Patterico's Pontifications

12/27/2024

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:51 am



[guest post by Dana]

A post-Christmas nap is on the agenda, so this will be brief.

Let’s start with Christmas “wishes” from the President-elect:

Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in “repair” money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about “anything.” Also, to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose Citizens’ Taxes are far too high, but if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World. Likewise, to the people of Greenland, which is needed by the United States for National Security purposes and, who want the U.S. to be there, and we will!…

Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections, and are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME. They know that their only chance of survival is getting pardons from a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing. Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky “souls” but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL! We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A. and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

President Zelensky announced that the Ukraine for Grain program has already begun sending 500 tons of wheat to Syrians.

Meanwhile, Holocaust survivor Ludmila Lipovsky, 83, was stabbed to death by a Palestinian outside her assisted living facility. Reports say that security guards at the scene acted quickly to subdue the suspect after they heard the terrorist shout “Allahu Akbar.”

Russian surface-to-air missiles suspected in the downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing dozens, a U.S. official told ABC News.

And some good news:

Authorities are calling it a holiday miracle. A 78-year-old man with dementia who went missing two days before Christmas in Malibu was found within hours with the help of drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

. . . the elderly man was reported missing at about 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 23. A caller told dispatchers that the man had dementia and had left his home to retrieve his mail at 4:30 p.m. but had not returned and could not be found after a search of the area. . . At 8:50 p.m. that same day, the drones located the man lying in a field of thick brush off the side of a roadway about a quarter-mile from his home.

Have a lovely weekend.

—Dana

[Update by JVW: I added the unique and original title “Weekend Open Thread” to this post after Dana confirmed that she didn’t mean for it to be untitled like the fourth Led Zeppelin album.]

368 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (73e4b5) — 12/27/2024 @ 10:51 am

  2. Netanyahu on is decisions in the war: (from a week ago)

    https://www.wsj.com/opinion/netanyahu-the-inside-story-of-israels-comeback-victory-middle-east-change-dad847d8

    …“On Oct. 7, they woke me up at 6:29 in the morning,” Mr. Netanyahu says. That’s hours after senior security officials knew something was awry, but there’s no getting around the failure. Hamas death squads slaughtered nearly 1,200 Israelis. By this time, “there was a full-scale attack from Gaza,” he says. “It was clearly not just another round. I went to the Kirya, our military headquarters, called the cabinet and declared war,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “And I said it’s going to be a long war.”

    “On Oct. 8, Hezbollah came into the fighting. Now we had potentially two fronts,” he says. “On Oct. 9, I told the heads of the communities next to Gaza, ‘I ask that you stand steadfast, because we are going to change the Middle East.’ ” The word then from Mr. Netanyahu’s office was that although this war had started worse than the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and with zero early warning, it could end better than even the Six-Day War in 1967, and with a greater chance for peace.

    On Oct. 11, “the defense minister and the military chiefs suggested we go after Lebanon. That is, shift the whole war north, against Hezbollah, and leave Hamas intact in the south,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “I said, ‘we can’t do that.’ ” The perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacre couldn’t be left to stew, and “we shouldn’t conduct a two-front war. One massive front at a time.”

    But the fog of war is real. “Suddenly, we were receiving intel that there were Hezbollah paragliders already going into the Galilee, into Tiberius,” Mr. Netanyahu says. The U.S. had urged him not to invade Lebanon. “But if we’re going to be attacked and invaded, what choice do we have?” he says. “I actually let the planes take off to have a full-scale attack on Hezbollah,” early in the war. “And you know why it stopped?” he asks. “It turns out the gliders were geese. I called back the planes.”

    Mr. Netanyahu praises President Biden for visiting in solidarity on Oct. 18, 2023. “It’s the first time a U.S. president came to Israel at a time of war,” Mr. Netanyahu says, “and he sent two carrier battle groups, which was important to stabilize the northern front.”

    Disagreement emerged over how to fight Hamas. “Nobody had ever fought with such intense tunnel warfare in such a dense urban area,” Mr. Netanyahu says. The Americans advised against a ground invasion of Gaza. U.S. military experts said to fight from the air instead.

    Mr. Netanyahu knew from experience that wouldn’t work. “From the air, you can mow the lawn. You can’t pull out the weeds,” he says. “We’re here to uproot Hamas—not to deliver deterrent blows, but to destroy it.”

    As Israel advanced on the ground, “Hamas saw us moving, moving, moving with American support,” he says. “There was not yet the buildup of public pressure against us.” That, Mr. Netanyahu says, scared Hamas into the first hostage deal, in late November 2023, and assured him that he could briefly stop the fighting. Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, “thought it was bravado on my part—that once I paused the war, I wouldn’t be able to resume it.”

    Mr. Netanyahu wasn’t bluffing, but as the war restarted, “they began to turn on us in the media and in the West.” The more Americans, international bodies and liberal Israelis pressed Mr. Netanyahu to fold, the less inclined Hamas became to cut a second hostage deal—“and Hamas said so openly.”

    Meanwhile, Israeli troops “parked” as the invasion of Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, was debated. “It’s not enough to destroy Hamas if you don’t control the southern closure,” Mr. Netanyahu says. That means the Philadelphi corridor, along the Egyptian border—or, he allows, some line above it. Otherwise, Hamas would rearm.

    The U.S. predicted as many as 20,000 new casualties if Israel invaded Rafah. Vice President Kamala Harris said it would be impossible to evacuate civilians: “I have studied the maps. There’s nowhere for those folks to go.” When Israel finally advanced in May, casualties were notably low as civilians quickly went to the safe zone by the beach.

    “The Americans said to me, ‘If you go into Rafah, you’re on your own, and we’re not going to send you the critical arms,’ which is tough to hear,” Mr. Netanyahu says. Internally, others argued that Israel was too reliant on U.S. munitions to risk fighting on. “That’s a legitimate case,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “But if we don’t go into Rafah, we can’t exist as a sovereign state. We’d become a vassal state and we won’t survive. The question of arms will fix itself, but the question of our independence will not. That’s the end of Israel.”

    In Rafah, Israel cut off Hamas’s supply route and later killed Sinwar, its chief. The Biden administration imposed a de facto arms embargo on Israel, delaying weapons shipments.

    “The U.S. withheld critical weapons,” Mr. Netanyahu admits, but he appreciates the pressure Mr. Biden was under. “It’s not easy to be president, let’s face it, with these very radical fringes in his party. It wasn’t easy to do what Mr. Biden did,” including helping Israel in its defense against Iranian missile attacks, he says.

    Many senior Israeli officials argued that Israel should make concessions to Hamas to quiet Hezbollah and avoid escalation in Lebanon. Mr. Netanyahu summarizes their position: “ ‘We’re going to get a cease-fire anyway in the north—either we can get it after the fighting or before the fighting, and it’s going to be the same deal. So, why not skip the fighting?’ ”

    He rejected the premise: “It makes a hell of a difference whether we make the cease-fire after we cut Hezbollah down to size or after we leave it intact.” Hezbollah couldn’t be left holding a sword of Damocles above Israel’s head.

    Even after 11 months of Hezbollah rocket fire, depopulating Israel’s north, the U.S. opposed any move to take the fight to Hezbollah. “I said we should do it in October,” Mr. Netanyahu recounts. “One of the reasons was that October is one month before November.” Who knew what would happen after the U.S. election? But during the campaign, the chances of securing U.S. support would be greater.

    “We prepared for Hezbollah a massive surprise,” Mr. Netanyahu says, and I presume he means the exploding pagers on Sept. 17. When attacking Hezbollah was first contemplated, nearly a year earlier, this surprise “was barely considered, if at all, because at that time those capabilities had not yet been amassed. Their lethality was but a fraction of their full force a year later,” he says.

    This time, “there were those who had misgivings about using it at all. But since it was time-sensitive, I pushed it through.” The result was “a shock and awe of historic proportions” and “the greatest surgical targeting in history.”

    The expectation, in Israel and America, was that Hezbollah’s response would be like nothing Israel had seen before, toppling towers in Tel Aviv. But the terrorists had been stunned, and because of what Israel did next, they were unable to retaliate effectively.

    To follow the surprise attack, Mr. Netanyahu pushed a plan to destroy Hezbollah’s missiles, including those the group considered invulnerable. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s longtime leader, “was relying on the missiles and rockets that he put in private homes” and trusting Israel not to target them, he says. Mr. Netanyahu credits his army with “an improved plan, which was actually brilliant, because among other things they took over Lebanese television” to warn civilians to evacuate their homes. Then, Israel struck. “In six hours, we wiped out most of the ballistic-missile stockpiles Hezbollah had amassed.”

    Raw intelligence convinced Mr. Netanyahu to kill Nasrallah. “He was literally taking over the command of the military actions. But the thing that startled me was that I realized he was the axis of the axis,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “He had replaced [Qassem] Soleimani,” the Iranian general who was killed in a January 2020 U.S. strike. “It’s not only that Iran was using him. He was using Iran.”

    Israeli troops entered Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah’s underground infrastructure by the border. “This was going to be Hezbollah’s main thrust for an invasion of the Galilee. They could reach Haifa, easily, and beyond,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “The subterranean network turned out to be enormous—much bigger than we thought.”

    When Hezbollah sued for a cease-fire, leaving Hamas to twist in the wind, Mr. Netanyahu saw a chance to refresh Israeli forces. U.S. arms shipments are expected to speed up—“reinforcements are on the way,” as incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) put it—and Israel can prepare a “full-scale offensive” if Hezbollah tempts it. But “Hezbollah doesn’t want to continue the fight right now,” Mr. Netanyahu says.

    Neither do the Iranians. “They were dumbfounded when we took out their critical air defenses” after their second missile attack on Israel, he says. Israel also damaged Iran’s ballistic-missile production, “which means they now have to calculate how much ammo they have, because it’ll take them several years to resuscitate it—assuming we don’t hit it again.”

    Each attack had a multiplier effect. “We knocked down Hezbollah, which was supposed to protect Iran. And Iran didn’t protect Hezbollah either. And neither of them protected [Syria’s Bashar al] Assad. So, we just split that whole axis right down the middle.”

    Mr. Netanyahu says Iran “spent probably $30 billion in Syria, another $20 billion in Lebanon, God knows how much on Hamas. And it’s all gone down the tubes,” he says. “They have no supply line.” Mr. Netanyahu intends to keep it that way. “We warned Assad not to let Iran supply Hezbollah with weapons through Syria. He played dumb.”…

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/27/2024 @ 11:23 am

  3. Story about how an official report to President Biden about the origins of the Covid virus was rigged by opponents of the lab leak/artificially created theory;

    https://nypost.com/2024/12/26/us-news/spy-bosses-silenced-defense-department-fbi-scientists-from-briefing-biden-on-covid-lab-leak-evidence

    Spy chiefs “silenced” researchers in the Defense Department and FBI who discovered strong evidence that COVID-19 most likely leaked from a Chinese lab, The Post has learned.

    As a result, their findings were kept out of an August 2021 report to President Biden on the origins of the global pandemic.

    That report concluded that the virus behind COVID “was probably not genetically engineered.”

    They put it under selection pressure, although they may have started with an already slightly engineered version.

    https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/fbi-covid-19-pandemic-lab-leak-theory-dfbd8a51

    Frustrated by China’s stonewalling, President Biden had ordered an urgent assessment by the U.S. intelligence agencies and national laboratories on whether the virus had leapt from an animal to a human or had escaped from a Chinese lab that had been doing extensive work on coronaviruses.

    The dominant view within the intelligence community was clear when Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, and a couple of her senior analysts, briefed Biden and his top aides on Aug. 24. The National Intelligence Council, a body of senior intelligence officers who reported to Haines and that organized the intelligence review, had concluded with “low confidence” that Covid-19 had emerged when the virus leapt from an animal to a human. So did four intelligence agencies.

    At the time, the FBI was the only agency that concluded a lab leak was likely, a judgment it had rendered with “moderate confidence.” But neither Bannan nor any other FBI officials were at the briefing to make their case first hand to the president.

    “Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing,” Bannan recalled in his first on-the-record interview on the subject. “I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask.”

    A spokeswoman for the Director of National Intelligence’s office said that it wasn’t standard practice to invite representatives from individual agencies to briefings for the president and that divergent views within the intelligence community were fairly represented.

    …But an investigation by The Wall Street Journal shows that the disagreements among intelligence experts over what should be included in the report ran deeper than is publicly known. Nor were the FBI scientists the only ones who believed that the intelligence directorate’s review didn’t tell the whole story.

    Three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, part of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, conducted a scientific study that concluded that Covid-19 was manipulated in a laboratory in a risky research effort. But that analysis was at odds with the assessment of their parent agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and wasn’t incorporated in the report presented to Biden.

    The DIA Inspector General’s office opened an inquiry in the spring into whether the scientists’ assessment was mishandled or suppressed, people familiar with the matter said. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on whether this inquiry was continuing, had been completed and what it might have included.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/27/2024 @ 11:30 am

  4. An untitled open thread. It’s like the white album of posts.

    Tom Nichols writes about Star Trek and how so many of the episodes relate to the Cold War. I concede he’s a bigger Trekkie than me.

    Two Cold War themes run through Star Trek: the risks of great-power confrontation, and the danger of ultimate annihilation. In “The Omega Glory,” a mediocre episode that Roddenberry pushed to have produced, the Enterprise finds an underdeveloped planet where Asian-looking “Kohms” oppress the white “Yangs.” Turns out it’s a planet that developed just like Earth in every way—there is some sci-fi hocus-pocus to explain how planets sometimes do this—including an America and a Red China (Kohms and Yangs, Communists and Yankees, get it?), and then wiped itself out with biological warfare.

    Other episodes were a bit more sophisticated. In “The Return of the Archons,” Kirk encounters a society that is run like a beehive by a single leader named Landru, who demands that all citizens be “of the body.” (Spoiler: He’s a computer. Out-of-control computers were another common theme.) As Cushman notes, the crushing of the individual for the good of the collective was an intentional statement about life under communism.

    I was in grade school when the series came out, and it made an impression, especially the Doomsday Machine episode.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/27/2024 @ 1:32 pm

  5. “E plebnista” indeed.

    Probably the best Cold War episode was “Balance of Terror” about a risky confrontation with the Romulans. It formed the basis for quite a bit of later Star Trek mythos. Oddly, Nichols neglects that.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:03 pm

  6. Canada wouldn’t be the 51st state. Ever. Maybe in some fantasy they’d be 10 (or maybe 8 if you combine the tiny island ones to the east), but since it is already a federal system, joining them to the US (short of using nukes) you’d have to respect the current setup.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:08 pm

  7. Similarly, Mexico has 40 states. After the anschluss, they’d not have 40, but it would be at least 10, maybe 20. The idea of a North American Federation isn’t new and while I don’t expect to live so long, I kind of expect it to happen.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:11 pm

  8. They put it under selection pressure, although they may have started with an already slightly engineered version.

    They last thing they wanted was for a popular perception that the virus was manufactured and that its spread was intentional. That would have led to war.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:13 pm

  9. From the linked J Post article about the holocaust survivor who was killed:

    The Shin Bet added that the suspect was a former Shin Bet aide who had helped thwart terrorism in the West Bank.

    The suspect’s collaboration with the Shin Bet was later exposed and he was transferred for rehabilitation in Israel. He has now been transferred to the Shin Bet for questioning.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:16 pm

  10. They last thing they wanted was for a popular perception that the virus was manufactured and that its spread was intentional. That would have led to war.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:13 pm

    Probably not; if it did, the US would lose.

    Rip Murdock (fe0fab) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:22 pm

  11. Don’t start a war you can’t finish on favorable terms.

    Rip Murdock (fe0fab) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:25 pm

  12. Congratulations to NASA for the apparent success of the Parker Solar Probe:

    NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has called home, sending a signal confirming that it survived a historically close encounter with the sun, when it traveled to within 3.8 million miles of the flaring surface of the star.
    . . .
    Traveling in the solar corona, the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, the probe during its close encounter accelerated to 430,000 mph, faster than any spacecraft has ever flown.

    Somewhat surprisingly — at least to me — NSA had to slow the probe before its close encounter of the hot kind, which they did with “many” Venus flybys.

    Jim Miller (2cc76a) — 12/27/2024 @ 3:04 pm

  13. I have to say that I possess strong feelings about the COVID-19 lab leak business. Nobody on either side has covered themselves in glory, and both sides have pandered to bad actors.

    The part that actually scares me is what do you do if a particular nation manufactures a pandemic? What if they simply disseminated it via bad practices?

    Remember that “gain of function” research is not at all what the popular media contends. Let me give you an example. Before recombinant vaccines, most vaccines against viruses were grown in eggs. That was certainly the case with the influenza vaccine. It’s been known for many years that it is possible to get “bad batches” of influenza vaccines from eggs…because the influenza virus adapted to life in the chicken eggs, and in doing so, was less immunogenic in humans.

    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8621612/#:~:text=These%20egg%2Dadaptive%20substitutions%20enhance,the%20influenza%20vaccine%20%5B23%5D.

    RNA viruses, like influenza and SARS-CoV2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), are extremely prone to mutational change (no proofreading by the RNA-directed RNA polymerase copying their genomes). Because SARS-CoV2 is very large for an RNA virus, it actually does have a proofreading function (but after the fact, not during replication)…and is still obviously error prone. Influenza is worse, since it is a segmented (-) ssRNA virus. That gives rise not just to antigenic drift (which is what we see) but to antigenic shift (like the 1918 and related pandemic strains).

    The idea that specific things have been introduced deliberately into SARS-CoV2 is most unlikely based on my reading of the literature and without an axe to grind. Don’t get me started on the furor over furin cleavage sites. Sigh.

    Gain of function is used in the study of many viruses. A simple explainer, with some examples of past work with influenza and the way scientists reacted to it.

    https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Gain-of-Function-Research.aspx#:~:text=Gain%2Dof%2Dfunction%20research%20(,selective%20pressure%20to%20a%20culture.

    The most important issue here is proper oversight and containment.

    I have friends who have worked at the CDC. They are very, very cautious. You would be too if you ever put on the moonsuit for a BSL4 lab. I got to try one on once. Sheesh.

    Scientists really shot themselves in the collective foot by playing the “trust me” and “people who disagree with me are stupid or evil” cards.

    I have always taught my students that true knowledge is the ability to explain what you know to someone without your training.

    I’m sorry for the teeny virology lecture.

    To be honest, we don’t need venal or evil or clumsy scientists to create pandemics. We all live in one another’s pockets now.

    And those darned bats scare me, because they are a great reservoir for nasty viruses.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03128-0

    Best wishes to all.

    Simon Jester (c8876d) — 12/27/2024 @ 3:45 pm

  14. Trump asks Supreme Court to pause TikTok ban, while Biden says app poses ‘grave’ threat
    …………
    In one of the most significant pending cases before the Supreme Court, the justices must weigh whether the TikTok ban Congress approved in April violates the First Amendment. The court has already scheduled two hours of oral argument in the case for January 10.
    ………..
    The court was flooded with roughly two dozen briefs Friday from groups and officials who have landed on both sides of that question. ………..
    ………..
    In his brief, Trump technically took no position on the underlying First Amendment questions posed by the case, but he urged the court to delay the January 19 effective date so that his administration could look for a way to resolve the issue without a ban.

    Trump suggested the court pause the ban’s effective date “to allow his incoming administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.”
    ………….
    Trump’s brief, his first to the Supreme Court since winning the election, claimed he is operating with a “powerful electoral mandate” and that he is uniquely positioned to resolve the TikTok controversy. At one point he described himself as “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history.”
    ………….
    Earlier Friday, President Joe Biden’s administration and a bipartisan group of ex-government officials — including some who once worked for Trump — urged the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on TikTok, claiming that the platform’s ties to China pose a “grave” threat to American security.

    “TikTok collects vast swaths of data about tens of millions of Americans,” the administration told the Supreme Court on Friday. And, it said, China “could covertly manipulate the platform to advance its geopolitical interests and harm the United States — by, for example, sowing discord and disinformation during a crisis.”

    Trump acknowledged in his brief Friday that his administration had also raised concerns about the platform and had signed an executive order limiting the app. When Trump was president in 2020, he signed an executive order to effectively ban TikTok, but it was halted in the courts.

    But, he argued Friday, the “unfortunate timing” of the law’s effective date “interferes” with his ability to “manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights.”
    ………….

    Rip Murdock (fe0fab) — 12/27/2024 @ 3:58 pm

  15. They last thing they wanted was for a popular perception that the virus was manufactured and that its spread was intentional. That would have led to war.
    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:13 pm

    That’s a charitable take. It would’ve led to government funding of viral research coming into serious question, particularly our cooperation with China which many virologists were heavily invested in. It’s why they lied in the Lancet paper.

    The Left was also very heavily invested in China being blameless so that blame could be concentrated on the Trump’s response to the pandemic. Twitter and Facebook banned discussion of the theory until after the election. Glenn Kessler dismissed it as a debunked conspiracy theory. Truth and objective scientific skepticism were less important than winning the election.

    lloyd (f408f6) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:03 pm

  16. Simon – Thanks much for that explanation.

    Which reminds me of a question I have been pondering for some time: Is it possible that the ChiCom government does not know where the virus came from, for certain? (For example: If some lab tech had poor training and, without knowing so, let a nasty escape. There are many other possibilities, of course.)

    Jim Miller (2cc76a) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:03 pm

  17. Update by JVW: I added the unique and original title “Weekend Open Thread” to this post after Dana confirmed that she didn’t mean for it to be untitled like the fourth Led Zeppelin album.

    JVW (2659ff) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:05 pm

  18. “TikTok collects vast swaths of data about tens of millions of Americans,” the administration told the Supreme Court on Friday. And, it said, China “could covertly manipulate the platform to advance its geopolitical interests and harm the United States — by, for example, sowing discord and disinformation during a crisis.”

    Irony Award candidate.

    lloyd (f408f6) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:08 pm

  19. Or the white album as Paul Montagu suggests.

    JVW (2659ff) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:10 pm

  20. Thank you, Simon, for all of it.

    I doubt we’ll ever get a straight answer for what actually happened at the Wuhan laboratory but, as I understand it, there was a military wing or sector in that building. Whether they manipulated the virus, I don’t know, but I am inclined to believe there were lapses in containment due to shoddy practices.
    It’d be well for us to continue this research as much as possible, but I’d rather us not do it with any Chinese, as long as Xi or the like are in power.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:22 pm

  21. Taking a page from Star Trek, the United Federation of North America has a ring to it.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:24 pm

  22. Vivek and Elon have said some, um, interesting things the last day or so, but I’d rather they talk about immigration than Putin.

    We do have a labor shortage, given our 4% unemployment rate, and legal immigrants, including high-skilled immigrants, help our economy and help keep inflation in check. The graph at this link also tells a tale, that we’re better off with an increasing population to boost our economy.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/27/2024 @ 6:15 pm

  23. It’d be well for us to continue this research as much as possible, but I’d rather us not do it with any Chinese, as long as Xi or the like are in power.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/27/2024 @ 4:22 pm

    I predict “the like” will be in power for the rest of our lives.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/27/2024 @ 6:35 pm

  24. We do have a labor shortage, given our 4% unemployment rate, and legal immigrants, including high-skilled immigrants…….

    “High skilled” immigrants like:

    Mar-a-Lago made the following requests (in 2023) for foreign workers: 53 waiters and waitresses, seven hotel desk clerks, 17 housekeeping cleaners, five first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers, 24 cooks and five bartenders, according to the Department of Labor.
    ……. …
    These workers were requested on H-2B visas, which apply to workers in nonagricultural positions. According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), employers petitioning for H-2B classification must prove that there are not enough U.S. workers who are “able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work.”
    …………
    …………(T)he number of foreign workers hired at Mar-a-Lago, his golf clubs, and his winery increased in 2023, according to Forbes. That report found that Trump’s businesses hired 170 foreign workers last year and a total of at least 1,670 temporary foreign workers since 2008.

    Rip Murdock (fe0fab) — 12/27/2024 @ 6:35 pm

  25. Rip Murdock (fe0fab) — 12/27/2024 @ 6:35 pm

    Seriously, The Trump properties couldn’t find Americans to work those jobs?

    Rip Murdock (fe0fab) — 12/27/2024 @ 6:39 pm

  26. Paul’s linked tweet @22 and Rip’s non-story @24 conflates legal with illegal immigration, which is both dishonest and typical.

    lloyd (f408f6) — 12/27/2024 @ 7:04 pm

  27. Not at the wages they were willing to pay. Besides, US employees can quit if the working conditions suck. Guest workers can only if they are willing to be sent home.

    H2-B, like H1-B, attracts foreign workers who are willing to live 6 to a room and eat ramen for a couple of years, then go home with “riches.” American workers feel entitled to some basic living standards.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 7:05 pm

  28. Jumping the Shark (Tank)

    President-elect Trump’s interest in making Canada the 51st U.S. state is a “huge opportunity” to do “something great” on the world stage, according to “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary.
    ………..
    “I think this is a great idea, and I think the potential is massive, and the opportunity is huge,” the Canadian investor said Friday during an appearance on “America’s Newsroom.” “I think at the end of the day, Canadians and Americans, their DNA is the same in terms of what they believe in… freedom.”

    “There are 41 million of them who want to know more, want to understand what the proposal really is, because the concept of an economic union has been bandied around for 40 years. And it makes sense because the resources Canada has, the U.S. needs. Particularly power and water,” O’Leary explained.
    ………….
    “The Pentagon is worried and has been for decades about the northern border where China and the USSR are. And we had NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense) decades ago, but China was a nothing burger back then, and now they’re a serious problem,” he said.
    ……………
    “I think in this kernel of an idea and yes, maybe it was a joke to start. There is something great here to be done, because if you figured out a way to put these two countries together, it would be the most powerful country on Earth, the most powerful military on Earth, the most powerful resources, and no adversary anywhere would mess with it. That’s the prize,” he said.
    ##########

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/27/2024 @ 7:22 pm

  29. 5, Kevin: yes this was almost the best episode. Plus Mark Lenard, the Klingon commander (and Spock’s father) was really good. Spock as the target of the “is he a traitor?” invective from the gung ho guy was riveting. Yeoman Rand was OK too, before she started to fade.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (a18936) — 12/27/2024 @ 7:55 pm

  30. Musk and the maggots are at each other’s throats and trump hasn’t even taken office yet! “The wolves are devouring each other!” Darkness at noon.

    asset (149482) — 12/27/2024 @ 8:20 pm

  31. RIP actress Olivia Hussey (73):

    ……….
    Hussey was just 15 when she starred opposite British actor Leonard Whiting, 16, as Romeo in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Both were unknowns. The Paramount-distributed film, co-written by Zeffirelli, was nominated for the best picture Oscar and three other Academy Awards, and she received a David di Donatello prize and a Golden Globe for her efforts.
    …………
    She was memorable as Jess Bradford, terrorized in her sorority house, in Black Christmas (1974), the cult Canadian slasher movie directed by Bob Clark, and was the sulky Rosalie Otterbourne, the daughter of Angela Lansbury‘s character, in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1978), directed by John Guillermin.
    …………

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/27/2024 @ 10:41 pm

  32. Paul’s linked tweet @22 and Rip’s non-story @24 conflates legal with illegal immigration, which is both dishonest and typical.

    Neither Vivek nor Elon were talking about illegal immigration, and nor was I, so I’ll take your comment as another round of bad faith on your part.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 8:14 am

  33. As with Vivek, Musk is on the side of the H-1B visas, which is legal immigration practically by definition.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 8:18 am

  34. Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 8:14 am

    It was clear I was referring to the tweet you linked, which makes no distinction. The bad faith commenting is yours alone.

    lloyd (f408f6) — 12/28/2024 @ 8:46 am

  35. Whether immigrants are here legally or not, outside of permanent residents they should not replace American workers. The various visa programs which allow employment (such as H-1B, H-2B, H-2A, E1, E2, E3, and EW3) should be curtailed considerably (if not eliminated), not expanded as favored by Musk and Ramaswamy.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:21 am

  36. Musk didn’t specify illegals in that one either, so all you’re doing is compounding your bad faith.

    I’ll also note that you went after the commenter, not the comment, consciously choosing to personally attack other commenters.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:25 am

  37. And nor did Vivek, who wasn’t talking about illegals either.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:26 am

  38. @36 I doubt anyone else is paying attention, but here is the tweet Paul linked.

    But Paul, keep desperately trying to get folks banned here for breaking commenting rules that only you break.

    lloyd (f408f6) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:34 am

  39. And, I agree with Vivek and Musk. With worker visas, we are able to choose the culture we import, which every country should be allowed to choose. With illegal immigration, that choice is reversed.

    lloyd (f408f6) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:38 am

  40. @36 I doubt anyone else is paying attention, but here is the tweet Paul linked.

    Again, that wasn’t about illegal immigration, just immigration. Bad faith, lloyd, yet again.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:50 am

  41. But Paul, keep desperately trying to get folks banned here for breaking commenting rules that only you break.

    Yet another lie. I haven’t called for anyone to get banned here, it’s not my place. First rule of holes, bub.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:52 am

  42. “Again, that wasn’t about illegal immigration, just immigration”

    Excellent point, Paul. That was actually my point, but go ahead you have my permission to steal it.

    lloyd (f408f6) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:59 am

  43. Your point was to make a personal attack, lloyd. You didn’t have to go there, but you. Talk about dishonest.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:06 am

  44. …but you did.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:07 am

  45. 2.6 million new legal immigrants a year puts us above replacement, and puts our population growth on an upswing not counting illegals crossing the border, and it gives an economic advantage that scores of other nations don’t have. That was the point. But hey, if you’re afflicted with TDS (Trump Devotion Syndrome) and bogus “invasions”, your first response is to resort to personal attacks.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:12 am

  46. RIP actress Olivia Hussey (73)

    I saw that film when it came out. Damn this makes me feel old.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:34 am

  47. H-1B visas, which is legal immigration practically by definition.

    Indeed. But does all the same damage to American workers (who have families, mortgages and/or student loans) who cannot compete with tag-teams of temporary workers.

    Supposedly they are paid the same as US workers, but that’s a transparent fiction since they are never hired directly. Outsourcing to contract worker firms allows vastly different payscales to exist. Ask any IT professional in Silicon Valley what they think.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:40 am

  48. As with Vivek, Musk is on the side of the H-1B visas, which is legal immigration practically by definition.

    The bosses love getting discount workers who can’t quit. Despite what Musk says, he doesn’t like them because of diversity.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:42 am

  49. @35: I see that Rip and I are in agreement here. The moment that H-1B type workers start replacing lawyers, we will see the end of it.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:43 am

  50. Ask any IT professional in Silicon Valley what they think.
    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:40 am

    The SV companies will either hire visa workers, or they will outsource the work to design centers in India, Malaysia, or wherever. Choose the option you like best. Most all are doing both, because there’s a limit on visas. (Eventually, a lot of it will be outsourced to AI.)

    lloyd (d6baa8) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:52 am

  51. The moment that H-1B type workers start replacing lawyers, we will see the end of it.
    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:43 am

    I totally agree. Professors, too. Folks immune to market forces, through anti-market work rules and laws, are often the most fervent Adam Smith devotees. Go figure.

    lloyd (d6baa8) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:55 am

  52. Your point was to make a personal attack, lloyd.
    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:06 am

    Oh, so angry again aren’t you. The guy who’s called me asshole multiple times.

    lloyd (d6baa8) — 12/28/2024 @ 10:59 am

  53. Everyone — well almost everyone — will want to study Glenn Kessler’s Biggest Pinocchios of 2024.

    For example:

    Illegal immigration surged during the Biden administration, and Trump made many false claims about the issue during his campaign. This statement — which became a standard line in his speeches — was especially egregious. Trump twisted a report on the number of noncitizens with criminal convictions that were not detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make it sound like they had been released under Biden. But the data went back 40 years. Most of these killers are in some sort of detention (just not ICE), and have been since before Trump was president.

    (I have begun to wonder whether the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment might limit how long any fact checker has to cover the Loser.)

    Jim Miller (1ba302) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:00 am

  54. Oh, so angry again aren’t you. The guy who’s called me asshole multiple times.

    That’s called projection, lloyd. Your first comment to me in this thread was a personal attack.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:13 am

  55. @52 As I noted upthread, Kessler is guilty of the biggest lie this century so far — the lie that the covid lab leak theory was a debunked conspiracy theory. As with all of his fact checks, it was motivated by his politics not facts. The lie didn’t kill millions but served to provide cover to a failure that did kill millions and cost us valuable time in finding the source.

    The biggest lie of 2024 is the lie that Biden was mentally fit and was running the White House. Not going to get behind Kessler’s paywall to see if he even acknowledges that lie, but I would be surprised if he set his politics aside to do so.

    lloyd (27e139) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:26 am

  56. H-1B visas, which is legal immigration practically by definition.

    H-1B visas are classified as a non-immigrant visas, which means the holder has no right to stay in this country after the visa expires (up to 6 years, way too long) or if the holder becomes unemployed.

    H-1B visa holders aren’t interested in pursuing the American Dream, but do want to enjoy its benefits while avoiding the lower living standards of their home countries.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:33 am

  57. Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:33 am

    You’re wrong again. H-1B visas offer a path to green card status after the six years is up. I’ve worked with many visa holders and I can’t recall one who did not seek to stay and get a green card. They have a visa because that’s the best path for them.

    lloyd (27e139) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:40 am

  58. 52: Jim, with respect, you’re not grasping reality:

    Americans do not split hairs like “I am writing a paper” academics, clueless pundits and trained media seals who chanted since 2023, that inflation would not happen, and when it did happen, it would be “transitory,” it wasn’t “that bad,” and later that “Bidenonomics Was Working,” and could not understand why Biden didn’t get “credit” for a great economy.

    It matters to real people that criminal aliens who should not even be here, are kidnapping, murdering, robbing and setting people on fire; taking over apartment buildings violently, and filling vacant apartments, schools and medical facilities at “our” (that “our” means US citizens) expense. Breaking already strained budgets in Denver, Chicago and NY to name only a few cities.

    It does not matter if numbers were “twisted” or not. It matters that there is substantial perceived and real impact.

    “Gee, ma’am, the criminal alien only killed one of your sons,” is not a convincing response to a mom who thought he had killed three of them. (Even if Kessler would say “claims of alien killing dead sons are inflated by 100%”)

    Reagan once claimed that a “Welfare Queen” had illegally drained off $800,000, and pundits like Kessler thought they made a devasting point when they triumphantly reported that she had really only taken about $80,000.

    But infuriated voters were unappeased by assurances that “only” 80,000 had been stolen. The pundits never grasped, as some even now do not grasp, that the essential truth–theft of public funds–what everyone knew was happening–was more impressive than some partisan pundit’s effort to minimize it by claiming that it was “only” 80,000.

    What mattered in 2024 was that people that who should not be here, are violently killing and maiming citizens, and draining the fisc. The fact that many or even most have been incarcerated for violent crimes does not reassure anyone or rebut the issue made.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (ea5157) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:45 am

  59. @52 Technically, Trump calling Biden “Sleepy Joe” is a lie. Because Biden isn’t always sleepy. Kessler has built a following around that sort of nonsense, and some folks eat it up.

    lloyd (27e139) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:46 am

  60. 48 and 50: Both right; when a lawyer who took the CA bar calls in to a hearing from Bangalore, where he has a massive law firm, and is charging only $30 US per hearing, the legal profession may wake up, but it’ll be too late.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (ea5157) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:50 am

  61. Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:33 am

    You’re wrong again. H-1B visas offer a path to green card status after the six years is up. I’ve worked with many visa holders and I can’t recall one who did not seek to stay and get a green card. They have a visa because that’s the best path for them.

    lloyd (27e139) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:40 am

    Any link between holding a temporary worker visa and a path to a green card should be broken. Temporary workers should just be that-once the visa expires the worker returns to their home country. Another reason to severely restrict the H-1B (and other H series visas.)

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:58 am

  62. Vivek Ramaswamy, appointed by Trump as Musk’s co-chair on a new advisory board on government efficiency, suggested that companies prefer foreign workers because they lack an “American culture,” which he said venerates mediocrity.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/cracks-emerge-trumps-maga-coalition-194125883.html

    Another reason to despise Vivek. Every major technical innovation in the world, back to the transistor, was developed by Americans.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 12:19 pm

  63. RIP the Morrison Hotel (1914-2024):

    The Los Angeles Fire Department knocked down a fire Thursday in a vacant downtown building that was formerly the home of the Morrison Hotel, which became famous after it was photographed as the cover art for the 1970 album by seminal L.A. band The Doors.
    ………….
    (Photographer Henry) Diltz and the band snuck into the hotel one day while the clerk was busy (they didn’t have a permit) and took as many photos as possible he could of the foursome — frontman Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger — under the arched “Morrison Hotel” sign in the window before rushing out again.

    Morrison Hotel, the band’s fifth studio album, came from Elektra Records and featured the hits “Peace Frog,” “Waiting for the Sun” and “Roadhouse Blues.” …………
    ########

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 12:19 pm

  64. The point is they’re here legally, Rip. There’s an argument as to how many, but I don’t have an answer.

    Speaking of immigration, the real question is why so many folks would immigrate to Russia in the first place.

    Far-right activists from Russia’s largest nationalist movement, Russkaya Obshchina, donned black camouflage and patrolled multiple cities last month hunting for “ethnic criminals.” They raided dormitories, parks, and construction sites in search of migrants from Central Asia, nabbing six on November 24. On social media, the activists celebrated their “joint raid with law-enforcement officials,” posting a video of themselves leading migrants in chains on their way to deportation.

    Russkaya Obshchina is working in concert with the Russian state to carry out a radical new campaign against immigrants. In August, President Vladimir Putin signed a bill allowing migrants to be expelled without a court decision. Three months later, he amended the criminal code, introducing draconian sentencing guidelines for “countering illegal migration.” Deportations have skyrocketed. According to the Russian state news agency TASS, the government deported more than 60,000 immigrants this year as of November 1—twice more than in the first nine months of 2023. On November 8, the Russian interior ministry announced its decision to deport an additional 20,000 people.

    Perhaps more striking than the campaign itself is the well of ethnic hatred it seems to have tapped. In rallies this fall, thousands of far-right and ultranationalist activists marched through Russian cities in support of Putin’s policies. They have the blessing, too, of the powerful Russian Orthodox Church. In September, priests in flowing gowns led a crowd of 75,000 people on a religious procession in St. Petersburg, where members of Russkaya Obshchina chanted “Russians, forward! We are Russians, God is with us!” Some carried the black flag of the mercenary Wagner Group, notorious for its brutality in Ukraine and Africa. Last month, more than 2,000 members of the nationalist “Double-Headed Eagle” and Tsargrad movements marched in Nizhny Novgorod bearing Russian imperial flags. Their founder, the Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, marched too.

    Putin’s in a tight spot. With so many dead-injured Russians from his pointless invasion, he needs imported human beings, including North Koreans, to keep his war machine going, to the upset of his right-wing base.

    Russia’s nationalist movement has taken off amid rising immigration. The country has long attracted immigrants from the Central Asian countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. These populations are largely non-Slavic and include many Muslims. Last year, Russia registered the arrivals of more than 8.5 million migrant workers, including more than a million from Tajikistan. One advocate for migrants’ rights told me that at least a million migrants in Russia are undocumented.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 12:20 pm

  65. True H-1B exploitation story:

    I worked at a company where they had hired this guy from Canada on an H-1B visa. That visa came with a lot of conditions, preventing him from changing jobs without H-1B status following him.

    It turns out that he didn’t need an H-1B visa to work in America — Canadian citizenship is enough. BUt having been talked into it by the hiring company, he was screwed as he would have to return to Canada for a while in order to recover his normal rights.

    Companies LOVE H-1B because it gets them captive workers, often a a steep discount if the actual hiring is by a service bureau.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 12:23 pm

  66. The point is they’re here legally, Rip. There’s an argument as to how many, but I don’t have an answer.

    A distinction without a difference. Both those on temporary worker visas and illegal immigrants take jobs away from American citizens.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 12:23 pm

  67. The point is they’re here legally, Rip.

    Indeed they are. But it is not in the country’s interest or the interest of its workers. It is solely in the interest of Capital to get laborers on the cheap. Why do you think Trump does it?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 12:25 pm

  68. Kevin Williamson on Syria.

    Syria. Bangladesh. Poland. South African democracy. The Ukrainian defense forces. The Greek economy. If there is a lesson to be learned from the events of 2024, it is this: There are no lost causes.

    After 50 years of brutal tyranny under the Assads—first Hafez al-Assad, then Bashar—the Syrian people won for themselves a chance at a different and better kind of future, with a remarkable 11-day campaign that saw the old regime, which had seemed to be one of the fixed facts of Levantine life, melt away. Bashar al-Assad is now in exile in Russia. (Where else?) There is good reason to be cautious when it comes to the emerging Syrian leadership, given the jihadist roots of so great a share of the anti-Assad forces. But, as Josh Rogin of the Washington Post argued (with perhaps a slight excess of emotion) during his lively interview with Jamie Weinstein on The Dispatch Podcast, Syria’s future is, as of this moment, unwritten. The West can choose to be engaged in Syria with an eye toward guiding its new leaders in the right direction—and, happily, what’s best for the people of Syria aligns with Western interests and particularly with U.S. interests—or our leaders could take the J.D. Vance approach and pretend that Washington has no interests beyond the price of eggs at Jungle Jim’s. Which is to say, Washington could assume that Syria is a lost cause and thereby create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Syria—which has about the same population as Florida but less than 1 percent of the Sunshine State’s economic output—has nowhere to go but up. It is worth keeping in mind that whatever else they were—murderers, torturers, tyrants—the Assads were socialists. Socialism was the ruling ideology of Syria until quite recently; Hafez al-Assad de-emphasized pan-Arab nationalism and emphasized more orthodox Marxist-Leninist measures; Syria was very much a Soviet satellite for many years. These socialist policies produced the same results socialist policies always produce—misery and stagnation—and Bashar al-Assad made a clumsy attempt at being the Baathist answer to Deng Xiaoping, notionally liberalizing some Syrian economic arrangements and inviting foreign investment.

    HTS leadership could well revert to being a hardline Islamist state but, after 50-years of Assad authoritarian rule, there’s at least some daylight for improvement for the Syrian people.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 1:25 pm

  69. If there is a lesson to be learned from the events of 2024, it is this: There are no lost causes.

    I learned that Christmas Day, 1991

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 1:29 pm

  70. Now that the election is over the lame stream media has discovered the homeless problem in America just in time to blame trump when he takes office. Democrat party establishment and donor class busy trying to suppress the progressive wing of the party with geriatrics like cancer ridden connolly. Elites like musk battling populists like bannon get out the pop corn!

    asset (a52576) — 12/28/2024 @ 1:35 pm

  71. We’re at 4% unemployment, there’s a labor shortage. The argument about immigrants “taking jobs from Americans” would be stronger if there were more job seekers than jobs available.

    BTW, unless he pulls a TikTok flip-flop, Trump likes those H-1B’s.

    “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump said by phone, referring to the H-1B program, which permits companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations.

    “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” added Trump, who restricted access to foreign worker visas in his first administration and has been critical of the program in the past.

    Like I said above, I don’t have answers on this and, without adequate controls and safeguards, the program is open to abuse. Perhaps mend it, don’t end it, at least while the economy is banging on all cylinders.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 1:35 pm

  72. We’re at 4% unemployment, there’s a labor shortage. The argument about immigrants “taking jobs from Americans” would be stronger if there were more job seekers than jobs available.

    The argument wouldn’t be made if there weren’t long-term unemployed who are generally not included in those statistics. Over 20% of white men in their 30s and 40s are not in the labor force.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 1:44 pm

  73. Colorado man assaults reporter yelling this is trump’s country now! (AP) It begins.

    asset (a52576) — 12/28/2024 @ 1:46 pm

  74. Kevin, that’s an 8-year old article. The labor force participation rate was 62.5% in November 2024, virtually the same as the 62.7% rate in November 2016, despite all the boomers that retired over this 8-year period.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 2:01 pm

  75. Hamas is still up to its old tricks, committing war crimes by embedding in a civilian hospital.

    “The IDF, in coordination with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), arrested over 240 terrorists in a targeted operation against Hamas terror infrastructure embedded within the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, the military announced on Friday.”

    The hospital director appears to be a Hamas colonel.
    We don’t see as much as coverage of this as we used to, perhaps because Hamas clearly got busted for their war criming, and they’re pretty much routed. Unfortunately, they’re not routed enough to surrender.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 2:12 pm

  76. Colorado man assaults reporter yelling this is trump’s country now! (AP) It begins.

    asset (a52576) — 12/28/2024 @ 1:46 pm

    I somewhat dread the answer, but just have to ask. What begins?

    norcal (a72384) — 12/28/2024 @ 2:13 pm

  77. BTW, unless he pulls a TikTok flip-flop, Trump likes those H-1B’s.

    LOL! Trump apparently has no clue-his properties use the H-2B non-immigrant visa program:

    Mar-a-Lago made the following requests (in 2023) for foreign workers: 53 waiters and waitresses, seven hotel desk clerks, 17 housekeeping cleaners, five first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers, 24 cooks and five bartenders, according to the Department of Labor.
    ……. …
    These workers were requested on H-2B visas, which apply to workers in nonagricultural positions. According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), employers petitioning for H-2B classification must prove that there are not enough U.S. workers who are “able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work.”

    It’s hard to believe there is a shortage of waiters, maids, desk clerks or housekeepers.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 2:14 pm

  78. Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 2:14 pm

    Source for blockquote.

    Again, it makes no difference if the immigrants hold a non-immigrant work visa or are illegal. They are still taking jobs away from Americans.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 2:47 pm

  79. Just a quick comment. Dr. Michael Kennedy was a long time commenter here for many years (I knew him electronically via the Cathy Seipp connection, along with the late Bradley Fikes).

    Dr. K was super curmudgeonly, often argumentative, and finally got banned. I heard from him every couple of weeks, mostly about how I should get a dog. He was a complicated fellow.

    I learned from his son that he passed away in late October.

    If you are so inclined, spare a few kind thoughts for the man. Of course he could be hard to get along with, but he had his demons like anyone else. He was always kind to me.

    Best wishes to all.

    Simon Jester (c8876d) — 12/28/2024 @ 3:09 pm

  80. Any link between holding a temporary worker visa and a path to a green card should be broken. Temporary workers should just be that-once the visa expires the worker returns to their home country. …….

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:58 am

    By allowing H-1B visa holders to fast track to permanent residency, we are accelerating the “brain drain” and poverty of their home countries by allowing their most talented to remain here.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/28/2024 @ 5:02 pm

  81. Kevin, that’s an 8-year old article.

    Describing a trend that had been monotonically in the same direction over 40 years. The trend has not changed, either and the fact that it has not changed can be seen in Trump’s continued appeal to the white working class.

    Over and over, upper-middle-class people quote the officially promulgated statistics that fly in the face of the experience of the less-insulated. Inflation, they say, wasn’t all that bad, and I’m supposed to forget that eggs are now $5/dozen and lots of other staple foods have doubled in price. But then the people quoting those stats never look at the prices they pay.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 5:09 pm

  82. It’s hard to believe there is a shortage of waiters, maids, desk clerks or housekeepers.

    Again, there is a shortage of those who are willing to work for assh0les.

    “So, you don’t like the way you are treated? I guess you want to go back to Bangladesh.”

    It’s just a legal way to exploit people who have no real recourse, and less trouble all around than hiring illegals.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 5:12 pm

  83. By allowing H-1B visa holders to fast track to permanent residency

    Well, that may not be their objective. They came here looking to go home in 2 years with $50,000 — enough to buy a house in Bangalore, rather than leave home forever.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 5:16 pm

  84. They last thing they wanted was for a popular perception that the virus was manufactured and that its spread was intentional. That would have led to war.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/27/2024 @ 2:13 pm

    So the truth must be hidden?

    China blocked domestic flights, but allowed international once from Wuhan as the virus exploded. That is an act of war.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/28/2024 @ 5:50 pm

  85. Just a quick comment. Dr. Michael Kennedy was a long time commenter here for many years (I knew him electronically via the Cathy Seipp connection, along with the late Bradley Fikes).

    Dr. K was super curmudgeonly, often argumentative, and finally got banned. I heard from him every couple of weeks, mostly about how I should get a dog. He was a complicated fellow.

    I learned from his son that he passed away in late October.

    If you are so inclined, spare a few kind thoughts for the man. Of course he could be hard to get along with, but he had his demons like anyone else. He was always kind to me.

    Best wishes to all.

    Simon Jester (c8876d) — 12/28/2024 @ 3:09 pm

    Very sorry to hear that, Simon.

    In my experience, while plenty of people actually resemble who they are online, plenty do not. Internet discussion can be frustrating – indeed as we see here, there are people who try as hard as they can to keep it frustrating, lest a real conversation happen.

    Dustin (ffed87) — 12/28/2024 @ 6:05 pm

  86. That is an act of war.

    Only if we care enough to actually go to war. As it stands the Chinese are being excluded from new technology, and increasingly from trade with the West, so that if and when a war happens, they will be at a disadvantage.

    Of course, they may view that as necessitating said war. We did the same things to Imperial Japan, and that led to Pearl Harbor.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 6:06 pm

  87. Internet discussion can be frustrating

    Something I always try to remember, but frequently fail, is that this is a HUGELY limited form of discussion. There are no facial expressions, no body language, no tones of voice that would imbue the typed words with more character. So, when Paul says something and I interpret it differently than he intended, of vice-versa, it’s quite possible to fall down a rabbit hole that would not happen face-to-face.

    The classic form

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 6:10 pm

  88. China blocked domestic flights, but allowed international once from Wuhan as the virus exploded.

    Rob, do you have a credible link for that?

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 6:27 pm

  89. Will an Elon-influenced TikTok-favoring Trump administration take a harder line on the ChiComs hacking American telecom firms? I really don’t know.

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A ninth U.S. telecoms firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said Friday.

    Biden administration officials said this month that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon.

    What we do know is that nine Chinese hacks happened under a senile Biden administration without making Xi pay any serious price.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/28/2024 @ 6:48 pm

  90. Just a quick comment. Dr. Michael Kennedy was a long time commenter here for many years (I knew him electronically via the Cathy Seipp connection, along with the late Bradley Fikes).

    Simon Jester (c8876d) — 12/28/2024 @ 3:09 pm

    I remember him well. He always commented as Mike K. I really enjoyed reading his comments. He was a surgeon who loved history. He split his time between Tucson and Orange County. He was one of those unfortunate people who got snookered by the Trump Show. I would check his blog (abriefhistory.org) periodically, and I noticed that he hadn’t posted anything since August 2023.

    Mike taught me something that I remember to this day. The two groups of people who get the worst medical care are the very poor, and the very rich. The poor group is self-explanatory. The rich get poor care because they don’t take the doctor’s advice (Steve Jobs) or they can pay doctors to get anything they want (Michael Jackson).

    Thank you for letting me know this, Simon.

    RIP Dr. Kennedy.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/28/2024 @ 9:17 pm

  91. Msnbc reports health insurance co. deliberately denying cancer treatment to patients killing them for increased profits. (DU) Ceo had family so did the people denied cancer treatment. One is called murder other is called capitalism in action.

    asset (a50da2) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:43 pm

  92. @75 Netanyahu up to his old tricks too! Palestinian babies living in the open and unheated tents dying of hypothermia and now being forced out of hospital. (CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, others) Similar to what happened in the warsaw ghetto before surviving children were sent to Auschwitz. Those of us who support the destruction and elimination of hamas do not support what is being done to babies and children.

    asset (a50da2) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:55 pm

  93. @76 assault on free press and others who question the dear leader by his maggot storm troopers.

    asset (a50da2) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:58 pm

  94. @79 It surprises me every morning that I still wake up. Probably others here too!

    asset (a50da2) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:01 am

  95. The nice thing about iPhones is the weather app, which shows lows in the upper 40s to low 50s, and highs in the 60s in the Gaza strip, so I call bullsh-t to this babies “dying of hypothermia” line in a climate that’s the same as Laguna Niguel.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 7:30 am

  96. Why Can’t the Weather Apps on Our Phones Get It Right?

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 8:34 am

  97. Sunday is a good day to celebrate an enormous American success in foreign policy, PEPFAR.

    Launched by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2003, as of May 2020, PEPFAR has provided cumulative funding for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and research since its inception, making it the largest global health program focused on a single disease in history until the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] PEPFAR is implemented by a combination of U.S. government agencies in over 50 countries and overseen by the Global AIDS Coordinator at the United States Department of State.[3] As of 2023, PEPFAR has saved over 25 million lives,[4][5] primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.

    25 million lives!

    I say American, because research by American companies made this possible, American diplomats were able to set up these programs in poor nations, with weak and sometimes corrupt governments, and American taxpayers paid most of the bill.

    The life expectancy chart shows the gains so far — and how much is left to be done.

    Somewhat surprisingly, the progress has continued, in spite of three incompetent presidents in a row: Obama,Trump, and Biden.

    (Why Sunday? Because, in my opinion, George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice were motivated, in large part, by their Christian faith.)

    Jim Miller (b90d2b) — 12/29/2024 @ 9:10 am

  98. China blocked domestic flights, but allowed international once from Wuhan as the virus exploded.

    Anecdotally, there is some truth to this. China was limiting domestic travel, but allowed numerous Chinese, including some from Wuhan, to travel to CES (Las Vegas) in January 2020. There is other anecdotal evidence that CES was a transmission site.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 9:55 am

  99. Msnbc reports health insurance co. deliberately denying cancer treatment to patients killing them for increased profits.

    Interesting that you never provide links.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 9:56 am

  100. a climate that’s the same as Laguna Niguel

    A climate that homeless people flock to, although perhaps not to Laguna Niguel. Maybe Oceanside.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 9:58 am

  101. China was limiting domestic travel…

    “Limiting”, yes.
    “Blocked”, no.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 10:09 am

  102. But everyone who was going to CES, went. As I said, anecdotally: My sister and her husband attended CES and came down with “a real bad cold” right after. There were also early pockets of Covid in Seattle, Silicon Valley and New York, all of which had many CES attendees.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 10:23 am

  103. Kevin, the issue that Rob raised was his wrong claim that China blocked domestic flights, which led to his wrong claim of an “act of war” by Xi.

    Trump’s so-called “travel ban” of flights from China had holes in it a mile wide.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 10:48 am

  104. Paul loves taking the word of communist China and then passive aggressively stating someone is wrong.

    We know at the time China lied repeatedly. Now we know our own heads did the same

    NJRob (115d1c) — 12/29/2024 @ 11:13 am

  105. Kevin, the issue that Rob raised was his wrong claim that China blocked domestic flights

    It would depend on what “limited” meant. If they were just stopping all internal travel from Wuhan, but allowing international travel from Wuhan, Rob would be essentially right. It is really hard to know because the Chinese were lying about everything related to Covid.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 11:31 am

  106. It’s pretty clear that China’s internal controls were much different than what they were letting on to outsiders. Along with most of their knowledge — they had isolated the virus months before they told WHO, and they were still claiming it was no big deal well into 2020.

    Now, Hanlon’s Razor is probably the most valid tool here. Bureaucratic inertia, incompetence, denial and blame-shifting had more to do with China’s response than any malicious intent. I suspect that there were some who didn’t want China to take the economic hit alone, but that was not the motive force.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 11:37 am

  107. Biden regrets dropping out, thinks HE would have beat Trump. Never mind that Harris lost because she could not distance herself from Joe’s terrible leadership, or promise any better.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 11:57 am

  108. Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 11:37 am

    Now, Hanlon’s Razor is probably the most valid tool here. Bureaucratic inertia, incompetence, denial and blame-shifting had more to do with China’s response than any malicious intent. I suspect that there were some who didn’t want China to take the economic hit alone, but that was not the motive force.

    There was a purposeful attempt to conceal the existence of the virus (which is policy for all infectious diseases in China) – and it worked for the first lab leak, sometime before August 12, 2019, but not for the second leak of a more serious version of the virus on or about December 2, 2019.

    There was later concealment of its spread until a trade deal could be negotiated with Donald Trump, and openness from about mid-January through February 12 – then lying began again.

    I read that the person who obtained a patent on a vaccine (suspiciously early) later died from a fall from a window but this was just a mention somewhere and I don’t know if this is true,

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:36 pm

  109. I don’t know how people assumed that the re-election of Mike Johnson as Speaker was taken for granted.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:37 pm

  110. What didn’t happen in 2021 may happen in 2025, The certification prevented. (because no Speaker)

    We could see this lasting through noon of January 20, and Senator Chuck Grassley, age 91, (or maybe JD Vance?) sworn in as Acting President.

    Or the House operating anyhow without a Speaker.’

    Or Hakeem Jeffries elected Speaker.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:43 pm

  111. Donald Trump’s use of immigration to get himsekf elected coming home to roost.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:44 pm

  112. The WSJ ran an article Sat/Sun about how the dangers to civil aviation now come from missiles,

    One day later aa plane crashed in South Korea,

    Three things went wrong: The landing gear did not deploy, it didn’t slow down, and it turned abd crashed into a wall. The last was the thing that killed all but two people aboard the plane. (in the back They were two employees who evidently knew what place on the plane was safest)

    There must have ben a loss of control, which also could mean that the black boxes stopped working. Electrical system (or hydraulic system>) probably out.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:51 pm

  113. New disease probably going around, Could be a version of bird flu. A vaccine exists and production has been ordered but the Biden Administration is not urging the FDA to approve it,

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:53 pm

  114. Paul loves taking the word of communist China and then passive aggressively stating someone is wrong.

    One, you’re lying that I’m “taking the word of communist China”.

    Two, I asked you yesterday to back up your claim that “China blocked domestic flights, but allowed international once from Wuhan as the virus exploded” and, so far, nada, silence, nothing. Just kvetching.

    Man up, Rob, support your claim.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:55 pm

  115. https://x.com/tomselliott/status/1872672931396178238?

    Nailed it. And how many bought into and repeated these lies.

    NJRob (115d1c) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:58 pm

  116. Jimmy Carter, RIP.
    Mediocre president at best, but a decent ex-president.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 1:05 pm

  117. RIP James Earl Carter, Jr. , a decent person who became President.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 1:08 pm

  118. Donald Trump’s use of immigration to get himsekf elected coming home to roost.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/29/2024 @ 12:44 pm

    How so? He has resolved the contretemps over the H-1B visa issue by supporting them; it is unlikely that he will go back on his support for mass deportations. The only question that remains is whether neighborhood sweeps will be conducted

    Rip Murdock (041a11) — 12/29/2024 @ 1:31 pm

  119. Trump Allies Fear Watered Down Deportation Efforts
    ……….
    In the weeks since the election, and even in some rally speeches toward the end of the campaign, Trump and his incoming advisers have alluded to a mass removal effort of immigrants with a criminal record, a far narrower set of people than the 15 million to 20 million Trump pledged to deport earlier in the year. Tom Homan, the president-elect’s incoming border czar, has said Trump’s team isn’t planning to perform mass raids in immigrant enclaves—the worst fear of immigrants-rights activists.
    ………….
    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.
    …………
    ………… Backers of hard-line immigration policies view an exemption for Dreamers (as alluded to by Trump in his recent NBC interview), who often have bipartisan support, as a slippery slope.
    …………..
    One frustrated Trump ally said: “When you keep excluding people from mass detention and deportation and saying ‘we’ll get the worst of the worst first’—well, guess what, that also happens to be Biden’s immigration policy.”
    …………..
    …………..(M)ost of the migrants who entered the country under the Biden administration are currently awaiting court hearings and can’t be deported in the meantime. ……..
    …………
    “The problem with that strategy (of announcing that criminal aliens will be targeted for removal) is that you tell the cartels, the smuggling operations, the global trafficking networks, that as long as you get into the country and you don’t violate other independent criminal laws, you’re not going to ever get removed,” (Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform) said.
    ########

    I don’t think the new Administration should back down on their plans for deportations. Trump won; he doesn’t need to lower his goals to gain political support. He needs to strike while the iron is hot. If that requires legislation to clarify to use of military forces to assist, it should be done now; at the zenith of his political capital before it gets sucked into other fights.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 2:00 pm

  120. https://www.thecollegefix.com/there-were-21-campus-hate-crime-hoaxes-uncovered-in-2024/

    The demand for claiming Americans are racist bigots far exceeds the supply.

    NJRob (115d1c) — 12/29/2024 @ 2:01 pm

  121. By allowing H-1B visa holders to fast track to permanent residency

    Well, that may not be their objective. They came here looking to go home in 2 years with $50,000 — enough to buy a house in Bangalore, rather than leave home forever.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/28/2024 @ 5:16 pm

    Not according to lloyd:

    H-1B visas offer a path to green card status after the six years is up. I’ve worked with many visa holders and I can’t recall one who did not seek to stay and get a green card. They have a visa because that’s the best path for them.

    lloyd (27e139) — 12/28/2024 @ 11:40 am

    If I had an opportunity to work in America, and after experiencing everything it had to offer, why would I go back to Bangalore? Note that H-1Bs can bring their spouse and children with them with the H-4 visa.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 2:17 pm

  122. https://x.com/alexdatig/status/1873103870047727861?

    Cannot be any clearer that leftist governments do not care about her citizens and support those who prey upon them.

    NJRob (115d1c) — 12/29/2024 @ 2:31 pm

  123. Former Trump adviser: If Denmark can’t defend Greenland, let US buy it to ‘become part of Alaska’
    ………..
    “It’s strategically very important to the Arctic, which is going to be the critical battleground of the future because, as the climate gets warmer, the Arctic is going to be a pathway that maybe even cuts down on the usage of the Panama Canal,” (former Trump National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”)

    “The Russians and Chinese are all over the Arctic,” O’Brien said. “The Kingdom of Denmark owns Greenland, and they have got an obligation to defend Greenland. And so President Trump said, ‘If you don’t defend Greenland, we will buy it and we will defend it. But we’re not going to defend it for free and let you — and not develop Greenland and not extract the minerals and oil and resources of Greenland.’”
    ……………
    Alternatively, O’Brien said, if Denmark does not want to pay the U.S. for Greenland’s defense, the U.S. can take the territory off its hands.

    “They can let us buy Greenland from [Denmark], and Greenland can become part of Alaska. I mean, the native people in Greenland are very closely related to the people of Alaska, and we will make it a part of Alaska,” O’Brien said.
    …………..

    In reality, the easiest option would be to send the Navy and Marines and seize Greenland (and the Panama Canal) and dare Denmark and Panama to defend themselves. Once we possess the territories it would make negotiations smoother.

    😏

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 2:48 pm

  124. In reality, the easiest option would be to send the Navy and Marines and seize Greenland (and the Panama Canal) and dare Denmark and Panama to defend themselves. Once we possess the territories it would make negotiations smoother.

    😏

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 2:48 pm

    If Trump did something like that I would protest in the streets.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/29/2024 @ 3:40 pm

  125. Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 2:48 pm

    That was probably the stupidest comment I’ve heard yet from a Trumpist about Greenland, given that Greenland is a NATO member, protected by Article 5 of the treaty.

    Equally stupid is that they could somehow become part of Alaska, which is 2,500 miles and seven time zones away.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 3:53 pm

  126. If Trump did something like that I would protest in the streets.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/29/2024 @ 3:40 pm

    If Trump actually occupied Greenland or the Panama Canal the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t care.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:28 pm

  127. I have nothing good to say about Jimmy Carter.

    As President, his management of the economy was beyond terrible and his foreign policy delivered the people of Iran unto a religious dictatorship.

    As post-President he was a tiresome nag. He was also single-handedly responsible for North Korea getting nuclear weapons — after they got caught cheating and Bill Clinton was preparing to use military force, he interceded and came back with a promise they’d not cheat anymore. Spoiler: they lied.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:48 pm

  128. Jimmy Carter, RIP.
    Mediocre president at best, but a decent ex-president.
    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 1:05 pm

    RIP James Earl Carter, Jr. , a decent person who became President.
    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 1:08 pm

    Neither of these are true. He won his first primary in GA by race-baiting his anti-segregationist opponent, linking him to MLK Jr and implying he was a communist.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:50 pm

  129. Sorry, Paul, you are right about the mediocrity.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:51 pm

  130. Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 10:09 am

    Do you consider Xinhua to be a credible source?

    Xinhua Headlines: In unprecedented move, China locks down megacity to curb virus spread

    JoeH (390085) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:56 pm

  131. Greenland

    Truman wanted to acquire Greenland.

    Seward tried very hard to buy Greenland and Iceland in 1868 (for $5.5 million), but ran out of time. His plan was to surround Canada (having just bought Alaska from the Russians). Britain was not amused.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:56 pm

  132. Here’s the travel advisory issued by the State Department on Feb 19 2020. China did not ban air travel from the country. The Xinhua article I cited above stated that travel from Wuhan, including air travel, was banned on Jan 23. Within about a week, many international airlines began suspending or limiting flights into and out of China. The travel advisory states that “…Most commercial air carriers have reduced or suspended routes to and from China, yet seats remain available to depart the country.”

    Update to Travel Advisory for China (February 19, 2020)

    JoeH (390085) — 12/29/2024 @ 5:15 pm

  133. Contemporaneous article on Carters “private diplomacy” with North Korea

    Administration officials have voiced irritation, and in some cases direct anger with Carter over his role in traveling to North Korea and seemingly misstating the administration’s positions on sanctions. But the White House’s official reaction since the weekend has been that the trip produced an opening that could allow progress on long-running international dispute with North Korea.

    …

    If Kim does, in fact, freeze his program and is not, as some believe, duping Carter while stalling for time to further develop nuclear bombs, officials said a resumption of talks could be productive. A senior official said that while the talks would include North Korea’s failure to comply with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they also would include a broader range of subjects. These could include diplomatic recognition, economic ties, and replacement of North Korea’s nuclear reactors with a type unsuitable for producing bomb material.

    Guess what.

    Every time someone mentions the Logan Act over some tiny infraction, I remember Carter’s intercession on the side of Evil

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 5:28 pm

  134. Carter was naive when it came to evil governments.

    It’s as if he believed in Rousseau’s philosophy about the inherent goodness of man.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/29/2024 @ 6:01 pm

  135. Phil Gramm on Carter’s legacy:

    Jimmy Carter ………doesn’t get enough credit for the quarter-century economic boom from 1983 to 2008 and the underlying resilience of the economy since. Without Mr. Carter’s deregulation of airlines, trucking, railroads, energy and communications, America might not have had the ability to diversify its economy and lead the world in high-tech development when our postwar domination of manufacturing ended in the late 1970s. The Carter deregulation helped fuel the Reagan economic renaissance and continues to make possible the powerful innovations that remake our world.

    The Airlines Deregulation Act of 1978, the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 and the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 unleashed competition and spawned the invention and innovation that gave America the world’s most efficient transportation and distribution system. The cost of flying a mile declined by half and air travel became a mainstay of American life. The logistical cost of moving goods shrank as a share of gross domestic product by 50%. ………

    The Carter administration began oil-price deregulation using its regulatory powers and set in place the gradual deregulation of natural-gas prices with the 1978 Natural Gas Policy Act. And while the deregulation of the communications industry was driven by technological change, court decisions, regulatory action and finally legislation, the Carter regulatory reform through the Federal Communications Commission made competition the driving force in the development of policy.………
    ………….
    The dam broke when Civil Aeronautics Board Chairman Alfred Kahn, an avowed liberal and one of the most consequential economists of the 20th century, concluded that the most perfect regulatory system could never do as good a job as imperfect markets and therefore it was in the public interest to deregulate. Proclaiming the CAB a failure, Kahn demanded that he be fired and his agency eliminated.

    ………… It was Mr. Carter who took on the “Iron Triangle” of established business interests, unions and government and carried the political scars he suffered in defeating them.

    …………. At every turn in trying to expand energy production and stop the inflation, he ran into the entrenched old guard of the Democratic Party, which wanted no part of a new competitive world or any fiscal restraint.
    …………..
    …………..(O)ne act proved decisive: Mr. Carter appointed Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve.
    …………..
    …………..(M)ore than four decades later Mr. Carter’s legacy of deregulation stands as one of the most transformative public policy reforms in our nation’s history, and he gets too little credit for making our country more competitive.
    ##########

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 6:47 pm

  136. Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:50 pm

    Politics ain’t bean bag.

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 6:49 pm

  137. I gave Rob 24 hours to provide a credible link that “China blocked domestic flights, but allowed international once from Wuhan as the virus exploded” and, as I expected, he refused to deliver.

    I assume Rob unquestioningly took a lying asshole like Trump’s word that “you could fly out of Wuhan and you could go to different parts of the world, but you couldn’t go to Beijing, and you couldn’t go to any place in China.”
    But the problem is, Trump’s claim is false.

    Flight records show China did block international commercial flights out of Wuhan after Jan. 23, according to Flightradar24, a global flight tracking service

    Fightradar24 isn’t the “word of communist China”, which is a stupid and wrong smear on Rob’s part, because they’re a global tracking service, based in Sweden, which is a free country with a free economy, not communist nor affiliated with communist China.

    The false claim appears to have originated with Niall Ferguson, a conservative historian, and he’s an intellectual with the intellectual honesty to revise and amend his original remarks.

    On April 21, Ferguson provided an “update” to his April 5 column in which he acknowledged, “Data from sensors tracking actual flight paths would seem to indicate that no flights left from Wuhan itself to other countries in the world after January 23.” Ferguson wrote that he reached out to the U.S. company Flightspin, and that officials there “concluded that it was very unlikely indeed that any flights had gone from Wuhan to Western cities after January 23.”

    Ferguson added that “we now know that by that time (Jan. 23) thousands of infected citizens had already left Wuhan for other parts of China, so a ban on all flights out of China would have been needed to prevent the epidemic becoming a global pandemic.”

    “That is how COVID-19 spread so rapidly to the rest of the world,” Ferguson said. “And it was happening long before January 23, because the Chinese authorities, for whatever reason, waited until that late date to place their cordon sanitaire around Hubei.”

    His amended remarks are true, that China blocked international and domestic flights from Wuhan, but were too late in doing so, and that’s on communist Xi and his communist regime.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 6:53 pm

  138. Paul, I guess you missed 130 & 132. That someone else came up with those links does not mean you win the argument.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 7:02 pm

  139. Kevin, the subject was about the claim that China was not blocking international flights from Wuhan but blocking domestic flights. Debunked.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/29/2024 @ 7:24 pm

  140. Why is whether China blocked flights in 2020 still important?

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/29/2024 @ 7:43 pm

  141. @99 I did put in Msnbc and could be seen on DU. Any more sophisticated links I don’t know how to do.

    asset (343d8f) — 12/29/2024 @ 9:49 pm

  142. @136 True See: Nixon committing treason with south vietnam thru anna chennault to delay peace talks. LBJ taped treason and had sen. dierksen tell tricky dick to knock it off. Reagan election team committed treason with Iran to hold hostage till after 1980 election with bill casey and john connally the go betweens with Iran. That was the start of the Iran/contra drug dealing and treason. The internet has all the gory details. When yasser arafat told carter years later about it as he was in on it carter said it would destroy the republican party if he went public.

    asset (343d8f) — 12/29/2024 @ 10:08 pm

  143. RIP Broadway and television (Alice) star Linda Lavin (87)

    Rip Murdock (86978e) — 12/30/2024 @ 7:10 am

  144. 142: Why are all these lies constantly repeated? There is no basis to them except for some leftist speculation.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 7:30 am

  145. Any more sophisticated links I don’t know how to do.

    Then you need to stay in the shallow end of the pool.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 7:31 am

  146. Kevin Williamson is on a roll…

    Herschel Walker, the failed Senate candidate, says he has been treated for an unusual mental-health problem: multiple personalities. I wonder how many personalities he has. I wonder if any of them knows how many children he has. I wonder if he has a personality that doesn’t give every impression of being functionally illiterate.

    But, then, I’m no diplomat. Walker, however, apparently is.

    Yes, a wife-abusing dolt and famous football player who at one point played for Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals in the United States Football League—another of the many business ventures Trump’s incompetence has helped to wreck over the years—will be nominated by the president-elect to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas.

    The Bahamas may not sound like a very high-stakes posting, but it is potentially more sensitive than you might think: Among other things, the greater Caribbean region (with which the Bahamas is generally lumped in, though it is not quite in the Caribbean Sea) presents some security challenges, being used from time to time as an entrepôt for persons (and powdery white commodities) unable to legally enter the United States. A diplomatic source once told me (NB: my information here is a bit old) that a dozen or so Middle Easterners on the “known bad-guy list” had been observed passing through the airport at another Caribbean destination before disappearing—a subsequent check of customs-and-immigration records showed no evidence of the jihadists coming or going. Maybe they were just there for the sun.

    I will say this for Walker: He is not the least qualified diplomat Trump would offer the world.

    Callista Gingrich is to be the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland. In her defense, this is a slightly less inappropriate role for Newt Gingrich’s third wife than was her prior Trump posting as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Prior to hooking up with Newt, Mrs. Gingrich’s career in public administration topped out at serving as a clerk on the House Committee on Agriculture almost two decades ago. She had the good sense to get into bed with an up-and-coming political figure and the bad taste to do so while he was still married to his second wife, who was just then inconveniencing Newt by having multiple sclerosis, and who had married Gingrich a full six months after he divorced the wife before her, who had been his high school math teacher. In 2012, when Newt was running for president, I asked one of his business associates for an opinion on his campaign, and the answer has stayed with me: “I think we’re all going to jail.” Maybe it’s not as bad as all that, but who needs the drama? Not the ever-discreet Swiss.

    Williamson names nine others in this “all the best” pantheon, including Trump’s son’s ex-girlfriend.
    Speaking of ambassadors, I finished Season 2 of The Diplomat a few weeks back, binge-watched it actually. It’s really good. Funny, well-written, fast-paced.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/30/2024 @ 8:38 am

  147. Kevin Williamson is on a roll…

    Yawn…

    whembly (477db6) — 12/30/2024 @ 9:49 am

  148. Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/30/2024 @ 8:38 am

    The only reason, in the age of instant communication between world leaders, for ambassadorships is to reward supporters, no matter now incompetent they are. I doubt the ambassador to the Bahamas has anything to do with curtailing drug (or human) smuggling in the Caribbean, that’s a job for the Navy and Coast Guard.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/30/2024 @ 9:58 am

  149. https://rosselliotbarkan.com/p/twilight-of-the-liberal-left-236

    …
    These are dark times for the liberal-left—for its media organs, politicians, writers, and thought leaders.

    Good.

    Eight years ago, Trump could be dismissed as an aberration. The anti-fascist industry boomed. It was easy, since Trump did not win the popular vote, to call him illegitimate. Autocrats do not stay in power by winning free and fair elections, and the Electoral College is plainly an antiquated mechanism for picking leaders. There was great bile and rage over an election being, in the view of some, stolen—stolen by institutions that allegedly enabled a racist, rural right-wing—and it helped that a foreign power was possible involved. An inverse Cold War dynamic bloomed, with liberals emerging as neo-Cold Warriors against a Russian incursion and Trump Republicans defending the Vladimir Putin regime. There were marches, so many marches, and endless calls to action that radiated with self-satisfaction. This was the era of hyperpolitics, of performing woe as publicly as possible and aligning yourself, as desperately as you could, with the de rigueur causes. There was a season for everything: MeToo, Defund, saving the immigrants. New celebrities were minted overnight. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might have been a democratic socialist, but she was a triumph, stylistically, of the liberal-left, and she made it clear it was identity that would be centered first and always. When Bernie Sanders, her quondam idol, appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast during his second presidential campaign, Ocasio-Cortez threatened to revoke her endorsement. The progressive left cheered. How dare Bernie sully himself and yak with the racists. There was a future to be won!

    Why didn’t they listen? This is the anguished cry of the liberal media critic who was sure the New York Times, despite its anti-Trump alignment, had perniciously normalized Orange Man.

    I’m here for their anguish and I forevermore wish they wallow in that abyss.

    This is the cry, too, of the Times opinion page, of elite academia, of the Atlantic set, of the staffers at the Washington Post who longed for a Kamala Harris endorsement, and the many ponderous New Yorker writers with their grayish, interchangeable prose.

    Because they cannot even see beyond their elitist bubble.

    This is the cry of a Democratic National Committee so sure, after the 2022 midterms, there was nothing more to do than call Trump a fascist ten thousand additional times—if only then, those dolts in Bucks County would listen….
    Trump is a showman, but he does not do showbusiness. He is raw, crude, hilarious, and disgusting, utterly unchanged by his settings. The lesson of Trump is not necessarily to be Trump. The lesson, simply, is to be as you are, and if you’ve got a raw charisma, flaunt it. Or, like Bernie Sanders, find a set of principles and keep them. Sanders, on the stump, was unequivocally himself.
    …
    Consider that run: Clinton, Biden, Harris. Three politicians who were inextricably bound to predecessor regimes. Three politicians who were not terribly talented. None had triumphed in swing states. None had won, with any consistency, competitive statewide elections. None, most importantly, resembled Obama, who had no great dynasty or institution behind him, no legacy to be shackled by. Obama, like some cautionary Greek myth, could not the learn lessons that his own career should have taught him. A meteor burns bright, and Obama was blinded by his own light. Only he knows why he foisted Clinton on America. Now, like the rest of us, he will be forced to drink in another Trump term. The fading reality TV star he once mocked at that Washington dinner will be, barring a health crisis, a two term American president.

    Quite possibly the greatest ironic political twist in history…

    …
    The liberal-left resistance, meanwhile, will have to stagger into a future they failed, over and over again, to head off….The smug never inherit the Earth.
    …

    Great piece, read the whole thing.

    whembly (477db6) — 12/30/2024 @ 9:58 am

  150. Sad!

    A federal appeals court has upheld a jury’s $5 million civil verdict against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation claims brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll.

    A three-judge panel ruled unanimously Monday that the trial judge did not violate Trump’s rights when he allowed Carroll to present evidence suggesting Trump had committed other sexual assaults. That evidence included Trump’s comments on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape as well as testimony from other two other women who accused Trump of sexual assault.

    “[T]he jury could reasonably infer … that Mr. Trump engaged in similar conduct with other women — a pattern of abrupt, nonconsensual, and physical advances on women he barely knew,” the panel wrote in a 77-page opinion. ……..
    ……….
    “We conclude that the Access Hollywood tape described conduct that was sufficiently similar in material respects to the conduct alleged by Ms. Carroll (and Ms. Leeds and Ms. Stoynoff) to show the existence of a pattern,” the judges ruled, referring to Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, the two other women who were allowed to testify that Trump assaulted them.
    ########

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/30/2024 @ 10:10 am

  151. Let me know how much research Williamson has done into the Biden crime family

    Thanks in advance.

    NJRob (aa789e) — 12/30/2024 @ 10:38 am

  152. #149

    Remember, whatever we get in the next four years, you voted for it, and deserve to get it good and hard. Because most of y’all just so WANT this. Though you tell us you don’t — well, not quite like this. But it does make you giddy, doesn’t it?

    So enjoy your billionaire overlords as they have sport with you. And don’t mind too much when the assets of the world storm your castle. If you want the Gilded Age, prepare for your Haymarket Riots.

    Appalled (f9f0a7) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:20 am

  153. @152

    Remember, whatever we get in the next four years, you voted for it, and deserve to get it good and hard. Because most of y’all just so WANT this. Though you tell us you don’t — well, not quite like this. But it does make you giddy, doesn’t it?

    Over a Harris/Walz administration?

    Hell yeah I’m giddy about it.

    Sure, there will be rough spots here and there… but those issues would be FAR MORE PREFERABLE than whatever insanities that would’ve been advanced by the Harris administration.

    So enjoy your billionaire overlords as they have sport with you. And don’t mind too much when the assets of the world storm your castle. If you want the Gilded Age, prepare for your Haymarket Riots.

    Appalled (f9f0a7) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:20 am

    lol.

    whembly (477db6) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:25 am

  154. Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky “souls” but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL!

    I don’t disagree. I’m just sorry that their date with the Devil has been unreasonably delayed.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:30 am

  155. If you want the Gilded Age, prepare for your Haymarket Riots.

    The way the Democrats were headed, we were going to have continuing Haymarket riots. At least now they might stop for a while.

    If you want to see an answer to homelessness, support deportation. It’s amazing that folks cannot connect the dots between unfettered immigration of destitute people and the rise of the unhoused.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:34 am

  156. Let me know how much research Williamson has done into the Biden crime family

    Maybe you can start by showing evidence of a crime, because all you’ve got to-date is Comer’s years-long dry hump that made zero criminal referrals.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:46 am

  157. For those concerned about drenched Gazan babies getting hypothermia, check your sources, and then unfollow Quds News Network.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/30/2024 @ 12:04 pm

  158. National Review on Jimmy Carter:

    Jimmy Carter Was a Terrible President — and an Even Worse Former President

    [I]nstead of stepping away, he spent the rest of his life simply pretending that he was still president and pursuing foreign policy goals even when it meant undermining the actual president.
    The two most egregious examples of this came in his efforts to stop the first Iraq War and his freelance nuclear diplomacy with North Korea….

    Concerned by the looming threat of war after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, Carter pulled out all the stops — and then some — to try to thwart the president, George H. W. Bush. Carter’s efforts started off within the realm of acceptable opposition for a former president. He wrote op-eds, hosted conferences, gave speeches — all urging peace talks as an alternative to repelling Saddam with the use of military force.

    But when that failed, he took things to an extraordinary level. Carter wrote a letter to the leaders of every country on the U.N. Security Council, as well as a dozen other world leaders, Brinkley recounted, making “a direct appeal to hold ‘good faith’ negotiations with Saddam Hussein before entering upon a war. Carter implied that mature nations should not act like lemmings, blindly following George Bush’s inflammatory ‘line in the sand rhetoric.’”
    As if this weren’t enough, on January 10, 1991 — just five days before a deadline that had been set for Saddam to withdraw — Carter wrote to key Arab leaders urging them to abandon their support for the U.S., undermining months of careful diplomacy by the Bush administration. “You may have to forego approval from the White House, but you will find the French, Soviets and others fully supportive,” Carter advised them.

    It is one thing for a former president to express opposition to a policy of the sitting president, but by actively working to get foreign leaders to withdraw support for the U.S. days before troops were to be in the cross fire, Carter was taking actions that were closer to treason than they were to legitimate peace activism.

    The Logan Act makes this criminal, but his supporters ignore that while trotting out the Act for all kinds of mundane things.

    Carter’s meddling was not limited to the first Iraq War or to Republican administrations. In 1994, there was a standoff between the U.S., its allies, and North Korea over the communist country’s nuclear program. The U.S. was floating the idea of sanctions at the United Nations. Over the years, Carter had received multiple invitations to visit North Korea from Kim Il-sung and was eager to fly over and defuse the situation with an ultimate goal of convening a North–South peace summit and unifying the peninsula. Begrudgingly, the Clinton administration agreed to let Carter meet with Kim as long as Carter made clear that he was a private citizen and that he was merely gathering information on the North Korean perspective, which he would then report back to the Clinton administration.

    Without telling the Clinton administration, however, Carter flew to North Korea with a CNN film crew and proceeded to negotiate the framework of an agreement. He then informed the Clinton team after the fact, with little warning, that he was about to go on CNN to announce the deal. This infuriated the Clinton administration, and according to Brinkley’s account, one cabinet member called the former president a “treasonous prick.” To make matters worse, Carter then accepted a dinner invitation from Kim, at which point Carter claimed on camera that the U.S. had stopped pursuing sanctions at the U.N., which was untrue. Nevertheless, once Carter went on television to announce all this, Clinton felt completely boxed in, and he was forced to accept the deal and abandon sanction efforts.

    Over time, it became clear that Kim had just used Carter to take the heat off, get economic relief, and buy time while still continuing to enrich uranium in violation of the agreement, which it withdrew from in 2002 after being called out for cheating [again]. Within a few years, North Korea had built a nuclear arsenal. Carter’s effort at freelance diplomacy, in addition to advancing a foreign policy at odds with the administration, squandered a crucial window to stop North Korea from going nuclear.

    Bury him at the crossroads.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 12:34 pm

  159. Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden.

    Untrue, their sentences were commuted to life in prison without parole.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/30/2024 @ 12:39 pm

  160. The Logan Act makes this criminal, but his supporters ignore that while trotting out the Act for all kinds of mundane things.

    Given the fact that the only prosecutions under the Logan Act were in 1803 and 1952, neither of which resulted in convictions, makes anyone being charged almost impossible.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/30/2024 @ 12:45 pm

  161. I think this link is unlocked:

    https://www.wsj.com/opinion/netanyahu-the-inside-story-of-israels-comeback-victory-middle-east-change-dad847d8?st=Q5JiGE&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    There’s also a New York Times article about how Israel planned the destruction of Hezbollah’s military capability:;

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-nasrallah-assassination-intelligence.html

    Right up until he was assassinated, Hassan Nasrallah did not believe that Israel would kill him.

    As he hunkered inside a Hezbollah fortress 40 feet underground on Sept. 27, his aides urged him to go to a safer location. Mr. Nasrallah brushed it off, according to intelligence collected by Israel and shared later with Western allies. In his view, Israel had no interest in a full-scale war.

    What he did not realize was that Israeli spy agencies were tracking his every movement — and had been doing so for years….

    ….It is a story of breakthroughs, as in 2012 when Israel’s Unit 8200 — the country’s equivalent of the National Security Agency — stole a trove of information, including specifics of the leaders’ secret hide-outs and the group’s arsenal of missiles and rockets.

    There were stumbles, as in late 2023 when a Hezbollah technician got suspicious about the batteries in the walkie-talkies.

    And there were scrambles to save their efforts, as in September, when Unit 8200 collected intelligence that Hezbollah operatives were concerned enough about the pagers that they were sending some of them to Iran for inspection.

    And with the walkie talkies, ost of them wee in storage. This year Israel found out that someone in Hezbollah was raising questions about them and they did a bombing raid that killed him. (intelligence wasn’t as good about Hamas and there’s probably a scandal in the works about all aspects of this)

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/30/2024 @ 12:53 pm

  162. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/30/2024 @ 12:39 pm

    Untrue, their sentences were commuted to life in prison without parole.

    People call that pardons. It’s wrong but not untrue – just a misuse of language. lame the constitution.

    the President… shall be Commander in Chief of the shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

    So is that a reprieve? Or does it maybe falls within the meaning of the word pardon (since a reprieve removes all punishment) Or is it a corollary of the pardon power since if a president can free someone he surely can reduce the sentence.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:00 pm

  163. (Carter) won his first primary in GA by race-baiting his anti-segregationist opponent, linking him to MLK Jr and implying he was a communist.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:50 pm

    Evidence? According to this article, his early views on race were much more nuanced, more of the “privately sympathetic yet publicly quiet” variety; he saw what happened to white businessmen who spoke out: their businesses were hit with arson attacks. But when he was elected governor, he explicitly said “The time for racial discrimination is over.”

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:01 pm

  164. Texas school book ban forces school districts to ban the bible. (gaurdian)

    asset (6152ae) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:12 pm

  165. Without telling the Clinton administration, however, Carter flew to North Korea

    I wonder if that is true, or if the claim that he flew to North Korea without teliing President Clinton was just a cover story. I have always thought this likely.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:14 pm

  166. People call that pardons. It’s wrong but not untrue – just a misuse of language.

    So is that a reprieve? Or does it maybe falls within the meaning of the word pardon (since a reprieve removes all punishment) Or is it a corollary of the pardon power since if a president can free someone he surely can reduce the sentence.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:00 pm

    It’s a factual and misleading error to call one thing something when it is another. To say one is pardoned is to say they are forgiven (see Chief Justice Marshall in US v. Wilson (1833), describing a pardon as an “act of grace.”) To commute a sentence or grant a reprieve is not the same thing. Reprieves are not like pardons, the recipient’s offense is not forgiven.

    Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the President power to grant Reprieves and Pardons. Encompassed in this provision is the authority to provide relief from the punishment that would otherwise follow from commission of an Offence[ ] against the United States, i.e., a federal crime. The President’s power in this respect encompasses several related forms of relief, including not only a full, individual pardon and time-limited reprieve but also amnesty for groups of offenders, commutation of a criminal sentence, and remission of fines or penalties.

    Source. Footnotes omitted.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:16 pm

  167. Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/29/2024 @ 4:48 pm

    I have nothing good to say about Jimmy Carter.

    He was a liar.

    His first significant lie: In 1975 and 1976, he convinced the media that he was a serious candidate for president, and he did such avgood job of it, he was eventually elected president. (He had campaigned extensively in Iowa and was better known there than Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson.

    But Curtis Sliwa came up with 3 or 4 things:

    1) The Chrysler bailout.

    2) Legalizing small beer companies

    3) Airline deregulation

    and the camp David accords.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:23 pm

  168. National Review on Jimmy Carter:

    Jimmy Carter Was a Terrible President — and an Even Worse Former President

    [I]nstead of stepping away, he spent the rest of his life simply pretending that he was still president and pursuing foreign policy goals even when it meant undermining the actual president.
    The two most egregious examples of this came in his efforts to stop the first Iraq War and his freelance nuclear diplomacy with North Korea….

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 12:34 pm

    Wow. It’s even worse than I thought. What a tool.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:26 pm

  169. @144 You wish. Are you saying the tape of nixon and anna chenault doesn’t exist? These were the first four on the internet many more. BBC, LBJ library, NYT, Salon and many more following. Ben barnes admits he was on trip with john connolly sent by bill casey to cut a deal with Iran to hold hostages to win 1980 election. Verdict, axios, NYT, Gaurdian, texas standard and wikapedia has many more. You never heard of Iran/countra pardons? This treason was the start of it.

    asset (6152ae) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:30 pm

  170. @149 As it should be! These corporate establishment liberal stooges, their donor masters and their media running dogs have discredited themselves with the democrat party. The left is now ready to assume leadership in the party and fight back!

    asset (6152ae) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:36 pm

  171. The left is now ready to assume leadership in the party and fight back!

    asset (6152ae) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:36 pm

    I’d wager you’ve been thinking that for the past 50 years.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:43 pm

  172. Given the fact that the only prosecutions under the Logan Act were in 1803 and 1952, neither of which resulted in convictions, makes anyone being charged almost impossible.

    Agreed. I am just contrasting Carter’s extreme violations of that act with the mundane things that the assets of the world spout.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 1:43 pm

  173. Evidence?

    Carter’s new strategy in 1970 was designed to attract the pro-segregationist vote.[9] Poll data suggested that the appearance of a pro-segregationist position could be critical to winning the race, even if it was never overtly stated.[9] In order to shore up segregationist support, Carter made overtures to numerous racial organizations,[9] and even personally called the cofounder of the White Citizens Council.[10] Carter’s apparent support for segregation sparked animosity with his opponent Carl Sanders.[11] Sanders claims that when his own campaign had presented the same poll data, he refused to pursue a strategy on it for moral reasons.[11] Furthermore, Carter’s campaign printed numerous pamphlets insinuating Sanders was too “chummy” with blacks

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Georgia_gubernatorial_election#Controversy

    During his second campaign Carter subtly appealed to class antagonisms, running as the representative of the ordinary people. It was a successful campaign strategy in which Carter projected himself as a traditional southern conservative. He associated his chief opponent, former governor Carl Sanders, with Atlanta’s social and economic elite and chastised him for failing, during his governorship, to invite Alabama’s outspoken segregationist governor, George C. Wallace, to address the Georgia General Assembly.

    https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/jimmy-carter/

    (Uncopyable PDF article (see 2nd paragraph)

    Georgia governors were unable to run in consecutive terms, so in 1970 Sanders was ready to run again and finish what he had to leave four years earlier.

    “Then Jimmy Carter jumps in,” Sanders told me. “Carter, believe it or not, ran a segregated race, one that he was connected with George Wallace of Alabama.”

    Coming into the 1970 election, Carter got research showing that Sanders was vulnerable to suggestions that he was too eager to achieve racial equality. According to a story written then by Atlanta Constitution political editor Bill Shipp, Carter’s pollster wrote a memo: “Carter’s present supporters feel more concerned about high taxes, integration coming too fast, changing the present welfare system than do voters in general. These are issues of Nixon’s forgotten man.”

    Shipp noted that before entering the race, Carter scribbled notes on a legal pad concerning ways to attack Sanders: “Atlanta oriented … pretty boy … excluded George Wallace from state … referred to as Julian Bond’s candidate.” Bond was a black civil rights activist turned controversial legislator.

    Shipp noted that Carter himself never alluded to race, “but mysteriously, thousands of leaflets cropped up all over the state in parsonage mailboxes, barber shops and beauty salons linking Sanders socially with Negroes.”

    The real zinger was a photo of Sanders, then part owner of the Atlanta Hawks, a team he helped bring to the city, getting a champagne shampoo from a black player during a celebration.

    “Carter had that reproduced and had that sent all over the state (with the underlying message,) ‘Here’s Carl Sanders making love with the blacks,’” Sanders said. “He hoodwinked enough people to make them believe he would (work to undermine integration).”

    Sanders also noted that he attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral, but that “Jimmy Carter didn’t show up.”

    https://www.ajc.com/news/state–regional-govt–politics/the-political-grudge-carl-sanders-takes-his-grave/pkv07kyoXFdg3rEI9OrlwI/

    (The AJC story is behind a pernicious paywall. Use the Wayback machine)

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 2:01 pm

  174. Untrue, their sentences were commuted to life in prison without parole.

    For Trump, that’s accuracy.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 2:03 pm

  175. @144 You wish.

    If you cannot LINK to solid sources, it’s just rubbish.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 2:05 pm

  176. I’d wager you’ve been thinking that for the past 50 years.

    I have a leftist friend who remembers his VERY Left grandmother saying “I’d hoped to see the revolution in my lifetime, but maybe you will.” He’s about 80 now.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 2:06 pm

  177. Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 2:06 pm

    😁

    norcal (a72384) — 12/30/2024 @ 2:31 pm

  178. I think leaders in both parties have personal agendas. I also think most Americans (including everyone here) want the best for our country and communities, but disagree about how to get there.

    DRJ (9348ff) — 12/30/2024 @ 3:33 pm

  179. I also think most Americans (including everyone here) want the best for our country and communities, but disagree about how to get there.

    DRJ (9348ff) — 12/30/2024 @ 3:33 pm

    Absolutely, DRJ, and hello. It’s good to see you here. I’m sure you’re loving all the college football recently.

    To your point, it’s like a father and mother both wanting the best for their kid, but disagreeing about how to raise the kid.

    norcal (a72384) — 12/30/2024 @ 3:37 pm

  180. Good comparison, norcal.

    I am loving college football. It seems like there is a lot more parity with the transfer portal, and the games are really interesting.

    DRJ (9348ff) — 12/30/2024 @ 5:02 pm

  181. My beloved Huskies are playing in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl tomorrow, 11am PST on CBS. It’s going to be a GRRRRREAT New Years Eve.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/30/2024 @ 8:28 pm

  182. Xi needs to pay for this hack, regardless of Musk, especially after the Salt Typhoon hack, and Trump should flip-flop back to opposing TikTok.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/30/2024 @ 8:37 pm

  183. There are people in the US government who have to pay for these hacks, too. The really annoying thing about the telco hack was that everyone who knew how these things worked said that installing government backdoors into telco systems was a huge mistake.

    The ironic thing is that the US government had the least access to the stored information, as THEY needed warrants to access it. The Chinese did not.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 8:58 pm

  184. It’s time to create the Western Internet, with all access from China and Russia blocked.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/30/2024 @ 9:04 pm

  185. 181, Paul: I am told University Way is not what it was; at least the Huskies still are.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (8aeb23) — 12/30/2024 @ 9:49 pm

  186. @172 nixon/reagan treason and sedition to win 1968/1980 elections is mundane?

    asset (17f33f) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:09 pm

  187. @175 nyt wp bbc guardian are not credible sources? NYT 3/18/2023 Bill casey sends john connolly to cut deal with Iran to keep hostage till after the election Craig ungers den of spies. Intercept 3/24/2023 everyone who confirmed Iran contra treason. There is more axios mar. 18 2023 and business insider mar. 18 2023.

    asset (17f33f) — 12/30/2024 @ 11:22 pm

  188. Asset,

    they are not credible. They have an agenda which is to tar conservatives with lies and destroy their leadership.

    To them, just like yourself, it’s always time for the next revolution. You all do Duranty proud.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/31/2024 @ 5:11 am

  189. Trump should flip-flop back to opposing TikTok.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/30/2024 @ 8:37 pm

    Whether Trump supports TikTok or not is irrelevant; it will be the Supreme Court making the decision. I doubt the Court will accept Trump’s argument to delay the ban so that he negotiate a better deal; they will either allow the ban to go into effect or overturn it on 1A grounds.

    Rip Murdock (e0c8ae) — 12/31/2024 @ 7:21 am

  190. My favorite part of New Year’s celebrations: Dave Barry’s annual year in review:

    How stupid was 2024?

    Let’s start with the art world, which over the centuries has given humanity so many beautiful, timeless masterpieces. This year, the biggest story involving art, by far, was that a cryptocurrency businessman paid $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction for …

    A banana.

    Which he ate.

    He’s not making that up. (I usually pay 23 cents a piece for bananas at Trader Joe’s.)

    Jim Miller (046a9c) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:38 am

  191. #189

    Rip — whether Trump supports TikTok or not is supposed to be irrelevent. Currently, whether it is feels like an open question. Whil the Court will probably not give judicial notice to the brief filed by Trump’s attorney, they may do what he asks, after finding some legal doctrine or other that will do for the occasion. And we will never know whether the decision was made on the basis of principle, or a desire to yield.

    Appalled (1cbc37) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:48 am

  192. @172 nixon/reagan treason and sedition to win 1968/1980 elections is mundane?

    No, those lies are extreme libels. Thanks for the correction. Hint: When only one person, someone with a grudge, asserts that someone they hate did something bad, you should take it for the lie it is.

    I’m more concerned with things like Obama — on tape — telling the Russians that he’d be more flexible after the election, then Russia taking him up on it and seizing Crimea.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:50 am

  193. 181, Paul: I am told University Way is not what it was; at least the Huskies still are.

    It’s become more blighted, thanks in part to the “unhoused” problem.
    Seattle has made a concerted effort get rid of the tents and tent communities, so it’s a little better.
    The Huskies took a hit after that traitor de Boer bailed on us after only two seasons, so this was a rebuilding season.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:50 am

  194. @175 nyt wp bbc guardian are not credible sources?

    If you do not LINK to the %&$king story, they are not sources at all. They are like saying “somebody told me”

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:51 am

  195. The telco hack is actually worse than you might think. Coupled with the previous OPM hack (where China had access to ALL US security clearance applications and investigations), being able to access all the telco’s required recordings of conversations, all texts, cellphone geolocation data and God-knows-what, they would be able to select conversations among people with security clearances and see where they were working.

    Example: if you can select all those people going daily to Los Alamos, and know which ones have Q clearances, you can pretty well figure out everything to know about US nuclear weapons development. People may not speak openly on the phone, but they say enough.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:57 am

  196. Back in the day, US security experts said “backdoors are open to anyone.” Homeland Security said “Not to worry, we know what we’re doing!” The security experts laughed and said, “OMG are you stupid.” The rest is unsurprising.

    Trump should ream Homeland Security and the NSA over this. But he won’t.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 9:01 am

  197. 167.

    His first significant lie: In 1975 and 1976, he convinced the media that he was a serious candidate for president, and he did such a good job of it, he was eventually elected president!

    I made a song, or rather parody type lyrics, about that:

    Somewhere,
    over the rainbow,
    far away..

    There was,
    a Carter backer,
    in the first place,
    they say.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/31/2024 @ 9:35 am

  198. Yes, Williamson is on a roll (title and subhead: Jimmy Carter Was No Saint, His reputation will age like Billy Beer, not Bordeaux).

    I can hear the Carter apologists already: It wasn’t Reagan who got those hostages freed, it was Carter—Reagan merely benefited from suspiciously exquisite timing. Carter didn’t cause that oil crisis—it was the Iran-Iraq War. Inflation had been acting up since the 1960s. A lot of that deregulatory stuff that Reagan gets credit for was Carter’s doing—and it was Carter who appointed Paul Volcker, who ultimately would give Reagan the big win over inflation.

    There is plenty of truth in all that. Presidents do not dictate world events, and they do not have a magical steering wheel attached to the economy—and “the economy” isn’t even a thing, only a figure of speech by which we attempt to simplify something that is incomprehensibly complex. But even so, Carter was no great shakes when it came to what he could do. He tried to manage the energy crisis by giving Americans hectoring little speeches on obeying the speed limit and turning down their thermostats. His administration’s attempt to rescue the hostages, Operation Eagle Claw, was an absolute fiasco, aborted because U.S. forces couldn’t organize a few working helicopters and then crashed one of the few they had in a sandstorm. Volcker wasn’t appointed until 1979, and Carter and his congressional allies did very little—and nothing effective—against inflation on their own.

    But the case against Carter is a lot more than that. He was unsteady and inconstant, a blame-shifter who exemplified the opposite of that “the buck stops here” quality associated with Harry Truman. As an executive, he was incompetent. Carter got up one fine morning and fired most of his Cabinet, leaving even his friends (and all of his enemies) publicly wondering if he’d lost his grip. “Official Washington was stunned, some critics questioned Mr. Carter’s sanity,” as one reporter put it at the time. As a politician, he was ruthless and, at times, cruel, “one of the three meanest men I’ve ever met,” as Hunter S. Thompson described him.

    And he was an admirer of the cruel and the power-hungry and the vicious: He praised and coddled Yasser Arafat, pronounced himself “fond” of the monstrous Fidel Castro, affirmed that he “never doubted Hugo Chávez’s commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen.” These were not simply bad politicians, but tyrants and murderers and torturers—and Carter loved them all. His attitude toward the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, on the other hand, was indistinguishable from the more refined kind of antisemitism. He posed as a saint and then deployed the moral capital he accrued to slander the Jewish state as the moral equivalent of apartheid-era South Africa—it was Carter who did more than anybody else to popularize the use of “apartheid” to describe Israel’s efforts to defend itself against jihadists bent on murdering men, women, and children at every opportunity.

    That was the Jimmy Carter I remembered, and I’m a decade older than Williamson. His two best moves were conservative, hiring Volker and starting the deregulation push, practically out of necessity.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/31/2024 @ 9:38 am

  199. And he did manage the Camp David accords, still going strong 45 years later. Credit where due, but that doesn’t get him off the hook for his incompetence and poor leadership and poor judgment as POTUS.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/31/2024 @ 9:43 am

  200. Whil the Court will probably not give judicial notice to the brief filed by Trump’s attorney, they may do what he asks, after finding some legal doctrine or other that will do for the occasion. And we will never know whether the decision was made on the basis of principle, or a desire to yield.

    Appalled (1cbc37) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:48 am

    We’ll see; hopefully the arguments will be broadcast live. The Roberts Court has a strong pro-free speech jurisprudence, as demonstrated during last year’s term.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:02 am

  201. I can see the Court striking down the TikTok ban on the basis of it being poorly tailored to the problem. 1A isn’t absolute, but any conflict has to be as narrowly-tailored as possible. Trump’s brief suggests that something short of a ban could work, and that may be influential.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:20 am

  202. 2024 had such great promise. *Sigh*

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:24 am

  203. it was Carter who appointed Paul Volcker

    I’m sure he was upset with what he got.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:24 am

  204. Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/31/2024 @ 9:35 am

    Don’t give up your day job.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:26 am

  205. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-moving-ban-oil-gas-leases-20-years-nevada-region-just-weeks-before-trump-inauguration?intcmp=tw_fnc

    Whoever is pushing Biden around is still trying to destroy our nation all the way till Jan 20th.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:42 am

  206. Trump will just rescind that. It’s posturing.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:20 am

  207. it was Carter who appointed Paul Volcker

    I’m sure he was upset with what he got.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:24 am

    I wasn’t. It was tough medicine, but was necessary for long-term economic growth.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:25 am

  208. I can see the Court striking down the TikTok ban on the basis of it being poorly tailored to the problem. 1A isn’t absolute, but any conflict has to be as narrowly-tailored as possible. Trump’s brief suggests that something short of a ban could work, and that may be influential.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 10:20 am

    Trump is whistling in the wind if he thinks he can negotiate a “deal.” That presupposes the Chinese government wouldn’t block a sale, which is the opposite of what the Chinese government has said all along. It’s really no different than the US blocking the sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel in the name of national security.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:32 am

  209. Joe Biden claimed he was the first “national figure” to endorse Jimmy Carter for president when he first ran for president.

    It seems he was close to him later during his term

    https://www.npr.org/2024/12/30/1161050106/jimmy-carter-biden-relationship

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:34 am

  210. Carter got exactly what he wanted when he appointed Volcker (he actually had to create a vacancy by appointing G. William Miller to be Secretary of the Treasury) and it didn’t work. Volcker had to give up and stop raising interest rates. In the meantime, Carter lost the election (although there were other reasons too)

    Inflation later receded because of aa drop in oil pirces,

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:39 am

  211. Inflation later receded because of a drop in oil prices,

    Somehow it’s always “just happened” when it comes to Reagan.

    Inflation moderated, and stayed moderated, for nearly 40 years. That requires a fundamental change, not some event. Oil prices were not the problem that caused inflation — the massive “guns & butter” spending during the Vietnam war era was.

    Volker changed US monetary policy to focus on the money supply and, keeping that within bounds kept inflation within bounds. Only when fiscal policy overrode the Fed, by the government giving money away hand over fist, did things get out of hand.

    The Fed’s response jacking up interest rates in 2022-23 was a Volker-style fallback.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:56 am

  212. Joe Biden claimed he was the first “national figure” to endorse Jimmy Carter for president when he first ran for president.

    Joe Biden was Jimmy Carter’s second term.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:58 am

  213. Pentagon Appeals Court Upholds Plea Deals in Sept. 11 Case

    …………
    Col. Matthew N. McCall, the judge in the case, had ruled that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III acted too late and beyond the scope of his authority when he rescinded the three deals on Aug. 2, two days after a senior Pentagon appointee had signed them.

    Under the pretrial agreements, or PTAs, Mr. Mohammed and two co-defendants agreed to plead guilty to war crimes charges in exchange for life prison sentences rather than face a death-penalty trial. Their case, accusing them of conspiring with the hijackers who killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, has been mired in pretrial proceedings since 2012.
    ………..
    Absent an appeal, plea-taking proceedings at Guantánamo Bay in January would be a first step in a monthslong process that would potentially continue throughout 2025 with the selection of a military jury to hear the case, including victim testimony and any mitigating circumstances, and deliberate a sentence.

    Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, the chief prosecutor for military commissions, did not respond to a question Monday night about whether his team would ask the Justice Department to pursue the case further at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

    The plea deals were reached by Admiral Rugh’s prosecutors in more than two years of negotiations and were then approved by Susan K. Escallier, the official Mr. Austin put in charge of the military commissions.
    ……….
    Mr. Austin recently took over control of plea negotiations in the two other active court cases at Guantánamo Bay. One is a capital case against a Saudi man who is accused of plotting the U.S.S. Cole bombing in 2000. The other is against an Indonesian man facing a maximum of life in prison as the accused mastermind of the Bali bombing in 2002. Neither had reached an agreement.

    The appeals panel found that a defense secretary has the power to prevent a war court overseer from negotiating a plea deal as a general principle, just not retroactively.
    ##########

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/31/2024 @ 12:52 pm

  214. Re the Huskies-Cardinals 1st half.
    Our Husky QB threw three TD passes. Unfortunately, one of them was to Louisville for a pick six.
    Husky special teams couldn’t make tackles, giving Louisville good field position.
    The Husky D couldn’t wrap up and make tackles or pressure the QB.
    We’re lucky to be tied, 21-21.
    Giles Jackson is Husky MVP so far, for catching two long TD passes and making a key block on a TD run by QB Williams.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/31/2024 @ 12:56 pm

  215. The Left can’t get their 2024 regrets in alignment:

    1. Biden regrets he got out of the race, and he regrets that his top prosecutor couldn’t get his opponent in prison. Because he would’ve had much better odds if his opponent was in an orange jump suit.

    2. The leftist media regrets lying about Biden’s fitness, but not because it was a lie. They regret lying only because it hurt the Democrats. If they had told the truth, the Democrats could’ve booted Biden earlier and settled on a better candidate. They thought lying was the better journalistic option at the time, but it just didn’t work out.

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 12/31/2024 @ 12:59 pm

  216. @192 and you complain about trump saying he won in 2020. Connolly’s son admitted his fathers trip to saudi arabia in 1980 and his meeting with bill casey on his return. Intercept lists world leaders who knew of reagan’s treason and sedition. So did the NYT 3/13/ 2023 Like trump says who you going to believe me are your lying eyes like congolissa rice said who could think someone would crash airplane into building at hearing then shown picture of her walking past anti aircraft missle battery ready to shoot down any plane trying to crash building she was in milan italy one month before 9-11.

    asset (ebfec7) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:20 pm

  217. @215 corporate establishment liberal democrats and media not the left. When the left takes over the democrat party you will know the difference. Bernie and squad only supported biden so liberals couldn’t blame the left for their defeat. (they did anyway!) Donors told harris liz cheney ok to run with Bernie Sanders not ok. Transexuals ok 15 dollar minimum wage not ok.

    asset (ebfec7) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:28 pm

  218. Reagan’s message to Iran was this: “If you are still holding hostages when I take the oath, you’ll regret it.”

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:32 pm

  219. @217 When Biden commuted the death sentences of child murders, cop killers and rapists, he was following the hard Left’s long standing tradition of shafting victims of crime.

    The latest example:
    Woke Portland DA will try to free wave of violent criminals from jail after being booted from office

    Portland’s DA is seeking to help a host of violent criminals during his final days in office after voters fired him for being too progressive.

    Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt is petitioning a judge to either reduce or revoke charges for eight people, including some convicted of murder, violent assaults and robbery, according to Oregon Live.

    Under Senate Bill 819, which was passed in 2021, district attorneys and convicts can jointly ask a judge to revisit a conviction or prison sentence.

    Schmidt, 43, is planning to use the legislation to help criminals including Frank F. Swopes Jr., who was convicted of suffocating an elderly woman to death in 1993 and sexually assaulting another pensioner one week later.

    Swopes was found guilty of murder, two counts of first-degree robbery, three counts of first-degree burglary, kidnapping, unauthorized use of a vehicle and eluding police, after killing Jean L. Stevenson, 75, during a robbery at her Portland home.

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:39 pm

  220. I’d list (again) the various debunkings of the Reagan-Iran conspiracy, but — even with copious links — I very much doubt your mind has changed on anything since 1966.

    But here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_October_Surprise_theory#Investigations

    Newsweek magazine also ran an investigation, reporting in November 1991 that most, if not all, of the charges made were groundless. Specifically, Newsweek found little evidence that the United States had transferred arms to Iran prior to Iran Contra, and was able to account for William Casey’s whereabouts when he was allegedly at the Madrid meeting, saying that he was at a conference in London. Newsweek also alleged that the story was being heavily pushed within the LaRouche Movement.

    Steven Emerson and Jesse Furman of The New Republic also looked into the allegations and reported, in November 1991, that “the conspiracy as currently postulated is a total fabrication”. They were unable to verify any of the evidence presented by Sick and supporters, finding them to be inconsistent and contradictory in nature. They also pointed out that nearly every witness of Sick’s had either been indicted or was under investigation by the Department of Justice. Like the Newsweek investigation, they had also debunked the claims of Reagan election campaign officials being in Paris during the timeframe that Sick specified, contradicting Sick’s sources

    Retired CIA analyst and counter-intelligence officer Frank Snepp of The Village Voice reviewed Sick’s allegations, publishing an article in February 1992. Snepp alleged that Sick had only interviewed half of the sources used in his book, and supposedly relied on hearsay from unreliable sources for large amounts of critical material. Snepp also discovered that Sick had sold the rights to his book to Oliver Stone in 1989. After going through evidence presented by Richard Brenneke, Snepp asserted that Brenneke’s credit card receipts showed him to be in Portland, Oregon, during the time he claimed to be in Paris observing the secret meeting

    The House of Representatives’ January 1993 report concluded “there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt by the Reagan presidential campaign—or persons associated with the campaign—to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran”.[47] The task force Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Indiana) also added that the vast majority of the sources and material reviewed by the committee were “wholesale fabricators or were impeached by documentary evidence”. The report also expressed the belief that several witnesses had committed perjury during their sworn statements to the committee, among them Richard Brenneke,[48] who claimed to be a CIA agent

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:41 pm

  221. If all you had to go by was the media’s reaction to Carter’s passing versus Reagan’s, a viewer would think Carter was one of the greatest presidents and Reagan was one of the worst.

    lloyd (75323d) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:43 pm

  222. When the left takes over the democrat party you will know the difference.

    Sure. First up they will change the national anthem to “The Internationale” (in Russian).

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:43 pm

  223. If all you had to go by was the media’s reaction to Carter’s passing versus Reagan’s, a viewer would think Carter was one of the greatest presidents and Reagan was one of the worst.

    Actually, at the time, most of the media was falling all over themselves to praise Reagan. I remember an embarrassing interview with Gorbachev, where the interviewer kept asking how it felt to lose the Cold War.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:44 pm

  224. @223 My recollection is that it was largely “screwed poor people with his economic policies, plus Iran Contra, but yeah he ended the Cold War so there’s that.”

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:49 pm

  225. Well, you must have been watching MSNBC. There were a few people going on about Iran-Contra, but most people didn’t (as in the real world).

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 3:21 pm

  226. Socialism is one of those frauds that only smart people can believe. Mostly because they are sure that their services will be needed to run things, although Stalin generally dispensed with them.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 3:23 pm

  227. The Huskies never gave up, Paul. Tough loss.

    I agree DeBoer did Washington no favors in the way he left, but it hasn’t paid off for Alabama, either (yet).

    DRJ (353bea) — 12/31/2024 @ 3:30 pm

  228. Actually, at the time, most of the media was falling all over themselves to praise Reagan. I remember an embarrassing interview with Gorbachev, where the interviewer kept asking how it felt to lose the Cold War.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 1:44 pm

    True that.

    At the time of his death Reagan was the oldest former President (93).

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 12/31/2024 @ 3:37 pm

  229. @225 “Well, you must have been watching MSNBC”

    Or, reading the newspaper of record:

    His resilience and good humor after he was struck by an assailant’s bullet in 1981 reinforced the public’s affection for him. Gliding gracefully across the national stage with his boy-next-door good looks and his lopsided grin, he managed to escape blame for political disasters for which any other president would have been excoriated. If the federal deficit almost tripled in his presidency, if 241 marines he sent to Beirut were killed in a terrorist bombing, if he seemed to equate Nazi storm troopers with the victims of the Holocaust, he was always able to rekindle public support. He became known early on as the Teflon president.

    As I recall, that was fairly typical of what the networks rolled out for Reagan.

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 12/31/2024 @ 4:13 pm

  230. The Huskies never gave up, Paul. Tough loss.

    I’m glad they made it a game, DRJ, and it was actually a pretty good one in the end.
    I thought Fisch made the right call to go for the two-point conversion, and I saw some promise in our players.

    I’m not sure which is the worse scandal, that Hunter traded in on his dad’s name to “work” for Burisma, or whether Steve Belichick traded in on his dad’s name to be our defensive coach.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/31/2024 @ 5:21 pm

  231. lloyd,

    Sure, but let’s look at that article as a whole.

    paragraph by paragraph.

    1, Reagan, the oldest man to enter the white house, who had a youthful optimism rooted in the past, has died.

    2, Reagan had held out hte promise of a return to greatness in a dark time.

    3, Reagen lived longer than any other president, and in his late years he had alzheimers

    4, When he told the country he had alzheimers, he touched the hearts of Americans

    5, he died with his wife and children by his side

    6, President Bush called him a great American

    7, Bush said other good things about him

    8, when he first came to office, Reagan was a vigorous 69-year old who promised a new morning in America

    9, he projected the optimism of FDR, the faith in small otwn America of Ike, and the vigor of JFK; he restored America’s faith in itself

    10, late in 1986, his administration had a scandal involving a hostage crisis and Iran

    11, contrary to official policy, [description of iran-contra]

    12, this invited comparisons to watergate [and otherwise weakened his administration]

    13, but before that, he was really popular, and he used that popularity and skill to great effect, including setting the stage for a new relationship with the USSR

    14, Reagan lucked out that the USSR was undergoing great change, which then collapsed. his supporters say his policies caused the collapse, his detractors disagree.

    15, he challenged Gorbachev to tear down the war

    16, presidential historian beschloss thinks the cold war ended faster because of Reagan

    17, explanation of tha theory

    18, more explanation of that theory

    19, Reagan climbed back from iran-contra successfully

    20, his time in public life ended when he announced he had alzheimers

    21, his wife became an advocate for stem cell research

    22, something his wife said about alzheimers a month ago

    23, he was great at communicating and making americans feel good about themselves

    24, it was a paradox that the man who campaigned against government is the main who restored popular faith in the presidency and government

    25, [the paragraph you quoted] …

    ——–

    so in the first 25 paragraphs, if the paragraph you quoted was negative, the only other part which seems negative is the description of iran-contra, and most of the first 24 paragraphs are glowing hagiography.

    meanwhile, the opening paragraphs of the same paper’s obit of carter *also* read like glowing hagiography, but para 13 talks about how his presidency was remembered for his failures, para 15 compares the ills of the biden administration with the ills of the carter administration, para 16 talks about trump, para 17 contains the sarcastic “He was a man of the people, or so he wanted to be percieved”, para 19 says “his four-year tenure was a story of distraction, disappointment, and serial drama”, para 20 talks about him undermining his ambitions through stubbornness and insufficient attention to the needs of others.

    so in my view both start off as hagiographies, both turn critical deep in the article after most people have stopped reading, and on balance the paper was more positive about reagan than it was about carter.

    but the first two — hagiographic beginning and critical middle — are what i expect from basically any obituary.

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 12/31/2024 @ 6:03 pm

  232. 142: Asset, spare me the tale of Nixon holding up a peace accord.

    The S Viets needed no urging to delay peace, pending Nixon in the White House. They knew that LBJ was weak, worried about his “Great Society spendathon, his cabinet mushy and undecided, and anxious to cut a deal, any deal, to keep Nixon out of the White House.

    LBJ and HHHH’s desire for a peace accord was so obvious, it could be detected on the moon. It was apparent to the North Viets, who knew they could squeeze LBJ like an over ripe melon, but not Nixon.

    Nixon despite a lapse or two, was a terrific president for the time.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (d68215) — 12/31/2024 @ 6:10 pm

  233. 221: he was the only president to survive a rabbit attack, so there’s that.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (d68215) — 12/31/2024 @ 6:12 pm

  234. My biggest problems with Carter were his behavior after he left office when he inserted himself into foreign affairs. When he lobbied foreign governments to oppose the USA on Kuwait in 1991, or when he pretended to solve the North Korean nuclear crisis in 1994 (resulting in blocking Western action to stop the ongoing nuclear development there) he demonstrated unbelievable arrogance and a refusal to accept that the country had chosen other leaders. Then there is his constant antisemitism, but at least his power to affect Israel was minimal at best.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/31/2024 @ 7:07 pm

  235. @218 yeah right john connolly’s trip to saudi arabia to talk to iranians to hold hostages had nothing to do with his meeting with bill casey at the airport was just saying high there! The rest of Iran/contra drug dealing treason was just a coincidence and reagan saying I didn’t believe I committed treason with Iran ;but they tell me I did!

    asset (33a565) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:21 pm

  236. @220 first they didn’t have all the facts like john connolly’s treason confirmed by ben barnes in 2023 and admitted by connolly’s son who was on the trip and airport meeting with bill casey. second the establishment corporate deep state fears the left and protected the gop until trump.

    asset (33a565) — 12/31/2024 @ 8:31 pm

  237. Bush’s oct.1980 trip to paris and his alibi. Secret service logs needs to be released and his alibi named and place where they were. Madrid july and august meetings between Iran and bill casey’s go betweens and london alibi. Far more evidence of bill casey’s treason has come out since the 1992 congressional investigation including evidence deliberately kept from them. Ben Barnes did not testify and they didn’t know about john connolly’s trip in 1992. The fbi and cia have a long history of lying and destroying evidence like oswald’s note to the dallas office f.b.i. and removed fbi agent name from oswald’s address book.

    asset (33a565) — 12/31/2024 @ 11:52 pm

  238. So, everyone who has looked at these allegations, including left-wing publications like the Village Voice and New Republic, have concluded that it’s all a bunch of crap told by crapweasels. But asset knows the real story because it’s what he wants to believe.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 7:29 am

  239. Ten dead in New Orleans. Suspect dead but not yet identified.

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 1/1/2025 @ 7:31 am

  240. Mass Casualty Terrorist Attack in New Orleans:

    Police said a man in a pickup truck intentionally drove into a large crowd, killing 10 people and injuring more than 30 others in New Orleans on Wednesday, hours after the start of the new year.

    Police shot and killed the driver when he opened fire on officers after crashing the vehicle, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism. Police said two officers were shot and are in stable condition.

    The FBI, whose office in New Orleans has taken over the investigation, said that possible explosive devices were found but didn’t provide details.

    Police said the incident happened at around 3:15 a.m. on Canal and Bourbon streets in the French Quarter, a historic neighborhood known for its architecture and busy bar and club scene.
    …………..
    (New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick at a news conference said) the man drove around barricades. “He was hell bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” she said.
    #########

    Rip Murdock (ed0f1e) — 1/1/2025 @ 7:35 am

  241. There’s only two possibilities:

    1. Musk/Trump fan motivated by hateful MAGA rhetoric

    2. Some random crazy dude

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 1/1/2025 @ 7:46 am

  242. Jimmy Carter and Hamas…

    In 2009, Carter met with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal.

    Here they are, hugging and kissing each other.

    By meeting with Hamas, Carter provided them with a veneer of legitimacy that remains today, despite their openly stated goal to eradicate Jews and Israel.

    I’m not even sure how this is real but this interview perfectly encapsulates Carter’s philosophy.

    When asked if Hamas can be trusted, he says, ‘Yes… They’ve never betrayed any of their commitments to me or publicly.’

    When challenged on their status as a terror organization, he says, ‘Well, they’ve done some bad things.’

    And the cherry on top? ‘There will be no peace without Hamas.’

    I really miss when the media asked questions like this.

    2009 was two years after Hamas’ forcible takeover of the strip.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 7:52 am

  243. Two easy predictions: 1. Mitch McConnell will continue to defeat the Loser in most of their Senate battles. (At least 90 percent.)

    2. Thanks to the Supreme Court, our civil rights laws will continue to be restored. (At least 90 percent.)

    I expect resistance to that continuing restoration will be fiercest at prestigious universities.

    Jim Miller (759471) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:02 am

  244. Jim, the Loser leaves office in 19 days. I don’t think Mitch need be concerned.

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:08 am

  245. There’s only two possibilities

    “Guns and a pickup” suggests he’s not a Bernie Bro.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:10 am

  246. I read it was an EV pickup.

    lloyd (75323d) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:13 am

  247. @245 There a leaks stating that he recently “crossed” the border.

    whembly (003ea2) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:14 am

  248. I read it was an EV pickup.

    Now, that would be a horse of a different color, but still, it’s not a plug-in Prius or a SMART car.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:30 am

  249. One report said that there appeared to be some sort of flag or banner attached to a pole on the hitch.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:31 am

  250. There a leaks stating that he recently “crossed” the border.

    Another report said he used an “assault rifle” and as we know those are illegal in Mexico.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:33 am

  251. Ford F-150 Lightning

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:35 am

  252. The Ford electric vehicle was owned by a 42-year-old man from Houston, Texas, and had crossed the US-Mexico border just two days ago.

    ABC News has reported that officials are looking into whether the driver of the truck who slammed into the New Year’s crowd had any connections to the Islamic State.

    OK, so maybe it’s trending toward “Some random crazy dude.” /s

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 1/1/2025 @ 9:11 am

  253. This one appears to be militant Islamist terrorism…

    The suspect accused of plowing a truck through a crowd on Bourbon Street is named Shamsud Din Jabbar, according to a law enforcement source.

    He’s 42 years old. Police shot and killed him after the attack.

    The source said he was carrying an ISIS flag in the truck.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 9:16 am

  254. If only Trump hadn’t opposed the border bill last year, this guy would’ve been caught.

    lloyd (bb0ead) — 1/1/2025 @ 9:22 am

  255. More…

    🚨BREAKING🚨The man who committed the terror attack in New Orleans last night is named Shamsud Din Jabbar. Born and raised in Texas. Served in the US Army.

    Militant Islamism can’t be ruled out.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 9:24 am

  256. Cross out Eagle Pass…

    🚨UPDATE: FOX: The truck crossed Eagle Pass, TX, on November 16th—not two days ago. The identification of the driver that crossed the border does not appear to be the shooter. The truck changed hands at some point.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 9:39 am

  257. The Deloitte Terrorist…

    The perpetrator of the New Orleans truck attack, Shamsud Din Jabbar, was raised in Texas and was in the U.S. Army Reserve from 2015 to 2020. Additionally, according to Karol Markowicz of the NY Post and Fox News, he had a stolen Glock and a .308 rifle with him.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 9:49 am

  258. As they say, presume everything Trump says is false until proven true.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 10:29 am

  259. Yo:
    https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/new-orleans-mass-casualty-bourbon-street-01-01-25-hnk/index.html
    Clearly a terrorist attack…

    whembly (003ea2) — 1/1/2025 @ 10:35 am

  260. This must be one of those Army extremists that Mark Miley warned us about.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 11:27 am

  261. As they say, presume everything Trump says is false until proven true.

    It’s possible that Trump was briefed by people who had bad info.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 11:29 am

  262. Then there is this, which seems harder to explain:

    A TESLA Cybertruck has reportedly exploded in front of a Trump hotel just hours into the new year, sending giant clouds of black and white smoke into the sky above the Las Vegas Strip.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 11:37 am

  263. At least it was a Cybertruck, so nothing worth anything was damaged.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 11:38 am

  264. s they say, presume everything Trump says is false until proven true.

    It’s possible that Trump was briefed by people who had bad info.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 11:29 am

    LOL! Assumes facts not in evidence, and wouldn’t matter anyway. His post was vintage Trump.

    Rip Murdock (ed0f1e) — 1/1/2025 @ 12:27 pm

  265. LOL! Assumes facts not in evidence

    “It’s possible” assumes nothing. So, it is your statement that assumes facts not in evidence.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 12:35 pm

  266. Retry
    LOL! Assumes facts not in evidence

    “It’s possible” assumes nothing. So, it is your statement that assumes facts not in evidence.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 12:36 pm

  267. Trump Tries to Save TikTok From the Law

    The drafters of the U.S. Constitution debated whether one or more chief executives was the best form of government. They settled on one at a time, which has worked out well enough for 235 years. But enter Donald Trump, who now wants the Supreme Court to treat him like a second President with Joe Biden so he can save TikTok.

    That’s the essence of Mr. Trump’s amicus brief filed Friday in TikTok v. Garland, which the Supreme Court will hear on Jan. 10. ……….
    ………….
    ………….(U)ntil he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump is for legal purposes a private citizen. ……….. To grant Mr. Trump’s request for a stay now would set a bad precedent that invites future incoming Presidents to interfere in pending Court cases.

    Mr. Trump is also in essence asking the Justices to let him rewrite a law he doesn’t like. ………..

    The President-elect nonetheless argues that “whether Congress may dictate a particular outcome by the Executive Branch on such a significant, fact-intensive question of national security raises a significant question under Article II.” But the law doesn’t handicap the President’s power to respond to national-security threats. It strengthens it.
    …………
    The law does allow for the sitting President—in this case Mr. Biden—to grant a 90-day delay on divestiture. But that is only if the President certifies that “significant progress” has been made on divestiture and more time is needed to complete it. The law doesn’t contemplate that a new President could come in and stop divestiture on his command.

    Yet Mr. Trump instructs the Court that he deserves this power because he won the election and is a wizard on social media. Really, that’s his claim. His brief says he has special standing to represent the interests of some 170 million American TikTok users because he founded the “resoundingly successful social-media platform, Truth Social” and is “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history.”
    …………….
    ……………. Mr. Trump tried to force TikTok’s divestiture in his first term but was blocked by the courts. Why has he changed now? The brief implies that it’s because TikTok helped him win. ……… Mr. Trump’s last-minute intervention to save TikTok will no doubt be received well in Beijing, which by the way bans U.S. social-media platforms.
    ……………

    Rip Murdock (ed0f1e) — 1/1/2025 @ 12:41 pm

  268. At least it was a Cybertruck, so nothing worth anything was damaged.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 11:38 am

    Except for the one person who died and seven injured.

    Rip Murdock (81dac8) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:11 pm

  269. Li-ion batteries have an enormous amount of energy in them. Kind of like a gas tank, unsurprisingly. Not sure what would cause one to “explode” though. They can catch fire, but what are the odds it would be right in front of the Trump hotel? And a Tesla? You have to really believe in coincidence.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:25 pm

  270. The Cybertruck is probably uglier than the Pontiac Aztek, which was uniquely ugly.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:28 pm

  271. @238 thats before connolly treason with bill casey was known was known.

    asset (c26820) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:32 pm

  272. Clearly not a “battery fire” (CCTV video)

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:34 pm

  273. > as they say, presume everything Trump says is false until proven true.

    wierdly for someone as anti-trump as i am, i’m not willing to do that. i assume that trump is *indifferent* to the truth or falsehood of a statement, meaning i can infer nothing about a statement’s truth value from the fact that he uttered it.

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:49 pm

  274. Clearly not a “battery fire” (CCTV video)

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:34 pm

    An expensive bomb.

    Rip Murdock (ed0f1e) — 1/1/2025 @ 1:53 pm

  275. i can infer nothing about a statement’s truth value from the fact that he uttered it.

    This is actually worse.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:04 pm

  276. Well, THAT was an interesting turn of events.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:16 pm

  277. ABC News is now reporting 15 dead in New Orleans.

    Rip Murdock (ed0f1e) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:17 pm

  278. These were organized events with multiple people involved. We need to find the group (and nations) that planned and supported it.

    DRJ (7c3759) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:28 pm

  279. The Vegas explosion is being reported as caysed by firework-style mortars. Not sure what that means but not an accident.

    DRJ (7c3759) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:29 pm

  280. These were organized events with multiple people involved. We need to find the group (and nations) that planned and supported it.

    DRJ (7c3759) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:28 pm

    Or the attacks could be “organized” on an ad hoc basis through chat rooms, without outside groups or countries involved. Information on making pipe bombs is available on the internet, and fireworks are easily purchased in Mexico.

    We shall see.

    Rip Murdock (81dac8) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:47 pm

  281. The NO terrorist was a convert to Islam…

    Mr. Jabbar, who officials confirmed was honorably discharged from the Army, had converted to Islam at some point, according to Dwayne Marsh, who is married to Mr. Jabbar’s ex-wife Nakedra Charrlle. Mr. Jabbar and Ms. Charrlle had two daughters, ages 15 and 20, Mr. Marsh said, adding that “the girls are a mess” after the attack.

    In recent months, he said, Mr. Jabbar had been acting erratically, “being all crazy, cutting his hair” after converting, Mr. Marsh said. Mr. Marsh and his wife then stopped allowing the daughters to spend time with Mr. Jabbar, he said.

    Any party contributed to his radicalization should be held accountable. The War Against Militant Islamism ain’t over.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 3:22 pm

  282. fireworks are easily purchased in Mexico.

    Fireworks are easily purchased online.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 3:32 pm

  283. Any party contributed to his radicalization should be held accountable. The War Against Militant Islamism ain’t over.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 3:22 pm

    If he was “radicalized”, it was probably by viewing online videos. Good luck holding anyone accountable.

    Rip Murdock (ed0f1e) — 1/1/2025 @ 4:03 pm

  284. The NO attack actually happened but there were four previous attempted terrorist attacks since last October that were nipped in the bud…

    Globalize the Intifada Comes to America over the last few months:

    – 10/9/24 FBI arrested an Afghan national, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, arrested in OKC for plotting an ISIS- inspired mass casualty attack on election day.

    – 10/26/24 Sidi Muhammad Abdallahi attempted an attack in Chicago. He is facing terrorism charges after shooting a Jewish man walking to the Synagogue and then firing at first responders when they arrived.

    – 11/8/24 FBI arrested Anas Said in Houston for providing material support to ISIS and planning an attack on U.S. soil.

    – 12/20/24 FBI arrested George Mason student and Egyptian national Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan for plotting an attack on the Israeli consulate in NYC.

    – 1/1/25 Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a Texas US citizen, was killed by LE after a mass casualty ramming and shooting attack in New Orleans.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 4:23 pm

  285. This video always makes me laugh. Handled it perfectly given the absurdity-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU0RaRvJ0PQ

    steveg (82e70e) — 1/1/2025 @ 4:26 pm

  286. 1/1/25 Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a Texas US citizen, was killed by LE after a mass casualty ramming and shooting attack in New Orleans.

    Unfortunately that occurred after the fact
    .

    Rip Murdock (ed0f1e) — 1/1/2025 @ 4:29 pm

  287. Surveillance video of the NO terrorist. The red-headed gal at the end barely made it.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 5:05 pm

  288. Las Vegas take-away: Don’t use a Cybertruck for a truck bomb.

    https://x.com/i/status/1874610639823335781

    The truckbed mostly survived the explosion, with the force of the blast forced upwards. The blast didn’t even break the hotel’s front windows.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 6:09 pm

  289. @284 Nipped in the bud? I don’t think so.

    Abdallahi and Jabbar were both able to commit their attacks.

    Abdallahi was “encountered” by border patrol in 2023 and apparently was a Biden catch and release.

    Tawhedi was in the US on a Special Immigrants Visa. He somehow passed background checks.

    Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan had a student visa and was on FBI’s radar after posting terroristic content on social media two years ago. Yet his visa was somehow never revoked.

    These are counter terrorism failures.

    lloyd (675426) — 1/1/2025 @ 6:58 pm

  290. Luckily the government is recording every last text and phone call, along with the location of every cell phone. It didn’t do any good stopping these guys, but at least the Chinese have all of that info at hand.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/1/2025 @ 8:15 pm

  291. Natasha Bertrand…

    The man connected to the rental of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday is a US Special Forces soldier assigned to 10th Special Forces Group, per 4 US officials.
    The man is a US Army special forces operations sergeant, holding the rank of master sergeant, a senior enlisted rank, the officials said. Three officials said he was on active duty and was on leave from Germany, where he was serving with 10th Group, at the time of the incident. via @halbritz

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 7:45 am

  292. @291 They’re digging up anti-Trump posts his wife put out. It won’t matter. He could’ve written a million anti-Trump tweets and threatened violence against MAGA — he’ll just be “Some random crazy dude.” A crazy dude we had serve in our special forces and gave weapons training to.

    lloyd (28543d) — 1/2/2025 @ 7:59 am

  293. Not saying there’s a connection, but both “random crazy dudes” used Turo and apparently served at the same base for a time.

    (BTW, just learned that Fort Bragg is now called Fort Liberty. Shows you what our military has been laser focused on.)

    lloyd (28543d) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:06 am

  294. Why should an american military base be named after a traitorous confederate general?

    Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:22 am

  295. @294

    Why should an american military base be named after a traitorous confederate general?

    Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:22 am

    Mebbe pick up some history books?

    In short, soldiers on both sides sought to reconcile with former enemies by recognizing and commemorating their shared sacrifice. Hence why confederate recognition in bases, statues, parks, etc… are a thing.

    whembly (477db6) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:41 am

  296. That’s why they were a thing a hundred and fifty years ago.

    Do they need to be a thing *today*?

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:47 am

  297. Why should an american military base be named after a traitorous confederate general?
    Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:22 am

    I dunno. Wasting time and effort debating this is a great way to prove my point.

    lloyd (ce19b2) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:01 am

  298. @296

    That’s why they were a thing a hundred and fifty years ago.

    Do they need to be a thing *today*?

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:47 am

    Yes.

    History *is* important, even today.

    Probably *the* most traumatic event in our nation’s history and *how* we got together is important.

    whembly (477db6) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:06 am

  299. These were organized events with multiple people involved. We need to find the group (and nations) that planned and supported it.

    DRJ (7c3759) — 1/1/2025 @ 2:28 pm

    Any party contributed to his radicalization should be held accountable. The War Against Militant Islamism ain’t over.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/1/2025 @ 3:22 pm

    Better start bombing Kabul, Riyadh, Mecca, and Medina.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:24 am

  300. > Probably *the* most traumatic event in our nation’s history and *how* we got together is important.

    Does it matter that the descendants of the enslaved largely view memorials dedicated to Confederates as a slap in the face and a public statement that they matter less than those who weren’t enslaved, because the country continues to *celebrate* the people that enslaved their ancestors?

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:30 am

  301. Change the name to Camp Nat Turner?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:31 am

  302. Here’s a good year-end assessment of Putin’s Quagmire. Hertling…

    Putin has helped destroy the RU military, tanked the RU economy, failed in RU efforts in several theaters, branded himself & his lackeys as war criminals, further eroded the reputation of his nation.

    Ponomarenko…

    So, by the end of 2024, Russia (the world’s second-largest army with the third-largest military budget)

    – failed to capture Donetsk Oblast after over 30 months of fighting;
    – failed to advance beyond a few kilometers in the border zone during its grand offensive on Kharkiv.
    – suffered a complete collapse in Syria;
    – lost control of part of Kursk Oblast to Ukrainian forces and has been unable to retake it (even after drawing North Korea into the war);
    – failed to plunge Ukraine into cold and darkness after three years of missile attacks and bombings;
    – captured about 2,800 km² of Ukrainian territory after a year of hostilities (which is slightly larger than the area of Luxembourg);
    – failed to stop Ukrainian strikes on airfields, oil depots, and ammunition warehouses;
    – is about to enter the fourth year of its blitzkrieg to take Kyiv in three days, with 600,000 killed and wounded, and the first signs that its economy cannot sustain the immense military expenditures, threatening stagflation;

    The battle of Ukraine continues.

    And now Putin will be relying on Trump to help conquer a neighboring country he had no right ever to invade.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:34 am

  303. @300

    > Probably *the* most traumatic event in our nation’s history and *how* we got together is important.

    Does it matter that the descendants of the enslaved largely view memorials dedicated to Confederates as a slap in the face and a public statement that they matter less than those who weren’t enslaved, because the country continues to *celebrate* the people that enslaved their ancestors?

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:30 am

    No.

    For the love of god, pick up a damn history book for once, instead of peddling nonsense.

    whembly (477db6) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:56 am

  304. @302

    And now Putin will be relying on Trump to help conquer a neighboring country he had no right ever to invade.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:34 am

    It’s early, but quite possibly the silliest take so far this year…

    whembly (477db6) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:58 am

  305. It’s early, but quite possibly the silliest take so far this year…

    Bullsh-t.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 10:09 am

  306. #303

    Braxton Bragg was a lousy general who lost the battle of Chickamagua. He was a favorite of Jeff Davis for some reason. There was an argument for not changing the name based on consistency — Fort Bragg was famous for being what it was and not for honoring a long forgotten general. However, now the change is made, why change it back? It’s a time waster and very confusing.

    Whembly, maybe you can do with a breeze through the history book. Fort Lee, Fort Jackson makes sense. Bragg was the bottom of the Confederate General barrel.

    Appalled (482163) — 1/2/2025 @ 10:39 am

  307. Civil War history is one of my favorite history subjects.

    There is a point as to WHY there are things named after the confederates.

    Find the answer to this “why”…

    whembly (477db6) — 1/2/2025 @ 11:55 am

  308. @306 AFAIK nobody is arguing to change it back. Yes, that would be a time waster and very confusing. But, those arguments didn’t hold water when the names were changed.

    I don’t pretend to know whether the descendants of slaves are really worked up about the names. But, seems like we have some descendants commenting here today so I defer to them.

    lloyd (20e3ad) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:15 pm

  309. Liberal White Woman Really Hoping A Black Shows Up To Her Kwanzaa Party This Year.

    lloyd (f79527) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:17 pm

  310. Probably a meaningless silver lining, but seems terrorists have given up on using planes.

    lloyd (f79527) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:19 pm

  311. @302: “A Short Victorious War”

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:22 pm

  312. For the love of god, pick up a damn history book for once, instead of peddling nonsense.

    Pick up book on the history and practice of American chattel slavery and you might get a feeling for why ANY honoring of the Confederate ruling class is so offensive.

    All these honorees should have been hanged, if not drawn and quartered. Andrew Johnson along with them.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:27 pm

  313. The investigation is in great hands, folks.

    Internet sleuths notice change in FBI special agent’s face after she ‘broke Bureau rule’ at New Orleans press conference

    The FBI agent in charge of providing updates on the New Orleans terror attack apparently took her nose ring off after being slammed for it online, according to internet sleuths.

    Special agent Alathea Duncan was seen with the facial piercing during a morning press conference following the terror attack in the French Quarter, which left 14 dead on Wednesday. But by the next press conference, Duncan appeared without the nose jewelry, sparking comments on social media given that the FBI does not allow its agents to have facial piercings.

    ‘Special agent in charge, Aletha Duncan, shows up to the scene sporting a nose ring,’ read one post on X. ‘Can the FBI at least pretend to function as a serious law enforcement organization?’

    ‘Did FBI Special Agent Alethea Duncan remove her nose ring after her first press conference – when she said this was “not a terrorist event” – to her second press conference?’ wrote one popular X account.

    Duncan was also criticized when she contradicted the claim by NOLA’s mayor that the attack was terrorist in nature.

    ‘This is not a terrorist event,’ Duncan claimed before the FBI confirmed that indeed the attack was a terror one.

    lloyd (f79527) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:30 pm

  314. And why no bases named after Grant, Sherman, Burnside, etc, or political leaders like Thaddeus Stevens? Only Meade and Dix got that kind of recognition. To say that this renaming ignores history forgets that the original naming did so, too.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:32 pm

  315. For helping Kamala lose votes, Liz is awarded top civilian award by the Loser.

    For for being a 2016 election denier, Bennie Thompson gets the same honor.

    lloyd (f79527) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:35 pm

  316. There will be a Fort Livelsberger in the next Democrat administration.

    lloyd (f79527) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:39 pm

  317. @312

    For the love of god, pick up a damn history book for once, instead of peddling nonsense.

    Pick up book on the history and practice of American chattel slavery and you might get a feeling for why ANY honoring of the Confederate ruling class is so offensive.

    All these honorees should have been hanged, if not drawn and quartered. Andrew Johnson along with them.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:27 pm

    Another one who really hasn’t taken the time to read up on our history.

    (don’t misuderstand me, I’m not advocating that we’d honor the actions of the confederacy. I’m beseeching you to find out WHY the US chose reconciliation. How do you get a country to move on from being mortal enemies 5 minutes ago?)

    whembly (477db6) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:48 pm

  318. @301 Or Capt. John Brown.

    asset (263a01) — 1/2/2025 @ 1:20 pm

  319. (don’t misuderstand me, I’m not advocating that we’d honor the actions of the confederacy. I’m beseeching you to find out WHY the US chose reconciliation. How do you get a country to move on from being mortal enemies 5 minutes ago?)

    whembly (477db6) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:48 pm

    The bases were named for Confederate generals decades after the Civil War, and had nothing to do with post-war reconciliation but more with the Lost Cause.

    …….(T)he Army did not name any posts after Confederates until 1917, an era of American involvement in Europe’s ‘Great War’ that coincided with a resurgence in the Ku Klux Klan, an extremist group that terrorized and murdered Blacks, and the establishment of hundreds of Confederate monuments throughout the South.

    In July 1917, about a month after President Woodrow Wilson earned a standing ovation from hundreds of Confederate war veterans as he affectionately recalled how “heroic things were done on both sides” of the bloody conflict, Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Kuhn memorialized an informal policy for naming the many new camps needed to train and equip soldiers before they went overseas to fight in World War I. He offered criteria that chosen names should represent a person from the local area around the base who would “not [be] unpopular in the vicinity of the camp,” while names should focus on “Federal commanders for camps or divisions from northern States and of Confederates for camps of divisions from southern States.”
    ……….
    “……… (I)n August 1918, the Army named a new camp in Fayetteville, North Carolina for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general and native of the state, citing his service during the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. Another camp followed in October named for Henry Benning in Columbus, Georgia. The paper noted lobbying efforts by the United Daughters of the Confederacy for the Confederate brigadier general widely known as a “vocal advocate” for secession.

    “After the first batch of post names were announced, Southern newspapers commented favorably on the adoption of Confederate names,” the 2017 Army research paper says, including a front-page headline from The Richmond Times-Dispatch noting the “American War Department” had “officially paid tribute to the military genius of noted Confederate war chiefs.”
    ………

    See also here for the US Army Center of Military History overview on the naming of Army posts.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/2/2025 @ 2:11 pm

  320. It’s been 160 years. It’s more than time to rip the bandaid off. It should’ve been done at least 100 years ago and people would be over it by now. Since it wasn’t, no time like the present to move past honoring those traitorous generals (probably should never have honored them at all and drained the festering wound in the confederated south more quickly. Yes, it might’ve caused a slower reconciliation at the time, but also might’ve prevented a century of jim crow and certainly not been a controversy now.).

    Nic (120c94) — 1/2/2025 @ 2:14 pm

  321. whembly,

    See @314. If you can’t answer that, then stfu about “history.”

    Besides, it wasn’t about “history” anyway. Fort Bragg was created during Woodrow Wilson’s term. Wilson resegregated the US government and supported the resurgent Klan. “Birth of a Nation” etc. Southern “scholars” of that era were attempting to paint Grant as a corrupt looter of Southern wealth and the Union and “Black” Republicans as the evil side in the civil war.

    “Fort Bragg” was just part of that effort.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 2:22 pm

  322. Net neutrality is dead.

    A federal appeals court Thursday dealt a fatal blow to the Federal Communications Commission’s decade-plus effort to gain stronger oversight over the internet.

    The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said that the FCC lacked the authority to oversee wireless and home-broadband services under the same set of rules that long governed telephone service.

    The decision cited the Supreme Court’s overturning of a precedent known as the Chevron deference this summer. That ruling pared back U.S. agencies’ leeway to interpret federal law when the statutory language is ambiguous.

    Outgoing FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said Thursday that consumers still want “fast, open, and fair” internet service and called on Congress to protect those principles in federal law, an acknowledgment that the FCC’s own effort hit a dead end.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 2:34 pm

  323. Change your name from Bradley to Chelsea, and you become a female. Change a base name from Bragg to Liberty, and you rip the bandaid off and end Jim Crow.

    lloyd (f79527) — 1/2/2025 @ 3:06 pm

  324. In a not entirely serious mood, I once suggested that Braxton Bragg — however unintentionally — did more for the Union than the Confederacy.

    Jim Miller (39f706) — 1/2/2025 @ 3:44 pm

  325. @lloyd@323 If you can’t actually make a point, you don’t have to attempt it. Probably no one is making you try and fail at it. You can just… not.

    Nic (120c94) — 1/2/2025 @ 3:52 pm

  326. Europe’s ‘Great War’

    It was actually called the “European War” and so in the Encyclopedia Americana until at least 1952, and indexed in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature as the European War until 1976! I checked when it changed.

    You could also check the New York Times Index.

    I had assumed it was called the Great War because in a 1931 math textbook which my elementary school replaced in 1963 it was called that. But I didn’t see anyone else indicating that between World War I and World War II it was called the Great War till many years later.

    I think it was called the European War or the World War.

    I saw in, I think, an article in the American Mercury that said something like “will soon be called World War II.” this was in abound periodicaal from no earlier than 1938

    The current war between Israel and several enemies has as yet no name.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 3:53 pm

  327. Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 12:32 pm

    And why no bases named after Grant, Sherman, Burnside, etc, or political leaders like Thaddeus Stevens?

    Probably too many (white) Southerners in the army.

    Nobody else cared about base names.

    After I guess about 1950 (or maybe that’s earlier or later) nobody much knew who or what these bases were named after.

    In the Bronx there was a Sherman Avenue, a Grant Avenue. Also Sheridan Avenue. And a Burnside Avenue running crosstown. All it meant to me was that maybe a side of the street had a big fire. It sounded like that, but couldn’t mean that, as the street had to have its name before a fire would have destroyed stores. (and you wouldn’t rename a street after that. No other streets commemorated bad events that happened there.)

    There’s another place in New York State that has a Burnside Avenue. Zip code 110xx I think. And there are others.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:03 pm

  328. Big election tomorrow:

    House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) appears to be in some trouble heading into Friday’s speaker election, given his compromises with Democrats on things such as funding the government and Ukraine’s war defense. And he faces this peril despite recently getting the backing of Trump. That raises the possibility that Trump could fail in another early effort to bend his party to his will.

    Which most likely will not have a winner, tomorrow.

    Jim Miller (39f706) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:13 pm

  329. lloyd (28543d) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:06 am

    Not saying there’s a connection, but both “random crazy dudes” used Turo and apparently served at the same base for a time.

    Both crazy dudes wanted to commit suicide or had reconciled themselves to dying. Crazy dude number one initially wanted to kill his family, but had a dream in which he convinced himself he should align himself with ISIS instead.

    Crazy dude number 2 shot himself before the explosion. Neither knew how to build explosives – when someone tries that it either explodes in the process of building a bomb o turns out to be a relative dud. They erred on the side of safety.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:27 pm

  330. 330. This leaves the following possibilities:

    1) The Speaker will be chosen after a number of ballots but by January 6

    2) The certification will not take place by Jan 6 but will by January 20

    3) The House will elect a temporary Speaker

    4) Some Republicans anxious to get Trump into office will make a deal with the Democrats

    5) Senate president pro tem Chuck Grassley will become Acting president January 20

    6) The Senate will replace Grassley with JD Vance before January 20 so he can become Acting President.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:32 pm

  331. New Orleans officials decided to replace the bollards.

    Kind of the mistake Ronald Reagan let the military make in Beirut in 1983 (They noticed a defect in protection and planned to correct it over an extended period of time)

    They took them down in November and evidently wanted anti-car-ramming technology up by the time of the Superbowl.

    Missing the fact that New Years’ Eve on Bourbon Street was also a significant event.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:34 pm

  332. On a more pleasant note: Today is Science Fiction Day.

    Here’s a bit of trivia that shows the importance of science fiction: Both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have said they were inspired by Robert Heinlein’s novella, “The Man Who Sold the Moon”

    So far, Musk more successfully.

    Jim Miller (39f706) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:34 pm

  333. What was wrong with the bollards? Maybe they couldn’t be taken down to let in an ambulance?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg70eg97dgo

    New Orleans began placing bollards on Bourbon Street over ten years ago, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said on Wednesday.

    But, she added, the bollards began to malfunction because of clogs from Mardi Gras beads, leading officials to try to replace them before the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to take place at the Caesars Superdome, near the site of the attack.

    They blocked the street in the meantime but didn’t anticipate a mad driver might use the sidewalk to get past the temporary barrier.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:35 pm

  334. #330 True enough, Sammy.

    Jim Miller (39f706) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:36 pm

  335. https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/01/02/new-orleans-attack-bollards-replaced/77397912007

    In the previous bollard system, four reinforced pillars were evenly spaced across Bourbon Street on a plate. The center two bollards were moveable via a ground-level control panel, giving the city flexibility to close off the street for pedestrian-oriented events.

    When the city needed to reopen the street to vehicular traffic, [for an ambulance?] the movable bollards could slide along a track behind the outer bollards, leaving roughly 13 feet of space for vehicles.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:37 pm

  336. …In the absence of bollards, city officials used police vehicles and large metal barriers to cordon off Bourbon Street for New Year’s festivities. The driver was able to evade them by driving on the sidewalk.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:38 pm

  337. lloyd (675426) — 1/1/2025 @ 6:58 pm

    These are counter terrorism failures.

    It seems the real failure was either allowing someone to get his brain damaged by some drugs or allowing ISIS to communicate with people in the army (but they couldn’t train them how to build explosives

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/2/2025 @ 4:42 pm

  338. There ought to be a Sherman Beach in Georgia.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 5:10 pm

  339. There ought to be a Sherman Beach in Georgia.

    Indeed. “Reconciliation” ended in the 1800s. There’s since been no place for honoring Confederate combatants defending the keeping of dark-skinned human beings as someone else’s personal property without civil rights.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 5:49 pm

  340. This uniquely colored and shaped ice storm track is…something to behold.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 1/2/2025 @ 5:52 pm

  341. Remember when Trump “fell down” in Butler because of “loud noises”?

    ‘Caught Fire’: Corporate Media Really … Really Didn’t Want To Admit Cybertruck Exploded Outside Trump’s Vegas Hotel

    The Associated Press’ (AP) initial headline, posted after 3 p.m. EST, read, “1 person dies when truck catches fire and explodes outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel,” according to an archived version of the article. Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized the outlet for its initial headline, branding the publication “Associated Propaganda.”

    “AP stands for Associated Propaganda,” Musk wrote on “X.”

    An archived version of NBC News’ initial headline, posted at 2:51 p.m., states that the vehicle “burst into flames” right outside the hotel in its initial headline, before the outlet later updated the piece to clarify that the Cybertruck exploded. The New York Times initially referred to the incident as an “electric vehicle fire” and reported that the Cybertruck became “engulfed in flames” right outside the hotel, while Business Insider originally reported in its article that the Tesla Cybertruck “caught fire” before later updating the piece to clarify that the vehicle had exploded.

    lloyd (e72980) — 1/2/2025 @ 6:46 pm

  342. White House Insists Jimmy Carter Is Still Sharp And Focused Behind Closed Doors.

    lloyd (75323d) — 1/2/2025 @ 7:02 pm

  343. 333: Sammy: and the admiral at Pearl didn’t anticipate that torpedoes would work in the shallow water at Pearl (the Japanese added wooden fins that solved the problem), allied commanders didn’t think Germans had it in them to mount the Bulge offensive, General Westmoreland didnd’t think the North Viets could mount the tet offensive, …, the US commander in Somolia didn’t think a US helicopter could be shot down, ….the stolid, unimaginative, dullards never disappoint.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (313a4d) — 1/2/2025 @ 7:51 pm

  344. 317 and 312: If the confederates had continued to fight; if we had to deal with an ongoing guerilla war, and national divisiveness at a high level, we would have been handicapped in WW I and probably WWII. Reconciliation made perfect sense. It paid off. They should leave those confederate statutes alone. Its history.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (313a4d) — 1/2/2025 @ 7:55 pm

  345. “If the confederates had continued to fight; if we had to deal with an ongoing guerilla war, and national divisiveness at a high level, we would have been handicapped in WW I and probably WWII.”

    They did, through the KKK and Jim Crow.

    “It paid off. ”

    No it didn’t.

    Davethulhu (42b569) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:34 pm

  346. @344 Its history. The history of oppression. Only oppressors want to remind black people they were once 3/5th of a human being.

    asset (f30995) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:36 pm

  347. In a non-confederate post, I don’t get the Trump Tower bomber. He was pro-trump and also supposedly prior special forces. If he had wanted to make a truly destructive truck bomb, he probably had, at least, enough knowledge to know that fireworks and propane tanks wouldn’t do the job.

    Davethulhu (42b569) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:38 pm

  348. 345: Dave I didn’t think anyone here would make such a facile response, but I should have guessed that someone would have felt compelled to ignore the obvious.

    Try to grasp what it would have meant to have ongoing military raids on US facilities in the South; in harbors; on rivers; fueled by bitterness and the encouragement of Robert E. Lee, if he had not folded his cards and had encouraged resistance. Imagine the need to leave a garrison there decades after the war. With deaths adding up like the US military encountered in Vietnam from guerilla fighters. I doubt that you were alive in the 60’s and 70’s and you may not remember that, but many do.

    What that would have meant in WWI, to Mexico, that maybe joining up with Germany and the ongoing renegade South might have been a good opportunity to regain lost land; And go forward 20 years and play that out again.

    It was good that the South called it quits. It is foolish to treat them shabbily.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (313a4d) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:58 pm

  349. 346: and you remember right, why the 3/5th rule was used?

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (313a4d) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:59 pm

  350. “Try to grasp what it would have meant to have ongoing military raids on US facilities in the South; in harbors; on rivers; fueled by bitterness and the encouragement of Robert E. Lee, if he had not folded his cards and had encouraged resistance. Imagine the need to leave a garrison there decades after the war. With deaths adding up like the US military encountered in Vietnam from guerilla fighters. I doubt that you were alive in the 60’s and 70’s and you may not remember that, but many do. ”

    I think you’d have a difficult time convincing the black southern population that they were better off with the confederates still in power.

    “It is foolish to treat them shabbily.”

    They treated their fellow americans extremely shabbily, both before and after the war, and were never brought to task for it.

    Davethulhu (42b569) — 1/2/2025 @ 9:53 pm

  351. Here’s a bit of trivia that shows the importance of science fiction: Both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have said they were inspired by Robert Heinlein’s novella, “The Man Who Sold the Moon”

    Hopefully Musk won’t offer to plaster “Coca-Cola” across the face of the moon as H.H. Harriman did to raise money from Coke.

    Two other books that Musk has mentioned:

    “Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson, contains a nuts & bolts description of how to colonize Mars.
    The “Culture” Series by the late Iain M Banks, in this instance notable for the naming of ships, such as “Just Read The Instructions” and “Of Course I Still Love You”

    Musk has also refered to himself as “Hugo Drax.”

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 10:25 pm

  352. lloyd (e72980) — 1/2/2025 @ 6:46 pm

    Musk’s obvious concern was that 1) people would think that Teslas could spontaneously explode, and 2) that government regulators might think so. They can’t.

    If impacted just wrong, an electric battery can catch fire and there is a LOT of energy in those batteries. They are unlikely to actually “explode”, unlike a conventional gas tank, but the fire can be pretty fierce.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 10:30 pm

  353. Only oppressors want to remind black people they were once 3/5th of a human being.

    The only people who wanted slaves counted as a full person were the slave-owners. You don’t think the slaves got to cast 3/5ths of a vote, do you?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 10:33 pm

  354. “If the confederates had continued to fight; if we had to deal with an ongoing guerilla war, and national divisiveness at a high level, we would have been handicapped in WW I and probably WWII.”

    If pigs had wings.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 10:39 pm

  355. Davethulhu (42b569) — 1/2/2025 @ 8:38 pm

    He was pro-Trump at one time. The Tesla is one oddity. His relationship ending was another.

    The NY Post says

    Matthew Livelsberger, 37, left his Colorado Springs home the day after Christmas following an argument with his wife over apparent infidelity, two sources familiar with the investigation told The Post.

    His wife — who had a baby daughter with Livelsberger — reportedly told him that she knew he had been cheating, the sources said.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/2/2025 @ 10:43 pm

  356. @353 the slave states demanded the 2nd amendment so their slave patrols couldn’t be disarmed. The 3/5 person was instituted so the slave states would have more votes in congress. Even today the vestiges of institutional racism continues including preventing as many black people from voting as possible. Though with more black and latinx men voting for trump they try to find better ways to keep women from voting.

    asset (f30995) — 1/2/2025 @ 11:32 pm

  357. There is a difference between having allowed the confederate citizens to return to full US citizenship and lauding their traitorous generals, especially 160 years later. The Cause was not honorable.

    Nic (120c94) — 1/3/2025 @ 1:36 am

  358. 356: The 3/5 was a compromise between the North and South to prevent the South from controlling congress forever, and was among the first of Nothern efforts to rein in the South. Followed by a demand for parity in the admission of states, and ultimately leading to the election of Lincoln.

    The idea that the North should have fractured America by insisting on the end of slavery then and there, to the benefit of the British and other European powers, is sheer utopianism. It would have only assured the survival of slavery in a separate south much longer than it did.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (a2788e) — 1/3/2025 @ 7:29 am

  359. 354: Kevin: You sound just like US military leaders who assured LBJ, up and down and 24/7, that north viet soldiers dressed in pajamas were no threat to the US military.

    How did that view of the opponent as “if pigs had wings” turn out?

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (a2788e) — 1/3/2025 @ 7:32 am

  360. he 3/5 person was instituted so the slave states would have more votes in congress

    So, 3/5ths was too much? Or too little? The slave owners wanted slaves counted as a whole person, even though they would never vote. The New Englanders wanted slaves not counted at all.

    What is galling to most of us is that you throw the 3/5th thing out as “disrespecting the value of the slaves as persons” when that had nothing at all to do with it.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/3/2025 @ 9:45 am

  361. Were Andrew Johnson not a effing traitor himself, the Klan members who where caught would not have been arrested, they would have been hanged on the spot. By the time 1869 rolled around and Grant was President, the Klan was everywhere and much harsher measures would have been required to put them down.

    But still, please explain why allowing Jim Crow in the 1880s was a good thing.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/3/2025 @ 9:49 am

  362. lauding their traitorous generals

    You misspelled “not hanging”

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/3/2025 @ 9:50 am

  363. You sound just like US military leaders who assured LBJ, up and down and 24/7, that north viet soldiers dressed in pajamas were no threat to the US military.

    This, too, is wrong. LBJ knew the war could not be won as far back as 1965. McNamera told him so. Johnson didn’t care what people thought, it was about his dick size.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/3/2025 @ 9:51 am

  364. Followed by a demand for parity in the admission of states, and ultimately leading to the election of Lincoln.

    What led to Lincoln was the Mexican Cession and the Wilmot Priviso, and the regional fracturing of the Democratic Party that they caused.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/3/2025 @ 9:53 am

  365. @kevin@362 I would be fine if we had hung them, though I understand why we didn’t. OTOH, I see no reason they should be honored at all.

    Nic (120c94) — 1/3/2025 @ 11:09 am

  366. Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/3/2025 @ 9:49 am

    But still, please explain why allowing Jim Crow in the 1880s was a good thing.

    I think when Jim Crow stated was more in the 1890s.

    First they effectively deprived African Americans of the right to vote (while somehow in most places, not establishing a dictatorship) then, after white control of state governments in the south (except maybe for North Carolina until 1898) was well established, did they get the idea of racial segregation.

    Sammy FInkelman (e4ef09) — 1/3/2025 @ 11:19 am

  367. Harcourt Fenton Mudd (313a4d) — 1/2/2025 @ 7:51 pm

    ….the stolid, unimaginative, dullards never disappoint.

    What’s really bad is noticing a problem, planning an improvement, and thinking that takes care of it ignoring the fact that it is being implemented at a plodding pace.

    In New York they blocked the sidewalk too.

    Sammy FInkelman (e4ef09) — 1/3/2025 @ 11:23 am

  368. I haven’t read or herd of the dream claim for Crazy Dude number 1, but he did say that he was afraid the news coverage would focus on killing is family and not the war between believers and unbelievers if he also did that.

    There is no indication that Crazy dude number 2 was a jihadist. But I haven’t read or heard of any “cause” he had but maybe he did. It has been speculated he wanted to draw more attention to PTSD.. He evidently killed himself before setting off the explosion, which if you say it that way, sounds like it shoudn’t make sense,

    Crazy Dude number 1 uploaded 5 videos to Facebook between midnight and 3 am, and said he had joined ISIS before the summer (of 2024)

    Both had marital difficulties and could have been wanting to commit suicide.

    Sammy FInkelman (e4ef09) — 1/3/2025 @ 11:32 am

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