Glad to see the moderates in this country still hold significant sway.
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:13 amSo no one can witness a Mountie kneeling on a trucker’s back?
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:14 amSo you’re siding with “the media” — i.e. “Enemies of the People.”
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:15 amHackers Just Leaked the Names of 92,000 ‘Freedom Convoy’ Donors
……..
…….[T]he leaked (GiveSendGo) database contains a lot of information that was never meant to be shared, data like donors’ full names, email addresses, and location.
…….
Also included in the leaked data were the messages that some donors posted alongside their donations. …….
While most of the users’ messages were relatively benign, there are a number of more troubling posts, like this from one user: “I look forward to the day you tyrants are swinging from a noose.”
Other messages flagged by Monmouth University extremism researcher Sara Aniano—and verified by VICE News—included: “We have 2A here in America send your mounties and see what happens,” “CABAL PIGLETS ARE CORRUPT CRIMINALS WHO NEED SEVERE PUNISHMENT UNDER LAW,” and “Death to all liberal traitors.”
One donor who submitted from a Department of Justice email address ……..VICE News was unable to verify that the named person sent the donations, but the name provided matches a current employee of the DOJ, based on their LinkedIn profile.
There are also email addresses from people claiming to work for NASA, the U.S. military, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Transportation Security Administration. There’s also a donation from someone whose name and email address match those of a senior employee at the Delaware Transit Corporation (DTC).
No one has claimed credit for the hack of the GiveSendGo website, but users who visited the site on Sunday evening were redirected instead to GiveSendGone.wtf, where they were greeted by a video from the Disney film Frozen and a message that read:
“Attention GiveSendGo grifters and hatriots. You helped fund the January 6th insurrection in the U.S. You helped fund an insurrection in Ottawa. In fact you are committed to fund anything that keeps the raging fire of misinformation going until it burns the world’s collective democracies down. On behalf of sane people worldwide who wish to continue living in a democracy, I am now telling you that GiveSendGo itself is now frozen.”
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:16 am………
It amounts to the same question. Right now Russia/Ukraine is the main foreign policy matter.
He doesn’t give even partial credit to Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence?
And because Xi Jinping wants lots of arrests and punished officials for releasing too many.
I can see a reason: She is a doctor, albeit retired, and might have covertly treated some enemies of the government or people resisting some things. She was arrested pretty early, so it might be connected to her work as a doctor.
She’s also maybe being unco-operative, so they’re not allowing any contact with people abroad, or perhaps the government knows her daughter can’t be swayed.
Or don’t rely on people who supposedly know better.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:22 am“No one has claimed credit for the hack of the GiveSendGo website”
https://tnc.news/2022/02/17/self-described-cyber-terrorist-takes-credit-for-illegal-givesendgo-data-breach/
Whether you believe him is another question.
Davethulhu (b008b2) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:23 amOf course,m the reasons for arrestng and detaining Dr. Gulshan Abbas are secret, as is the very fact of her arrest.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:26 amGOP plunges into season of ‘self-hate’ that will rewire the party
………
………[F]ractious primaries will unfold across the electoral map in the coming months, cementing a more populist orientation for the GOP and Donald Trump’s status as the party’s lodestar, or setting a more traditionally conservative course.
……..
“Primaries are always f**ked up to some degree, but it’s different now,” said John Thomas, a Republican strategist who works on House campaigns across the country. “There’s more self-hate than there was before. Ten years ago, we’d argue about who was more pro-gun, who was more pro-life. Now, my clients are going RINO hunting, which is a level of disdain that was not there before in our party.”
Much of the churn is due to forces unleashed by Trump. The defeated president’s iron grip on the party and level of involvement in midterm primaries is unprecedented in modern history, and he continues to advance his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. The Republican electorate overwhelmingly agrees with him, furious at Republican politicians who resisted overturning the election. Not only do Republican primary voters nearly uniformly believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, a common sentiment for the out-of-power party, but they are seething — about the last election, about Joe Biden’s Washington, about two years of a pandemic.
………
Evidence of the party’s unrest is everywhere. Nearly a half-dozen GOP governors are facing competitive primary challenges, ranging from Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine is facing a primary challenge from former Rep. Jim Renacci, to Idaho, where conservative Gov. Brad Little is being challenged by his lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, who is trying to outflank him on the right.
In the South, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has eight Republicans running against her, including at least two with significant resources. Next door in Georgia, former Sen. David Perdue, with Trump’s support, is running to unseat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. In Texas, Trump’s endorsed candidate, Gov. Greg Abbott, faces multiple challengers from his right, including Allen West, the former Florida congressman and former chair of the Texas Republican Party.
……..
……..In Oklahoma, the state Republican Party chair is endorsing a primary challenge to GOP Sen. James Lankford, who infuriated Trump by voting to uphold the results of the November election. In Arkansas, Dick Uihlein, one of the GOP’s biggest donors, has put $1 million into a campaign to defeat incumbent Sen. John Boozman.
……..
……..In Wisconsin, state Rep. Timothy Ramthun announced his candidacy for governor this past Saturday, running explicitly on an election conspiracy platform. In Arizona, the frontrunner in the Republican primary for governor, Kari Lake, falsely insists Trump won the state and has said she would not have certified the 2020 election.
……..
The results of the primaries will be interpreted, most of all, as a measure of Trump’s influence over the party. He has endorsed roughly 100 candidates so far in the current election cycle, ranging from Senate and gubernatorial contests to state legislative and local races.
But the primaries will also test the durability of the Republican coalition that Trump shaped as a candidate and as president — a political legacy marked by significant losses for the GOP in America’s suburbs, but gains among white working-class voters and, to a lesser extent, Latino voters.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:28 am………
Related: Democrats fight about policy. Republicans fight over who’s most loyal to Trump
Even if the Chinese government doesn’t say a word, or allow any communication.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:29 amMore from the Quinnipiac poll:
Americans say 55 – 30 percent that the tensions between Russia and Ukraine will lead to war……
If Russia does invade Ukraine, Americans say 57 – 32 percent that the United States should not send troops into Ukraine.
A majority of Americans (54 percent) support President Biden’s decision to deploy thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to support U.S. allies in NATO, while 36 percent oppose it. Democrats support Biden’s decision 70 – 22 percent, independents support it 56 – 36 percent, while Republicans are divided with 47 percent opposed to it and 43 percent in support of the decision.
By a margin of nearly 2 to 1, Americans say 62 – 34 percent that Russia poses a military threat to the United States.
……..
……[M]ost Americans agree with Pence (saying that Trump was wrong and that as vice president, he had no right to overturn the election ). Roughly 7 in 10 Americans (72 percent) say Mike Pence’s view is closer in line to their way of thinking, while 17 percent say Donald Trump’s view is closer in line to their way of thinking.
Among Republicans, a slight majority (52 percent) say Pence’s view is closer in line to their way of thinking, while 36 percent say Trump’s view is closer in line to their way of thinking.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:36 am…….
Bianca forgot some core tenets of MTGism..otherwise the Q’s would have just been satisfied with JFK Jr lookalike nephew Jack Schlossberg as Trumps running mate, and John James would be the junior senator from Michigan.
urbanleftbehind (c073c9) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:38 amMorning Consult/Politico Poll: Most Voters Reject Jan. 6 as Legitimate Discourse, but Republicans Are Divided
One-third of Republican voters said the events of Jan. 6 were a legitimate form of political discourse, compared with 38 percent who disagreed and 29 percent who did not know or had no opinion.
Republican men were more likely than Republican women to say Jan. 6 was legitimate discourse (38 percent to 28 percent), with women 16 percentage points less likely than men to express an opinion about the Capitol aggressors.
Among the overall electorate, 54 percent said Jan. 6 was an illegitimate form of political speech, with just 13 percent of Democrats and 18 percent of independents saying the opposite.
……..
Half of Republican voters said the GOP should move on from Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, while 37 percent said it should continue to focus on them.
Nearly 4 in 5 Democrats, and 63 percent of independents, said the party should drop its talk about Trump’s false claims.
………
Trump overall favorability: 41/56
Among Republicans: 79/20
More Cross tabs.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 11:47 amCalifornia bill would allow citizens to enforce weapons ban
………
(Governor Gavin) Newsom said he hopes the proposal forces the U.S. Supreme Court’s hand on the Texas abortion law. He said it will either expose their “hypocrisy” if they should block California’s proposal that affects the gun industry and not the Texas law on abortion.
“Or it’ll get them to reconsider the absurdity of their previous decision,” Newsom said, adding: “There is no principled way the U.S. Supreme Court cannot uphold this California law. None. Period full stop. It is quite literally modeled after the law they just upheld in Texas.”
………
The proposal fulfills fears from some gun rights groups, who have opposed the Texas abortion law because they worried liberal states like California would use the same principle on guns.
“If Texas succeeds in its gambit here, New York, California, New Jersey, and others will not be far behind in adopting equally aggressive gambits to not merely chill but to freeze the right to keep and bear arms,” attorney Erik Jaffe wrote in a legal brief on behalf of the Firearms Policy Coalition, a nonprofit group that advocates for gun rights.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:10 pm……..
……..[T]he bill would apply to those who manufacture, distribute, transport, import into California, or sell assault weapons, .50 BMG rifles, ghost guns or ghost gun kits.
……..
The bill would let people seek a court order to stop the spread of these weapons and recover up to $10,000 in damages for each weapon, plus attorney’s fees.
……..
Entirely predictable.
With respect to the pardon power for treason, which the Constitution does confer to the President, there was a long running argument in Philadelphia, mainly by Edmund Randolph but with some support from others (e.g. Franklin).
September 10, 1787: (emphasis mine)
Note that Randolph clearly saw the loopholes that future governments would nest their power within.
September 15, 1787
The amendment fails. In the end, George Mason, Randolph and Eldridge Gerry (-mander) declined to sign the final document. Randolph listed this as one of his objections in a letter to the VA House of Delegates.
(all quotes taken from Madison’s Notes, as found in Max Ferrand, “The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787” (Library of Congress)
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:14 pm*Elbridge Gerry
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:16 pmBLM and gun control activist attempts assassination, Republicans get blamed
The Las Vegas Sun quietly “updated” their Wednesday editorial to include an alleged shooter’s left-wing activism after blaming Republicans for the assassination attempt.
Bob Cauthorn, the outlet’s chief operating officer, told the Daily Caller Thursday that the outlet updated their editorial, “Escalating hateful rhetoric leads nation down a dark, chaotic path,” to include alleged 21-year-old shooter Quintez Brown’s involvement in Black Lives Matter (BLM) and gun-safety movements after receiving several calls and backlash on social media.
The editorial originally read: “While there’s been no indication yet that the activist had ties to any right-wing organizations, the shooting comes amid a rise in threats against politicians fueled by increasingly violent rhetoric coming from extremist Republicans.”
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:21 pmJurors in Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times say they got notifications on their phones that the case had been dismissed before reaching a verdict
lol
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:25 pm…Just 9% of Republicans running for Congress this year are willing to publicly state the fact that the 2020 election was free and fair. NINE percent!
I DO believe that all the votes were counted correctly, that no one was denied ballot access out side lawful limitations, and that all ballots counted were cast by lawful voters. In that sense the election was “free.”
I DO NOT believe that the 2020 election was “fair” due to too many “emergency” changes made to voting rules, some of which were (and have been found to be) in violation of state law or constitutions. Most of these enabled the less involved (and probably less informed) voter. State funds were used to harvest ballots, not always equitably, and the general attitude of many officials was to treat the operation as “get out the vote.” Since it has long been known that higher turnout favors Democrats, this amounted to further help for left-of-center voters.
That of course doesn’t mean a damn thing about whether the election was valid. We’ve had far worse before. I would hope that in the future courts would not be so pliant or perhaps partisan, but that wish may not be forthcoming.
However, if you asked me if the election of 2020 was valid, I would say yes. If you asked me if it was “fair and free” I would say no.
But the divergence in rules within states (were laws were treated more liberally by liberals) meant that more conservative areas had to stick with the law as they found it, or race to the bottom to get more of “their” votes to count.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:27 pmSquad huge problem for third way corporate establishment dinos. As well they should be. The left wants to take control of the democrat party from corporatists. If they lose some dinos along the way ( 2022 election ) that just makes it easier to take over democrat party. The letist base are fans of bernie and AOC not pelosi and senile joe. Their are three groups that have power in the democrat party. The left. poc(minorities) and the establishment. In 2016 and 2020 the poc played it safe and went with the establishment ;but AOC is the favorite of latinx and younger black militant democrats in congress are getting more and more support from older black democratic voters. Its about taking power in the democrat party not winning the 2022 election. If republicans win it will just remind voters why they hate republicans as joe biden reminds people why they hate democrats.
asset (d701e0) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:28 pmPeople lie to pollsters, and not in the way some people might expect
https://www.newser.com/story/317100/more-us-adults-than-ever-before-id-as-lgbtq.html
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:28 pmI would also point out that the necessity of the Electoral College remains obvious. Without the EC, election disputes would spread nationwide, with distrust of the “national popular vote” (or at least those votes coming from your most unfavored states) widespread. The resulting chaos would have been exploited by Trump and his ilk, and if Congress had any say in it would have been an effing disaster.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:32 pmJurors in Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times say they got notifications on their phones that the case had been dismissed before reaching a verdict
The judge should be removed from office. He essentially engaged in jury tampering.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:34 pm@24 Biden won az, ga. and wi. by a total of 43,000 votes and only because democrats kept green party off ballot in those three states thanks to republicans passing ballot access laws in their never ending attempts to keep the libertarian party off of the ballot. 9% I thought it would be lower as populist trump supporters are 85% of the republican party now.
asset (d701e0) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:35 pmIt would also be determined who sent these jurors the “push notifications” and whether it was some of them, or all of them.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:37 pm@10 “On behalf of sane people worldwide who wish to continue living in a democracy”
the irony of appointing himself the guardian of democracy is no doubt lost on him
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:44 pmThey probably had their phones set up for news alerts, probably as a default or easily joined by their operating system.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:44 pmTrump coin scam – not done by Trump, but targeted at his supporters. They’re not made up out of gold.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/technology/trump-coins.html
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:52 pmThey probably had their phones set up for news alerts, probably as a default or easily joined by their operating system.
Jurors in high-profile trials should be required, on penalty of dismissal, to remove all such notifications from their phones until deliberation is over. Is it a surprise that there would be news out of the trial?
Also, what was the judge’s need to make this statement if he was not trying to affect the jury’s verdict. Remember, this is the judge who dismissed the case without trial. Is it unreasonable that he wanted to be upheld? I would like to hear him give a reason, under oath.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:56 pmRip,
What VICE posted was reprehensible. Linking to reprehensible content is also reprehensible.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 12:59 pmOn the other hand, Rip, your post in #2 is greatly appreciated.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:03 pmSome concerned centrists wanted Klain to talk about Biden’s weak poll numbers in key states, such as Pennsylvania, where an October Franklin & Marshall poll found that only 32 percent of registered voters their rated his performance as “excellent” or “good.”
If the next election were held today, Biden would lose to a side of beef.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:04 pmTenth news item: COVID-19 cautionary tale for US
pfft
the linked article and tweet are more examples of how to lie with statistics
the spike started well before the lifting of restrictions, but the x axis dates make it look otherwise
the spike has more to do with the extremes of omicron, and the hills in the data lines correspond to winter over the years when most people in denmark would be confined indoors
as people venture outdoors in spring i imagine the cases will go down dramatically, but there will be no follow up on the story cuz the narrative will have been busted
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:06 pmKM @37-
Both are legitimate news stories. VICE did not link to the hacked information, nor did they identify anyone by name unless it was publicly available on the crowdfunding website.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:08 pmThat more Republicans aren’t standing up to “this nonsense, this utter madness,” he said, is “the definition of failed leadership.”
We got Trump due to failed leadership in the first place. Successful leaders don’t get populist revolts. When they decided to oppose Trump with Ms Same-old Same-old, we got into it. When they challenged him again with Mr Fifth-Time’s-a-Charm, we were in the crapper no matter who won.
I do agree that the Trump stranglehold is off-putting, but it’s not so bad it makes me want to choose the Hard Left that controls the Democrat party.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:12 pmI have a cynical view of human nature and believe that some human beings will try to cheat at anything they consider to be important.
Like voting. The verified 2020 voter fraud numbers are too small to be believable. 150M people voted in a bitter battle of us vs them yet we get these stupid little numbers.
Unprecedented numbers of votes should equal unprecedented attempts at fraud.
The low count is actually more worrisome than a high or moderate historical comparison figure.
I’m not saying massive fraud against Trump, and I do not think anyone can prove this happened, but I’m shocked no one anywhere tried.
steveg (e81d76) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:13 pmBoth are legitimate news stories. VICE did not link to the hacked information, nor did they identify anyone by name unless it was publicly available on the crowdfunding website.
OK, Rip, I accept that, although I still criticize VICE for even that. Fruit of the poisoned tree.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:13 pmToday is Mask Freedom Day in NM. Although, since I was wearing an N95 mask well before anyone thought to mandate them, I will probably not stop quite yet.
I would ask, no matter what your position on mandates is, that you respect individual’s choices in this regard as their health concerns many be different from yours and they have no duty to explain themselves to you.
Shorter: NoYFB.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:17 pmThe two attempts by partisans to start an investigation both failed abysmally, or at least that angle failed, although at least the first bit of “evidence” in the first attempt did get published, but the media did not cover it correctly back then:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-are-those-techies-who-spied-on-trump-clinton-2016-election-durham-data-fusion-gps-joffe-11645139606
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:23 pmSecond news item: Shameful
if the leftist houston chronicle asked democrat candidates in 2018 whether trump colluded with russia to meddle in the 2016 election, they would’ve gotten similar results
but they didn’t ask
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:23 pmUnprecedented numbers of votes should equal unprecedented attempts at fraud.
No, they only indicate that voter outreach efforts were unusually successful. I guess when you mail everyone a ballot and given them a couple of months to fill them out and mail them back, turnout will go up. Even in states where there were no bulk mailouts, requesting a ballot only required web access.
My complaint is that these activities were (quite predictably) biased towards less-involved voters. Normally that would be Democrats or “independents”, but with Trump running that’s really hard to say.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:24 pmTrudeau’s trucker crackdown begins: Hundreds of cops backed by armored vehicles and horses start arresting Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa and towing their big rigs as they use powers granted by Emergencies Act
………
Using Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s extraordinary powers under the Emergencies Act, police have established a ‘no-go’ zone around the demonstration in Ottawa’s core, and on Friday a massive force of cops and a fleet of tow truck drivers began clearing out the Convoy’s final stronghold.
Citing the ‘exceptional circumstances’ of the police action, Canada’s Parliament suspended Friday’s debate on Trudeau’s emergency powers, sparing the Liberal leader another day of uncomfortable speeches from MPs who fiercely oppose his use of the draconian Emergencies Act.
In Ottawa, cops carrying automatic weapons and wearing tactical unit uniforms converged on a line of trucks, campers and other vehicles parked on Ottawa’s snow-covered streets. Police brought a dozen horses to confront protesters, backed by an armored vehicle.
Tow truck operators wore neon-green ski masks with their companies’ decals taped over on their trucks to conceal their identities from protesters. They arrived under police escort and set to work removing the big rigs, campers and other vehicles parked bumper to bumper in the Parliament Hill blockade.
More than 20 people were arrested and 21 vehicles have been towed since the crackdown began. Two camper vans that had been a signature feature of the occupation – blocking one of the main arteries into the Parliament Hill area – were among those hauled away. One of the occupants was arrested.
Protestors have been defiant, and some tried to fortify their positions against the police advance by building barricade made of snow. But it has clearly been dawning on many that the authorities’ massive display of force is particularly daunting.
………
‘What you are seeing are Public Order Units in a line formation. Protestors are continuously being told to leave, or they face arrest,’ Ottawa police said in a statement.
‘You will see the line slowly moving forward to give people who want to leave the opportunity to do so.’
Despite the fearsome appearance of some of the police units – including riot cops from the Surete de Quebec – cops have so far used a tactic of gently pushing forward to gain ground.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:24 pm……….
Large photo gallery at link. The Sûreté du Québec apparently has a reputation for toughness.
In Denmark, a few weeks ago an even more contagious version of Omicron was gaining – it had reached 5%. no 40% No 65%
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/omicron-new-version-asia-europe-who-20220125.html
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:28 pm46. Trump was telling people not to vote by mail.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:29 pm#46
That is one way to look at it.
This is why it seems too low
https://fortune.com/2021/12/14/trump-voter-fraud-investigation-biden-battleground-states-only-475-potential-voter-fraud-cases/
steveg (e81d76) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:30 pm“Republican Accountability Project”
Bill Kristol and Mike Murphy (McCain guy who crapped all over Palin), former GOP political consultants now cadging dollars from #neverTrump, much as Trump does from his supporters.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:31 pmhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lies-we-tell-during-job-interviews-11610326800
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/business/jobs-hiring-fraud.html
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:32 pm46. Trump was telling people not to vote by mail.
He was. And it cost him the election (along with several other terrible moves).
However, here in NM, the GOP was pleading with GOP voters to vote by mail.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:33 pmAn electric bus (they were all bought years ago) had on it the claim:
Clean Energy Hyrid Electronic Bus
Clean energy. Nothing about climate change/
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:35 pmJudge allows lawsuits against Trump for January 6 to go forward but tosses cases against Giuliani and Trump Jr.
……..
Trump’s statements to his supporters before the attack on the US Capitol “is the essence of civil conspiracy,” Judge Amit Mehta wrote in a 112-page opinion, because Trump spoke about himself and rally-goers working “towards a common goal” of fighting and walking down Pennsylvania Avenue.
“The President’s January 6 Rally Speech can reasonably be viewed as a call for collective action,” Mehta said.
………
“To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step. The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent,” Mehta wrote.
“After all, the President’s actions here do not relate to his duties of faithfully executing the laws, conducting foreign affairs, commanding the armed forces, or managing the Executive Branch,” Mehta added. “They entirely concern his efforts to remain in office for a second term. These are unofficial acts, so the separation-of-powers concerns that justify the President’s broad immunity are not present here.”
……..
“It is reasonable to infer that the President knew that these were militia groups and that they were prepared to partake in violence for him,” the judge said. “The President thus plausibly would have known that a call for violence would be carried out by militia groups and other supporters.”
The cases will proceed against the Oath Keepers organization and against Enrique Tarrio, the recently incarcerated leader of the Proud Boys. They sought to get the case dismissed but the judge concluded that the allegations — of a conspiracy between Trump and the extremist groups and leaders — were plausible enough to allow the litigation to move forward.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:36 pm………
The judge indicated he would also eventually dismiss the case against Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican, but he wasn’t ready to do that on Friday due to technical reasons related to Brooks’ defense strategy.
………
The separate lawsuits were filed by Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Bennie Thompson (D-MI), and Capitol Hill Police officers.
@50 whether vote fraud actually happened in one specific election is not the issue
when you loosen voting rules, vote fraud is enabled, and every close election will be doubted unless there’s an exhaustive audit every time
in oregon, you have to wait a week after the election to allow the counting of mailed ballots with a postmark on election day
this is lunacy, but it’s where we’re headed everywhere cuz exploiting election chaos is what many are after
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:39 pmMy quip in the email I sent to Dana about Allison Gollust:
Sounds like she doesn’t plan to take this lying down, which is ironic since it would seem that she attained this position precisely through her willingness to lie down. What disgraceful people; what a disgraceful network.
JVW (ee64e4) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:43 pm@55 nutjob obama appointee
thanks to biden voters here, we’ll get more of these
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:46 pmA majority of Americans (54 percent) support President Biden’s decision to deploy thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to support U.S. allies in NATO, while 36 percent oppose it. Democrats support Biden’s decision 70 – 22 percent, independents support it 56 – 36 percent, while Republicans are divided with 47 percent opposed to it and 43 percent in support of the decision.
Pfft.
Yet no poll includes the price tag: NOBODY has asked WHAT IT COSTS the U.S. Treasury.
… and Putin smiled. Jinping merely grinned… with interest.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:48 pmOK, Rip, I accept that, although I still criticize VICE for even that. Fruit of the poisoned tree.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:13 pm
Would you have also applied that standard to other published leaks, like the Pentagon Papers?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:49 pmWhat disgraceful people; what a disgraceful network.
Seems we’ve seen this show before “on another channel” as the saying goes; ‘Fiery Resignation’… the cure-fer-what-“Ailes” ya, “Foxy” lady. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:51 pmTrump said in court he had no ‘knowledge’ of his company’s finances a day before he issued an 1,100-word statement defending his company’s finances
Former President Donald Trump said in a court filing Monday that he “denies knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth” about his company’s finances.
A day later, he issued a blistering 1,100-word statement in response to his longtime accounting firm Mazars USA dropping the Trump Organization as a client and claiming it could no longer stand by a decade’s worth of tax documents. Trump waxed lyrical about his company’s “fantastic assets” and said prosecutors should consider giving Hillary Clinton the death penalty instead of investigating the Trump Organization’s finances.
……….
The discrepancy was pointed out in a court filing Wednesday from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James. Her office is set to face off against Trump in court Thursday and ask a judge to enforce a subpoena that would force him to sit for a deposition.
“It is not unusual for parties to a legal proceeding to disagree about the facts,” wrote Austin Thompson, a lawyer for James’s office. “But it is truly rare for a party to publicly disagree with statements submitted by his own attorneys in a signed pleading — let alone one day after the pleading was filed. That is what Mr. Trump has done here.”
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:55 pm………
On Monday, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, both of whom James is also seeking to depose, filed arguments to try to block a subpoena as well. They similarly argued they did not have “knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth” regarding the attorney general’s claims about the company’s finances.
………..
“It is not plausible that neither Mr. Trump, nor Donald Trump, Jr., has sufficient knowledge to form a belief as to Mr. Trump’s relationship with the Trump Organization, the key entities that hold its assets, or the Revocable Trust,” (Austin Thompson, a lawyer for James’s office) wrote. “Such denials of information can and should be treated as admissions.”
………
Livestream of Ottowa protests
felipe (484255) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:57 pmAnd regarding Nick Kristof: the guy reportedly has $2.7 million left in his campaign warchest. Can you believe that? Apparently a lot of insecure wealthy lefties are willing to write checks in order to ingratiate themselves with a NYT columnist, and I’ll bet an awful lot of them live in New York. I think I probably would have waited to see if the guy actually qualified for the ballot before sending him any filthy lucre, but that’s just me. I am interested in seeing what Mr. Kristof does with that sum. I will legitimately respect him if he gives it to worthy charities which are directly working on the ground to improve people’s lives. I will have contempt for him if he uses it as a PAC and donates it to groups which lobby legislators on behalf of various trendy progressive causes.
JVW (ee64e4) — 2/18/2022 @ 1:59 pmJoe holds presser; tells Putin to behave, clean up his room or he’ll ground him for a month and cut off his allowance!
A lot more fun to rattle sabers with other people’s money over Ukraine than face failures over protecting America’s borders, Covid , 7.5% inflation, $6/gallon gasoline and defending yourself against the perception of incompetence, eh, Joe? The MIC is making out swell. Just like Big Pharma!
‘The entire Free World is united.” – Squinty McStumblebum
Germany set Ukraine… helmets, Joe.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:03 pmN.Y. Attorney General Can Question Trump and 2 Children, Judge Rules
……….
Lawyers for the Trump family had sought to prohibit Ms. James, a Democrat, from interviewing Mr. Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump. They had argued that Ms. James was politically biased against Mr. Trump and was inappropriately using her civil inquiry to aid the district attorney’s criminal investigation, which she is also participating in.
But in a written ruling, the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, dismissed that point, saying it “completely misses the mark.” After dismantling several other arguments, he concluded that Ms. James had uncovered “copious evidence of possible financial fraud” — evidence that entitled her to question the Trump family.
“She has the clear right to do so,” he wrote, ordering that Mr. Trump and his son and daughter face questioning in the next three weeks.
………
The ruling does not mean that Ms. James will automatically receive the answers she is seeking. Mr. Trump and his children can invoke their constitutional right not to incriminate themselves, as Mr. Trump’s other adult son, Eric Trump, did when questioned by the attorney general’s office in October 2020. The Trump family also intends to appeal the decision, according to the spokeswoman.
………
Earlier in the day:
For Donald Trump to plead the Fifth would very damaging politically, like he had something to hide (really? I’m shocked), but TrumpWorld wouldn’t care.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:09 pmI DO NOT believe that the 2020 election was “fair” due to too many “emergency” changes made to voting rules, some of which were (and have been found to be) in violation of state law or constitutions
Thank you Kevin. Fair summary. There were a whole lot of novel, ad hoc, extraordinary, and I would dare say “abnormal” efforts to issue and collect ballots. Most of these were deliberately targeted to increase voter turnout among groups who generally choose not to vote. It’s not at all clear to me that those voters’ actual choices were as well protected from undue influence as provided for by more traditional processes in-person voting.
pouncer (6c33cf) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:10 pm@64 it says something about oregon that kristof was probably the most sane democrat in the race
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:12 pmThey’d be no more bothered by Trump pleading the Fifth than by Trump shooting someone on Fifth.
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:19 pmDid any of those changes make it harder for Trump voters to cast ballots than for Biden voters? Unless the changes put up specific obstacles in front of one party’s voters that the other party’s voters did not face, then it was not unfair.
If the complaint is that it was too easy for Democrat-leaning voters to vote, that’s basically a way of saying “We want to discourage Democratic constituencies from voting.” That might be “fair” if everyone is equally discouraged. But it doesn’t mean that”fairness” is really the guiding concern.
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:27 pmhttps://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1494683917923885062
Biden’s approval rating now as low as Trump’s at this stage of his presidency:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
…and Trump had a much more adversarial media than Biden*.
*Although, I suspect Biden will get much of the blame if the GOP’s Red Wedding is as bloody this November as many people think is going to happen.
whembly (7e0293) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:31 pmhttps://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/biden_administration/66_of_voters_believe_biden_should_take_mental_test
Only 23% of Democrats think Biden’s mental capacity has declined in the last two years.
steveg (e81d76) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:34 pmScience deniers.
I go back and forth on former President Trump taking the 5th. It would be in his best interest not to speak. Speaking is when things go off the rails.
steveg (e81d76) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:41 pmYou can find graphs of cases and deaths from COVID in Denmark here. The cases hit levels far higher than had been seen earlier in the pandemic, just as authorities decided to relax restrictions. On February 1st, for example, case levels hit more than 40 thousand, more than ten times as high as in an earlier peak, mid-December, 2020.
Fortunately, daily deaths have not risen proportionately, but they are still averaging higher than at the previous peak.
The difference between the rise in cases and the rise in deaths may well be partly, or even mostly, a result of greater testing in recent months.
If you are fond of Danes — and you should be, even if you aren’t part Danish, like me — you should regret that they lifted the restrictions prematurely.
(As far as I know, the statistics from Denmark are reasonably accurate, unlike those from, for example, Russia.)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:42 pmJVW @ 57,
I had forgotten to include that fun bit. Just added it to post.
Dana (5395f9) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:44 pmWhat should have happened in 2020 with election rules is that governors and state legislators should have worked together, regardless of party, to change the laws — and if necessary, state constitutions — to provide for the emergency. This would have required legislators to put their nation ahead of their party, something difficult to do, for many.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:50 pmWhat should have happened in 2020 with election rules is that governors and state legislators should have worked together, regardless of party, to change the laws — and if necessary, state constitutions — to provide for the emergency. This would have required legislators to put their nation ahead of their party, something difficult to do, for many.
Sure, but what’s the fun of seizing “emergency powers” as Gavin Newsom did (fun fact: he still officially holds those powers to this day) if you can’t just unilaterally write election laws? Although, to be fair, Newsom did have his allies in the legislature rubber-stamp his new rules.
JVW (ee64e4) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:02 pm@76 no laws needed to change
absentee ballots existed decades before covid, and anyone who didn’t want to vote in person could get one
this was one party not letting a crisis go to waste and some useful idiots lending them a hand
JF (e1156d) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:05 pm#73 steveg – One of the things that fascinates me about Trump is that he seems all too willing to talk, when he shouldn’t. And to people he shouldn’t talk to. (He seems to have figured out that he shouldn’t talk to Bob Woodward, but it took him a while. He cooperated with Woodward on Woodward’s second Trump book, “Rage”, but not his third, “Peril”.)
That’s not an original observation:
So I think he will talk under oath while his lawyers sit there in agony.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:05 pmIt’s not at all clear to me that those voters’ actual choices were as well protected from undue influence as provided for by more traditional processes in-person voting.
Why is in-person voting less susceptible to undue influence? Do you believe that “voters actual choices” are different if they vote by mail or in-person?
I haven’t voted in-person for the last 40 years, and my choices would not have been different if I voted in-person. I don’t like crowds or waiting in line.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:13 pmRadegunda (c970ff) — 2/18/2022 @ 2:19 pm
Excellent……
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:14 pmit says something about oregon that kristof was probably the most sane democrat in the race
Except that he is not.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:15 pmIf the complaint is that it was too easy for Democrat-leaning voters to vote, that’s basically a way of saying “We want to discourage Democratic constituencies from voting.”
Which explains this.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:17 pmhttps://dailycaller.com/2022/02/18/brandon-republicans-are-still-swamp-critters/
mg (8cbc69) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:19 pmShow up and vote, Republicans will crash and burn with the likes of no see um mitt
Metadata shows pro-Russian separatists filmed evacuation video days earlier
Metadata from the messaging app Telegram indicates that pro-Russian separatist leaders created videos ordering “emergency” evacuations from eastern Ukraine two days ago, but posted them on Friday, Bellingcat first reported and Axios can confirm.
U.S. officials have for days now accused Russia of preparing to fabricate a pretext to invade Ukraine. The two-day-old metadata from the leaders of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics could undermine claims that they ordered the evacuations due to an imminent threat of a Ukrainian offensive.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:23 pm……….
After shuttering two U.S. embassies in six months, Joe delivers defiant Ukraine/Putin speech; plagiarizes again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEDWDAMRBeU
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:24 pmPresident pudding & naps needs a vacation.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:30 pmU.S. officials have for days now accused Russia of preparing to fabricate a pretext to invade Ukraine.
Copyright infringement or intellectual property theft?!?! Very faux Gulf of Tonkin and faux WMD of them there Rooskies. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:32 pmToss her probably picturesque aezz out with the same haste this page wanted Eileen Gu tossed:
urbanleftbehind (c073c9) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:38 pmhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/m-irresponsible-yesterday-felt-amazing-004900428.html
Allison Gollust violated the Tease (there’s also another word, but it’s too early in the thread) Code as exemplified by such notables as Megyn Kelly: Titillate the procreative urge; frustrate it; collect $20 million for sexual harassment.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:38 pmWhich side are you on?
Obudman (f8e026) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:59 am
Dudley Do-Right’s.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:41 pmFavorite bits of Russian fakery- flying the same few bombers over and over Red Square parades fooling observers as they counted the same planes over and over…. and, of course, the ‘Vox’ logo on Russian rock band equipment at one of their HS dances.
How the USSR tried to scare the U.S. with FAKE weapons – and it worked (PHOTOS)
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:41 pmhttps://www.rbth.com/history/333163-how-ussr-tried-to-scare
Can Madison Cawthorn Be Blocked From the North Carolina Ballot as an Insurrectionist?
………
…………Cawthorn has become an insurrection apologist. He has described the detained rioters as “political hostages” and “political prisoners,” and has said that if he knew where they were incarcerated, he’d like to “bust them out.” At a speech last August, he said, according to the (disqualification) petition:
The Qualifications Clause Argument
……….
In my view, the Qualifications Clause argument is the critical one in the Cawthorn case. It will be a tough call. On the one hand, if Cawthorn were disqualified from appearing on the primary ballot—which is what could theoretically happen here—the House’s power to reverse the board’s judgment would become highly attenuated. Imagine, for instance, that Cawthorn were disqualified, a different Republican ran as a result, and that that Republican ended up winning in the general election. In that event, House members would have little incentive to refuse to seat that person regardless of whether they felt Cawthorn had been wrongly disqualified.
On the other hand, it’s eminently sensible for states to winnow out ineligible candidates before putting their names on printed ballots. Why should they waste resources holding elections that must later be voided because the winners are ultimately found to have been ineligible to have ever run in the first place?
………….
……..Must Section 3 (of the Fourteenth Amendment) comply with the First Amendment or the Bill of Attainders Clause since Section 3 postdates them……?
………
……..The First Amendment and Attainders Clause are so fundamental to the nation’s freedoms and notions of fairness that judges will try to harmonize Section 3 with them. Chief Justice Salmon Chase, acting as a circuit judge in Griffin’s Case, interpreted Section 3 so as to comply with the Attainders Clause in that matter. By analogy, it’s likely that most judges will want to interpret Section 3 so as to comply with the Qualifications Clause, too.
………..
The Amnesty Act Argument
Cawthorn argues that the “plain” meaning of the broad “all persons whomsoever” language in the 1872 law reached into the future and now protects him, since he was not a member of either the 37th or 38th Congress. (He’s a member of the 117th.)
………..
The petitioners call Cawthorn’s invocation of the Amnesty Act of 1872 “novel and bizarre.” Their first argument is textualist. The 1872 act says that “political disabilities imposed” by Section 3—past tense—“are hereby removed. … That necessarily means disabilities already imposed, not disabilities the amendment might impose in the future.”
………..
……[T]hey note the legislative history of the 1872 law is rife with references to ex-Confederates while evincing no solicitude whatever about the fate of insurrectionists of the future.
……….
Was the Capitol riot an insurrection, and, if so, did Cawthorn “engage in” it?
…………
Under a grand jury instruction on criminal insurrection, for instance, approved by a federal circuit court in Illinois in 1894, the Capitol riot would easily qualify:
………
[T]he U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit—interpreting a 1954 First Circuit case—defined “insurrection” in a way that would also encompass the attack on the Capitol. The 1954 case involved “a little band of extremists” who, calling themselves the Nationalist Party, had burned buildings and raised their flag over several towns in Puerto Rico for a day. In reviewing the earlier holding, the Second Circuit wrote with approval:
…………
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:42 pmSo far, Cawthorn’s known conduct does not reach this level. He is accused only of irresponsible, reckless, dishonest, and provocative speech, and of helping to organize rallies to vent and promote such speech. While there are a few precedents in which people incurred Section 3 disability from speech alone, most commenters are unwilling to follow them, given that those precedents precede modern-day First Amendment doctrine. ………..
…………
The chances of disqualifying Cawthorn are, therefore, slim. The petition against him stands a realistic possibility, however, of generating valuable discovery about a dark event of surpassing importance in the nation’s history. It might also establish precedents that could provide helpful guidance for future, weightier Section 3 challenges.
……..
Kevin MC Carthy plunged the knife hours after he got called simp.
Yet at Columbus level, Ohio will remain milquetoasts.
urbanleftbehind (c073c9) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:47 pmWhich side are you on?
Obudman (f8e026) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:59 am
Dudley Do-Right’s.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:41 pm
Whose side would Steve the Navy Chef’s Canadian Highlanders be on? Lots of egg on face if the stateside Truckophiles got played by China Kinda Suss.
urbanleftbehind (c073c9) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:54 pmFor the Southern Californians (and exiles):
Karen Bass takes early lead in L.A. mayor’s race, poll finds
Voters would advance Rep. Karen Bass to the November runoff by a wide margin if the Los Angeles mayoral primary were today, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
……..
None of the other candidates have support above the single-digit level, and a large majority of likely voters said they didn’t know enough about them to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion. Results for all registered voters were similar to the likely voter pool.
“This is really a race for second place. It’s about who is going to join Karen Bass in the top two,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll, who has surveyed voters in California for more than four decades.
……….
The contest includes more than two dozen candidates, but the most attention has centered around Bass, City Council Member Kevin de León and Rick Caruso, the wealthy real estate developer who entered the race last week.
……….
Bass starts out with major advantages, including a generally positive image — 42% of likely voters view her favorably and 14% unfavorably. Even she is far from universally known, however. Despite her decades as a public figure, 44% of likely voters said they do not know enough about her to have an opinion.
……..
In the race to gain name recognition, the biggest opportunity could belong to Caruso, the developer of the Grove shopping center and other high-end properties, who has the wealth to self-finance a robust campaign.
……..
In the poll, 64% of likely voters didn’t know enough to form an opinion of him, 15% had a favorable impression and 21% had an unfavorable impression.
He starts the race as the first choice of 8% of likely voters, the poll found, tied with De León and slightly ahead of Feuer and Buscaino, each with 4% support.
……….
But Caruso faces some major hurdles, including his lack of experience in elected office and former Republican affiliation — he shifted his registration from no party preference to Democrat last month.
Asked to identify attributes they considered important in the next mayor, nearly three-quarters of likely voters said prior experience in public office was either very important or somewhat important. Roughly 7 in 10 said being a progressive in politics was either very important or somewhat important to them.
Voters weren’t as concerned about the candidates’ gender or race………
………
In the current poll, 61% of likely voters identified themselves as liberal, 24% called themselves moderate and just 14% identified as conservative.
By contrast, when (Richard Riordan, the last Republican mayor) won, Times exit poll results showed 29% of voters identified as liberal, while 42% said they were moderate and 29% identified as conservative.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:54 pm………
Top lines.
Perhaps the S. Ct. Will Reconsider the “Actual Malice” Libel Test — but Not in Palin v. N.Y. Times
Sarah Palin will doubtless appeal the verdict against her, and will almost certainly lose. Under existing libel law, she could only prevail if she could show so-called “actual malice,” which basically means that the Times knew that the statement about her was false (knowing falsehood), or at least published it with a “high degree of awareness of … probable falsity” or “entertain[ing] serious doubts as to the truth of his publication” (reckless disregard of the risk of falsehood). Mere negligence or even gross negligence isn’t enough. The jury has resolved against Palin this factual question about the Times editors’ mental state, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is highly unlikely to overturn such a factual ruling.
……..
But it seems to me extremely unlikely that the Court would agree to hear Palin’s case, because it arises under New York law—and a recent New York statute adopts the “actual malice” test as a matter of state law, whether or not it applies as a matter of First Amendment law.
Whether the Court overrules some of its First Amendment libel precedents thus wouldn’t affect Palin’s case, because one way or the other the jury had to be instructed under New York law…….. That legal irrelevance of the First Amendment question is basically a dispositive reason for the Court not to exercise its discretion to hear this case.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 3:59 pm……….
Frackers Hold Back Production as Oil Nears $100 a Barrel
……..
Three of the largest shale companies, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. , Devon Energy Corp. and Continental Resources Inc., this week reported their highest annual profits in more than a decade for 2021. The companies said they collected record amounts of extra cash by hanging on to the money they earn selling oil and natural gas and reinvesting only what they needed to keep output roughly flat. All three said they would continue to limit production growth this year.
They are pledging austerity despite a tightening oil-market supply. Global oil-production growth isn’t keeping pace with renewed demand as economies recover from the pandemic, and the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is rattling markets. Those dynamics have alarmed the White House, which has asked U.S. producers to drill more as it confronts soaring gasoline prices and broad inflation.
For now, most large shale companies aren’t answering the White House’s call, sticking to commitments they made to limit production and return more cash to shareholders, an effort to win back investors who fled the industry after years of poor returns.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/18/2022 @ 4:08 pm………
Oklahoma-based Devon, the top performer in the S&P 500 last year, said it has expanded a share-buyback program by 60% and raised its dividend to a record level. The company also said it collected $2.8 billion in profit last year, its highest since 2007. ……
……..
Pioneer posted $2.1 billion in annual profit last year, the highest in at least two decades, according to FactSet, and it sent about $1.9 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. …….
……..
Meanwhile, Continental lifted its share-repurchase program 50%, increased its quarterly dividend 15% and recorded an annual profit of $1.66 billion last year, the highest in at least two decades, according to FactSet………
…….
Gold hit to $1900.00/oz., area. Thanks, Vlad!
… and William Devane smiled.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 4:20 pmHow the USSR tried to scare the U.S. with FAKE weapons – and it worked (PHOTOS)
… and Northrop, Lockheed-Martin, and McDonnell-Douglas smiled.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 4:31 pmOT- This is worth a watch- just because it’s insane…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Z8YT6w7Rc
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 4:59 pmRip Murdock asks Why is in-person voting less susceptible to undue influence? Do you
believe that “voters actual choices” are different if they vote by mail or in-person?
Well, let’s consider a couple of scenarios. Suppose a “Right-to-Work” (union-busting) issue dominates the ballot. And suppose the union shop steward ‘asks’ all the members to vote for a particular slate of candidates. To ensure nobody ‘gets confused’, there will be a special meeting and the steward will ‘guide’ everybody on which candidates are pro- or anti- union. And he’ll review ballots, afterwards, to ensure the documents are marked ‘correctly.’ And he’ll collect all the ballots, and he promises to walk them to a collection point — on behalf of the voters.
Suppose the issue is abortion, and the guide and reviewer is the local fundamentalist pastor
‘helping’ his congregation.
Suppose the issue is school funding, and the principal guides and helps all the teachers and staff.
Suppose there is no particular issue, but the group being organized is all the inhabitants of a nursing home — some of whom have no particular ax to grind about unions or abortion or school funding, but there is a community organizer who shows up to ‘help’ everybody get registered and choose candidates and mark ballots and collects and reviews all the marked ballots and takes them away with the promise — pinky-swears! — to take them to a legitimate drop box by the deadline, yep even the ones that the stubborn old Republican insisted on marking the ‘wrong way’.
That sort of this has happened, (Taminy Hall and Pendergasts and Daleys and google “machine politics” for any major city you like) and I see no great moral reform that has stopped it from happening and that’s the background in which legislatures came together in bi-partisan fashion to secure voting places, and erect voting “booths” and require signs and volunteers to stay such-and-such a distance from voters, and why there are polling clerks and election judges from both major political parties on-site at all times, and why candidates may have silent “poll watchers” in attendance, and when a halt, lame, blind, or otherwise impaired voter requires assistance that affidavits are collected from the voter AND the designated assistant… I don’t know about every state but I think most places have measures supporting the whole idea of “secret ballot” and I think the whole idea of mass mailed ballots totally subverts those measures.
At the polling places, also, the number of people who walk through the doors tends to correlate very strongly to the number of ballots issued out. The number of ballots issued also tends to correlate very closely to the numbers of total votes cast. Strangely, with mailed ballots, the correlation of ballots mailed with ballots returned is less robust.
pouncer (6c33cf) — 2/18/2022 @ 5:07 pmIf you’re finding Wordle too easy, try Quordle. You get nine tries to find four words.
lurker (59504c) — 2/18/2022 @ 5:40 pmOr for a geography variant that’s only superficially comparable, but I suppose they’re doing their best to jump on the Wordle bandwagon, you can play Worldle. Good for a minute or two innocent distraction.
lurker (59504c) — 2/18/2022 @ 5:41 pmFinally, if you prefer your distractions not so innocent, there’s Lewdle. Very faithful to the original, and the modification should speak for itself. Just in case you’re a little slow on the uptake, it’s NSFW.
lurker (59504c) — 2/18/2022 @ 5:41 pmIn Britain, some years ago, a Labour MP received complaints from Muslim women that they were being forced to sign “postal” ballots, as they call them in Britain — which were then taken away from the women and filled in by their husbands or fathers. Similar things have happened in the United States.
In general, when organized vote fraud is committed in the United States, it is almost always done with absentee ballots, for the reason that “pouncer” mentions: the lack of secrecy.
That said, some states, for example Utah and my own Washington, have been able to have relatively clean elections, in spite of conducting them entirely by mail. And I approve of the much higher numbers of absentee ballots during the COVID emergency, even though I dislike them in general.
For the record: in my relatively well informed opinion, vote fraud is far rarer in the United States now than it was when I was born in 1943. It is even rarer than it was in 2000, when the disputed election inspired reforms in many states.
(An old joke, from before the collapse of the Soviet Union: Hungary’s Interior Minister calls the Head of State.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:01 pm“Thieves have broken into the ministry this evening.”
“Have they stolen something?”
“Alas, yes. All the results of next year’s elections.”)
“Despite the fearsome appearance of some of the police units – including riot cops from the Surete de Quebec – cops have so far used a tactic of gently pushing forward to gain ground.”
The video of cops on horseback stomping on protestors must be fake.
https://www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2022/02/protestors-trampled-by-cops-on-horseback-in-ottawa/
I wonder if it will get 1/10th the coverage of the fake border patrol whips.
Which side are you on?
Obudman (f8e026) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:04 pm“The CDC just quietly lowered the standards for speech in early childhood development.
Now children should know ~50 words at 30mo rather than 24mo.
Instead of highlighting the harmful effects masks & lockdowns have had on children, the CDC just lowered the bar for milestones.”
https://twitter.com/bowtiedranger/status/1494508996811706376?s=21
Obudman (f8e026) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:08 pmIs comrade in Latvia go to vote. Commissar give him ballot in envelope say here is your ballot go put in ballot box. Comrade try to open ballot commissar say stop what you think you do? Comrade say I want to see how I vote. Commissar say you cannot do that we have secret ballot. Then secret police arrest comrade. Very sad.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:11 pmCanada has just had their own tiananmen square with using horses to trample innocent protesters standing up to a totalitarian regime. And not a word said by the usual suspects.
SHAME!
NJRob (fbe422) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:11 pmThe video of cops on horseback stomping on protestors must be fake.
They are.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:14 pm#109 nk – You may be amused — I was — to learn that I just read an almost identical joke told about Israel’s Mapai party in 1955. Though with a happier ending, since there was no arrest.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:16 pmA horse will not step on a person if it can possibly avoid it. Those soccer match fakers rolling on the ground may (remotely) possibly have been shouldered aside and fallen down but I don’t believe even that. I think they’re faking it from start to finish.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:17 pmDoes anyone understand why NJRob thinks that people who are defying a freely elected government, and breaking the law by blocking public highways, should not be arrested?
Here’s a similar example.
Would he object if they were blocking his private driveway?
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:37 pmBritain is having a possibly record breaking storm.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:44 pm@96:
This L.A. Mayor’s contest will be much different than any before, since it’s not held in Feb or March of an of-year, but coincides with the state’s general election in November. Instead of the expected 20% turnout, it will be somewhere in the 50-70% range.
This is critical to open the process to more citizens (yes, they should show up at other times, but they don’t) and for candidates like Caruso who have an appeal outside the usual off-year voters (city employees, labor unions (birm) and “activists”). So the usual bike-riding gay environmentalist vegan car-hating ex-Hippie candidate will no longer be an obvious shoo-in.
Caruso, of course, needs to make the case why someone from outside politics can do a better job than the ratpack who have been busy wrecking the city for the last few decades. It’s a guess if he can get his message across, but at least they may show up to vote.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:56 pmWould he object if they were blocking his private driveway?
Why would they? Do you see this as a bunch of random nihilist attacks on the state?
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:58 pmNow children should know ~50 words at 30mo rather than 24mo.
Me, I think they should have read ~50 books by that time.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:59 pmThe good news is that US COVID deaths declined in the last week by 12.1 percent.
The bad news is that the seven-day average daily death rate is still at a high 2297. And that vaccinations declined by about 13.7 percent.
Cases are down 46.2 percent, hospitalizations 22.2 percent, so there is reason to expect further declines in the death rate in the next few weeks.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 7:05 pm“I have- we- have reason to believe he’s [Putin] going to invade.”- Herr Biden
President Plagiarist strikes again:
“We have reason to believe this prisoner is the mastermind behind numerous criminal escape attempts.” – Herr Kuhn [Hans Reiser] ‘The Great Escape’ 1963
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/18/2022 @ 7:14 pm@Jim Miller@115- I was in Europe in the big storms in 1990 which were worse than this. It was quite windy. It was not nearly the weather we get regularly in the US, though we did lose power for 2 days due to downed powerlines all over the place. One of the general’s wives came over and borrowed a kerosene lamp and some charcoal brickets from us as they had left all their camping gear in storage in the States.
Nic (896fdf) — 2/18/2022 @ 7:19 pmNic – The commenters at Political Betting were wondering if this storm would be as bad as one in 1997 — which their weather forecasters missed, badly.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/18/2022 @ 7:27 pmIf you’re finding Wordle too easy, try Quordle. You get nine tries to find four words.
Our host and the guest blogger who actually knows what she is doing introduced me to that time-waster and I doubt that I will ever forgive them for it.
JVW (ee64e4) — 2/18/2022 @ 7:39 pmCanada is a totalitarian regime???
Dana (5395f9) — 2/18/2022 @ 7:44 pmCanada is a totalitarian regime???
Certainly. It is governed by the Houyhnhnms who have enslaved, they say “tamed”, the Yahoos, their term for humans, and keep them as chattels to do all the work, including keeping order among themselves with their own police and political bodies.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2022 @ 8:06 pmRight? My reaction to finishing is inevitably, “I’ll never get that time back.”
As it will be tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that.
lurker (59504c) — 2/18/2022 @ 8:25 pmOn the other hand, Wordle could save your life someday.
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/18/2022 @ 8:46 pmWait, hang on: The family called the cops and said, “Mom hasn’t yet posted her Wordle board for the day and we’re worried,” and that was enough for them to do a welfare check on her after only about ten hours? Lincolnwood must make Mayberry look like Baltimore or St. Louis.
JVW (ee64e4) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:38 pmWow. Is there anything Wordle can’t do?
Now Quordle has to save four lives.
lurker (59504c) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:49 pmWTF: From The Hill- 2/15/22:
Pelosi leading congressional delegation to Israel, Germany, UK
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday announced that she is leading a congressional delegation to travel to Israel, Germany and the United Kingdom this week. The delegation, largely consisting of chairs of “significant” committees and subcommittees, will largely focus on “security, economy and governance,” Pelosi’s office said in a statement.
Pelosi will first visit Israel, where she and a delegation of seven lawmakers will meet with Israeli leaders and the civic community to discuss “the prospects for a two-state solution and regional security,” the statement said.
She will then attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany, which is scheduled to start on Friday and end Sunday. Vice President Harris will also attend the conference.
The last stop on her trip will be London, where the group will “deepen our interparliamentary dialogue on how we can continue to work together to counter antidemocratic forces and advance our shared values and interests in the global arena.” It was unclear from the statement exactly the delegation would depart for their trip. A representative for Pelosi didn’t provide such details when asked by The Hill for security reasons.
According to a report from The Times of Israel, Pelosi touched down in the country on Tuesday, and the trip is scheduled for two days. Accompanying Pelosi to all three stops will be Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Bill Keating (D-Mass.), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.). Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) will join the delegation heading to the Munich Security Conference. Smith, Himes and Maloney will travel with the original group to London.; – source, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/594328-pelosi-leading-congressional-delegation-to-israel-germany-and-uk
The Confluence of Incompetence. Memo to Vlad: the perfect time to humiliate this bunch of pantywaists; let the 48-ton good times roll!
… and Putin smiled.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 1:28 amCorporations donated millions to BLM while cities burned with no repercussions whatever. Our current VP (who some Never-Trumpers voted for) raised bail for the rioters. Yawn.
Individuals donated $25 to the peaceful anti-mandate truckers, and get their accounts frozen by government fiat with no due process.
Which side are you on?
Obudman (6c1761) — 2/19/2022 @ 2:29 amThis is shaping up to be a most interesting year. Assuming Joe Biden hasn’t provoked a bombing exchange with Rooskies and the chicoms. Hopefully the U.S.A. will still have an economy. The Democrats and their partners in crime the rinos are slowly realizing that the policies and rhetoric popular in a handful of very liberal congressional districts are despised by the tax payers. Having pushed this cesspool of schiff for years, the Democrats and rinos are now trying to distance themselves from it by declaring both the rhetoric and its loudest advocates as extreme. Republican candidates let them get away with it. The stupid party will eff the tax payer again.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/19/2022 @ 3:29 amJVW (ee64e4) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:38 pm
Cops did a welfare check (and saved her life) on my sister because another sister was worried and called them. Maybe its the fact that a woman called, and not a man (don’t men care?) or maybe, just maybe, Cops love getting sent on this kind of call – low stress, with high potential to save a life. Every LEO I know has stories of life-saving welfare checks. I bet Dustin has loads of such stories.
I blame the “bad cop” narrative that obstinately plays in the background of our lives.
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 5:22 amJVW (ee64e4) — 2/18/2022 @ 10:38 pm
Speaking of a disconcerting mom:
So our mother was a life-long Longhorn fan, so much so, that her daughters are UT graduates. So, one day my sister calls us, and is quite alarmed that she received a letter in the snail mail containing an obit of a complete stranger with no note of explanation. “Mom’s showing signs of senility,” she laments.
I call mom, who responds “Tell her to read it – to the end!”
I relay the message. Turns out that the obit of this complete stranger ended with the words “Hook’em Horns!”
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 5:30 amA little perspective on a real totalitarian state, thanks to of all people, Bill Maher. Canada doesn’t even have mounted police that whips people.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 5:57 amBezos will need some extra staff to swab the decks on his maiden voyage.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:15 amLooks like my comment on Bezos didn’t get through. Don’t tell me “swab” is a verboten word.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:16 amOh, I dunno. Getting a whole nation to believe that lean ham is bacon … there’s got to be some kind of invidious mind control involved.
nk (1d9030) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:20 amAnd don’t get me started with them combining Canadian “bacon” with pineapple on a pizza. It’s like Tianenmen or something.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:33 am“This feels like a seminal moment in America when all of what the country has witnessed and endured for these years seems to be building to volcanic crescendo…. We are in political war to the death — with each other,” and “American democracy hangs in the balance.” That more Republicans aren’t standing up to “this nonsense, this utter madness,” he said, is “the definition of failed leadership.”
Luttig skewering his former clerks Ted Cruz and John Eastman must be especially biting and embarrassing for the duo….assuming shame is still a thing for the pair. Giving Cruz’s eager participation in the run-up to the attempted coup, I think we have our answer. But Luttig also cuts to the core that our leadership has failed….spectacularly.
In a sane world, Jan 7th should have began with a bipartisan Congressional ultimatum to the President: publicly explain your actions/inactions that evening in a televised address or face immediate impeachment and removal. The fact that the GOP was already thoroughly compromised and castrated gave us what we got — perpetuation of lies, weak rationalizations, and absurd theater.
Leadership is about making hard choices that might not be popular with the base or right-wing media….and might have short-term negative personal consequences, but is necessary for a long-term successful party. Trumpism is a house of cards. There’s nothing there to build upon, except anger and the destruction of our democratic system — with nothing to replace it.
KevinM recently said that the GOP must not ignore Trump’s message, especially his message to those most effected by globalism. But was Trump’s populistic message overly simplistic? Does a border wall really address the reality that most illegals simply over-stay visas? Do we really believe a trade war is easily winnable or that government can grow economic opportunity through isolation? Do we believe that Muslims as a group should be unwelcome in America or that Russian expansionism is none of our business? I agree that the GOP needs to be responsive to voter’s concerns and fears…both economic and cultural, but that central planning or xenophobia aren’t the answers. That othering half the country isn’t a workable solution.
If we can’t even sit in the same room together, we can’t even get to politics and solving problems. This is the death of democracy that Luttig warns about….and it should animate our thinking.
AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:39 amSo police are gently clearing out the protesters and establishing a perimeter with checkpoints to prevent new protesters from entering. Larger area, more officers to monitor the checkpoints.
Less officers to police the areas from which they were drawn. How likely are we to hear about the crimes that were not prevented in the un-policed areas? You tell me. I would check insurance claims filed, for burglary, say – to start. Well after the fact, of course, but by then what will it matter?
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:52 amMaybe the suits at Chicago PD should visit bonny olde England and see how the Londoners are doing it. Granted, there a lot fewer murders by gun, etc., but…
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:57 amI’ve never followed elections in Canada before, but I’ll be very interested in them from here on out – elections are how the protesters will win, if they have a hope.
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:59 amA more comprehensive view: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/01/12/as-murders-spiked-police-solved-about-half-in-2020
nk (1d9030) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:08 amMaduro must be feeling slighted.
What a deutschebag.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:11 amJust to bore everyone more:
The axiom of “secret ballot” is not the only “norm” surrendered by Democratic-run cities and the “emergency measures” that revised election procedures in 2016. We saw several places give up on controls intended to secure the principle of “one person, one vote”. The “norm” is pre-election registration, and the changes include same-day, on-site, other-ID, “registration” — which is effectively no registration at all.
Consider a different villain, say Dick Cheney. The Dick owns a mansion in Dallas Texas and a ranch in Wyoming. Famously, when he was considered for the VP slot on the GOP ticket, he had to change his voter registration in order to comply with the US Constitutional requirement that the candidates for president and VP be from different states.
But this Dick, or any rich Dick, is not wholly unusual in owning or even residing in two different voting precincts. Dick might have a rental penthouse apartment in the city used during the work week and own a cottage in the suburbs for weekends. Or own the townhouse and a rural, lakeside cabin. Arguably — on the same reasonable grounds offered for granting the vote to illegal immigrants, Dick pays the property taxes and has a stake in the future of both locations and communities. Dick gets US postal mail in his own name at both locations. That mail includes utility bills. So, what keeps this Dick from requesting “vote by mail” ballots at both addresses? And even with in-person voting, what keeps this Dick from walking into the precinct site serving his lakeside cabin, presenting 2 forms of ID (utility bill, gun owner’s license) with the lakeside address, completing “same day registration”, and getting a ballot. Or assuming he does so successfully, then what stops him from showing up election day itself, in the city, presenting 2 OTHER forms of ID (social security mail, motor vehicle operator’s license) showing the city address, completing “same day registration” and being handed ANOTHER ballot. SO the wealthy Dick can vote twice while a poor or working class stiff only gets to vote once. Is this what Democrats mean when they talk about securing voting rights?
Suppose it’s a college student who registers and votes (perhaps by mail) at both his parent’s address and home of record, AND at his dormitory address. Suppose it’s an immigrant, legal or otherwise, who votes in the nation of his actual citizenship AND in the U.S.– at least in local elections. Suppose it’s a gung ho military service member who votes at his home of record AND at the city near where he is assigned or based. What sort of process, (we used to call it: “registration”) is supposed to prevent this sort of thing? And are subversions of this norm worthy of the word “Fraud”?
I’m kind of a traditionalist and want to preserve, or restore, our “norms”. What do those who don’t want those traditions to continue calling themselves?
pouncer (6c33cf) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:32 amHere’s some generally uninteresting and unsurprising news about Covid deaths in Africa: They’re vastly underreported.
Even at 28,000 deaths, Kenya ain’t doing so bad at 512 deaths per million. It would put them at 123rd highest, between the Maldives and Philippines.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:37 amAnd now I have two comments in Patterico purgatory.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:38 amI fished them out of spam folder and approved them, Paul.
Dana (5395f9) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:41 amWhoa, Pouncer! Great post. You forgot to mention a man named Steven who voted on the first day of early voting, undergoes gender reassignment surgery the next day and does same day registration as Stephanie on actual election day
urbanleftbehind (bc1922) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:41 am……Caruso, of course, needs to make the case why someone from outside politics can do a better job than the ratpack who have been busy wrecking the city for the last few decades. It’s a guess if he can get his message across, but at least they may show up to vote.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/18/2022 @ 6:56 pm
That’s a big if. As the polling showed, the respondents favored someone who is “progressive”, and has had prior public sector experience. It’s going to be tough for a rich white developer of elite shopping destinations to compete in a electorate that is majority minority that can’t afford to shop or live at his developments. Even then he would need to work with a city council predisposed to oppose him.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:46 amThat Jan. 6 happened to the degree it happened, indicated failed leadership. That Jan. 7 happened without a bipartisan Congressional ultimatum to the President, further evidenced that failed leadership. It’s remarkable that these two indicators have been easily brushed aside for the sake of protecting the one ultimately responsible for the failed leadership.
Dana (5395f9) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:47 amNew Traditionalists?
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:49 amAnother indicator of where the Republican Party stands: Alex Berenson has been confirmed as a speaker at this year’s CPAC.
Dana (5395f9) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:50 amI completely agree except for the assumption that there is only one person being protected -one person who failed. There are failures all around – on every side.
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:54 amDana, you’re the mensch.
There may be a reason why the octopus has a highly developed brain, and it shares a common feature with vertebrate brains: MicroRNA.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:57 amDana, you’ve got this January 6th thing all wrong.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:04 amNobody’s talking the characters who fired gas cannisters at the protesters which drove them into the Capitol Building. Just give a few dollars to Sydney Powell and she’ll have it all sorted.
OMG!
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I caught a whiff of “brave sir Robin.”
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:08 amSuppose it’s a college student who registers and votes (perhaps by mail) at both his parent’s address and home of record, AND at his dormitory address. Suppose it’s an immigrant, legal or otherwise, who votes in the nation of his actual citizenship AND in the U.S.– at least in local elections. Suppose it’s a gung ho military service member who votes at his home of record AND at the city near where he is assigned or based. What sort of process, (we used to call it: “registration”) is supposed to prevent this sort of thing? And are subversions of this norm worthy of the word “Fraud”?
It is generally illegal to be registered to vote in multiple states, but it is illegal to vote in multiple states. States can use the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to verify whether an individual is registered in multiple states. Thirty states plus DC are members (I believe that Virginia withdrew recently for some reason).
Each member submits at a minimum its voter registration and motor vehicle licensee data. The data includes names, addresses, date-of-birth, last four digits of the social security number. Private data such as date of birth and the last four digits of the Social Security number are protected using a cryptographic one-way hash and then transmitted to ERIC.
Each member state then receives reports that show voters who have moved within their state, voters who have moved out of state, voters who have died, duplicate registrations in the same state, and individuals who are potentially eligible to vote but are not yet registered. States may request a report identifying voters who appear to have voted twice within the state in the prior federal election, voted in more than one state in the prior federal election, or who voted on behalf of a deceased voter in the prior federal election.
Election officials may also learn that a voter has moved by running a check against the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address (NCOA) database.
I think that you’ve identified a problem that is statistically non-existent. Individual polling places are expensive to operate and difficult to staff. In fact, many states (such as Georgia) have reduced the number of polling places in the name of voter security. As you said, you are a traditionalist, it is important to you to maintain this tradition. But society itself has moved on.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:10 amYoungkin: ‘I’m Asking You as a Friend, and as a Neighbor, Please Get the Vaccine.’
Since Youngkin is already term limited, there is no voting bloc to alienate.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:16 amCorrection to post 160:
It is generally not illegal to be registered to vote in multiple states…..
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:19 amCanada doesn’t even have mounted police that whips people.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 5:57 am
paul buys demented joe’s border patrol bullschiff
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:28 amRed Covid, an Update
Ocean County, in central New Jersey, is a mixture of beach towns like Barnegat Light and exurban towns like Toms River and Lakewood. Household income in the county exceeds the U.S. average.
Yet Ocean County is among the least vaccinated places in the Northeast. Only 53 percent of residents have received at least two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine (or one dose of Johnson & Johnson). Only 26 percent have received a booster shot.
The large number of unvaccinated residents in Ocean County has led to a horrific amount of Covid illness and death. Nearly one out of every 200 residents has died from the virus. That is worse than the toll in Mississippi, the U.S. state with the largest amount of Covid death per capita, and worse than in any country except for Peru.
What explains the vaccine skepticism in Ocean County? Politics, above all. The county is heavily Republican. Donald Trump won it by almost 30 percentage points in 2020, and many Republicans — including those who are older than 65 and vulnerable to severe Covid illness — are skeptical of the vaccines.
……….
A new study by four Harvard epidemiologists estimates that 135,000 unvaccinated Americans died unnecessarily in the last six months of last year.
……….
During the Omicron wave, deaths have risen less in red counties than in blue or purple counties. The most likely explanation seems to be that the number of Trump voters vulnerable to severe illness — which was still very large earlier last year — has declined, because more of them have built up some immunity to Covid from a previous infection.
But don’t make the mistake of confusing a gap that’s no longer growing as rapidly as it was with a gap that is shrinking. The gap between red and blue America — in terms of cumulative Covid deaths — is still growing. The red line in that second chart is higher than the blue line, which is a sign that more Republicans than Democrats or independents have needlessly died of Covid in recent weeks.
………. Even in deeply blue counties, an outsize number of deaths are occurring among people who are unvaccinated or unboosted. The vaccines offer incredible protection from a deadly virus, yet many Americans have chosen to leave themselves exposed.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:28 am………..
trump threat level red today
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:29 amWhy Covid-19 vaccines are a freaking miracle
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:31 amtrump threat level red today
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:34 amThe Trump threat level will always be red until he concedes his lies about the 2020 election and stops trying to manipulate the Republican Party.
@166 keep holding that Repent! sign
just make it big enough for 74 million to see
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:38 amKamala Harris meets with Ukrainian president Zelensky and threatens Putin with ‘significant and unprecedented’ consequences if Russia invades: Biden says 160,000 troops are ‘poised to strike’
we’ve found a border kamala cares about defending
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:43 amFor example:
Fringe Scheme to Reverse 2020 Election Splits Wisconsin G.O.P.
……….
………. (M)ore than 15 months after former President Donald J. Trump lost the state by 20,682 votes, an increasingly vocal segment of the Republican Party is getting behind a new scheme: decertifying the results of the 2020 presidential election in hopes of reinstalling Mr. Trump in the White House.
Wisconsin is closer to the next federal election than the last, but the Republican effort to overturn the election results here is picking up steam rather than fading away — and spiraling further from reality as it goes. The latest turn, which has been fueled by Mr. Trump, bogus legal theories and a new candidate for governor, is creating chaos in the Republican Party and threatening to undermine its push to win the contests this year for governor and the Senate.
……….
“This is a real issue,” said Timothy Ramthun, the Republican state representative who has turned his push to decertify the election into a nascent campaign for governor. Mr. Ramthun has asserted that if the Wisconsin Legislature decertifies the results and rescinds the state’s 10 electoral votes — an action with no basis in state or federal law — it could set off a movement that would oust President Biden from office.
……….
Mr. Ramthun, a 64-year-old lawmaker who lives in a village of 2,000 people an hour northwest of Milwaukee, has ridden his decertification push to become a sudden folk hero to the party’s Trump wing. Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former adviser, has hosted Mr. Ramthun on his podcast. At party events, he shows off a 72-page presentation in which he claims, falsely, that legislators have the power to declare Wisconsin’s election results invalid and recall the state’s electoral votes.
……….
Mr. Trump offered public words of encouragement.
“Who in Wisconsin is leading the charge to decertify this fraudulent election?” the former president said in a statement.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:43 am…………
@166 keep holding that Repent! sign
just make it big enough for 74 million to see
You don’t think that Trump’s Operation Warp Speed produced a miracle? Wow. How far Trumpworld has fallen.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:49 amlook i found Rip
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:50 amI do? Wow, who knew.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:10 amBullschiff? Is JF really Colonel Haiku?
urbanleftbehind (bc1922) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:16 amTruckers Arrested at Gunpoint as Police Advance Against Ottawa Protest
Canadian police officers advanced on demonstrators at gunpoint, smashing truck windows and arresting protesters in front of the country’s Parliament building, an aggressive escalation in the government’s effort to finally end the protests that have roiled the nation’s capital for three weeks.
Officers in riot gear, brandishing batons and rifles, pushed to regain the area around Parliament, expanding an operation that began on Friday to remove parked trucks that have blocked the city’s downtown core.
……….
By midmorning, police had cleared all demonstrators from what had been the occupation’s core, Wellington Street, in front of the house of Parliament, and set up barricades. Most of the trucks entrenched there for the past three weeks drove off when the advance began; a few abandoned vehicles remained.
………
The police operation appeared to be a final salvo in the government’s belated effort to break up the occupation, which began as a convoy of truckers angry about a federal vaccine requirement, but snowballed into a larger movement. Soon the demonstrations attracted a variety of protesters airing grievances about pandemic restrictions, claims of government overreach and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s stewardship of the country.
……….
“It’s horrific,” said Dagny Pawlak, a spokeswoman for the truckers, said in a text message on Saturday. “A dark moment in Canadian history.” She added: “Never in my life would I have believed anyone if they told me that our own P.M. would refuse dialogue and choose violence against peaceful protesters instead.”
While the protesters grew ever more entrenched, criticism of the government’s failure to remove the occupation built across the country — and especially among many Ottawa residents.
……….
Officers, backed by at least two armored vehicles, began to force demonstrators back toward Parliament Hill. Heavy tow trucks, their company names covered with Ottawa police stickers, hauled away semis that hadn’t budged for weeks.
Roadblocks set up around the city were tightly enforced through the night. Cars going north were stopped and checked several times between the expressway and Parliament. People on foot who tried to bypass the police were warned they would be immediately arrested, which persuaded many to turn away.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:22 am……….
The minority leader in the senate did his usual screw job of Americans by getting 4 rinos to not show up to vote and 19 pos to vote with his pal chuck.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:23 amThey are well on the way to securing defeat.
It is generally (edit — *not*) illegal to be registered to vote in multiple states, but it is illegal to vote in multiple states. States can use the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to verify whether an individual is registered in multiple states. Thirty states plus DC are members (I believe that Virginia withdrew recently for some reason).
Exactly. One-person/one-vote is an ideal to be pursued. Violations of the ideal are wrong, AND laws and processes are set up to make the wrong thing, an illegal thing too.
The ERIC process is not instantaneous. It takes some amount of time and data entry and grinding of computer server drives to compare the registration of the Dick in Wyoming to the Dick in Texas. And it’s still a bit of a human-assisted process to ensure that Dick is distinct from Richard is distinct from Rick. Pick an interval — a week? a month ? — and then try to tell me that the ideal can be preserved under “same day registration” processes.
Shoplifting is wrong and illegal, too. And when the laws are changed or the enforcement priorities revised such that shoplifters are not prosecuted, we see more instances of shoplifting. (At least, anywhere that human beings tend to congregate…) Similarly, when registration protections are relaxed there are going to be more problematic ballots introduced into elections. Were, have been.
Statistically significant? Different question. I would suggest that we don’t put up guard rails around the sorts of traffic locations where we haven’t seen injuries and property damage. If the elections of the past were not statistically affected by registration irregularities then why were majorities in the past that encompassed both parties willing to pass similar laws in many jurisdictions? Are the electoral margins of victory always larger than statistically significant in the populations affected?
pouncer (6c33cf) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:33 amCanada is a totalitarian regime???
Well, it’s certainly headed there at the moment. From the crazy, hotheaded and rabble-rousing Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-protests-frozen-bank-accounts-1.6355396
So, for daring to protest what would be an illegal mandate in a free nation, Canada is:
1) Calling civil disobedience “terrorism” so that they can justify extreme measures*
2) Freezing the bank accounts of people thought to be donors.
3) Using electronic and other surveillance on convoy members and “supporters” to “allow” banks to take their money away.
4) Using the GoFundMe database to further target individuals who donated even small sums.
5) Forced crowdfunding companies to resister with the government (and then provide all records for the state’s continuing oppression). I will not ever use these companies again if they cannot stand up for their users.
6) The truckers will be effectively barred from being truckers in the future, and the state may make their employment in any role impossible.
So, no, it is NOT a free country and this event will haunt Canada for generations. It’s how Canadians do Tienanmen. I expect talking about it in the future will be called “supporting terrorism” just like it is in China.
————
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:52 am*next time you see this kind of thing, vote NO
Those who cheer on Trudeau should reflect on what Trump would have done with the same powers.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:54 am“trump threat level red today”
JF, is it easy breathing with your head planted underground…or wherever it is firmly lodged? I just fear that hypoxemia might rob you of good critical analysis.
AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:08 amCanada doesn’t even have mounted police that whips people.
Whips are on backorder. Supply-chain issues.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:15 amThose who cheer on Trudeau should reflect on what Trump would have done with the same powers.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:54 am
Trump (and every President since 1807) has had the same powers under the Insurrection Act.. Trudeau did what Trump failed to do during the BLM riots, particularly in Portland OR.
Trudeau and his party will clearly lose the next election after this, but he took decisive action regardless of the consequences. Trump, on the o hand, failed to do so, even though he might have won re-election after crushing the unrest.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:26 amhey what was the name of that whistleblower guy?
Media Wage Harassment Campaign Against Freedom Convoy Donors Doxxed In GiveSendGo Hack
Media outlets are continuing to message small-dollar donors to the Freedom Convoy whose identities were leaked to the public after a hack of crowdfunding site GiveSendGo.
The personal information of roughly 90,000 donors to the Freedom Convoy, a group of truckers and hackers protesting Canada’s vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions, was leaked after hackers breached GiveSendGo late Sunday. The leaked data included names, email handles, IP addresses and zip codes, and was provided to “journalists and researchers” by Distributed Denial of Secrets, an activist group hosting the information.
Several major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, ran stories earlier this week based on the leaked data analyzing the origins of Freedom Convoy funding. Both outlets published the names of Freedom Convoy donors and reported contacting small-dollar donors to investigate their contributions.
While The Times did not respond to the DCNF, The Post defended its reporting.
“We were reporting on a matter of public interest and reached out to people listed in the data in order to confirm its authenticity,” Shani George, the Post’s vice president of Communications, told the DCNF in a statement.
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:28 amAlso it is unlikely the Canadian Conservative Party would have done anything differently.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:29 amIf the truckers had gone on strike, I would have been on their side. If they had caused traffic jams for a week or so to get the bosses’ attention, I would have understood. A three-week occupation joined by mugs, pugs, thugs, and fundraising scammers of all kinds, was too much.
nk (1d9030) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:31 amDoes a border wall really address the reality that most illegals simply over-stay visas? Do we really believe a trade war is easily winnable or that government can grow economic opportunity through isolation? Do we believe that Muslims as a group should be unwelcome in America or that Russian expansionism is none of our business?
I think a border wall indicates the the government is trying to stop illegal immigration, and it will stop some — and that some is the part that most threatens tradesmen. Although it may now be too little, too late. The lady from Germany who overstays her visa is not going to set herself up as a cut-rate plumber.
By themselves, import duties are a “sin” tax, no different really than a tax of tobacco. The question is, of course, what sin? Is the “sin” “buying from China” or “not buying from US Steel”? Either has supporters, but the targets are quite different. I won’t defend Trump, as he did both and probably didn’t understand why they were suggested to him.
As for Muslims … I have heard the argument that Islam is fundamentally inconsistent with secular democracy, as the only majority-Muslim state to give it a real try has had the experiment fail. There seems to be a demand that the state be subservient to God that is even beyond what most white Christian supremacists think. We may find out, in Germany.
As far as Russia is concerned, their loss in Cold War II, compared to Cold War I, will be as about the same, proportionately, as Germany’s loss in WWII was to their loss in WWI.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:32 amMore evidence of Republican anti-Americanism:
I’m surprised that Putin gets only 10% favorability, but those people might be especially concentrated among the right-wing “intellectuals” who cast Putin as a defender of “faith and family” while they bash America for “exporting liberalism” to people who supposedly don’t want it (or actually, to people whose rulers don’t want them to have it, but never mind).
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:34 am@183-
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:36 amYou think a website handling other people’s money would have better security. You never hear about hacking at PayPal, EBay, or Amazon.
Trudeau and his party will clearly lose the next election after this, but he took decisive action regardless of the consequences.
Consequences such as sundering the State from the People. Tienanmen-level terrible, at least for Canada.
Trump, on the o hand, failed to do so, even though he might have won re-election after crushing the unrest.
Pull the other one. Next you’ll be saying that if Trump had used the Army to clear out 10 million Latin American illegals in the Southwest there would have been nothing but cheering.
Also it is unlikely the Canadian Conservative Party would have done anything differently.
Maybe not have gotten between the dog and the hydrant in the first place. Trudeau’s resolute action is him using force in place of leadership. Yelling “We are the Government, do what we say, or else!” is not a good place to be in a democracy. A year from now, after he resigns, he will have no supporters.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:40 amAnd, furthermore, comrades, this may make you appreciate that you live in America, where the right peacefully to assemble and petition for redress of grievances, the right to bail, and the right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of laws, are enumerated in a written Constitution, more.
nk (1d9030) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:49 am@189-
The Insurrection Act has been used several times in American history, I recall seeing regular Army troops in downtown Los Angeles following the Rodney King riots. Regular Army troops were also deployed to Detroit and other cities in 1968. There is plenty of precedent for such action.
Trump just couldn’t make a decision.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:55 am“I think a border wall indicates the the government is trying to stop illegal immigration”
Or you can look at 52-non-wall suggestions put forth by Cato
https://www.cato.org/study/reforming-immigration-system-brief-outline#guarantee-asylum
other thoughtful ideas by the Bush Center
https://www.bushcenter.org/publications/resources-reports/reports/immigration-white-papers/solutions-for-the-undocumented.html
and finally national review has 5 suggestions, including an obligatory nod to sensible fencing at the very end
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/02/fixing-illegal-immigration-five-steps/
It’s not that obstructions can’t be a part of the solution….both political sides have added fencing. It’s just that obsessing over a wall is a cynical avoidance of many solutions that actually address the underlying and systemic problems (see above discussions). It appeals to a simplistic thinking that if only we had a 2,000 mile long concrete wall…..which is technically implausible….we can’t control immigration. Leaders should elevate a discussion, not appeal to ignorance. Hey, Trump is a great marketeer…after all his bankruptcies and failed ventures…..he’s still at it. But let’s not confuse cynical marketing with genuinely good policy solutions. The GOP can do better.
AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:11 amCOVID-19 patients face higher risk of brain fog and depression, even 1 year after infection
………..[A] giant new study shows people who contracted COVID-19 faced substantially higher risks of neuropsychiatric ailments 1 year later, including brain fog, depression, and substance use disorders. The report, based on millions of people who used the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health system early in the pandemic, is published today in The BMJ.
………..
…..,,,,,,, [R]esearchers found that 1 year later, survivors of COVID-19 were 46% more likely than pandemic-era controls to have been diagnosed with any of 14 neuropsychiatric disorders. These included depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, sleep disturbance, opioid use disorder, and neurocognitive decline or “brain fog.” The risk of brain fog was 80% higher than in controls, which translates to 10.75 more cases for every 1000 infected people. People hospitalized with coronavirus infections had the highest risk of developing any of the disorders—343% more than controls. Outpatients faced a 40% higher risk of developing an ailment.
Infected veterans were also 86% more likely to have received a prescription for an opioid, a benzodiazepine such as Valium, an antidepressant, or another neuropsychiatric drug.
……….
Related:
Mid and long-term neurological and neuropsychiatric manifestations of post-COVID-19 syndrome: A meta-analysis
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:28 amIslam started out as basically an ideology of conquest. In the person of Muhammad, aka “the perfect man,” religion was inseparable from the application of force and domination. Religious authority and secular power are tightly joined in Islamic doctrine and history.
Jesus could hardly have been more different from Muhammad, and for three centuries Christianity — growing out of Judaism — developed structures of authority wholly separate from the institutions of a state power that was mostly hostile. Of course, Christianity was eventually made into the state religion, and it was for many centuries, for various states in a shifting political landscape. But the foundational separateness of church from state resulted in a salutary tension, and eventually a general conclusion that the powers of state should not be imposing a particular religion.
There are people on the hard right who apparently believe that the Founders’ failure to establish a state church was the original sin that inexorably plunged a preexisting “Christian nation” into godlessness — i.e. that letting people have their own religion was really a sneaky long-game tactic of “Enlightenment humanism” to kill off religion.
Never mind that the Founders’ decision was 1) eminently practical, given the fact of religious pluralism among the colonies; and 2) partly an outgrowth of the Great Awakening, which taught that secular powers should not dictate matters of religion. IOW it was a pro-religious policy, not an aggressively secularist one.
The U.S. population has long been more religious than various European countries that have state or national churches. But it has also become somewhat less religious recently, as young people choose not to follow the religion of their parents. New Right (i.e. paleo-right) thinkers don’t like that consequence of allowing religious freedom, so they deny that it’s really a free choice, and concoct a myth in which “liberalism” is coercing people to abandon religion — by not dictating what religion they’re to follow.
New Right ideologues (who BTW may pretend that their thinking is the opposite of ideology, that it simply reflects the natural order of things), want their own religion to govern the state. They somehow haven’t noticed that it generally ends up being the state — the wielder of force — that governs religious institutions when the two are joined.
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:31 am@158.I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I caught a whiff of “brave sir Robin.”
That’s cordite… or Chicken Kiev from the mess tents.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:33 amCOVID-19 takes serious toll on heart health—a full year after recovery
……….
………. (T)he first large study to assess cardiovascular outcomes 1 year after SARS-CoV-2 infection has demonstrated that the virus’ impact is often lasting. In an analysis of more than 11 million U.S. veterans’ health records, researchers found the risk of 20 different heart and vessel maladies was substantially increased in veterans who had COVID-19 1 year earlier, compared with those who didn’t. The risk rose with severity of initial disease and extended to every outcome the team examined, including heart attacks, arrhythmias, strokes, cardiac arrest, and more. Even people who never went to the hospital had more cardiovascular disease than those who were never infected.
The results are “stunning … worse than I expected, for sure,” says Eric Topol, a cardiologist at Scripps Research. “All of these are very serious disorders. … If anybody ever thought that COVID was like the flu this should be one of the most powerful data sets to point out it’s not.” He adds that the new study “may be the most impressive Long Covid paper we have seen to date.”
……… “In the post-COVID era, COVID might become the highest risk factor for cardiovascular outcomes,” greater than well-documented risks such as smoking and obesity, says Larisa Tereshchenko, a cardiologist and biostatistician at the Cleveland Clinic, who recently conducted a similar, much smaller analysis. …….
………..
The researchers drew on the largest set of electronic health records in the United States, at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). They analyzed data from nearly 154,000 people who contracted COVID-19 between March 2020 and January 2021, and who survived at least 30 days after becoming infected. They also identified two control groups: 5.6 million people who sought VA care during the pandemic but were not diagnosed with COVID-19, and 5.9 million people who sought VA care in 2017.
………..
The researchers controlled for the possibility that the people who contracted COVID-19 were already more prone to developing cardiovascular disease. They found that “COVID is an equal opportunity offender,” Al-Aly says. “We found an increased risk of cardiovascular problems in old people and in young people, in people with diabetes and without diabetes, in people with obesity and people without obesity, in people who smoked and who never smoked.”
COVID-19 boosted the risk of all 20 cardiovascular ailments studied, including heart attacks, arrhythmias, strokes, transient ischemic attacks, heart failure, inflammatory heart disease, cardiac arrest, pulmonary embolism, and deep vein thrombosis.
For example, veterans who had had COVID-19 faced a 72% higher risk of heart failure after 12 months than those in a control group who didn’t test positive. That translated to nearly 12 more infected people per 1000 developing heart failure than those in a control group. Overall, the investigators found 45 more infected people per 1000 developed any of the 20 conditions than did uninfected controls.
……….
Just how the virus causes long-term damage to the heart and blood vessels remains a matter of debate and active research. One possible mechanism is inflammation of the endothelial cells that line the inside of the heart and blood vessels, Al-Aly says. But the researchers also include a laundry list of potential mechanisms, including lingering damage from direct viral invasion of the heart muscle; elevated levels of proinflammatory chemical messengers called cytokines that lead to scarring of the heart; and persistent virus in sites not effectively dealt with by the immune system. “The putative mechanistic pathways are still in the realm of speculation or hypothesis,” Al-Aly says.
The authors say their findings suggest millions of COVID-19 survivors could suffer long-term consequences, straining health systems for years to come.…….
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:38 am………
It was especially endearing to listen to Kamala lecture the war-worried European Munich crowd on the virtues of passing the U.S. domestic bipartisan infrastructure bill. But then, Nancy and her larded up Congressional delegation were in the audience to applaud.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:39 amSo Marjorie Taylor Greene has a mini me now?
Jesus
Guns
Babies
Umm yeah trying to see the connection there. Somehow those things don’t belong together.
Maybe she has a good gazpacho recipe she could share with us.
Echo (dffc56) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:42 am@180. Snidley Whiplash. Canadian.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:43 amThe Nazi occupation of Soviet Ukraine
‘The surprise German invasion of the U.S.S.R. began on June 22, 1941. The Soviets, during their hasty retreat, shot their political prisoners and, whenever possible, evacuated personnel, dismantled and removed industrial plants, and conducted a scorched-earth policy—blowing up buildings and installations, destroying crops and food reserves, and flooding mines. Almost four million people were evacuated east of the Urals for the duration of the war. The Germans moved swiftly, however, and by the end of November virtually all of Ukraine was under their control.’- source, http://www.beentheredonethat.doormatsofhistory.wheatgerm.rolledoveroatsbytanktreads.gov
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:48 amUS officials reportedly say Russia has a list of opponents to arrest or assassinate if it invades Ukraine
US intelligence services have obtained information that Russia is drafting lists of political opponents to possibly arrest or assassinate if it invades Ukraine, Foreign Policy reported.
Four sources familiar with US intelligence told the outlet that the lists include Ukrainian political figures, anti-corruption activists, and Belarusian and Russian dissidents living in exile in Ukraine.
……..
Five Eyes — the international intelligence alliance of the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand — has also tracked Russian intelligence agencies, such as the FSB and GRU, building up “target and kill” lists, Foreign Policy reported.
……….
“These acts, which in past Russian operations have included targeted killings, kidnappings/forced disappearances, detentions, and the use of torture, would likely target those who oppose Russian actions,” the official told (Foreign Policy).
This could include “Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons,” the US official said.
……….
A recent report published by the British defense think tank the Royal United Services Institute alleged that Russian security services have been identifying Ukrainian individuals who could be trusted to run local governments in the event of a Russian invasion.
Is Tucker Carlson on the list? He’s already their chief spokesman.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:52 amThis would be a great time for opportunist Ted Cruz to grab some headlines, hop on the 18-wheeler bandwagon and renounce his Canadian citizenship.
Again.
Cruz renounces any claim to Canadian citizenship
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cruz-renounces-any-claim-canadian-citizenship-flna6C10956164
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:53 am“Canada has just had their own tiananmen square with using horses to trample innocent protesters standing up to a totalitarian regime. And not a word said by the usual suspects.”
https://www.facebook.com/abc13Houston/videos/protester-trampled-by-hpd-horse-in-downtown-houston-where-rallies-continue-for-g/549227162428843/
Davethulhu (b008b2) — 2/19/2022 @ 12:08 pmWhere were y’all 2 years ago? Oh, right, cheering on the police.
Davethulhu (b008b2) — 2/19/2022 @ 12:08 pm@191
The Cato solution is simply to abolish the notion of “illegal immigration.” Of course, if we let everyone who wants to come here do so (hundreds of millions of people) then it is true that we wouldn’t have an “illegal immigration” problem anymore. Whether doing that would improve the country is open to doubt.
Israel built a wall along its border with Egypt and it worked extremely well. There needs to be a physical barrier to prevent illegal entry, not merely a system that informs CBP about illegal crossings after they occur. Other necessary changes, such as mandating that every employer use E-Verify or tracking entry/exits of visa holders, do not appear on the Cato list.
Enforcement has to happen first, before there is any discussion of amnesty. We’ve tried the ‘comprehensive’ route before (in 1986) and it failed utterly.
mikeybates (499b10) — 2/19/2022 @ 12:26 pmAnd where were they a year ago? Oh, right, cheering on the people who waged hand-to-hand combat against the police for three hours.
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/19/2022 @ 12:58 pmWhy do I get this “I’m Negan” vibe from that Timken ad?
Then again, she’s got balls of steel.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 1:17 pmAs long as her tactics keeps doing JD Vance dirty, I’m cool with it.
urbanleftbehind (c2e573) — 2/19/2022 @ 1:19 pmAnd where were they a year ago?
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/19/2022 @ 12:58 pm
someone definitely needs to keep track of mr. and mrs. they
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 1:20 pmThe first thing I felt the Rahm-assisted blue wave Congress of 2007_2009 should have done was build a wall that only stretched across Arizona’s southern border…serve as a carrot to them and a stick to Texas for intransigence on other issues.
urbanleftbehind (c2e573) — 2/19/2022 @ 1:23 pmSomeone needs to see out the current rules for when you Back the Blue and when you Attack the Blue.
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/19/2022 @ 1:50 pmSomeone needs to see out the current rules for when you Back the Blue and when you Attack the Blue.
It’s as simple as day and night.
When “protestors” at nightfall start setting fire to stuff — dumpsters, small businesses, bookstores, government buildings, whatever — Back the Blue. Arrest the protestors. High bail for those arrested. Speedy trials. For those convicted, long sentences.
When protestors assemble by daylight for dancing and chanting and picking up trash or passing around food or joints or beer — Support Free Speech, indulge the protestors, and Attack any “Blue” effort to shut things down.
Back the Blue serving a no-knock warrant at the correct address matched by photographs by daylight; Attack the Blue who can’t even read the address on a no knock warrant and don’t have photographs and burst in at night.
Back the local cops who DO wear body cameras and record interviews for potential judicial review — by day. Attack the “Blue” Federal LEOs who rely on hand-written memos-for-record composed after a good night’s sleep based on what they remember (or dreamed) they heard the day before. Especially when the only charge is that the person interviewed lied to the Blue — according to the handwritten memo.
Day and Night.
pouncer (6c33cf) — 2/19/2022 @ 2:03 pm@204, I agree that libertarians at Cato will always lean toward the free-flow of people and let the market determine the right amounts. And as Milton Friedman observed, you can’t have open borders and a welfare state (though he likely walked that back a bit).
I also agree that E-verify has to be part of the solution. If you honestly want to end the economic incentive of illegal immigration, then every employer needs to be held accountable. We will see higher prices in landscaping, construction, etc….which might then drive a better thought through green-card and visa process. I just wish the discussion trended a bit more in this direction.
Comparing Israel’s wall to our southern border is a bit dicey because there we are talking about two groups that have been at war constantly with land disputes at the heart of it all. It’s not about illegal migration, but to combat terrorism. The West Bank wall will be 400 miles long upon completion, so it is substantial, and is designed with detection in mind….and with tunneling in mind. Diplomatically neither party saw the wall as helping to get to a two-state solution. Generally, fencing can be scaled, dug under, and in cases, pried open or split. It’s a never-ending contest that still requires significant manpower to patrol and detect problems. It’s an imperfect layer one that distracts from the economic incentives and the hard choices about social welfare that we disagree about as a people.
Amnesty is also widely controversial. On one hand you have millions of people who have been here for a decade or more without criminal records who have to be addressed. The idea of shipping them all back when they have a life and family here seems less than practical. Some path to legalization or citizenship with fines and language requirements seems reasonable and was a staple GOP position years back when illegal immigration numbers were much higher. Yes, there’s a perverse incentive but if the economic incentives are changed, maybe on net the situation improves. I like that people want to come here and work hard to improve their lives. I get we can’t accommodate everyone and we shouldn’t reward sneaking in….I just think a wall avoids addressing the hard issues.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 2/19/2022 @ 2:29 pmif the investigation backed demented joe’s bullschiff claims, it would’ve been released in a nanosecond
Nobody’s Happy With The Biden Administration’s Nearly Five Months-Delayed Border Patrol ‘Whipping’ Report
Images surfaced shortly after the Sept. 19 incident appearing to show border agents using the reins of their horses to steer and encircle Haitian migrants attempting to enter the U.S. from the Rio Grande river. The long reins were interpreted by many as whips, which sparked outcry from many human rights organizations.
The administration promised to investigate what happened. On Sept. 22, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised that the investigation “will be completed in days, not weeks,” but it’s been nearly five months since he made the pledge and there is still no conclusion to the investigation.
Days after the incident, Vice President Kamala Harris on condemned the horseback agents’ “horrible” treatment of the Haitian migrants and supported an investigation into what occurred. President Joe Biden echoed Harris’s condemnation, promising that “there will be consequences” for the accused agents.
The accused agents were taken off the frontlines and assigned to desk duties, where they remain, meaning they’re not interacting with migrants.
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 3:05 pmWhat, that dusty old artifact? That was written sooo looong ago; even longer ago than Benghazi!
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 3:14 pmYep, that’s right.
felipe (484255) — 2/19/2022 @ 3:15 pmMom always liked BLM best.
nk (1d9030) — 2/19/2022 @ 4:39 pmNo thoughts about the police who were tasked with guarding the Capitol when they had to try fending off a hostile mob bent on forcing their way in so they could intimidate Congress into keeping the losing incumbent president in power (and punish people they deemed “traitors”)?
No comments on the spectacle of people carrying Back the Blue flags amidst a violent mob who were physically attacking the police?
No comments on the good “conservatives” who ridiculed cops who were injured by the “conservative” mob, calling them “crisis actors” and such?
What are the simple, clear-cut rules when the “law and order” crowd want to stage a coup, and the police are in their way?
Radegunda (c970ff) — 2/19/2022 @ 4:40 pmRadegunda (c970ff) — 2/19/2022 @ 4:40 pm
mr. and mrs. they are lying dog faced pony soldiers
there, i said it
JF (e1156d) — 2/19/2022 @ 5:11 pmIf they’re breaking the law in the day, then conservatives should be supporting law enforcement efforts disperse or arrest lawbreakers. It really is that simple.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 6:01 pm#212 AJ_Liberty – I agree with everything you said in that comment, but would like to add two thoughts:
First, I think that those law-abiding, long-term illegals should be offered, first, an opportunity to become what the British used to call a “denizen”, a person with most legal rights but not citizenship. As I understand it, “permanent residency” status already comes fairly close to what I am proposing. They would pay a fine and admit guilt as part of the process of becoming a denizen. Then, they could apply for citizenship, but they would have to go to the end of the line, behind all those who had come here and applied legally before them.
Second, I think we should give more weight to the “values” that applicants for permanent residency have than we do now. An extreme example might help explain my thinking. Judged purely on economic grounds, Osama bin Laden would have looked like a desirable immigrant before 9/11, with his wealth, his engineering degree, and so forth.
Granted, that will be harder to judge than an applicant’s credit status, but I think it is far more important.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:43 pmI watched the Super Bowl half time show to see what rap was all about — yes, I’ve ignored it this long and am glad I did– and by the end was wondering whether NFL executives had chosen those performers in order to humiliate blacks.
Maybe next year the NFL can choose better performers, for example, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, with their wonderful history.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/19/2022 @ 7:49 pmThere’s a group here, including Paul, Nic and Jim, who seem congenitally unable to grasp the reasons for the recent populist wave. It’s a mystery to them how citizens, who claim to support law and order, or conservatism, or just believe in good government (a lie in itself) would get so upset when their intellectual betters order them around,
Let Ross Douthat explain ti:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/opinion/class-war-canada-truckers-protest.html
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:15 pmMore evidence of Republican anti-Americanism:
Any interest in the info in the same poll which tells us that 18% of Democrats see China as either an “ally” or “friendly” towards the U.S. while only 8% of Republicans do? (If you go by voters for each candidate, it’s 13% for Biden voters versus 6% for Trump voters.) I mean, we’re talking about twice as many Democrats as Republicans have at least a semi-favorable opinion of China. Is that “anti-Americanism” too? Or should we be happy that so few of our fellow Americans hold any degree of appreciation for either Putin or Xi?
JVW (ee64e4) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:29 pmKevin, I can do two things at once (and I suspect other commenters can do so as well), such as recognize that there is a notable populist component in the Trump wing, and call out those populists for their hypocrisy and for betraying traditional Republican and conservative principles. There’s no reason they should have it both ways.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:40 pmKevinM recently said that the GOP must not ignore Trump’s message, especially his message to those most effected by globalism. But was Trump’s populistic message overly simplistic?
ALL populist movements are simplistic. These are people who havn’t a clue how do “do it right” but find it painfully obvious that the people in charge don’t either. It’s not their job to BE in charge. The limit of their power is to fire the idiots that are and attempt to find those who CAN do it right, or at least a lot better.
As you can see, populism is not a new concept. This nation was terribly fortunate that — when the people rose up — the elites could see a new way forward that addressed the errors of the past. Maybe that’s the difference between a Revolt and Revolution — which side the elites end up on. Other places it was the noose or the guillotine, or the beach in Liberia.
Can we all move forward here? Or are we going to fight the old petty fights forever?
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:49 pmMore evidence of Republican anti-Americanism:
Do you have a favorable opinion of Vladimir Putin?
Republicans: 10% yes, 74% no.
Do you have a favorable opinion of Joe Biden?
Republicans: 6% yes, 90% no.
Sorry, these are statistically meaningless. There is a missing 16% in the Putin question (Maybe? IDK?) compared to a 4% gap for Biden. Maybe some of the lesser-informed Republicans don’t really know, but all Democrats know to support Joe Biden, even when they don’t (e.g. the Progressives).
Question-framing, other response choices, and sampling error get you here more easily than any preference being expressed.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 8:59 pmKevin, I can do two things at once (and I suspect other commenters can do so as well), such as recognize that there is a notable populist component in the Trump wing, and call out those populists for their hypocrisy and for betraying traditional Republican and conservative principles. There’s no reason they should have it both ways.
And you miss the point AGAIN.
1) They did not all start as conservatives or Republicans (as the excerpt clearly states) so there is nothing for those people to BE betraying.
2) Some of them called themselvews conservatives and/or Republicans, but never accepted your definition of either. Newt Gingrich was never George Will. What you call conservative is probably not even what I call conservative, Maybe not what most conservatives call conservatives. Slippery word. Do you think gay marriage or abortion is OK? There are those that differ whatever you say.
3) The populists will turn and say, with complete sincerity, that it was the GOP establishment that betrayed them, and they have good arguments. While libertarian principles will point out that increased foreign trade is a good thing in the long run, people don’t eat in the long run. That Wall Street and the GOP (and later, Democrat) elites were pointing out how wonderful outsourcing was, and how the nation’s wealth increased, quite a few of their former followers began to have doubts when their wealth did not.
All these things you implicitly ignore when you claim these ingrate former conservatives aren’t rowing as fast as before.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:11 pmI just don’t know. What I hear over and over here is not “why did they support Trump, and how can we fix it?”, but just “The peasants are revolting!”, or the Hillary version.
If the GOP is to have any success it needs to understand what went wrong. Sadly, too many people are invested in having been right and really don’t care for any analysis past that point. At some point they will ahve to undergo that reflection, but hopefully they turn to it sooner than did the Ancien Régime.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:17 pmOf course, assh0les like Cruz and the GOP radicals in the House don’t make it easy either.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:19 pmOn the other side, the Democrats are having similar problems, but without quite as much Bonapartism. Instead they have Joe Biden trying to meld New Deal Liberals, with New Democrats, with
ProgressivesSocialists, with whatever AOC and the Squad are.I can’t say I’m hopeful as the also try to pretend that Trump never happened, doubling down on policies so thoroughly rejected.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:23 pmALL populist movements are simplistic.
So the GOP is a party of ‘simpletons’… not ‘deplorables.’ 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:44 pm8 billion people on Earth and a whopping 1500 polled?
Now that’s ‘simplistic.’ OTOH, don’t see a poll listed asking, ‘Is Elvis Alive?’- ‘Are UFOs alien or man-made?’- ‘Is AOC a white woman or a Latino?’… or ‘Who was the best James Bond?’ … these are what truly matter to simple-minded populists… and, of course, Tucka’s audience. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/19/2022 @ 9:56 pmLooks like another jeffery epstein associate who knows to much about things decides to hang himself. Randy andy or the clintons? When will ghislane decide to hang herself?
asset (19b38d) — 2/19/2022 @ 10:49 pm@Kevin@222 I understand why the populist movement is occurring, I just think they aren’t going to solve their issues with what they are proposing as solutions. The solutions they are being fed aren’t going to fix the problems they want solved. It’s all political theater. Of course the corporate world also doesn’t have solutions that will solve their problems, neither does the academic world.
Some of the problems don’t really have a solution, which is something no one likes to hear, some of the problems have complicated or lengthy solutions which no one wants to hear. Some of the solutions are expensive which nobody wants to pay for. Some of the solutions aren’t ideologically pure which ideologues and politicians don’t want to hear and also HATE. Some of the problems have multiple possible solutions and no one wants to give up their idea to let them be solved in other ways.
And this is even more complicated because the psychology of people is that if they are presented with facts that contradict what they believe, a majority of people will reject those facts and keep on believing provably wrong things. Along with the fact that a lot of people like to admire a problem or otherwise capitalize on it without having the guts to solve it and those people are busy telling the people with the problem how terrible it is.
Nic (896fdf) — 2/19/2022 @ 11:09 pmOh, and just so you know how well I understand it, in a way you never can because you are the wrong age, here’s a piece of stuff I try not to think to hard on because it just makes me angry:
No matter how hard I work I will never achieve the lifestyle my parents have been able to achieve on their own as regular middle class people, and I’m a college and graduate educated professional. Almost no one in my generation or the next can. My brother might. MIGHT. And he’s a GD lawyer. You complain about inflation? Why should I care? My salary, none of our salaries in my generation and the next, have kept up with inflation for our entire working lives. Every freaking year we get further and further and further behind. Maybe this year a little more than the last, but every year it’s the same. Always Always ALWAYS we get further behind. And there is no chance to catch up. And none of it is under our control It. Makes. Me. Want. To. Smash. Things.
And so I argue about frivolous topics on message boards. And read books. And play video games. And focus on other aspects of my life. Because I can’t live as a functional person with the level of anger I would feel if I spent my time considering any of this for too long at a time, and I’m one of the luck ones.
Other people choose to smash things or fight on things they can control or think they can control because they too can’t control a lot of the things that actually effect their lives.
So there you go. Do you understand that I understand the source of all this?
Nic (896fdf) — 2/20/2022 @ 12:12 amI am a populist as I like to say I am a non-ignorant southern white trash populist.and whats worse I am a tactician. Is the wrong solution better then no solution. It is because you can then come up with the right solution. Bernie sanders and donald trump are the opposite sides of the same coin. They both blame the wealthy corporations and only differ in one also adds immigrants (at one time bernie sanders agreed as did caesar chavez) but now sanders blames the wealthy doing evil things with their wealth. Eventually non-exploitive social welfare state capitalism not traditional socialism where the state owns every thing. Economic libertarian conservatism’s creative destruction and one sided free trade will not be tolerated. Uncle milty freidman will be loathed by most and worshiped by a few at their peril. Capitalism anarchy will be a thing of the past. Are federal system that benefits the few over the many will be done away with sooner rather then later. How many more elections will the vote of the minority be allowed to control the majority. The reason we are not now in civil war is that biden won the electoral vote by 44,000 votes in 3 states az, ga. and wi. That he got 81,000,000 to trump’s 72,000,000 votes were irrelevant. 18% of the population in 26 states control 52 senate seats ;but for how much longer?
asset (19b38d) — 2/20/2022 @ 12:30 amIt is simplistic to dismiss ‘populism’ and ‘populists’ as ‘simplistic.’
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 1:26 amASSET
Biden didn’t win those 3 states, right now Wisconsin is recalling the election and PA has essentially done so. NO ONE with any knowledge thinks Biden got 81 million votes, he didnt have get out the vote drives in many states and voting day polls dont show it.
A new voting rights act should entail some kind of work requirement. Filed tax returns, or primary spouse of a worker or primary caregiver of someone under 15 or certified disabled.
EPWJ (0fbe92) — 2/20/2022 @ 2:06 amHow dare you, EPJW.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/20/2022 @ 3:02 am😎
EPWJ.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/20/2022 @ 3:03 amhttps://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/the-week-in-pictures-bonus-edition.php
mg (8cbc69) — 2/20/2022 @ 3:14 amI love Nic’s comment @234 which provides some of the grist to answer DCCCP’s “simplistic” lament @237
Our national debate is no longer a real debate but a show of who can promise the most, empathize the most, and display that they share your values the most. It’s not about demonstrating a depth of understanding, telling hard truths, and unveiling well thought through policies that blend the best of ideas. It’s about contradictions, fantasy, hyperbole, and outright deception…packaged, quaffed, and cynically presented as fresh and against the mainstream. Journalism used to sort through this and attempt to expose huckters, but now it revels in outlandishness and the spectacle — FNC, MSNBC don’t offer objectivity and so we get two realities, both distorted, and little hope of having an informed and objective electorate.
Some here will say that the establishment GOP let them down….pointing to jobs lost overseas, poorly planned wars, retreats on cultural questions, no fiscal discipline, and offering few alternatives to the socialist agenda. But what’s fair criticism and what’s unrealistic for a deliberate democracy? And is it productive to advocate more extreme solutions and harsh rhetoric as a response…or is that just pushing us closer and closer to a tipping point? Are we setting up to just clang back and forth between more and more extreme candidates until the democratic system implodes and violence and chaos become the norm? There’s no wrestling with this exasperated response embodied by frustrated sentiments like “why not try someone even worse than Trump, that will show ’em”.
It’s not a question of going back to the Republican establishment. It’s recognizing that the current angry vindictive state is self destructive. Populism too often just revels in this anger and thrives on stoking the flames rather than being honest, sober, and realistic. We need smart adults, not carnival barkers or fantasists like Trump and AOC. But to get that, we have to look in the mirror and ask some hard questions….
AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 2/20/2022 @ 4:57 amWhat a
nk (1d9030) — 2/20/2022 @ 5:29 amconversationconcert to wake up to on a Sunday morning. Glenn Campbell’s “These Are The Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife” and The Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. Here’s a song for you, you reminiscing atavisms of the post-WWII boom, when America was the only nation in the world with its industries and eighteen-to-forty healthy male population intact:Some of the problems don’t really have a solution, which is something no one likes to hear, some of the problems have complicated or lengthy solutions which no one wants to hear. Some of the solutions are expensive which nobody wants to pay for. Some of the solutions aren’t ideologically pure which ideologues and politicians don’t want to hear and also HATE. Some of the problems have multiple possible solutions and no one wants to give up their idea to let them be solved in other ways.
And some of the things will be ameliorated by simple actions. Such as: stop pretending like illegal immigration isn’t happening and/or isn’t a problem (or worse, doing so while benefiting from it). Trump’s wall isn’t an answer, but it IS a commitment to address the problem, which is a damn sight more than has happened since the 1980s. It is symbol, and the symbol is in-your-face to those who have been disingenuous on the topic for so very long. Blocking it is ALSO a symbol, and the reasons have more to do with cheese-moving than cost.
The export of entire manufacturing economies to Asia (and China in particular) is something that has not only been encouraged by American investors, but done mainly to cut American workers and their expectations out of those economies. Even those that have very little labor content (e.g. assembling iPhones) are there because they can dump toxic waste into drinking water and no one (who matters) cares.
Luckily this problem in in the process of solving itself as all those cheap manufactured goods are sitting in containers far out to sea. The long supply-chain is brittle, as any general will tell you, and every cost-savings this amounted to in the past is being paid out again. China is going to contract in rapid order, and it’s their own FF for eating too many bats.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 6:48 amNo, Kevin, they took the mantle when they stood behind Trump and started declaring themselves conservatives and Republicans and those who oppose Trump “RINOs” and “liberals”. Like I said, they’re trying to have it both ways. I don’t accept their redefining what “conservative” or “Republican” is, and people on the right are having this argument for a reason because it shapes how we’re to proceed going forward and who’s going to be under this tent. The thing is, who do you want to speak for conservatism, Matt Gaetz or Liz Cheney? Trump or Kasich? Schlicter or French?
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:03 amBut thing is, this isn’t even about “conservative” or “Republican”, it’s about basic intellectual consistency and integrity, which was absent in spades on 1/6/2021 and is again absent in Canada, where purported conservatives used to lambaste the Left in 2020 for lawbreaking and blocking freeways, and now they’re cheering on that very thing in 2022 Ottawa. A less tactful word is hypocrite.
I’ll also say this, Kevin. You’re not going to get a pleasant response when you start a conversation with “What you don’t understand about X…”, and you chose that approach deliberately. If the subject is particle physics, no big deal, but it’s on politics, so…Anyway, you could’ve just understood that one’s knowledge of and opposition to this populist strain in the GOP was implied, but alas.
Someone mentioned on the Twitter that if purported conservatives are more angry about Canada than about Russia, there’s a problem.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:07 amAlso a problem is if so-called conservatives are calling Canada a “totalitarian nation”, then WTF is Russia of the Xi regime?
I’ll be watching the Saudi Pro Golf Tour as much as I’ve watched the Beijing Winter Olympics, especially if the tournaments are hosted at Trump’s golf courses. It doesn’t matter who bails on the PGA Tour and plays there, not even Mickelson or Dustin Johnson or a limping Tiger.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:24 amNo matter how hard I work I will never achieve the lifestyle my parents have been able to achieve on their own as regular middle class people, and I’m a college and graduate educated professional. Almost no one in my generation or the next can. My brother might. MIGHT. And he’s a GD lawyer. You complain about inflation? Why should I care? My salary, none of our salaries in my generation and the next, have kept up with inflation for our entire working lives. Every freaking year we get further and further and further behind. Maybe this year a little more than the last, but every year it’s the same. Always Always ALWAYS we get further behind. And there is no chance to catch up. And none of it is under our control It. Makes. Me. Want. To. Smash. Things.
Back when *I* was a young, elite-college-educated engineer, I realized that my generation would never get what the preceding one had had. Most of us would never own a house. I bought a low-end condo in my 30s, the house would have to wait until I was 45. Most of us would never get back from Social Security what we put in (this was probably incorrect — Boomers will probably break even, on average, but folks at the high end of income would not). I actually tore up my SS card as a bad joke. Later I had to get a new one — what a struggle.
This was back before Greatest-generation Bob Dole “saved” Social Security by cutting benefits for Boomers, and doubled our FICA tax (tripled it if you were self-employed). But SS isn’t really the issue — the feared “Baby Bust” gap isn’t happening and SS will work out OK in the end. You do have to worry about Medicare. I think it’s impervious to cancellation, but costs have to come way down, and they will probably “fix” it with you. Paul Ryan tried to do it more fairly, but the Democrats would not play, preferring to demonize him.
As for inflation, you will eat your words. I did.
It won’t bring anything into your reach, and the inflation of the 1970s put home ownership out of reach for many, something the WW2 generation took as a gimme. Imagine 17% home loan rates. They were still 10% in 1990. The only thing it WILL do for you (and did for me) is make low-interest-rate student loans easier to pay. As far as “keeping up with inflation” there are a lot of lies going around about what “inflation” has been. Many are numbers made up out of whole cloth to justify some political argument, but that are laughable to people who lived through that period.
Inflation from 1973, when I was at college and today is 6.6x. That means that a Ford Pinto that sold for $1999 in 1973 would cost $13.2K today. A Nissan Versa is more than that, maybe $15K, but it’s a far better car too. Houses are much more, I think, maybe 15x, but many things have driven up those costs and tract houses today are MUCH better than what they built in 1973.
As for brothers, mine is a long-unemployed carpenter who cannot work in SoCal because he doesn’t speak Spanish. It’s find to talk about college education, but college education is pretty much lost on most people, such as the baristas trying to pay off $150K in student loans for their art history degree at Brown. People without those degrees are not disposable, but they have been disposed of. The income and prospects for the non-college educated (measured by employment and marriage status) have dropped markedly in the last 30 years.
If it has gotten to lawyers, I don’t know what to say — I can think of no profession more insulated from geographical impacts as a state-run guild that is jealous of members of the next state’s guild and writes the laws that mandate guild membership.
We are seeing more and more of this guild-type behavior, btw, with states requiring licensing for things that never needed them before (e.g. hair-braiding), as a way of keeping competition down.
Sorry, this has gotten pretty long, but a short form of this is: 1) Yeah, we said the same thing and no one listened then either, and 2) it’s not as bad as they want you to believe.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:28 amBiden didn’t win those 3 states, right now Wisconsin is recalling the election and PA has essentially done so.
Please send link to reputable site.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:42 amNo, Kevin, they took the mantle when they stood behind Trump and started declaring themselves conservatives and Republicans and those who oppose Trump “RINOs” and “liberals”
You confuse loud people with all people.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:43 amThe thing is, who do you want to speak for conservatism, Matt Gaetz or Liz Cheney? Trump or Kasich? Schlicter or French?
Liz, sure. The rest of them? Maybe French. Not on offer: National Review.
Never ever Kasich. Man speak with several forked tongues.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:45 amBiden didn’t win those 3 states, right now Wisconsin is recalling the election and PA has essentially done so.
Please send link to reputable site.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:42 am
google dude, google
EPWJ (0fbe92) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:50 amI’ll also say this, Kevin. You’re not going to get a pleasant response when you start a conversation with “What you don’t understand about X…”, and you chose that approach deliberately. If the subject is particle physics, no big deal, but it’s on politics, so…Anyway, you could’ve just understood that one’s knowledge of and opposition to this populist strain in the GOP was implied, but alas.
Maybe a bit less of the intellectual arrogance an your part would help. Stop, just for a moment and consider you’ve got something wrong.
I will throw a party the day that Trump dies. I hate him with a purple passion. But he did not win the presidency (or at least I hope he didn’t) by force of personality. He won it because he exposed some truths that the establishment of BOTH parties was hiding under the rug.
People say, “Oh, the problems are so complex, and hard to fix, and patience”, but the sad truth is that these are all problems for other people, and they’re doing just fine.
Nic’s answer is by far the most complete and is pretty much an echo of what led to Trumpism in the first place. He says he doesn’t care, but he does, he just doesn’t want some quick fix to ignore what’s coming up.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:55 amgoogle dude, google
Troll move.
Not my job to find your lies.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:55 amNobody understands particle physics. Some have a better understanding of the map though.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:57 amThat’s burden-shifting, EPWJ. You made the assertion, you back it up.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:57 amKevin, you’re complaining about “intellectual arrogance” while you’re telling others they don’t understand things? I’m going with the less tactful word here: Hypocrite.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:58 amPaul,
Its common knowledge, been for some time. sky is blue, grass is green, PA courts declared unconstitutional etc
EPWJ (0fbe92) — 2/20/2022 @ 8:00 amThat’s not an answer or proof of anything, EPJW.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 8:10 amEvery county in every state certified the popular vote as legal and accurate. It’s on you to prove otherwise. To date, after almost 16 months, you have no evidence of serious fraud, and your court challenges from Election Day to Insurrection Day failed miserably.
The PA court decision didn’t invalidate the 2020 vote, and neither did any rulings in WI or MI. The rulings, which are not final, are about how mail-in voting is to be conducted.
Biden didn’t win those 3 states, right now Wisconsin is recalling the election and PA has essentially done so. NO ONE with any knowledge thinks Biden got 81 million votes, he didnt have get out the vote drives in many states and voting day polls dont show it.
No state legislature has voted to withdraw its certification of the election, so the election stands.
Surrogate organizations conducted voter outreach drives for The Democrats, its not just a campaign function.
Trump still hasn’t proved he won the election, though I hope he keeps trying.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 8:14 amRussian State TV Is So Ridiculous Right Now It Looks Like a Farce
Anyone who might be watching exclusively Russian state television would never know President Putin has massed his troops on the border of Ukraine, that Kremlin-controlled separatists shelled a kindergarten full of children and Russian forces are in position for an offensive against its beleaguered neighbor. On Kremlin-funded networks, the vision of events is presented not only upside down, but backwards. Panicked pundits blame the United States and Ukraine for the escalation, claim that Russia doesn’t want the war and theatrically ponder: “Why won’t somebody stop Biden?”
……….
In a bizarro world of Russia’s state media, America—which has been painstakingly attempting to prevent an escalation—is the true aggressor. Appearing on 60 Minutes on Friday, lawmaker Oleg Morozov lamented: “I’m hoping there are people next to Biden, next to Scholz, next to the British PM, who will look at the scenarios and say, ‘If the big war with Russia’s participation were to start, it will cost Europe dearly. Think about that!’ That is my last hope, that the fear of this unpredictable situation will stop these hotheads.”
Igor Korotchenko, a member of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Public Council and editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, exclaimed: “The United States want this war. Their main goal is to take over Europe’s energy market. Biden could care less about the victims and their suffering, about Europe’s losses. He is realizing the plans of the American establishment.” Summarizing the grotesque new theme in the Kremlin’s war on truth, Korotchenko theatrically pleaded with European leaders: “Stop Zelensky! Stop Biden!”
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 8:28 am##############
@258, what a silly lie.
Time123 (07ab6e) — 2/20/2022 @ 9:01 amMore on Jane Timkin:
All eyes on Trump as Timken gains momentum in Ohio
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s ( R ) endorsement of Republican Senate candidate Jane Timken could alter the dynamics of the state’s crowded GOP primary and give Timken a needed boost.
Portman, who is retiring next year, on Wednesday offered Timken the race’s most high-profile endorsement to date. Timken will likely get access to the senator’s vast donor network and campaign apparatus in the state, where Portman is popular. Timken’s campaign said it raised $250,000 in the 24 hours after Portman endorsed her.
………
Some strategists are also asking if Portman’s endorsement could foreshadow a potential endorsement from former President Trump.
“That is the hottest rumor in Ohio right now,” state Sen. Michael Rulli (R), who has endorsed Timken, said. “If that happens, in my humble opinion, Jane would lock it up.”
…………
“ Portman’s backing of Timken is especially significant given his popularity across the Buckeye State. Portman, a moderate who has served in the Senate since 2011, won his reelection bid against former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) in 2016 by 20 points.
“What people forget is how popular the Portman brand is in Ohio with Republicans,” the GOP operative said, noting Portman’s favorability rating has consistently been in the 60 percent range among Ohio Republicans.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 9:02 am……….
………(U)nlike Portman, Timken has said she would not have voted to certify the 2020 election results, arguing that Republicans did not get the chance to investigate voting fraud allegations.
………
Sixty years ago today
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 9:15 am“ Godspeed, John Glenn.”—Scott Carpenter
No thoughts about the police who were tasked with guarding the Capitol when they had to try fending off a hostile mob bent on forcing their way in so they could intimidate Congress into keeping the losing incumbent president in power (and punish people they deemed “traitors”)?
Refresh my memory, please. What time was Ashli Babbitt shot? What time was Roseanne Boyland beaten with a baton? I had the impression that deaths AT the capitol ON January sixth were limited to the protestors themselves (no cops, then and there) and their lethal injuries were inflicted DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS? Am I wrong on the facts? So, the “Day/Night” rules I’ve offered (I condense myself:
“When protestors assemble by daylight for dancing and chanting …Support Free Speech, indulge the protestors, and Attack any “Blue” effort to shut things down.” seem to cover the situation. Attack the Blue. Is the rule inapplicable to the situation? Do you offer the example in good faith and confusion or are you trolling?
And, not ignoring the other assertions: No comments on the spectacle of people carrying Back the Blue flags amidst a violent mob and those good “conservatives” who ridiculed cops who were injured by the “conservative” mob, calling them “crisis actors” and such?
Since we don’t have the dates and locations of those examples, it’s difficult to tell whether the “Day /Night” rule usefully applies. That said, carrying any variety of flag and calling cops any sort of bad names don’t seem to fall outside the “norms” established and observed since the VietNam war protests. Classic free speech, and the “Thin Blue Line” is expected by the citizenry, and required by their own oaths, to stand between those provoking and those provoked. I don’t see what’s changed or what is so very subtle and complicated here.
Nor is the issue purely determined by the US Constitutional norms. Mounted and armed police who trample pedestrian protestors — by daylight — forfeit a whole LOT of the respect (and “backing”) that would normally be offered, by habit and default. Does anyone disagree?
pouncer (6c33cf) — 2/20/2022 @ 9:53 amPaul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:07 am
It may be understandable that most people would be angrier (or greatly concerned) about a great mistake about to be made, than about a great mistake already suffered. The first can be prevented, the second must be cured. The costs of prevention remain to be seen, but are surely “ounces compared to “pounds” of cure.
felipe (484255) — 2/20/2022 @ 9:56 amI’m not sure what “great mistake” you’re talking about, felipe.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:09 amKevin: “stop pretending like illegal immigration isn’t happening”
Charles Murray long ago predicted the problem in the Bell Curve, of what happens to the people who aren’t equipped for college and an evolving higher-tech economy. Opportunities for them are shrinking. While others benefit from cheaper nannies, landscapers, cleaners, odd jobbers, etc. I appreciate the cynicism. I also agree that Trump’s Wall is more symbolic and does help keep low-skilled white men (formerly known as Reagan Democrats) connected to the GOP. Few on the Right see a need for an uncontrolled stream of low-skilled workers into the country. However, it’s hard to pass significant reforms and investment without 60 votes….which has given us the status quo for 30yrs . It is unacceptable, but it calls into question why there is no deal to make here and what precisely are the impediments to that deal-making…and why those impediments can’t be called out. I think we know why.
“The export of entire manufacturing economies to Asia…”
The temptation here is to drift toward tariffs, protectionism, and government regulation. Economies are going to change and profit motivates innovation and risk taking. Putting the politician into the loop usually isn’t good. Yes, we must stay vigilant and suspicious of the Chinese with their past currency manipulation, IP espionage, unfair practices, and targeting of key industries that creates unacceptable dependencies. Yes, our regulatory and tax policies should incentivize maintaining a vibrant industrial presence in the states, but we have to be cautious about driving the golden geese to nest elsewhere. I want the brightest and most savvy people architecting those plans.
So if Trump is credited with elevating these positions…and giving them more teeth….fine. The devil remains in the details and getting actual laws passed. Trump is an impediment to democratic action. Why aren’t Republicans currently building a legislative agenda? They seem locked in place in following Trump’s narrative and giving us more Marjorie Taylor Greene know-nothings.
AJ_Liberty (a8d121) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:21 amPaul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:09 am
The great mistake is the slide into Totalitarianism by failure to successfully resist it. Another way to put it is “surrendering freedom for security.”
felipe (484255) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:30 amCanada is a totalitarian regime???
Dana (5395f9) — 2/18/2022 @ 7:44 pm
saw this at the tail end of an article in the esteemed The Guardian:
“An erosion of democratic norms. An escalating climate emergency. Corrosive racial inequality. A crackdown on the right to vote. Rampant pay inequality. America is in the fight of its life. If you can, please make a gift today to fund our reporting in 2022.“
umm… no thanks
but yeah, it’s absolutely incredulous to see a blog comment calling canada a totalitarian regime
JF (e1156d) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:32 ambut yeah, it’s absolutely incredulous to see a blog comment calling canada a totalitarian regime
JF (e1156d) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:32 am
I agree that it wrong to call Canada a totalitarian regime, when it is, actually, “only” nascent.
felipe (484255) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:36 amPolice regain control of most of Canada’s capital, say protesters will continue to be identified and charged as holdouts persist
Canadian authorities were back in control of nearly all of Canada’s capital on Sunday after police arrested over 170 protesters, towed dozens of vehicles, and fenced or cordoned off large swaths of Ottawa in an operation over the weekend to disperse the self-styled “Freedom Convoy” that pushed the government to invoke wide-ranging emergency powers.
……..
Tall fences have blocked off access to Wellington Street, the center of the encampments that clogged the thoroughfare running in front of Parliament and the prime minister’s office. ……
“We continue to maintain a police presence in and around the area the unlawful protest occupied … to ensure the ground gained back is not lost,” the Ottawa police tweeted Sunday.
“If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges,” the police said.
………
Under the Emergencies Act, banks may freeze transactions suspected of funding the “Freedom Convoys” that paralyzed Ottawa and clogged several U.S.-Canada borders, disrupting millions of dollars a day in trade. Drivers of vehicles documented at the demonstrations can also lose their corporate bank accounts, vehicle insurance and driving licenses.
………
The police said they used pepper spray, stun grenades and other anti-riot weapons. Some demonstrators arrested had body armor, smoke grenades and fireworks on them, the police said Saturday.
The police have faced heavy criticism for failing to enforce laws during in the convoy’s first three weeks. Critics noted that police have moved much more quickly and forcefully against other demonstrations, such as those held by Indigenous communities. The majority of “Freedom Convoy” participants were White.
……….
Law enforcement officials have denied that race or politics influenced their response. …….
……….
Fears rose Feb. 14, when authorities said they arrested 11 people and seized guns, body armor and a “large quantity of ammunition” in Coutts, Alberta, where another convoy had been trying to block the U.S.-Canada border.
Canada’s public safety minister said Wednesday that some of those arrested in Alberta had “strong ties” to a “far-right extreme organization” with a presence in Ottawa.
Elizabeth Simons, deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said the group in question was Diagolon, an insurrectionist movement that has called for creating a nation-state diagonally running from Alaska through Canada’s western provinces and down to Florida.
The arrests also underscored how the “Freedom Convoy,” which focused from the outset on protesting health mandates and Trudeau’s government, was fueled in part by far-right organizers and influencers with a history of anti-government, anti-science and anti-media agendas.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 11:00 am……….
(Tamara Lich, Chris Barber,)and a third early organizer, Benjamin Dichter, who left Ottawa on Friday, are named in a class-action lawsuit originally filed by an Ottawa resident asking for $306 million Canadian dollars ($240 million) in damages caused by the demonstrations.
……………
Trudeau taking the actions that Trump failed to in Portland and Washington DC.
Calling Canada totalitarian on the scale of China, Vietnam, or North Korea is ridiculous. At worst the government’s actions are authoritarian, and pretty weak at that. The government’s reaction is very similar to the Capitol Police on January 6th.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 11:07 amPlease explain how Canada’s government fits this definition:
Thanks.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 11:12 amWest plans to arm resistance if Russian forces occupy Ukraine
………
The message was underscored in a meeting between (Boris) Johnson and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on the margins of the Munich conference where the two men predicted a fierce resistance to an invasion.
Similar discussions have been taking place in the US, where reports suggest the country’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has told senators that the US is willing to arm a resistance and is not going to accept a Russian military victory that erases the principles of national self-determination.
………
……… Johnson warned of a protracted battle after any invasion that Russia could not contain.
He said: “A lightning war would be followed by a long and hideous period of reprisals and revenge and insurgency, and Russian parents would mourn the loss of young Russian soldiers, who in their way are every bit as innocent as the Ukrainians now bracing themselves for attack.
“If Ukraine is overrun by brute force, I fail to see how a country encompassing nearly a quarter of a million square miles – the biggest nation in Europe apart from Russia itself – could then be held down and subjugated for ever.”
……….
Meanwhile, there was growing suspicion that Russia was behind a series of seemingly coordinated “false flag” attacks, designed to give Vladimir Putin a pretext for a possible invasion.
……….
………. Johnson made it clear that the west must stand by Ukraine by ensuring Russia was ultimately repelled.
“If dialogue fails and if Russia chooses to use violence against an innocent and peaceful population in Ukraine, and to disregard the norms of civilised behaviour between states, and to disregard the charter of the United Nations, then we at this conference should be in no doubt that it is in our collective interest that Russia should ultimately fail and be seen to fail,” he said.
He presaged the possibility of further military help when he added: “We have to steel ourselves for the possibility of a protracted crisis, with Russia maintaining the pressure and searching for weaknesses over an extended period, and we must together refuse to be worn down.”
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 11:34 am………….
Putin’s military mobilization against Ukraine couldn’t have come at a better time for both Biden and Johnson to change the subject from their domestic crises.
David French only knows how to punch right?
https://www.dailywire.com/news/major-pastors-rebuke-david-french-over-his-repeated-criticism-of-churches-and-white-evangelicals
steveg (e81d76) — 2/20/2022 @ 11:35 amA reminder- 60 years ago this day, February 20, 1962, when America truly was great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ubC5lo4fiM
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 12:15 pm#238 I hope no con men are reading this site, because they will spot an easy mark in EPWJ. Perhaps we should warn him (her? it?) about some of the more common cons, so that he knows that the Brooklyn Bridge is not for sale, a Nigerian prince is not going to share millions with him, and so on. Or whatever the current cons are.
(I have been worried for some time that con men would buy donor lists from Trump, looking for the gullible.)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/20/2022 @ 1:17 pm#276 steveg – No. Here’s what David French was doing earlier in his career:
This incident helps explain why he doesn’t care for the “alt-right”:
That’s his adopted daughter from Ethiopia.
(Here’s French speaking for himself. I think you’ll find it interesting.)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/20/2022 @ 1:30 pmA fully vaccinated Queen Elizabeth II, who will be 96 in April, has tested positive for Covid.
Her Majesty is not amused.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 1:31 pmJim Miller (406a93) — 2/20/2022 @ 1:17 pm
When they are not trying to sell you something, usually they warn you your account/computer has been possibly been compromised, please log on; or your electricity is about to be disconnected unless you pay immediately by zelle.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/20/2022 @ 1:55 pmAnd that’s where we differ, felipe. Canada is pretty damn far from totalitarian. This occupation has gone on for weeks. At some point, the government is within its authority to clear the traffic jams, arrest the rioters and send the protesters home. Fight the real enemy.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 1:59 pmAlmost nobody on radio or TV understands what Durham described in court papers.
Ted Cruz does not get corrected. Sean Hannity misdescribes it and does not realize his guests = Sara Carter and John Solomon – are describing something different (they try not to indicate this)
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/20/2022 @ 2:01 pmI’m wondering how a reference to cops “beating” Boyland is refuted by autopsy results showing an overdose? Isn’t this like saying the cops treated George Floyd properly because he “only” died from a similar overdose? Mr Montagu surely doesn’t think the cops acted professionally in that arrest of an accused shoplifter.
The Floyd case seems, to me, a better example of when my own “Day/Night” “Back/Attack” rule breaks down. Edge case, perhaps.
pouncer (6c33cf) — 2/20/2022 @ 2:51 pm@242. I love Nic’s comment @234 which provides some of the grist to answer DCCCP’s “simplistic” lament @237
“Some of the problems don’t really have a solution, which is something no one likes to hear, some of the problems have complicated or lengthy solutions which no one wants to hear. Some of the solutions are expensive which nobody wants to pay for. Some of the solutions aren’t ideologically pure which ideologues and politicians don’t want to hear and also HATE. Some of the problems have multiple possible solutions and no one wants to give up their idea to let them be solved in other ways.”
Poor AJ; love hurts:
“Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again.” – JFK
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 2:57 pmIf JFK actually said that — and I notice that there is no link — it was and is a remarkably stupid thing to say.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/20/2022 @ 3:47 pm@286. Stupid? Stop embarrassing yourself, Jim; it’s from one of President Kennedy’s most memorable addresses:
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 10, 1963
Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again.
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-university-19630610
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 4:06 pmProtesters in several European and U.S. cities urge Putin to back off
……..
On Sunday, hundreds of protesters waved Ukrainian, Polish and E.U. flags in Warsaw, with some holding signs that read “We Are With Ukraine” and “Hands Off Ukraine,” according to Agence France Press and local media outlets.
In Madrid, the AFP reported that about 500 people demonstrated against Russian military aggression in Plaza de España, where participants also waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flags or wore them on their backs.
………
Across the Atlantic, about 300 demonstrators gathered on the steps outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Sunday afternoon.
Ukrainian Americans and other supporters draped flags over their shoulders or hoisted signs into the air, demanding that Putin withdraw his troops.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 4:15 pm………..
LOL!
U.S. has intel that Russian commanders have orders to proceed with Ukraine invasion
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 4:24 pmThe U.S. has intelligence that Russian commanders have received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine, with commanders on the ground making specific plans for how they would maneuver in their sectors of the battlefield, a U.S. official told CBS News.
……..
“Everything we’re seeing tells us that the decision we believe President Putin has made to invade is moving forward,” Blinken said. “We’ve seen that with provocations created by the Russians or separatist forces over the weekend, false flag operations, now the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’ Russia was engaged in in Belarus with 30,000 Russian forces that was supposed to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine, tensions created by Russia and the separatist forces it backs there.” (said Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State on Face the Nation).
………
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a security alert on Sunday warning that “according to media sources, there have been threats of attacks against shopping centers, railway and metro stations, and other public gathering places in major urban areas, including Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as in areas of heightened tension along the Russian border with Ukraine.”
……….
Annotated: Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. (Some problems are manmade, most problems aren’t.) And man can be as big as he wants. (On earth, mammals are limited to about the size of an elephant, as tens of millions of years of evolution have shown.) No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. (So, we can stop the sun from blowing up and then dying out?) Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again. (Mathematicians have shown, since BC, that some problems are unsolvable.)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/20/2022 @ 4:33 pmIs Trump at risk of face-planting in Georgia?
At risk of face-planting again, I should say. …….
…….. (G)iven how much political capital he’s invested in taking revenge on Brian Kemp for refusing to overturn Georgia’s election, he does care about the gubernatorial race. A lot.
And if you believe Trafalgar, a pollster respected by Republicans, Kemp is perilously close to a majority in the primary against Trump’s handpicked challenger, David Perdue.
………
I would have never guessed that Kemp would be leading this race, let alone on the cusp of winning a majority, given all the venom Trump has directed at him over the past year. If you’re looking for evidence that Trump’s grip on the party is slipping, this is the election to watch. More from CNN:
Another surprise is how many Republican state officials have endorsed Kemp. Normally that’d be a no-brainer given how much influence an incumbent governor has over legislation, but if a Perdue victory in the primary seemed assured, more GOPers would be scrambling to side with him and the former president. The fact that they’re not suggests either they think Trump’s endorsement ain’t what it used to be or Kemp deserves their support as a moral matter for having done the right thing in 2020. Or both.
It’ll be fascinating to see how different Trump enemies fare in their primaries. They’re not all alike, after all; I’d argue that there are three tiers. Tier one consists of outspoken, consistent Trump critics.…….
Tier two consists of Republicans who supported impeachment but have mostly kept their heads down since then and not challenged Trump repeatedly.……. My guess is that the results in this tier will be a mixed bag, with some GOPers holding on against Trump’s challengers and others succumbing.
Tier three consists of Republicans who crossed Trump somehow over the election short of voting for impeachment and have also kept their heads down ever since, taking care not to present themselves as Trump enemies in the same way that tier-two Republicans (have)……. This is Brian Kemp’s tier. Kemp infuriated Trump by certifying the results of Georgia’s election after multiple recounts but he’s never attacked Trump. On the contrary, he’s absorbed Trump’s many attacks with aplomb……
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/20/2022 @ 4:41 pm………..
……….. One of the most suspenseful questions in American politics is how Trump will react if the outcomes in this summer’s primaries look less Trumpy than he was hoping. What if most of the tier-two and tier-three Republicans hold on and win? Will Trump endorse any of them in the general election against Democrats? Or will he actually stoop to alleging that the primaries his candidates lost were rigged, an idea that could poison GOP turnout in the general election? I know how I’d bet. Especially in Georgia.
##########
@290. Jim, you’re in a hole; stop digging.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 4:53 pm‘…it was and is a remarkably stupid thing to say.’
Yes- this was:
“My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” – President Ronald Reagan 8/11/84
=mike-drop=
A seed for the party of populist ‘simpletons’… cast to the winds– now deeply rooted and in full bloom.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 5:10 pmDCSCA, you’re in a sewer; stop splashing the rest of us.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/20/2022 @ 5:27 pm@294. Hard truths stink, don’t they, Jim. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 5:36 pmIt isn’t slipping. He never had it.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/20/2022 @ 5:43 pmBut some candidates a have trouble arguing with Trump supported nonsense, like that Wisconsin can decertify its electors who were chosen in 2020 and maybe (in combination with other states?) remove Joe Biden as president.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/20/2022 @ 5:48 pmhttps://recorder.withgoogle.com
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/20/2022 @ 5:48 pmI don’t know the shoplifter story, pouncer, but the “Boyland was beaten” tale was brought out by Gateway Pundit or the like, and the video doesn’t establish what they alleged. This link shows video from other angles and shows no such thing, and it’s worth clicking on all the links and video, if only to get a more complete picture.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/20/2022 @ 7:12 pmAlso, the guy who was with her the whole time–who came with her to DC–and was calling for help when she was down, said exactly nothing about any beating. There’s more detailed reporting here, which said nothing about any police beating, and here’s a longer, more detailed recounting by the person who knew brother-in-law, but again no mention of any beating.
I owe some apologies here for some harshness in my comments I will try to do better. Paul particularly. But I do feel strongly that this ship can still be righted. We can get back to the shining city on a hill and move away from the hucksters that run our country.
I think that I can sum up my feelings about establishment Republicans with respect to the issues that Trump exposed. It’s not that these problems are easy, or can be dealt with quickly. They can’t. Some will take decades to solve. That’s really not the place to argue this though. The questions are
* “Is anyone trying?” Often it appear not.
* “Why are so many people part of the problem and not part of the solution?” You have to pick. Much of the establishment seems intent on making the problems worse. At least for those who are in harm’s way. Do you really believe the opposition to the Wall is because it’s costly or administrative checkboxes were skipped? Or that people are helped by $200K student loans for what is essentially finishing school? How many art historians or French literature scholars do we really need?
* “Why can’t our leaders show some perspective?” In Los Angeles, a city choked with traffic, an increasing homeless situation and residents being displaced by astronomical housing costs, why does the city and state work so hard to attract more homeless, take lanes out of service, drive up gas prices and to top it all, give driver’s licenses to 1 million previously undocumented? Just on the basis of global warming that makes no sense.
From every direction, government is making itself the enemy. The people are realizing that they are being played for schmucks and they are as “mad as hell and they won’t take it anymore.” That line reverberated in 1976, and things are not better now. Why is anyone surprised that the fire this time is worse.
Why anyone still relying on “oh, gee, it’s so hard and nuanced”? It is not calming.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:13 pmPA courts declared unconstitutional etc
This is the thin fact you base your lies upon. One PA court said (and I think correctly) that the “emergency rules” issued in 2020 for absentee voting were in contradiction to the state constitution.
The did not throw out any votes. They did not even consider throwing out any votes. They DID say that, going forward, absentee ballots must be restricted to those groups named in the state constitution. The suggested that the Legislature might want to change that, but the could could not and would not.
This is being appealed. It is unclear if the courts will, in the end, rule the state constitution unconstitutional. If not, and ballots of these unlawful types arrive in future election, I would expect that they would not be counted. Even that might be wrong.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:18 pmWe can get back to the shining city on a hill
Reaganoptics, Kevin: Oz was a MGM matte painting.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:19 pmThe temptation here is to drift toward tariffs, protectionism, and government regulation.
As I’ve said, I view tariffs as neutral. Sin taxes, like we have on alcohol. Is alcohol a sin? Who knows, but the tax is imposed to 1) gather money off of it and 2) perhaps reduce the incidence of alcohol use.
If a tax is imposed on consumption of Chinese solar panels, is that “to protect domestic manufacturers” or “correcting market abuses” or “a response to environmental crimes” or maybe just “to collect money off the sale of solar panels”? These are all different purposes.
There is a difference to a tax imposed due to rampant patent theft in imported products, and a tax to help US Steel. Yes, I know all the Libertarian arguments and I find them all wanting. They are, like most arguments from economic deists, inhuman and forget that people cannot be moved around like widgets.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:28 pmTrump and DCSCA deserve each other.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:28 pmMathematicians have shown, since BC, that some problems are unsolvable.
No, just that they take too long. Infinity is weird.
Kevin M (38e250) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:30 pm@304. Trump has a lotta brass on real buildings, Kevin– when polished, it makes them shine. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:32 pmIn a bizarro world of Russia’s state media, America—which has been painstakingly attempting to prevent an escalation—is the true aggressor.
What’s ‘bizarro’ is watching every Biden administration official -including Joe himself now- going on the TeeVee for the past several weeks saying ‘invasion is imminent; all but certain; on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… before the Olympics end, after the Olympics end… and rattling sabers, disrupting lives, blowing bucks on deploying troops; spooking a country only Hunter could love for the $$$, driving up the cost of gas, oil and precious metals… over something that is literally none of America’s business. Go to Texas, Joe; there’s an invasion going on and a border that needs looking after there.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/20/2022 @ 10:44 pmTotalitarianism is what they do to baby seals.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/21/2022 @ 3:31 amThe PGA is a farce, just like the nfl.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/21/2022 @ 3:34 amOnly the Majors matter to me.
well, only one court found Kyle innocent. It was just one court.
EPWJ (0fbe92) — 2/21/2022 @ 5:19 amThank you, Kevin. Accepted.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/21/2022 @ 5:49 amI’d rather not have uncivil conversations with you because I appreciate a lot of what you have to say.
“As I’ve said, I view tariffs as neutral.”
But Kevin it’s not about feelz. Isn’t there strong economic data about the actual effects of our recent foray into tariffs? Is the end evaluation truly neutral, some winners some losers? I don’t think so. The records show that politically motivated tariffs like the ones Trump imposed on China (and I guess Canada steel as well) result in retaliation. And that retaliation resulted in the tanking of exports (after a steady growth of 3% a year after the great recession) and in the case of agriculture, subsidies that the government had to pay out. So much for tariffs being an effective money maker. Then we get into who bears the cost of the tariff…not China….but consumers here….and U.S. businesses that require parts to assemble final products (higher production costs).
I won’t argue that tariffs are never the right response. But it’s clear that Trump’s tariffs hurt our exports in soy beans, wheat, wine, whiskey, etc….and hurt businesses that faced higher production costs. Gary Cohn resigned over it. I think most Americans are not neutral on the efficacy of tariffs. Trump’s policy felt more like a spasm to justify his claim that trade wars were easy to win, rather than a carefully thought through exercise.
AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 2/21/2022 @ 5:53 am“something that is literally none of America’s business”
Except it is. World stability and opposing the uncertainty of agressor war has always been in our interest, especially with NATO countries looking on nervously. Non-action would set the precedent for future Putin moves as he tries to further expand his territory…illegally. There is nothing here forcing Putin to do this….it’s like the 69 year old is bored with grafting the Russian people and instead wants to play Risk…for real. Someone needs to call his bluff…and show him a pair of deuces ain’t sh*t.
Maybe if shirtless Putin was riding his horse out front of his advancing troops, I’d at least give him props…but it appears that he will be sadly perched on the far away side of one of his 30-foot tables he’s been recently hiding behind. DCCCP used to call for Nancy to boldly stand against the January 6th invaders on the Capitol steps….now, not even a call for Putin to strip off that shirt. Is this Putin-optics?
AJ_Liberty (3cb02f) — 2/21/2022 @ 6:11 amDefeatism is the principal weapon in psychological warfare and especially favored by the Fifth Column. Reagan told the Comsymps and just plain simps to take it and shove it up their “and that’s way it is” and they’ll never forgive him for it.
nk (1d9030) — 2/21/2022 @ 6:28 am#305 Kevin – Here are three classic examples:
Formal proofs of the impossibility of each came later, of course.
I repeat, some problems are unsolvable.
(Some of you might find the math in those three old problems a useful review.)
A more modern example of impossibility is Fermat’s Last Theorem.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/21/2022 @ 7:22 am#313 And then there is that little matter of the Budapest Memorandum:
At the time, Ukraine had the “world’s third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile”.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/21/2022 @ 8:02 amhttps://twitter.com/markstrahl/status/1495472037438967808
Dana,
you thought it was incredulous that I called Canada a totalitarian regime, correct?
How about now?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/21/2022 @ 8:46 amQuestionable claim about Briane, but it does get the fearmongering and hyperbole flowing.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/21/2022 @ 9:02 amOne would think that it would be easy to provide Briane’s last name….or even find a Briane on the donor’s list. Surely a Canadian MP wouldn’t just make her up…..
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 2/21/2022 @ 9:21 amTotalitarian regimes do not allow opposition parties. (Mark Strahl is a Conservative MP, a prominent member of the main opposition party.) Totalitarian regimes do not allow attacks to be published on their policies, such as that tweet.
Thank you, Rob, for providing more evidence that it is an obvious error to call Canada “totalitarian”.
For the record: The woman in the tweet may well have been treated unfairly, something that happens from time to time under every government. Especially during emergencies, such as the COVID epidemic.
(Totalitarianism)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/21/2022 @ 9:22 amNJRob engaging in his usual hyperbole. Canada is no more totalitarian than the United States.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/21/2022 @ 9:43 amhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/justin-trudeaus-destructive-emergency-canada-truckers-protest-11645223027
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/21/2022 @ 10:36 am@313. Except it’s not. Call the United Nations.
Joe ain’t president of the world and the United States is not the world’s policeman.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 10:41 amSomeone needs to call his bluff…and show him a pair of deuces ain’t sh*t.
That someone ain’t Ancient Joe; his deck full of jokers can’t beat a pair of deuces.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 10:45 amDCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 10:41 am
That;s why Biden is involvng a lot of other countries in this.
All of NATO.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/21/2022 @ 10:55 am“Joe ain’t president of the world and the United States is not the world’s policeman”
I know your romanticizing Putin taking Ukraine…..but all military actions are unpredictable and humanitarian nightmares. Currently Ukraine serves as a buffer between Russia and the West. And though imperfect, Ukraine is a democracy that wishes to control its own destiny and be separate of Russia. The U.S. has an interest in maintaining the current buffer.
If Russia is allowed to invade, occupy, and annex its neighbor….with zero legal claim… that’s an unstable international system that ratchets up the possibility of miscalculations and even accidents destabilizing the continent (see Hitler and Austria). You might believe that Putin won’t then move on Latvia, but you simply can’t guarantee that….as competent as you believe a thug like Putin is.
A successful invasion of Ukraine will compel the U.S. and NATO to build up troops in Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic. The further militarization of the region produces a higher probability of super powers colliding. Successful annexation of Ukraine will give Putin more confidence to launch cyber attacks and interfere with Western elections. There is nothing good that comes from Putin launching war….as sexy as you creepily appear to think he is.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 2/21/2022 @ 11:16 amWhen former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked emergency powers in peacetime in 1970, he was accused of “using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut……”
Except then P. Trudeau was confronted with a true terrorist threat:
Footnotes omitted.
J. Trudeau doing the job Trump refused to do during the BLM riots, particularly in Portland and DC.
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/21/2022 @ 11:47 am@326. Romanticize? You’re a bit behind the curve on this. Vlad’s speech today has been made; his historic and legal POV presented; the tanks are revved to roll – the 22nd is a special day to him.
Ukraine is toast, AJ.
Look to Taiwan, where U.S. interests are more valid and critical. Vlad’s move isa a blueprint for China.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 11:48 amA successful invasion of Ukraine will compel the U.S. and NATO to build up troops in Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic.
Why? Who pays?? NATO Germany sent Ukraine… helmets. You bought any Ukraine Freedom War Bonds today from Uncle Sam? NATO Europe are Vlad’s BEST energy customers. He’s never going to assault a NATO member as long as Article 5 is in place. Keep the customers supplied and satisfied.
Europe has been bailed out 3 times by America in 100 years and Joe can’t even manage the southern border in America. Europe can manage itself.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 11:54 amThere is nothing good that comes from Putin launching war….as sexy as you creepily appear to think he is.
Pfft.
Recognize the loser, Joe; acknowledge the winner, Vlad. A multi-year disciplined, brilliant strategy.
“Americans love a winner. And will not tolerate a loser.” – George S. Patton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton%27s_speech_to_the_Third_Army
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:08 pmAnd the free world allowed Russia to territorially expand before post WW2….at great human suffering….and leading us to the nuclear brink several times.
You don’t have a military to then say….oooohhh….it’s too expensive to deploy. Who in Russia is paying for Putin’s ambitions? Why does Ukraine need to be sacrificed for a megalomaniac? Because he’s a winner? He’s a thief, thug, and a bully….the same type that needs his bell rung once in the school cafeteria to unmask him. You have a military to defend U.S. interests and thwart competitor/aggressor interests. Period hard stop. You hate Biden so much that you cheer for our geo-political enemies. I’m not understanding that.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:25 pm@329-
Look to Taiwan, where U.S. interests are more valid and critical. …..
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:31 pmI’m sure when the US moves to defend Taiwan you will be asking “Who pays?” and “Bought any Taiwan War Bonds lately?”
DCSCA meme generator:
1. “ Who pays??”
2. “You bought any Ukraine Freedom War Bonds today from Uncle Sam?”
3. “Squinty McStumblebum!”
4. “Germans sent helmets.”
5. Obscure movie quotes.
6. Obscure historical quotes.
7. “…..and Putin smiled”
8. “ The U.S. deserves a good swift kick in the azz.”
9. “ Reaganoptics”
Rip Murdock (da0cad) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:33 pmBecause he’s a winner? He’s a thief, thug, and a bully…
aka… The New England Patriots.
You hate Biden so much that you cheer for our geo-political enemies. I’m not understanding that.
Hate? You’re projecting your own disgust about Trump- hence, you coddle incompetence as a shield. And lest you forget this ‘geo-political enemy’ you whine about is a partner in the ISS whizzing 280 miles over head and a ‘geo-political enemy’ willingly paid for rides up and down to it aboard their Soyuz by the U.S. of A for years. A ‘geo-political enemy’ our NATO partners have willingly aligned themselves with for the bulk of their energy needs for years.
A thief, bully, thug? Yes. Incompetent? Nyet.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:38 pm@333. Shorter: facts.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:39 pm@332. You betcha. My neighbor, a USMC :Lt., has already expressed worry and concern about being deployed there. And he already just spent 6 months awy from his family, deployed to Palau, ‘war gaming’ scenarios w/China.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:42 pmYou have a military to defend U.S. interests and thwart competitor/aggressor interests.
There are no U.S. interests in Ukraine– but it is of great interest to Joe to not have to deal w/7.5% inflation, failed Covid restrictions and an open southern border and fill the airwaves w/saber rattling and charge millions of dollars for same to Uncle Sam’s credit card, financed by borrowed $ from China.
… and the MIC smiled.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 12:45 pmFinland has some tough athletes.
Second time he has suffered a frozen penis while competing
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/cross-country-skiing-finn-remi-suffers-frozen-penis-mass-start-race-2022-02-20/
steveg (e81d76) — 2/21/2022 @ 1:08 pmMore bad news on long COVID:
(Emphasis added.)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/21/2022 @ 1:58 pmPutin orders Russian peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine’s two breakaway regions
MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin ordered his defence ministry to despatch Russian peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine’s two breakaway regions, according to a decree published early on Tuesday after he said Moscow would recognise their independence.
Putin earlier signed decrees to recognise the two breakaway regions — the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic — as independent statelets defying Western warnings that such a step would be illegal and kill off long-running peace negotiations.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 2:09 pmDCCCP: “[Putin] Incompetent? Nyet.”
DCCCP also cheered for Darth Vader and wondered how such a competent guy could be the Star Wars villain. And why wasn’t Luke selling Rebellion bonds?! Why didn’t they just mind their own business!?
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 2/21/2022 @ 2:15 pmMore bad legal news for Trump:
As you probably recall, in 2016 Trump, and supporters, made much of Hillary Clinton’s recklessness with classified materials.
(I’ll leave it to the lawyers to discuss how bad those legal problems might be.)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/21/2022 @ 2:40 pm@341. Again:
Recognize the loser, Joe; acknowledge the winner, Vlad. A multi-year disciplined, brilliant strategy.
“Americans love a winner. And will not tolerate a loser.” – George S. Patton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton%27s_speech_to_the_Third_Army
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/21/2022 @ 2:48 pmLong covid seems to be similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, and many of the vague symptoms seem to be related to nerve damage caused by auto-immune attacks, particularly on nerves that cause or regulate blood flow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/well/move/long-covid-exercise.html
I think nerves often can regenerate, so it can get better, but if the auto-antibodies are still around the damage is continuing. It is a particular type of nerve fiber that is most likely to be under attack. The exact symptoms may depend on exactly what is attacked. The whole thing is something that ha s not been studied much, or understood, and one problem is that the medical profession thought they knew all things.
Long Covid is causing attention to be paid to things that just didn’t fit before.
I think it is because the pharmaceutical companies are afraid of triggering bad symptoms – they can’t yet recognize in advance what antibodies will attack what in some people that they limit synthetic monoclonal antibodies to one or two of them, which also causes them not to work when some variants come along.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/22/2022 @ 10:43 amOne thing wrong is that people are paying attention only to Covid and not too all respiratory diseases. Maybe they will take amore genwral approach in the future
A family member, died at age 97, almost 98 last week after suffering from pneumonia mostly since about Thanksgiving.. Everything should be tested, or at least sampled, so that people will understand what is around.
Most of the time when somebody has a disease, they never take a sample to see exactly what bacteria or virus is causing an infection. But they sometimes can go all crazy about one particular one.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/22/2022 @ 10:47 amMexixan drug delaers, who have become involved in the legitimate business of growing avocados, threaeten U.S. inspectors
There’s an agreement that only avocados grown in a certain Mexican state can be imported into the United States. There was an attempt to pass along some avocados that came from somewhere else.
The reason for the exclusion is that there is some kind of grower’s union that policies sanitation or something in the one Mexican state that is permitted.
In response, the United States pulled its inspectors, and stopped all importation of avocados from Mexico until this problem is resolved.
Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d) — 2/22/2022 @ 11:35 amIf something affects only 1% of the people (and maybe as high as 4%) they don’t count.
https://www.newser.com/story/317234/att-shuts-down-3g-and-impact-could-be-wide.html
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 2/22/2022 @ 2:02 pmWhat do South Koreans want? Nuclear weapons:
And it isn’t hard to understand why.
(I have been told that Japan could have nukes within six months, if they decided on that course of action. And they might if “King” Kim, “Czar” Putin, and “Emperor” Xi continue their aggressive behavior.)
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/22/2022 @ 2:21 pmJustin Castreau getting the votes to entrench hos dictatorship. Reminds me of the joke that used to be Venezuela.
NJRob (fbe422) — 2/22/2022 @ 2:23 pmAccording to a top Australian security official, some foreign nation tried to undermine their election:
Everyone assumes he was talking about China, and that the target was the Australian Labor Party, which is challenging the Liberal/National coalition, in an election to be held in May.
But Burgess didn’t name names.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/22/2022 @ 2:34 pmTo equate Canada to Venezuela speaks to some massive ignorance about the Chavez-Maduro regime.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 2/22/2022 @ 2:47 pmRob, here’s a useful post I highly recommend for you. If you read it and take it to heart, I can practically guarantee you’ll be taken more seriously by people who don’t share your Manichaean worldview, and probably even to some who do.
lurker (59504c) — 2/22/2022 @ 3:53 pmRob – You might start by checking the definition of “incredulous”. People can be incredulous, things can’t. And the definition of totalitarian.
If you want to argue that Canada is becoming more “authoritarian” under Trudeau, more people will take you seriously. If that’s what you want.
Jim Miller (406a93) — 2/22/2022 @ 4:19 pm