Patterico's Pontifications

12/13/2024

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:47 am

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

[Pete] Hegseth has called policies allowing gays and transgender troops to serve in the military part of a “Marxist agenda.” But on Thursday, when he met with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), reporters asked him whether he thought gays should serve in the military, and he replied, “Yes.”

And once an unapologetic critic of women serving in combat roles, Hegseth called women “some of our greatest warriors” during a recent Fox News appearance.

The apparent pivot comes as Hegseth faces allegations of sexual assault, excessive drinking and financial mismanagement — all of which have led to more probing questions about his suitability for the role. And it follows meetings with potential confirmation swing vote Republican senators such as Ernst, Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Second news item

Just say no!:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims he won’t restrict access to vaccines if confirmed to lead U.S. health policy, but his right-hand man has other ideas.

Kennedy’s personal attorney Aaron Siri, who has been helping Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services interview candidates for top health jobs, has sued the Food and Drug Administration to withdraw its approval for the polio vaccine, The New York Times reported.

Siri and Kennedy have also been asking candidates their views on vaccinations, suggesting that if confirmed, Kennedy—who for years has peddled debunked conspiracy theories about vaccines causing autism—would stack the HHS and the agencies it oversees with fellow anti-vaxxers, the Times reported.

P.S. The report notes that Kennedy wants Siri to join him as the HHS’s general counsel.

Third news item

The hell she put them through:

A woman who accused three former Duke University men’s lacrosse players of rape nearly two decades ago admitted she lied about the allegations and asked them for forgiveness.

Crystal Mangum, the former exotic dancer, confessed to lying about the encounter in 2006 during her appearance on the “Let’s Talk with Kat” podcast, hosted by Katerena DePasquale.

“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong,” Magnum said during the episode, released Wednesday. “And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me.”

“I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God and that was wrong when God already loved me for who I was regardless,” she added.

Fourth news item

Ah, okay:

TIME magazine owner Marc Benioff congratulated Donald Trump after the publication named the president-elect its Person of the Year on Wednesday. Benioff is the founder of Salesforce and acquired TIME in 2018.

“In some years this is a hard, hard choice,” editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs told MSNBC on Thursday. “This year, not a hard choice… but this was an obvious decision for those of us at TIME.”

Hours later, Benioff tweeted at Trump and said there is “promise” in the country and expressed a willingness to be “working together.”

“Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on being named TIME Person of the Year 2024. This marks a time of great promise for our nation. We look forward to working together to advance American success and prosperity for everyone. May G-d bless the United States of America,” he wrote.

The report notes:

On Thursday, it was reported that Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong nixed an editorial criticizing the president-elect’s cabinet nominations. The intervention came weeks after Soon-Shiong put the kibosh on an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos did the same at his Washington Post.

Fifth news item

The fall of Syria:

In one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations, the fall of Assad’s government wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Moscow gave asylum to Assad and his family, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, said on his Telegram channel.

His sudden overthrow, at the hands of a revolt partly backed by Turkey and with roots in jihadist Sunni Islam, limits Iran’s ability to spread weapons to its allies and could cost Russia its Mediterranean naval base. It could allow millions of refugees scattered for more than a decade in camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to finally return home.

For Syrians, it brought a sudden unexpected end to a war in deep freeze for years, with hundreds of thousands dead, cities pounded to dust and an economy hollowed by global sanctions.

. . .

U.S. President Joe Biden, in a televised address, cheered Assad’s fall but acknowledged that it was also a moment of risk and uncertainty.

“As we all turn to the question of what comes next, the United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risk,” Biden said.

With Islamists now in charge in Syria, well. . .

I was reading about that time Vogue magazine ran a fawning profile of Asma Al Assad, and defended the decision to highlight the wife of the murderous, vile animal who is Bashar Al Assad, while referring to her as “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.”

And then I read the brilliant, yet crushing Clive James’ poem about Asma al Assad, titled Asma Unpacks Her Pretty Clothes:

Wherever her main residence is now,
Asma unpacks her pretty clothes.
It takes forever: so much silk and cashmere
To be unpeeled from clinging leaves of tissue
By her ladies. With her perfect hands, she helps.

Out there in Syria, the torturers
Arrive by bus at every change of shift
While victims dangle from their cracking wrists.
Beaten with iron bars, young people pray
To die soon. This is the middle ages
Brought back to living death. Her husband’s doing,
The screams will never reach her where she is.

Asma’s uncovered hair had promised progress
For all her nation’s women. They believed her.
We who looked on believed the promise too,
But now, as she unpacks her pretty clothes,
The dream at home dissolves in agony.

Bashar, her husband, does as he sees fit
To cripple every enemy with pain.
We sort of knew, but he had seemed so modern
With Asma alongside him. His big talk
About destroying Israel: standard stuff.
A culture-changing wife offset all that.

She did, she did. I doted as Vogue did
On her sheer style. Dear God, it fooled me too,
So now my blood is curdled by the shrieks
Of people mad with grief. My own wrists hurt

As Asma, with her lustrous fingertips —
She must have thought such things could never happen —
Unpacks her pretty clothes.

Sixth news item

Regarding Ukraine, the President-elect has thoughts about the war started by Putin:

I think the most dangerous thing right now is what’s happening, where Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think that’s a major escalation. I think it’s a foolish decision. But I would imagine people are waiting until I get in before anything happens. I would imagine. I think that would be very smart to do that.

So Zelensky’s decision to go after the enemy that unlawfully invaded his country in an attempt to subsume Ukraine, is the “most dangerous” happening right now??

SMDH.

Seventh news item

Crazy happenings in New Jersey skies:

It has been nearly a month since drones were first reported hovering over multiple New Jersey counties, and still there are no clear answers on who may be controlling the aircraft.

Most recently, on Thursday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement that there is no evidence the drones pose a threat to national security or public safety.

The FBI and DHS said that both agencies were working with authorities in New Jersey and that they have reviewed images of the drones. They appear to be manned aircrafts flying legally in the area, the agencies said. There have been no reported drone sightings in restricted air spaces, they said. 

“To be clear, they have uncovered no such malicious activity or intent at this stage,” the joint statement read. “While there is no known malicious activity occurring in New Jersey, the reported sightings there do, however, highlight the insufficiency of current authorities.”

Have a great weekend.

—Dana

Comments (324)

324 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

Hello.
Dana (c581e3) — 12/13/2024 @ 10:48 am
First news item:

Like denying he has a drinking problem yet promising to be sober as SecDef (why would you need to make such a statement if you don’t have a drinking problem), his comments on homosexuals and transgenders are clearly a “confirmation conversion” and unserious.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:21 am
Yep. He’s just saying what he thinks will gain him support. The members who fall for the obvious lip service, while not necessarily believing him, will at least have his promises to blame when he back pedals on his back pedal.
Dana (f407e4) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:29 am
Fifth news item:

“As we all turn to the question of what comes next, the United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risk,” Biden said.

For at least the next five weeks anyway.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:33 am
has sued the Food and Drug Administration to withdraw its approval for the polio vaccine, The New York Times reported.

For other diseases that might be worse.

The only reason polio still exists is because of the oral Sabin vaccine. The United States stopped giving it 20 years ago and went back to the Salk vaccine.

Diseases can become extinct, sometimes naturally.

That happened with scarlet fever in the 1940s, some flu variants and also with the 1976 “swine flu which became extinct almost immediately after discovery.

Measles becomes extinct locally – but that creates a later danger.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:38 am
Only 17% approve of Hegseth as SecDef. Tulsi and RFK Jr. are at 21% and 30% approval, respectively.

Pull the plug on all of them.
Paul Montagu (1888f5) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:46 am
They appear to be manned aircrafts flying legally in the area, the agencies said. There have been no reported drone sightings in restricted air spaces, they said. 

Although the reports could be a mix of thins, they could also be drones, flying legally and properly and he government could know what they were. Since September 2023 drones have been required to carry something like a transponder

The government has said they are not a danger to anyone, they are not foreign and they are not U>S> military. They are probably being restricted by their lawyers from saying more.

You mean they can’t describe in a general way what they are?

maybe some of it is a company testing out a new type of drone, developing it to sell to the government. That could be classified. Or maybe they feel they can’t say anything who is flying those drones because of the Privacy Act of 1974.

The PR is incompetent. Somebody could seek permission or declassification
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:47 am
But Tawana Brawley still says nothing – there are people interested in her not confessing even after now 37 years. Nobody wants the Duke rape accuser to not contradict the hoax.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:51 am
Kash Patel is a resume inflater, according to John Bolton:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/kash-patel-doesnt-belong-at-the-fbi-cabinet-nominee-5ef655eb

Rep. Devin Nunes pushed Mr. Patel for the National Security Council staff after Republicans lost the House in 2018. Notwithstanding Mr. Patel’s lack of policy credentials, the president ordered him hired. NSC staff has long been divided into directorates responsible for different policy areas. Charles Kupperman, my deputy, and I placed Mr. Patel in the International Organizations Directorate, which had a vacancy.

Some five months later, we moved him to fill an opening in the Counter-Terrorism Directorate. In neither case was he in charge of a directorate during my tenure as national security adviser or thereafter, as he contends in his memoir and elsewhere. He reported to senior directors in both cases and had defined responsibilities. His puffery was characteristic of the résumé inflation we had detected when Mr. Trump pressed him on us. We found he had exaggerated his role in cases he worked on as a Justice Department lawyer before joining Mr. Nunes’s committee staff. Given the sensitivity of the NSC’s responsibilities, problems of credibility or reliability would ordinarily disqualify any job applicant.

He proved to be less interested in his assigned duties than in worming his way into Mr. Trump’s presence. Fiona Hill, NSC senior director for Europe, testified to Congress during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment hearings that Mr. Patel, at that time assigned to the International Organizations Directorate, participated in a May 2019 Oval Office meeting on Ukraine, and that he had engaged in various other Ukraine-related activities. Whatever he did on Ukraine while an NSC staffer, at least during my tenure, was unrestrained freelancing. (He has denied any communication with Mr. Trump on Ukraine.)

In August 2019, when I was overseas, Mr. Trump called Mr. Kupperman and White House counsel Pat Cipollone to the Oval Office. They arrived to find Mr. Patel already there. The subject of the discussion was making him an administration enforcer of presidential loyalty. Messrs. Cipollone and Kupperman strongly objected to any such role, whether in the NSC or the counsel’s office, and the issue disappeared. I resigned in September 2019.

According to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir, during an October 2020 hostage-rescue mission, Mr. Patel, then in the Counter-Terrorism directorate, misinformed other officials that a key airspace-transit clearance had been granted. In fact, Mr. Esper writes, the clearance hadn’t been obtained, threatening the operation’s success, and his team “suspected Patel made the approval story up” but wasn’t certain. Typically, Mr. Patel’s version of this episode in his memoir denies any error—though, ironically, it also boasts of his acting beyond the authority of NSC staffers. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also knew the day’s details, including about the clearance issue. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the incident. He should.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/13/2024 @ 11:59 am
New York Daily News editorial:

City of immigrants: Border Czar Tom Homan comes to NYC

By New York Daily News Editorial Board
PUBLISHED: December 12, 2024 at 4:05 AM EST

Today, Mayor Adams will meet with Tom Homan, former acting ICE director — never confirmed, on account of the likely failure of his nomination — and Donald Trump’s pick for the somewhat hazy position of “border czar,” likely some sort of coordinator of overarching federal immigration policy.

We don’t know what exactly Homan will say or what he’ll put on the table, but the one-time political commentator has spent recent years railing against sanctuary cities and threatening their leaders, including recently with prosecution for daring to not cooperate with the Trump administration’s intended immigration crackdown.

We also don’t know what the mayor will tell Homan, but hopefully he will make the case that the city has picked up $6 billion in costs for caring for migrants, with barely a penny of help from feds, for what is supposed to be a federal responsibility. Any help with those expenses would be much appreciated.

What the mayor should also keep in mind is that when Homan et al talk about mass deportations, they’re not just talking about criminals or even the newly arrived migrants. Homan is talking about the people who work at your laundromat, the delivery workers bringing your food, construction workers, paralegals, nurses and home health aides and countless other longtime and law-abiding New Yorkers, who are either fully undocumented or have one of the administrative statuses Trump wants to terminate, namely DACA and TPS.

There are two things that cannot be true at once: the incoming Trump administration cannot both be predominantly going after violent criminals, as they’ve often maintained, and simultaneously hoping to detain and deport 15 million people or more.

There simply aren’t that many violent criminals, not just among the ranks of the nation’s immigration population, but in the entire country. These numbers are only remotely possible if the government undertakes a relatively indiscriminate, neighborhood-by-neighborhood campaign of detentions, going even beyond the total number of undocumented people in the United States.

Will Trump, Homan and anti-immigrant guru Stephen Miller have the logistical and legal capacity to execute this campaign to the parameters they’ve laid out? Probably not, but this is without a doubt their ultimate aim, even if they never get there. Even at a fraction of their total desired detentions and removals, this effort will do enormous damage to the legal, social, political and economic fabric of a country that has built its strength and reputation on mass immigration going back two centuries.

We hope the mayor will stress to Homan that all 8 million people living in the city are part of his constituency and immigrants are not a separate population. They are not; even if many of these folks ultimately cannot vote for him, or at all, that doesn’t make them any less an integral part of the working class New Yorkers that Adams so often touts.

While Adams has talked about changing the sanctuary city laws to facilitate more cooperation with ICE, he should make clear to Homan he’s not talking about mass roundups that could threaten the economic vibrancy and viability of a city that is around 40% foreign-born.

As for Mr. Homan, it’s just a short hop from City Hall to the Battery to see the Statue of Liberty. Homan should take in the view.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/13/2024 @ 12:04 pm
Focusing on Crystal Mangum’s false testimony minimizes the main culprit in the Duke Lacrosse fiasco. The article devotes one sentence to it:

The district attorney who worked on the case, Mike Nifong, was disbarred, including withholding key evidence
lloyd (7a4a94) — 12/13/2024 @ 12:24 pm
@10

What the mayor should also keep in mind is that when Homan et al talk about mass deportations, they’re not just talking about criminals or even the newly arrived migrants. Homan is talking about the people who work at your laundromat, the delivery workers bringing your food, construction workers, paralegals, nurses and home health aides and countless other longtime and law-abiding New Yorkers

In other words, it was never about asylum.

And, what is law-abiding about violating immigration laws? The Rule of Law folks seem to be unusually quiet on this issue.
lloyd (7a4a94) — 12/13/2024 @ 12:31 pm
Luigi Mangione Takes Lead In 2028 Democratic Primary Polls.
lloyd (7a4a94) — 12/13/2024 @ 12:33 pm
Those drones are from the Iranian mothership.

New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew said Wednesday that “very qualified” and “reliable” sources believe the mystery drones populating the Garden State’s skies are originating from an Iranian “mothership” parked off the U.S. East Coast, a claim the Pentagon subsequently denied.

“Here is the real deal,” the GOP lawmaker told Fox News’ Harris Faulkner.

“I’m on the Transportation Committee, on the Aviation Subcommittee, and I’ve gotten to know people. And from very high sources, very qualified sources, very responsible sources. I’m going to tell you… Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones. That mothership is off the east coast of the United States of America.”

Van Drew did not provide the names of sources responsible for the information, citing confidentiality.

What do you expect from New Jersey. Andy Kim (D) posted a video of a “drone swarm” that looked like the aircraft were in a pattern to land at Newark airport…because they were aircraft landing at Newark, but since it was at night, those intelligence collecting drones were flying around with their landing lights on so as to not attract attention.

Not sure if the Iranians got the mothership when they were an ally and we just didn’t have room to park another at Groom Lake so we just handed them out. That’s how I got my drone.

You definitely can’t just buy one for your kid on amazon that can fly for an hour.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 12/13/2024 @ 12:50 pm
CNN conservative scott jennings says the WNBA lost 40 million dollars last year because most of its players are black women. Thanks for telling the truth about how racist and sexist america is. I follow auto racing and Hailie Deegan the only woman racing in nascar was fired because her race car was junk! Jamie Chadwick couldn’t get an indy car ride for 2025 even though she won a race this year. No women in formula one either or even formula two. Sophia Floersch can’t even get a ride in formula 3 and say formula academy girls won’t be racing in it either!
asset (bc5bc7) — 12/13/2024 @ 12:55 pm
There may be n Iranian drone mother ship, but if so, it would be most likely in Russia,

This could be a top secret project being developed by Elon Musk, He wants to replace fighter jets with drones.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91237524/elon-musk-f35-ai-drones
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:09 pm
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims he won’t restrict access to vaccines if confirmed to lead U.S. health policy, but his right-hand man has other ideas.

But new vaccines will have to be tested for a few decades first.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:11 pm
I would like to see former Dr Andrew Wakefield, originator of the vaccine-autism hoax (he was struck off for that), testify at RFKJr’s confirmation hearing under oath about his research and whether it was fraudulent as every says it was.

With any luck he will perjure himself, or at least take the 5th.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:17 pm
The hell she put them through

Not just her. The University expelled them and many professors signed a widely-disseminated letter calling them rapists. Not a lot of moral courage. Then of course the DA charged them with rape, even though he knew the charges were false. He went to jail for it, but where did those students go to get their lives back?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:20 pm
No peep about the Biden commutation/pardon yesterday?

The worst one I’ve seen, is that PA judge who received kickback for sending kids to a private detention center.

I don’t want to hear any grips when Trump pardons the j6ers, as the people who where commuted/pardoned yesterday are FAR worse crimes.
whembly (477db6) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:22 pm
Fourth news item: There is no profit in the #Resistance, and quite a bit of downside. The days of Woke are over. Trump won and they are going to try to make the best of it.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:23 pm
With Islamists now in charge in Syria, well. . .

As Israel and the US do their best to reduce the assets of the former Syrian armed forces to smoking holes in the ground.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:26 pm
Thank you for that poem.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:27 pm
In last week’s Open Thread, I posed this question: Why have American women become less happy in recent decades, even while they have become richer?

I took that question from an observation by Matt Ridley, in his book, The Rational Optimist. Ridley seemed puzzled by that observation, but did not give any answers to the question. (A few of you were brave enough to tackle the question last week. I’ll let you judge for yourselves you come as I provide more data for you.)

This week, I’ll give you some data from a politically incorrect sociologist, Charles Murray.

The relationship of marriage to happiness is simple as can be. There’s hardly anything better for promoting happiness than a good marriage and nothing worse than a bad one. Fifty-eight percent of white prime-age GSS respondents who said they were in very happy marriages also said their lives were very happy, compared to 10 percent who said their marriages were “pretty happy”, and 8 percent who said their marriages were not too happy.

Even without asking whether the marriage itself is happy, marriage is still a good bet for achieving happiness.

(p. 260)

Murray follows that with a simple chart showing that currently married people are the most likely to be happy, and never married the least. The widowed are a little more likely to be happy than the separated and the divorced.

(There is more data to come in future comments, but that is enough for now.)
Jim Miller (5e3643) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:28 pm
We still have time to return Ukraine’s nukes.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:29 pm
Like denying he has a drinking problem yet promising to be sober as SecDef (why would you need to make such a statement if you don’t have a drinking problem)

Which I mocked. I will bet my house that he can’t stay sober a month.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:30 pm
Diseases can become extinct, sometimes naturally.

Smallpox is extinct, entirely due to vaccines. Measles was once on its way, until the insufficiently-damned Andrew Wakefield perpetrated his hoax.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:32 pm
@25

We still have time to return Ukraine’s nukes.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:29 pm

wat?

Those were the USSR’s nukes. How would *we* still have time to “return” them?

While the “Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances” was ignored by the Obama administration in Putin’s initial foray into Ukraine (aka, little green men). It’s still an agreement that EU can hang their hat on and defend Ukraine against Russian aggression.

It’s another example that prior to Trump’s 1st term, it was DEMOCRATS who always looked favorable towards Russia and bent over backward to appease.
whembly (477db6) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:34 pm
Luigi Mangione Takes Lead In 2028 Democratic Primary Polls

Already the lawfare against him is starting.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:36 pm
Here’s a further hint: Crows are exceptionally successful birds. Almost certainly, this is part of the reason:

American crows are socially monogamous cooperative breeding birds. Mated pairs form large families of up to 15 individuals from several breeding seasons that remain together for many years.[34] Offspring from a previous nesting season will usually remain with the family to assist in rearing new nestlings. American crows do not reach breeding age for at least two years.[35] Most do not leave the nest to breed for four to five years.

(links omitted.)
Jim Miller (5e3643) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:36 pm
Like denying he has a drinking problem yet promising to be sober as SecDef (why would you need to make such a statement if you don’t have a drinking problem)
Because its being used to smear him, so he has to make such a statement.

All of his work colleagues rejects the premise that he’s ever shown up to work drunk or showed any inclination of having a “drinking problem”.
whembly (477db6) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:37 pm
#24 Correction: For “you come”, substitute “how close you come”
Jim Miller (5e3643) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:40 pm
Why have American women become less happy in recent decades, even while they have become richer?

Similarly, also from Charles Murray:

For white working-class men in their 30s and 40s—what should be the prime decades for working and raising a family—participation in the labor force dropped from 96% in 1968 to 79% in 2015. Over that same period, the portion of these men who were married dropped from 86% to 52%. (The numbers for nonwhite working-class males show declines as well, though not as steep and not as continuous.)

And this graph

The precipitous drop in married and/or employed men of family-raising age certainly affects similarly situated women.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:45 pm
Those were the USSR’s nukes. How would *we* still have time to “return” them?

I was speaking metaphorically.

We promised them security in exchange. We’d probably have to “return” equivalent devices. How many would it take for Russia to be deterred?

They may have been the USSR’s nukes, but that doesn’t mean they were Russia’s. Each disunited republic had as much claim.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:49 pm
All of his work colleagues rejects the premise that he’s ever shown up to work drunk

So, test him every Monday.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:52 pm
There are two things that cannot be true at once: the incoming Trump administration cannot both be predominantly going after violent criminals, as they’ve often maintained, and simultaneously hoping to detain and deport 15 million people or more.

There simply aren’t that many violent criminals, not just among the ranks of the nation’s immigration population, but in the entire country. These numbers are only remotely possible if the government undertakes a relatively indiscriminate, neighborhood-by-neighborhood campaign of detentions, going even beyond the total number of undocumented people in the United States.

I don’t think Trump’s voters (and many Americans ) see a distinction between criminal illegal aliens and the illegal alien population in general. A “neighborhood-by-neighborhood campaign” would be a feature, not a bug.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 2:45 pm
All of (Hegseth’s)work colleagues rejects the premise that he’s ever shown up to work drunk or showed any inclination of having a “drinking problem”.

whembly (477db6) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:37 pm

Then why the promise to remain sober-if his workplace behavior is true, it would be unnecessary. Their statements, however, don’t address Hegseth’s behavior prior to working at Fox News.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 2:51 pm
All of his work colleagues rejects the premise that he’s ever shown up to work drunk

So, test him every Monday.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:52 pm

Hegseth would need to be tested every morning to ensure he was sober when he arrived at work, and every evening to ensure he wasn’t drunk during the day.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 2:55 pm
Nah. If he’s got a drinking problem, he will flunk scheduled tests. Addiction is a behavior that persists in the face of known, adverse, results.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 3:08 pm
They may have been the USSR’s nukes, but that doesn’t mean they were Russia’s. Each disunited republic had as much claim.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 1:49 pm

The ex-Soviet republics gave up their claims (and control) of the USSR’s arsenal at the time of its dissolution.

At the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Soviet nuclear weapons were deployed in four of the new republics: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In May 1992, these four states signed the Lisbon Protocol, agreeing to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, with Russia the successor state to the Soviet Union as a nuclear state, and the other three states joining as non-nuclear states.

Even if Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan retained the nuclear missiles on their territories, they would have been unable to launch them, as launch control was located in Moscow.

And

Today, every one of the nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus has been deactivated and returned to Russia, where they were dismantled and the nuclear material in the warheads blended down to produce fuel for civilian reactors. ………Of greater interest to terrorists, however, were the former U.S.S.R’s 22,000 tactical nuclear weapons with smaller yields and shorter ranges. These were designed primarily for battlefield use, with some small enough to fit into a duffel bag. Today, all of these have also been returned to Russia, leaving zero nuclear weapons in any other state of the former Soviet Union.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 3:14 pm
Sixth news item

Regarding Ukraine, the President-elect has thoughts about the war started by Putin:

I think the most dangerous thing right now is what’s happening, where Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think that’s a major escalation. I think it’s a foolish decision. But I would imagine people are waiting until I get in before anything happens. I would imagine. I think that would be very smart to do that.

Right. Zelensky is foolish, but Trump called Putin’s invasion “genius”. Does anybody care to defend Trump on this one?

Foreign policy is the most important part of a Presidency. Unfortunately, we will soon have a malignant blowhard overseeing it.
norcal (a72384) — 12/13/2024 @ 4:45 pm
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 3:14 pm

All of nuclear weapons located in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan were destroyed under the auspices of the US DoD’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program was initiated by Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991) which was authored and cosponsored by Sens. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN).

Unfortunately, Russian cheating under existing agreements led to their demise and their invasion of Ukraine prevents any new nuclear arms reduction agreements from being negotiated.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/13/2024 @ 5:33 pm
So, all those drones. When they start spraying out airborne Ebola virus, Biden can cement his “What Me Worry?” legacy.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/13/2024 @ 7:00 pm
Right. Zelensky is foolish, but Trump called Putin’s invasion “genius”.

Even worse, norcal, Zelenskyy is “foolish” for doing something that he has every right to do, in rightful self-defense, but Putin is “savvy” for an invasion where he had no legitimate right to invade.

Along similar lines, Trump’s pushing for a negotiated settlement also plays into Putin’s hands, which is the side of evil. Timothy Snyder…

If Trump wanted Russia to negotiate, he would make the war harder for the Kremlin, not create the conditions for Russian victory. I wish reporters would point this out.

Putin has made clear over and over that his goal is to destroy Ukraine as a nation and a state and that he has no interest in peace talks.

Trump’s proposed policy is to force Ukraine to negotiate by denying it weapons otherwise. But the Ukrainians are not the problem! The problem is Russia, the aggressor.

What is Trump’s plan to get Russia to end its invasion? He has nothing at all here. In effect, just an incentive to keep invading because he promises to make it easier for Russia by denying Ukraine weapons.

Just putting American power on the side of the aggressor will not end the war. It will change the course of the war, making a Russian victory far more likely and bringing disaster to Ukraine and the world.

Trump is on the wrong side here, on the side of war crimes, terrorist attacks and child abductions. It’s damn frustrating.
Dr. Snyder has an excellent 23-part YouTube series on Ukrainian history, well worth listening while working out or driving.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/13/2024 @ 8:29 pm
@13 Lloyd you are right most democrats want someone ruthless who can deal with rethugs instead of the corporate establishment liberal punching bag stooges we have running the party now. Trump has now shown three times what phony hypocrites the donor class corporate establishment stooges are. You conservatives fatal flaw is thinking when the majority of democrats now that they realize how corrupt and money grubbing phonies the party leadership is they will turn right. Those that will did so in this election the other 72 million plus the 10 million who didn’t vote for the kamala/liz ticket will look for leadership in the hard left. Support for the ceo killer is the start like the 2010 tea party.
asset (3a63e0) — 12/13/2024 @ 8:37 pm
Worth buying (as it always is): Glenn Kessler’s yearly list of the biggest “Pinocchios”, beginning, naturally with the Loser:

President-elect Donald Trump featured on this list for the 10th straight year. As usual with Trump, it’s hard to isolate a particular falsehood, but we focused on four — two having to do with immigration, one on tariffs and another on the unemployment rate. His running-mate, JD Vance, also landed on the list (not for the first time) for an immigration-related claim that Trump echoed in a presidential debate.

We should recognize, I fear, that many Trumpistas tolerate the Loser’s endless lying, and that a few actually admire it.

(“worth buying” is my top award, followed by worth study, and worth reading.)
Jim Miller (a2c29c) — 12/14/2024 @ 5:48 am
WRT first item…
I would point out that we are not hearing about large numbers of female casualties on either the Russian or Ukraine side.

I am going to assume that this is because they are not being used.

I don’t know why they are not using “some of our [Their] greatest warriors”
Joe (584b3d) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:49 am
“I am going to assume that this is because they are not being used.”

you know what they say about assuming

About 65,000 women are currently serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, about a 30 percent increase since the war began. Roughly 45,000 serve as military personnel, and the rest hold civilian positions, according to the Defense Ministry. Just over 4,000 are in combat positions.

Unlike for Ukrainian men, there is no mandatory draft for women; however, women who have medical or pharmaceutical degrees must register for the service.

These women fill a growing number of positions in the military: combat medics in assault units; senior gunners; snipers; commanders of tank units and artillery batteries; and at least one co-pilot on a medevac team who dreams of becoming Ukraine’s first female helicopter combat pilot. Dozens have been wounded in battle, and some have been killed or captured.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/world/europe/ukraine-women-soldiers-army.html
Davethulhu (6d4424) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:09 am
Declare martial law, get impeached, at least that’s what happened to SK President Yoon, with their National Assembly voting 204-85, including 12 in his own party on the “aye” side.

Unlike here, his trial goes to their Constitutional Court, where they have 180 days to decide on his removal. I kinda like the way South Korea does democracy.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:15 am
Joe, Ukraine doesn’t women have on the front lines, for obvious reasons, but the Witches of Bucha are engaged in combat, defending Kyiv airspace.

This volunteer unit, made up of nearly 90 percent women, is one of a handful of such units in Ukraine’s military. Most of these women hail from Bucha and its surrounding areas, where they witnessed and suffered the atrocities committed by Russian forces against Ukrainian civilians at the beginning of the war.

“Joining the Witches of Bucha is like taking revenge on life,” says one of the volunteers.

Their commander, Andriy Verlatiy, explains that their main mission is to defend Kyiv’s airspace and destroy the hundreds of Iranian-made Shahed drones launched almost daily by Russia against the Ukrainian capital.

I don’t know if this is Hegsethian, but I’m okay with women in combat, but not where there’s a risk of them becoming POWs, especially if it involves Russians or militant Islamists who don’t follow the rules of war.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:22 am
Josh Rogin lays out the best case I’ve seen in opposition to JVW’s crush (BTW, I’ve seen pictures of her in a bikini on the X, and she’s unquestionably empirically hot).

Consider Gabbard’s history with Syria. In 2017, she traveled to Damascus and met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a time his army was perpetrating well-documented atrocities. Subsequently, whenever pressed, she refused to acknowledge that Assad was responsible for war crimes. She expressed skepticism about the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. Gabbard went so far as to accuse the United States of funding the Islamic State in Syria — a baseless assertion that again aligned with Russian disinformation efforts. She even wrongfully accused the U.S. military of itself committing war crimes in Syria, citing an attack clearly perpetrated by the Syrian government as evidence.

Gabbard’s thinking follows a pattern. Instead of condemning Russia’s brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, she claimed that the United States and its allies were responsible for provoking Russia. Worse, she described Ukraine as a corrupt autocracy — on par with Russia — as if there were no meaningful difference between a flawed democracy struggling to remain independent and an expansionist dictatorship. And in 2022, she amplified debunked Russian propaganda about the existence of U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine, propaganda that was used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify his aggression.

But it’s not that she’s somehow in Russia’s pocket. Her antipathy toward America’s democratic allies is simply reflexive. At a time when a rising China is destabilizing Asia, Gabbard criticized Japan’s remilitarization, suggesting the United States might find itself once again fighting the Japanese in the Pacific.

To have someone who appears more inclined to believe adversaries’ talking points than the assessments of U.S. intelligence professionals is deeply troubling. This isn’t just a theoretical problem. Trump, a leader who has shown receptiveness to conspiracy theories and disinformation, could end up getting his daily intelligence brief from someone with similar inclinations.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:38 am
When you say “Dozens have been wounded in battle, and some have been killed or captured.”
Dozens have been killed in a war with tens if not hundreds of thousands killed kinds proves my point. If we are all equal they need to be dying in the same numbers of men.
Its only fair.
Joe (584b3d) — 12/14/2024 @ 9:02 am
Unlike here, his trial goes to their Constitutional Court, where they have 180 days to decide on his removal. I kinda like the way South Korea does democracy.

The Founders discussed that option, and decided against it as they saw impeachment as a political act, covering more than just statutory offenses. “Misdemeanor” meant “bad behavior” in 1787.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:23 am
The difference is the ROK can just ask the founders, it was only 75 years ago. Heck, the 6th Republic’s constitution actually dates to just 1988.

So ROK is just figuring out it’s new…new democracy.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:38 am
There were other considerations, too:

Mr Mason. The mode of appointing the Judges may [42] depend in some degree on the mode of trying impeachments, of the Executive. If the Judges were to form a tribunal for that purpose, they surely ought not to be appointed by the Executive….

Mr. Govr. Morris supposed it would be improper for an impeachmt. of the Executive to be tried before the Judges. The latter would in such case be drawn into intrigues with the Legislature and an impartial trial would be frustrated….

However, at one point (August 6th), the draft Constitution had the following clause

The Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court shall extend to all cases arising under laws passed by the Legislature of the United States; to all cases affecting Ambassadors, other Public Ministers and Consuls; to the trial of impeachments of Officers of the United States; to all cases of Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies between two or more States, (except such as shall regard Territory or Jurisdiction) between a State and Citizens of another State, between Citizens of different States, and between a State or the Citizens thereof and foreign States, citizens or subjects

This was tabled on August 26th. On September 4th, the Committee of Detail reported out a version of Article II that reads much as it does today regarding impeachment in the Senate.

He shall be removed from his office on impeachment by the House of representatives, and conviction by the Senate, for treason or bribery, and in case of his removal as aforesaid, death, absence, resignation or inability to discharge the powers or duties of his office the Vice President shall exercise those powers and duties until another President be chosen, or until the inability of the President be removed….

A conclusive reason for making the Senate instead of the Supreme Court the Judge of impeachments, was that the latter was to try the President after the trial of the impeachment.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:42 am
(all from Farrand, Volume II)
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:44 am
Sickness in Seattle

Early morning commuters in Seattle were greeted with an unsettling sign as they headed into the city.

An electronic traffic message board — normally the forum for messages like “right lane closed ahead” — had been reprogrammed with an ominous message.

“One less CEO,” the sign, at the corner of southbound Aurora Avenue and Dexter Way, said, “many more to go.”

The message was apparently a reference to the recent killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot last week in Manhattan. A suspect, Luigi Mangione, has since been arrested, with writings indicating anger at corporate greed and the practices of health insurance companies.

A KOMO photographer posted a picture of the sign at around 4:30 a.m. Thursday; the message was gone by the time the sun came up.

It’s not the first tomfoolery involving a National Barricade sign. In 2019, an electronic message board in North Seattle was programmed to read “Impeach the bastard” just as Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation was beginning.

What a coincidence!
lloyd (704ca2) — 12/14/2024 @ 12:59 pm
Ray Epps Announces Resignation From FBI.
lloyd (704ca2) — 12/14/2024 @ 1:00 pm
So ROK is just figuring out it’s new…new democracy.

That Constitution has provisions FOR martial law. The court’s problem will be judging its political and/or military necessity; it’s not strictly a legal matter.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 1:47 pm
Pity poor Joe Biden.

If Trump’s term is a success, it will be because Trump was able to undo much of the wrong direction(s) taken by Biden (and Obama) that voters wanted shut of.

If, as seems more likely, Trump’s term is a disaster, it will be be because Joe’s policies set the party up for a fall and his arrogance, mendacity and ego prevented the Democrat bench from providing a better (or at least more prepared) challenger.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 1:55 pm
@57 Over at DU they are chronicling some of the support for ceo shooter. A picture of shooter at rock concert in Boston grew raucous cheers from the crowd. Sign posted in NY : One guy with a gun has done more then all the years of peaceful protests have done to put united health’s denying claims before the public. JFK said it best “those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable. Corporate america can tolerate the right shooting off their guns as it is no threat to them ;but not the left which is. This will become like the republican parties 2010 tea party that brought trump to power in 2016. Even democrats now have contempt for corporate establishment liberal punching bags like biden.
asset (541f9a) — 12/14/2024 @ 1:56 pm
UHC is taking names of these murder fans and will deny all their claims.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 2:19 pm
WOW. This is NOT easy.

George Stephanopoulos and ABC apologize to Trump, are forced to pay $15 million to settle defamation suit

ABC News and its top anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a settlement with Donald Trump in his defamation suit, which will result in the news network paying the president-elect $15 million.

The settlement was publicly filed on Saturday, revealing that the two parties have come to an agreement and avoided a costly trial. According to the settlement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past.” Additionally, the network will pay $1 million in Trump’s attorney fees.

They had reported several times that Trump had been found liable for “rape”, when that was factually incorrect and, it seems, defamatory.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 2:23 pm
”It wasn’t heroin. It was angel dust, PCP… I am not an angel dust dealer.”

–Dan Aykroyd, Trading Places
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 2:27 pm
Trump should celebrate today’s ABC settlement in his monetary favor. They come so rarely.

$2M Trump Charity
$25M Trump U
$91M Defamation and pizda grabbing
$1.6M Trump Org 17 felonies
$463.9M Trump Org fraud NY
$1M Hillary frivolous case
$400K NYT frivolous case
$382K Christopher Steele case
$110Kfor refusing to comply with a subpoena
$15K for repeatedly disparaging the judge’s law clerk
$10K for violating gag order in hush money case
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 3:24 pm
……..I’m okay with women in combat, but not where there’s a risk of them becoming POWs, especially if it involves Russians or militant Islamists who don’t follow the rules of war.

Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:22 am

That bridge has already been crossed when Jessica Lynch and Lori Ann Piestewa (who subsequently doing an Iraqi hospital) were captured at the Battle of Nasiriyah in Iraq in 2003.

Being captured and tortured is part of being in the military serving in a war zone.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 4:50 pm
Trump should celebrate today’s ABC settlement in his monetary favor.

For Trump(!) to win a defamation suit takes doing. Not only is he a public figure — a high bar — but it has to be untrue.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 4:55 pm
The fact we haven’t heard about female military casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war means nothing, since there is very little reporting from the frontlines of either side, and both governments have released very little information about their casualties overall.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 4:55 pm
If, as seems more likely, Trump’s term is a disaster……

It depends on what you mean by success; if Trump is given the opportunity to implement his plans with the support of a Republican Congress, I would consider that a win. If his plans are hamstrung by It would be a failure. His broad support across the country demonstrates that voters want him to succeed in implementing his plans.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 5:01 pm
Random thought:

If marijuana gives one the munchies, why is Snoop Dogg so slim?
norcal (a72384) — 12/14/2024 @ 5:05 pm
Navy (9-3) torpedoes Army (11-2) 31-13.

Navy leads the series 63-55-7.

GO NAVY!
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 5:11 pm
This is why ABC settled. Even Alina Habba could present an incontrovertible document in court, to support her client’s case.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 5:57 pm
@ 68 or Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 4:55 pm

Seriously? How much video have you seen of Ukrainian (and Russian) troops training. I don’t think i have seen any women in infantryman or mechanized battalions.

Why is this so hard to admit? Either women are a net positive in battle or they are not.

Both Ukraine and Russia say they are not.

So why does the SecDef nominee get any flack for not wanting to use mixed sex combat troops?
Joe (584b3d) — 12/14/2024 @ 6:33 pm
@62 No they wont.
asset (971928) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:04 pm
Norcal, 41: so much a blowhard that we had no wars during his presidency.

As for the Ukraine, and the desire of many couch-commando Americans to fight to the last Ukrainian, try to grasp that it has fewer soldiers than Russia; that the US is 37T in debt with 1.5T in interest payments, and we are shipping billions to Zelensky and his bureaucrats (even subsidizing their pensions), while US citizens in NC shiver in the cold, drones sail over the US, the chinese navy is larger than ours, and our roads and schools are slipping into 3rd world quality.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (34bf45) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:05 pm
@73 Ever here of Joan of Arc? Russian female ace lylia litvak in wwII. Tammy Baldwin and Martha McSally and don’t forget molly pitcher just to name a few.
asset (971928) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:25 pm
Trump given heros welcome at army navy game. Never trump republicans wander in the wilderness or grift. Establishment democrats and their donor class rage with trump derangement syndrome as d.n.c. grifts. Left busy taking over democrat party from liberal punching bags and grifters.
asset (971928) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:33 pm
…”the desire of many couch-commando Americans to fight to the last Ukrainian”…

That is what too many Putinbots and Russian trolls keep saying, denying that Ukrainians have agency and should just roll over and surrender. It’s tacitly pro-Putin, on the side of evil, blaming the US for sending aid to the victim of a terrorist regime.

Putin won’t have more soldiers unless/until he orders a full mobilization, which is why he offers lucrative financial incentives, trawls nightclubs and prisons for more mobiks, and has North Koreans for cannon fodder. He can’t do a full mobilization until he changes his “special military operation” to a full-out war, and he’ll face tremendous blowback from his own people for doing that.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:34 pm
We’re using just 5% of our military budget to shred Putin’s military, and sanctions to shred his economy, which now has an inflation rate pushing 20%.
We’ve sent them $70 billion of our military surplus, and are keeping $70 billion in-country to replenish and modernize our arsenal, thus adding American jobs, and costing zero American lives in Ukraine. It’s an excellent value, and we happen to be on the side of the good guys.
Saying that we’re letting North Carolinians shiver by sending weapons isn’t just a false choice, it’s dishonest, because we can do both.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:43 pm
@ 68 or Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 4:55 pm

Seriously? How much video have you seen of Ukrainian (and Russian) troops training……… Why is this so hard to admit? Either women are a net positive in battle or they are not.

Both Ukraine and Russia say they are not.

None, which doesn’t refute any of my comments regarding the reporting of combat casualties in the war.

What are the sources of the Russian and Ukrainian statements regarding female soldiers? In any event, whether either side In their war has female combat troops is irrelevant to the American military. What is relevant is the performance of American women in the military. Pete Hegseth has recently said women are “some of our greatest warriors”, so they must be performing well.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:47 pm
Seriously? How much video have you seen of Ukrainian (and Russian) troops training…..

To clarify, I haven’t seen any videos of either Ukrainian or Russian troops training, so I have no idea whether their units include women, though given Ukraine’s manpower shortage I wouldn’t be surprised if they did include women, especially their territorial units.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 7:51 pm
Via the NY Post, the British-based Henry Jackson Society went through a detailed study of Gazan casualties and, no surprise, Hamas overstated and misstated Gazan deaths.

Civilian death counts in the Israel-Hamas war have been inflated and distorted to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent civilians, a new study found.

The report from the UK-based Henry Jackson Society found that news outlets failed to distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties and relied on manipulated statistics from the Hamas-run Health Ministry when reporting on the war.

Gaza officials claim more than 44,700 people have been killed following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, but does not acknowledge that upwards of 17,000 were Hamas terrorists — a fact the media often omits, the study found, citing Israeli and US military and intelligence reports for its data.

The HJS report concluded 5,000 of the deaths were by natural causes, not by IDF. Also, they could only confirm 34,344 deaths as of last September, more than 10,000 less than what Hamas has reported. Also, they deliberately undercounted the number of military-age males.

The IDF reported approximately 17,000 Hamas combatant casualties, about half of the confirmed Gazan total. Not a genocide, as Amnesty International falsely claimed.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:15 pm
……..I’m okay with women in combat, but not where there’s a risk of them becoming POWs, especially if it involves Russians or militant Islamists who don’t follow the rules of war.

Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:22 am

That bridge has already been crossed when Jessica Lynch and Lori Ann Piestewa (who subsequently doing an Iraqi hospital) were captured at the Battle of Nasiriyah in Iraq in 2003.

Being captured and tortured is part of being in the military serving in a war zone.

Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 4:50 pm

Then there’s Army flight surgeon Major Rhonda Cornum, whose Black Hawk helicopter was shot down by Iraqi forces while on a search and rescue mission in February 1991.

One of only three survivors from the eight-member crew, Major Cornum was captured and taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. Suffering two broken arms, a severely damaged leg, and gunshot and shrapnel wounds in her shoulder and head, she survived imprisonment behind Iraqi enemy lines. An Army flight surgeon, wife, and mother, she was repatriated on 6 March 1991 as one of only two women POWs from the Gulf War.

While a POW, she was raped by one of her captors. Nonetheless, as the highest ranking officer, she served as the senior POW officer overseeing the unit cohesion of the other POWs in the prison. After a number of other commands, she retired as a brigadier general.

It is more likely than not future adversaries will be non-state actors (such as ISIS) and/or countries that are not signatories to Geneva Conventions.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:21 pm
Joe (584b3d) — 12/14/2024 @ 6:33 pm

To care about this is weird. I bet that Putin doesn’t have any tranny troops either.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:22 pm
…”the desire of many couch-commando Americans to fight to the last Ukrainian”…

You have it wrong. We’re willing to fight to the last Russian, and I hear that Putinbot deferments are almost up.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:23 pm
He can’t do a full mobilization

…without drafting middle- and upper-class kids from the big cities. It’s like Vietnam — all the affluent kids were in college or had bone spurs. When they started drafting kids that mattered, it was quite another story.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:26 pm
In their war has female combat troops is irrelevant to the American military.

‘Those who have not swords can still die upon them.’

–Eowen
LotR: The Two Towers
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:29 pm
@ Joe (584b3d) — 12/14/2024 @ 6:33 pm To care about this is weird. I bet that Putin doesn’t have any tranny troops either. Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/14/2024 @ 10:22 pm

You are not wrong. It is a little odd for me to “fixated” about this.

It is hard to reconcile the idea of equality of the sexes when we see an actual sort of total war scenario for Ukraine, which is supposed to be a modern democracy and qualifying for NATO integration.
&
We are told that women can fight at the same level as men in the US armed forces.
My fear is that when we do go to war again, we are setting ourselves up for needless losses.

Thank you for responding and contributing to my messy train of thought.
Joe (584b3d) — 12/15/2024 @ 5:00 am
Being captured and tortured is part of being in the military serving in a war zone.

I get that. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want to see the women serving our country at risk of getting raped as POWs.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/15/2024 @ 6:04 am
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want to see the women serving our country at risk of getting raped as POWs.

Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/15/2024 @ 6:04 am

As I’ve pointed out above, women in the military have crossed that bridge already, and they continue to want to serve.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/15/2024 @ 6:28 am
If women were pulled from combat billets, the US would probably need to restore the military draft, to ensure that there would be enough troops to replace them while continuing to grow the overall military force.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/15/2024 @ 6:58 am
No — the Draft is unlikely short of a major war — but they might have to lower recruitment standards.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:27 am
@ 91 or If women were pulled from combat billets, the US would probably need to restore the military draft, to ensure that there would be enough troops to replace them while continuing to grow the overall military force.

So….. if a volunteer force does not volunteer, does that not mean that the general population disagree with our military posture? And then should not we change our posture to align with the voters?

Maybe we could pay them more or take better care of our veterans? Or appreciate all the BS they have to deal with a little bit?
Joe (584b3d) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:31 am
And then should not we change our posture to align with the voters?

No. This is not a democracy. It is government by representatives who take the time to understand the issues so that the common citizen doesn’t have to. We do not set foreign policy by polls.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:45 am
@ 94

Ignoring what people want is how we got Trump.
Joe (584b3d) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:52 am
Dog Trainer news:

[L.A. Times owner] Soon-Shiong’s recent actions: First when he blocked the Times editorial board, which he oversees, from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Then he suggested the newspaper had become an “echo chamber” for the political left. And, this month, he announced The Times would create a digital “bias meter” to alert readers about the ideological tilt of the paper’s content.

An estimated 20,000 subscribers dropped The Times after the non-endorsement in the presidential race and its aftermath. Soon-Shiong’s pledges of a more “fair and balanced” approach triggered more dismay from many and charges of a capitulation to President-elect Donald Trump. But the new stance also brought praise from others for what they saw as a long-overdue recalibration of coverage in the West’s most prominent newspaper.

In his first extended interview about the furor, Soon-Shiong depicted himself as an unflinching protector of journalistic balance, one who is betting that a moderate, nonideological viewpoint is the best path forward. He also spoke at length about his hopes for the future of the paper.

The Times significantly increased its number of paying digital subscribers after Soon-Shiong purchased the paper. He added more than 150 people to a newsroom that had been slashed for two decades, making The Times a bright spot in an industry beset by massive downsizing as revenues cratered, following the flight of advertising to digital giants like Facebook and Google….

“I’m extremely proud of work we’ve done right,” he said, “and we’ve done a lot right,” he said, pointing to six Pulitzer Prizes the paper has won during his ownership, among other honors.
President Trump and Kamala Harris

But he said it was essential to build a bigger audience, which he described as key to securing the 143-year-old newspaper’s future.

“I think that’s our goal,” Soon-Shiong said. “The only way you can survive is to not be an echo chamber of one side.”

He said he intends on introducing more moderate and conservative commentators on the newspaper’s opinion pages, where liberal writers have been dominant for years.

Soon-Shiong made it clear he also wants editors and reporters who produce news stories to be alert for ideological imbalance and fairness, though he said he has no intention of meddling in decisions made by The Times’ newsroom leaders about how to cover the news.

Soon-Shiong acknowledged he had paid less attention to The Times for much of the first 6½ years of his ownership as he focused on several other businesses, with particular attention to an immunotherapy treatment that won FDA approval this spring.

With the demands of his biomedical career slightly reduced, the entrepreneur said that he “emphatically” intends to become more involved in finding a sustainable path forward for The Times.

“Staying strong and resolute to transform the paper and drive a rebirth @LATimes,” he recently declared on X. “We laid out the path for the LA Times to report just the facts when we publish ‘news.’ “

We’ll see.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:53 am
* ~~President Trump and Kamala Harris~~
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:54 am
Trump’s CDC nominee is a vaccine-autism fraudster.

The world’s most respected infectious-disease agency needed a new leader. Anti-vaccine activists knew just the man: Dave Weldon, a Florida physician and former seven-term Republican congressman who had for years expressed concerns about the safety of vaccines….

Weldon’s past record of promoting the disproven link between vaccines and autism in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence attesting to the safety and efficacy of vaccines raises concerns among some public health experts about his ability to run the CDC. If confirmed, Weldon could undermine confidence in the lifesaving shots at a time when infectious-disease threats such as measles and whooping cough are on the rise, they say.

A Washington Post review of Weldon’s public comments, media appearances and congressional letters along with accounts of those who worked with him reveal a portrait of a politician and physician who emphasized the experiences of individuals while dismissing dozens of studies based on data from hundreds of thousands of patients that showed no link between vaccines and autism.

A Washington Post review of Weldon’s public comments, media appearances and congressional letters along with accounts of those who worked with him reveal a portrait of a politician and physician who emphasized the experiences of individuals while dismissing dozens of studies based on data from hundreds of thousands of patients that showed no link between vaccines and autism.

While he now supports the flu and COVID vaccine programs, he still persists in promoting the completely debunked Andrew Wakefield fraud.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:59 am
What a great idea!

Start-up putting ammo vending machines in grocery stores plans to grow

Dallas-based start-up American Rounds rolled its first automated retail ammo machine into a Fresh Value grocery store in Pell City, Alabama, late in 2023, selling various brands of rifle, shotgun and handgun ammo…

The ammunition kiosks operate in nearly a dozen grocery stores across Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama and Colorado. Fresh Value, Lowe’s Market and Super C Mart all host the kiosks at some store locations. Representatives for all three companies declined to comment when reached by The Post.

In a 2023 promotional video for the rollout of American Rounds kiosks, Fresh Value Chief Operating Officer Terry Stanley said the company was “excited to offer … what we think is the first ammo kiosk.”

“There is no doubt that foot traffic will increase based on the feedback that we’ve gotten,” Stanley said. “We’re super excited not only to have it here, but in other locations in Fresh Value as well.”

There is a lot of whining from the usual suspects.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 8:06 am
Shooter McGavin has a point, and it’s why Christmas Story ain’t my favorite Christmas movie.

I just saw Carry On, tried to to be a Die Hardesque Christmas movie, but fell short. Willis had much more charisma.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/15/2024 @ 9:07 am
So….. if a volunteer force does not volunteer, does that not mean that the general population disagree with our military posture?

No, it means young adults have found better career paths and opportunities in the private sector than serving in the military.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/15/2024 @ 9:14 am
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 8:06 am

The companies should place vending machines with rifles, shotguns and handguns right next to the ammo machines.
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/15/2024 @ 9:18 am
In fairness to Kennedy and Siri, their complaint is with one particular, recently introduced polio vaccine (the Sanofi “IPOL” vaccine), not with polio vaccines in general. I lack the expertise to evaluate their concerns, but I don’t think the public discourse is served by misstating their position.

And, for the record, I’m no fan of RFK, jr.

More here: https://althouse.blogspot.com/2024/12/headline-writers-blithely-omit-and-but.html?m=1
Barry Jacobs (2b0ba8) — 12/15/2024 @ 9:18 am
Why force someone to bring their own gun?
Rip Murdock (4aa4a0) — 12/15/2024 @ 9:20 am
They could bring Mom or Dad’s.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 9:24 am
IPOL is the only uncombined polio vaccine used in the USA. It is an inactivated (killed) virus given by injection (aka IPV). The oral vaccine (OPV)is no longer used here due to a risk of inadvertent infection.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 9:40 am
My understanding is that similar polio vaccines marketed under the names “Kinrix,” “Pediarix,” and “Vaxellis” are also approved for use in the US to which Kennedy and Siri raise no objections. They are combined with other vaccines (diptheria and tetanus, for example), but that is how they are commonly given. To say that RFK opposes “the polio vaccine” wildly misstates his position. He seeks further testing of one specific vaccine out of several.

He may well be completely wrong in his objection, but if so, refute it honestly. It should not be necessary to build a strawman to attack.
Barry Jacobs (2b0ba8) — 12/15/2024 @ 10:24 am
Yes, but those are combo shots. As I said:

IPOL is the only uncombined polio vaccine used in the USA

Maybe they should combine it with the measles vaccine.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 10:51 am
96 Kevin: Its a big order: LA Times would have to drop their seemingly obligatory “The Fourth of July is for Racists Like You!” type opinions every July 3. And the “Thanksgiving Was Genocide!” type pieces in November.

And get a real “business editor” and drop “Half Truth Hiltzik” (credit: this blog), who was an english major, that famously predicted that crypto was crap, cluelessly wondered in Nov 2023, “The continuing riddle of why Biden Doesn’t Get Credit For An Improved Economy,” and once loathsomely insisted that “mocking” anti-vaxxers deaths “is ghoulish, yes- but necessary” (1-10-22), and…wait, I’ll be here all day on that guy.

And while I am at it, drop old fud Doyle McManus as an opinion writer–he seems to be a worn-out writer who lives back east who opines on everything: basically, seems to be a retread with opinions. Find someone better.

Oh, and start covering news: local news especially: and no that does not mean printing PR handouts from city hall. PS to LA Times: Do you ever ask yourself why YOU don’t break local crime stories? Why the feds have to indict someone before LA gets word of a major scandal? Why Tom Giradi’s story had to blow open in Chicago of all places? Why weren’t you on it before then? And the LAPD billing scandal? Cover some local news, and stuff those endless “opinion” pieces in a drawer. Heavy reliance on opinion pieces started in about 2005 as a substitute for news. Hint: It didnd’t work.

NEVER bring back Joel Stein. Ever.

Thats for starters
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (93b861) — 12/15/2024 @ 11:09 am
Perhaps the Times has a ways to go, but the best is the enemy of the good, and this is good. It might also reflect a changing dynamic in California, which may well be moving to the Right. That also has a ways to go, but I remember Reagan campaigning here, so it wasn’t always this way.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:01 pm
Sad:

President-elect Donald Trump didn’t get to fly on a new Air Force One during his first term. He likely won’t get to fly on a new presidential plane in his second term, either.

The long-delayed project has fallen so far behind schedule that Boeing has told the Air Force that it expects to deliver the new jets after Trump leaves the White House, according to people familiar with the matter. That means the airplanes wouldn’t be ready until 2029 or later.
………..
It was Trump in his first term—after more than a year of negotiations—who awarded Boeing a $3.9 billion contract to deliver new presidential planes to replace two 747s that have been in service since President George H.W. Bush was in the White House.

After first suggesting the Pentagon should cancel the deal, he personally negotiated a lower price tag and ordered a new paint job of red, white and blue.
…………
The delay is startling given that Boeing isn’t building the planes from scratch. During Trump’s first term, Boeing started to overhaul two 747s that were built for a Russian airline that never took the jets. Crews have been working in San Antonio on retrofitting the planes to meet exacting Pentagon standards so it can serve as a flying White House.

Among challenges Boeing struggled to solve: installing the jet’s complex wiring system and interiors, and finding enough employees who can get top security credentials to work on the highly classified project. Boeing also had a dispute with a key Air Force One subcontractor that declared bankruptcy in 2021.
………….
The dark blue of Trump’s paint scheme would generate added heat that could affect sensitive electronics in the aircraft, potentially adding more costs and delays to their development, people familiar with the program said. The added heat was one of the factors that contributed to the Biden administration’s decision to ditch Trump’s colors.
………….
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:08 pm
Given that Putin is f-d up in his head, yeah, it’s dangerous. Every time you call a bluff, you run the risk that -this time- it’s not a bluff. I’m of the opinion that Putin could possibly use tactical nukes against Ukraine and only get more sanctions- we are not going to nuke him back and he isn’t going to care about another uptick in opprobrium. So yeah, its a damned dangerous game we are playing with a lunatic- the most dangerous game in the world right now
steveg (8e06ca) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:14 pm
I think there is a set strategy following Putin’s use of nukes in Ukraine. Of course Trump hasn’t signed off on it, but iirc it involved a significant conventional response in Crimea like sinking the entire Black Sea fleet and dropping the bridges.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:20 pm
So yeah, its a damned dangerous game we are playing with a lunatic- the most dangerous game in the world right now

The solution is not to appease him — that doesn’t work. The blackmail will just be worse next time as he decides that his genius has prevailed.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:22 pm
I thought he Salk vaccine was still being offered. Why isn’t it?
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:25 pm
It might also reflect a changing dynamic in California, which may well be moving to the Right.

LOL! Completely lacking in evidence based on the last election cycle. Adam Schiff (+17) dominated Steve Garvey in the marquee US Senate race, and Harris (+20) did the same in presidential election. The fact that Prop 36 passed (and Gascon was ousted in LA County) with Democratic majorities just showed crime affects everyone.

Let us know when a Republican wins a statewide race in California and Republican voter registration reaches 40% (currently it’s 25%).
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:28 pm
I’m of the opinion that Putin could possibly use tactical nukes against Ukraine and only get more sanctions-

I felt the same way early in the war when Ukraine achieved significant progress, now there is really no reason to use tactical nuclear weapons. Russia is achieving its goals on the ground (though it’s a hard slog), and with US support soon to end Russia should at least be able to retain the territories it is currently occupying.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:40 pm
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/14/2024 @ 8:15 pm

this actually isn’t news, and most reports reporting Hamas deth tolls ssy tht does not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. 17,000 Hamas fighters may be slightly conservative,and 44,000 total is too high. They include some at least semi-natural or war-related deaths the report indicated.

Hamas also counts people in Gaza killed by their own rockets and shells, or the results of explosions of ordinance.

and they never let their local “freelance” correspondents show them firing anything toward Israel. They want people to ask why Israel.is still fighting in Gaza (to eliminate an deadly enemy, and Israel is willing to pause to get the hostages out) but not why Hamas is still fighting.

That said, Israel has more liberal rules of engagement in Gaza than in Lebanon.
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:42 pm
I thought he Salk vaccine was still being offered. Why isn’t it?

Salk is an inactivated/injected (IPV) type vaccine and that is the current form used, often in combination in the DTaP vaccine which people get from time to time after certain injuries for the Tetanus component. It also contains a pertussis, diphtheria and hep-B component. It’s not clear to me whether the actual manufacturing methodology is what Salk invented.

The Sabin vaccine actually provides a better protection, particularly regarding transmission after immunization, but it comes with a cost — there is a minute chance that the weakened virus can cause an infection. For mass immunization campaigns where polio is endemic, it is preferred as it cuts down retranmission and needs no training to administer. But in an environment where polio is rare the risk outweighs the benefits.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:46 pm
I think the sightings in New Jersey is mostly most ado about nothing, but there are some hints (because the federal government says only 100 warranted further investigation) that they may know what many of the drones are – they are registered.

There are definitely more of them around, and some could be new experimental types.

Mayorkas said on TV today that it became legal in September 2023 to fly drones at night.
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:48 pm
LOL! Completely lacking in evidence based on the last election cycle.

Well, when you *&(% folks get off the effing abortion thing, maybe there’ll be a chance. The woke DAs and penal statutes got nuked. Tax increases are routinely nuked. Rent control has lost more times than I can count.

People want traffic solutions, more apartments, effective police and the Democrats continue to offer identity politics. The reason they aren’t handed their heads is that the CA GOP has its head further up its ass, offering no solutions to urban problems and instead posturing and perk-seeking.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 12:52 pm
In the CEO murder case:

Police now think that the killer did not board a bus at the uptown Port Authority bus terminal by 178 St or so but got into the subway and took the A train to 34th St and took a train out of the city at Penn Station.

His family hired a new lawyer for him, and he may waive extradition and plead not guilty by reason of insanity. She (the new lawyer) was seen on TV suggesting that.

Somebody who knew him must have reported him and police visited his mother the night before his capture and showed her pictures and she said that could be her son.

He had no connection with that company but he did have two medical complaints in past years, If he was going to kill someone for eronal reasons it would have been some dctors or meeical experts. At age 19 or so he had brain fog (which he guessed might be related to a case of Lyme disease he had at 13 – maybe it was resolved by taking some nutrients like magnesium?) and in 2023 he exacerbated a misalignment of his spine by some kind of surging training. He went to the emergency room on July 4, 2023, eventually had an operation. Most doctors advised against it. But he didn’t kill any doctors or medial researchers.

he said they (doctors) took your complaints more seriously of you said it prevented you from having job (evidently saying it prevented life activities ir sex did not get the same attention)

,
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:03 pm
George Stephanopolous LOL

The timing of the settlement tells you why it was done. Stephanopolous was scheduled to give sworn testimony this coming week, where he could be asked any number of questions on the topic of rape, such as his strong arming and intimidation of Cinton’s rape accusers. He’s never wanted to discuss that, certainly not under oath. Because he’s a newsman now, a pose which is defamatory against the news business. $15 million to retain that farce is cheap.
lloyd (ee9d42) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:38 pm
“My understanding is that similar polio vaccines marketed under the names “Kinrix,” “Pediarix,” and “Vaxellis” are also approved for use in the US to which Kennedy and Siri raise no objections. They are combined with other vaccines (diptheria and tetanus, for example), but that is how they are commonly given. To say that RFK opposes “the polio vaccine” wildly misstates his position. He seeks further testing of one specific vaccine out of several.

He may well be completely wrong in his objection, but if so, refute it honestly. It should not be necessary to build a strawman to attack.”

“There is no vaccine that is safe and effective” – RFK Jr.
Davethulhu (5130ec) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:39 pm
“There is no vaccine that is safe and effective” – RFK Jr.
Davethulhu (5130ec) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:39 pm

How about a link to that quote? Not saying he never said it. Maybe he did.

He said this last week:
“Of course, we’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody.“
lloyd (ee9d42) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:50 pm
RFKJr link
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:57 pm
That may have been rude, but the link request was annoying.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:59 pm
Romney defends Trump after ‘overwhelming’ win: ‘Can’t complain’

………..
“Donald Trump won. He won overwhelmingly. He said what he was going to do, and that’s what he’s doing. I mean, people are saying, ‘oh, I don’t like this appointment or this policy that he’s talking about,’” Romney said (on CNN’s State of the Union). “But those are the things he said he was going to do when he ran. So you can’t complain about someone who does what he said he was going to do.”

“And I agree with him on a lot of policy fronts. I disagree with him on some things. But it’s like, OK, give him a chance to do what he said he’s going to do and see how it works out,” the GOP senator added. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) is contending people “can’t complain” about President-elect Donald Trump‘s Cabinet picks given Trump signaled he would make such picks before he was elected.
…………
When asked about his feelings on who Trump has selected for his Cabinet, Romney said it was not who he would have selected, but he noted that he lost the 2012 presidential election, while Trump has won.
………..
……….(T)hese are the kind of people he wants to run (the government.) And he’s entitled to that,” he added.
………….
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/15/2024 @ 1:59 pm
I’m going to say 2 shocking things (sorry).

There are no women who are unaware of the possibility of being raped. Those going into combat are undoubtedly even more aware of it.

Women are not the only people raped in a POW context. Historically it’s not a particularly unusual tactic for breaking someone down.
Nic (120c94) — 12/15/2024 @ 2:07 pm
“How about a link to that quote? Not saying he never said it. Maybe he did.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPtBkw5uD-0&t=6938s (this should open the interview to the section with the quote, if it doesn’t work, skip to 1:55:38)

“He said this last week:
“Of course, we’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody.“”

He’s lying. He lies a lot.
Davethulhu (5130ec) — 12/15/2024 @ 2:07 pm
He said this last week:
“Of course, we’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody.“

Anything said by someone after they have been nominated for a Cabinet post needs to be taken with a trainload of salt. Another example are Pete Hegseth’s comments on gays and women in the military-suddenly they are okay.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/15/2024 @ 2:16 pm
Anything said by someone after they have been nominated for a Cabinet post needs to be taken with a trainload of salt.

Comedy gold! Rip, did you ever say this about Kamala?
lloyd (ee9d42) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:05 pm
He’s lying. He lies a lot.
Davethulhu (5130ec) — 12/15/2024 @ 2:07 pm

That would make him just like any politician. As with Kamala, what he says now indicates what he thinks he can or cannot get away with.
lloyd (ee9d42) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:15 pm
And thanks for the link.
lloyd (ee9d42) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:16 pm
Anything said by someone after they have been nominated for a Cabinet post needs to be taken with a trainload of salt.

Comedy gold! Rip, did you ever say this about Kamala?

When did Harris win the election? When did Harris name a Cabinet position?

Since those never happened.

The whatabout squirrel would like to gaslight a hypothetical that in a different reality, someone else may have chosen a role badly, that his American Na…Bund party and stupid Hitler can have as many anti-qualified people as possible in this reality.

Been a month since he started naming the scum and villainy brigade and the Bund still hasn’t actually found a single positive to say about their fuhrer’s picks, just points to hypotheticals that if Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama/Biden named a bad pick, that stupid Hitler can only pick scum, 1=1000, it’s all the same.

Heck, their judicial, FBI, Defense, Intel…wouldn’t even be able to get a security clearance. stupid Hitler chose these people for their anti-qualifications.

But since 23% of American citizens voted for him in our system, he gets to pick whoever he wants, and the senate can, and should, bounce them.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:34 pm
Nic (120c94) — 12/15/2024 @ 2:07 pm

Women in contested areas in Ukraine are more likely to be raped if they AREN’T armed.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:41 pm
I’m so old that I remember when it was rude, if not unpatriotic, to announce opposition to the policies of a president-elect.

As in “I hope he fails”
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:44 pm
Umm…every campaign in history has people announce opposition to the policies of a candidate, after the election, did those disagreements retreat?

In the history of civilization, your hypothetical never existed, it’s just more gaslighting. Isn’t true now, wasn’t true in the 80’s…19, 18, 17…

In fact, the opposite is quite true, most wish them success for America, but specify their opposition on policies.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:55 pm
eEah, well, when it’s your side coming in, it’s the worst thing ever.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 4:01 pm
#130 Davethulhu — A few years ago, I came up with this comparison: As president, Obama told at least an order of magnitude more falsehoods than George W. Bush did. As president, the Loser told at least an order of magnitude more falsehoods than Obama. So I think it fair to describe him as a pathological liar.

(Which, despite the common belief, is still rare among elected officials in America. For which we may be grateful.)
Jim Miller (63f907) — 12/15/2024 @ 4:26 pm
If the Pop Tarts Bowl trophy is going to also serve as a working toaster, the Tony the Tiger Sunbowl (where my beloved Huskies are playing on New Years Eve) should have a silver cereal-bowl shape, like the Stanley Cup, but GRRREATER!
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/15/2024 @ 4:46 pm
Presidents have told some pretty big lies:

“I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.”

“I did not harass Paula Jones”

“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor”

“I will not pardon my son”

Trump told a lot of lies, but only one big one.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 4:48 pm
South Korea has a unicameral legislature. There is no Senate to judge an impeachment.

In a difference from the United States, but somewhat similar to the 25th amendment situation, an impeached president is stripped of his powers unless restored. His powers get transferred to the Prime Minister. This is referred to as being suspended.

The court has 180 days to decide. I don’t know what happens if they don’t render a verdict.
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/15/2024 @ 5:32 pm
Read these facts in a Fri WSJ article about the drones:

1) A similar thing happened a year ago by the coast of Virginia.

2) Drones make noise.

3) Many have been seen coming from the ocean and going back (It could be they take off from Long Island -SF)

4. Some have been out for six or seven hourss at night.
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/15/2024 @ 5:38 pm
RFK Jr most likely lied when he used the words: “Of course.”
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/15/2024 @ 5:40 pm
Anything said by someone after they have been nominated for a Cabinet post needs to be taken with a trainload of salt.

Comedy gold! Rip, did you ever say this about Kamala?

lloyd (ee9d42) — 12/15/2024 @ 3:05 pm

Comedy Gold! yourself, Lloyd. When did Kamala win a presidential election and name a Cabinet?
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:21 pm
@Kevin@142 I think it depends on how you define a big lie. I wouldn’t say that any of the lies about sex from any politician (including Trump) would be big lies. They really only effect the various partners involved and I kind of expect politicians to lie about sex. So I guess for me a big lie would be a lie that effects a large number of people and that I wouldn’t expect a politician to lie about as a normal thing. IMO the biggest lie of the modern era wasn’t even quite stated directly, but was the idea that Iraq was involved in 9/11. A lie I wouldn’t say is normal under the regular course of events, that effected a very large number of people. over a longish time period.
Nic (120c94) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:43 pm
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:21 pm

LOL!
lloyd (46d222) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:45 pm
Abc news bends knee to trump on orders from its corporate master disney. 15 million cheap at the price. The corporate stooges in the media join the corporate establishment stooges in the democrat party like krupps did with hitler before world war II. As william shire said about hitler “He had cared more then they.” To the donor class Bernie Sanders and his populism not trump is their greater enemy.
asset (179e09) — 12/15/2024 @ 7:49 pm
@96 Great! The people will no longer be fooled in LA that the paper is leftist and leading them in ways that are no threat to the corporate state. Now they can turn to real leftist media.
asset (179e09) — 12/15/2024 @ 8:00 pm
I wouldn’t say that any of the lies about sex from any politician (including Trump) would be big lies

Clinton’s two lies resulted in his impeachment and later surrender of his law license. I’d call that a big deal. Perjury is not a “little white lie” no matter what the reason.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 10:21 pm
IMO the biggest lie of the modern era wasn’t even quite stated directly, but was the idea that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

Not only wasn’t it said, but it wasn’t given as a reason. The reason involved WMDs, which turned out to be wrong. Was it a lie (if so, it would indeed be a big one)? Not clear.

What is known is that Saddam had twice claimed to have no WMDs and been twice shown to be a liar. The third time he lied to his army and told them he had them, but didn’t. Every Western intelligence service concurred he had them, but he had actually destroyed them this time.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 10:26 pm
Now they can turn to real leftist media.

Sadly, the Daily Worker is no more.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 10:28 pm
@153 New left media doesn’t take its orders from moscow and has diversity. As for wmd see the movies wmd the real story and fair game. Joe wilson went to niger and found out no yellow cake sent to Iraq and his wife sent an Iraq nurse back and found out wmd had been shutdown as we later found out. Scooter libby and cheney punished wilson by outing his wife as cia agent for telling him nuclear program was shut down years before.
asset (179e09) — 12/15/2024 @ 11:28 pm
@kevin@151 Well that means that someone thought it was a big lie, just not me. Trump’s lies about sex have also led to court issues. I don’t think they count as big lies either.

@kevin@152 It was implied that Iraq had been involved. Though technically speaking Iraq did have WMD, just not the nukes that GWB’s admin was implying. They had chemical weapons that we already knew about and weren’t actually particularly concerned with.
Nic (120c94) — 12/15/2024 @ 11:56 pm
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/15/2024 @ 10:26 pm

Every Western intelligence service concurred he had them, but he had actually destroyed them this time.

Or sent them to Syria.

He also fooled Bush and Rumsfeld into thinking he had them, because he thought WMD would deter Bush, because WMD wasn’t the real reason he thought, but maybe revenge for having plotted to killl his father.

The U,S, had to issue chemical warfare protection gear and in their mind, that meant the war could start no later than April because it would be too hot. And this was known to all.

Saddam also tried to convince the UN and every country but the U,S that he didn’t have chemical weapons,

Bush postponed the matter as long as possible, and then at the last minute, Saddam pulled the rug out from under Bush by getting the Turkish Parliament (probably by bribery) to withdraw permission to invade from Turkey, But Bush had involved Turkey mainly for diplomatic reasons and he went ahead with the invasion anyway.
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/16/2024 @ 3:13 am
This story should be shared.

UK consumer champion Which? wants you to know that your air fryer might be spying on you and sharing your data with third parties for marketing purposes.

The perhaps not-so-surprising findings from the buyer’s friend are that smart devices in general are engaged in surveillance of their owners, and that data collection often goes “well beyond” what is necessary for the functioning of the product.
. . .
Air fryers from brands Aigostar and Xiaomi both sent the owner’s personal data to servers in China – although this was flagged in the privacy notice, for what it’s worth.

The extent of spying, both by American companies, and our enemies, the ChiComs, continues to amaze me.

As does the acceptance, by so many, of the idea that every device should be connected to the Internet.
Jim Miller (ee5c79) — 12/16/2024 @ 4:05 am
Well that means that someone thought it was a big lie, just not me.

The Law called it a felony.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 8:18 am
But Bush had involved Turkey mainly for diplomatic reasons and he went ahead with the invasion anyway.

Actually, the lack of the northern component, and the month-long redeployment of that army group, allowed Saddam’s forces to retreat and reform as guerillas. We still had the hammer, but the anvil wasn’t there.

IMHO, Turkey should get the sh1t end of every stick so long as Erdogan is in power.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 8:22 am
As does the acceptance, by so many, of the idea that every device should be connected to the Internet.

My air fryer, like my toaster, coffee-maker, stove, oven, dishwasher and refrigerator have no network connections. I can’t think of a reason why they should.

I am a bit concerned that Alexa is spying on me though.

If this kind of thing bothers you, I recommend John Varley’s novella “Press Enter“
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 8:27 am
Here’s an example of something shipping from “Greater China”

https://www.ebay.com/itm/405402679652

Shipping:
Free Standard Shipping from Greater China.

I don’t think it will come from China itself, although the eBay member is also listed as being located in Shanghai – shipping is too fast.

One feedback comment:

Arrived a month early, exactly as described on site, very happy with purchase
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 10:19 am
OT, but something about which I am thinking these days.

I am interested in many things, but expert in only one or two.

When I see people not trained in my field carrying on about viruses, vaccines, and virology, I shake my head. Many times these people write or say things that are not simply outside the virology mainstream, but are absolutely false. I can base that assertion not simply on my reading of the specialist literature, but in many cases based on experiments I have done in my own laboratory.

I am a free speech absolutist, so I tend to to say or write nothing in response. Yes, it occurs to me that, well, asking experts in that field would be a good move. But I have also seen such efforts result in personal attacks in many places.

So I keep quiet.

What I can change is myself: I am upset about many things in our society. But when I feel like pontificating about things outside my own expertise (like the law, or economic policy), I recall how I felt when people say or write things I know to be baseless.

So I don’t pontificate.

Again, free speech is all. And the only thing I can change is myself.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 12/16/2024 @ 10:28 am
After a detailed scientific analysis, Trump has come out in favor of polio vaccines.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/16/2024 @ 10:30 am
all three air fryers it looked at wanted permission to record audio on the user’s phone, for no specified reason.

To leave a message, most likely for advertising or customer service purposes. They ask permission so they won’t be sued because sometimes this costs the phone user money.

They haven’t got the kind of AI to identify (and blackball>) any customers.

Of course the usual could be tampered with. like Israel did with the pagers it sold to Hezbollah.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 10:34 am
Again, why (what economic and/or regulatory forces?) prevents the manufacture and sale of the old (cheaper) Salk vaccine?

Jonas Salk did not patent the Salk vaccine and it would be off-patent by now anyway. This was before the 1962 amendments to the FDA law after thalidomide.

It doesn’t pay any pharmaceutical company now to comply with regulatory demands, and generics sometimes get into short supply and have one or two manufacturers
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 10:40 am
Bill Clinton signed the very law that authorized his being asked under oath about sexual relationships in a lawsuit about sexual harassment,

Much later, after it was all over, the judge reversed herself and ruled that the questioning had been irrelevant.

Bill Clinton actually maneuvered Paula Jones (by having Arkansas State troopers lie about Paula Jones’ consent and then making sure she saw the article in the American Spectator (all my opinion) and then refusing her requests to correct the record – maneuver her into suing him because he wanted a widely known reason for having a legal defense fund (my opinion again)
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 10:48 am
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 8:22 am

Actually, the lack of the northern component, and the month-long redeployment of that army group,

Bush started the invasion only a few days after Turley pulled out, and they had never expected to overrun iraq so fast.

allowed Saddam’s forces to retreat and reform as guerillas. We still had the hammer, but the anvil wasn’t there.

In the nnorth was Kurdish controlled territory which was not contrlled by Saddam.

Saddam could not control it because it was a no-fly zone.

Also in the north was a little tiny area ruled by al Qaeda. (Ansar al-Islam) which became the real problem pretty soon. Rumsfeld persisted in thinking it as all “bitter-enders” who could only shrink in size as time went on. Until Bush finally removed him after the November 2006 election. Saddam’s forces coluld only shrink in size but al-Qaeda got reinforcements coming from Syria and Iran and Saudi Arabia

The problem was that coalition stopped at the borders of Iraq. the British Empire in its heydey, knew better.

U.S> intelligence was abysmal both in Iraq and Afghanistan. They would learn lessons, and then the experienced people were rotated out and they went back to the old training

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/world/europe/afghanistan-allies-enemies-nuristan-taliban.html

Four presidents and more than $2 trillion were consumed by America’s longest war. Yet the United States has never fully grappled with how it lost its way in Afghanistan, including the glaring intelligence failures that plagued the entire war effort.

I say the reason was that they were up against a world class intelligence agency: Pakistan’s rogue military intelligence agency, the Interservices Intelligence Agency (ISI)
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 11:02 am
From the NYT article (the NYT spent a year researching this talking to Taliban who were now willing to talk)

By all accounts, the Americans virtually ensured their own defeat: They repeatedly bombed their closest supporters here, showing just how little the United States understood about the war it was fighting.

Civilian casualties are tragically common in war, in Afghanistan or anywhere else. But these attacks were different, residents here say. The Americans killed and maimed the very people who supported them most, swelling the Taliban’s ranks by turning allies into enemies.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 11:11 am
Foreign Affairs article by Senator Mitch McConnell:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/price-american-retreat-trump-mitch-mcconnell

The unwillingness of the “Asia first” crowd to welcome European allies’ progress is curious. They ignore a glaring need to work with allies to counter Chinese threats to shared interests, raising the question of whether they are really interested in contesting China after all. Some even seem to have seized on the need to counter China as a rationale for the United States to abdicate leadership everywhere else, suggesting that “Asia first” is merely an excuse for underlying isolationism.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 11:17 am
Sabin also did not patent his vaccine. And I think the original insulin was not patented either.

These days that would only result in new drugs remaining in the “Valley of Death”
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 12:08 pm
Somebody who knew him must have reported him and police visited his mother the night before his capture and showed her pictures and she said that could be her son.

His mother reported him missing tothe San rancisco police on November 18 (I misted Nov 9 in a previous thread and then corrected it to November 19 but it was the 18th)

The San Francisco police told the FBI which later told the New York City Police Department and dome investigators visited his mother on December 8 and she said it could be him. (A tip may also have come from someone else and not been examined)

DNA evidence would take weeks to get a match (does that mean as more databases were queried or family relationships were traced?) and the fingerprint was smudged but good enough to confirm as probable after the fact. The key was the picture(s
.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/nyregion/jessica-tisch-nypd-unitedhealthcare.html

The F.B.I. said Friday night that it had passed the suspect’s name to the New York Police Department, a fact earlier reported by CBS News and the San Francisco Chronicle. The F.B.I. did not say when it transmitted that information, according to a statement the agency released. The police in New York, who had been inundated with tips, have said they did not know Mr. Mangione’s identity until his arrest.

On that day, Dec. 9, Commissioner Tisch was holding a morning meeting with her executives. She asked Chief Kenny how long it might take to catch the gunman — the police had recovered fingerprints from a Kind bar wrapper and DNA from a water bottle the killer had discarded.

Unless someone recognizes him from the photos and sends in a tip, he told her, the police might have to wait for DNA matches, which could take weeks if not months.

“‘So what you’re telling me is this could be anywhere from, like, five minutes from now to like several months from now,’” she recalled asking him.

And so it was.

Exactly five minutes later, Kaz Daughtry, the deputy commissioner of operations, who had been the first to text Commissioner Tisch about the shooting, received a new message: Altoona police had arrested someone who looked like the man in the surveillance photos.

Commissioner Tisch said she immediately began smiling. Chief Kenny was less sure and ran downstairs to his office to find out more.

He learned that the man, Luigi Mangione, 26, had been found with a gun, a silencer and fake identification cards, including one from New Jersey like the one used by the man believed to be the gunman at a hostel on the Upper West Side.

Chief Kenny rushed back up to the 14th floor. This time, he was smiling, too.

“It’s the fastest I ever ran up the stairs,” he said.

Note: “like the one used by the man believed to be the gunman at a hostel”

Not the exact same ID since it had been thrown away, but he had another one with the same name.

As for the bicycle, police now think it was later stolen. Or did Luigi Mangione steal it and then return it to the same place?
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/16/2024 @ 12:22 pm
Simon, I don’t believe I’m the only one here who would like to hear more about your knowledge on areas of your expertise.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/16/2024 @ 12:45 pm
While ABC may have keeled over Trump’s defamation lawsuit, it is highly unlikely that CBS News will do the same:

……….
Trump filed the 19-page lawsuit (against CBS News over their editing of their interview with then-candidate Kamala Harris) on Halloween, claiming (the broadcast violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act) the aired footage was deceptively “doctored” to “confuse, deceive, and mislead the public” and to “tip the scales” in favor of Democrats in what amounted to “election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion.”

In the 33-page motion to dismiss, CBS says there is no longer “any live case or controversy” because Trump won the November presidential election. And, the motion claims, Trump never alleged facts sufficient under Lone Star State law to support the litigation anyway.
……….
The CBS motion argues the broadcast in question was not in any way, shape, or form, related to a commercial solicitation.

“[T]he DTPA was designed to protect Texas consumers engaged in commercial transactions against false, misleading, and deceptive business practices, not to police editorial decisions made by news organizations with which one disagrees,” the filing reads. “President Trump lacks standing under the DTPA. The one thing that President Trump needed to allege, but failed to allege at all, is that 60 Minutes’ editing deceptively induced him to enter into a commercial transaction.“
…………
“President Trump’s various attempts to allege injury are far too generalized and speculative to confer standing,” the motion goes on. “Just as a federal court ‘is not a legislative assembly, a town square, or a faculty lounge’ it is not a public editor. President Trump’s opinion that CBS ‘crossed a line’ with its editing of the Interview does not constitute a personalized, concrete injury. Moreover, President Trump’s allegation that he ‘stands in the shoes of each Texas voter’ or that ‘the public’ was deceived only confirms the generalized nature of his grievance and his lack of Article III standing.”
………….

On the merits, CBS claims the disputed interview “editing was not deceptive” and “addresses issues of utmost public significance.”

“The First Amendment prevents holding CBS liable for editorial judgments the President may not like,” the motion reads.
…………
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/16/2024 @ 12:58 pm
In the nnorth was Kurdish controlled territory which was not contrlled by Saddam.

Guess which part is next to Turkey. They were going to come down from the north to meet with the folks pushing up from the south. Instead, they just came up from the south.

Sometimes, Sammy, you just invent stuff.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:15 pm
Foreign Affairs article by Senator Mitch McConnell:

It’s well worth reading and NO, Mitch McConnell is not a MAGA rubber-stamp.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:17 pm
I am a free speech absolutist, so I tend to to say or write nothing in response. Yes, it occurs to me that, well, asking experts in that field would be a good move. But I have also seen such efforts result in personal attacks in many places.

So I keep quiet.

In a free speech world, the best response to poor speech is better speech.

When I write about something outside my field (engineering and related), I try very hard to find reliable sources (generally at an educated layman’s level) and see what kinds of agreements there are. For example, I feel confident to say that Andrew Wakefield has his head up his ass, even though I cannot follow the actual scientific-journal level discussion that informs that view. Others have and synthesized it for me.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:23 pm
@173: I’d be shocked if they settled that drivel. I’d actually be shocked if they’ve stopped laughing.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:24 pm
Mitch McConnell is not a MAGA rubber-stamp.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:17 pm

McConnell may not be a MAGA rubber stamp, but he has absolutely no influence over the MAGA crowd in the new Trump Administration. They don’t read Foreign Affairs, they just marry them. And in 18 days he will just be another back bencher in the Senate, representing only himself.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/16/2024 @ 2:04 pm
And chair of the Senate Rules Committee, and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Heck of a backbencher.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 2:28 pm
United health denied and limited health care to children with autism for increased profits. (pro publica) also on wisconsin school shooting it doesn’t surprise me as someone who attended christian grade school and christian high school. I said the pledge and had to pray everyday. A lot of christian school teachers are to weirdo to be allowed to teach in public school. For many years in az they didn’t check for sex offenders until “problems” occurred.
asset (6fc3ba) — 12/16/2024 @ 2:51 pm
@156 see my comment at 154 and watch movie fair game Valerie Plame sent relative of nuclear weapons researcher back to Iraq to find out they had been shut down which cheney ignored he wanted Iraq’s oil so bad. Karl rove, scooter libby and dick cheney were so enraged that joe wilson told the truth about no yellow cake going to Iraq from niger they out his wife.
asset (6fc3ba) — 12/16/2024 @ 2:59 pm
Coast liberals and donor class are fighting with Bernie Sanders wing of the party and both are enraged with Harris campaign grifters who lied to them that harris was ahead in their internal polls when she never was. (ACE) Never trumpers wonder in the wilderness or grift. Van jones and even mitt romney admit maybe trump wasn’t stupid after all!
asset (6fc3ba) — 12/16/2024 @ 3:15 pm
Judge Merchan’s ruling seems fairly obvious. None of the Trump’s payments to Stormy while he was president were a core or peripheral part of his presidency.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/16/2024 @ 4:40 pm
@kevin@158 Tell any lie under the right circumstances and it’s a felony. Big lie, small lie, medium lie.
Nic (120c94) — 12/16/2024 @ 5:00 pm
And chair of the Senate Rules Committee, and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Heck of a backbencher.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 2:28 pm

Big whoop. Not a chair of any of the major Senate policy or appropriation committees. A sinecure for his final years.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/16/2024 @ 5:57 pm
Judge Merchan’s ruling seems fairly obvious. None of the Trump’s payments to Stormy while he was president were a core or peripheral part of his presidency.

Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/16/2024 @ 4:40 pm

The Supreme Court also declined to hear an appeal of the gag order in the case (filed by a non-party).
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/16/2024 @ 5:59 pm
None of the Trump’s payments to Stormy while he was president were a core or peripheral part of his presidency.

It would be a Get-out-of-Jail-Free card if it was. For my money, they weren’t even part of a campaign.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 6:10 pm
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:23 pm

I must confess that some subjects aren’t amenable to logic or science, and some assertions cannot be proven or falsified. On those, where only the weight of opinion controls, I feel free to pontificate like anyone else.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 6:12 pm
A sinecure for his final years.

“We’ll see”
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 6:13 pm
https://www.americanexperiment.org/inspector-general-report-the-fbi-and-january-6th-2021/

The definitive report.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/16/2024 @ 6:25 pm
Biden demands gun control after recent leftist shooting after pardoning his son for his gun crimes.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/16/2024 @ 6:44 pm
@183 Bragg begging the judge not to impose jail time so as to “prevent defendant from being burdened during his presidency by an ongoing criminal proceeding” is quite a come down and renders the case meaningless.
lloyd (cb565f) — 12/16/2024 @ 7:21 pm
Another shooter with a manifesto. Will this shooter dethrone Luigi as the Left’s sweetheart?
lloyd (cb565f) — 12/16/2024 @ 8:53 pm
Two big wins for McConnell, already. A long-time ally was chosen to replace him as majority leader. And Matt Gaetz will have more time to spend with his family.

The Gaetz win was a two-fer; they removed an embarrassment from the House, as well as blocking him from a job for which he is unqualified.

(I would not bet against McConnell on any Senate fight, given his record.)
Jim Miller (d24caa) — 12/17/2024 @ 6:38 am
Erik Wemple on the Trump v. ABC case.

Donald Trump expressed a lament on the campaign trail in February 2016. Guys like him have “no chance of winning” libel suits against the likes of the New York Times and The Post, he said at a rally in Fort Worth. “We’re going to open up those libel laws,” he said.

Well, Trump never succeeded in opening up those libel laws. Then again, maybe he didn’t need to: In a stunner news blast on Saturday afternoon, ABC News agreed to settle a defamation case from Trump, a deal that included this statement from the network: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.”

The crow-eating statement wasn’t the most gobsmacking aspect of the settlement. That would be the $15 million that ABC News agreed to pay toward a “Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for [Trump], as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past.” ABC News will also shell out $1 million for Trump’s legal fees.

Meaning: ABC News, a founding member of the mainstream media, will also serve as a founding member of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, or some such. That’s how big a chest-beating, lectern-pounding, crowd-pleasing victory the president-elect scored on an otherwise sleepy December weekend.

ABC News will never live down this capitulation. Never.

Sadly, the Trump’s Roy Cohn playbook has worked.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:53 am
New L.A. County D.A. on Trump and illegals:

DEADLINE: When it comes to doubt, and I say this to you with your past life in George W. Bush’s DOJ, there is a lot of doubt, a lot of fear among the undocumented in LA that once Trump gets back in power, the wild dogs will be off the leash and they will be rounded up for his mass deportations, put in camps in the desert like Japanese Americans were in World War II. What do you say to those in this county who see a D.A. who served in a Republican administration, who, even though he ran as an Independent for D.A., ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for state Attorney General, and ask, will this guy protect us?

HOCHMAN: Here’s what those people should know. They first should know a little history. History is a scarce resource on people’s consideration. But we don’t have to go back that far. I’ll go seven years, 2017. The California Value Act, SB54 is a sanctuary state legislation. If you compare that sanctuary state legislation against, for instance, the sanctuary city ordinance had just passed, there’s almost no difference. It’s almost symbolic now. SB54 was challenged by the Trump administration in the courts back in 2018 or 2019 and when they challenged it, they lost.

Now, now we’re going to go into a little bit more ancient history.

The LAPD has had a provision for years that says that it will not arrest someone on just an immigration violation, and it won’t even ask them when they’re being arrested, whether or not they’re here legally or documented or undocumented, here legally or illegally. That provision is 40-plus years old at this point. 45 years old. So, the fears that people have, I get it. I get the understanding that if Donald Trump comes in and says, we’re going to be doing massive deportation, how is he exactly going to do it? Is that going to involve local law enforcement giving up, the undocumented grandmother who’s cleaning houses or whatnot, there’s nothing to suggest that, that there’s any law, state law that will allow local law enforcement to do that.

DEADLINE: I understand what you are saying, but let me ask again, can people, the undocumented, who work and live among us all over this county, in this City of Angels in all industries, can they look to you in these times, and amidst Trump’s threats, for protection?

HOCHMAN: The answer is yes, I will protect all legal rights that immigrants have in this county to the fullest extent, full stop. I don’t need to go beyond that statement.

I will uphold all the laws that are out there, including the ones that protect immigrants here in Los Angeles County, full stop. You know, if you’re asking whether or not I will enforce the sanctuary state laws, I will enforce the sanctuary state law and now the sanctuary city laws.

Like I said, you can enforce the sanctuary city laws by just enforcing the sanctuary state laws, because they were mostly symbolic, they just repeated what was already done seven years ago, that the courts have already affirmed, and by saying that the courts have affirmed it. But make sure you understand what I’m saying is that on the same arguments that the Trump administration may or may not attack the current laws.

They’ve already been attacked here.

The Ninth Circuit has already weighed in. So, unless it somehow gets back to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit controls the Western federal states, including California. So, the sanctuary state law is the law of this state, and right now, at least there’s no federal law that trumps it, which is a bad pun, I know.

Of course, all he’s really saying is that state law is clear, and he’ll follow the law. He also implies that if the law changes, he’ll follow the changed law.

There’s a train wreck coming.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 8:55 am
ABC News will never live down this capitulation. Never.

They capitulated because they would lose. Maybe a jury would have only awarded a dime, but they had a prima facie loser of a case. Their best argument would have been that you cannot defame Donald Trump, but you really have to be deep into the #Resistance to see that as a good bet.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 8:58 am
A long-time ally was chosen to replace him as majority leader.

His protege, actually. He’s not a McConnell puppet, but he will certainly listen to his old mentor.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 9:08 am
Mitch McConnell is not a MAGA rubber-stamp.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:17 pm

I expect him to vote for every Trump nominee that makes it out of committee, because that will be the Republican Party position.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 9:54 am
(I would not bet against McConnell on any Senate fight, given his record.)

Jim Miller (d24caa) — 12/17/2024 @ 6:38 am

Against Democrats, I agree; against fellow Republican Senators and the leader of his party, he has no record.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 9:59 am
I expect him to vote for every Trump nominee that makes it out of committee, because that will be the Republican Party position.

He is no longer required to do that.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 10:01 am
I’ll get ahead of myself now (comments about things discussed) to quote the New York Time about drones, Their sources say it’s not even a drone development program – it’s nothing:

Starting deep in this article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/us/politics/drone-sightings-explanations.html

…While research is ongoing, officials say they have not found any records that indicate that a secret, or not-so-secret, drone development program could have triggered the sightings.

Some officials, convinced that the sightings are just normal drones or airplanes, are eager to avoid a repeat of 1947, when the cover-up of a secret Air Force program led to more than 60 years of speculation about alien visits in Roswell, N.M.

An Air Force balloon designed to spy on the Soviet Union’s nuclear program crashed in Roswell and was discovered by the public. Officials put out incomplete information, which allowed rumors that it was an alien spacecraft to spread. That covered up the program but caused decades of headaches for the government and fodder for generations of conspiracy theorists.

Part of the issue with the drone reports — as with government reports on unidentified aerial phenomena in recent years — is that American officials will never speak categorically about matters that could involve intelligence. Officials say that they don’t know what they don’t know, after all.

But as the drone investigations have continued, more officials have become convinced that the sightings have very boring explanations.

Once reports started building, more people started looking in the sky and noticing lights. While large commercial aircraft can be mistaken for drones, they can be easily tracked. Smaller aircraft that use general aviation airports can be more difficult to monitor, officials said.

Some officials said they also thought pranksters could be at work. Once reports of mysterious drones started going viral, some officials believe, some drone hobbyists might have started flying drones at dawn and dusk to get attention.

Officials pointed to the arrest over the weekend of two men accused of flying a drone near Boston Logan International Airport as an example.

Compounding the problem, Mr. West said that when drones are reported, hobbyists and police send up their own drones to investigate, triggering even more reports of unusual activity.

Rebecca Weiner, the deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism at the New York Police Department, said that phenomenon accounted for some of the sightings. Curious New Yorkers have flown their own drones to inspect the skies, and onlookers have reported those drones, too. Other novice astronomers shined lasers at passing planes, which fueled more reports.

It “sounds ridiculous, but it’s really happening,” Ms. Weiner told reporters on Monday.

In New York City this past weekend alone, the police received about 120 calls — more than the entire month of November, Ms. Weiner said.

Most of those objects turned out not to be drones at all. Some of them were planes and helicopters, she said. Others were meteor showers and, in at least one instance, the planet Venus.

While the number of reports has soared, the Police Department has not seen a marked increase in the number of actual drones, Ms. Weiner said. On average, the department detects about 300 to 400 drone flights a day.

Some initial reports in New Jersey appeared clustered around Picatinny Arsenal, a military research facility in Morris County. Military officials said they had found no programs at the arsenal that would explain the mysterious lights. It would also be unusual for the government to test a highly classified program that could be easily observed by the public in New Jersey, a very densely populated state. Such programs are traditionally tested at proving grounds.

There of course are also not-so-secret programs that could have triggered the observations. Last year, the government began a program to test drones flying between Joint Base McGuire in New Jersey and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, though there is no evidence that the program could have triggered any unusual sightings. (The only flights that have taken place so far were in July and involved fixed-wing aircraft, an official said.)….
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/17/2024 @ 10:01 am
Rip has said this 50 time. He must be right.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 10:01 am
A sinecure for (McConnell’s) final years.

“We’ll see”

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 6:13 pm

Given McConnell’s recent health episodes, he may not last that long.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 10:03 am
Sore winner:

President-elect Donald Trump is escalating his legal campaign against media outlets by suing renowned pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register newspaper and its parent company Gannett.

Unlike many of Trump’s legal actions against the press, which often allege defamation, this case alleges violations of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deception when advertising or selling merchandise.

………. Though he won the 2024 election, Trump alleges the news coverage of Selzer’s poll — published days before the election showing Vice President Kamala Harris with a surprising lead in Iowa that didn’t materialize in the vote — was intended to artificially help Democrats during the campaign.
……….
The case reflects Trump’s anger at the final Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll of the 2024 election season. It was conducted at the end of October by Selzer’s firm, Selzer & Co., based on telephone interviews with 808 Iowa likely voters. The poll found Harris with 47% support and Trump with 44%, a shocking result since Trump was universally expected to win the state.
……….
“Defendants and their cohorts in the Democrat Party hoped that the Harris Poll would create a false narrative of inevitability for Harris in the final week of the 2024 Presidential Election. Instead, the November 5 Election was a monumental victory for President Trump in both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote, an overwhelming mandate for his America First principles, and the consignment of the radical socialist agenda to the dustbin of history,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

What the lawsuit lacks, however, is any evidence that Selzer did anything improper in reporting her poll results.

“This absurd lawsuit is a direct assault on the First Amendment,” said Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “Newspapers and polling firms are not engaged in ‘deceptive practices’ just because they publish stories and poll results President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t like. Getting a poll wrong is not election interference or fraud.”
………..
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 10:23 am
@205 Nope.

It’s high time Republicans to start engaging the same litigious inclinations as their opponents.
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 10:59 am
>It’s high time Republicans to start engaging the same litigious inclinations as their opponents.

Can you point me to an instance where a Democrat sued a pollster for their polling?

This isn’t “Republicans engaging in the same litigious inclinations as their opponents”, it’s something far beyond that — using bad behavior by Democrats to justify behavior which is ten times worse.

It’s *this sort of thing* that is how Trump and his supporters are going to destroy the Republic. By the end of his term it will be financially impossible for media to criticize the government in any meaningful way, and we will all be less free as a result of it.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:11 am
@207

Can you point me to an instance where a Democrat sued a pollster for their polling?

No and I don’t care.

My point was that Democrats are litigious bunch.
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:16 am
@207

By the end of his term it will be financially impossible for media to criticize the government in any meaningful way, and we will all be less free as a result of it.

aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:11 am

There’s on simply hack these media companies can do…

They can simply tell the truth and not make up out right lies.

Think they can do that?
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:17 am
Hope Cheney has boned up on good lawyers:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2024/12/17/bombshell-report-calls-for-fbi-investigation-into-liz-cheneys-alleged-witness-tampering-n2649174

…
The report suggests that she exercised undue influence over the Committee’s proceedings to target the president-elect while working to promote the narrative that he incited the violence on January 6.

The report concludes by recommending an FBI investigation into Cheney’s behavior.
…
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:19 am
The left tried to destroy Trump in the jury box because they knew he’d win at the ballot box.

And he won.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:21 am
Can you point me to an instance where a Democrat sued a pollster for their polling?

It really is beyond stupid. Stupider? Stupiderer?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:38 am
By the end of his term it will be financially impossible for media to criticize the government in any meaningful way,

Uh, no. Instead he will find himself defending anti-SLAPP counter-suits demanding (and getting) punitive damages. I wonder if he will try to claim immunity.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:42 am
@210:

I don’t think it’s all that wise for Congressmen to demand investigations into how Congressional committees operate. Glass houses. But then MAGA is not known for wisdom. “But they fight!”
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 11:44 am
They are investigating a potential criminal act. Do you want to support a cover up Kevin?

Did you support the investigation into potential crimes by Santos and Gaetz?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:00 pm
>They can simply tell the truth and not make up out right lies.

Is there *any evidence at all* that Selzer’s last poll was a made up out-right lie?

If not, then “simply telling the truth” isn’t enough.

The relevant rule is “not saying anything which upsets MAGA”.

It’s about *power*, not *truth*.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:22 pm
> Uh, no. Instead he will find himself defending anti-SLAPP counter-suits demanding (and getting) punitive damages. I wonder if he will try to claim immunity.

The fact that ABC capitulated to the lawsuit and paid an indemnity to make it go away demonstrates that big media doesn’t have the stomach for the fight and would rather capitulate in the hope that the pain will pass them by that way.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:23 pm
Sadly, the Trump’s Roy Cohn playbook has worked.
Paul Montagu (7de6df) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:53 am

A sad day for liars everywhere.

The low point for ABC News came when they chose to employ partisan hack Stephanopolous as a newsman.
lloyd (4b3ce8) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:27 pm
“Is there *any evidence at all* that Selzer’s last poll was a made up out-right lie?”

There are accusations she manipulated the data to help Harris. Whether that’s true or not is what discovery is for. If it’s a bunch of nothing, she has nothing to fear, right?

The folks who pushed Trump Russia Collusion without evidence probably aren’t going to be great judges of a valid lawsuit.
lloyd (4b3ce8) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:33 pm
@216

>They can simply tell the truth and not make up out right lies.

Is there *any evidence at all* that Selzer’s last poll was a made up out-right lie?

aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:22 pm

That’s for discovery to determine that.

Trump’s won the state by 17pts that.

But, I wonder if there’s a long term goal here, in that he’s using this as a vehicle to appeal to SCOTUS to get Sullivan overturn.
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:52 pm
But, I wonder if there’s a long term goal here, in that he’s using this as a vehicle to appeal to SCOTUS to get Sullivan overturn.

whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:52 pm

First, Trump isn’t suing for defamation, he’s suing under Iowa’s consumer protection laws, so Sullivan wouldn’t apply. The same arguments CBS News has made against Trump’s lawsuit in Texas, (again, under the Texas consumer protection laws) would apply here. Second, his lawsuit hasn’t alleged any harms. Second, the pollster and the newspaper are clearly protected by the First Amendment, even if the poll was wildly wrong.

This lawsuit will never reach the discovery stage; Trump is trolling the media.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:04 pm
https://x.com/KeenanPeachy/status/1869059187927605276

Wait, wait… I was assured by Democrats, and some here on this board that Venezulan gangs were NOT taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, CO?
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:09 pm
@222

Trump is trolling the media.

Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:04 pm

In this case, yeah you’re probably right.
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:09 pm
Trump is trolling the media.

Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:04 pm

In this case, yeah you’re probably right.

whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:09 pm

I’ll bet the Iowa and Texas lawsuits will be dismissed based on lack of standing, as Trump cannot demonstrate any specific harms. As I said, sore winner.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:12 pm
@224, I dunno about the Texas lawsuits, but there are other pollsters who surmised that her last poll tainted the results in surrounding states (ie, Wisconsin/Michagan) that may have impacted the narrow GOP house losses. Not sure how Trump could link that to *his* harms… but, who knows.
whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:14 pm
Excellent…….

Ukrainian operatives on Tuesday killed a leading Russian military official in a daring bomb attack in Moscow.

Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, commander of the nuclear, biological and chemical forces of the Russian army, died in a blast as he was heading out of a residential block in Moscow, the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement.

An explosive device was hidden in an electric scooter parked nearby. Kirillov’s aide also died in the attack, the investigative committee said, announcing a criminal investigation. Video footage obtained by POLITICO corroborates that version of events.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) claimed responsibility for Kirillov’s murder, a Ukrainian law enforcement official told POLITICO after being granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

“Kirillov was a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target since he gave orders to use banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military. Such an inglorious end awaits all who kill Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable,” the official said.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said later on Tuesday that Russia will retaliate for Kirillov’s assassination.
……….
More than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been sent to hospitals with varying degrees of chemical poisoning since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
…………
The United Kingdom sanctioned Kirillov for the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine in October. Besides using banned munitions, Kirillov also regularly spread disinformation about the U.S. and Ukraine preparing to use contaminated battle mosquitos against adversaries.
##########
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:48 pm
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-suffers-painful-career-blow-at-the-hands-of-her-fellow-house-democrats/ar-AA1w1wmp?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=2c550f421dbc4386971ec190953d1462&ei=11

Asset isn’t going to like this.
norcal (a72384) — 12/17/2024 @ 2:12 pm
I do think that, after things cool a bit, it would be good to have polling experts take a look at Selzer’s polls to see what went wrong.

The error was so large, especially coming from a pollster with such a good record, that I have been unable to think of a likely explanation.

It is unfortunate that the Loser has gotten involved, for obvious reasons.

(There was a good investigation of the polls after the 1948 presidential election, which helped make polls more accurate. I’m thinking of something similar.)
Jim Miller (4aec9a) — 12/17/2024 @ 2:50 pm
Rip Murdock @226

Ukraine must be imitating what Israel does in Iran. Only…

Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 3:48 pm
Rip Murdock @226

Ukraine must be imitating what Israel does in Iran. Only…

Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 3:49 pm
They are investigating a potential criminal act.

In Congress?!! The horror.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 3:56 pm
lloyd (7a4a94) — 12/13/2024 @ 12:31 pm

In other words, it was never about asylum.

Not mostly. But it’s not only asylum. There’s Temporary Protected Status (which always comes with a cutoff date of the date it was issued – in the case of El Salvador it’s March 2, 2001) Humanitarian Parole and DACA (the Dreamers)

And, what is law-abiding about violating immigration laws?

We’re talking about ordinary state laws. Or Malum per se, not Malum Prohibitum.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 4:00 pm
Is there *any evidence at all* that Selzer’s last poll was a made up out-right lie?

Even if it was an outright lie (or more likely a distortion of statistics), I don’t see the tort. That she reported a mathematical basis for her belief doesn’t make it anything more than an opinion. What’s next? Going after economists for their opinions?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 4:00 pm
I think Biden’s 1,499 pardons were (mostly) of people who had been released to home confinement because of Covid and was an attempt (initiated by some unknown person) to prevent them from being put back in prison by the Trump Administration – minus maybe some felony convictions. They all had to not involve physical violence on the part of the convicted person.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-bidens-historic-commutations-mean-for-non-violent-drug-offenders

…most of the people affected by this grant have been serving sentences under home confinement, thanks to provision put in place during the COVID epidemic.

Now their sentences have been commuted. In addition, 39 people have had their convictions fully pardoned, all for nonviolent offenses, including drug offenses…

You have to winder though whether any of them are or will be very underserving cases slipped through among all the others.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 4:11 pm
Wait, wait… I was assured by Democrats, and some here on this board that Venezulan gangs were NOT taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, CO?

whembly (477db6) — 12/17/2024 @ 1:09 pm

No, it was that they didn’t take over all of Aurora, a city of 400,000 people, (well, estimated at 395,000 in 2023) but just a few apartment complexes, and that the police were responding to the challenge.

It’s now about what – two months later or more?

(The reason they were there was probably because of a previous general lack of law enforcement. Broken windows only on steroids.)
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 4:18 pm
215. NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/17/2024 @ 12:00 pm

They are investigating a potential criminal act.

Essentially they are accusing Liz Cheney of suborning perjury. The evidence that she was trying to encourage Cassidy Hutchison to lie? She contacted her outside her lawyer (encouraging her to ditch her Trump-affiliated lawyer) and that she avoiding publicizing contradictory testimony or testimony that was offered by members of the Secret Service that Donald Trump has NOT tried to grab the steering wheel of the car that he wanted to take him to the Capitol.

They were so elated by this discovery (because it was indeed true that Trump had wanted to go to the Capitol, only in not so dramatic a manner) that they overlooked that it undermined the whole idea that Trump had expected the riot – which they never claimed but which he was accused of by some people)
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 4:25 pm
In the nnorth was Kurdish controlled territory which was not controlled by Saddam.

Guess which part is next to Turkey. They were going to come down from the north to meet with the folks pushing up from the south. Instead, they just came up from the south.

Sometimes, Sammy, you just invent stuff.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/16/2024 @ 1:15 pm

I am not familiar with exactly where the remnants of Saddam’s forces in 2003 were, but I never remember reading a connection with Kurdish areas. he Kurdish controlled areas were always the safest in Iraq after 2003. ISIS actually chased Kurdish forces out of some places in 2014 I think.

The Kurdish area was de facto independent from 1991 to 2003 and the only connection with Turkey was smuggling. I’ve ben looking for maps

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Islamic_State_of_Iraq.png

https://geopolitique.eu/en/2023/03/04/iraq-and-syria-kurdish-autonomous-regions-under-threat

From 1991 until 2003, the Kurdish territory lived under the protection of Western air power, though it suffered the effects of the international embargo just as much as the rest of Iraq. The borders with Iran and Turkey were practically closed which prevented them from obtaining supplies from abroad, while Saddam Hussein’s Iraq traded with Syria. Against a backdrop of poverty, a violent civil war broke out between the KDP and the PUK between 1994 and 1997, causing 5,000 to 8,000 deaths. This intra-Kurdish war left its mark on the KRG and still contributes to undermining its political unity with Baghdad. In 2003, Kurdish forces joined with the American military to overthrow Saddam Hussein. This allowed them to expand their territory and obtain an autonomous status in the 2004 Iraqi constitution. The Kurdish provinces and disputed territories have 64 deputies in the Iraqi parliament (out of 329 deputies) that are often essential to forming majorities, and it is traditional for the President of the Republic to be Kurdish. Last but not least, the KRG is supposed to receive 17% of the Iraqi budget from the federal government. As a result, from 2004 to 2014, the KRG experienced prodigious economic development while the rest of Iraq descended into civil war. Its model for development is the Gulf petro-monarchies.

The insurgency was not in the north
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 4:36 pm
The hard-liners on Immigration are worried:

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-immigration-deportation-promises-worried-allies-6b78418d

…The emphasis on criminals reflects not only what Trump considers to be the highest priority but a practical understanding of the complexity of rounding up millions of migrants, a person familiar with the matter said. While Trump remains committed to a deportation effort, his team is mindful of those realities and wants to set expectations.

The decision also reflects some concern over economic impacts to key sectors such as housing and agriculture, the person said. Through it all, a focus on criminals has been the animating force of Trump’s message, as he repeatedly highlights instances of migrants committing crimes such as sexual assault or murder.

Behind the scenes, Homan has emphasized pursuing immigrants with final orders of removal and criminals that the government can easily reach, according to people familiar with the matter. Roughly 1.3 million migrants already have orders of deportation from an immigration court.

As a longtime Border Patrol agent and Trump’s former acting ICE director, Homan has said he is aware of the government’s logistical and funding restraints.

“I keep getting asked, ‘how many people are you going to deport?’” Homan said in a brief interview. “Well, I don’t know. It depends on the resources we’re given.”

Homan pushed back on the notion that the deportation has been vastly narrowed. “I have not taken anyone off the table,” he said. “We just need to be smart.”

Trump’s hard-line immigration backers say they have noticed a retrenchment. They say they are holding their fire to attempt to influence the incoming president before they criticize him openly.

Any deportation, these Trump backers say, must be on par with the scale of the illegal migration into the country under the Biden administration, and shouldn’t be limited to specific classes of people. The risk, they said, is that Trump’s narrowed threats will effectively become a carte blanche for migrants wanting to come to the U.S., knowing they would most likely be allowed to stay.

“There is concern that it’s going to be limited, and that those who otherwise have not committed crimes beyond being in the country illegally may be allowed to stay,” said Eric Ruark, director of research at Numbers USA, an organization that advocates for less immigration.

The president-elect’s allies also are concerned by the Trump team’s willingness to exclude some categories of migrants. Trump said in a recent interview with NBC, for example, that he wanted to work with Democrats to come up with legislation to protect Dreamers, immigrants in the U.S. illegally who were brought as children, from deportation. Backers of hard-line immigration policies view an exemption for Dreamers, who often have bipartisan support, as a slippery slope.

“We’re starting with the criminals and we’ve got to do it,” Trump said in the same interview. “And then we’re starting with others and we’re going to see how it goes.” Pressed on deporting migrants who crossed the border illegally but don’t have criminal backgrounds, Trump continued to talk about “murderers” and “dangerous people,” while adding: “I think you have to do it, and it’s a hard—it’s a very tough thing to do.”

….Early in his campaign, Trump spoke of more widespread deportations. “They’ve let 15 million people…I’ll tell you that’s what I think the number is, and I think it’s going to be 18 million by the time we get the worst president in our history out of office,” Trump said at a rally in Richmond, Va., in March. “They just walk across and do whatever they want. We are not going to allow them to stay in our country.”

Glimpses of a shift started to emerge in the final months of the campaign, immigration hard-liners have noticed. “On Day One, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in American history,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania the day before the election, a sentiment he repeated at several other rallies.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/17/2024 @ 4:44 pm
A little while ago, someone challenged anyone to come up with an example of a country changing a policy due to a tariff threat.

Here’s one:

Canada Reveals Border-Security Plan to Avert Trump’s Tariff Pledge

[December 17, 2024] OTTAWA—Canadian officials unveiled a spending plan to bolster border security in an effort to allay concerns after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump pledged to slap a 25% tariff on imports from its North American trade partners until the countries limit the flow of migrants and illegal drugs.

The administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday it would spend $1.3 billion Canadian dollars, or the equivalent of $900 million, over a six-year period to improve border security. The additional cash will be used to acquire dogs, drones, helicopters, mobile-surveillance towers, and deploy hundreds of new border agents, officials said.

According to the most recent spending documents, Canada’s government spends about C$2.2 billion a year on border enforcement and management….

How quickly the government can begin spending the funds remains unclear. Officials said they might need to initially rent helicopters to do some of the additional work, and deploy individuals from other departments to the border patrol.

Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who is also overseeing public security, said he spoke this week with Trump’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, and his pick for border czar, Tom Homan, and is optimistic that the two countries will come to an understanding on border security.

“I’m confident that as we continue to work with our American partners, they’ll see that our resolve is absolute, that we share completely their concerns around the integrity of the border,” LeBlanc said.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 5:03 pm
I am not familiar with exactly where the remnants of Saddam’s forces in 2003 were, but I never remember reading a connection with Kurdish areas.

Sammy, the point, which you continue to miss entirely, was that the US forces planned to come down from Turkey. This would require them to pass through the Kurdish areas, but that does not mean that it was their destination.

Saddam’s remnants moved north and west (away from the US incursion), towards Anbar and Saladin provinces. Our troops came up from the south, from Saudi mostly. Having troops already in Tikrit, Falujah and Ramadi, which would have happened if there was an advance from the north, would have diminished the resistance opportunities.

Turkey, of course, was not ideal. Better would have been Jordan or Syria, but that wasn’t happening.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 5:14 pm
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2024/12/17/biden-admin-sent-300m-to-reuters-to-look-into-musk-and-his-companies-n3797989

Talk about corruption and the destruction of the “free estate.”
NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/17/2024 @ 5:44 pm
> in that he’s using this as a vehicle to appeal to SCOTUS to get Sullivan overturn.

Very likely. He’s aiming for a world in which those who criticize the powerful are assumed to be lying (and can be punished for it) unless they can prove otherwise, rather than a world in which those who criticize the powerful are free to lodge that criticism unless the powerful can prove falsehood and malice.

It’s an absolute evisceration of the first amendment, and it’s a key pillar of the destruction of the Republic.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:01 pm
> What’s next? Going after economists for their opinions?

Yes.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:02 pm
aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:01 pm

How silly.
lloyd (4b3ce8) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:15 pm
The folks who wanted to remove Trump from the ballot fear the end of the Republic.
lloyd (4b3ce8) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:17 pm
@227 Why? AOC and Jasmine Crockett loss to old whites. One with throat cancer only speeds up the take over of the democrat party by the fed up base. Now AOC can’t be tarred with the corporate donor class stooges who are discrediting the party.
asset (5eddcc) — 12/17/2024 @ 9:16 pm
in that he’s using this as a vehicle to appeal to SCOTUS to get Sullivan overturn.

Very likely. ……….

aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/17/2024 @ 7:01 pm

Since Trump is suing J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register newspaper and iGannett under Iowa’s consumer protection law, and not for defamation, how would that work?
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/18/2024 @ 7:28 am
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/17/2024 @ 5:03 pm

The policy hasn’t been implemented yet, and the Canadian government may yet fall. In any event, I would expect Canadian products to face tariffs anyway to force American businesses to relocate back to the US.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/18/2024 @ 7:34 am
House Ethics Committee votes to release Gaetz report.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 9:23 am
Have a TP-Link router? All your data are belong to China.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/us-ban-china-router-tp-link-systems-7d7507e6?st=2Dvzcv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 11:01 am
not for defamation, how would that work?

In fact, it’s for an OPINION.

All polls are the work of crafting questions, getting responses, then analyzing those responses according to some criteria. A lot of this is subjective and the output of the analysis is opinion, not science.

GIGO is an operative rule.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 11:07 am
not for defamation, how would that work?

In fact, it’s for an OPINION.

All polls are the work of crafting questions, getting responses, then analyzing those responses according to some criteria. A lot of this is subjective and the output of the analysis is opinion, not science.

Which is irrelevant to a consumer fraud claim.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 12:57 pm
Maybe this would work if Trump filed a class action lawsuit. On the basis that he was a customer of the Des Moines Register (if he was)

He’s accusing the Des Moines Register of having been in on this – “this” being a deliberately wrong poll.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:03 pm
He’s accusing the Des Moines Register of having been in on this – “this” being a deliberately wrong poll.

Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:03 pm

The Des Moines Register (as well as Gannett, and the pollster) would still be protected by the First Amendment.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:06 pm
Maybe this would work if Trump filed a class action lawsuit. On the basis that he was a customer of the Des Moines Register (if he was)

He’s accusing the Des Moines Register of having been in on this – “this” being a deliberately wrong poll.

Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:03 pm

What specific harm has Trump alleged? (Hint: he hasn’t alleged any harm.) He will lose on standing.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:09 pm
Kimberly Gilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr. have broken up their 4-year “engagement”, and Don Jr. has a new girlfriend and as a consolation prize or maybe to avoid publicity, Donald Trump has nominated Kimberly Gilfoyle to be Ambassador to Greece

Also Herschel Walker who lost a race for the Senate in Georgia in 2022 after having been hand selected by Donald Trump, is being nominated Ambassador to the Bahamas.

Mehmet Oz you know. He’s being named as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He should be familiar with the general subject matter
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:12 pm
Trump loses on standing in his current claim, but he could claim to have been cheated out anything he or his campaign might have paid to access the article on the Des Moines Register website.

But he may have paid nothing:

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2022/03/04/des-moines-register-changes-subscription-paywall-drops-article-limits/9319448002/
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:19 pm
Trump loses on standing in his current claim, but he could claim to have been cheated out anything he or his campaign might have paid to access the article on the Des Moines Register website.

Huh?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 1:25 pm
@249

House Ethics Committee votes to release Gaetz report.

Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 9:23 am

Cool.

Gaetz can swear in the next session and demand that all the #MeToo payoffs be made public and force a vote.
whembly (477db6) — 12/18/2024 @ 2:00 pm
358 Trump’s complaining that the poll was faked. He may have been charged a trivial amount of money to read about it, and this could be he basis of class action lawsuit.

But it reality poll response rates are so low that the data must be massaged, and Selzer may have tried a different way and ignored the fact that it was different from other polls. Polls tend to converge toward each other as an election nears, as each pollster doesn’t want their poll to be too much of n outlier, but not necessarily toward the truth.

If rigging the poll (assuming his claim is true) was done to effect the election, and not simply to raise the profile of the Des Moines Register, the most likely purpose would have been to increase contributions to the Harris campaign or increase advertising in Iowa and Wisconsin.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 2:24 pm
Or reduce contributions to his campaign.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 2:25 pm
<blockquote>Gaetz can swear in the next session and demand that all the #MeToo payoffs be made public and force a vote.

whembly (477db6) — 12/18/2024 @ 2:00 pm

LOL! He’s apparently negotiating with Democrat megadonor and ambulance chaser John Morgan to join Morgan & Morgan.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 2:26 pm
If rigging the poll (assuming his claim is true) was done to effect the election, and not simply to raise the profile of the Des Moines Register, the most likely purpose would have been to increase contributions to the Harris campaign or increase advertising in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/18/2024 @ 2:24 pm

If true, why isn’t the allegation in Trump’s lawsuit? Because it is completely lacking in evidence.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 2:28 pm
Trump’s lawsuit is like what Roy Cohn used to do. Just sue, regardless of any merits,

Trump’s accusation involves poll rigging but it’s just a wild chage and not even the right tort,
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/18/2024 @ 4:24 pm
A lump of coal for you!

Republicans scrapped House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisan plan to avert a government shutdown, as President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk joined a broad swath of the House GOP on Wednesday to condemn a compromise bill full of Democratic policy priorities.

The rebuke, which built steadily through the day and culminated with a long written statement from Trump in the late afternoon, has forced Johnson back to the drawing board on a plan to prevent a Christmastime shutdown — and maintain the support of his chaotic conference to be reelected as speaker early next year.
………
Johnson has not outlined a backup plan, and multiple people familiar with the real-time conversations said the next step remains unclear, as leaders would need significant support from both parties — and Trump — to pass a funding extension. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (Louisiana) said Wednesday night that there was “no new agreement” and Republicans were “just looking at a number of options.”

If Congress doesn’t extend the deadline, most federal operations would shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, though the effects of a shutdown wouldn’t fully kick in until Monday.
……….
Resolving the impasse by Friday may be even harder. Trump has asked to keep certain measures Johnson supports, such as aid for farmers and natural disaster survivors, but also demanded the House ditch items that Democrats negotiated. He has also requested that Republicans extend the suspension of the debt ceiling, a limit on how much the U.S. government can borrow, which is set to expire early in his new term next year.

On Tuesday evening, Johnson had introduced legislation to extend federal funding until March 14, send $110.4 billion to natural disaster survivors and codify a host of unrelated policy changes. Late in negotiations Johnson added an additional $10 billion of aid for farmers — which opened the door to a slew of unrelated demands by Democrats to ensure the bill could pass the House and Democratic-led Senate…….

………(A) number of lawmakers have already said privately that they would not support him to retain his gavel in the next Congress.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said he would not vote for Johnson to remain speaker. Two other GOP members, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said the question of support was likely moot: Based on defections that had yet to become public, Johnson would probably be forced out of the running before lawmakers would have to make up their minds on Jan. 3, the member said. ……..
………
Johnson won’t be able to rely on Democrats to win the speaker’s election next year. So he’ll need 218 votes from his slim — and now greatly irritated — conference. House Republicans will have a narrower majority next term, beginning the year down one member after former representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) resigned, making it nearly impossible for Johnson to lose any support and hold onto his post.
……….
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/18/2024 @ 5:48 pm
Rip deliberately ignores every reason Republicans voted against the bill.

I’m shocked he would edit the article in such a way to focus on the “benefits” but ignore the costs.

Are you sure you don’t work in politics?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/18/2024 @ 5:56 pm
They could still elect Gaetz.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 6:15 pm
Rip deliberately ignores every reason Republicans voted against the bill.

I included the link to Trump’s reasons for opposing the bill (second paragraph), I’m not sure what else you want.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/18/2024 @ 6:55 pm
They could still elect Gaetz.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 6:15 pm

Gaetz isn’t interested.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/18/2024 @ 6:58 pm
Rip deliberately ignores every reason Republicans voted against the bill.

And the bill never made it to the floor for a vote.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/18/2024 @ 7:05 pm
Faux noise says drones are sub contractor drones looking for dirty bomb material. Thats why they say the drones are no threat ;but doesn’t mention what they are looking for. Is this why trump said the american people should be told?
asset (15ac48) — 12/18/2024 @ 10:21 pm
And the bill never made it to the floor for a vote.

The caucus had its say.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 10:44 pm
The Republicans voted against it (and Johnson) because he bought a few Democrat votes with some add-ons. I really don’t know how the GOP thinks it can control the House with a 2 vote margin withough engaging the Dems. As we so far down the road of my-way-or-the-highway that there is no compromising possible?
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 10:47 pm
Reuters has explanation for drones ;but have been spreading c.i.a. disinformation since at least 1954 Gautemala coup. They have contracts with u.s. gov. you can look up gov.org.
asset (15ac48) — 12/19/2024 @ 12:04 am
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/woman-right-leg-amputated-post-surgery-infection-1.7411886

Socialist medicine in all its glory.

Own it.
NJRob (e7dc35) — 12/19/2024 @ 5:25 am
The Republicans voted against it (and Johnson) because he bought a few Democrat votes with some add-ons. I really don’t know how the GOP thinks it can control the House with a 2 vote margin withough engaging the Dems. As we so far down the road of my-way-or-the-highway that there is no compromising possible?

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/18/2024 @ 10:47 pm

Again, there was no recorded vote held on the continuing resolution. I have always said, though, that the Republican majority should act like one and pass legislation without Democratic support. How they do that is their problem.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/19/2024 @ 7:08 am
I have always said, though, that the Republican majority should act like one and pass legislation without Democratic support.

And this is why we fail. Instead of a nation, we are Us vs Them.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 7:28 am
…….. I really don’t know how the GOP thinks it can control the House with a 2 vote margin withough engaging the Dems……..

Instead of negotiating with the Democrats, House Republicans should be negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:01 am
Looks like we are heading for another round of government shutdown theater, courtesy of President Musk and the Sage of Mar A Lago. Now, is this the usual wtf GOP shenanigans, or 3-d chess?

If it’s 3-d chess, look for Trump to try to find a way to impose a budget from the executive (or threaten it). This did not work well in South Korea. But Trump prefers to look to North Korea for inspiration.

If it is shenanigans, look for things to be drawn out forever, as the GOP throws out its current speaker and fusses and wrangles its way to a new one. (Of course, the 3-D version of Trump would like the chaos, as it allows him to try to steal the appropriation power from the House.)
Appalled (f0f874) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:04 am
House Republicans should be negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy.

I wouldn’t negotiate anything with Ratsaswarmy. What a charlatan.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:06 am
House Republicans should be negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy.

I wouldn’t negotiate anything with Ratsaswarmy. What a charlatan.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:06 am

Given that Ramaswamy is co-leader of DOGE, Republicans have no choice.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:01 am
#281

The polling on a shutdown will be very bad and blame the Republicans. You know how well Trump reacts to bad polling. He’ll cave and blame the DOGE billionaires. His people are already at work trying to get a deal together, and Elon’s got no part in it.

Unless he intends to take over the spending power. In which case, no amount of negotiation will salvage things.
Appalled (f0f874) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:08 am
Instead of negotiating with the Democrats, House Republicans should be negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy.

Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/19/2024 @ 8:01 am

This is why:

……….
In a phone interview with NBC News, Trump said getting rid of the debt ceiling entirely would be the “smartest thing it [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”

“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump added.

Trump suggested that the debt ceiling is a meaningless concept — and that no one knows for sure what would happen if it were to someday be breached — “a catastrophe, or meaningless” — and no one should want to find out.

“It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he said.
……….
Asked if he still has confidence in House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Trump responded: “We’ll see. [The funding deal] they had yesterday was unacceptable,” referring to the speaker’s continuing resolution. “In many ways it was unacceptable. It’s a Democrat trap.”

Trump said he had discussed his views on the short-term funding deal with Elon Musk prior to the X owner’s posts Wednesday.

“I told him that if he agrees with me, that he could put out a statement,” Trump said. “He’s looking at things from a cost standpoint.” He described their views as in line and “very much on track.”

In his call Wednesday for Republicans to ditch the negotiated bipartisan short-term spending bill, Trump also demanded that lawmakers increase the debt ceiling — something that hadn’t been on the table at all.
……….
During Trump’s first term in office, he signed legislation three times to lift the ceilings. He had also floated the idea of eliminating the debt ceiling when he was in the White House.
……….
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:16 am
The polling on a shutdown will be very bad and blame the Republicans.

Since this is occurring at the beginning of a new Congress and presidential term, no one will remember the 2024 Christmas shutdown two years from now. Trump’s personal approval won’t take a hit when he begins to implement his deportation plan on Day One.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:26 am
LOL!
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 10:38 am
People voted for Trump pushing DOGE as a solution. Nice to see former conservatives screaming about financial responsibility?
NJRob (32e4e4) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:34 am
Given that Ramaswamy is co-leader of DOGE, Republicans have no choice.

I try very hard to ignore that. It’s not a plus, as much as I’d like to see the government downsized, Vivek has the integrity of a wh-o-re.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:44 am
Court Removes Fani Willis From Georgia Prosecution of Trump

A Georgia appeals court removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her election-interference prosecution against Donald Trump and 14 other defendants, saying her romantic relationship with a top deputy disqualifies her entire office, a decision that could doom the case.

The court, in a 2-to-1 decision, said a trial judge erred by allowing Willis to remain on the case so long as her former romantic partner, Nathan Wade, an outside lawyer she hired to lead the trial team, resigned.

“This is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” Judge Trenton Brown wrote for the majority.

The panel stopped short of throwing out the prosecution entirely, saying dismissal was too extreme of a sanction.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:46 am
Rip Murdock — the bill cannot be passed without Democratic party support unless the Republican caucus is absolutely united (and even then it may not be possible due to a combination of absences, the Senate, and special rules for this kind of legislation).

Negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy isn’t going to produce a deal which can pass the Congress.
aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:49 am
The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I’ve just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.

— Grand Moff Vivek
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 12:35 pm
Trump suggested that the debt ceiling is a meaningless concept — and that no one knows for sure what would happen if it were to someday be breached — “a catastrophe, or meaningless” — and no one should want to find out.

“It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he said.

Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 9:16 am

Trump just revealed the secret to his appeal.
norcal (a72384) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:18 pm
Rip Murdock — the bill cannot be passed without Democratic party support unless the Republican caucus is absolutely united (and even then it may not be possible due to a combination of absences, the Senate, and special rules for this kind of legislation).

Negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy isn’t going to produce a deal which can pass the Congress.

aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:49 am

You might as well name Hakeem Jefferies speaker than; passing legislation is what the majority party does-it is up to the House leadership to figure it out.

Not negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy is what led to the CR blowup yesterday.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:38 pm
You might as well name Hakeem Jefferies speaker ~~than~~ then…..
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:40 pm
Given that Ramaswamy is co-leader of DOGE, Republicans have no choice.

I try very hard to ignore that. …….

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:44 am

I’ll keep reminding you. 😉
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:42 pm
Not negotiating with Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy is what led to the CR blowup yesterday.

Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:38 pm

Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy are what led to the CR blowup, but they wouldn’t have had any effect if not for the cowardly Republicans in the House.

Trump could tell them to sh!t their pants, and they would oblige him.
norcal (a72384) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:43 pm
People voted for Trump pushing DOGE as a solution. Nice to see former conservatives screaming about financial responsibility?

NJRob (32e4e4) — 12/19/2024 @ 11:34 am

I don’t think Trump’s demand to suspend the debt ceiling is conservative or fiscally responsible. He has already asked Texans to “primary” Congressman Chip Roy over his refusal to endorse a debt ceiling suspension.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:50 pm
Dead, dead, dead:

President-elect Donald Trump endorsed a new Republican deal Thursday afternoon to avert a government shutdown and raise the nation’s debt limit for two years, after sinking the bipartisan agreement Speaker Mike Johnson originally struck with Democrats.
……….
The news caught House Democrats by surprise, and the caucus is expected to meet Thursday afternoon to discuss the new deal. Johnson will almost certainly need their votes to pass it through the chamber……..

The plan Johnson is expected to put on the House floor includes, according to three Republicans familiar with the deal, a stopgap measure that funds the government through mid-March, a clean farm bill extension, the $110 billion disaster aid package previously negotiated with Democrats, clean health care provision extenders and a two-year suspension of the debt limit, kicking a new deadline into January 2027.
……….
……….Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) already said he was opposed to the plan — an attitude other conservatives are certain to share.

“It’s a water-downed version of the same crappy bill people were mad about yesterday,” he said on The Sean Hannity Show.
###########

Related:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared to shut down Republicans’ push to raise the debt ceiling in a Thursday morning social media post.
……….
In a meeting with the entire Democratic Caucus Thursday morning, Jeffries quoted President John F. Kennedy, telling members: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate,” according to two people familiar with the remarks, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics.

He also asked his caucus who his negotiating partner would be, and asked if he should be calling Musk.
………
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:57 pm
Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy are what led to the CR blowup, but they wouldn’t have had any effect if not for the cowardly Republicans in the House.

norcal (a72384) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:43 pm

Trump (and by extension Musk and Ramaswamy) represents where the Republican Party is now; the Republican caucus is out of step.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 2:04 pm
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 1:57 pm

The new CR will require 2/3 to pass; I doubt a majority of Republicans will vote and they will rely on Speaker Jeffries.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 2:10 pm
He has already asked Texans to “primary” Congressman Chip Roy over his refusal to endorse a debt ceiling suspension.

** popcorn popping **
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 2:14 pm
There’s a Plan B much smaller (115 pages versus 1400 and something) continuing resolution which has very little new spending except for disaster relief but it’s been rejected by the Democrats who have united their caucus against it.

Musk says he didn’t write it. It also includes a raising of the debt limit which Trump wants.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/19/2024 @ 4:36 pm
One mass grave containing at least 100,000 bodies revealed in Syria – and there are others.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/19/2024 @ 4:38 pm
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/19/faa-drone-flights-are-temporarily-banned-new-jersey.html

In 22 areas, for one month.

And it’s all really nothing but false alarms.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/19/2024 @ 4:40 pm
Putin says he is open yo peace deal with Ukraine but first Ukraine must hold elections.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/19/2024 @ 4:43 pm
Luigi Mangione extradited to New York while Feds prepare a backup case.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/19/2024 @ 4:44 pm
We all know the debt ceiling only applies to Democratic administrations, Trump’s just trying to codify it.
Davethulhu (2ee2b7) — 12/19/2024 @ 4:55 pm
There’s a Plan B much smaller (115 pages versus 1400 and something) continuing resolution which has very little new spending except for disaster relief but it’s been rejected by the Democrats who have united their caucus against it.

It’s not the role of the minority party to bail out the majority.

The measure went down decisively, 174-235, failing to meet a two-thirds bar for passage under a fast-track procedure, as 38 Republicans joined 197 Democrats to tank the bill. Two Democrats voted for the bill, and one voted present.
…………
GOP leaders could now try to pass the bill with a simple majority. But they would need almost every Republican to vote in support of teeing up debate, then for passage — a feat they have continually failed to pull off over the last two years as conservative lawmakers block party leaders from passing funding bills under a simple majority.

More:

……….
Democrats have already dubbed it the Elon Musk shutdown, given the billionaire publicly excoriated the original bipartisan spending deal and helped tank it on Wednesday. And Republicans are coming out swinging against Democrats after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries urged his fellow Democrats to vote against the new, hastily assembled package.
……….
Republicans — trying to placate Donald Trump, who had also denounced the previous funding deal for being too kind to Democrats — had worked out the funding deal among their own party and did not involve Democrats……….
……….
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 4:57 pm
It’s not the role of the minority party to bail out the majority.

“What’s in it for me?”

So, give them some CUTS they want. There must be some.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 5:08 pm
So, give them some CUTS they want. There must be some.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 5:08 pm

The fight over the CR isn’t over budget cuts (the lack of which caused conservatives to vote “no”), but add-ons such as pharmacy benefit managers reform, fully funding the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key bridge, transferring control over RFK Stadium to the District so they can build a new stadium for the Commanders, congressional pay raises, criminalizing revenge porn, etc.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 5:21 pm
So, give them some CUTS they want. There must be some.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 5:08 pm

Anyway, why should Democrats concede anything because the majority party can’t get its act together?
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/19/2024 @ 5:26 pm
Anyway, why should Democrats concede anything because the majority party can’t get its act together?

It’s called compromise, in which they get something that the other side is willing to give. IF they do not learn to do that, and soon, there is going to be nothing but glaring for the next 2 years. After all, the Senate can’t do anything without 60 votes, and the GOP only has 53.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 6:01 pm
If there is any one thing that the voters are done with, it is an ineffective Congress that spends its time posturing and counting coup. Now, maybe the Democrats won’t budge on anything important, no matter what compromise is offered — they DID pick up House seats last election — but they run the risk of a catastrophe in 2026.

Of course, a deadlocked Congress with the GOP having twin majorities will be seen as the GOP’s fault.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/19/2024 @ 6:05 pm
Anyway, why should Democrats concede anything because the majority party can’t get its act together?

It’s called compromise, in which they get something that the other side is willing to give.

The Democrats and Republicans did compromise over the initial continuing resolution, but Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy and their supporters in the House blew it up. The Republican leadership then tried again without compromising with the Democrats, and it also failed.

Apparently no bill can pass with Democratic support, and no bill can pass with only Republican support.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/19/2024 @ 7:09 pm
After all, the Senate can’t do anything without 60 votes, and the GOP only has 53.

Those 53 can suspend or repeal the filibuster rule.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/19/2024 @ 7:16 pm
Those 53 can suspend or repeal the filibuster rule.

Acting in unison and there aren’t anywhere near 50+1 votes.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:09 am
Meanwhile the HFC (House F***wad Caucus, or some such) is again acting like it’s not part of the GOP. They killed Obamacare reform in 2017 and now they are going all Crazy Eddie again.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:11 am
Those 53 can suspend or repeal the filibuster rule.

Acting in unison and there aren’t anywhere near 50+1 votes.

Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:09 am

I’m sure they could find a few Democrats to help.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:23 am
If the Senate Republicans want to pass Trump’s agenda, Majority Leader Thune will gladly follow.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:34 am
I’m sure they could find a few Democrats to help.

Why? They’d have to know that Trump would run wild. D.Ed first to go.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:39 am
Republicans promise to protect the Senate filibuster, even if it hinders Trump’s agenda

Republicans promise to protect the Senate filibuster, even if it hinders Trump’s agenda
Many Republican senators, including incoming Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, say they will preserve the 60-vote threshold to pass most legislation while they’re in power.

Nov. 13, 2024, 4:27 PM MST
By Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON — The new Senate Republican majority promises to leave the filibuster in place, retaining the 60-vote threshold to pass most legislation — even if it stands in the way of the Trump agenda it hopes to advance.

Shortly after he was elected as the next majority leader, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., responded clearly and unequivocally when he was asked Wednesday whether the filibuster would remain unchanged on his watch.

“Yes,” he told reporters.

In interviews this week, several Republican senators representing various ideological factions said they support preserving the filibuster rule as they prepare to take full control of Washington with President-elect Donald Trump back in the White House, a Senate majority of 52 or 53 seats and a narrow House majority.

“I think there’s unanimity that the filibuster is important. So I don’t think that’s controversial,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who ran unsuccessfully for majority leader, said Tuesday.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said he’s committed to protecting the filibuster — and won’t be persuaded by Trump or others.

“No. No. No. We need to keep the filibuster,” Tuberville said.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said he “absolutely” supports preserving the 60-vote threshold, even if Trump revives his demands to nix it — as he unsuccessfully pushed the GOP to do during his first term.

“Senators have a tendency to defend their power, just like everybody else does. I don’t know a lot of wimps in the United States Senate,” Cramer said. “I think we’ve all lived through the possibility of losing the filibuster as a tool to defend. And I would be surprised if there were enough Republicans who thought that we should change it now.”

Democrats didn’t share the Republican commitment to preserving the filibuster when they controlled Congress. In 2022, they pursued a carve-out to the 60-vote rule to pass national voting rights legislation by a majority vote. They fell two votes short of changing the rules, although they signaled they’d revisit that push to pass abortion rights if they won the 2024 election.

Republicans are less eager to pierce the filibuster, in part because some of their biggest priorities are already exempt from the 60-vote rule. They include confirming judges and Cabinet nominees, which require simple majorities. Other priorities of cutting taxes and modifying spending laws can be achieved through the 51-vote budget “reconciliation” process in the Senate.

In fact, Republicans hope to kick off that process by advancing a budget resolution early in January, even before Trump is inaugurated, two senior GOP aides told NBC News. That measure would enable them to pass some of their top priorities on a party-line basis once Trump takes office, including extending Trump’s expiring 2017 tax cuts, delivering more funds for border security and other measures.

Conservative senators also see the 60-vote rule as a backstop against Democrats’ passing their most ambitious progressive priorities when they eventually regain power. Those senators believe their party has more to lose than to gain if there’s no supermajority requirement.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he supports keeping the filibuster “forever — for the length of the republic.”
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:45 am
If push comes to shove……..
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/20/2024 @ 8:21 am
We’ll see how voters react to a Senate that holds up Trump’s agenda over a principle.
Rip Murdock (c7bf77) — 12/20/2024 @ 8:24 am
Let’s see how well obstructionist Democrats hold up in purple states.

Seats in CO, GA, MI, MN, NH, NM and VA are up in 2026 (all D+4 or less).
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/20/2024 @ 8:44 am
Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/20/2024 @ 7:45 am

The quoted statements are a premature surrender to the Democrats to obstruct.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/20/2024 @ 8:59 am

12/13/2024

Weekend Open Thread

324 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

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