Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Let’s go!
First news item
Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel overseeing probes into former President Donald Trump, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter…Sources told ABC News that the subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith requests documents and testimony related to the failed attempt by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol…It’s not immediately clear to what extent the former vice president might seek to invoke claims of executive privilege over the information sought by Smith, which could set up a potentially lengthy and contentious legal battle with no clear modern precedent.
Also, the FBI is conducting a consensual search of Pence’s Indiana home today.
About Jack Smith, Trump opined:
The Special “Prosecutor” assigned to the “get Trump case,” Jack Smith(?), is a Trump Hating THUG whose wife is a serial and open Trump Hater, whose friends & other family members are even worse, and as a prosecutor in Europe, according to Ric Grenell, put a high government official in prison because he was a Trump positive person. Smith is known as an “unfair Savage” & is best friends with the craziest Trump haters…
Second news item
A staggering loss of human life in the dead of winter:
Over 21,000 people have died as a result of the powerful earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, according to the latest figures Friday. The staggering loss of life in the 7.8-magnitude quake makes the tremor the seventh-deadliest disaster of this century, ahead of the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami that claimed around 18,500 lives and approaching the horrific 31,000 toll associated with a 2003 earthquake in Iran.
In the midst of the devastation, a miracle happens:
A 10-day old baby boy and his mother were saved from the rubble of their collapsed building in Turkey four days after deadly earthquakes hit the region, rescue workers reported Friday. The woman and her child were saved after spending days trapped in freezing conditions as poor weather and aftershocks hampered crews racing to find survivors amid widespread destruction in both southeast Turkey and across the border in northern Syria.
Third news item
As expected, Russia begins major offensive:
Russia has “regained the initiative” by launching a new offensive in the Ukraine war, despite being blocked from making “significant gains,” according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
An ISW assessment published on Wednesday says that Moscow has started its “next major offensive” in Luhansk, a region of Ukraine that is already largely controlled by Russian forces. The report notes that “operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line” in western Luhansk have accelerated over the past week, leading to “marginal advances along the Kharkiv-Luhansk” border.
“The commitment of significant elements of at least three major Russian divisions to offensive operations in this sector indicates the Russian offensive has begun,” the report says. “Even if Ukrainian forces are so far preventing Russian forces from securing significant gains.”
…
The U.S.-based think tank said that “Russian forces are setting the terms of battle” in the war for the first time since Ukraine took the initiative in August, while cautioning that a Russian victory “is not inherent or predetermined” and could lead to a new Ukrainian counteroffensive.
[I realize that there is big news about SpaceX limiting Ukrainian troops’ use of Starlink, but because our host will likely be posting about it later this weekend, I’m not posting about it here. Sit tight. -D]
Fourth news item
Mitch McConnell says Rick Scott owns this:
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said any idea on sunsetting Social Security and Medicare belongs to Sen. Rick Scott—not the GOP.
Unfortunately, that was the Scott plan, that’s not a Republican plan,” McConnell said on a Kentucky radio program…“Speaker (Kevin) McCarthy said Social Security and Medicare are not to be touched and I’ve said the same,” McConnell told radio host Terry Meiners on Thursday.
“And I think we’re in a more authoritative position to state what the position of the party is than any single senator.”
Fifth news item
The Biden administration provided its most comprehensive description of the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States last week, saying on Thursday that the machine was part of a global surveillance fleet directed by China’s military and was capable of collecting electronic communications.
The conclusions were outlined in a State Department document, which said the U.S. military had dispatched Cold War-era U-2 spy planes to track and study the balloon before a fighter jet shot it down over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.
China’s spy balloons have flown over more than 40 countries across five continents, the Biden administration said, and appear to be made by one or more companies that officially sell products to the Chinese military. That finding underscores questions among U.S. officials over the ties between some civilian-run enterprises in China and the country’s military, in what American officials call “military-civil fusion.”
Meanwhile, we are being told that after the downing of the balloon, China declined a request for a secure call between the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart.
Sixth news item
Democrats work to expel serial liar George Santos:
A group of House Democrats on Thursday filed a resolution to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress.
…It’s the latest escalation of Democrats’ efforts to punish Santos for the serial fabrications he made about his background, resume and finances on the campaign trail.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who led the resolution, told reporters that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declining to block Santos from receiving a classified briefing, despite calls from Democrats to do so, was the “last straw.”
Goldman said Santos “should be held accountable” for any potential lawbreaking by the local, state and federal investigations into him, but “we cannot wait for him to be indicted or for an ethics investigation because those … will not address the things he has already admitted to lying about.”
Seventh news item
San Francisco mayor says the quiet part out loud:
During her annual state of the city address Tuesday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed proclaimed that the city’s downtown, “as we know it,” is “not coming back.”
Still, Breed said the shift would not impede a broader economic recovery.
“You know what? That’s OK,” Breed said. “Empty office buildings have fueled dire predictions about economic doom and screaming headlines about the death of downtown.”
Breed recounted how even though the city has struggled to return to its pre-pandemic state, downtown San Francisco was in far worse shape after the 1906 earthquake.
“In 1907, downtown was mostly rubble and ash. That’s considerably worse than today’s shift in how people are working,” she said.
Eighth news item
Also saying the quiet part out loud:
I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor…All that led me to a job in 2018 as a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital…During the four years I worked at the clinic as a case manager—I was responsible for patient intake and oversight—around a thousand distressed young people came through our doors. The majority of them received hormone prescriptions that can have life-altering consequences—including sterility…I left the clinic in November of last year because I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to “do no harm.” Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.
Ninth news item
This week, two Tennessee state legislators — Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis) and Rep. Joe Towns Jr. (D-Memphis) — introduced language that would replace the Volunteer State’s Columbus Day holiday with a new holiday the first Monday after the Super Bowl, and would enshrine the change in state law.
The holiday proposed by Tennessee House Bill 1463 and Senate Bill 1344 would be formally named “Super Bowl Monday.”
Have a great weekend.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (1225fc) — 2/10/2023 @ 10:25 amRick Scott has had a tough week, getting kicked off a committee by McConnell and getting called out by Biden, forcing him to explain that he is indeed proposing to cancel entitlements.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:00 amMoldova, the country that’s next after Ukraine on Putin’s Conquer List, is in trouble.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:08 amHere’s more on Santos’ scheme to defraud Amish dog breeders, with confirmation of his fraud.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:22 amI blame Romney.
I feel bad for the prime minister in Moldova because the catastrophic issues they face as well as their geographical location make it a horrible time to lead the country. And yet, I think she needed to step down so that someone who can lead during a crisis can take the helm.
Dana (1225fc) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:41 amRe: Fifth Item
Transcript at link. Actual audio.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:44 amWH briefin this hour says ‘an object’ was just shot down within the hour over Alaska and it landed ‘on water that is frozen.’ No ID on who owns this ‘object.’
BTW, ‘water that is frozen’ is Pentagon-babble for… ICE.
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:47 amBreaking-
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:52 amSpaceX worked to prevent Ukraine from using Starlink internet with drones: report
Starlink service was “never meant to be weaponized,” said SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell.
SpaceX has taken measures to limit Ukraine’s use of the company’s Starlink satellite-internet service during its ongoing war with Russia, according to media reports.
Starlink has been a vital piece of communications infrastructure for Ukraine throughout the conflict, which began when Russia invaded the nation on Feb. 24 of last year. Service beamed down from orbit is tougher for an adversary to knock out than coverage provided by ground-bound towers, after all.
But SpaceX has balked at some Ukrainian uses of Starlink, according to Reuters. Specifically, the outlet reported on Wednesday(opens in new tab) (Feb. 8), Elon Musk’s company doesn’t want the Ukrainian military using the service to control its battlefield drones, which conduct a variety of operations from scouting to dropping bombs. tarlink service was “never, never meant to be weaponized,” SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said Wednesday during the 25th annual Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C., according to Reuters.
“However, Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement,” she added.
Control of battlefield drones is one such verboten application, in SpaceX’s eyes; Shotwell mentioned this use at the conference, Reuters reported, and it’s clear that the company’s higher-ups are not okay with it.
“There are things that we can do to limit their ability to do that,” Shotwell said. “There are things that we can do, and have done.” Musk said last fall that there are about 25,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine. Deploying and operating all of them has proven challenging, however, given the logistical and economic hurdles facing the besieged nation. Last fall, for example, 1,300 Starlink terminals used by the Ukrainian military went dark for two weeks due to a funding shortfall.
SpaceX began subsidizing Starlink service in Ukraine just after the invasion began, a practice that ended up costing the company about $20 million per month, according to Musk. In September, SpaceX asked the U.S. military to help defray those costs, according to CNN.
“Negotiations are very much underway. Everyone in our building knows we’re going to pay them,” a Pentagon official told CNN last fall.” – https://www.space.com/spacex-restricted-ukraine-use-starlink-internet-drones
SpaceX curbed Ukraine’s use of Starlink internet for drones -company president
WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine’s military from using the company’s Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region during the country’s war with Russia, SpaceX’s president said Wednesday.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/spacex-curbed-ukraines-use-starlink-internet-drones-company-president-2023-02-09/
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:58 amF-22 1
Chinese Balloon 0
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:01 pmElon Musk playing favorites.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:04 pm@8. Wouldn’t be surprised if Biden’s Pentagon lofted the ‘object’ itself – then brought it down to prove ‘it’s on the ball’ [or balloon as it were] and vindicate the civilian/military incompetence revealed over the Chinese balloon debacle. Fox News reports the object was shot down on orders from the POTUS.
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:04 pm@11. Bashing the actions of private enterprised free market capitalists who want to be paid for services rendered now, eh. =
“… and loving it.”- Maxwell Smart [Agent 86]
Guess they outta pay SpaceX first before giving the borrowed bucks to corrupt Ukraine.
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:08 pmBiden: Items found in DOJ classified documents probe were ‘stray papers’ from decades ago
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Wednesday played down the controversy over classified documents seized by the Department of Justice, saying the items were “to the best of my knowledge…from 1974, stray papers.”
“As they packed up my offices to move them, they didn’t do the kind of job that should have been done to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature there,” Biden told Woodruff.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/08/biden-classified-docs-found-home-and-office-were-stray-papers/11215245002/
WTF? So the imbecile blames packing staff when the obvious question is WHAT was a FRESHMAN SENATOR doing w/possessing classified documents in his office/home in the first place when they are to be reviewed in SCIF locals and never to be removed from same.
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:17 pmBreaking a hallowed Presidential tradition since……2009?
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:22 pm@16. Of course; the classic, loud-mouthed-hold-my-beer-oh-the-bar-fight-is-over-already-coward move.
… and CornPop smiled.
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:29 pmJack Smith is indeed anti-Trump and also anti-conservative. But, as long as you’re the former it doesn’t matter here whether you’re the latter.
JF (2405d6) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:37 pmDana, I just wanted to say “thank you” for your work here, and hope that you have a lovely weekend.
Simon Jester (ff9c91) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:39 pmThe conclusions were outlined in a State Department document, which said the U.S. military had dispatched Cold War-era U-2 spy planes to track and study the balloon before a fighter jet shot it down over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.
that’s the cover story for why this administration let it drift over sensitive areas in our airspace, and only biden fans here will pretend to believe it
JF (2405d6) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:43 pm@20. Hilarious. The Pentagon has been aware of this ‘balloon fleet’ literally for years, kept the knowledge from the American public, and suddenly decided to ‘track and study’ one that was outted when spotted by a U.S. citizen and tracked by media outlets across the nation?!
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:52 pmHuh?
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 12:57 pm@22. Great! And where will prior civilian administration officials kept in the dark point to: the incompetent uniformed military bureaucrats at the Pentagon!
DCSCA (f30008) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:03 pmLooking at photos from Turkey, there were entire apartment complexes leveled, with other buildings around them seemingly untouched. I would hope that the Turks get serious about building codes and hang a few builders would put up shoddy structures to save a buck.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:05 pmGeorgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday called for an investigation into former President Donald Trump’s ignorance
FIFY
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:05 pmSenate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said any idea on sunsetting Social Security and Medicare belongs to Sen. Rick Scott—not the GOP.
More, that they called BS on it months ago and it takes a special level of disingenuousness to suggest it’s being given consideration inside the GOP at this point in time.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:08 pmGood news for the military-industrial complex (aka American business):
The 2022 orders are deals that have been forwarded to Congress as part of the advance notification process, and are not final sales.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:17 pmWorks for me!
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:19 pm@20. The MIC/Pentagon shills are already on the tube touting Pentagon competence: Alaska senator Dan Sullivan boasting the fantastic, wonderful, exceptional job the military did ‘shooting down’ this “object” and now attempting to retrieve it from what Pentagon officials call “water that is frozen” =eyeroll= … aka ICE. They can track the flight path of objects as small as a screwdriver in orbit around the Earth. Accordingly, the flight path of this ‘object’ – supposedly the size of an oil drum or small car- can be backtracked to its point of release– so don’t be surprised if the object is never fully identified and the flight path originated from a U.S. sub in the Pacific which released ‘the object’ to reach a ‘threat altitude’ of 40,000 ft., for the Pentagon to shoot down and reclaim ‘We’re on the ball’ ‘competence’ after the embarrassment of the Chinese debacle; their balloon fleet tracked back to the very point of release from Hainan, a southern Chinese island that is home to a naval military base.
DCSCA (11f39e) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:41 pm@26. More, that they called BS on it months ago and it takes a special level of disingenuousness to suggest it’s being given consideration inside the GOP at this point in time.
Level of disingenuousness: imbecile Biden torpedoed himself with his own words. It’s GOP commercial content at the ready:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxYhsjjWfV4
DCSCA (11f39e) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:47 pmIt’s worse in Syria than in Turkey. Virtually no help. No help in getting people out of buildings. The United Nations sent some supplies, but this was planned earlier and is the wrong thing: diapers, not food. In Turkey they get food, while nearby vegetables go unharvested.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:47 pmEveryone in Washington knows that when someone proposes a law sunset, it’s to force re-evaluation, not to actually end it. But this has never been a popular idea – too much can go wrong and it might accomplish as much as Jimmy Carter’s zero based budgeting..
There has been a proposal printed in a WSJ op-ed to cap Social Security benefits.
Rick Scott wanted all federal laws to sunset: Civil Rights laws, anti-terrorism laws, the Judiciary Act, presumably. Biden talked as if it was only Social Security and Medicare and that he really wanted to end them.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:54 pmFriends with member benefits:
Resilience, civil preparedness and NATO Article 3
Each NATO member country needs to be resilient to resist and recover from a major shock such as a natural disaster, failure of critical infrastructure, or a hybrid or armed attack. Resilience is a society’s ability to resist and recover from such shocks and combines both civil preparedness and military capacity. Civil preparedness is a central pillar of Allies’ resilience and a critical enabler for the Alliance’s collective defense, and NATO supports Allies in assessing and enhancing their civil preparedness.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_132722.htm
Six reasons NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre is important for our future security
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/six-reasons-natos-euro-atlantic-disaster-response-coordination-centre-is-important-for-our-future-security/
DCSCA (11f39e) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:55 pmThe real thing is that China could be conducting such a big balloon craft program and nobody says anything. Never mind it is of not too much benefit to China.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/10/2023 @ 1:55 pm@26 Don’t forget ron johnson advocating social security “PONZI SCEAM” and medicare be voted on annul renewal. The anti rick scott commercials for his re-election are being cut now.
asset (62a5f7) — 2/10/2023 @ 2:02 pm‘It was a success’: White House says a second ‘high altitude object’ shot down over Alaska
WASHINGTON — The U.S. shot down an unidentified object Friday over Alaska airspace at the order of President Joe Biden, less than one week after shooting down a Chinese spy balloon off the East Coast. John Kirby, a White House spokesman, described a “high altitude object” roughly the size of a small car. He said the Pentagon was not ready to determine whether the object was a balloon, where it was from and whether it was seeking surveillance.
“It was a success,” Biden told reporters about the military operation to down the object.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/10/white-house-says-second-high-altitude-object-shot-own-over-alaska/11229937002/
“We sunk a truck!” – Lt. Cmdr. Matt Sherman [Cary Grant] ‘Operation Petticoat’ 1959
DCSCA (66b830) — 2/10/2023 @ 2:33 pmPaul, I appreciated your comment on the other thread about the Seymour Hersch article, and I read the Twitter thread you linked.
Here’s another takedown of Hersch:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-biden-the-unilateralist-cowboy-warmonger-really/
My friend the Tucker Carlson fan is really worked up about this story. Alas, he has a weakness for conspiracy theories. (The adage that nobody believes just one conspiracy theory is true. He believes that Bill Clinton was running a cocaine smuggling operation in Arkansas.)
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 2:46 pmNow Trump has his own laptop story.
It doesn’t sound legal to copy classified materials over to a laptop, and it raises other questions such as…
(1) Were the documents photographed with someone’s cell phone and sent over?
(2) If so, where’s the phone?
(3) Are the images still on the phone? In the Cloud?
(4) Were the documents transmitted to other recipients?
And so forth. It’s an effing mess. Also, if this isn’t gross negligence under the Espionage Act, I don’t know what is.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/10/2023 @ 2:48 pmArizona rancher, 73, jailed for shooting illegal on his property, begs judge for bail to protect wife
An ongoing investigation has left an Arizona rancher behind bars for the alleged fatal shooting of an illegal alien on his property with a bond set beyond his means while his wife remains alone with “nobody to take care of her.”
The crisis at the southern border has continued to devastate lives and threaten the national sovereignty of the United States. Despite the dangers posed by an untold number of criminals, some suspected on the FBI’s terror watch list, President Joe Biden is expected to yet again make a pitch for amnesty during Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
On January 30, the flagrant disregard for border security by the current administration saw the previously deported 48-year-old Gabriel Cuen-Butimea allegedly trespassing on 73-year-old George Alan Kelly’s ranch in Kino Springs, Arizona outside Nogales and a mile and a half north of the U.S.-Mexico border. According to a report from Nogales International, at 2:40 p.m. and 5:56 p.m. there were two reports of shots fired in the area, and after the second report, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office deputies located the body believed to be Cuen-Butimea between 100 t0 150 yards from Kelly’s home with a visible gunshot wound…
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/02/07/arizona-rancher-73-jailed-for-shooting-illegal-on-his-property-begs-judge-for-bail-to-protect-wife-1330842/
DCSCA (66b830) — 2/10/2023 @ 2:51 pmThanks, norcal. Geraghty raises good points, and Hersh has a record of some out-there stories.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/10/2023 @ 2:53 pmRe: Matt Gaetz’s Ukraine
SurrenderWithdrawal Resolution:It would be more productive (and restore the constitutional balance between Congress and the Presidency) to work to cancel the “forever war” blank check resolutions.
Needless to say, none of the House members co-sponsoring Gaetz’s resolution are co-sponsoring the House resolution (including Gaetz) to end the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations to Use Military Force against Iraq.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 3:14 pmSince the 1980s Hersh has been trying to recapture his reporting glory days during Vietnam.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 3:20 pmBackground link for post 41.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 3:25 pm@42. Vietnam? You best bone up on Sy’s more recent reporting, particularly regarding abuses in Iraq and Iran:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh
DCSCA (66b830) — 2/10/2023 @ 3:54 pmWhile an AUMF functions in many ways as a declaration of war, it isn’t one and one of the major defects is that it has no expiry. A declaration of war expires when the war does. Had we simply declared WAR on Iraq, it would have been over when that government fell.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 4:04 pmLike I said, trying to recapture those glory days.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 4:47 pmSources reveal the truth on the poop from the Pentagon:
Float-A-Poo Dog Waste Disposal System Uses Helium To Float Dog Poo Away Forever
“If there’s one big problem that dog owners have, it’s picking up and getting rid of their dog’s poop! What are you supposed to do with it? Bend down, pick it up, stuff it into your pocket until you reach a garbage can. Perhaps… Until now! If you haven’t seen the hide-a-poo that lets you hide your dog’s poo under a face rock, never to be seen again, there may be something new and better now on the market, and it’s called the Float-A-Poo. The float a poo, is a unique dog waste disposal system that uses a dog poop bag and a helium canister that allows you to float your dog poop into the sky, never to be seen again. You can watch your dog’s poo go up and up into the ether in a beautiful, enchanting, and satisfying experience for both you and your dog to experience every few hours.”
https://odditymall.com/float-a-poo-helium-dog-waste-disposal-system
Picture the decal sticker slapped on the fuselage of the F-22 for this shoot down. 😉
DCSCA (66b830) — 2/10/2023 @ 4:49 pm@46. Pfft. As Woodward and Bernstein can tell you, attacking the messenger doesn’t distract nor change the message– it only highlights it.
DCSCA (66b830) — 2/10/2023 @ 4:51 pmNobody cares about Iran or Iraq like they did about Vietnam. Hersh dropped into irrelevancy after Vietnam.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 4:57 pm@49. Nobody?
Iraq
A 2003 article, “Lunch with the Chairman”, led Richard Perle, a subject of the article, to call Hersh the “closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist”. In May 2004, Hersh published a series of articles which described the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq. The articles included allegations that private military contractors contributed to prisoner mistreatment and that intelligence agencies such as the CIA ordered torture in order to break prisoners for interrogations. They also alleged that torture was a usual practice in other US-run prisons as well, e.g., in Bagram Theater Internment Facility and Guantanamo. In subsequent articles, Hersh wrote that the abuses were part of a secret interrogation program, known as “Copper Green”. According to Hersh’s sources, the program was expanded to Iraq with the direct approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both in an attempt to deal with the growing insurgency there and as part of “Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.” Some of his material for these articles was based on the Army’s own internal investigations. – [You know, nobody-types.]
Scott Ritter, a former arms inspector, stated in an October 19, 2005 interview with Hersh that the US policy to remove Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from power started with US president George H. W. Bush in August 1990. Ritter stated that, while disarmament was used as the justification for the imposition of sanctions on Iraq, the real reason was the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. The CIA believed that containing Hussein through sanctions for six months would result in the collapse of his government. According to Hersh, this policy resulted in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
A March 7, 2007, article entitled, “The Redirection” described a recent shift in the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq policy, the goal of which Hersh said was to “contain” Iran. Hersh asserted that “a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”
Iran
In January 2005, Hersh alleged that the US was conducting covert operations in Iran to identify targets for possible strikes. Hersh also wrote that Pakistan and the United States had struck a “Khan-for-Iran” deal in which Washington would look the other way at Pakistan’s nuclear transgressions and not demand handing over of its infamous nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, in return for Islamabad’s cooperation in neutralizing Iran’s nuclear plans. This was also denied by officials of the governments of the US and Pakistan.
In the April 17, 2006 issue of The New Yorker, Hersh wrote that the Bush administration had plans for an air strike on Iran. Of particular note in his article was that a US nuclear first strike (possibly using the B61-11 bunker-buster nuclear weapon) was being considered to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh’s reportage as “wild speculation”. When, in October 2007, he was asked in a Democracy Now! interview about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s hawkish views on Iran, Hersh stated that Jewish donations were the main reason for these: Money. A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let’s not kid about it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat. And I think it’s as simple as that. When you’re from New York and from New York City, you take the view of – right now, when you’re running a campaign, you follow that line. And there’s no other explanation for it, because she’s smart enough to know the downside.
During one journalism conference, Hersh claimed that after the Strait of Hormuz incident, members of the Bush administration met in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to consider methods of initiating a war with Iran. One idea considered was staging a false flag operation involving the use of Navy SEALs dressed as Iranian PT boaters who would engage in a firefight with US ships. According to Hersh, this proposed provocation was rejected.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh
DCSCA (66b830) — 2/10/2023 @ 5:03 pmI just won a battle with the Nevada DMV!
My registration renewal notice stated that I needed a smog check, but the DMV’s own website informs that the first three registrations on a new vehicle are exempt from smog checks.
I bought my 2020 Mustang GT brand new in February 2021. (It was built in December 2020. Production was shifted because of Covid.)
So, this is only my third registration. The DMV online renewal system wouldn’t allow me past “Go” without a smog check. I’m sure the “2020” threw a wrench into the calculation. I tried their online chat tool, but it was just a robot.
So I called customer service, and read Patterico and other sites while on hold. I eventually reached a person who told me I had to make an appointment to appear in person. I continued to plead my case, and was transferred to another person who understood my situation, and after a brief hold, removed the online blockade.
Try that, Californians! I get better customer service from a lean government in Nevada than I ever did from the bloated California bureaucracy.
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 5:17 pmMore docs turned over:
Dana (1225fc) — 2/10/2023 @ 5:37 pmIt’s not that simple. A declaration of war expires when the war ends, but the war doesn’t necessarily end when a government falls. WW2 didn’t end when Hitler died. It ended when the successor government (Donitz) surrendered. It would have continued indefinitely until the last NAZI soldier had been killed or laid down his arms.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 2/10/2023 @ 5:56 pmThere were no days of rage or domestic terrorism associated with the invasion of Iraq. The protests that did occur were weak tea compared to the Vietnam War protests.
Your Wikipedia quote does nothing to disabuse that notion. The American people didn’t care (and still don’t) about Iraq or Iran.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:01 pm@53. “And then there was….. Korea”
https://www.tcm.com/video/1180133/mash-1970-and-then-there-was-korea
DCSCA (060948) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:02 pm@54. Except it does. Attacking the messenger reveals an inability to knock down the message– and betray the fear, in this case particularly w/MIC huggers, that he’s right about Nord Stream 2.
DCSCA (060948) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:04 pmAttacking the messenger reveals an inability to knock down the message
Does that apply when you personally attack Mitt Romney or Jonah Goldberg, instead of their message?
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:09 pmJoe Biden is a racist:
Joe Biden & Fox News Entered Into the Most Bizarre Face-Off Over His Super Bowl Interview
‘In what was the most on-again, off-again interview, President Joe Biden’s team has officially announced that his pre-Super Bowl sit-down won’t happen with Fox News — but it will happen with one of their TV streaming divisions. Fox Soul. The digital network, that caters to Black audiences, scored the interview with the president with sportscaster Mike Hill and actress Vivica A. Fox fielding the questions. Traditionally, the Super Bowl interview with the President of the United States goes to the network that airs the big game that year. It was started by President George W. Bush in 2004, but it became an annual event with President Barack Obama. Things got tricky during Donald Trump’s administration because he was picky over who could speak with him — Fox News and CBS News got the green light, but NBC News found themselves shut out in the cold in 2018.
It looks like Joe Biden took a page from Donald Trump’s playbook but added a curveball. He has not sat down with the often critical conservative network once so far in his administration. Instead, his advisers thought that Fox Soul would be a meaningful way to discuss “critical issues impacting the everyday lives of Black Americans,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted on Friday. However, the network didn’t seem to appreciate that compromise and Jean-Pierre added, “We’ve been informed that Fox Corp has asked for the interview to be cancelled.”
Several hours later, Fox Corp. suddenly had a change of heart, and the once-canceled interview was back on. “After the White House reached out to Fox Soul Thursday evening, there was some initial confusion,” The company said in a statement, via The Hollywood Reporter. “Fox Soul looks forward to interviewing the President for Super Bowl Sunday.”
Whatever shenanigans were happening behind the scenes appear to be over (for now), but it proves that the Biden administration is not playing around with some of the right-wing media. He’s looking for some bipartisan support to get America back on track.’ – https://www.sheknows.com/
DCSCA (060948) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:30 pm@57. That’s silly; citing their own records and acknowledged histories is certainly not attacking the messengers – and Pierre Delecto is not a reporter or journalist– nor is pundit Goldberg.
DCSCA (060948) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:34 pmNoted Foreign Policy Expert Speaks Out on Ukraine:
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:37 pmciting their own records and acknowledged histories is certainly not attacking the messengers
Well then, citing Hersh’s record is not attacking the messenger, either.
Goose, gander.
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:40 pmMemo to Amtrak Joe:
You do know Fox Soul is not Soul Train, right Joey?
DCSCA (060948) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:40 pmOh please. Just about everyone here does so one time or another. I could name at least two whose posts mostly consist of attacking the messenger or the poster’s motives, but I will refrain from naming names. We all know who they are.
Rip Murdock (da9696) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:41 pmhttps://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2023/02/09/towns-entire-leadership-flees-democratic-party-joins-the-gop/
Entire town in NJ leaves Democrat party to join Republicans.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:44 pm@61. No, it’s not– but claiming ‘Hersh has been trying to recapture his reporting glory days during Vietnam’ is –and his record is certainly not one to be trivialized since breaking the Vietnam My Lai Massacre story- as the Iraq/Iran stories among otgher and now Nord Strom 2 stories demonstrate.
DCSCA (060948) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:47 pmhttps://www.ncregister.com/cna/breaking-fbi-retracts-leaked-document-orchestrating-investigation-of-catholics
FBI targets Catholics. Whistleblower reveals the truth. FBI “retracts” when caught.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:49 pmPearl Harbor is a day which will live in infamy because Yamamoto had an authorization to use military force but Japan had not declared war on the United States. A declaration of war is a legal act with profound consequences, under both U.S. law and international law, as different from an AUMF as a singles bar pickup is different from a marriage ceremony.
nk (4b996c) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:49 pmhttps://legalinsurrection.com/2023/02/florida-poised-to-become-26th-constitutional-carry-state/
Florida becomes 26th constitutional carry state. Leftists, courts and media silent as to why this shouldn’t be the law of the land.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:51 pmhttps://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
Leftist Seymour Hersh says he has proof that the USA committed an act of war against Russia and Germany.
He’s a leftist. Take that as you will.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:56 pmDavid Gilmour not amused:
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 6:59 pmRoger Waters, and many other talented celebrities, beclown themselves when they wade into politics. They leave an arena in which they shine, and enter a field where average Joes know just as much, if not more, than they do.
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:08 pmHaving just seen the Banshees of Inisherin, as a non-Catholic I was struck by the pre-Vatican II mass, in Latin and with the priest facing the altar.
A sincere question: Why is speaking in a language most people don’t understand important?
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:08 pmA sincere question: Why is speaking in a language most people don’t understand important?
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:08 pm
It makes the speaker seem part of a select and superior group, thus earning more respect.
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:13 pmA sincere question: Why is speaking in a language most people don’t understand important?
Because for three-fourths of the Roman Church’s history, Latin was the lingua franca of all the nations it spread the Faith to, as Greek Koine was before it and Aramaic before that.
nk (4b996c) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:15 pm*lingua franca (common language)*
nk (4b996c) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:17 pmThat too, nk. My answer is more about why it took so long to jettison Latin.
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:17 pmAnd since we were talking about declarations of war, in 1940 the Italian ambassador declared war on Greece (to the Greek Prime Minister face to face) in French. It was the common language of diplomacy at the time. Literally lingua Franca.
nk (4b996c) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:22 pmElvira Nabiullina better stay away from the windows in tall buildings. Here is the central bank’s new spokesman.
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:24 pmThat too, nk. My answer is more about why it took so long to jettison Latin.
Because for three-fourths of that history people were also burned for mistranslating the Latin Gospel when translating it to other languages.
nk (4b996c) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:25 pmWhy do some want to return to Latin Mass?
Rip Murdock (69f385) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:31 pmWhy do some want to return to Latin Mass?
The Church never left it. Not the Second Vatican Council, anyway. It only allowed it to be celebrated in other languages and more and more local churches got on the wagon. If it’s having a revival, it’s still a local matter.
nk (4b996c) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:39 pmMy 91-year-old mother went to the dentist yesterday. As part of the standard questionnaire for females, a rather Procrustean (take that, nk!) staffer asked if she was pregnant. My mom said she didn’t think so, but after the previous night, she couldn’t guarantee a thing. The office staff howled with laughter.
norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:43 pm@Rip@80 There are various motivations. A Mass sung in Latin is beautiful. Some people like the exclusivity. It makes some people feel special. For some people it is a symbol of a return to “traditional Catholicism”. For some people it’s a political talking point.
Nic (896fdf) — 2/10/2023 @ 7:52 pmFlorida becomes 26th constitutional carry state. Leftists, courts and media silent as to why this shouldn’t be the law of the land.
There should be some demonstration of competence before one can carry a gun in public. It’s not all that much to ask.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 8:20 pmRoger Waters, and many other talented celebrities
Someone referred to Waters recently as “The Leni Riefenstahl of Rock & Roll.”
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 8:23 pmElvira Nabiullina has more bad news:
Stay away from the windows, Elvira.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/10/2023 @ 8:38 pmLink for post 86.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/10/2023 @ 8:39 pmnorcal, tell her to make sure not to break a hip. Otherwise full speed ahead.
Now I have to get that image out of my head….
AJ_Liberty (ab1e4e) — 2/10/2023 @ 8:53 pmHow very sad. School blames the parents, of course.
JF (3f06f5) — 2/10/2023 @ 9:06 pmSweet Justice:
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/10/2023 @ 9:06 pmRoger Waters, and many other talented celebrities, beclown themselves when they wade into politics. They leave an arena in which they shine, and enter a field where average Joes know just as much, if not more, than they do.
Uh-huh… a few lists of the ‘beclowners’… =eyeroll=
Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Murphy, Clint Eastwood, Shirley Temple Black, Sonny Bono, Bess Myerson, John Gavin, Ben Stein, Melissa Gilbert, Ben L. Jones, Fred Grandy, Jack Kelly, Fred Thompson, Glenda Jackson, etc., etc., etc.,
31 Actors Who Went Into Politics
https://www.ranker.com/list/actors-who-went-into-politics/celebrity-lists
25 Actors Who Became Politicians
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/10/2023 @ 10:41 pmhttps://www.newsweek.com/actors-who-became-politicians-1601389
@JF@89 Do you support increased school funding to hire more adults so that the adults can be more present in order to prevent bullying?
Nic (896fdf) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:02 pmPutin’s pets including gaetz, miller, luna (whos grandfather was a real nazi) MTG, gosar and boebert or as james carville says white trash. Sent out a letter saying they are tired of putin losing the war with ukraine.
asset (4f2f72) — 2/10/2023 @ 11:39 pmI agree, but I would have liked to have seen more. As your link notes, the bill apparently doesn’t allow open carry of weapons in public and still restricts gun possession for people under the age of 21 and on college campuses, who are considered adults under every other circumstance.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:03 am25 Actors Who Became Politicians
https://www.newsweek.com/actors-who-became-politicians-1601389
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/10/2023 @ 10:41 pm
Reading fail. I didn’t say all celebrities. Of course there are some celebrities who know as much or more than your average Joe.
My point is that mere celebrity doesn’t bestow any special wisdom concerning politics.
norcal (7345e5) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:42 amthe corporate deep state establishment only care about keeping the black community from exercising their second amendment rights. They don’t want thousands of black lives matter marching down the street with ak-47’s or car loads armed to the teeth BLM following police cars. A cop pulls over a black driver and three cars with armed black men stop behind the cop car as the black panthers used to do. Cop calls for re-enforcements BLM calls for armed BLM re-enforcements and other armed black militants appear armed out of the hood so you have 50+ cops pointing guns at hundreds of BLM militants pointing guns back at them. Thats the job of the democrat party black so called leaders and their running dogs to keep this from happening by supporting strict gun control for the black community. Armed black criminals are no threat and help control the black community. Drug gangs like the black stone rangers in chicago were used by law enforcement to fight the black panthers.
asset (4f2f72) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:51 amhttps://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/02/10/ad-network-owned-microsoft-using-foreign-disinformation-experts-blacklist-conservative-media-companies/
Using money to promote leftism and silence conservatives
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:10 am@JF@89 Do you support increased school funding to hire more adults so that the adults can be more present in order to prevent bullying?
Never let a crisis go to waste, eh?
Is your kid not learning? Is your kid being bullied? Is your kid being beaten up? Was your kid driven to suicide? Give us more money!
Of all the reasons fourteen-year old girls commit suicide, not having enough incompetent, indifferent, unproductive, and otherwise unemployable drones scratching their nether regions in the faculty lounge is not even on the list.
nk (4b996c) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:40 amUsing money to promote leftism and silence conservatives
Whose money?
nk (4b996c) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:53 amI remember when the GOP and conservatives were for limiting the size and scope of government.
kaf (6fa9cd) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:02 amKevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 8:20 pm
Free people should not be forced to get permission from the state to exercise the most basic natural right, the right to defend themselves.
kaf (6fa9cd) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:09 amKevin M (1ea396) — 2/10/2023 @ 8:20 pm
Do you need those in order to prevent the government from quartering in your home? How about exercising your freedom of speech? Right against self-incrimination? Speedy trial?
Buehler?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:18 amMaybe the Proud Boys should declare a detente in their war on Drag and Transitioned and instead deploy themselves in the hallways and carpool dropoff. They look like Cobra Kai anyway.
urbanleftbehind (50bd03) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:23 amThere should be some demonstration of competence before one can carry a gun in public. It’s not all that much to ask.
I agree. There was a time when real gunmen, sheriffs and hangmen would weed out the wannabes real quick, but that time is long past and too many innocents pay the price for the impotence fetishes of the Walter Mittys.
nk (4b996c) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:33 amnk (4b996c) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:40 am
Well said. Our elders (in every generation) knew that children can be very cruel. The wise among us saw the danger of arming children with even more dangerous weapons, most recently, providing access to social media through phones. Parents should take the lead by “disarming” their children.
Is this an indirect attack on the 2A?
felipe (77b190) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:49 amI posted this at the Dispatch in response to AllahNick’s great piece on CPAC inviting Kari Lake to speak at the Reagan dinner.
AllahNick: “The alternative, that the GOP still hasn’t found an agenda that can make a majority after ditching Reaganism for Trumpism, is too terrible to confront.”
This is the key. Slogans and bravado only go so far. Trumpism mined Talk Radio for anxiety, packaged it, and sold it like Trump Steaks and Trump University. We can only be great by walling off the Mexican rapists. Trade wars are easy to win. NAFTA was the worst deal ever. Keep Muslims from entering or at least look like we are trying really hard, wink, wink. We will balance the budget in 8 years by cutting taxes, increasing military spending, and protecting entitlements. Next up, we can only improve NATO by leaving NATO.
I’ll hand it to Trump. He understood what Right Wing infotainment was selling, compromised it, and then raised the volume to 11. Heck, he’s a shrewd enough marketer that he got evangelicals to believe loving your liberal neighbor was optional. I always thought, man, come on GOP sober up. It’s serious time, but social media and FNC are the bartenders that just keep on serving.
But back to AllahNick’s point, the GOP agenda is adrift…and with no clear leading voice, the public just sees more whack jobism and election denialism. Oh there’s the culture war stuff too, and it works to a degree, but it’s only one leg of Reagan’s 3-legged stool. The top of the stool is just demonstrating basic competence and character. Yikes, so we are just sitting on one leg of the stool — an awkward and uncomfortable visual.
The GOP can and should complain about Biden, but ultimately it must put forth ideas to solve problems, and not just promise to rig elections so they can be the winners everyone knows down deep they are. Politically what Rick Scott advocated was dumb, but much of it was true, just blurted out prematurely….you know….before actually negotiating with the other side and establishing political cover, Now we have the ridiculous spectre of a party walking it back — aka, don’t know what Rick was smoking.
Can DeSantis become the GOP ship’s captain and change the tack? I suppose it depends how much he adheres to populism, which in my estimation is listening to the silly chants at rallies. It’s emotion, not marinated ideas that have been tested over time. Lock her up indeed. It’s long past last call. We need Big-Tentism, not a victory parade for losers.
AJ_Liberty (ab1e4e) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:58 amMore Second Amendment News:
Link to United States v. Harrison.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:24 amDo you need those in order to prevent the government from quartering in your home? How about exercising your freedom of speech? Right against self-incrimination? Speedy trial?
As you push and push the limits of the RKBA, you move more and more people into the Repeal camp.
But let’s take this as far as it will go: open carrying of machine guns by children. Children have free speech rights, they have rights against self-incrimination, why not the right to carry machine guns?
Or maybe you can begin to see that there might be reasonable limits here.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:38 amEven felons have those other rights.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:39 amAllahNick: “The alternative, that the GOP still hasn’t found an agenda that can make a majority after ditching Reaganism for Trumpism, is too terrible to confront.”
This is especially true as Biden has ditched Progressivism for Trumpism, leaving the GOP with nowhere to stand.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:47 amWe need Big-Tentism, not a victory parade for losers.
The candidate who can provide that, and a way forward, will win the nomination. It’s possible that none will and we’ll be stuck with another ranter, who will lose.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:49 am@107: I think this is right. Even for some felons. Someone convicted of tax evasion, for example, is not the same kind of danger with a gun that someone convicted of aggravated assault is.
Active intoxication is a bit slippery though. A heroin addict is generally always intoxicated to some extent, as is an alcoholic. Laws actually prevent people “with a history of addiction” from possessing guns which goes past the simple possession of intoxicants found inadequate here. There’s some lines that need to be redrawn but I have no clue where.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:58 amWe need Big-Tentism, not a victory parade for losers.
The candidate who can provide that, and a way forward, will win the nomination. It’s possible that none will and we’ll be stuck with another ranter, who will lose.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:49 am
“Big-Tentism” is a buzzword that doesn’t even mean anything at this point. What specifically are the neocons willing to give up to the left to accomplish some grand coalition they claim to represent? Where are they willing to draw the line and say, “stop”?
Ideas that have marinated in liquid that’s turned to vinegar aren’t going to accomplish that anymore than the populism that they rail against.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 9:24 amWell, FWO, to start it has to be built on something other than hate. And Trump is a great leader of the two-minute hate.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 9:31 amWell, FWO, to start it has to be built on something other than hate. And Trump is a great leader of the two-minute hate.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 9:31 am
This is just a glittering generality. Again:
What specifically are the neocons willing to give up to the left to accomplish some grand coalition they claim to represent? Where are they willing to draw the line and say, “stop”?
Saying “we have to be the party of ideas!” is utterly useless if the Dispatch crowd doesn’t actually provide any real, actual ideas. They’re mostly preoccupied with whining about Trumpism instead of proposing the very things they say isn’t being offered.
Maybe the reason they don’t provide ideas is because they’re waiting for someone else to do the work for them, or they have enough self-awareness to realize what ideas they do have aren’t going to actually appeal to the coalition they want.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 9:47 am@nk@98 Well, the other option is for parents to teach their kids to act better and for her parents to have gotten her counseling and that seems to fall under “blaming parents”
(FWIW, from the article that was linked, it sounds like she had a lot more going on in addition to being bullied. Repeated school changes and residence changes, leaving all her friends behind, parental divorce, possible drug involvement, maybe depression, no counseling support.)
Nic (896fdf) — 2/11/2023 @ 9:57 amTrump Litigation Watch:
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:02 amWhat specifically are the neocons willing to give up to the left to accomplish some grand coalition they claim to represent? Where are they willing to draw the line and say, “stop”?
Why do you assume that “the Left” is the only group outside Trump’s tent? He has made it a point to alienate everyone he could, to the point where it’s not a tent but a hut. Trump is the opposite of a coalition builder, he’s an ally shredder. It’s his way or the highway, and his way keeps changing so there’s a lot of his own he’s left as roadkill.
And, no, I don’t think that the status quo ante is recoverable. The doctrinaire libertarians, for example, are not going to be inside the tent for now.
The most obvious thing that needs to be included (and cannot be by Trump and probably not by DeSantis) is a resolution of the existing illegal population, who have festered in this country for two or three decades. This, coupled with a harsh door-slamming on new illegals, is utterly necessary to heal divisions.
The budget needs to come back towards balance, and that will mean less spending AND more taxes. I suggest the taxes be placed on goods made by US companies overseas. A sin tax, recovering the externalized costs of unemployment here and/or encouraging the repatriation of manufacturing jobs.
These are things that can appeal to Trump and not-Trump. It will take someone with some vision to build a new coalition — not me — and neither Trump nor DeSantis are that person. They (and most other current politicians) seem to be feeding off the hate and division. And there is not future in that.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:14 amNote that Ronald Reagan succeeded because he formed a new coalition between the mainline Republicans, Christians, patriots, and rank-and-file labor. People who were not happy with the country’s drift into statist economics and co-dominion with the Soviets. His was not the politics of hate, but the politics of hope.
Find me someone today who embodies hope.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:19 am“That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” Trump responded.
Well, then it’s not rape, but just an unfortunate misunderstanding, right?
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:21 amHere’s a heart-warming story:
The students who built his new hand “aced their assignment”. Appropriately, from what I read. Their teacher, Jeff Wilkins, deserves more than a little credit, too.
(Peralta’s new school is in a suburb of Nashville.)
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:31 am@100. I remember when the GOP and conservatives were for limiting the size and scope of government.
Not in this century. 😉
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:48 amGee is “serial lying” is grounds for expulsion, what will the Dems do about Biden and Schiff?
Comanche Voter (a15ae2) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:53 am“Big-Tentism” is a buzzword that doesn’t even mean anything at this point.
As those who actually employed them could tell you:
Ringling Bros. circus folding its tent after nearly 150 years
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-circus-idUSKBN14Z04H
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:53 amNikki Haley is gaining in the British betting markets.
Though she is still far behind, she is qualified, unlike the two leaders, the loser, and the governor flirting with the anti-vax wackos.
I predict she’ll be up to 8-9 percent, after she formally announces. That may not sound like much, to those who don’t understand just how long this marathon is, and how successful she has been in elections.
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:00 amCompared to Trump, Santos and and Luna are paragons of honesty and forthrightness. For every lie that Santos and Luna have told, Trump has told thousands. There is nothing that he has not lied about.
If a candidate wants Trump voters, he has to lie. If he does not lie, he will not only lose their vote, they will also call him a pudd’nhead.
nk (bb1548) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:09 amOuch!
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:10 amWhy do you assume that “the Left” is the only group outside Trump’s tent?
The subject here is the “big tent” the neocons want to have. What Trump is talking about isn’t pertinent to what the neocons say they want to offer as an alternative.
The most obvious thing that needs to be included (and cannot be by Trump and probably not by DeSantis) is a resolution of the existing illegal population, who have festered in this country for two or three decades. This, coupled with a harsh door-slamming on new illegals, is utterly necessary to heal divisions.
The door-slamming utterly anathema to the Chamber of Commerce. They’ll undermine it at every turn, and work with the Democrats and the media to do so. I might as well demand the end of Hart-Cellar, which would have the same effect and is equally unrealistic.
The budget needs to come back towards balance, and that will mean less spending AND more taxes. I suggest the taxes be placed on goods made by US companies overseas. A sin tax, recovering the externalized costs of unemployment here and/or encouraging the repatriation of manufacturing jobs.
The conundrum is that, since the end of World War II, the government has only taken in over 19% of GDP in revenue five times–and two of them took place during a period that now appears to have been an economic unicorn with the dotcom bubble. One of them was actually during the early 80s recession.
The government has averaged about 17.5 percent of GDP in revenues, in a very narrow range–irrespective of where the tax rates were at. Meanwhile, its spending now averages over 20 percent of GDP, when we can’t even get above 19 percent of revenue no matter what tricks we try to pull. We haven’t paid down the national debt on an annualized basis since 1957. Fiddling with the tax code isn’t nearly going to solve the budget problem unless there’s some kind of balanced budget amendment that requires the Legislature to come up with an actual revenue stream to pay for any new spending, AND a realistic plan for cutting back discretionary spending and even non-discretionary spending.
That’s not going to happen, for a multitude of reasons. Defense spending is the most obvious discretionary area to cut, but we can’t do that unless we institute draconian oversight of the acquisition process, stop playing world policeman, and stop glibly advising that our armed forces “do more with less.” We’ve been doing that for over 30 years, and we’re now at the point where our readiness and resiliency is completely in the toilet.
These are things that can appeal to Trump and not-Trump.
Not if the culture war goes unaddressed. That’s already been done and the GOP base has no interest in not fighting it anymore. What are the neocons going to do to push back against the left in the universities, the school system, the media, and Hollywood?
Note that Ronald Reagan succeeded because he formed a new coalition between the mainline Republicans, Christians, patriots, and rank-and-file labor. People who were not happy with the country’s drift into statist economics and co-dominion with the Soviets. His was not the politics of hate, but the politics of hope.
Find me someone today who embodies hope.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:19 am
Hope is not a strategy. Reagan’s coalition came about not just because of the 70s economic malaise, but because he was an unapologetic American nationalist. He evangelized for the American culture that embodied the post-WW2 civic consensus, and openly opposed the historic determinism of the New Left. That’s a big reason why the media and the Rockefeller Republicans hated him so much.
Find me a neocon who not only utterly rejects the modern left’s cultural presumptions and hermetic gnosticism, but is willing to go to the mat to resist them.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:20 amYahoo/YouGov Poll:
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:21 amHis was not the politics of hate, but the politics of hope.
Rubbish. It was all image over substance- right off the Warner Bros., lot; a scripted world of smoke, mirrors props and photo ops fed with false prosperity by junk bonds and credit cards; decorated w/rhinestone glitz and toupee glamour-touched up w/hair dye and contact lenses for seasoning… a cesspool of excess fakery which spawned the likes of Boesky, Milken, Leona Helmsley… and Donald Trump. As this cast of characters so blatantly celebrated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd0mtMDmtl8
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:25 amGee is “serial lying” is grounds for expulsion, what will the Dems do about Biden and Schiff?
Chronic perspective loss.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:28 amFWO,
To suggest that Trump has some semblance to Reagan is to suggest that Maxine Waters has some semblance to MLK. It doesn’t work for me.
The “culture war” is something that cannot be won and should not be fought. I will not go down into your trench.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:31 amNic (896fdf) — 2/11/2023 @ 9:57 am
this wasn’t bullying, this was assault with a weapon, and the adults that could’ve handled it appropriately wear uniforms and badges and carry around handcuffs, and calling them would’ve cost nothing
but your response, focusing on the parents and funding instead of the school, who were in charge and retained all the information in that moment, who you never blame no matter what the circumstances, is totally expected
BTW, not that it would matter to you, her father was in the military where frequent moves are part of the job, and her mom is deceased
JF (7db3aa) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:31 am@128. He evangelized for the American culture that embodied the post-WW2 civic consensus, and openly opposed the historic determinism of the New Left. That’s a big reason why the media and the Rockefeller Republicans hated him so much.
Yep. Trying to recapture the aura of 1950s/60s prosperity– with a credit card.
“It’s what we call, ‘false spring’…” Bond Rogers [Lauren Bacall] ‘ The Shootist’ 1976
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:38 am@132. Except he does: Reaganoptics, Reaganomics, Reaganaurics spawned Trump. Get over it.
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:40 amCross tabs for Monmouth University poll in post 134.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:42 amThe “culture war” is something that cannot be won and should not be fought. I will not go down into your trench.
Reagan did: he was fighting culture wars in the 1950s when he headed SAG and in the 1960s as governor, Kevin– even his own kids rebelled against him.
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:45 am@JF@133 Not that it would matter to you, but I am very very very familiar with frequent military moves. From the inside, not from reading an article. Just because they are military doesn’t make them less stressful on children. Also, in cases of assault at school, it is the parent’s choice to press charges. Are you blaming the parents, now?
Nic (896fdf) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:46 amWho are the “neocons”, and what do they believe?
This is from William Safire’s “New Political Dictionary” neoconservative entry:
As Safire goes on to point out, the movement began in a quarterly, The Public Interest. The magazine confined itself to domestic policy.
It is odd that this temperate philosophy has drawn such hatred, often from people who are unwilling to explain why they have such strong feelings, or to even name to name a few of those who they hate.
(Full disclosure: I subscribed to the magazine for years, and am still thinking about some of the articles in it, for example, one which describe the success of Switzerland’s welfare policies.)
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:47 amThe “culture war” is an agreement by crazies on the Left and Right to find something besides guns and abortion to argue forever about.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:49 amTo suggest that Trump has some semblance to Reagan is to suggest that Maxine Waters has some semblance to MLK. It doesn’t work for me.
I’m pointing out that the same complaints the neocons made about Trump are what the Rockefeller Republicans made about Reagan.
The “culture war” is something that cannot be won and should not be fought. I will not go down into your trench.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:31 am
If you’re already willing to concede the culture to the left and accept their historic determinism, you’ll never get the coalition you seek. You might as well join the Democrats, who don’t want the right to resist them in the culture war, either, and pledge allegiance to the “antiracists”.
If you value fiscal conservativism, you better be willing to accommodate social conservatism, too. You aren’t going to have the former without the latter, and the latter is already willing to abandon the former for the precise reason you won’t stand up for the latter.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:59 am@139. It definitely is stressful on kids, Nic- and a lousy way to live0 but OTOH, you make the best of it and take advantage of the best of it- you get used to it out of necessity but any idea of ‘roots’ is totally deadened– so you ride on the whims and wind of others; ours was the corporate culture dovetailing w/government and miltary at the time so the kids shared the experiences among themselves at school… and as youngsters we’d all gotten it down to packing up our little worlds in 72 hours for a move. You end up compartmentalizing friends- who were in similar boats- and the experiences to each period and locale. It made it hard to keep in contact w/most over the decades.
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:01 pmThe “culture war” is an agreement by crazies on the Left and Right to find something besides guns and abortion to argue forever about.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:49 am
No, culture is what defines a nation and a society. Not their tax rates or budget.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:02 pm@144. Once upon a time ‘American culture’ was famous- or infamous, as Europeans regarded it- for reinventing itself every 20 years. Will never forget the uproar when the French fought the opening of the first McDonald’s in Europe– on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, no less. No Frogs Legs served there for Frenchie friend, Pierre Delecto. 😉
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:09 pmNic (896fdf) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:46 am
you were trying to portray a family in disfunction, based on information the school put out there to cover their a$$ and focus blame on the victim’s parents, and that’s as relevant to the issue as your personal history
no matter how you and the school cravenly smear the victim and her family, and even if 100% of it is true, which I highly doubt, that has zero relevance with letting high school kids get away with violent assault when you are the adults in charge at the time
and given the opportunity and information in that moment, which were denied them by the school, we know the parents would’ve pressed charges cuz guess what they have
JF (ff5bb6) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:10 pmOnce upon a time ‘American culture’ was famous- or infamous, as Europeans regarded it- for reinventing itself every 20 years.
That’s pop culture, which is insubstantial and isn’t built on anything meaningful other than blind consooooooomerism. It has very little to do with the those established at the country’s founding, which were built on cornerstones of western civilization that went back millennia, as opposed to the current Hegelian presumptions that gird today’s left and the institutions they control.
I have no interest in supporting a nation or a citizenry that so easily cleaves to the ideology that gleefully denigrates those who came before them, based on nothing more than Current Year presentism.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:18 pm@147. No, not just popculture; architecture, arts, , style, business and commerce as well. For instance, you can spot a 1960s era construct in an instant; mostly glass boxes or space age edginess; and New Deal icons as well– usually post offices, bridges and dams. Just as w/fins on cars in the ’50s. In the 80s, it was Yuppies in business suits and sneakers- today; everybody stares at their hand gadgets and phones.
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:24 pmI have no interest in supporting a nation or a citizenry that so easily cleaves to the ideology that gleefully denigrates those who came before them, based on nothing more than Current Year presentism.
Those longing for the times of powdered wigs, unemancipated women baking bread and sweeping out the log cabin and churning butter with fields of cotton to be picked, warm ale and squirrel stew consumed from lead pewter utensils with stops at the knocking shops for dessert, they’re in for a disappointment.
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:31 pmyou were trying to portray a family in disfunction, based on information the school put out there to cover their a$$ and focus blame on the victim’s parents, and that’s as relevant to the issue as your personal history
no matter how you and the school cravenly smear the victim and her family, and even if 100% of it is true, which I highly doubt, that has zero relevance with letting high school kids get away with violent assault when you are the adults in charge at the time
and given the opportunity and information in that moment, which were denied them by the school, we know the parents would’ve pressed charges cuz guess what they have
JF (ff5bb6) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:10 pm
What’s particularly infuriating about Nic’s arguments in this regard is that, not even two weeks ago, said that teachers and school administrators were completely justified in interfering in the parent/child relationship and hiding information from the former when kids were supposedly “too scared to go to their parents,” ostensibly to protect the kids. Parents need to be more involved! they say.
Yet, here is a plain example where the school had an opportunity to exercise the authority he states should be entrusted to them, and not only dropped the ball, they stubbornly resisted the father’s attempts to address and mitigate the bullying and harassment against his daughter that was taking place–and then after the daughter killed herself, had the audacity to not just put all the blame on her father for supposedly not doing his job.
The message here ultimately is, “Shut up and just let us do what we want without complaint, because we’re the experts and you’re not. And if anything bad happens, it’s always your fault, never ours.” “With great power comes great responsibility,” but they clearly want the benefits and privileges of the former without the accountability that comes with the latter.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:39 pmThose longing for the times of powdered wigs, unemancipated women baking bread and sweeping out the log cabin and churning butter with fields of cotton to be picked, warm ale and squirrel stew consumed from lead pewter utensils with stops at the knocking shops for dessert, they’re in for a disappointment.
DCSCA (9f4521) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:31 pm
And those longing for the communist utopia will be equally so in the end, although they’ll always have excuses when it never happens.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:40 pmOne of the more important battles of the culture war is the one over American History and civics. It’s what we old types were taught about 1776 and 1789 and reconstruction vs the 1619 project. What the heck are our civic virtues and what best embodies them? What’s important — equality or equity?
This gets lost in the swirl over who owns Twitter or drag shows. I don’t mind the culture war. I do mind it is often trivial or becomes some folks being bound and determined to change how others lead their lives.
Appalled (383a2d) — 2/11/2023 @ 12:46 pmAnd those longing for the communist utopia will be equally so in the end, although they’ll always have excuses when it never happens.
Keep in mind of what, where and why that stepchild of the 19th century was pwned to begin with.
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:08 pm^spawned
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:08 pm@152. I don’t mind the culture war.
Much ado about nothing- it’s a manufactured, silly distraction and much easier for certain factions to rail against than actually addressing and fixing genuine problems. Remember this????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I0poZE5w6E&t=3s
Hilarious.
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:13 pmIt is easier to be negative and focus on what is going wrong in the culture than to develop specific plans for systems and structures that will make things go right.
Right now, we have declining confidence in institutions across the board…we see a clear diminishing of confidence in our churches, the Supreme Court, the intelligence agencies, the justice system, Congress, the military, public schools, the news media, Hollywood, the science and medical community, and the presidency. Everything is under attack by someone. There are changing norms on sexual behavior. Over time, attitudes have changed about the morality of having a baby outside of marriage, sex between an unmarried man and woman, gay and lesbian relations, divorce, sex between teenagers, and abortion availability. We’ve inadequately closed the books on race, such that many still feel the system is rigged. Simply dismissing people’s concerns does not change these impressions.
Little binds us together any more and we struggle with norms. Durkheim studied this tension and argued that it leads to other societal dysfunction. The increase in suicides is an indicator. The increase in drug use is another. I question the benefit of perpetual anger on social media and how it gets ratcheted up…and the violence that we see it creates. Our buddy asset wants to see more armed blacks out there ushering in some sort of takeover. Is that reasoned?
So does the anti-CRT legislation and the appropriate-talk-of-gay-stuff-in-K-12 legislation in Florida move the culture needle? Do we need this replicated at the federal level…so the feds have a greater say mandating what is or is not allowed in our public schools? Do we need government using the tax code to punish corporate speech or should government officeholders counter speech with better speech and arguments? Look, I’m empathetic with DeSantis’ response that K-12 schools should focus on reading, writing, math, science, and civics. Sure, but to what extent is some of this manufactured outrage at one extreme and vague emotionalism at the other. Trying to jam gays back into the closet seems so 1990’s. The key should be appropriate conduct, managed at the local level with parental involvement. The GOP seems to not only not want to get rid of the Department of Education, but really start to flex its “authority” at the local level.
Did the ascendancy of Trump help or hurt culture? Objectively, he has coarsened it. He’s ripping at institutions because they oppose him, with the assertion that they need his people in there. With the number of politicians still following his lead or aping his routine, he has changed things. A large segment does not believe our health professionals. Few on the hard right believes the science community about climate change. The internet allows everyone to create their own reality. So the culture wars will progress. People disagree about norms of behavior. But if that is all we do….and we never attempt to find commonality….then expect more and more dysfunction and violence. Will the smart people who see it own their rhetoric then? I guess we’ll see.
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:20 pmRight now, we have declining confidence in institutions across the board…we see a clear diminishing of confidence in our churches, the Supreme Court, the intelligence agencies, the justice system, Congress, the military, public schools, the news media, Hollywood, the science and medical community, and the presidency.
So the blame lays squarely with: our churches, the Supreme Court, the intelligence agencies, the justice system, Congress, the military, public schools, the news media, Hollywood, the science and medical community, and the presidency???
Did the ascendancy of Trump help or hurt culture?
No. Always, ALWAYS blame… Madonna:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-lDYPR2P8
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:26 pmSenate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said any idea on sunsetting Social Security and Medicare belongs to Sen. Rick Scott—not the GOP.
If the Turtle would grow a pair and actually act like a ‘leader’ he’d assign ownership of this idea to Squinty McStumblebum USING HIS OWN WORDS AGAINST HIM:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4846580/user-clip-joe-biden-cut-ss-4-times
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:32 pmBREAKING NEWS- Fox News is reporting another “object” has been spotted by NORAD over Canada today.
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:33 pmIt is easier to be negative and focus on what is going wrong in the culture than to develop specific plans for systems and structures that will make things go right.
Probably because those who state this tend to waste keyboard strokes lamenting that differences exist and this is causing conflict, instead of actually proffering up specific plans for systems and structures they say are needed–and the inevitable prescription is, “well, I don’t like this either, but give the left what they want this one time, they certainly won’t continue to push things any further.”
Several decades later, they end up complaining that there’s a reaction to the actions they enabled in the first place.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:33 pmCANADIAN PRESS NEWS ALERT: High-altitude object spotted over Northern Canada
OTTAWA — NORAD says an object has been spotted flying at high altitude over Northern Canada.
A military spokesman isn’t saying what the object is or what it is doing over the country.
The object’s appearance over Canada comes only days after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down after violating American and Canadian airspace.
The U.S. military shot down a second object in Alaskan airspace on Friday, though it has not provided details on what it was.
More to come…
The Canadian Press
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:35 pmHe’s [Trump is] ripping at institutions because they oppose him, with the assertion that they need his people in there.
No, you’re contradicting your own assertion: ‘we have declining confidence in institutions across the board…we see a clear diminishing of confidence in our churches, the Supreme Court, the intelligence agencies, the justice system, Congress, the military, public schools, the news media, Hollywood, the science and medical community, and the presidency.’
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:41 pmHigh-altitude object spotted over Northern Canada
Hey! What a great idea for a movie:
https://archive.org/details/TheThingFromAnotherWorldHorrorSciFi1951JamesArnessKennethTobeyMargaretSheridan
“Watch the skies! Everywhere! Keep looking!” Ned Scott [Douglas Spencer] ‘The Thing From Another World’ 1951
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:46 pm@106 only once since 1988 has reaganism been the majority. (2004) gerrymandering not the majority got republican control of congress. 18% of population in 26 states control 52 senate seats.
asset (e38ec6) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:52 pmA book on the life of roberto clemente banned in duval county floriduh schools because it mentions discrimination he faced. Also ken burns documentry BASEBALL for mentioning blacks were banned from playing in the major leagues as crt propaganda!
asset (e38ec6) — 2/11/2023 @ 1:55 pm@165. Infurating!!!! Met Roberto Clemente in the Pirate dugout in 1969- signed a baseball; he was a good friend of my late grandfather, who did a lot of work w/t Pittsburgh Pirates. Clemente was a fine ball player and a wonderful man of great character- especially with kids- just look at how he tragically died– trying to help others.
DCSCA (37f4e0) — 2/11/2023 @ 2:02 pmThird UFO shot down over canada! Military analyists say they may be coming from russia!
asset (e38ec6) — 2/11/2023 @ 2:12 pmBREAKING- Reports now say a U.S F-22 U.S. shot down this ‘object’ spotted by NORAD over Canada. No word on what this ‘object’ was.
The U.S. Air Force stopped production early on the fifth generation of the F-22 fighter because of the soaring F-22 costs. The cost of one aircraft alone is an estimated $334 million which includes research and development…[The total program cost is around $66 billion.] The Air Force originally wanted 700 F-22s to be produced but had to cancel production just shy of 200 because they were already over-budget. The flight cost per hour for an F-22 is roughly $70,000.
https://militarymachine.com/f-22-cost/
Utterly absurd costs for military hardware disposable in combat.
The U.S. sorely needs a new ‘Truman Committee’ to reign in the MIC:
‘The Truman Committee, formally known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, was a United States Congressional investigative body, headed by Senator Harry S. Truman. The bipartisan special committee was formed in March 1941 to find and correct problems in US war production with waste, inefficiency, and war profiteering. The Truman Committee proved to be one of the most successful investigative efforts ever mounted by the U.S. government.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Committee
DCSCA (ca578f) — 2/11/2023 @ 2:21 pmApparnetly Roberto Clemente, Jr. is OK with the book being restricted from K-3 children:
But I’m not surprised that people like asset want to conflate this into some large-scale ban on books about an American baseball hero.
JVW (125066) — 2/11/2023 @ 2:40 pm@DCSCA@143 Pretty much.
@JF@146 There should be concurrent records recorded in real time by the school if they had been working with the family on trying to get counseling, etc. If she was self-harming there should be school records documenting a parent phone call or meeting at least (harm to self is not confidential). If she had a suicide risk assessment (some students self-harm but don’t report suicidality- and yes, people often self-harm with actually being suicidal-, so there isn’t always a suicide risk assessment) that should also be documented and depending on who does the assessments for that district, there could be records from that agency or law enforcement. The rest is straight up from the article you posted. Are you saying that she wasn’t under stress from frequent moves? Or that there hadn’t been recent and stressful changes in the family? Or that she was in counseling?
Here’s what the Dad said happened: “The dad wrote that his daughter, who blacked out, was taken to the school nurse. He said the school did not file a police report, so he took his bloodied daughter to the station himself. Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides told News12 that school policy is to let parents contact police rather than having the school file a police report.” Watching the video, you can see that it took the school staff less than 30 seconds to get to the fight and break it up. The girl doesn’t appear to be blacked out in the video, but maybe that happened later, though it would be unusual. According to Dad, they took her to the nurse and called him. The students were suspended that day. He went to the police and filed charges. Dad later said that the other student had been threatening his daughter on-line.
Schools have no control over what students do outside of school. We cannot punish your kids for posting mean things on tiktok on their own time. A parent can file harassment charges (if their state recognizes online harassment), but if it doesn’t happen during the time they are in a school’s charge, schools cannot discipline them for it, and I don’t think you want schools disciplining students for things that happen at home.
If a video is posted and brought to a school’s attention, the only thing the school can do is push the report button in the app, the same as anyone else.
If you want a draconian school site, here is what could have happened that day: When notified of the fight, the administration could have locked all the doors to that building to keep any bystanders from leaving. They could have herded all the perpetrators and bystanders into classrooms, left the girl on the floor with a staff member and called an ambulance and the police and the parent. An ambulance could have come and taken the girl away with an admin accompanying her, leaving the parent with a large ambulance bill regardless of his preferences (yes, parents are the ones who pay the bill if a child is taken by ambulance, most parents tell us not to call, that they will come and take their kid to the ER). The perpetrators (and some of the bystanders) might not have gone into a classroom willingly. The staff might have needed to place hands on them to get them to go. In order to prevent the video from going out, all phones would needed to have been collected immediately, probably while the police were still on their way, which mean the school staff (or the police if they were quick) would’ve needed to search all the students and taken their phones (and any other contraband they discovered- vapes, weed, pocketknife, etc.- which they will be punished for having.) Then the police would have needed to go through every phone (which I think they need a search warrant for) and interview all the bystander students. This would have taken a number of hours. Much of it is not legal. Very few bystander parents and none of the perpetrator parents would stand for it.
Is that what you want? Do you want schools to punish students for things that happened at home? Do you want schools to physically detain all possible witnesses to a fight for police interrogation? Do you want them to be able to search your student’s phone? Do you want a school to press charges regardless of the parent’s opinion. If you want this to be able to happen, campaign for the laws that will make it happen. In my experience, though, parents only want it to happen if their child is a victim, they would be outraged if it happened because their child was otherwise caught up in the situation.
@FWO@150 This is a case where what you want to have happen, happened, the school informed the parent and left the non-educational care of the student in the parent’s hands. The parent had the opportunity to press charges (which he did) and get the student counseling (which he didn’t do).
That she committed suicide was a tragedy. That the father is angry and upset is understandable. But from the information we have in the media, the school acted appropriately based on the law and community standards.
Nic (896fdf) — 2/11/2023 @ 2:48 pmNo, culture is what defines a nation and a society. Not their tax rates or budget.
Fine, but that doesn’t make a “culture war” about a nation’s culture. It’s just petty little trolls thinking up ways to drive other petty little trolls over the edge. The actual culture tries to ignore it all. Or maybe you think that people spend their days worrying about CRT or whatever new outrage someone thought up.
It’s less a political thing than it is a cottage industry for separating fools from their money.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:03 pmThe US shot down the Canadian object. It might be that Canadian fighters don’t carry weapons.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:04 pmApparnetly Roberto Clemente, Jr. is OK with the book being restricted from K-3 children:
I think that these sordid parts of our history shouldn’t be taught to children who cannot differentiate “past” from “present.” There is plenty of time later, when they have some context regarding the world. Also sex, gender, religion and politics can wait.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:10 pmNic, great comment on that horrible event. Like previous situations where the facts don’t support the culture war agenda I expect this one to be dropped by the right, rather then lead to a discussion about changes to public policy.
Kevin, please stop worrying about CRT. Every time to you bring up CRT you distract from the real threat: Creeping Sharia Law.
Time123 (2ef3a6) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:11 pmMy picture of a “culture warrior” is a person who demands a Muslim baker bake a cake depicting the Prophet.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:13 pmOr is it Gay Marriage? I can’t remember. Maybe it’s the heavy metal bands leading kids to satanism? Or The character of Murphy Brown having a child out of wedlock?
I don’t watch cable news. Can someone fill me on which moral panic is the boogeymen of the day? I want to make sure I get it right.
Time123 (2ef3a6) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:17 pm@170: Why did none of this happen when I was in school? What changed?
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:18 pm@175 not exactly equivalent, but funny none the less.
Time123 (2ef3a6) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:19 pmBy that you mean on the receiving end right. Because the amount of invective expressed to Trump and his supporters…
NJRob (883127) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:20 pmMaybe it’s the heavy metal bands leading kids to satanism?
Hey, I know 2 members of Megadeth, and I’m sure they’d never do that.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:20 pm@177 bad stuff has always happened. Our ability to learn about it has increased. The ubiquity of cell phones has also made it harder to excuse / deny when something happens.
By most measures of social health (abortion rates, teen pregnancy, violent crime etc) society is doing better now the. It ever has.
This is the big thing the culture war types don’t have an answer to. While society has increasingly rejected their preferences society has also been getting better.
The other issue they have is how little they seem to actually value the things they claim to value. When family values, rule of law or the life of the unborn conflict political advantage it seems like political advantage tends to win. It makes it harder to support trade offs when the party asking for them doesn’t seem sincere.
Time123 (2ef3a6) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:26 pm@180, I *really* like Paul Ryan. But even so I had to laugh when he used Rage Against The Machine at his rally.
Time123 (2ef3a6) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:27 pmBut from the information we have in the media, the school acted appropriately based on the law and community standards.
Nic (896fdf) — 2/11/2023 @ 2:48 pm
The superintendent’s conduct after the fact is completely inappropriate. If you want to make excuses him, that’s understandable –he’s one of your own and cam do no wrong in your eyes. But this is yet another example where your fellows in the school system end up degrading the trust you say you want, through your own arrogance.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:29 pmBy that you mean on the receiving end right. Because the amount of invective expressed to Trump and his supporters…
Both giving and receiving. There’s no right side in this.
The problem is that these conflict politicians are tearing the country apart, and using hate and fear for profit. It’s not about leading the country, it’s about getting over on those Others.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:32 pmThe actual culture tries to ignore it all. Or maybe you think that people spend their days worrying about CRT or whatever new outrage someone thought up.
Is that why the left and neocons are getting bent out of shape about the right pushing back against school board and running in local elections? Because that heartburn puts the lie to the claim that they don’t actually care.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:36 pm@177 bad stuff has always happened.
But it was so rare that it never happened at my school, or on my bus, or …
Now, it could be that this is all a media-driven frenzy. In which case maybe the media is the problem. I mean, that first amendment was for an era where speech was either shouted or printed by hand; they never contemplated satellite TV….
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:36 pmputs the lie to the claim that they don’t actually care.
Most people actually don’t.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:38 pmMy picture of a “culture warrior” is a person who demands a Muslim baker bake a cake depicting the Prophet.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:13 pm
This isn’t any different in substance from what happened to Jack Phillips, except the latter actually happened, and he continues to be harassed by the radical leftists in the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:39 pmMost people actually don’t.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:38 pm
The ones with political power very much do. The ones who don’t care aren’t running the show
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:41 pm“Somethin’ kinda funny goin’ on up there…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjEwBMGzfVU
DCSCA (a792ed) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:47 pm@169. Restrict Tik-Tok, not a frigging book on Roberto Clemente.
DCSCA (a792ed) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:00 pmFWO, what couple of things about our culture do you want changed to your liking?
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:05 pmHow would you legislate such change?
@Kevin@170 I don’t know. AFAICT, I wasn’t alive yet. 😛 My guess would be that other than the online part and the video posting part, is that it did happen. I know in some childhood books that I read that were written long before I was alive that fighting and bullying definitely happened in schools in the past, even when they were one-room school houses. (also from stories my parents told, and my mother did go to elementary school in one of the last one room school houses in her state). Suicide is also not new. Self-harm, I suspect, is more common because it is a social contagion and there’s more out there about it now. It may be more frequent or intense now. I think, though, that living in larger and larger communities contributes to this sort of thing. In smaller communities, parents may know each other and can maybe talk to the parents of the kid causing problems, or if a teacher or admin knows parents personally, the parent might be more able to hear that their kid is acting wrong or that their kid is struggling and needs help. Economics could be a factor. If you live in an economy where salaries are flat and expenses keep going up and you often have to move to get a good job and need two salaries to raise a family, you have a lot of kids who maybe don’t spend a lot of time around the adults in their family and they maybe aren’t learning how to act right and the adults don’t have enough time or energy to notice their kid is up to no good (or struggling). Schools are also bigger than they used to be, which has both advantages and disadvantages.
@FWO@183 If you are saying that the Superintendent should have kept details confidential, I don’t disagree.
Nic (896fdf) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:07 pmNic, I was speaking especially about guns. When I was in grade school, people were sanguine about guns and they were everywhere. Yet there was so little gun violence that outbreaks of same were not only reported, they were reported with horror.
Now, maybe this is because most adults had been in the military (WW2, Korea, peacetime service) and looked at guns differently that now. Dunno. Those old Perry Mason shows portray things pretty accurately (it was The Present then) and having a gun in a credenza drawer or glove box was seemingly common. Everyone knew how to use them, too. And yet mass murders were extremely rare. Even knife assaults were rare.
Would we even remember a Charles Whitman, Richard Speck or Kitty Genovese if that happened today? Probably not. Even Elizabeth Short’s killing would be on page 6.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:19 pmFWO, what couple of things about our culture do you want changed to your liking?
How would you legislate such change?
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:05 pm
1) Stop enabling gender dysphoria and require anyone looking to change their gender to be at least 18. No more putting little kids on hormone blockers or mastectomies for teenage girls.
2) Strip all funding from universities requiring DEI statements.
3). Remove all investment in any bank or hedge fund that employs ESG or DEI programs.
4). End the requirement for a college degree in any government job that’s not a hard science.
5) Mandate that public universities can only charge for classes that are directly under a student’s major based on school year 2020 requirements, and that no more than one semester’s worth of credits outside that major will be required for graduation.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:22 pmOh, and Hollywood gets a 90 percent surtax on any media content distributed outside the country.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:25 pmHey FWO, I found you an ally for your culture war. You’re welcome.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:34 pm2) Strip all funding from universities requiring DEI statements.
Private colleges might view that as infringing on their speech.
3). Remove all investment in any bank or hedge fund that employs ESG or DEI programs.
Private companies might view that as infringing on their speech.
4). End the requirement for a college degree in any government job that’s not a hard science.
Do you consider economics or statistics to be hard sciences? Would you not demand that a history professor have a degree in history?
5) Mandate that public universities can only charge for classes that are directly under a student’s major based on school year 2020 requirements, and that no more than one semester’s worth of credits outside that major will be required for graduation.
Oh, great. Let’s have as narrowly educated people as possible. This is just about the stupidest idea I’ve heart in quite some time. I am GLAD that I was forced to take a minor in humanities to get my STEM degree. Made me a much better engineer.
But I’m not greatly surprised that you want to cripple people’s education. Mustn’t think outside the little box or the checklist.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:34 pmNic, great comment on that horrible event. Like previous situations where the facts don’t support the culture war agenda I expect this one to be dropped by the right, rather then lead to a discussion about changes to public policy.
Time123 (2ef3a6) — 2/11/2023 @ 3:11 pm
Yeah, Time123, like when you doubted the Loudon school district rape and then had to do a complete 180.
JF (2e72ab) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:34 pm!192. The tax code pretty much ‘legislates’ a pro-family culture by design and discriminates against singles.
DCSCA (d10e3f) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:35 pmShorter FWO: “If I’m ignorant of it, it can’t be important.”
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:35 pm@197. LOL ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog!’ 😉
DCSCA (d10e3f) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:36 pmKevin, I was listening to NPR and they had a segment on New Mexico, that it has a proposed Official State Smell, among other official state things. Apparently, the smell in question is roasted chile.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:38 pmHere in WA State, I would say it’s the inside of a Starbucks, or that acrid smell at low tide.
That’s actually the one I was thinking of JF. When the facts came out, that the rapist had been in a romantic heterosexual relationship with his victim, that they regularly used the women’s too
Time123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:41 pmFor private hookups and that that gender identity had nothing to do with the attack ppl like you seemed to move on pretty quickly.
@194. You’re using a television show as a metric for guns in America?? Let me remind you, again, one of the first things asked of us in a meet and greet w/Brits when we first moved to London was by a young lady who asked: ‘Where do you keep your guns?’ When we told her we didn’t own any guns and never have- she responded in dead seriousness: ‘ALL Americans have guns.” Never forgot that moment. And how was that misperception nurtured? By film and television programs from America.
DCSCA (d10e3f) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:43 pmHere’s a link to some of the details from a local news org
https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/virginia-supreme-court-investigation-of-loudoun-county-schools-over-bathroom-assaults-can-proceed/
Time123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:48 pmThere is another meaning for “neocon”, which, unfortunately, also needs mentioning. It is sometimes a disguise for Antisemitism, particularly in any discussion of Israel. And that usage can be found on both the left and the right.
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:48 pmThe Guardian has more on the latest batch of documents that Trump’s lawyers returned to the US government, and which included classified materials. Apparently, they were returned as demanded by subpoena.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:49 pmNone of this would’ve happened had Trump not regarded all these boxes of documents as his own personal property, which they weren’t.
@203: In Los Angeles or San Francisco, it’s extreme body odor.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:51 pmYou’re using a television show as a metric for guns in America??
I’m suing a popular TV drama to measure contemporary attitudes. To be sure, all the households had a murder occur, so maybe they weren’t normal, but the reaction of folks to the loaded-gun-in-the-drawer was not the same one you would get today.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:54 pm*using
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:55 pm#193 Nic Here’s how things were in my small rural school in Washington state back in the 1950s: As I remember it, we boys had stopped fighting almost entirely by the time we got strong enough to actually hurt each other.
(We considered hitting a girl shameful almost from the beginning.)
Many families owned guns. We had a shotgun, which I sometimes used on birds attacking our cherries. And I bought a .22 as a teenager. I can’t recall any deaths, or even injuries, from gun use in my area.
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:03 pmKevin, I think I’m a bit younger then you, but my small down high school had several incidents. In one a kid brought his dads revolver to a fight after school. Fired it without hitting anyone thank god but it was still horrifying.
Time123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:05 pmEverybody smoked on TV in the 50s and 60s, too. That you can call a change in “culture”. Keeping chickens in the kitchen of the double wide when other folks keep them in the bedroom (where they belong) not so much.
Da fack a da matter is that folks who talk about “culture wars” don’t know what culture is, and not war either. It’s just a bullsh!t catchphrase to make their confused and incoherent rants sound thoughtful and organized. And their shots with beer chasers “culture”.
nk (bb1548) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:06 pmKevin, FWO can speak for himself but I don’t think he minds violating others free speech rights in the name of fighting the culture war. FWO, sorry if this isn’t correct but I think you’ve stated as much in the past.
Time123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:07 pmMs. Horta e Costa has her weekly ChiCom update. The regime appears to be trying to jumpstart their economy after Xi’s disastrous lockdowns. What we should do is divest from Xi. There are other better Asian nations to do business with.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:26 pmThis story shouldn’t surprise anyone:
(Link omitted.)
Did Trump himself authorize that investigation? The article doesn’t say.
But if he did, it shows just how deluded the loser was, and is.
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:29 pmI can’t recall any deaths, or even injuries, from gun use in my area.
The things we did as kids. Riding a bike on the street without a helmet, often a good distance from home. Setting off fireworks. Going out to play without an adult watching. Playing with cap pistols. Riding in a car not only without a car seat, but often without a seatbelt.
It’s amazing we lived.
I’m sure there were bullies, but I don’t remember any. Of course this was a time when teachers could apply corporal punishment, generally delivered in a humiliating manner, so maybe that’s part of it.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:32 pmShorter FWO: “If I’m ignorant of it, it can’t be important.”
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:35 pm
Isn’t that exactly what you’re claiming when it comes to issues you don’t care about?
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:33 pm@217: I don’t know if people look for fraud in the counting because they think it’s there, or that Trump is an idiot for thinking it’s there, or because they know that any fraud was cooked into the balloting rules and the counting is a convenient red herring.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:35 pmIsn’t that exactly what you’re claiming when it comes to issues you don’t care about?
No. I’m claiming it IS unimportant and I wish I was ignorant of it.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:36 pmPrivate colleges might view that as infringing on their speech.
If they don’t want to take government funding, they can require whatever loyalty oaths they wish.
Private companies might view that as infringing on their speech.
Private companies can’t force the government to invest in them. Red states have already taken the step of divesting themselves from companies like Blackrock.
Do you consider economics or statistics to be hard sciences? Would you not demand that a history professor have a degree in history?
Hogan and Shapiro have already signed executive orders ending the requirement for state jobs on a limited scale. There’s no reason it can’t be expanded, if for nothing else because a degree is rarely relevant in the job market these days, even.for disciplines like history.
Oh, great. Let’s have as narrowly educated people as possible. This is just about the stupidest idea I’ve heart in quite some time
Please. Not only does requiring these classes increase the cost of college, most are completely unnecessary to the degree program themselves. Most of the ethnic/gender studies departments would collapse if students weren’t forced to take them to graduate. They’re the WNBA of academia.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:45 pmBut I’m not greatly surprised that you want to cripple people’s education. Mustn’t think outside the little box or the checklist.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:34 pm
Lol, 80 percent or more of academia could disappear and very little of value would be lost.
College is little more than a cargo cult these days, and an expensive one at that.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:48 pmOne would think that libraries didn’t exist where people could read these things called “books.”
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:50 pmNo. I’m claiming it IS unimportant and I wish I was ignorant of it.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:36 pm
On the contrary, local government is even more critical than state or federal.
Factory Working Orphan (2d3cd3) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:54 pmTime123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 4:41 pm
please explain how the Adriana Kuch case has anything to do with a culture war
as for the Loudoun rape case, after you applauded the arrest of the victim’s dad and doubted the veracity of the allegations, the end result once the facts settled is that the suspect was convicted, and two school officials (Scott Ziegler and Wayde Byard) have been indicted.
none of that is mentioned in your link, so maybe you weren’t aware, or you just dropped interest
JF (d68b18) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:04 pmJF, I’m no where near a gifted enough writer to help you understand things. I’m not sure such a written exists.
Time123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:09 pmKevin, can you explain what you mean by fraud cooked into the balloting rules? That’s usually a left wing claim around using the rules to make it harder to certain groups of lawful voters to cast their ballot.
Time123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:12 pmJF, I’m no where near a gifted enough writer to help you understand things. I’m not sure such a written exists.
Time123 (66b9bf) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:09 pm
You’re gifted enough to come up with a pathetic dodge.
JF (d68b18) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:13 pm4th UFO spotted over havre montana. DOD closes airspace to commercial traffic.
asset (cb37f4) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:30 pmNo surprise that those who minimize concerns about our culture either support the divisive leftist slant or have no kids/ skin in the game
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/11/2023 @ 6:45 pmExperts say green laser beams spotted off Hawaii came from Chinese satellite
Experts believe that a Chinese satellite fired down green laser beams that were spotted over Hawaii last month, amid growing tensions between the US and China after several foreign objects — including a Chinese spy balloon — have breached US airspace. Scientists at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) tweeted that the space agency’s Subaru-Asahi Star Camera on Mauna Kea “captured green laser lights in the cloudy sky over Maunakea, Hawai’i” on Jan. 28.
“The lights are thought to be from a remote-sensing altimeter satellite ICESAT-2/43613” — a NASA craft, the agency said. Video of the strange phenomenon released by NAOJ shows numerous mysterious green beams eerily shooting successively across the night sky.
One week later on Feb. 6, NOAJ issued a correction on their video stating that the “most likely candidate” was the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite after the ICESat-2 team ran a simulation of satellite trajectories. “We really appreciate their efforts in the identification of the light,” NAOJ wrote. “We are sorry about our confusion related to this event and its potential impact on the ICESat-2 team.” – NYPost.com
DCSCA (feb17f) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:03 pmI have 4 kids. All in public school. All of them are doing well and I think my school district does a good job and my kids teachers are responsive to my concerns. Spent tonight at a school charity event that’s raising money to a local domestic violence charity.
How much skin in the game do you have?
Time123 (b91e79) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:06 pmCulture is probably not the right name for this situation.
It’s people pushing (mostly crazy and wrong) ideas and relying on credentials and authority to justify them as being right.
The solution is to limit the ability of people to declare something is true.
Where people are not being pressured to accept them as true, it’s not a problem.
The problem is the people maintaining these new ideas not being able and willing to accept being contradicted, and their assertions denied and disputed, especially in forums, that are intended for everyone, that they control.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:13 pmCentral Regional School District Superintendent Dr. Triantafillos Parlapanides resigns days after student Adriana Kuch’s death by suicide
famous culture warrior zealot Governor Phil Murphy, Democrat:
JF (d68b18) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:13 pm“Tammy & I send our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Adriana Kuch. Every student should feel safe and supported no matter where they are.”
What’s going on with these balloons? Is this a new thing (that perhaps couldn’t be called off quickly after one got shut down) or is the U.S. military just now noticing them?
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:15 pmA “big tent” doesn’t mean you ignore certain issues, but that you accept people who have a different position on certain issues as members in good standing of your party. Especially if nobody with another position could likely get elected there,
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:21 pmJF (d68b18) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:13 pm
Then don’t ignore what is happening to them. Or deal with it as little as possible.
And shake up the school. Make this everybody’s problem.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:25 pmNo surprise that those who minimize concerns about our culture either support the divisive leftist slant
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:26 pmDo you have “skin in the game” or not, Rob?
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:36 pmDo you have “skin in the game” or not, Rob?
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:36 pm
NJRob’s comment was sufficiently clear for anyone who isn’t an idiot or a troll
I’m confident you’re neither, Montagu
JF (d68b18) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:44 pmI’ve shared some of my history in the past with those on here I respect. I have no interest in sharing it with those who I don’t.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/11/2023 @ 7:48 pmnk (bb1548) — 2/11/2023 @ 5:06 pm
Columbo smoked later, albeit cigars. And many characters smoked. But usually thought it was unhealthy.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:36 pmWhen I here the word culture I reach for my gun! H. Himmler and your average rethugliKKKan red neck. We have been fighting a culture war forever. My side is ready for battle your side had better be or we will crush you. Banning the teaching of black history is an unforced error on your side. Desatan will not be able to campaign in purple states let alone blue states. The black community will be waiting for him.
asset (cb16b7) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:40 pmMost of what I’m hearing here as culture war targets sounds to me like state issues. And that what works in Utah might not work in Massachusetts. I’m a firm believer in states being the laboratories of democracy, and that states can learn bad and good from each other. Education questions seem quintessentially local, with the federal government there to share best practices and curriculum and to distribute data.
I prefer the GOP in power to limit Title IX idiocy and to better encourage the free exchange of ideas. That extends to bad ideas being pushed on the military, into business, policing, and social welfare. The GOP is best on judges too, though there’s been a fair share of clunkers mixed in over the years. Roe got rolled back because of the GOP and affirmative action may be following closely behind. It’s a shame that conservative policy got anchored to a performance artist like Trump.
But counting on executive orders and action means that the laws and rules never take root as we swing back and forth between parties. Everything can’t be existential and a lot should be left to local people to live as they choose. Isn’t that the heart of liberty? The more baggage we strap onto the federal agenda, the more toxic we make the legislature and the more power we give the President and the courts.
So, yes, the GOP should fight against the federal government intruding into state perogatives. It should fight for states to be left alone as much as practical. It can make moral arguments for what it stands for, but it cannot do it at the detriment of the Congressional institution. None of the education reforms suggested here have a chance to get through Congress with the current partisanship. You have to recognize and address that before you can change the law. This notion of running over or bullying your opposition just never works. It’s time for people to row in the same direction…
AJ_Liberty (9d7020) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:49 pmhttps://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/state-test-results-23-baltimore-schools-have-zero-students-proficient-in-math-jovani-patterson-maryland-comprehensive-assessment-program-maryland-governor-wes-moore
Here are your culture wars and the success of leftist policy.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:58 pmA “big tent” doesn’t mean you ignore certain issues, but that you accept people who have a different position on certain issues as members in good standing of your party.
If fiscal conservatives aren’t willing to also stand up for issues that matter to social conservatives, there’s very little reason for the latter to support anything the former wants to accomplish.
None of the education reforms suggested here have a chance to get through Congress with the current partisanship. You have to recognize and address that before you can change the law. This notion of running over or bullying your opposition just never works. It’s time for people to row in the same direction…
AJ_Liberty (9d7020) — 2/11/2023 @ 8:49 pm
No more than anything the fiscal conservatives want to see implemented. If there’s very little that binds us as a nation now, then the dissolution isn’t a question of if, it’s a question of when. Even Lincoln recognized a house divided against itself can’t stand. It’s not going to last long being half-marxist and half non-marxist. It will either become all one or all the other, or it will break apart.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 9:40 pmBREAKING: Unidentified object shot down over Alaska was able to penetrate US airspace BEFORE it was detected, officials say – despite military claiming it developed a method to track spy balloons last year
‘The unidentified object shot down over Alaska was able to penetrate US airspace before detection, officials have revealed. A source told Fox News it was discovered ‘over Alaska not far from the northern coast’. The object was first spotted north of Anchorage, Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson tweeted. It comes after sources told CNN the military had developed a method to track spy balloons last year – despite the object, which is said to be the size of a small car, not being picked up on radar until after it was over Alaska.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11740127/Unidentified-object-shot-Alaska-penetrated-airspace-detected.html
Lest you forget, the incompetent Pentagon gets an annual budget of nearly a TRILLION dollars/year.
DCSCA (89b22a) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:15 pm@248 Half marxist? In what state does the government own the means of production? Twitter and facebook are more poweful then the FBI who have to go hat in hand to them. Large corporations control the government not the other way around. Social welfare state was invented by conservative otto von bismarck to stop the incessant marxist revolutions in germany and was aimed at the paris commune. Because you consider corporate establishment democrats like clintons and bidens marxists doesn’t make it so. As sun tzu said and I keep saying here “if you know your enemy and yourself (AS I DO) you need not fear the out come of a hundred battles (culture wars) If you know neither (LIKE YOU) you will always lose! To many ideologues don’t care about the consequences of their ideology put into place and say thats what the police and military are for to protect us from the consequences of are policy. Conservatives who are in power by the good graces of the wealthy establishment and deep state have to deal with the consequences of conservative ideology. They know the left must be controlled at all cost and when clinton was defeated not by a conservative ;but by a populist the center could not hold and you got AOC and the squad slowly taking over the democrat party. Biden is a senile corrupt old fool not a marxist. When AOC and the squad take over the democrat party and she becomes president then the re-education camps will be built. By 2028 generation Z along with millennials should overwhelm the conservatives if not 2032. Every day we become more and you become less.
asset (cb16b7) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:20 pmIf fiscal conservatives aren’t willing to also stand up for issues that matter to social conservatives, there’s very little reason for the latter to support anything the former wants to accomplish.
And you miss the point, again. It’s not required that all support all, but that they support the common goals and bargain on the rest.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:25 pmI usually check out the ISW highlights, among other sources, to gauge what’s going on with Putin’s War Against Ukraine, particularly their “key takeways”…
The UK MoD is also a good source.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:44 pmWhat I’m taking from the above is that Prigozhin and his Wagner Group may be on the outs, especially because he’s been trying since last August to take Bakhmut, a town of 70k, but has failed.
I’m also seeing that Putin has been throwing a higher number of Russians into his war but his successes have been meager.
He may be planning a spring offensive, but so are the Ukrainians, and it only affirms that his imperialist ambitions are nothing but a strategic disaster for him.
Still evading and non-responsive. I don’t have to respect you to answer simple questions, Rob. Why can’t you?
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:46 pmBTW, Rob, credit to FWO for answering questions. No credit to you.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:58 pmI mentioned UK MoD above, and here’s their latest.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:11 pmIf my math is right, in the last 7 days the Russians lost nearly six thousand in their attempts to take Bakhmut, a town of 70k, and they’re still failing.
What is the strategic importance of Bakhmut? Ego, it seems, because looking at a map, it’s nothing more than a highway crossroads.
Granted, Ukrainians are also paying a price, but they have a purpose. What purpose does Putin have?
So the bigger question is, how many more Russians have to die for Putin to get what wants?
And how many more Russians have to die when he doesn’t get what he wants?
Care to answer, DC? Real answers only.
@248 Half marxist? In what state does the government own the means of production?
This is misdirection that falsely frames marxism as being based on economics only. The ideology began evolving into the cultural realm after Lenin’s accelerationism failed to spark the worldwide revolution they were expecting, starting with Lukacs and Gramsci, then the Frankfurt School scholars, particularly Marcuse after he migrated to the US and became the intellectual godfather of the New Left.
Everything that’s developed in academia after “Counterrevolution and Revolt” was published are derivatives, just marxism in different clothes. But the ideology remains the same–the “means of production” changed to cultural institutions, while the structural materialism of “abolish property” became the structural racism of “abolish whiteness.”
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:16 pmAnd you miss the point, again. It’s not required that all support all, but that they support the common goals and bargain on the rest.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/11/2023 @ 10:25 pm
And that’s my point, which leads me round back to my original question–where, specifically, are fiscal conservatives willing to draw the line on the cultural front? What “common goals” do you think fiscal conservatives and social conservatives share?
If your side won’t support even one aspect of social conservativism, because you honestly feel that none of it is worth engaging, why should social conservatives continue to support any aspect of fiscal conservatism? Especially after the schools, the mass media (including Big Tech), the government, and even multinational corporations are now promoting the agenda of the cultural left in the last 30 years–which happened specifically because social conservatives bought the argument that these were actually pointless issues and should be ignored?
Sh*t like what happened to Gibson’s Bakery in Oberlin, and Jack Phillips in Colorado, are the direct result of these concessions. If you don’t think these are a problem, then there’s no point in the social conservatives trying to make common cause with the fiscal conservatives on anything going forward. If you do think they’re a problem, then what are you willing to do to push back against it?
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:24 pm@251 If social conservatives believe abortion is murder and illegal immigrants are a menace and free trade economic libertarian fiscal conservatives believe in lip service because like dubya I will drive my pregnant girl friend to NY for an abortion and free trade and illegals keep the wages of workers low where is the common goal except to fool them in getting their votes. Populists have more in common with democrats then they do with fiscal conservative republicans. Hence bernie sanders voters voting for trump they would never vote for a romney.
asset (cb16b7) — 2/11/2023 @ 11:38 pmAnd that’s my point, which leads me round back to my original question–where, specifically, are fiscal conservatives willing to draw the line on the cultural front?
I could turn it around, given that — judging from the national debt — fiscal conservatives haven’t gotten a damn thing from social conservatives since forever. W? No. Trump? Not even slightly. GHWB? No, not there either. Probably the most fiscally conservative president in the last 50 years was Bill Clinton.
Meanwhile social conservatives have gotten a supreme court that is undoing most of the things that can be undone by government. What would you have government do that government has the power to do? Most of your agenda is either not within government’s power, or at least not within the federal government’s power. What do you wee as being within government’s proper role?
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:42 am@259 What line? your asking nixon’s southern strategy to be moral? Uncle milty’s free trade economic libertarian fiscal conservatives believe greed is good and capitalism is A-moral. Lenin said the capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with. Both nixon and reagan’s southern strategy was to figure out how you get ignorant southern white trash racist democrats to vote for the party of the wealthy who loathe them. Pretend! God guns and gays so we can have tax cuts for the rich. Fiscal conservatives believe social security and medicare is socialism end them. End wealth tax and income tax have a 50% federal state and city sales tax instead. Why do you think reagan gave his first speech after 1980 nomination in philadelphia mississippi where the 3 civil rights workers were murdered welcoming the klan and racists into the republican party. Social conservatives want their ss check and medicare. Try making them pay 50% sales tax when they buy pick up gun or beer. Who here thinks a rich man who gets his black or latina maid pregnant is against her having an abortion.
asset (cb16b7) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:22 amCorrect me if I’m wrong, but unless that’s a joke — please, PLEASE be a joke — it looks like you’re predicting it approvingly. If so, how can you possibly believe it’s morally tolerable?
lurker (cd7cd4) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:42 amFWO, I’m ok with this as a deal. Can you point to any evidence or examples of social cons controlling spending when they have power? From what I can see the GOP doesn’t care about the budget deficit. At best it will talk about it when the Dems have enough power to prevent any action. But as soon as the social cons have power they just wreck the deficit in their own way. Most recent example is Trumps term when had all three chambers.
The 2017 budget had a .67T. Deficit.
The 2018 budget has a .78T deficit.
Both were based by a GOP controlled house.
Social cons won’t control spending, they want to expand the government, they don’t support rule of law. Why should I support them?
Time123 (b91e79) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:53 am@240, I’m not minimizing concerns about our culture. I’ve said repeatedly that in most of the ways we can measure our society has been improving at the same time your cultural preferences have been rejected.
For example, the high school completion rate has gone from 87% to 91% in the last 10 years.
See here for more data.
Time123 (b91e79) — 2/12/2023 @ 3:00 amhttps://www.outkick.com/tyre-nichols-white-supremacy/
Culture doesn’t matter, right?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:27 amFeels like Paul is trying to troll to get personal information from me and target me. Why is that? Or is it Bird Dog? Or any of the other assumed names you’ve taken Paul.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:29 amHappy birthday President Lincoln.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:40 amIt was based on neighborhood, (it was a crime “hot spot”) sex and age, and possibly car model or driving behavior or reaction or non-reaction to police car(s)
Perhaps someone of a difference race might have been a counterindication. It was because of their training, both official and unofficial, (which included lying in their report) and not in spite of it.
They acted like there were no innocent people driving around there. The first thing they did when his car stopped was they began yelling at him and shouting bad words at him and attacking him,
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:54 am@265, you’re the one who said ppl that disagree with you don’t have skin in the game. Having started that line don’t be surprised when ppl ask about what your personal stakes are.
Time123 (cd7aaf) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:27 am@264. I agree that the culture in law enforcement needs to change. We need less escalation and use of violence by LEO. Or did you mean something different?
Time123 (cd7aaf) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:28 amRob, and to a lesser extent FWO, seems like you’re confusing ppl saying the specific culture war issues you’re bringing up aren’t important is the same thing as saying culture as a concept isn’t important. I don’t see anyone saying culture as a concept doesn’t matter. Just that the specific issues you’re highlighting aren’t as important.
Time123 (cd7aaf) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:42 am“If there’s very little that binds us as a nation now, then the dissolution isn’t a question of if, it’s a question of when.”
You don’t appear to like or trust federalism. You should like that we have the contrast of Utah vs. Massachusetts or California vs. Texas. And you should like that people have the freedom to sort and seek a venue that is more friendly to their values. You can even do that within a state, as there are conservative parts to deep blue states like Maryland and Colorado and liberal parts of red states like Florida and Texas. That’s what makes the notion of dissolution quite problematic and largely impractical.
The good thing about political pluralism is that it tends to balance the excesses of the extremes. It balances the notion that we want our liberty, we just don’t want the other guy to have his liberty. The Left brings compassion, tolerance, equality, and the value of sharing. The Right brings order, discipline, and the value of competition. I like to think of it…in an admittedly sexist way…as the mommy and daddy instincts. In families, things get balanced out, so it’s not all carrot or not all stick.
We actually have a lot of different cultures at play at the same time. The inner city culture is quite different from an upper middle class suburban culture. Will one subsume to other? I kind of doubt it. They’re influenced by class and economic opportunity, but also by race. It would be nice to wave your hand and eliminate out-of-wedlock births, drug dependency, gang violence, and bad schools, but there’s no magic wand. There’s also no magic wand to perfectly protect people from the changes of globalization. There are limits to government action — that used to be a staple of conservative philosophy. We dealt with how the world actually is, not how we hoped it was.
I think if we stop and think about it, there should be a lot of common interests that bring us together. We all want safe neighborhoods, good schools, plenty of jobs, leisure time, reasonable health care, retirement security, and for our children to have it better than we did. Yes, we disagree on details and priorities, but we don’t on the end goals. We have to start acting like that and not let either extreme close off all compromise. Conservatives used to say…nostalgically….it takes both a mommy and a daddy. Maybe the country needs that too.
AJ_Liberty (9d7020) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:08 amSocial cons won’t control spending, they want to expand the government, they don’t support rule of law. Why should I support them?
Time123 (b91e79) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:53 am
looks like Time123 wants to see if anyone will play the “I’d support Republicans, if only …” game with him today.
where’s frosty?
JF (a1e602) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:24 amJF,
It’s the same game over and over again. “I’m just asking questions.” “These issues don’t matter.” Etc.
Yet they certainly do matter to them otherwise they wouldn’t care if conservatives got their way on those issues. They support the other side. Yet for some reason avoid saying that publicly even though they are anonymous.
NJRob (dfc74c) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:01 amThat’s the stupidest thing I’ve read all week. It was yes or no question, Rob. I didn’t ask for names or locations.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:09 amAJ, I remember when GOP and Dems were referred to as the Daddy and Mommy parties. Today, the GOP is the Emotional Party, with the primary emotion being anger.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:24 am@273, the changes you propose to “fix” problems that exist mostly in your delusions would make the country worse.
For instance
I think CRT is a silly moral panic created to garner clicks.
The “fixes” that several states have implemented/are implementing make public education worse.
Does that make things clear enough to interact with the actual position I’m taking?
Time123 (ab330c) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:58 amAJ, those goals will get broad support. But they don’t address what the culture warriors want. It’s not about globalization or economics. It’s more about their team being recognized as the “main” or primary one, the symbols of their team being standard, and the contributions team being celebrated and not overly criticized.
Not that everything needs to be whitewashed. But a book that portrays their team negatively shouldn’t be overly emphasized. So it’s not that say Ruby Ridge goes to school has to be banned. But it shouldn’t be selected as a reading book when the class is studying non-fiction.
This also explains the silly “war on Christmas” it was never an attack on Christmas. It was major retailers recognizing that we lived in an increasingly ecumenical society that had many holidays in December and choosing to acknowledge that.
Again, not that the right has anything against Diwali, Hanukkah etc. but from their point of view this is a Christian country and Christian holidays should be recognized and respected before any others.
Public policy will have a hard time interacting with this given the way the 1A works.
Time123 (2d6cca) — 2/12/2023 @ 9:20 amOn Lincoln’s birthday, I always re-read his second inaugural, with its amazing final paragraph:
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/12/2023 @ 9:38 am@276 looks like you didn’t read the post, specifically the seventh and eighth news items
CRT being taught in schools didn’t cause people and businesses to flee our downtowns, but the mentality that gives us CRT in 2nd grade is the same mentality that says LEOs are racist and part of a systemic racist system, leading to what’s happening in SF and Portland and Seattle, etc.
but, this is the game that we see getting played daily
republicans have done poorly on fiscal matters but it doesn’t require a lot of brain power to acknowledge that democrats will always do worse. Entitlements are the main driver and are pretty much on auto pilot. They’re called the third rail for a reason, and when a Rick Scott touches it, the self-identifying fiscal hawks here turn up the juice, cuz they know there is no solution that won’t make republicans look bad, and that’s really the point
but, it requires intellectual honesty to actually acknowledge that
JF (200c8f) — 2/12/2023 @ 9:53 amThe point I’ve been trying to make is that Big Tent parties can compete in elections and Pure Principle parties cannot. They don’t call the Libertarians “The Party of Principle” for nothing. They also don’t call it large.
So, a Big Tent party is composed of factions that can coalesce around some common goals and work together.
The GOP has social conservative, fiscal conservative, libertarian, main street, self-employed, Wall Street, law & order, and class-conscious factions. They don’t all want the same things, but they all want some of the same things.
When they work together they get some of these things to happen. When they don’t they get jack sh1t. When one faction decides that they run the party and ignores the others, they may run on for a while but eventually they are back to jack sh1t. When a faction decides that it’s their way or the highway, everyone gets the highway.
There is no way forward in a two-party first-past-the-post election system other than coalition. We are going to have to learn that again, I guess. Either on our own or in AOC’s re-education camps.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 10:27 amThe culture war is less of a war and more of an ongoing series of skirmishes and border incursions, which doesn’t make it any less cruel to the people who find themselves being the collateral damage. So the war on Christmas wasn’t, unless you were the unlucky person who got in trouble for decorating for Christmas when followers of other traditions were allowed and celebrated for their religious displays. The pendulum of change cannot allow for a group in the dead center of middle. Picture the pendulum as sweeping everything out of the middle and also hitting everyone that tries to migrate into that center space just inside where the pendulum swings overhead.
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 10:40 amYou don’t appear to like or trust federalism. You should like that we have the contrast of Utah vs. Massachusetts or California vs. Texas. And you should like that people have the freedom to sort and seek a venue that is more friendly to their values. You can even do that within a state, as there are conservative parts to deep blue states like Maryland and Colorado and liberal parts of red states like Florida and Texas. That’s what makes the notion of dissolution quite problematic and largely impractical.
This is a strawman, so it’s hardly worth addressing–particularly when this actually doesn’t even exist in the deep blue states you list. Ask the Western Slope if they feel represented when the state is dominated entirely by Front Range and ski resort Democrats. Or eastern Oregon being dominated by Portland, or Illinois by Cook County, or even Teton County in Wyoming.
You yourself have blatantly admitted that there’s very little which binds us together as a nation now. If that’s the case, a return to federalism will hardly mitigate that. It’s called “E Pluribus Unum” for a reason.
It seems the best solution would be to break up the states and increase their number, so that downstate Illinois doesn’t have its politics dictated to it by Chicago, or upstate New York by New York City, or Teton County by the rest of Wyoming. That would do more to mitigate political tensions than anything else, if the goal is really to hold the nation together for the foreseeable future.
The path of history is littered with the corpses of formerly powerful nations and civilizations. The US won’t be any different in this regard.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:08 amRob, and to a lesser extent FWO, seems like you’re confusing ppl saying the specific culture war issues you’re bringing up aren’t important is the same thing as saying culture as a concept isn’t important. I don’t see anyone saying culture as a concept doesn’t matter. Just that the specific issues you’re highlighting aren’t as important.
Time123 (cd7aaf) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:42 am
If they weren’t important, the left wouldn’t sound the alarm when conservatives attempted to take control of those issues and institutions.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:10 amMr. O’Brien is skeptical of Putin’s massive upcoming offensive. The logistics and personnel and skillsets just aren’t there.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:11 amMy distaste for Romney comes from the displeasure of watching him “punch down”. Everyone does it, remember all the polls that showed that Trump led in the people with double digit IQ’s who didn’t finish high school? But when the last time Romney scolded Chuck Schumer or Biden in a very public, direct manner? “You don’t belong here” from Romney sounds like a petulant older frat boy who wants the new pledge from the other side of the tracks to quit or at least ride on the roof of the car like the dog. If Romney had a history of treating his fellow Senators, Presidents from both parties the same in an even-handed way he’d actually be a statesman.
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:15 amIt seems the best solution would be to break up the states and increase their number, so that downstate Illinois doesn’t have its politics dictated to it by Chicago, or upstate New York by New York City, or Teton County by the rest of Wyoming. That would do more to mitigate political tensions than anything else, if the goal is really to hold the nation together for the foreseeable future.
I’ve been advocating this, for this reason, for some time now. Urban domination of rural areas is a problem. California should be 5 states (LA County should be its own state), WA and OR two each at least. NY, IL, TX, FL should be broken up as well. We’d probably do well with 100 states, all with populations of 10 million or less, instead of the current 50.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:20 amMr. O’Brien is skeptical of Putin’s massive upcoming offensive.
Who isn’t?
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:22 amMy plan for California.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:25 amCalifornia, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Washington and West Virginia also do not have a minimum age requirement for marriage.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:29 amComedy Gold!
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:31 amOne of the ways to make splitting states palatable is to give all factions something they want: more home control. Smaller pond –> bigger fish.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:32 amsteveg, so Romney is the embarrassment, not Santos?
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:32 amComedy Gold!
Worthy of DCSCA, Rip, not you.
Which of those 5 sections would you say is most likely to oppose, and why?
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:33 amThe Ukrainians?
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:34 amVery good observations in your comment, and you final idea comes close to an epiphany: It takes a family.
Hear me out. Socialism works at the familial level, but not at the governmental level because it is appropriate to treat children as children by parents who have a biological connection (for starters) to them.
Parents are assumed to have the best interest of their children in mind because parents are the ones who sacrifice their lives to their rearing. This is the way it has worked since the beginning. Does it always work? Well, is everyone perfect? Parents are responsible for the weaning of children of off their teat, and most excel at this pivotal lesson because it is for the child’s own good that they become self-sufficient so they may not only stand on their own, but go on to found their own family, and eventually see to the care of their parents as best as they can.
Human weaknesses notwithstanding, history bears out the parental model as a foundation for family, tribe, society, and entire civilizations. But it is an error to take this model and use it on a much larger scale. Government has no competence to either “father” or “mother” the people. There is no “flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone” imperative; just “a public interest” which is even more prone to the human condition at its worst. Which all to often sees the tragedy of encouraging life on the teat of government in dependency unto death.
Never underestimate the government’s ability to phuck things up.
felipe (77b190) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:46 amIt’s comedy gold it has a less than zero chance (along with all the other plans to divide California) of becoming reality.
But to play along, Los Angeles County and those in the Bay Area, would certainly oppose splitting the state, given their dependence on water from other parts of the state. The coastal counties north of Los Angeles are also heavily dependent on water from Northern California. No doubt like OPEC, as states, those counties would leverage their water resources against the coastal and southern counties.
The desert counties (Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial) have few natural resources and are subsidized by the richer counties. The may want to be a separate state, but the can’t afford it. I doubt the taxpayers in San Diego and Orange counties want to subsidize their poverty.
The same goes for the extreme North. They may feel neglected, but their economies can’t support the services their residents need/want. They have high poverty, and their only cash crop is still illegal.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:02 pmFWO, to repeat, the issues in the culture war aren’t that important. (For example Disney publishing a letter critical of the FL don’t say gay bill). The actions taken in response (changing tax policy as punishment for speech) in some cases are.
I don’t want a country where the state can and will punish ppl for their speech.
Time123 (23b800) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:10 pm@JF and NJRob:
My dear friends, you are among the most stalwart commenters on this site. I offer you, in the most charitable spirit, some advice which may prove useful to you, in the hope that others will know you “by your love.”
Example:
Better as “I feel like I am being trolled when…” – no names and more impersonal.
Example:
felipe (77b190) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:10 pm87% to 91% in the last 10 years.
See here for more data.
Time123 (b91e79) — 2/12/2023 @ 3:00 am
Too bad between 40-70 percent of incoming college freshmen need remedial classes because they can’t even perform basic math and English at a 9th grade level.
The completion rates are more a function of the schools pushing students out the door than actual improvement in performance.
Factory Working Orphan (5e6f26) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:12 pmPaul that is a good well measured article on the war in Ukraine. I have a feeling Russia will continue to use its traditional methods of waging war. Willing to accept huge personnel losses while they bludgeon and brutalize everyone and everything along the way (including their own). The Russians will need to consolidate their supply points and are probably planning to try to draw out and neutralize the HIMARS early. Given how few HIMARS Ukraine has, any degree of success by the Russians will have an outsized impact. Any Russian offensive should be the death of the Ukrainian air force and even though Russia has been incapable of defeating UAF so far, that doesn’t mean the Russian won’t brute force numbers it their way.
In the event of a Russian/neo Soviet breakout, or an envelopment of a large group of Ukrainians (I give it 50-50% so as not to err on the side of complacency) I am interested what Poland’s “redline’ is for an air power intervention (I assume they have one).
Spring could be an extraordinarily dangerous time that will need to be navigated well. I wish we had a more able minded President but hopefully his team will perform well. I’m not a fan of ignoring orders down the chain of command from the elected President but in this case, if a tree falls in the forest of President elect Joe Biden’s mind and there is no one there to hear it…. just go do the next right thing
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:16 pmFactory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:08 am
What a wonderful comment. I found it persuasive because you offer a definite course of action. Thank you.
felipe (77b190) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:19 pmHi JF, thank you for acknowledging that there’s no point in supporting republicans in hopes of fiscal discipline. That’s unusually candid of you.
Time123 (23b800) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:21 pmAlso, the northern and central coast counties receive the most services from CalFire in fighting forest fires, the cost no doubt subsidized by the other counties. Who will pay the million-dollar costs for those disasters?
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:23 pmYes, you have, and persuasively as well. I would welcome further conversations between you and FWO.
felipe (77b190) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:23 pmFWO
Education is an abscessed wound. For results to be that bad, the whole education food chain has to be filled with people who don’t know wtf they are doing and/or don’t give a “F” they are getting an F at their job. Am no expert, but am still certain the problem you describe is not because Florida doesn’t allow more Queer Studies in early elementary school
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:27 pmI don’t see any prospect of Polish intervention. To do so would invite Russian retaliation and then direct involvement of NATO, validating Putin’s claim that the Russo-Ukraine War is a NATO proxy war.
Of course, that could be the point……..
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:28 pmCalifornia division fantasy camp.
Before anyone proposes dividing California, they should explain how California’s politics (as well in Congress, since they to approve any split) makes this possible. Otherwise the discussion is just meaningless.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:38 pmYou are right that all plans to split the state have failed, but not for the reasons you state. Up to now, all the plans have left urban areas in control of all the pieces, meaning that even those parts that want to break away are against them.
Of course water rights (and pensions and state land and some other common things) would have to be part of a package. An interstate compact on water for starters, which would be subject to the same congressional approval as new states. Just because Draper forgets this does not mean that other people would.
It’s not a simple process. As far as local control, or economic issues, LOTS of states have these and yet you don’t see a clamor to combine. I live in New Mexico which has many of the things you see as fatal flaws, yet is manages to operate with a mere 2 million people, half of them in a box 10 miles on a side.
The folks who live in Los Angeles could have lots of things they don’t get now. Do you think they’re happy with a state that throws $100 billion (and counting) down a magic train rathole? Suppose that had been spent on LA’s transit problem. SF wants strict rent control and single-payer medicine, but they’ll never get it because most of the rest of the state doesn’t want it.
California does not work. It’s too big to work. There are at least 5 separate cultures at odds with each other over most everything. SF and LA may both be “blue” but its a very different blue. At some point the state will split. I’d rather it was planned and not just a desperate reaction.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:40 pm“It seems the best solution would be to break up the states and increase their number”
If it is so unpleasant in downstate Illinois, what is stopping the breakup? If people are being “dominated” and politically neutered, one would think that people would be hustling to scoop up their detached members and racing for the divorce court.
Well, let’s start with the Constitutional requirement in Article IV. Yikes! The incoming new state must get the approval from the state it’s abandoning. Then, the U.S. Congress must vote to admit it. So if we get the unlikely chance that Cook County says “Sure go f*#k yourselves you good for nothing down-staters”, then the 100 prima donnas in the current Senate would have to essentially vote to dilute their current power. That also doesn’t sound promising. To overcome the 60-vote requirement for cloture, the party losing guaranteed electoral votes, here Democrats, will then insist on balancing the political effect by dividing a red state and the complexity of the action grows and grows….and its likeliness fades and fades.
If we can’t agree about bathroom policies or pronouns, how the heck will states agree about the complexities of divvying up territories and resources? Any line drawing will be contested ad infinitum in courts and hearings. The political moderates and independents will themselves sue for emancipation to avoid becoming red-headed step children in not-liberal-bastard-Chicago-land.
This all seems to be driven by despair. Democracy is too hard, so let’s engage in some masturbatory fantasy to relieve our stress. Let’s just say I vote NO on that….
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:49 pmIt looks like there probably one Chinese balloon. The 4th and last object (over Montana) was a radar anomaly – when planes were sent up to take a closer look, they couldn’t find it.
The second and third objects shot down, one north of Alaska and one in Yukon, Canada, were smaller than the big 3-bus size object shot down over the coast of south Caroline, and at a lower altitude – about 40,000 feet compared to 58,000, or nearly 60,000 feet of the Chinese surveillance balloon that had parts made in the USA.
People who are in a better position to guess, or get hints, think it is probably not a spy balloon. David Martin, of CBS News, said on Face the Nation that there’s a lot of what they call sky trash around, and it would not have had to come from China – air currents from many places go over Alaska or so. Congressman Jim Hines, the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee said he would surprised if it turned out to come from China. They must begetting hints from people who know more.
Before shooting down the last two they took a look and determined there was no one on board, They shot it down on the grounds that maybe, just maybe, it might interfere with civil aviation, (and because President Joe Biden wants to avoid criticism and is easily pushed around, so he did the opposite of what he did the previous week.)
It’s probably not that there are more objects, but they are looking more. NORAD, has been mainly interested in detecting incoming missiles and airplanes.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:55 pmAn election to divide California probably will look like this.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:58 pmBefore anyone proposes dividing California, they should explain how California’s politics (as well in Congress, since they to approve any split) makes this possible. Otherwise the discussion is just meaningless.
There are 4 or 5 basic cultures: The Bay Area, Jefferson, San Joaquin, and Southern Cal. Most of southern CA despises Los Angeles, so that makes 5. Two of these regions are hard blue (no Republicans elected), two of them are hard Red (most everyone a Republican) and the non-LA part of Socal is pretty purple. The colors on that map are not by accident. If you look at the political alignments in each of the counties in these areas you will see that they are pretty homogeneous.
Jefferson and San Joaquin are almost entirely rural, with a few smallish cities here and there. Their economies are based on the land, much like, oh, Idaho or Iowa respectively. The Bay Area is mostly urban and a financial and tech center. SoCal is about the automobile, REALLY good weather, with a very mixed economy.
Water is an issue NOW. Most of the water distribution is driven by the political power of the coastal cities. The San Joaquin farms are being shorted even though most of the water comes from their east. Soon the whole area will go the way of the Owens Valley — a parched landscape despite huge water resources.
To make a split possible, the resulting political balance cannot change too much. Even if the result favors Democrats a bit, just breaking up the Electoral Vote would help the GOP. There are tradeoffs. Other states would just as soon see California less powerful, because when their delegations do join up they can be hard to stop.
This is a huge subject. This is just the top line.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:05 pmThe “train to nowhere” is the one yes vote I regret. However that raise the question on dividing bond indebtedness. How would you that, the bonds were issued by the State of California and that state would no longer exist.
Also, please address the points raised by AJ_Liberty:
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:07 pmFootball is the only professional sort followed in almost equal numbers by people who call themselves Republicans and people who call themselves Democrats.
The percentage of people in the United States who call themselves fans or who follow it (whatever the question was) is now 44%, ahead of baseball, the NBA, and soccer combined. It is 45% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats (are team homes more widely distributed?)
Source: NBS Meet the Press’s Chuck Todd
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:11 pmNerds at Caltech wondering where experimental aircraft have gone.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:12 pmRip–
It would be wrong to just propose a split directly by initiative.
Better would be an initiative to set up a commission within certain guidelines, which could then propose something to the legislature that would deal with water and pensions and a myriad of things that are beyond the initiative process itself. After all, the initiative process is limited to single issues and a partition necessarily has multiple issues.
A commission might be composed of county board appointees, with some population weighting and consensus requirements. The result would probably then go the the legislature and might need popular approval before being sent to Congress.
It’s not a quick process, which again is why Draper’s silly plans never bore fruit.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:13 pm@315:
Gort, Klaatu barada nikto.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:14 pmBond indebtedness.
Like pensions and state property, it’s something that needs addressing. A per capita, or maybe an income-weighted per capita approach might be used. Again, I do not advocate the Initiative for the actual split.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:17 pmHi JF, thank you for acknowledging that there’s no point in supporting republicans in hopes of fiscal discipline. That’s unusually candid of you.
Time123 (23b800) — 2/12/2023 @ 12:21 pm
LOL my comment was clear, and it’s also clear what you did with it
at present, there’s no point in supporting any party in hopes of fiscal discipline, precisely because there are those like you who will not reward a party which proposes any solutions and supports a party that won’t propose any
JF (1fc39a) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:19 pmFox News; BREAKING- MI REPS: U.S. DOWNS OBJECT OVER LAKE HURON
WTF?! Where’s Austin? Where’s Milley? Buying wings at the Super Bowl??? And where the hell is the idiot POTUS– getting a blood transfusion????? It’s about time our government addressed the American people about what is going on here– and given their poor track record, to FIRE the incompetent brassholes running the Pentagon.
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:19 pmSince the process would end in replacing the State Constitution, it would require a vote by the people at some point. Or do favor splitting the state without the voters weighing in?
And as with the recall, it would fail.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:20 pmIt was shot down In Canadian airspace.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:25 pmAlso, please address the points raised by AJ_Liberty:
I did. Short answer: there are a number of stake-holders and they all need to get something positive. But luckily this is not a zero-sum game.
Currently CA has two Democrat Senators and the likelihood is that they well be Democrats for the rest of Time. Obviously if this were to become 6 Ds and 0 Rs, there would be strong opposition, and if it were to become 5-5, the Democrats might balk. There is also the electoral vote issue, which favors the GOP with ANY split.
Constitutions, to keep things simple, would be the current constitution with necessary housekeeping (e.g. lists of counties, capital, etc). Can always be amended later. That provision in the Constitution has always seemed odd since amendments don’t require subsequent Congressional approval.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:25 pm@290/292/288 Bold bluster from a fella who lives in New Mexico.
Now here’s a plan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1uVkcrm5W4
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:26 pmit would require a vote by the people at some point. … And as with the recall, it would fail.
Why? The first recall didn’t fail.
But if the split is politically polarized, with winners and losers, it has already failed. As for it needing a popular vote, sure. See 316
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:27 pm@322. So? the level of incompetence on display from the CIC and the Pentagon brassholes who are budgeted nearly a TRILLION dollars a year is unacceptable. Doesn’t matter how many “objects” they knock down now– it is time for heads to roll there.
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:30 pmNow, if one of these things hovers over the SuperBowl….
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:35 pmWait, DCCCP is mad if we are slow to shoot violators down and now he’s mad when we shoot them down without explaining everything to him in detail. It’s almost like DCCCP is not being objective. Can it be?
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:44 pmUS military shoots down high-altitude object over Lake Huron on Sunday
CNN — The US military shot down another high-altitude object over Lake Huron on Sunday afternoon, according to a US official and a congressional source briefed on the matter.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/12/politics/lake-huron-high-altitude-object/index.html
With nearly a TRILLION dollar yearly budget, there’s simply no excuse for this. There’s massively piss-poor management at the Pentagon. A competent POTUS would have FIRED them with their track record and addressed the American people with clarity and concern. There are too many incompetent individuals in this government assigned positions because they checked a box rather than checked out as being competent for the positions they hold.
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:51 pmWell, you got to go with the Constitution you have, not the one you wish it to be. It makes since to me that Congress would need to approve new states, not sure why you find it odd. Congress approves amendments at the beginning of the process.
Given the divisions in Congress, any new states would never be approved. There is nothing in it for Democrats or Republicans.
“To dream, the impossible dream!”
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:54 pm@328. It’s fun to watch MIC huggers go all pretzel and try to defend the indefensible. Incompetence reigns supreme. Keep it up.
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 1:54 pmThe demographics have changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Not the same state-see the results of the Newsom recall.
You got that right.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:01 pm@327. Now, if one of these things hovers over the SuperBowl….
Not to worry- the costly military ‘commercial’ fly over formation for the kickoff will be in the air— whether the aircraft are armed is another matter:
All-women Super Bowl flyover celebrates 50 years of naval aviation history
This year, the flyover is especially special as it commemorates 50 years of women in naval aviation. For the first time in history, all seven members of the flight crew participating in the flyover are women.
The flyover is all Navy aircraft and will be made up of two F/A-18F Super Hornets, one E/A-18 Growler and one F-35C Lightning II. Crew includes LT Caitie Perkowski (Super Hornet), LT Arielle Ash (Super Hornet), LT Saree Moreno (Super Hornet), Naomi Ngalle (Super Hornet), LT Peggy Dente (Growler), LT Lyndsay Evans (Growler) and LT Jacqueline Drew (Lightning II).
Women were first allowed to train as aviators in 1973, and while this flyover is an honor to all the women that came before, there is an extra nod to Captain Rosemary Bryant Mariner. Mariner, the first female Navy jet pilot, passed at the age of 65 in January of 2019. The flyover at her funeral was the first-ever all-female crew.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2023/02/super-bowl-2023-flyover-navy-all-female-crew
Boxes checked? “Check!”
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:02 pmI agree with the first part. There’s no point in supporting either party in hopes of fiscal discipline. The rest of your comment is wrong. I’d be happy, thrilled, to support a candidate that offered actual policy solutions. The last person of note to do so was Paul Ryan. But feel free to keep blaming me for the GOPs failure in this.
Regardless, fiscal discipline isn’t a reason to vote for the republican candidate in most cases.
Time123 (23b800) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:03 pmAJ
I was a bit put off at first by your question: “so Romney is the embarrassment, not Santos?” but I understand your fair point. Santos is AN obvious embarrassment, but he/she/they/them etc is in the GOP House, the House have protocols to follow, precedents they have to be careful not to make, and he/she/them/they been there less than a month. Romney’s lane is in the Republican Senate and if he wants to toss his gravitas around the House Republicans, should do so with and through McCarthy and McCarthey’s whip. Romney isn’t THE embarrassment (well he should be embarrassed by the way he lost vs Obama but water meet bridge), Romney is embarrassing in his chosen role as poster child of crappy teammate, thinking his crap doesn’t stink. He’s one of those strange types who thinks there is greater virtue to be found in attacking one’s own with greater venomous enthusiasm than the other, when true virtue would be to handle both equally. If Romney was some sort of sports coach, I could see him making sure he never played favorites to his son or daughter, but he isn’t coach Romney and these are not his kids, so sack up and go after Schumer, Biden and show me he will dish it out to people knowing they will certainly hit Romney back hard and below the belt. Great leaders work in house to tighten up flaws and direction and they fight their peoples battles for them, take the punches…. they rarely punch down. Good leaders are circumspect in their criticisms of their team, great leaders will talk in public in general terms, “we did a great job here and here” and if someone is named, it will be something like operations was out of sync and we need to work on making that dept more comfortable in its roles and looking forward we all see them doing just that.
The Russian and Wagner military social media are telling/showing stories of officers being threatened, punched and there are tales of officers getting fragged. Being an officer isn’t easy but a Russian Lt. Romney would be a guy who would need strong, loyal American style NCO to show him how to lead/herd the cats but Romney gives me the feeling he wouldn’t take the lesson but would simply use the insulation in a way that undercut his NCO.
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:15 pmIf I were little rocket man, I’d buy a couple off the shelf Chinese ballo0ns on ali baba and drop a bunch of practice dummy unarmed bombs off of Japan and US. The Iranians could source old US ordnance, do the same for real though and deny everything. Poor man’s B52
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:21 pmThe Navy Quietly Reshuffled The Super Bowl Flyover Team To All-Female Aviators
‘The U.S. Navy quietly ditched a team of aviators scheduled to conduct a traditional flyover before Super Bowl LVII and replaced it with a group of all female aviators, Military.com reported Friday.
A final roster first announced Thursday on Good Morning America featured 11 female pilots and flight officers out of a total of 16 aviators, seven of which are scheduled to perform the spectacle kicking off Sunday’s big game, according to Military.com. However, the original group of 15 flight officers featured three women, according to a press release dated Jan. 27, and were presented as a commemoration of 50 years of female participation in the Navy’s aviation program.’
https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/11/navy-flyover-aviators-commemorate-women/
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:22 pmRegardless, fiscal discipline isn’t a reason to vote for the republican candidate in most cases.
Time123 (23b800) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:03 pm
republicans generally are looking for political reasons to support fiscal discipline, whereas democrats aren’t
that’s a reason to vote for them strictly on fiscal discipline grounds
Rick Scott may or may not have had the right solution, but the right solution is going to require that someone touch the third rail, and when he did I don’t recall you and other self anointed fiscal hawks doing anything but sit on your hands
JF (1fc39a) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:24 pmSome sobering fiscal analysis from Williamson at the Dispatch
(By function NOT by department for 2022)
Social Security: $1.300 trillion
Medicare: $1.500 trillion
Medicaid: $1.000 trillion
Defense: $1.200 trillion
Veterans: $0.072 trillion
Interest: $0.736 trillion
Total: $5.808 trillion
Tax receipts for 2022: $4.9 trillion (19.2% of GDP, a historically modest to high value)
So, with all those items off the table, we are almost at a $1T deficit plus whatever else is not zeroed out. The challenge is that this debt is simply not palpable to the average voter. We are in uncharted waters so we cannot concretely predict when it becomes too much debt. Our politicians are short-term thinkers looking for what is best for them for the next election cycle. Sober discussions and difficult asks are political kryptonite. There aren’t even calls to call in retired pols from both parties to take a swing at this solution. We can all grouse over the profligacy but few are willing to give up any of their pie. How much more taxes can be squeezed out of the economy before we pluck the golden goose? We need the media to drop the gas-bag cheerleading and get us back to demanding that our politicians act responsibly. Concern over this should be bipartisan.
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:26 pmKudos to Mitt for resisting the urge to cut Santos’s hair.
JF (1fc39a) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:27 pm@339. All the more reason NOT to keep borrowing BILLIONS to just freely give to non-taxpayer in corrupt Ukraine… for starters. Pay yourself first.
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:29 pmWater is an issue NOW. Most of the water distribution is driven by the political power of the coastal cities. The San Joaquin farms are being shorted even though most of the water comes from their east. Soon the whole area will go the way of the Owens Valley — a parched landscape despite huge water resources.
This is something that needs to be addressed, too. The entire west is going through an aridification cycle (I don’t call it drought because the region has always been dry), and it’s not just the Colorado River basin that’s running low.
Realistically, every state in the area west of the 100th meridian, including the Dakotas down to Texas, needs to be redrawn along the watersheds, according to the map.John Wesley Powell proposed, and riparian rights implemented in olace of prior appropriation. It won’t happen because of the political ramifications, but if these people actually cared about The Science!, from an ecological standpoint it’s absolutely critical.
Factory Working Orphan (5e6f26) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:30 pmThe U.S.’s $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier Has a Toilet Problem
The toilets on America’s two newest aircraft carriers, USS Bush and USS Ford are experiencing clogging problems, and the only way to keep the pipes draining is to use a special, extremely expensive acid solution. The two carriers toilet plumbing system, modeled on the plumbing system installed on airliners, clog frequently requiring the Navy to regularly service them with an acid that costs $400,000 per use.
The problem, first reported by Bloomberg, is mentioned in a General Accountability Office (GAO) report on sustainment costs for Navy ships. The GAO report states that the Navy used a brand new toilet and sewage system for the USS George H.W. Bush and USS Gerald R. Ford, the last two aircraft carriers to roll off the production lines. The system is “similar to what is on commercial aircraft, but increased in scale for a crew of over 4,000 people.”
GAO: To address unexpected and frequent clogging of the system, the Navy has determined that it needs to acid flush the CVN 77 and 78’s sewage system on a regular basis, which is an unplanned maintenance action for the entire service life of the ship.
Each acid flush costs $400,000. The Navy, the GAO states, cannot predict how often this expensive procedure is necessary, making it difficult to predict how often it will need to repeat the procedure over the 50-year lifespans of each carrier…
The U.S. Navy plans to build up to 11 Ford-class carriers, gradually replacing existing Nimitz-class ships over the coming decades. The next ships in class are the USS John F. Kennedy, USS Enterprise, and USS Doris Miller. USS Ford cost a whopping $13 billion, more than twice as much as the USS Bush. USS Ford has experienced a number of technical issues, including getting the electromagnetic aircraft launch system working, the advanced arresting gear, a new radar system, and electromagnetically powered weapon elevators.
The GAO report also mentions a bigger problem with USS Ford than faulty toilets: the ship, designed to be less expensive to sail than previous classes, was projected to cost $77.3 billion over 50 years to operate, or $1.54 billion annually. Instead, the GAO projects the ship will cost $123 billion over the same period, or $2.46 billion a year. If the Navy builds all eleven ships the service will see a combined cost increase of $10 billion a year—the equivalent of four new destroyers with toilets that flush. – https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a31929628/uss-ford-toilet/
The United States sorely needs another Truman Committee to reign in this totally out-of-control MIC:
‘The Truman Committee, formally known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, was a United States Congressional investigative body, headed by Senator Harry S. Truman. The bipartisan special committee was formed in March 1941 to find and correct problems in US war production with waste, inefficiency, and war profiteering. The Truman Committee proved to be one of the most successful investigative efforts ever mounted by the U.S. government…‘ – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Committee
DCSCA (959a90) — 2/12/2023 @ 2:38 pmCassandra speaks!
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 3:21 pmNews Item:
Someone is hiring:
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 3:45 pmShocking moment World War II bomb found in Great Yarmouth explodes in unplanned detonation sending thick plumes of smoke across town
‘Footage has captured the shocking moment that a World War II bomb unexpectedly exploded, blasting thick plumes of smoke into the air. An eruption of noise was felt across Great Yarmouth today as a war bomb at the center of a defusing operation blew up at around 5pm.
Witnesses report seeing sandbags fly into the air and windows rattling as the blast shook the small seaside town.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11737437/Moment-World-War-II-bomb-Great-Yarmouth-explodes-unplanned-detonation.html
DCSCA (732ed9) — 2/12/2023 @ 3:51 pmI remember when conservatives were upset when Kavanaugh’s detractors brought up things he allegedly did in high school, so wouldn’t it be hypocrisy to malign a conservative like Romney for something he allegedly did in high school?
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/12/2023 @ 3:55 pmTop lines download available from above link.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:05 pmA 4th object was shot down over Michigan this afternoon. No word if this iis the same thing that was seen on radar over Montana or not. A Congresswoman was briefed before (the two Alaska Senators were also briefed before the second object was shot down in the Arctic Ocean.
It’s unclear to NBC whether there are really more things suddenly appearing (besides the 3-bus payload of the Chinese balloon) or they’re just on the lookout for them now.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:07 pmNeither of the two questions present proper choices. You can’t end the war by agreeing to surrender some territory and you can’t end the war by continuing fighting the way Ukraine is and never touching Russian territory.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:12 pmUhhhh…….this won’t happen:
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:13 pmUS leads the rest of the world with $196 billion given to Ukraine amid war with Russia
The United States continues to lead the world in contributions to Ukraine with nearly $200 billion in promised or sent aid, as the U.S. ally continues its fight against Russia.
According to the Ukrainian government, the U.S. leads all countries with $196 billion in total military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24, 2022 through Nov. 20, 2022. Germany has sent the second-most funds, with $172 billion sent in that span.
In that same span, the rest of the world has contributed less than $75 billion of total aid, with most of that sum coming from the United Kingdom ($28.2 billion), Poland ($24.3 billion), and Estonia ($5.48 billion). These figures do not include loans sent to Ukraine or additional contributions that were approved by their respective governments between Dec. 2022 and Feb. 2023. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited each of these top contributing countries, except Estonia. The growing figures come as the Ukraine-Russia war nears its one-year mark. Russia first invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
Some members of Congress are looking to put a stop to the superabundant spending by the U.S. government, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, who introduced a resolution to end military and financial aid to Ukraine. “How much more for Ukraine? Is there any limit?” asked Gaetz, R-Fla., on the House floor. “Which billionth dollar really kicks in the door? Which redline we set will we not later cross?” The proposal also urges Ukraine and Russia to seek a peace deal, requiring them to renew their negotiations.
The “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution” has at least 10 co-sponsors and calls for the U.S. to “end its military and financial aid to Ukraine and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement.” The resolution notes the U.S. has been the top contributor to the Ukrainian war effort, providing financial, military, and humanitarian aid to the U.S. ally.
In January, President Biden approved additional security assistance, including 31 Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine. On top of that, reports suggest another $2 billion could be in the pipeline. “This is about freedom, freedom for Ukraine, freedom everywhere,” Biden said last month. Gaetz’s resolution claims the U.S. is inadvertently contributing to civilian casualties by providing weapons and potentially prolonging what he called an “everlasting conflict.”
“America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war,” said Gaetz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.” Co-sponsors of the resolution include Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Paul Gosae, R-Ariz., Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Mary Miller, R-Ill., Barry Moore, R-Ala., Ralph Norman, R-S.C. and Matt Rosendale, R-Mont. – https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-leads-rest-of-the-world-196-billion-ukraine-war-russia
‘… this letter’s postmarked, Vietnam…’ – Barry Sadler, 1966
DCSCA (732ed9) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:15 pmDeath toll in earthquake: Right now (nostly counted) about 33,000 Some people still being rescued alive in Turkey.Builders arrested – before there were periodic amnesties and legalizaattion of badly built buildings.
I saw a photograph printed of part of a city in Turkey that seemed to show the only building standing was a hospital.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:17 pmUkraine has already attacked Mother Russia directly (helicopter and drone attacks on border cities) and seized Russian territory (by occupying parts of the incorporated territories).
Interesting the Russia has not reacted with anything beyond the usual missiles bombarding Ukrainian cities.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:19 pmSuperbowl: Tied 7-up (as they used to say – I don’t hear it any more) near the end of the first quarter.
The teams are almost exactly equally matched. whichever won over better opponents should win the game, because if they won against equally good opponents, the one that was better should have done better, but they’re records are almost equal in all respects.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:24 pmLet me know when “the usual suspects” sign onto Chip Roy’s resolution to end the AUMFs, otherwise known as the “forever war” resolutions.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:28 pmWe’ll see what the final vote is on the resolution. My bet is that it won’t even get a majority of Republicans. Remember, they can only lose four votes.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:31 pmUkraine has done a little, but it hasn’t scared Putin,
The head of the Wagner Group claims there are people in Moscow (in the government?) who only want Russia to lose as quickly as possible, so that the Americans can come in and straighten everything out. (??!)
We are now witnessing this war’s Battle of the Bulge, only there’s no bulge. Russia is throwing everything conventional into this war now They’ve stopped recruiting in prisons. (because wird got back they’re only being sent to die?)
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:32 pmThe Turn Over Ukraine to the Tender Mercies of Russia resolution is performance, again a part of the for McCarthy’s soul.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:34 pmShould read:
….. part of the price for McCarthy’s soul.
Rip Murdock (98f93d) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:36 pmA Chinese survey ship crossed into Japanese territorial waters for about two hours. Not clear if this aanything new, or everybody is just now paying attention.
Sammy Finkelman (358cba) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:36 pm@356. Pfft. Let me know when it is PAID for; when Ukrainian Freedom Fighter War Bonds go on sales… and, oh yes, when the toilets are fixed on the $13 billion aircraft carriers provided by the bloated MIC w/o costing $400,000 an acid flush.
DCSCA (732ed9) — 2/12/2023 @ 4:44 pmThe 4th object (they are now referred to as UAPs) was spotted flying over Wisconsin at 20,000 feet and was shot down over Lake Huron (east of Michigan) as ordered y President Biden.
Sammy Finkelman (b141eb) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:11 pmIt’s probably under the ice.
Sammy Finkelman (b141eb) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:14 pmThat $196 billion looks massively inflated. The Ukraine Support Tracker shows $48 billion.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:37 pmEconomist/YouGov Poll-February 4-7, 2023
Poll top lines and cross tabs.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:41 pmThe halftime show looks like gal in red surrounded by swimmers.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/12/2023 @ 5:57 pmFrom the Economist/YouGov poll cross tabs:
There are a number of education related questions in the poll, see the cross tabs.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:14 pm@352. ROFLMAO So your desperate pitch is the corrupt Ukrainian government- which, per the piece, is the source of the number, is LYING?? Pshaw!
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:19 pm@367. Game pretty good– for a change; half-time show, a snore. Bring back Katy Perry.
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:20 pmI cited the same source as FoxNews, DC. I don’t why their number is four times higher.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:21 pm>
From the Economist/YouGov poll cross tabs (see post 366 for link):
There are a number of education related questions in the poll, see the cross tabs.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:24 pmCommercials; fairly mediocre, aside from the heavy use of computer graphics. Indiana Jones teaser an attention getter; Gutfeld! spot as well–very, very short [appropriately]– hence memorable; the rest; cars, beer, candy and credit cards– the usual suspects; mostly a jumble of unmemorable American junk food for life, body and soul.
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:28 pm@370. Of course you do; we all do: corrupt Ukraine lies.
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:29 pmAccording to the Ukrainian government, the U.S. leads all countries with $196 billion in total military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24, 2022 through Nov. 20, 2022.
A little song, a little dance, a little graft, corruption and seltzer down your pants. 😉
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:32 pm4th Qtr., KC, 28; Philly, 27. Game is good.
‘Course if Philly loses, Center City burns; OTOH, if Philly wins… Center City burns. 😉
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:36 pmKansas City has the lead for the first time in this game, 28-27, early in the 4th quarter. The last two touchdowns were by Kansas City – between them, Philadelphia scored a field goal, I presume.
Sammy Finkelman (b141eb) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:37 pmThe education questions from the Economist/YouGov survey cross tabs are 37A-G through 43 and 64F.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:39 pmPaul I found a video that has some of those training or lack thereof plus general muleheadedness that Russians keep doing.. I know they are humans who are afraid, so stuff happens, but training is supposed to help a lot with that
Watch how these guys handle a minefield:
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:40 pmhttps://twitter.com/i/status/1624661667815518210
How can you believe such a corrupt government?😜
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:44 pmSource. One euro equals $1.07.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:49 pm@379. ROFLMAO Golly! Ask an ‘honest man’… Joey!
“Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.” – Larson E. Whipsnade [W.C. Fields] ‘You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man’ 1939
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 6:57 pm@380: ROFLMAOPIP According to the Ukrainian government, the U.S. leads all countries with $196 billion in total military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24, 2022 through Nov. 20, 2022. – source…. why the very government propped up by that money— the land of the living embodiment of Churchill, of course. Or is it Bugs Moran… =sarc=
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:01 pmTwo minutes left, game tied at 35 each, each team with two timeouts left Both teams within field goal range (announcer a minute or two ago)
Sammy Finkelman (b141eb) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:10 pmKansas City scores a field goal with 8 seconds of game time keft. From 27 feet.
Sammy Finkelman (b141eb) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:14 pmFG! KC takes lead w/8 seconds left… really good game; tape your windows, Philadelphia… Center City burns tonight!
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:14 pmGame is over. KC attempted the field goal too late for Philadelphia to score something afterwards.
Sammy Finkelman (b141eb) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:18 pmAnd now, the desperately incompetent near trillion dollar a year Pentagon are actually publicly clinging to the ‘space aliens’ excuse:
US Hasn’t Ruled Out Alien Origins for Latest Objects Shot Down
‘(Bloomberg) — The US general in charge of NORAD said he hasn’t ruled out any possibilities on the source of three objects shot from the skies over the US and Canada — including that they might be of extraterrestrial origins.
General Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, made the comment when asked Sunday if the US had excluded the possibility that the objects shot down over Alaska, Canada and Michigan were “aliens or extraterrestrials.”
I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out,” VanHerck told a briefing. “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.” Although the US says the large balloon that it shot down off of South Carolina on Feb. 4 was a Chinese spying platform, which China denies, Pentagon officials acknowledged Sunday that they don’t know who was behind smaller objects downed since then. They said the US military has increased scrutiny of items in US airspace and the sensitive of radars that search the skies.’ – https://www.bloomberg.com
“Who are you people?” – Roy Neary [Richard Dreyfuss] ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’ 1977
DCSCA (3a7b8c) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:38 pmCall in Bill Pullman and Will Smith….we might be having some company…
AJ_Liberty (3c0ca6) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:42 pmPretty picky penalty to give the game to KC.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:43 pmUS Hasn’t Ruled Out Alien Origins for Latest Objects Shot Down
Well, when the Vogon Constructor Fleet bulldozes Earth out of existence, we’ll know how’s to blame!
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:44 pmSammy, did you consider that someone might be recording the game to watch later?
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:45 pmIt’s another big Super Bowl Sunday for Kansas.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:46 pm#391: Were I trying to avoid Super Bowl spoilers — and I detest spoilers — reading a blog site comment thread is about the last thing I would do. That’s on the reader, not Sammy.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:56 pmDo you think alien invasion will put the culture war on the back burner? I have been praying for something to unite us, but maybe I should have been more specific!
AJ_Liberty (8d0d9f) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:56 pmSpeaking of spoilers, did you ever notice that when ESPN replays games later in the day or week, the real-time chyron often announces the final score of the game you’re watching? How stupid and annoying is that?
lurker (cd7cd4) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:01 pmRip, I looked at that poll’s toplines and I note that Nikki Haley has the biggest “don’t know” at 34% in the favorability section, yet she gets as much support for president as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio combined.
The next couple of months should be telling. If she can’t move the needle with active campaigning, it’s a problem. OTOH, I don’t see what Ted Cruz can do that he hasn’t done.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:03 pm@336:
Make. My. Day.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:06 pmreading a blog site comment thread is about the last thing I would do. That’s on the reader, not Sammy.
Well, what exactly is the point of liveblogging the game then? The ONLY people you can inform are those that haven’t seen it.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:09 pmWhenever I donate to political campaigns it’s through a 501(c)(4) organization.
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:36 pmLiveblogging is for people looking for updates, not people trying to avoid them.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:45 pmI watched most of the second half of the Super Bowl. If I want to see how the first half went, I will watch the 6 minutes of highlights. I also watch the 1 hour version of Premier League soccer game of the week because as I’ve grown older, so has my attention span
steveg (7f25cf) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:49 pmSource
Rip Murdock (239c17) — 2/12/2023 @ 8:58 pm@389. Maybe you outta call Mike Myers, instead:
Philippines: China ship hits Filipino crew with laser light
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines on Monday accused a Chinese coast guard ship of hitting a Philippine coast guard vessel with a military-grade laser and temporarily blinding some of its crew in the disputed South China Sea, calling it a “blatant” violation of Manila’s sovereign rights.
The Chinese ship also maneuvered dangerously close, about 137 meters (449 feet), to block the Philippine patrol vessel BRP Malapascua from approaching Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef that has been occupied by Philippine forces, on Feb. 6, the Philippine coast guard said in a statement.
The Philippines has filed nearly 200 diplomatic protests against China’s aggressive actions in the disputed waters in 2022 alone.
China claims the South China Sea virtually in its entirety, putting it on a collision course with other claimants. Despite friendly overtures to Beijing by former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in January in Beijing, tensions have persisted, drawing in closer military alliance between the Philippines and the U.S. Although the Chinese coast guard had tried to block Philippine coast guard ships in the disputed waters before, this was the first time it used lasers and caused physical suffering among Filipino personnel, Philippine coast guard spokesperson Commodore Armand Balilo told The Associated Press. There was no immediate comment from the Chinese Embassy in Manila. – AP.com
“You know, I have one simple request, and that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!” – Dr. Evil [Mike Myers] ‘Austin Powers’ 1997
DCSCA (8f10c2) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:15 pm@400. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu takes a major step toward running for president
Snowball, hell-uh-oh, to Hell.
DCSCA (8f10c2) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:17 pmDo you think alien invasion will put the culture war on the back burner?
Ask the guards along the Southern U.S. border.
DCSCA (8f10c2) — 2/12/2023 @ 11:20 pmnorad commander says they coud be space aliens. Would that make them illegal aliens?
asset (b2464c) — 2/13/2023 @ 12:07 am@408. He’s either already gotten the word– so he’s playing along– knowing he’s being reassigned to the McMurdo Station– in Antarctica. Or, more likely, given the incompetent brain trust of this administration, he’s been told he’ll be nominated to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 😉
_________
Can’t fire POTUS and the SoD is a political box checked w/cozy MIC ties, so the head on the block really should be Milley’s: ‘Responsibility for conducting military operations goes from the president to the secretary of defense directly to the commanders of the unified combatant commands and thus bypasses the Joint Chiefs of Staff completely. Today, their primary responsibility is to ensure personnel readiness, policy, planning and training of their respective services for the combatant commanders to utilize. In addition, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acts as the chief military advisor to the president and the secretary of defense. In this strictly advisory role, the Joint Chiefs constitute the third-highest deliberative body for military policy, after the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, which includes the president and other officials besides the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Today, [the JCOS] primary responsibility is to ensure personnel readiness, policy, planning and training of their respective services for the combatant commanders to utilize. In addition, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acts as the chief military advisor to the president and the secretary of defense. In this strictly advisory role, the Joint Chiefs constitute the third-highest deliberative body for military policy, after the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, which includes the president and other officials besides the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.’ – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff
DCSCA (3f1d37) — 2/13/2023 @ 12:54 amThe things you learn, if you do a little research:
Abraham Lincoln was born 12 February 1809.
The NAACP was founded 12 February 1909.
The NAACP-LDF was founded 12 February 1940.
(LDF = Legal Defense Fund. The organization is separate from the main organization, although it shares the name.)
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:40 amAnyone notice Musk and Rupert Murdoch sitting together at the Super Bowl?
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:47 amHere’s a thread that explains the high number of earthquake deaths in Turkey.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:59 amThe shorter version: The Turkish government is responsible for giving contractors exemptions on seismic building codes. The government collects money in exchange for builders cutting corners, and the result was tens of thousands of dead Turks.
#407 I’ve been thinking about that WaPo article (which I linked to, earlier) and have come to this tentative conclusion: The study was authorized by someone in the Trump organization, who wanted still more evidence that Trump was wrong in claiming the election was stolen.
And, even more tentatively, we are hearing about it now, because of this bit: “[Trump chief of staff Mark] Meadows showed skepticism of the findings and continued to maintain that Trump won.”
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/13/2023 @ 6:26 amThat’s the prologue, lurker. asset’s fantasy starts when AOC keeps him after class for “special tutoring”.
nk (bb1548) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:53 amAnd yet, Paul, as one would expect, the Turkish government is going after the builders for the sub-par construction while ignoring their own colleagues who approved the projects…
Dana (1225fc) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:55 amOnce upon a time, I naively thought that surely the pandemic would be that something…
Dana (1225fc) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:58 amAnd it should also be a warning to us that because some (octogenarian) weirdo has some sick fantasy about a public figure — such as asset with AOC — we should not ascribe his sick thoughts to, and blame, the public figure.
nk (bb1548) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:59 amDana #416:
We live in the world of “never waste a crisis” and a world in denial of the law of untintended consequences. The mask thing brought out the inner nihilists on one sie of the fence and the inner totltalitarians on the other. The idea of having a duty to each other was abused by the teacher’s unions and the professionally fearful and a media in search of a new panic to attract clicks. The idea that we shoud actually accept that we wre going to make mistakes in an unprecedented situation and accept that most of us were just going to do the best we can got torched early on.
I think we are getting better. Melodramas are fun to watch on TV, but living one moment to moment is just tiring. That’s why the Trump show is limping to cancellation and why i suspect the woke morallizing prig show is slowly (too slowly) lurching towards the same fate.
Appalled (6c1303) — 2/13/2023 @ 8:12 am#414.
Ew.
I wonder if there is dress up as AOC porn for progressives. Somehow, I think so.
Appalled (6c1303) — 2/13/2023 @ 8:15 amRussians are leaving Russia. In large numbers:
The Russian government estimates that 1 out of 10 IT workers has left, already.
These mass departures will make Russia’s serious demographic problems even worse/
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/13/2023 @ 9:07 amThe Biden administration is preparing to ask Congress for the largest Pentagon budget in history
What budget line item is NOT “the largest in history” after 10% inflation?
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 10:00 amI’m waiting for Cassandra to show up and mention the Truman Committee for the third time.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 10:19 am@423. Scares MIC huggers, doesn’t it.
DCSCA (ce497e) — 2/13/2023 @ 10:54 amOozing incompetence, Kirby’s briefing is pure double talk seasoned w/chaff.
DCSCA (ce497e) — 2/13/2023 @ 10:55 amThe Biden administration is preparing to ask Congress for the largest Pentagon budget in history
Must be those $400,000 ‘plungers’ — gotta get them there toilets flushing on them $13.5 billion aircraft carriers.
DCSCA (ce497e) — 2/13/2023 @ 10:58 am@416. Once upon a time, I naively thought that surely the pandemic would be that something…
You would think repeated breaches of sovereign U.S. airspace would move us in that direction and do that. Instead, the pattern of ‘not my fault’ obfuscations, delays, mis-directions and excuses only serve to divide further. The failure of the team on watch to step up, accept responsibility and address it clearly to the American people betrays their incompetence– and the American people.
DCSCA (ce497e) — 2/13/2023 @ 11:04 amPolitico/Morning Consult Poll: State of the Union Speech
Top lines and cross tabs.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 11:11 am@428. Biden draws the worst viewing figures for a President’s first State of the Union in 30 years: Just 38 million Americans tuned in compared with 45.5M for Trump and 48M for Obama
-Nielsen ratings score shows nearly 38.2 million people tuned in for President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday, March 3, 2022
-It was the least number of viewers for a first State of the Union address than any of Biden’s four predecessors Trump, Obama, W. Bush and Clinton
-The figures from Biden’s speech come amid an ongoing war in Ukraine and increasingly dire approval rating numbers for the president
President Joe Biden had the lowest viewership for his State of the Union than any of his four predecessors first addresses with less than 40 million tuning in, according to Nielsen ratings. In a tracking of the 16 networks that aired live coverage of the address on Tuesday evening, 38,197,000 individuals were watching from 27,408,000 different households in the U.S.
The figures from Biden’s speech come amid an ongoing war in Ukraine and increasingly dire approval rating numbers for the president and Democratic lawmakers going into the 2022 midterm elections. – https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10574981/Biden-draws-worst-viewing-SOTU-30-years-just-38-million-Americans-tuned-in.html
DCSCA (ce497e) — 2/13/2023 @ 11:17 am@428- postscript:
Biden State of the Union TV audience down 29% from 2022, lowest in 30 years
An estimated 27.3 million people watched President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday — a 29% drop from the audience for last year’s speech and the fewest to view the event in at least 30 years, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The total number of viewers who tuned in Tuesday was off from the 38.2 million who watched the president’s speech in 2022 and substantially lower than the 46.7 million who viewed former President Donald Trump’s second State of the Union in 2019, the Nielsen data show. – https://nypost.com/2023/02/09/biden-state-of-the-union-tv-audience-down-29-from-2022/
So the trend from 2022 to 2023 is down. Citizens are turning off his messaging– and him.
DCSCA (ce497e) — 2/13/2023 @ 11:20 amAs Florida Evans once said, Damn, Damn, Damn!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/viral-shotgun-video-backlash-katie-173224871.html
urbanleftbehind (b36478) — 2/13/2023 @ 11:43 am#427
We live in a world of bureaucratic CYA because the consequnces of admitting any mistake are at best arbitrary and unpredictable. Why be honest when you’ll likely get fired or a visit by flying monkeys if you are?
For example, Taiwan just revealed they had been seeing China baloons for years. Did they think to tell us? Doubtful. Should we now cut off Taiwan? I know a certain poster who feels a leader making a mistake about an obnoxious belligerent should disqualify that nation for any aid forever after. 😉
Appalled (d41640) — 2/13/2023 @ 12:18 pm@410 DEB Dubois founder of NAACP walked barefoot to John Brown’s grave to honor the man who provoked the civil war and ended slavery. Without harpers ferry democrat party would not have split giving lincoln the 1860 election. The John Brown gun clubs honor him today. I don’t cotton much to white people in the movement ;but if John Brown were alive today we would make an exception in his case. Malcolm X.
asset (651f92) — 2/13/2023 @ 12:46 pmWhat were the ratings for Sarah Huckabee Sanders?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:03 pmGood Idea:
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:12 pm392. Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/12/2023 @ 7:45 pm
No. I thought it might be f some value to update people. I didn’t think anybody might watch it later
I did read that some people were receiving channels via satellite or something up to a minute later and they (in the past) could hear people nearby cheering.
Here’s Washington Post story (which I didn’t read) about the same thing:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/02/10/super-bowl-streaming-avoid-lag/
I think watching sports events later happens mostly with the Olympics.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:14 pmThere are those who say that, no matter who the GOP runs, the MSM will claim they are literally Hitler. They maybe right. Here’s a NY Times hit piece on Nikki Haley.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:19 pmI see the personal attacks are back. I don’t make personal attacks on others here. AOC and the squad are america’s future wither you like it or not. Latinx school girls and their teachers love AOC and make her their ideal. She is to kind for re-education camps despite the daily death threats she gets. We have waited for someone like this since Bobby Kennedy. Do you think MTG or boebert is ameriKKKa’s future? Their are now other young women ready to take her place if needed. She has shown the way. The future belongs to us.
asset (651f92) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:28 pm412. Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:59 am
It was not just, or even, exemptions. (more like illegal approvals) It was amnesties.
Erdogan campaign about it in 2019!
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/12/world/middleeast/turkey-syria-quake.html
Headline in the printed paper:
AMNESTY EASED
BUILDING CODES
AROUND TURKEY
——————
ERDOGAN HAILED MOVE
———————
Contractors Held After
Quake, but Officials
Escape Scrutiny
Now Erdogan is saying this earthquake is much worse than the one in 1999. (in other words maybe, most of those buildings would have withstood a smaller earthquake)
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:30 pmIf you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:33 pmMore:
Some of the builders tried to run away rght away. Here’s one example:
But did he falsify records?
You can say he gambled, and f course, there are many older buildings./
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:38 pmIf you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
The burners are only on on the right side of the stove.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:42 pmThe future belongs to us.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:43 pm@434. Have you heard? SHS is not POTUS, leader of the free world.
DCSCA (8bea03) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:43 pmFrom NYT article linked at #437 (it is labeled an opinion piece)
What’s his example?
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:45 pmSo her speech gets a ratings pass? For all I know, they were higher than Biden’s.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:45 pmThe future belongs to us, version 2
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:46 pmI left out things to say about the State of the Union speech.
President Biden blamed the rise in crime to Covid!
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/us/politics/biden-state-of-the-union-transcript.html
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:49 pmThe Waffler.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:54 pm368. Raising the debt ceiling isn’t too popular. That means most people don’t understand it.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:55 pm@432. Thing is, if you’re old enough, you can recall when leaders actually led- even in the face of wretched debacles. FDR addressed the U.S. a day after Pearl Harbor; JFK stepped up as the ‘responsible officer of the government’ after following the JSC/CIA Bay of Pigs folly into disaster– a lesson that served him and the world well cooling the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ike at least stepped up and took the heat after Power’s U2 shootdown and the cover was blown and didn’t try to hide or shift blame.
Historians tend to believe the loss of confidence began w/t LBJ administration and those idiotic ‘Five O’Clock Follies’ the Pentagon brass piped out in conmtrast to the realities reporters saw; a perception confirmed by the Pentagon Papers and the loss of faith exacerbated by Watergate.
It’s healthy – and responsible- for citizens to question the poop civilian and military bureaucracies shovel out but the general collapse of faith in all institutions across the board these days is truly a terrible reality today. Everything from juiced baseball and signal stealing footballers to college test scammers, SCOTUS bumblers and so on leaves the citizenry w/a jaundiced eye and w/little confidence in the competence of those supposedly in charge. All left, right, D or R spin aside, I’m deeply disappointed- and disgusted– with the current POTUS in that he didn’t show the leadership, grit and guts, to step before the cameras and microphones to address the American people, even for w/a simple statement, on these breaches of sovereign U.S. airspace– if only a still the unsettling waters. He’s a doormat. And our adversaries have all taken note.
DCSCA (8bea03) — 2/13/2023 @ 2:03 pmIt’s an odd arrangement where the President nominates someone who oversees the Capitol. You think it would be the House and Senate leadership.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 2:25 pm@452. Confirmation that Squinty can’t read or spell: It’s M-I-L-L-E-Y not B-L-A-N-T-O-N you’re supposed to fire, Joe.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/13/2023 @ 2:33 pmThis story certainly seems plausible:
Lawyers should correct me if I am wrong about this, but I think stiffing previous lawyers can make it hard to find new ones.
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/13/2023 @ 2:46 pmI don’t make personal attacks on others here. AOC and the squad are america’s future wither you like it or not. Latinx school girls and their teachers love AOC and make her their ideal. She is to kind for re-education camps despite the daily death threats she gets.
Blah, blah, blah! Then why for you say before AOC build re-education camps, gringo? And what business you have around Latinx school girls? Eh?
nk (bb1548) — 2/13/2023 @ 3:08 pmIt’s not about AOC, viejo. It’s about you ascribing your fantasies to AOC, and to other famous people.
nk (bb1548) — 2/13/2023 @ 3:15 pmStiffing lawyers hasn’t hurt Trump.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 3:40 pmThis WuMo cartoon made me laugh out loud.
(So far I haven’t any collisions with those preoccupied folks, but that’s mostly because I have learned to stay very alert around them,)
Jim Miller (f29931) — 2/13/2023 @ 3:42 pmRaising the debt ceiling isn’t too popular. That means most people don’t understand it.
No, it means that most people don’t want more debt.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 4:01 pmInteresting…….
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 4:11 pmOf course, raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with “more debt” it needs to be raised to pay debts that have already been incurred.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 4:13 pmGotta borrow more to pay the vig before they send the legbreakers?
nk (bb1548) — 2/13/2023 @ 4:15 pmA government that cannot collect enough taxes to support itself has no reason to exist.
nk (bb1548) — 2/13/2023 @ 4:45 pmA government that cannot collect enough taxes to support itself has no reason to exist.
Reaganomics. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:06 pmhttps://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=403106
Leftist Republicans trying to get Trump nominated yet again because they think he’ll be easier to beat.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:27 pmhttps://redstate.com/smoosieq/2023/02/13/in-east-palestine-ohio-there-remain-more-questions-than-answers-following-disastrous-train-derailment-n702981
Under Trump this would be front page news on all websites. Now it’s barely a peep.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:30 pmhttps://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/02/13/two-more-train-derailments-in-texas-and-in-south-carolina-raise-more-concerns-n703261
And 2 more derailments.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:30 pmNo, it means that most people don’t want more debt.
Yet another reason to NOT borrow billions to freely give to corrupt Ukraine. Sell Ukrainian Freedom Fighter War Bonds.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:36 pmInteresting sidebar- just had a chat w/my Marine neighbor. Talk at the base w/personnel and planners is concern of a kinetic conflict w/China within 4 to 5 years of some sort- Taiwan etc.,. So the line personnel are girding up for what they see as inevitable.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:40 pmTrain derailments are fairly common:
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:42 pmThe article doesn’t mention what questions are being raised.
The Montgomery, TX derailment was caused by truck hit by the train at a crossing.
No evidence of a link between any of the derailments. Lost a couple of HS friends when they tried to drive around a gate and beat the train. Stuff happens.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:50 pmUS railroad accident fatalities have averaged fewer than 1,000 per year between 2005 to 2020.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 5:55 pmTaking the 1,704 rail accidents per year, that averages out to 4.67 accidents per day. So its not surprising we see three accidents within a ten-day period. There were probably many more, but they didn’t involve hazardous materials or paranoid conspiracy theorists trying to draw lines where there aren’t any.
Based on the average number of accidents per day, there were nearly 7,000 derailments (6,823 to be exact) during the Trump Administration
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 6:06 pmOf course, raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with “more debt” it needs to be raised to pay debts that have already been incurred.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/13/2023 @ 4:13 pm
No, it keeps getting raised because the government hasn’t paid down its debt on an annualized basis since 1957. Not because of debts already accrued.
If the debt ceiling wasn’t raised, as I’ve pointed out before, the government no longer can spend more than it takes in. It can either cut spending at that point, raise taxes, or both.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/13/2023 @ 6:36 pmThere are those who say that, no matter who the GOP runs, the MSM will claim they are literally Hitler. They maybe right. Here’s a NY Times hit piece on Nikki Haley.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 1:19 pm
If that lesson hasn’t been learned after the last 20 years, I doubt it will ever sink in.
Haley’s weakness is that she’s largely seen as an empty suit who will worry more about being liked by the press than advancing a conservative agenda in the face of the Cathedral’s opposition. The fiscal conservatives may not like DeSantis compared to her, and cite her re-election success as proof she can win the general. But even this isn’t a point in her favor, considering DeSantis breezed to re-election in what has been a purple state for decades, even ending what had been election night dramas with counts deep into the following days, while Haley was in little danger of being challenged in deep red South Carolina.
Haley doesn’t have to convince NeverTrumpers. Their vote is in the bag. She has to convince the GOP’s actual voting base, and her chances are far more poor in that regard unless she starts hitting back against the media.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/13/2023 @ 6:50 pmBREAKING- Gunman ‘On Foot’ After Michigan State University Reports Shots Fired
Campus police at Michigan State University ordered students to shelter in place immediately after shots were fired on campus Monday evening.
“MSU Police report shots fired incident occurring on or near the East Lansing campus,” an email alert sent out by the school read. “Secure-in-Place immediately. Run, Hide, Fight.”
“Police are active on scene. More information to follow,” MSU police tweeted. Half an hour later, the police said that gunman was still at large and “on foot.”
An exact number of victims was not immediately apparent. Wali Khan, an MSU sophomore, told The Daily Beast that he had taken shelter in a building on campus near the health center. He reported seeing neighbors covering their windows with blankets and sirens “buzzing like crazy” outside.
“I moved here a year and half ago and I’m just shocked this is happening but I’m not surprised,” said Khan, who is from Singapore. “I hang out at these places and just imagining blood on those floors make me sick.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Michigan State Police for comment.
“I’ve been briefed on the shooting at Michigan State University,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer in a tweet shortly after reports of the shooting. “The Michigan State Police along with @msupolice, local law enforcement and first responders are on the ground. Let’s wrap our arms around the Spartan community tonight. We will keep everyone updated as we learn more.” – yahoonews.com
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/13/2023 @ 6:57 pmUS military’s first shot at unknown octagonal object over Lake Huron missed, officials say
The U.S. military jet that downed an unknown object in the Michigan sky on Sunday missed on its first attempt over Lake Huron, officials told Fox News. The Air Force F-16 jet was using Sidewinder missiles to attack the target.
“The first Sidewinder heat-seeking missile missed the target,” one official said. It wasn’t clear where the missile that missed ultimately landed. The second missile took down the target. Each of the missiles costs more than $400,000.
None of the debris from the object has been found in the lake, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday. The Defense Department, or DOD, said President Biden, just before 2:42 p.m., directed an F-16 to fire an AIM-9x missile to shoot down an airborne object flying at nearly 20,000 feet over Lake Huron.’ -FoxNews.com
“Well, you can tell Lt. Dickinson from me, he couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle.” – ‘Bull’ Halsey [James Whitmore] ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’ 1970
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:10 pmOk, what would you cut-assuming you wouldn’t want to raise taxes.
Rip Murdock (d19d0a) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:34 pmYou are correct.
Rip Murdock (d19d0a) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:39 pmOk, what would you cut-assuming you wouldn’t want to raise taxes.
Rip Murdock (d19d0a) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:34 pm
Oh, I’d absolutely raise taxes. Hollywood and Silicon Valley in particular would get hammered, especially any celebrity who’s posted “raise my taxes” on social media in the last 20 years.
I’d cut the Department of Education and roll it back into Health and Human Services with about 50% of the staff. I’d ratchet down acquisitions in the DoD and impose steep penalties on contractors who didn’t deliver on time. Medicare and Medicaid should be cut, but their issues are due to systemic problems in the healthcare industry, not because they’re inherently expensive in and of themselves, and those issues have to be fixed to lower those associated costs. Social Security is a concern, but that will ratchet down once the Boomers are mostly gone.
I’d also eliminate DHS and roll those agencies into DoJ, with fewer staff. That includes getting rid of the security theater in the airports.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/13/2023 @ 7:44 pmGood luck.
Rip Murdock (98f93d) — 2/13/2023 @ 8:01 pmUPDATE:
Rip Murdock (d19d0a) — 2/13/2023 @ 8:21 pmMy “tax hike”:
The government will accept self-imposed income surtaxes and publish the names of donors and the amount of the surtax, both in percentages and dollar amounts.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 8:34 pmTax the rich feed the poor tax the rich till they aint rich no more. Cute postings kevin m. None the less the future belongs to my side. As dale sr. said checkers or wreckers! Daytona this sunday! My race girls racing on friday and saturday.
asset (ed7d8d) — 2/13/2023 @ 9:04 pmGood luck.
Rip Murdock (98f93d) — 2/13/2023 @ 8:01 pm
Hey, you asked.
Factory Working Orphan (bce27d) — 2/13/2023 @ 9:50 pmClose Departments of Commerce, Labor and Education. Move needful bits (e.g. the patent office) to other departments or as independent agencies. I can make a good case for USPTO being independent.
The Department of Education is particularly noxious and wasteful, since education happens at the school district level and the incredible chain of control/reporting/funding/auditing from every city to DC is extremely expensive and literally Byzantine. No D Ed, no HEW, no nothing at the federal level. Education is a state and/or local matter and despite all the promises, nothing useful has ever come out of the Department of Education. Despite all the funding, some states remain at the bottom of education outcomes.
Just get rid of it.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/13/2023 @ 11:35 pmIf we take out the “use the tax code to punish my enemies part” I could get behind FWOs line of thinking.
Time123 (31d31e) — 2/14/2023 @ 1:54 amTax all income. “Income” to be defined as “You did not have it before but you do now”. Wages, business income, gifts, inheritance, all samee-samee.
From any source to any person or entity. No 501(c) BS whatsoever. A spousal deduction for inheritance only for jointly-held property in which the surviving spouse had the right to the use, enjoyment and disposal of the entire property.
Dracon will (or will not) appear in the rates and brackets which is not all that very different from what we have now, except that the brackets and rates will be based only on the income sought to be taxed and not its source or recipient.
Repeal all exemptions and deductions except operating costs and expenses incurred and paid in the United States for the direct purpose of producing the income sought to be taxed. An exception only for the importation of produce and raw material not grown or mined in the United States. No amortization, no depreciation, no net operating loss, no charitable deductions, no nothing.
nk (bb1548) — 2/14/2023 @ 4:49 amThat’s true, but I prefer solutions that are politically possible and realistic, not “debt reduction fantasy camp.” There is no way Congress would adopt such a policy, and as far as I know, no one (except may be some of the MAGA members) is proposing such an idea.
Rip Murdock (d19d0a) — 2/14/2023 @ 6:09 amIsn’t that the point of the tax code, to reward your friends and punish your enemies? 😜
Rip Murdock (d19d0a) — 2/14/2023 @ 6:11 amIsn’t that the point of the tax code, to reward your friends and punish your enemies?
No, not really. Maybe metaphorically, when your friends are your people and your enemies their enemies.
The Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14 et seq., is much more on point: A master who reaps where he has not sown and garners where he has not winnowed. But to quote some line I heard in a movie trailer, the boss may not always be right but he is always the boss.
nk (bb1548) — 2/14/2023 @ 6:51 amOf course I was joking. But the tax code is used to favor some industries and behaviors, so I’m not too far off. For example, it taxes wages differently than carried interest. Earnings by hedge fund managers are treated as investment earnings and taxed at 20% rather than ordinary income, which would be taxed up to 37%.
Rip Murdock (d19d0a) — 2/14/2023 @ 7:36 amThat’s true, but I prefer solutions that are politically possible and realistic, not “debt reduction fantasy camp.”
That’s just as much of a fantasy as anything I proposed, if actually solving the problem is the goal. All that doing what is “politically possible” has accomplished is to kick the can further down the road, not solve the problem.
Factory Working Orphan (5e6f26) — 2/14/2023 @ 7:52 amI remember when the Democrats’ favorite taxing ploys were sin taxes such as charges on cigarettes, soda pop, liquor, gasoline, etc.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/14/2023 @ 8:01 amNow, going by FWO, the Hardline Populist Right wants to pursue taxes on political sins, with those political sins defined by the Hardline Populist Right.
We have a structural imbalance to our deficits and, the way I see it, it can only be addressed through entitlement reform (which may include means testing), spending caps (Sequester 2.0?) and higher taxes such as sunsetting or ridding Trump’s tax cuts on the highest income levels.
Closing the Dept of Education and moving some of its functions elsewhere would save on the cost of some federal employees and the inevitable duplication of bureaucracy. It would also end the mischief in Title IX which always seems like a gross invasion of the feds on what should be handled locally. The problem is that you do need 60 votes to do this. You can run on it and hope you get the 60 votes and the Presidency, but ultimately you have to craft legislation and defend it. Some Democrats opposed the creation of the Department in 1979 by Carter, but most moderates have long since disappeared or became Republicans. It will be a rough sled to appear to pull money out of education even if the plan will be to block grant it to the states. A retort might be look at the school performance over the last 42 years, is the current strategy of Dept of Ed. working? The DEMs are nestled deep with the NEA and the teacher’s unions, so I’m not sure why they would support this. It then becomes just one more point of division. I know, I know, I know, the goal is to accelerate the breakup so we can quickly get to our conservative Utopia. I think this is short sighted.
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/14/2023 @ 8:32 amNow, going by FWO, the Hardline Populist Right wants to pursue taxes on political sins, with those political sins defined by the Hardline Populist Right.
If the sinner is saying, “Please punish me,” I don’t see a problem in accommodating them.
Factory Working Orphan (5e6f26) — 2/14/2023 @ 8:38 amAJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/14/2023 @ 8:32 am
“This would be a positive move, but it’s not politically possible, so we shouldn’t even try it, and keep hoping that continuing the last couple of decades of half-measures will have a different result.”
Factory Working Orphan (5e6f26) — 2/14/2023 @ 8:41 amMeatball Ron and Naan Nikki has a ring for the 2024 ticket.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/14/2023 @ 8:57 amAnd it makes me hungry.
We should definitely rid of three departments in the US govt: Education, Commerce and that other thing.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/14/2023 @ 8:59 amThe Dept of Agriculture is probably at the point where it should just rolled into Interior and made a bureau like Reclamation. The Forest Service should probably be combined with NPS anyway, considering how many recreational activities are managed there.
Factory Working Orphan (5e6f26) — 2/14/2023 @ 9:05 amUnder your formulation trillions of dollars would need to be cut from the budget just to meet Social Security/Medicare obligations without raising the debt ceiling. Not going to happen. These programs do not have enough cash on hand to make payments without borrowing. SS alone will pay out over a trillion dollars this year.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/14/2023 @ 9:46 amThat’s why I call it a “fantasy camp.” The votes (and public support) aren’t there for any radical changes.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/14/2023 @ 9:47 amThe girl who survived the Sandy Hook massacre also just lived through the Michigan State shooting. Troubling.
Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 2/14/2023 @ 9:56 amThat’s why I call it a “fantasy camp.” The votes (and public support) aren’t there for any radical changes.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/14/2023 @ 9:47 am
Which is why it will ultimately fall apart–because the political and national will simply does not exist to make the decisions necessary to sustain things. Recall that this is a stated goal of the Cloward-Pivenites– to overwhelm the system with obligations until it collapses from the weight, because these idiots unironically believe the collapse will usher in the communist utopia.
We can kvetch about “political reality” all we want, but the math always wins in the end.
Factory Working Orphan (5e6f26) — 2/14/2023 @ 9:59 amBut we saw a similar exercise with Obamacare. How many votes did Republicans engage to repeal it? 50 or 60 if I remember right. Even with Trump in office and Congress controlled by Republicans, what was the result? It ended up being an excuse to not propose an actual replacement or to not try to improve Obamacare with all of the amendments they were proposing at the time of the Obamacare vote. Our system is just not conducive to avoiding the other party and what it deems are its priorities and values. There has to be some meeting in the middle…or the case must be so compelling that the voters welcome a full-scale replacement. The problem is that some of Obamacare is popular.
Yes, Republicans attacked the funding mechanism for Obamacare….which just means more debt. Great but how about picking some other features and make the plan more market-oriented? We can’t do anything incremental because too few Republicans think that way any more. The operating principle is how can we jab liberals in the eye….if there’s none of that, what’s the point?
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 2/14/2023 @ 10:50 amBreaking:
Still able to read the handwriting on the wall.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/14/2023 @ 11:11 amThe girl who survived the Sandy Hook massacre also just lived through the Michigan State shooting. Troubling.
Very troubling. What are the odds… it really messes with the lives and minds of survivors and extended family… a close friend not only had a cousin murdered in the Aurora movie theatre shooting but had relatives ducking gun fire in the Las Vegas concert mass shooting, too… it’s an epidemic touching more and more lives.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 2/14/2023 @ 1:14 pmThe girl who survived the Sandy Hook massacre also just lived through the Michigan State shooting. Troubling.
In some places she would be served with a restraining order, like stores that keep getting robbed.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/14/2023 @ 1:25 pm37. norcal (7345e5) — 2/10/2023 @ 2:46 pm
He wasn’t. Clinton campaign contributor Dan Lasater was. (definitely for his 1984 campaign, and probably more crucially in 1982 except that Arkansas destroyed all of its campaign finance filings from 1982 and earlier, before people got interested in it in 1992 and the Arkansas Republican Party didn’t save them.)
He employed Bill Clinton’s brother Roger, who got treated like he was a drug user.
If you don’t believe that, you have to believe that the CIA or Oliver North was running the cocaine smuggling ring into Mena, Arkansas. A claim that Bill Clinton, as president, lent a little support to when he took a question from Sarah McClendon.
Maxine Waters also peddled that CIA claim.
Moreon this subject another day.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/14/2023 @ 2:07 pmThere was one person who survived the sinking both of the Titanic and its sister ship the Britannic, in 1916 – probably from the same cause, which was not an iceberg.)
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/14/2023 @ 2:10 pmCan we outrun an F-22 in a balloon?
Don't think; just do (a87c64) — 2/14/2023 @ 2:40 pmNot its missiles and guns.
Then it’s a dogfight.
In a balloon? Against 5th gen fighters?
It’s not the balloon, it’s the pilot.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-resigning-from-the-ftc-commissioner-ftc-lina-khan-regulation-rule-violation-antitrust-339f115d
Whistleblower at the FTC showing how far the Biden administration has corrupted it. Will it fall upon deaf ears?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 2/15/2023 @ 6:36 amRip, I think your challenge to FWO is impossible. You’re asking him how he would balance the budget and then rejecting his suggestions as not politically feasible. But currently there isn’t a feasible solution. As JF pointed out up thread neither the GOP nor the DEMs are interested in any solution that comes at a political cost.
I don’t think FWOs math ties out to zero, but at least he’s identifying specific things he’s willing to cut and acknowledging tax increases will need to be part of the solution.
Time123 (150ad7) — 2/15/2023 @ 6:54 amWhistleblower at the FTC showing how far the Biden administration has corrupted it. Will it fall upon deaf ears?
Actually a commissioner who is fed up with the chair’s abuse of usurped power. The deaf ears are Biden’s, of course.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/15/2023 @ 8:15 amThere is no way to balance the budget in one go, unless we are willing to get rid of a lot of actual functionality. You can cut whole departments and luxuries like NASA and still not get to balancing the budget. Interest on the debt, pensions, national defense and blood oaths like Social Security eat up a lot of money.
The GOP position is not to “balance the budget” but to stop digging quite so fast. Cutting the projected deficit by 30% would be more than anyone expects.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/15/2023 @ 8:21 amIt is useful to note that when Obama took office, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 35% and when he left office it was 75%. The last president to reduce the ratio was Bill Clinton, who had pushed it down to about 30%. W kept it fairly steady. COVID was a kick in the nuts.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-pushing-the-national-debt-to-its-limit-e93a1e69?st=zoh6g1nw06n7kzi&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/15/2023 @ 8:26 amData I’ve seen does not show that GOP administrations or GOP controlled congresses have achieved that.
We can debate if they’ve tried, they talk about it from time to time when they don’t have the power to do anything, but the results speak for themselves.
Time123 (150ad7) — 2/15/2023 @ 8:57 amthe results speak for themselves.
I think that part of the opposition to McCarthy touched on that topic. Whether it was real or just grandstanding we have yet to see. Obviously it will take only a few GOP votes to get the house to approve a debt limit increase. But I expect they will get a pound of flesh.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 2/15/2023 @ 9:01 amThe GOP position, or anti raising the debt ceiling position, actually is to run surpluses until the debt is gone.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/15/2023 @ 1:48 pm514. Time123 (150ad7) — 2/15/2023 @ 6:54 am
I think maybe that’s the point.
The only way out is economic growth, as I think Jack Kemp proposed and Bill Clinton implemented and then came up with the Social Security lockbox (although Al Gore’s name seems to have been attached to that) so we could still have budget fights and big must pass bills.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/15/2023 @ 1:52 pmMore on the Alabama prison death by freezing:
https://www.newser.com/story/331663/this-is-among-worst-cases-of-jail-abuse-in-us-history-suit.html
It took them another 5 hours to take him to a hospital after he was removed from the freezer – probably there was a cover-up. He was probably already dead. What they forgot was that his body would only warm up to room temperature, not 98.6. He had shot at police and was probably quite incoherent.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/16/2023 @ 2:00 pmhttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-transcript.html
Includes the chat.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 2/16/2023 @ 2:02 pmR.I.P. Tim McCarver
https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/tim-mccarver-legendary-broadcaster-dead-at-81/
DCSCA (e74a4e) — 2/16/2023 @ 2:08 pmHobby group worried that F-22’s Sidewinder missile destroyed research balloon
‘They’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,’ Silicon Valley balloon company founder says.
‘A group of hobbyists called the “Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade” is concerned that their research balloon may have been taken out by the US military. The group said the balloon was “missing in action” on 15 February, according to Aviation Week. The “pico balloon” most recently signaled its position on 10 February at 38,910 feet off the coast of Alaska, according to the publication. Projections indicated that it was floating towards the Yukon territory in Canada on 11 February.
The group now worries that the balloon was one of the three unidentified aerial objects recently shot down by US fighter jets using Sidewinder missiles in US and Canadian airspace.
It was on that day that a F-22 Raptor jet launched a missile at an unidentified object at an altitude of about 40,000 feet in that area after tracking it from US airspace over Alaska.
Ron Meadows, the founder of a company in Silicon Valley in California – Scientific Balloon Solutions – which makes pico balloons, told the outlet that he “tried contacting our military and the FBI, and just got the runaround, to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down”. The Independent reached out to Scientific Balloon Solutions for additional comment.
The unidentified objects taken down by the military match the descriptions and abilities of the pico balloons, which cost between $12 and $180, according to Aviation Week.
A retired engineer and podcast host, Tom Medlin, told the outlet that “I’m guessing probably they were pico balloons”. He currently has three of them flying across the world. “I have no update for you from NORAD on these objects,” a spokesperson for North American Aerospace Defense Command told the outlet.
The outlet noted that the National Security Council didn’t respond to requests for comment, and that the FBI and the Office of the Secretary of Defense “did not acknowledge that harmless pico balloons are being considered as possible identities for the mystery objects shot down by the Air Force”. The Independent has reached out to the White House and NORAD for comment.
Pico balloons weigh less than six pounds and are exempt from the FAA’s airspace restrictions. Mr. Medlin said that one of his balloons is set to enter US airspace on Friday.
“I hope that in the next few days when that happens, we’re not real trigger-happy and start shooting down everything,” he told Aviation Week.
During a brief speech on Thursday, President Joe Biden said the objects that were shot down were likely to be “balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions” and not connected to China’s espionage program that launched a larger airship that flew through US airspace earlier this month.’
Mr. Biden said the US and Canada “acted in accordance with established parameters for determining how to deal with and fight aerial objects in US airspace” and that he was recommended to give the order that they be shot down, which he did, “due to hazards to civilian commercial air traffic, and because we could not rule out the surveillance risk of sensitive facilities”.
“Our military and the Canadian military are seeking to recover the debris so we can learn more about these three objects. Our intelligence committee is still assessing all three incidents. They’re reporting to me daily and will continue the urgent efforts to do so and I will communicate that to the Congress. We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they were related to China‘s spy balloon program, or they were surveillance vehicles from other any other country,” the president added.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chinese-spy-balloon-joe-biden-b2283974.html
So the MIC/DOD dispatched $400 million fighter planes costing $80,000/hour to operate and shot down a $12-$180 balloon w/missiles that cost $400,000 each.
… and Jinping smiled.
DCSCA (e74a4e) — 2/16/2023 @ 2:33 pmFWO wasn’t balancing the budget, his goal is to reduce spending so as not to raise the debt ceiling. I haven’t heard of anyone in Congress who is considering that idea, and it is politically infeasible, give the fact you would need drastically reduce Social Security and Medicare payouts to get substantially under the debt limit.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 2/16/2023 @ 2:53 pm