Total topics: 181
Just a reminder to all those members of DebateArt advocating for Putin's invasion of Ukraine that debate is an invention and an instrument of DEMOCRACY.
Dictators, by definition, can never permit entirely free speech and without free speech the pretense of fair debate is cruelly mocked.
Vladimir Putin specifically is the sworn enemy of fair political debate, poisoning to death those who out argue him, and the greatest contemporary threat to free speech globally, interfering by unlawful subterfuge with democratic processes worldwide. Ukraine won its freedom from Russia in 1991 after suffering the calamity of Chernobyl- a disaster who's root cause was discovered to be in the absence of free speech and the fear of reprisals that prevented engineers from speaking out about known system failures. The result of that suppression of free speech was 4,000 dead and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
Unlike Russia, Ukraine has fought hard to preserve her democracy through the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014. Ukraine has earned her freedom of speech and independence from Russia.
You can endorse the free and fair practice of debating or you can endorse Putin's unlawful invasion of the democratic Republic of Ukraine but you can't do both and remain ideologically consistent.
If you believe that debaters and debating should be free and fair throughout the world then you oppose that belief's most potent enemy Putin, plain and simple.
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DebateArt.com
A country in the shape of a puddle, on the map.
Any country is an easy target in March,
in June, July, August, September, October,
as long as it rains
and maps litter the street.
Stop, who goes there, General Oaken Knees.
The Red Square of his naked chest shines the way.
And behind him, a half-shadow, half-man,
half-orphan, half-exile, whose mouth is as coarse
as his land —
double-land where every cave is at war.
Do you say there won’t be a war? I say nothing.
A small gray person cancels
this twenty-first century,
adjusts his country’s clocks
for the winter war.
LYUDMYLA KHERSONSKA
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Artistic expressions
- Let's agree that voting sucks and debate outcomes mostly determined by a small, overburdened group of voters.
- Forfeit=auto-loss would compel greater alertness in DARTists of good will.
- Quickly processing the less than serious efforts allows active voters to focus on those debates deemed worthy of completion by both participants.
- High drama unintentional forfeitures would likely make the debate rankings more competitive.
- Far fewer depressing forfeitures overall would also make for a decidedly more active queue.
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DebateArt.com
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
-ee cummings
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Artistic expressions
“When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.”
― Ron Paul
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Artistic expressions
I note that a new notice has been issued today regarding DART elections:
DART Presidential ElectionGreetings DART!The presidential process will begin starting Dec 27th.From December 27th to January 16th, any user may nominate themselves. From that time, users may campaign for themselves following the regulation set.On January 17th, the preliminary voting stage will begin, where the top three candidates move on to the general electionOn January 20th, the final voting stage will begin, where a simple majority vote decides the presidentOn January 21st, the president is inauguratedFor more info on campaign rules, please read here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PIsh9UDic938MMM3YX-H1nn15H7OriOvfOSFigXXsX0/editHope everyone has a safe and happy holidaysGodspeed, SupaDudz
While I voted against the need for a Presidential office on DART, I accepted the preference of the majority as expressed in the MEEP that ended on Sept 29th, "MEEP: Reformed ban policy & DebateArt President" and in early December endorsed RationalMadman's Candidacy for our first DebateArt President.
That election process, as proposed by MisterChris and approved by us DebartArters clearly stated:
"The President shall be elected for a yearly term each December, to be formally instated January 1st of the following year. The first three weeks of December will be dedicated to optional campaigning, and the rest of the month will be dedicated to the election process, all of which will be overseen and managed by moderation."
Clearly, a number of DebateArtists including RM and myself were under the impression that these were the rules in play and have been campaigning since Dec 1 accordingly. Now I see that the campaign dates and inauguration dates have been moved and a primary process inserted. I guess I'm left wondering:
- When did the election process change?
- How did I miss it?
- On what authority?
- Does that authority over-ride MEEP decided policies?
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DebateArt.com
- Has the most medals of any debater.
- Most medals wins
- holder of the rank of top debater
- most prolific debater
- Is responsible for maybe one out of every six debates
- most well-rounded debateartist- debates, forums, games, religion forum, intersite politics and intrigue
- most prolific non-mod voter
- Therefore, best able to represent the multiple facets of interests on this site
- Pls. vote RationalMadman to be our first DebateArt President
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Artistic expressions
Ingredients
- 2 cans Kuner's cut beans (green, chopped rough)
- 1 ham-hock, deboned and finely diced
- 1 10.5 oz. can of Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
- 4 oz. fine grated Tartufo bianco d'Alba
- 1/2 cup fresh milked cow cream
- 3 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tsp. Red boat fish sauce
- 1/2 clove twice-blanched garlic
- 1 small sweet onion
- 1 large shallot
- 3 cups French's® French Fried Onions
- 1 cup thick grated Parmigiano Reggiano
- 4 shakes cracked black pepper
- 1/4 tsp kosher sea-salt
- 10 branches of thyme, de-stemmed
Instructions
- Step 1
- thin slice and confit onion and shallot
- Step 2
- peel and mince garlic.
- Chop kosher salt into garlic
- Add to onions
- Step 3
- Saute diced ham hock until crisp and well rendered
- Add green beans, fry for four minutes
- Step 4
- Heat the oven to 350°F.
- Stir the soup, cream, Worcestershire sauce, truffles, fish sauce, green beans, onion mixture and 2 cups fried onions in a 1 1/2-quart casserole. Season the mixture with pepper and thyme.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until hot. Stir the bean mixture.
- Refrigerate over-night with ham-bone in the middle
- Day 2- Step 5
- Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees
- Drink coffee, left over and cold
- Step 6
- taste green beans,
- Decide the mixture got way too smoky from the bone
- Add cream and bullion until the sauce is broken and the texture is all wrong
- Step 7
- fuck it
- Step 8
- Add remaining fried onions and parmesan cheese
- bake until the cream is thick,
- the cheese melted and crusty
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Artistic expressions
I know Ragnar is a veteran but I'm not sure I know for certain that there are other military veterans on this site. Who here is a veteran of the military? US or otherwise?
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Personal
Play Colonel Blotto!The tactical lotto!Most highest totals:That is our motto!
ROUND0 GAMEBOARD:
Supa=X
RM=O
Disc=#
The starting board is as follows:
________________
ZONE01______+2X
XX
________________
ZONE02_____ +1X
X
________________
ZONE03______+2#
##
________________
ZONE04______+1#
#
________________
ZONE05______+2O
OO
_________________
ZONE06_______+1O
O
__________________
ZONE07_______EMPTY
___________________
SUPA_X____6 POINTS
___________________
DISC_#____6 POINTS
___________________
RM_O____6 POINTS
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Let me know if you think I made any mistake.
you will each deploy FiFTEEN more pawns over the course of the game
Deployment rules are:1) You can place armies on any of the seven zones.2) It IS permitted to place zero armies on a certain zone for a round.2) Once placed, no armies can be moved between zones3) All players are allowed to see the new board after each round4) FIve armies are placed by each player during round one. Four are places during round two, three during round three and so on.5) SCORING is determined at the end of FIVE rounds.
- Most pawns in any zone is awarded 3 points
- Ties get one point each
- Second most pawns in any zone is awarded 1 points
- Ties for second most pawns get 0 points awarded'
6) Only the final tallies in each zone at the end of five rounds count toward determining a winner.
You each have FIVE pawns to deploy for round one. You each have TEN pawns that can't be deployed this round but can be deployed in subsequent rounds.
Game turns will last no longer than 24 hrs. Failure to submit moves in under 24 hrs may result in forfeiture of that turn.
Please submit actions via PM now.
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Forum games
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
-by WILFRED OWEN
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Artistic expressions
Folks, being President of the United States, you are afforded many opportunities to try to express your love, commitment, and admiration for the American people. And I must say to you that the single greatest honor I’ve been afforded as President is to stand before so many of you, those Medal of Honor winners out there, and talk about Veterans Day and veterans.
I want to welcome all the Cabinet members and honored guests joining us today, including the father of our Secretary of State, who served in the Army Air Corps during World War Two, Ambassador Donald Blinken, whose birthday is today. Happy Birthday. (Applause.) Thank you for your service to our country.
And I just want to tell you, I know you’re a little younger than I am, but, you know, I’ve adopted the attitude of the great Negro — at the time, pitcher in the Negro Leagues — went on to become a great pitcher in the pros — in the Major League Baseball after Jackie Robinson. His name was Satchel Paige.
And Satchel Paige, on his 47th birthday, pitched a win against Chicago. (Laughs.) And all the press went in and said, “Satch, it’s amazing — 47 years old. No one’s ever, ever pitched a win at age 47. How do you feel about being 47?” He said, “Boys, that’s not how I look at it.” They said, “How do you look at it, Satch?” He said, “I look at it this way: How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”
I’m 50 years old and the ambassador is 47.
But all kidding aside, Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your service during World War Two, as well as your service as an ambassador. And thank you for raising such a fine man, Tony Blinken, our Secretary of State.
To all our veterans, past and present, we thank you, we honor you, and we remember always what you’ve done for us.
I’d like to recognize one of our national heroes who is here today: Medal of Honor recipient, Mr. Brian Thacker. During the Vietnam War, then-First Lieutenant Thacker put the safety of his fellow troops above his own, providing cover fire against an attacking enemy, and even calling in artillery fire on his own position so our forces had a better chance to withdraw.
Wounded, unable to leave the area, he evaded capture for eight days until finally federal — friendly forces retook the position. Yours is a remarkable story; it will never be forgotten.
And we’ll also never forget the stories of American leaders and icons we’ve lost recently who shaped our nation in ways that are hard to measure.
I’ve lost, like many of you, three good friends in the last month:
General Colin Powell, a child of immigrants, who grew up to be the joint — Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State. A man who was a friend but who earned the universal respect of the Americans and people for his leadership in uniform and out.
And a guy who became good friends in many times I was in and out of Iraq as a Vice President and a senator — General Ray Odierno, who I met multiple times in Iraq, and who did so much to help get us to where we are today and who always put the troops and its veterans first. It was an honor to have my son, Major Biden, serve under his command at the time.
And my friend and colleague — who was mentioned already — the United States Senator, Max Cleland, who, as a triple amputee, knew the cost of war as well as anyone could ever know it and went on to champion the dignity and care of America’s wounded veterans throughout his life.
We lost all three of these incredible veterans in the last several weeks, and our hearts go out to their families.
These are stories that inspire generation after generation of Americans to step forward to defend our nation.
And, today, we pay homage to the unrelenting bravery and dedication that distinguish all those who have earned the title of “American veteran.”
It’s an honor that not only a small percentage of Americans can claim, and one that marks those who are able to claim it as brothers and sisters. It’s a badge of courage that unites across all ages, regardless of background — because to be a veteran is to have endured and survived challenges most Americans will never know.
You’ve come through the trials and testing, braved dangers and deprivations, faced down the tragic realities of war and death.
And you’ve done it for us. You’ve done it for America — to defend and serve American values, to protect our country and our Constitution against all enemies, and to lay a stronger, more secure foundation on which future generations can continue to build a more perfect union.
Each of our veterans is a link in a proud chain of patriots that has stood in the defense of our country from Bunker Hill to Belleau Woods, Gettysburg to Iwo Jima, the Chosin Reservoir to the Kunar Valley.
Each — each understood the price of freedom, and each shouldered that burden on our behalf.
Our veterans represent the best of America. You are the very spine of America, not just the backbone. You’re the spine of this country. And all of us — all of us — owe you.
And so, on Veterans Day and every day, we honor that great debt and recommit ourselves to keeping our sacred obligation as a nation to honor what you’ve done.
We have many obligations to our children, to our elderly, to those truly in need. But I’ve gotten in trouble way back when I was a young senator for saying we only have one truly sacred obligation. We have many obligations but one truly sacred obligation: to properly prepare those and equip those who we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families while they’re both deployed and when they return home. This is a lifetime sacred commitment. It never expires.
And for me and for Jill and for the entire Biden family: It’s personal.
When Beau was deployed to Iraq, after spending six months in Kosovo as an Assistant U.S. Attorney trying to help — he was trying to set up a criminal justice system, I got a call from him one day. He said, “Dad, what are you doing Friday?” And I said, “What do you need, hon? I’m — what do you need?” He said, “I’d like you to pin my bars on.” I said, “What in the heck have you done?” He said, “Someone’s got to finish these wars, dad.” True story.
Jill and I learned what it meant to pray every day for the safe return of someone you love. So many of you have done that.
Our grandkids learned what it meant to have their dad overseas in a warzone instead of back at home, for a year, tucking them into bed and reading that story every night. Thousands of Americans — tens of thousands have had that experience.
As the English poet John Milton wrote, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
So, to all the mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, spouses — all those who stand alongside our veterans — and their families, caregivers, survivors: You are the solid steel spine that bears up under every burden, the courageous heart that rises to every challenge.
We’ve asked so much of you for so long, and our nation is grateful.
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Politics
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England's overthrow.
But, by God's providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James's sake!
If you won't give me one,
I'll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
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Artistic expressions
The MISUNDERSTOOD LEGACY of GUY FAWKES
Every year, Britain commemorates the notorious Catholic conspirator’s failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Elsewhere in the world, his reputation is much different.
By Yasmeen Serhan
“Remember, remember the fifth of November,” the old British rhyme goes.
For more than 400 years, Britain has remembered. Every year on this day, fireworks are set off, bonfires are built, and effigies are burned to commemorate the failed 17th-century plot by a group of English Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament—with the country’s entire political establishment and reigning Protestant monarch, King James I, inside.
But for an event rooted in remembrance, what has come to be known here in Britain as Guy Fawkes Night (named after one of the key plotters) could not be further removed from it. Today, the annual ritual is more festive and fun than religious and monarchical. Even Fawkes himself has taken on new meaning, becoming best known around the world not as a would-be religious extremist and terrorist, but as a populist hero. His life has been romanticized in film, his likeness has been preserved in masks, and his legacy has morphed into an almost mythical tale of anti-government rebellion, anarchy, and subversion.
How we remember Fawkes, as both a person and a symbol, presents a case study for how the meaning of historical events can be bent to serve the religious, political, and cultural needs of the present. But it also presents a fundamental question about how much is too much historical alteration. By turning people into symbols, do we run the risk of changing them into someone they weren’t?
The Guy Fawkes celebrations are, paradoxically, rooted in his failure. Though born into a Protestant family in York, in the north of England, Fawkes converted to Catholicism in his teens. At the time, Catholics suffered severe repression across the country and were barred from voting, holding public office, and owning land. The religious persecution prompted Fawkes to leave England for the Netherlands, where he served in the army for Catholic-ruled Spain. As he rose in the ranks, Fawkes became notorious for both his skill as a soldier and his handling of explosives—a talent that caught the eye of a fellow English Catholic, Robert Catesby. It was Catesby who crafted the plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament during their State Opening on November 5, 1605—an act he and his group of plotters hoped would be enough to wipe out the ruling elite and install a new Catholic monarch, ushering in an end to Protestant rule.
Of course, it never came to that. On the eve of the plot, authorities conducted a sweep of the Palace of Westminster’s cellars, where they discovered Fawkes with enough gunpowder to destroy the building twice over. “That would have [not only] killed everyone in Parliament, but the whole Westminster area would have been destroyed as well,” Nick Holland, the author of The Real Guy Fawkes, told me. “It would have been the biggest terrorist act in British history.”
Upon discovery, Fawkes and his co-conspirators were taken to the Tower of London and interrogated—though Fawkes notably didn’t reveal a thing. It was only after the king authorized the use of torture that authorities were able to extract a confession. Fawkes was found guilty of high treason and executed in Westminister’s Old Palace Yard, mere yards away from the building he had tried to bring crashing down.
In the immediate aftermath of his execution, Fawkes was widely regarded as “a huge villain,” Holland said. Guy became a pejorative term used to describe someone as grotesque (though nowadays the word simply refers to a man or a person). Londoners lit bonfires to celebrate King James’s survival, and an annual day to commemorate the thwarted plot was enacted into law, with observance made compulsory. This became the precursor to the modern tradition of bonfire celebrations, complete with effigies, or Guys (a ritual that has since expanded to include famous figures such as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, President Donald Trump, and the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein).
But Fawkes’s reputation didn’t stay this way. In the centuries since, his memory has morphed from one of a religious extremist to one of a populist underdog—a shift that has been attributed in large part to the serialization of his life in the British graphic novel turned film V for Vendetta. Set in a future dystopian Britain ruled by a fascist government, the Fawkes-inspired character, known simply as “V,” bears little resemblance to his historical counterpart. Whereas the real Fawkes was driven by religious aims, the masked, knife-wielding V lashes out against his enemies for the purpose of bringing down the fascist state. They both share the goal of bombing the Houses of Parliament as a catalyst for their ultimate aims, though where Fawkes fails, V succeeds.
Perhaps the starkest difference between the two is that whereas V emerges as a heroic martyr acting for the greater good, Fawkes is first and foremost seen as a traitor acting in the interest of a radical few. “He may have wanted religious freedom, but it’s unlikely that if he was in a position of power, he would have extended that freedom to his religious enemies,” Alastair Bellany, a professor of history at Rutgers University, told me. “He wanted a Catholic kingdom.”
It’s not just the 2005 film that shifts Fawkes’s image in the zeitgeist. The mask popularized in V for Vendetta soon emerged in anti-government demonstrations worldwide, from the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement to protests in Bahrain, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia. The mask also become the symbol of the hacktivist group Anonymous. James Sharpe, the author of Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day, told me that even the Guy Fawkes Inn, a York pub located across the street from where its namesake was baptized, swapped its original portrait of Fawkes for one of the iconic mask. “The modern perception, the mask, and so on is a complete reconfiguration of Fawkes,” Sharpe said.
David Lloyd, the British artist and illustrator who designed the V for Vendetta mask, said the iconic image is open to interpretation. “It’s an all-purpose badge of protest and rebellion,” he told Britain’s Daily Telegraph in 2015. “The smile can be interpreted as eternal optimism, of course—which is something essential to the survival of protesters everywhere.”
In this populist age, where protesters the world over are taking to the streets and ballot boxes to voice their discontent with the status quo, perhaps the emergence of a Fawkes-like symbol is necessary. But in amplifying one narrative about the historic figure, we risk losing the other.
“People will hold him up as a symbol of whatever they want to believe in,” Holland said, “but we’re getting further and further away from the man that he was.”
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People
BIRX TESTIFIES that TRUMP's WHITE HOUSE FAILED to TAKE STEPS to PREVENT MORE VIRUS DEATHS.
By Michael D. Shear
- Oct. 26, 2021, 12:28 p.m. ET
Dr. Deborah Birx, who helped run the coronavirus pandemic response for former President Donald J. Trump, told congressional investigators earlier this month that Mr. Trump’s White House failed to take steps that could have prevented tens of thousands of deaths.In closed-door testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Dr. Birx said that tens of thousands of deaths could have been prevented after the initial phase of the pandemic if Mr. Trump had pushed mask-wearing, social distancing and other efforts to slow the spread of the virus.“I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30 percent less to 40 percent less range,” Dr. Birx testified, according to excerpts provided by the committee.The committee’s interview with Dr. Birx was conducted on Oct. 12 and 13. In her testimony, she also lashed out at Dr. Scott Atlas, a former Stanford neuroradiologist who became an adviser to Mr. Trump and advocated for allowing the virus to spread through much of the population in order to let otherwise healthy people build up immunity against it.
She told the committee that Dr. Atlas had relied on incomplete information to draw dangerous conclusions that she felt could have long-term consequences for people who were infected with the virus and got sick.“I was constantly raising the alert in the doctors’ meetings of the depth of my concern about Dr. Atlas’ position, Dr. Atlas’ access, Dr. Atlas’ theories and hypothesis, and the depths and breadths of my concern,” she said, referring to a group of doctors involved in the White House response who gathered regularly.Dr. Atlas did not immediately respond to an email sent Tuesday morning. But in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last December, he continued to argue against lockdowns and other measures for containing the virus.“Lockdown policies had baleful effects on local economies, families and children, and the virus spread anyway,” he wrote.During her testimony, Dr. Birx said she repeatedly pushed Mr. Trump and others in the White House to do more to embrace efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus, especially in the fall of 2020. That was a period when Dr. Atlas was at the White House and Dr. Birx spent most of her time on the road, traveling from state to state to urge them to embrace prevention measures.Asked whether Mr. Trump did everything he should have to counter the pandemic, she said: “No. And I’ve said that to the White House in general, and I believe I was very clear to the president in specifics of what I needed him to do.”
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Current events
CATCHY SLOGAN:
Play Colonel Blotto!
The tactical lotto!
Most highest totals:
That is our motto!
GAMEBOARD:
DISC=X
RM=O
________________
ZONE01
XXXXX
________________
ZONE02
XXXX
________________
ZONE03
XXX
________________
ZONE04
XX
________________
ZONE05
X
_________________
ZONE06
O
_________________
ZONE07
OO
_________________
ZONE08
OOO
__________________
ZONE09
OOOO
___________________
ZONE10
OOOOO
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Category:
Forum games
In FATAL SHOOTING, SOME POLITICAL FOES TAKE AIM at BALDWIN
By JAKE COYLE
NEW YORK (AP) — Details are still emerging about how Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed a cinematographer on a New Mexico film set, but some political onlookers swiftly assigned guilt to one of Hollywood’s most prominent liberals.
Right-wing pundits and politicians have long chafed at Baldwin’s criticism of former President Donald Trump and his Trump parody on “Saturday Night Live.” They wasted little time zeroing in on the actor who pulled the trigger. The hashtag #AlecForPrison ricocheted around Twitter.
Within hours of the shooting, Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance asked Twitter to let Trump back on the social media platform that banned him after the Capitol insurrection. “We need Alec Baldwin tweets,” Vance wrote.
By Monday, Trump’s oldest son was selling $28 T-shirts on his official website with the slogan “Guns don’t kill people, Alec Baldwin kills people.” The post was later removed.
Gun violence has long divided the country, but the fact that some observers seemed to revel in Baldwin’s role in the shooting added a political dimension to the tragedy. CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday called Hutchins’ death “heartbreaking for normal people.”
“But there’s something about our politics right now that is driving people away from our shared humanity,” Tapper said.
Court records provided some details about the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of “Rust” near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Authorities have said that the assistant director, Dave Halls, handed the weapon to Baldwin and announced “cold gun,” indicating that the weapon was safe to use.
In an affidavit released Sunday night, the film’s director, Joel Souza, said Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which he drew a revolver from his holster and pointed it toward the camera, which Hutchins and Souza were behind. Souza, who was wounded by the shot, said the scene did not call for the use of live rounds.
It’s not clear yet where the gun-handling protocol failed. Souza said the movie’s guns were usually checked by armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and then again by Halls.
At least two people have aired doubts about Halls’ safety record.
In an email statement to The Associated Press, a producer for the movie “Freedom’s Path” confirmed Monday that Halls was fired from the 2019 production after a crew member suffered a minor injury “when a gun was unexpectedly discharged.” The producer, who asked not to be identified by name, wrote that Halls “was removed from the set immediately.” Production did not resume until Halls was gone.
Prop maker Maggie Goll on Sunday said she filed an internal complaint in 2019 over concerns about Halls’ behavior on the set of Hulu’s “Into the Dark” series. Goll said Halls disregarded safety protocols for weapons and pyrotechnics and tried to continue filming after the supervising pyrotechnician, who was diabetic, lost consciousness on set.
Neither Gutierrez-Reed nor Halls have responded to requests for comment on the shooting.
In the affidavit, cameraman Reid Russell said Baldwin had been careful with weapons. Russell was unsure whether the weapon was checked before it was handed to Baldwin.
In the aftermath of Hutchins’ death, many in the film industry have argued that real guns should be replaced entirely by computer-generated effects.
“There should not have been a loaded gun on set,” actor Riley Keough wrote on Instagram. “We don’t need real guns, we can make replicas, and we have CGI. In my opinion, that is the issue here. Not Alec Baldwin.”
And yet, as director Gigi Saul Guerrero observed, Baldwin has been the “face to this tragic story.” The 63-year-old actor, a vocal advocate of gun-law reforms, has been widely mocked by the far-right on social media.
“Literally not one single thing that Alec Baldwin has said about Donald Trump and his supporters is going to age well,” tweeted conservative commentator Candace Owens.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, cited a tweet of Baldwin’s last year supporting Black Lives Matter protesters in which Baldwin said he was going to make T-shirts that read: “My hands are up. Please don’t shoot me!” Wrote Boebert: “Alec Baldwin, are these still available? Asking for a movie producer.”
Boebert received widespread criticism. Actor George Takei said Boebert had “no soul.” Actress Rosanna Arquette wrote: “This was a tragic and horrible accident.
Ms. Boebart and you should be ashamed of yourself politicizing it.” But Boebert stood by her tweet.
“You crazy Blue Checks want to take away our right to defend ourselves with a firearm, and know NOTHING about basic gun safety!” Boebert wrote. “If this was a conservative celebrity you’d be calling for his head.”
The film’s chief electrician, Serge Svetnoy, blamed producers for Hutchins’ death in an emotional Facebook post Sunday. Svetnoy faulted “negligence and unprofessionalism” among those handling weapons on the set, and claimed producers hired an inexperienced armorer.
“I’m sure that we had the professionals in every department, but one — the department that was responsible for the weapons,” Svetnoy wrote. “The person who should have checked this weapon before bringing it to the set did not do it. And the DEATH OF THE HUMAN IS THE RESULT!”
A spokesman for the film’s production company, Rust Movie Productions LLC, has said it is cooperating with authorities and conducting an internal review. The company said it was halting production on the film but signaled it may resume in the future.
Baldwin has said he is cooperating with the law enforcement investigation and described the shooting as a “tragic accident.”
___
Associated Press writers Hillel Italie in New York and Lindsey Bahr in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
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MORE THAN HALF of POLICE KILLINGS are MISLABELED, NEW STUDY SAYS
Researchers comparing information from death certificates with data from organizations that track police killings in the United States identified a startling discrepancy.
By Tim Arango and Shaila Dewan
Sept. 30, 2021Updated 6:55 p.m. ET
Police killings in America have been undercounted by more than half over the past four decades, according to a new study that raises pointed questions about racial bias among medical examiners and highlights the lack of reliable national record keeping on what has become a major public health and civil rights issue.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Washington and published on Thursday in The Lancet, a major British medical journal, amounts to one of the most comprehensive looks at the scope of police violence in America, and the disproportionate impact on Black people.
Researchers compared information from a federal database known as the National Vital Statistics System, which collects death certificates, with recent data from three organizations that track police killings through news reports and public records requests. When extrapolating and modeling that data back decades, they identified a startling discrepancy: About 55 percent of fatal encounters with the police between 1980 and 2018 were listed as another cause of death.The findings reflect both the contentious role of medical examiners and coroners in obscuring the real extent of police violence, and the lack of centralized national data on an issue that has caused enormous upheaval. Private nonprofits and journalists have filled the gap by mining news reports and social media.“I think the big takeaway is that most people in public health tend to take vital statistics for the U.S. and other countries as the absolute truth, and it turns out, as we show, the vital statistics are missing more than half of the police violence deaths,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which conducted the study.He continued: “You have to look for why those deaths that are being picked up by the open-source investigations, looking in the media and elsewhere, aren’t showing up in the official statistics. That does point to the system of medical examiners and the incentives that may exist for them to want to not classify a death as related to police violence.”Researchers estimated that over the time period they studied, which roughly tracks the era of the war on drugs and the rise of mass incarceration, nearly 31,000 Americans were killed by the police, with more than 17,000 of them going unaccounted for in the official statistics. The study also documented a stark racial gap: Black Americans were 3.5 times as likely to be killed by the police as white Americans were. Data on Asian Americans was not included in the study, but Latinos and Native Americans also suffered higher rates of fatal police violence than white people.The annual number of deaths in police custody has generally gone upward since 1980, even as crime — notwithstanding a rise in homicides last year amid the dislocations of the coronavirus pandemic — has declined from its peak in the early 1990s.The states with the highest rates of police killings were Oklahoma, Arizona and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia, while the states with the lowest rates were Massachusetts, Connecticut and Minnesota, according to the study.Researchers estimated that about 20 times as many men as women were killed by the police over the past several decades; more American men died in 2019 during police encounters than from Hodgkin lymphoma or testicular cancer.]Unexplained or violent deaths in the United States are investigated by coroners or medical examiners, who use autopsies, toxicology tests and evidence like body camera footage to determine the cause and manner of death. The death certificate does not specifically ask whether the police were involved — which may contribute to the undercount identified by the study — but many medical examiners are trained to include that information.The system has long been criticized for fostering a cozy relationship with law enforcement — forensic pathologists regularly consult with detectives and prosecutors and in some jurisdictions they are directly employed by police agencies.Yet pathologists have also complained on occasion that law enforcement does not provide them with all relevant information, that they have been pressured to change their opinions, or that coroners, who are usually elected and are not always required to have a medical degree, can and do overrule their findings.The researchers found that some of the misclassified deaths occurred because medical examiners failed to mention law enforcement’s involvement on the death certificate, while others were improperly coded in the national database.While The Lancet study did not mention specific cases, there have been recent examples where the initial findings of coroners or medical examiners downplayed or omitted the role of the police when a Black man was killed: Ronald Greene’s death in Louisiana, for instance, was attributed by the coroner to cardiac arrest and classified as accidental before video emerged of him being stunned, beaten and dragged by state troopers.In Aurora, Colo., the manner of Elijah McClain’s death was ruled undetermined after the police put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative. Almost two years later, three officers and two paramedics were indicted.Even in the case of George Floyd, whose agonizing last breaths under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee were captured on bystander video, the police and the county medical examiner first pointed to drug use and underlying health conditions.The National Association of Medical Examiners encourages the classification of deaths caused by law enforcement as homicides, in part to reduce the appearance of a cover-up (a homicide may still be deemed justified). But classification guidelines differ from office to office, and there are no national standards.Roger Mitchell Jr., a former chief medical examiner of Washington, D.C., and an expert on investigating deaths in custody, has long said that death certificates should include a checkbox indicating whether a death occurred in custody, including arrest-related deaths as well as those in jails and prisons.As long as medical examiners are not specifically asked to include that information, he said, he would not jump to conclusions about why they do not do so: “If it’s a function of training, a function of bias, a function of institutional and structural racism — all the things we can assume — we can identify that once we have a uniform system.”A federal law passed in 2014 requiring law enforcement agencies to report deaths in custody has yet to produce any public data.
The paper’s top-line findings are similar to the results of a more narrow study conducted at Harvard in 2017 that examined one year — 2015 — and compared official death statistics in the United States with data on police killings compiled by The Guardian.
“It’s highlighting the persistent problem of undercounting of killings by police in official data sources, one of those being mortality data,” said Justin Feldman, a research fellow at Harvard who conducted the 2017 study and was a peer reviewer on the paper published on Thursday in The Lancet.
“This is an ongoing issue that we are still, after all these years, not doing a very good of keeping track of people killed by police,” he added.
The study lands at a time when America has grappled with one high-profile police killing of a Black man after another. But, as the study showed, there are tens of thousands of other deaths that remain in the shadows.Rulings on the cause and manner of death strongly influence whether criminal charges are brought or whether families receive a civil settlement. The death of Mr. Floyd was classified as a homicide and the death certificate cited law enforcement restraint, but the medical examiner still faced criticism after prosecutors made public his preliminary findings that underlying health conditions and drug use had contributed.The former chief medical examiner of Maryland, Dr. David Fowler, was also criticized after he testified on behalf of the Minneapolis police officer, saying Mr. Floyd’s death was caused by several factors and was not a homicide.
After an open letter by Dr. Mitchell said that Dr. Fowler’s testimony revealed “obvious bias,” Maryland’s attorney general began a review of in-custody deaths that were handled under Dr. Fowler’s tenure.
Dr. Murray of the University of Washington said that one of the starkest findings was that racial disparities in police shootings have widened since 2000.
The trend contrasts, he said, with other health outcomes, such as heart disease, in which the racial gap has narrowed in recent years.
The study, he and other researchers said, points to the need for a centralized clearinghouse for data on police violence, as well as more scrutiny of coroners and medical examiners.
“There’s been an attempt to limit the reality of what is,” said Edwin G. Lindo, a scholar of critical race theory and professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who examined the findings of the study but was not involved in putting it together. “And what I would suggest is, when we don’t have good data we can’t actually make good policy decisions, and I don’t know if that’s an accident for it to be so greatly underreported.”
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Politics
TRUMP BRINGS UP "GOLDEN SHOWERS" UNPROMPTED, DURING PRIVATE EVENT with GOP SENATORS
"I'm not into golden showers," Trump said at a National Republican Senatorial Committee retreat on Thursday
"I'm not into golden showers," Trump said at a National Republican Senatorial Committee retreat on Thursday
By JON SKOLNIK
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 15, 2021 12:08PM (EDT)
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 15, 2021 12:08PM (EDT)
Donald Trump denied ever enjoying "golden showers" during a posh Thursday event with Republican donors, defending himself against years-old allegations that he hired two Moscow prostitutes to urinate on a bed together.
"I'm not into golden showers," Trump said at a National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) retreat, which hosted sitting senators. "You know the great thing, our great first lady – 'That one,' she said, 'I don't believe that one.'"
Trump's remarks, first reported by The Washington Post, are a clear reference to allegations first floated in 2016 when British spy Christopher Steele released a dossier probing Trump's alleged collusion with Russia to undermine Hillary Clinton's candidacy in the 2016 election. Steele's dossier reportedly contained a video – now colloquially known as the "pee tape" – that shows Trump instructing two prostitutes at Moscow's Ritz-Carlton Hotel to urinate on a bed that President Obama had previously slept on. The video was allegedly taped as part of surveillance done by FSB, Russia's main state security agency, and had been lightly corroborated by a number of Steele's sources who had second-hand knowledge of the dossier, according to The New Yorker.
Ex-FBI Director James Comey, who in 2017 testified about the Trump campaign's alleged relationship with Russia, wrote in his book that the former president was fixated on the rumor, dead set on dispelling it from the national discourse.
"I'm a germaphobe," Trump reportedly told Comey, per the book. "There's no way I would let people pee on each other around me. No way."
In 2018, Comey told ABC News back that he couldn't be sure whether the rumor was true. "I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the current President of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013," the ex-FBI director said. "It's possible, but I don't know."
Besides dredging up old rumors unprompted, Trump reportedly cast himself as the "GOP's savior" during Thursday's event, stressing that he has held the party together over the past several years. "It was a dying party, I'll be honest," he said, according to the Post. "Now we have a very lively party."
The former president also castigated a number of his Republican detractors, including Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Ben Sasse, R-Neb, stressing that the party needs to "stick together" rather than splinter off into pro and anti-Trump factions.
Later, Trump reportedly reiterated his equally baseless conspiracy that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" by President Biden, telling the crowd that Democrats "cheat like hell."
"It's a terrible thing what they did in Georgia and other states," he said. "You look at Texas, you look at a lot of states — they are correcting all the ways we were all abused over the last election ... last two elections if you think about it."
There continues to be no significant evidence that the 2020 election was marred by outcome-altering fraud.
Trump quotes Melania as saying "That one...I don't believe that one," strongly indicating that there are at least some accusation laid out in the Steele Dossier that Melania, at least, does believe.
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FROM: Real Time with Bill Maher: OCT 8th
"Don't make me be an I told you so again.
You know I was a young man of fifty nine when I started using the term "slow moving coup," and it pains me to have to report it's still moving.
A document came to light a few weeks ago, called the Eastman Memo, which was basically a blueprint prepared for Trump on how he could steal the election after he lost it in November 2020. It outlined a plan for overturning the election by claiming that seven states actually had competing slates of electors which, while not even remotely true, would have given Mike Pence the excuse to throw out those states and thus hand the election to Trump. But of course, the plan required election officials in those states to go along. Trump thought the ones who were Republican would, most did not, and that's what he's been working on fixing ever since.
Some Presidents spend their post-presidency building homes for the poor or raising money for charity or painting their toes. Trump has spent his figuring out how to pull off the coup he couldn't pull off last time. Here's the easiest three predictions in the world:
- Trump will run in 2024,
- He will get the Republican nomination, and
- Whatever happens on election night, the next day he will announce that he won.
I've been saying that ever since he lost, he's like a shark. That's not gone- just gone out to sea. But actually, he's quietly eating people this whole time.
And by "eating people," I mean he's been methodically purging the Republican Party of anyone who voted for his impeachment or doesn't agree that he's the rightful leader of the Seven Kingdoms. Yes, we're going to need a bigger boat.
There was grand total of ten Republican congressmen who voted to impeach Trump and by 2024 even those will all be gone.
One of them was Liz Cheney" arch-Conservative, daughter of Darth Vader, and yet now politically dead in Wyoming,
Another of the ten was Anthony Gonzalez. He's already bowed out for running for re election, because he can see opposing Trump means you have no chance.
The other eight will either, like him not run or they'll get primaried by a Trumper or the'll have a sudden epiphany about how come to think of it, Trump did win that election.
The purge is also at work in Republican legislatures, as several states are already in the process of changing election laws so that they, (not non-partisan election officials), are in charge of certifying the results.
Two weeks after the 2020 election, Trump famously called the Republican in charge of elections in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Rathsenberger and told him he just needed to "find" an additional eleven thousand Trump votes. Rathsenberger refused but he's not going to be there next time.
Of the fifteen Republicans running for Secretary of State in the key battleground states only two concede that Biden won that election. These are the people Trump is going to call in 2024 when he's a few votes short and these people are going to give it to him.
So here's what's going to happen,
- 2022- the Midterms.
- Republicans win big because the out-of-power party always does in a country where the electorate can't think past throw the bums out.
- So the Republicans take back the House ,where disputed elections are decided, and the speaker is Kevin McCarthy, a man with all the backbone of one of those inflatable tube men outside a car dealership.
- Republicans will also have more key governors.
- Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan all had Democratic governors who protected the vote in 2020 but they're all up for re-election in 2022.
- At least two will lose.
- 2023- Trump announces his candidacy and starts having large rallies across the country which become increasingly angry and threatening as Trump indulges his love for inciting violence.
- I know the Hitler analogy is over the top in many ways.
- I don't think Trump hates Jews- there are too many rich ones.
- I don't think committing genocide is in his future, but
- The mentality of how to take over a country is exactly the same; play on this feeling of 'we have been cheated, robbed, betrayed and now we're gonna take it back.'
- 2/3rds of Republicans believe the election was stolen.
- 21 million believe force is justified to restore Trump to office.
- A majority want to secede( whatever the hell that would entail), and yet-
- 2024 comes and Democrats treat it as a normal election year.
- They are living in a dream world where their choice of candidate matters, their policies matter, the number of votes they get matters.
- None of it does.
- I won't even predict who the Democratic nominee will because itdoesn't matter. It could be Biden, it could be Harris ,it could be Amy Klobuchar, it could be Timothee Chalamet, as long as they have a "D" by their name, they will be portrayed as the leader of the Army of Satan.
- Even if they win, Trump won't accept it.
- But this time his claims of illegal voting by immigrants or mail-in ballots coming in after the deadline, or the system was hacked by Venezuela or whatever Giuliani comes up with on the fly, they will be fully embraced by the stooges he's installing right now.
- December 16, 2024. This is the day electors gather to vote for President.
- Arizona and Wisconsin both send a slate of bogus Trump electors, setting up a showdown on January 6th and daring Kamala Harris to do what Trumpers wanted Mike Pence to do: throw out election results.
- The difference being this time, those results really are phony and this time it's not just 600 diabetic FOX NEWS junkies and a nut in a Viking helmut: Ten million Trump voters have signed a pledge to come to Washington Of course, Nine and a half million flake- but half a million still show up and they're heavily armed and incensed when Harris does what Mike Pence wouldn't.
- Demonstrations grow in the streets, the kind of Antifa vs Proud Boy violence we've seen in Portland erupts across the country.
- People are afraid to go out anywhere where their political tribe is not in the majority.
- Which hurts commerce
- The stock market is spooked by the unrest and tumbles as Inauguration Day approaches.
- President Biden is under extraordinary pressure to do something to stop the coup before his authority over the Military and the Justice Department evaporates at noon on January 20th.
- What happens when two Presidential candidates both show up on Inauguration Day both expecting to be sworn in like a bad sitcom pilot?
The ding-dongs who sacked the Capital last year? That was like when al Qaeda tried to take down the World Trade Center, the first time, with the van- it was a joke.
....but the next time they came back with planes.
I hope I scared the shit out of you.
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John Barleycorn: A Ballad
There was three kings into the east,Three kings both great and high,And they hae sworn a solemn oathJohn Barleycorn should die.They took a plough and plough'd him down,Put clods upon his head,And they hae sworn a solemn oathJohn Barleycorn was dead.But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,And show'rs began to fall;John Barleycorn got up again,And sore surpris'd them all.The sultry suns of Summer came,And he grew thick and strong;His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,That no one should him wrong.The sober Autumn enter'd mild,When he grew wan and pale;His bending joints and drooping headShow'd he began to fail.His colour sicken'd more and more,He faded into age;And then his enemies beganTo show their deadly rage.They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,And cut him by the knee;Then tied him fast upon a cart,Like a rogue for forgerie.They laid him down upon his back,And cudgell'd him full sore;They hung him up before the storm,And turned him o'er and o'er.They filled up a darksome pitWith water to the brim;They heaved in John Barleycorn,There let him sink or swim.They laid him out upon the floor,To work him farther woe;And still, as signs of life appear'd,They toss'd him to and fro.They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,The marrow of his bones;But a miller us'd him worst of all,For he crush'd him between two stones.And they hae taen his very heart's blood,And drank it round and round;And still the more and more they drank,Their joy did more abound.John Barleycorn was a hero bold,Of noble enterprise;For if you do but taste his blood,'Twill make your courage rise.'Twill make a man forget his woe;'Twill heighten all his joy;'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,Tho' the tear were in her eye.Then let us toast John Barleycorn,Each man a glass in hand;And may his great posterityNe'er fail in old Scotland!
-Robert Burns
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OCTOBER 07, 2021
Following 8 Month Investigation, Senate Judiciary Committee Releases Report on Donald Trump's Scheme to Pressure DOJ & Overturn the 2020 Election
WASHINGTON – Following an eight-month investigation, the Senate Judiciary Committee today released new testimony and a staff report,
“Subverting Justice: How the Former President and his Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.”
The report and testimony reveal that we were only a half-step away from a full blown constitutional crisis as President Donald Trump and his loyalists threatened a wholesale takeover of the Department of Justice (DOJ). They also reveal how former Acting Civil Division Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark became Trump’s Big Lie Lawyer, pressuring his colleagues in DOJ to force an overturn of the 2020 election.
The report sheds new light on Trump’s relentless efforts to coopt DOJ into overturning the 2020 election and Clark’s efforts to aid Trump. The Committee’s interim report is the first comprehensive accounting of those efforts, which were even more expansive and troubling than previously reported.
Based on findings from the investigation so far, the Committee has asked the D.C. Bar to open an investigation into Jeffrey Clark’s compliance with applicable rules of professional conduct. These rules include Rule 1.2, which prohibits attorneys from assisting or counseling clients in criminal or fraudulent conduct, and Rule 8.4, which among other things prohibits conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice. The Committee is withholding potential findings and recommendations about criminal culpability until the investigation is complete.
U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following statement on today’s report release:
“Today’s report shows the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis. Thanks to a number of upstanding Americans in the Department of Justice, Donald Trump was unable to bend the Department to his will. But it was not due to a lack of effort. Donald Trump would have shredded the Constitution to stay in power. We must never allow this unprecedented abuse of power to happen again.”
Key takeaways from the Committee’s investigation include:
- Previously-unreleased transcripts of the Committee’s closed-door interviews with three key former senior DOJ officials: former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former U.S. Attorney BJay Pak. These witnesses cooperated with the Committee, and although their testimony was not under oath, they were obligated by 18 U.S.C. § 1001 to tell the truth.
- New details of Donald Trump’s relentless, direct pressure on DOJ’s leadership. This includes at least nine calls and meetings with Rosen and/or Donoghue starting the day former Attorney General Bill Barr announced his resignation and continuing almost until the January 6 insurrection—including near-daily outreach once Barr left DOJ on December 23.
- New details of then-Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division Jeffrey Clark’s misconduct, including his attempt to induce Rosen into helping Trump’s election subversion scheme by telling Rosen he would decline Trump’s offer to install him in Rosen’s place if Rosen agreed to aid that scheme.
- New details around Trump forcing the resignation of U.S. Attorney Pak because he believed Pak was not doing enough to support his false claims of election fraud in Georgia—and then went outside the line of succession to appoint Bobby Christine as Acting U.S. Attorney because he believed Christine would “do something” about his election fraud claims.
- New details of how, at Barr’s direction, DOJ deviated from decades-long practice meant to avoid inserting DOJ itself as an issue in the election—and instead aggressively pursued false claims of election fraud before votes were certified.
- Confirmation that Mark Meadows asked Rosen to initiate election fraud investigations on multiple occasions, violating longstanding restrictions on White House intervention in DOJ law enforcement matters—and new details about these requests, including that Meadows asked Rosen to meet with Trump’s outside lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Based on these findings, the interim report makes the following recommendations:
- Congress should strengthen longstanding DOJ and White House policies restricting the circumstances under which DOJ and White House officials can communicate with one another about specific law enforcement matters.
- DOJ should strengthen its longstanding election non-interference policy, which is meant to avoid inserting DOJ as an issue into a pending election.
- The D.C. Bar should scrutinize Clark’s compliance with applicable bar rules.
- The Committee is withholding potential recommendations about criminal culpability and criminal referrals until the investigation is complete.
In January 2021, following a report from The New York Times that detailed a plot between Trump and Clark to use DOJ to further Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, Durbin led the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a letter to then-Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson calling on him to preserve and produce all relevant materials in the DOJ’s possession, custody, or control related to this plot. This kicked off the Committee’s eight-month investigation. The Committee continues to seek records requested from the National Archives and Records Administration, which have not yet been supplied, and continues to pursue interviews with relevant individuals as part of this ongoing investigation.
A link to today’s report is available here.
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REPUBLICAN's SHAKY, NO-EVIDENCE ATTEMPT to CAST BLAME on PELOSI for JAN. 6
House Republicans have sought to change the narrative on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by pro-Trump protesters, claiming that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “ultimately responsible for the breakdown of security at the Capitol.”
But their arguments overstate the role of the House speaker in overseeing the security of the Capitol and rely on speculation about Pelosi’s involvement and knowledge about intelligence warnings for which they have not provided any proof.
- Republican Rep. Jim Banks said that Pelosi, as speaker, “has more control and authority and responsibility over the leadership of the Capitol Police than anyone else in the United States Capitol” and therefore, “is ultimately responsible for the breakdown of security at the Capitol that happened on Jan. 6.” The speaker does not oversee security of the U.S. Capitol. The speaker appoints one member of a four-member board that oversees Capitol security, and who then must be approved by the House.
- House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested Pelosi played a role in denying efforts prior to Jan. 6 to bolster security on the Capitol grounds with members of the National Guard. There is no evidence of that.
- Banks accused Pelosi of withholding documents from the bipartisan Senate committee that investigated security and planning issues related to the Jan. 6 riot. Banks speculated that’s because the documents may show “the speaker was involved and the lack of leadership and the breakdown of security that occurred on Jan. 6th.” The Senate committee never requested any documents from the speaker’s office, though the House sergeant at arms “did not comply with the Committees’ information requests,” according to the Senate report.
- Rep. Rodney Davis pointed to the fact that on the afternoon of Jan. 6, the House sergeant at arms sought Pelosi’s permission to bring in the National Guard as evidence that Pelosi was “calling the shots on all of their actions on Jan. 6.” A Pelosi aide confirms the request was made, though he says Pelosi “expects security professionals to make security decisions” and that Pelosi only expects “to be briefed about those decisions.” In any event, the request also went to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as well as to Department of Defense leadership.
- GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik said Pelosi “failed to act” on intelligence reports in December about potential security threats and therefore “Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility as speaker of the House for the tragedy that occurred on Jan. 6.” There is no evidence that Pelosi was privy to those intelligence reports.
Banks appeared on “Fox News Sunday” four days after Pelosi rejected Banks and Rep. Jim Jordan from serving on the select committee that will investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Banks and Jordan both voted to object to the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. In a statement, Pelosi said she had “concern about statements made and actions taken” by Banks and Jordan that she felt would compromise “the integrity of the investigation.”
Overseeing the Capitol Police
Banks contends that Pelosi left him off the committee because he was “prepared to ask questions” about “a systemic breakdown of security at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” for which he says Pelosi was “ultimately responsible.”
Banks, July 25: Once you go up the — to the top of the flagpole of who is in charge of the Capitol Police, who the Capitol Police union chief, they blamed the leadership of the Capitol Police. But — due to the rules of the United States Capitol, the power structure of the Capitol, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, has more control and authority and responsibility over the leadership of the Capitol Police than anyone else in the United States Capitol. So she doesn’t want us to ask these questions because at the end of the day she is ultimately responsible for the breakdown of security at the Capitol that happened on Jan. 6.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, said Banks was simply trying to “divert blame” for the attack.
“On January 6th, the Speaker, a target of an assassination attempt that day, was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was,” Hammill told us via email. “This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th and divert blame. The Speaker believes security officials should make security decisions.”
A bipartisan Senate investigation of security, planning and response failures on the day of the attack said “breakdowns ranged from federal intelligence agencies failing to warn of a potential for violence to a lack of planning and preparation by USCP [U.S. Capitol Police] and law enforcement leadership.”
The June 8 report — led by Sens. Gary Peters, chairman, and Rob Portman, ranking member, of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Amy Klobuchar, chairwoman, and Roy Blunt, ranking member, of the Committee on Rules and Administration — made no mention of any missteps by Pelosi.
In a House Republican press conference on July 27, Banks referred to the “tragic events that happened on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s watch,” and he said the Senate report identified “there was a systemic breakdown of security, a lack of leadership at the very top of the United States Capitol Police who report and who Nancy Pelosi is ultimately responsible for that lack of leadership.”
But he is overstating Pelosi’s authority.
In a statement provided to FactCheck.org, Jane L. Campbell, president and CEO of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, said: “The Speaker of the House does not oversee security of the U.S. Capitol, the Capitol Police Board does, and the Speaker does not oversee the Board. The Board consists of three voting members: the Senate Sergeant at Arms, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Architect of the Capitol; together with one non-voting member, the Chief of the Capitol Police.”
To put names to those titles, on Jan. 6, the Capitol Police chief was Steven Sund; the House sergeant at arms was Paul Irving; the Senate sergeant at arms was Michael Stenger; and the architect of the Capitol was Brett Blanton. Sund, Irving and Stenger all resigned in the wake of the riot.
So how does Pelosi fit into all of this?
“The Speaker is involved in the appointment of the House Sergeant at Arms, who must be confirmed by the House,” Campbell explained. “The Senate Sergeant at Arms is chosen by the Senate. The Speaker also sits on the commission that recommends an Architect of the Capitol to the U.S. President. However, it is the President who appoints the Architect, who must be confirmed by the Senate.”
During the Republican press conference on July 27, Rep. Rodney Davis noted that Irving, the House sergeant at arms, was “appointed by the speaker.” That’s true, but Irving initially came to the position in January 2012 after being nominated by then-House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican. Irving was unanimously approved by the House. He was retained by House votes five more times, including twice when Pelosi was speaker — on Jan. 3, 2019, and Jan. 3, 2021, three days before the riot.
Pelosi, of course, played no role in Stenger’s nomination or election as Senate sergeant at arms. Stenger was nominated by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and approved by unanimous consent by the Senate on April 16, 2018.
Blanton, the architect of the Capitol, was appointed by then-President Donald Trump and was confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate by voice vote on Dec. 19, 2019.
Approving the National Guard
In the July 27 press conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, “There’s questions into the leadership within the structure of the speaker’s office where they denied the ability to bring the National Guard here.”
McCarthy also referred — without naming anyone — to “people out there who say there were phone calls to the speaker that offered the National Guard prior to that day and was turned down.”
But there is no evidence of that.
In a Feb. 1 letter to Pelosi, Sund, the former Capitol Police chief — who was hired by the Capitol Police Board in June 2019 — wrote that on Jan. 4, two days before the riot, he
“approached the two Sergeants at Arms to request the assistance of the National Guard, as I had no authority to do so without an Emergency Declaration by the Capitol Police Board (CPB).”
(According to a 2017 Government Accountability Office report, the Capitol Police Board “has authority for security decisions, as well as certain human capital and personnel matters, including the approval of officer terminations.”)
Sund said Irving told him he was “concerned about the ‘optics’ and didn’t feel that the intelligence supported it. He referred me to the Senate Sergeant at Arms (who is currently the Chair of the CPB) to get his thoughts on the request. I then spoke to Mr. Stenger and again requested the National Guard. Instead of approving the use of the National Guard, however, Mr. Stenger suggested I ask them how quickly we could get support if needed and to ‘lean forward’ in case we had to request assistance on January 6.”
During Senate testimony on Feb. 23, Sen. Ted Cruz asked Irving and Stenger whether they had any conversation with “congressional leadership” about supplementing the law enforcement presence on Jan. 6 or bringing in the National Guard.
Irving said he had “no follow up conversations and it was not until the 6th that I alerted leadership [Pelosi’s office] that we might be making a request and that was the end of the discussion.”
Stenger said that “it was Jan. 6 that I mentioned it to leader McConnell’s staff.”
So there is no evidence that Pelosi was made aware of any request for National Guard assistance or played any role in the decision not to fulfill Sund’s request on Jan. 4 for National Guard help on Jan. 6. The decision beforehand not to provide National Guard assistance on the Capitol grounds appears to be one made by both Irving and Stenger (who, again, was appointed by McConnell).
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Current events
FACT CHECK: CLAIMS of FBI ROLE in JAN. 6 ATTACK are FALSE
McKenzie Sadeghi
USA TODAY
The claim: FBI operatives organized the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol
In the months following the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol by rioters seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, conservative media personalities have attempted to downplay the insurrection and shift blame.
Some baselessly claimed the mob of Donald Trump supporters who breached Capitol barricades — fueled by unproven allegations of voter fraud — was actually a crowd of antifa members in disguise. Those allegations were wrong.
Now, claims that undercover FBI agents were behind the Capitol insurrection are circulating on social media.
"Evidence surfaces that the FBI planned and executed January 6 Capitol riot," the Tatum Report wrote in a June 17 Instagram post.
The narrative started with a June 14 report by conservative website Revolver News. The story says there's a "strong possibility" the federal government had "undercover agents or confidential informants embedded within the so-called militia groups" that were seeking to obstruct the Senate certification of the 2020 election results. The Instagram post linked to a Tatum report post that recapped the Revolver News story. USA TODAY reached out to Tatum Report for comment
After the article was published, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Republican lawmakers and social media users amplified it across platforms.
Facebook users have shared an open letter from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in which he demands FBI Director Christopher Wray "fully disclose the role and involvement of FBI operatives during the January 6th Capitol riot." Other users shared a clip of Carlson's June 15 show, during which he said "FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol on January 6."
But that theory relies on a false assumption: that anyone identified as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in charging documents is a government agent.
In fact, legal experts say that term cannot be used to describe FBI agents or undercover government operatives. Charging documents and other evidence indicate that the Jan. 6 rioters included Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists and members of far-right groups.
Fox News and social media users who amplified Revolver News' claims did not return requests for comment.
Unindicted co-conspirators, explained
The term "unindicted co-conspirators" refers to people who allegedly took part in the same offense in some fashion but are not being criminally charged for their role, Ira Robbins, an American University law professor, wrote in a 2004 paper that represents the legal consensus on the term.
This can include someone who cooperated with law enforcement to receive a deal or who authorities don't feel they have sufficient evidence to charge.
The term became well-known in 1974, when a grand jury applied it to President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
The Justice Department's policy says federal prosecutors should not name unindicted co-conspirators "in the absence of some significant justification."
Government informants can't be described as co-conspirators
The primary evidence presented in the Revolver News story — federal charging documents related to the Jan. 6 insurrection — don't support its claim about FBI informants organizing the riot.
Revolver News is run by former Trump speechwriter Darren Beattie, who was fired in 2018 for his appearance at a conference featuring white nationalists. It's unclear who wrote the site's June 14 report, as it doesn't have a byline.
The story argues that because upward of 20 unindicted co-conspirators listed in federal charging documents haven't been charged, there is a "disturbing possibility" that they could be undercover FBI agents or federal informants.
That's not actually a possibility, legal experts say.
"Prosecutors would not name FBI agents as unindicted co-conspirators," Robbins told USA TODAY via email. "Tucker Carlson’s allegation that the FBI organized the attack on the Capitol is pure fantasy."
Robbins said while it is possible FBI agents were acting undercover in extremist organizations involved in the Capitol riot, that "would not necessarily mean they had instigated the insurrection."
Similarly, Cornell Law School professor Jens David Ohlin told the Washington Post there are "many reasons why an indictment would reference unindicted co-conspirators, but their status as FBI agents is not one of them." In a 1985 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit noted that "government agents and informers cannot be conspirators."
The FBI declined to comment for this fact check.
No evidence unnamed individuals in Caldwell case are FBI agents
The Revolver News article singles out unnamed individuals mentioned in a case involving Thomas Caldwell of Virginia, an alleged Oath Keepers member who is facing charges related to the Capitol attack.
In an emailed statement to USA TODAY, Beattie said the issue from "our perspective is not the specific phrase 'unindicted co-conspirator'" but that "the individuals referenced in the 1/6 charging documents (referred to variously as Persons or individuals), remain unindicted on account of a prior relationship with federal law enforcement."
But there's no evidence those unnamed individuals, referred to as "persons" in court filings, are federal agents — and ample evidence they are people close to Caldwell.
Charging documents identify the leader of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, as "PERSON ONE." (That person is Stewart Rhodes, and there is no evidence he is an undercover government agent.)
"PERSON TWO" is also not a secret government agent, as the Revolver News article suggests. Charging documents indicate Caldwell stayed with "PERSON TWO" at an Arlington hotel and took "selfie" photographs with them on the perimeter of the Capitol.
A criminal affidavit against Caldwell and Oath Keepers members Donovan Crowl and Jessica Watkins says Caldwell stayed at the hotel with his wife, Sharon, who has not been charged with a crime.
Further, a defense filing from May 26 says Caldwell "rarely travels without his wife" due to "physical limitations and health concerns." Caldwell also shared on Facebook photos of he and his wife at the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the Washington Post.
The Revolver News story compares the Capitol attack to the October 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, which involved undercover federal agents. But The New York Times noted operatives involved in that case were referred to in the criminal complaint as "confidential human sources" and "undercover employees," not "unindicted co-conspirators."
Beattie did not present any additional evidence to support the Revolver News article when he appeared as a guest on Carlson's show.
Rioters included Trump supporters, far-right groups
While authorities are still investigating who organized and led the insurrection, court documents and other available evidence show the rioters are linked to far-right extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.
QAnon followers and extremists talked on online forums about a siege of the Capitol as early as December, NBC News reported. Experts told USA TODAY the Capitol attack was the result of years of conspiracy theories and misinformation.
A USA TODAY review of charging documents found nearly all conspiracy charges are against members of the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers, or people who acted with them. Several of the alleged conspirators attended or scheduled paramilitary training and recruited others to their cause.
Similarly, a review by the Associated Press of public records associated with more than 120 people at the insurrection found rioters included supporters of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, Trump supporters, far-right militants and white supremacists. A ProPublica collection of more than 500 videos from Jan. 6 shows rioters wearing Trump apparel, QAnon symbols and Confederate flags.
As of June 23, more than 400 arrests had been made in connection with the insurrection, none of which included charges against an FBI agent. Testimony from rioters who stormed the Capitol said they felt called to Washington by Trump and his false claim that the election was stolen, according to the Washington Post.
"This was not simply a march. This was an incredible attack on our institutions of government," Jason McCullough, an assistant U.S. attorney, said during a March hearing.
Our rating: False
The claim that the FBI orchestrated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is FALSE, based on our research. There is no evidence that "unindicted co-conspirators" mentioned in charging documents are undercover FBI agents. Legal experts say undercover government operatives and informants cannot be named in government filings as unindicted co-conspirators. The best available evidence identifies the rioters as Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists and members of far-right groups.
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GOP REVIEW FINDS no PROOF ARIZONA ELECTION STOLEN from TRUMP
By BOB CHRISTIE and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY
PHOENIX (AP) — A Republican-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona’s largest county ended Friday without producing proof to support former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
After six months of searching for evidence of fraud, the firm hired by Republican lawmakers issued a report that experts described as riddled with errors, bias and flawed methodology. Still, even that partisan review came up with a vote tally that would not have altered the outcome, finding that Biden won by 360 more votes than the official results certified last year.
The finding was an embarrassing end to a widely criticized, and at times bizarre, quest to prove allegations that election officials and courts have rejected. It has no bearing on the final, certified results. Previous reviews of the 2.1 million ballots by nonpartisan professionals that followed state law have found no significant problem with the vote count in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix. Biden won the county by 45,000 votes, key to his 10,500-vote win of Arizona.
For many critics the conclusions, presented at a hearing Friday by the firm Cyber Ninjas, underscored the dangerous futility of the exercise, which has helped fuel skepticism about the validity of the 2020 election and spawned copycat audits nationwide.
“We haven’t learned anything new,” said Matt Masterson, a top U.S. election security official in the Trump administration. “What we have learned from all this is that the Ninjas were paid millions of dollars, politicians raised millions of dollars and Americans’ trust in democracy is lower.”
Cyber Ninjas acknowledged in its report that there were “no substantial differences” between the group’s hand count of ballots and the official count. But the report also made a series of other disputed claims the auditors say should cast doubt on the accuracy and warrant more investigation.
Trump issued statements Friday falsely claiming the review found widespread fraud. He urged Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican vying for his party’s U.S. Senate nomination, to open an investigation.
Brnovich, who has been criticized by Trump supporters for not adequately backing the review, did not commit: “I will take all necessary actions that are supported by the evidence and where I have legal authority,” he said in a statement before the report was made public.
Republicans in the state Senate ordered the review under pressure from Trump and his allies, subpoenaing the election records from Maricopa County and selected the inexperienced, pro-Trump auditors. It took months longer than expected and was widely pilloried by experts.
Still, the Arizona review has become a model that Trump supporters are pushing to replicate in other swing states where Biden won. Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general sued Thursday to block a GOP-issued subpoena for a wide array of election materials. In Wisconsin, a retired conservative state Supreme Court justice is leading a Republican-ordered investigation into the 2020 election, and this week threatened to subpoena election officials who don’t comply. Backers also called for additional election reviews in Arizona on Friday.
None of the reviews can change Biden’s victory, which was certified by officials in each of the swing states he won and by Congress on Jan. 6 — after Trump’s supporters, fueled by the same false charges that generated the audits, stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to prevent certification of his loss.
The Arizona report claims a number of shortcomings in election procedures and suggested the final tally still could not be relied upon. Several were challenged by election experts, while members of the Republican-led county Board of Supervisors, which oversees elections, disputed claims on Twitter.
“Unfortunately, the report is also littered with errors & faulty conclusions about how Maricopa County conducted the 2020 General Election,” county officials tweeted.
Election officials say that’s because the review team is biased, ignored the detailed vote-counting procedures in Arizona law and had no experience in the complex field of election audits.
Two of the report’s recommendations stood out because they showed its authors misunderstood election procedures — that there should be paper ballot backups and that voting machines should not be connected to the internet. All Maricopa ballots are already paper, with machines only used to tabulate the votes, and those tabulators are not connected to the internet.
The review also checked the names of voters against a commercial database, finding 23,344 reported moving before ballots went out in October. While the review suggests something improper, election officials note that voters like college students, those who own vacation homes or military members can move to temporary locations while still legally voting at the address where they are registered.
“A competent reviewer of an election would not make a claim like that,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky.
The election review was run by Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, whose firm has never conducted an election audit before. Logan previously worked with attorneys and Trump supporters trying to overturn the 2020 election and appeared in a film questioning the results of the contest while the ballot review was ongoing.
Logan and others involved with the review presented their findings to two Arizona senators Friday. It kicked off with Shiva Ayyadurai, a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic who claims to have invented email, presenting an analysis relying on “pattern recognition” that flagged purported anomalies in the way mail ballots were processed at the end of the election.
Maricopa County tweeted that the pattern was simply the election office following state law.
“‘Anomaly’ seems to be another way of saying the Senate’s contractors don’t understand election processes,” the county posted during the testimony.
Logan followed up by acknowledging “the ballots that were provided for us to count ... very accurately correlated with the official canvass.” He then continued to flag statistical discrepancies — including the voters who moved — that he said merited further investigation.
The review has a history of exploring outlandish conspiracy theories, dedicating time to checking for bamboo fibers on ballots to see if they were secretly shipped in from Asia. It’s also served as a content-generation machine for Trump’s effort to sow skepticism about his loss, pumping out misleading and out-of-context information that the former president circulates long after it’s been debunked.
In July, for example, Logan laid out a series of claims stemming from his misunderstanding of the election data he was analyzing, including that 74,000 mail ballots were recorded as received but not sent. Trump repeatedly amplified the claims. Logan had compared two databases that track different things.
Arizona’s Senate agreed to spend $150,000 on the review, plus security and facility costs. That pales in comparison to the nearly $5.7 million contributed as of late July by Trump allies.
Maricopa County’s official vote count was conducted in front of bipartisan observers, as were legally required audits meant to ensure voting machines work properly. A partial hand-count spot check found a perfect match.
Two extra post-election reviews by federally certified election experts also found no evidence that voting machines switched votes or were connected to the internet. The county Board of Supervisors commissioned the extraordinary reviews in an effort to prove to Trump backers that there were no problems.
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Politics
REPUBLICAN PARTY OPERATIVES CHARGED with ARRANGING ILLEGAL TRUMP CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION
By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Monday unsealed criminal charges against two longtime Republican Party operatives, accusing them of illegally funneling a foreign campaign contribution to former President Donald Trump in 2016.According to an indictment unsealed in federal court in the District of Columbia, Jesse Benton and Doug Wead "conspired to illegally funnel thousands of dollars of foreign money from a Russian foreign national into an election for the Office of President of the United States of America."U.S. law bans foreign nationals from donating money to presidential campaigns.According to the indictment, Benton and Wead helped a Russian national get a ticket to a fundraiser with Trump in Pennsylvania in September 2016.The Russian, who was not identified in the indictment, donated $25,000 to political action committees associated with Trump in order to attend the event, according to prosecutors.But the true source of the donation was concealed from the Trump campaign, the indictment said, because the payment was secretly funneled through Benton, who acted as a "straw donor."Benton, 43, previously managed campaigns for Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky before he was convicted for his role in a political endorsement scheme. Benton avoided jail time and received a presidential pardon in December 2020 from Trump.Wead, 75, worked as a senior adviser on multiple presidential campaigns and ran for Congress as a Republican in 1992.It was not yet clear if the two had engaged legal counsel.Bachmann had narrowly defeated Paul to win the Ames Straw Poll in August 2011, an early measure of support in the state.A top aide in the 2008 Ron Paul presidential bid, Dennis Fusaro, provided several emails to OpenSecrets.org. According to the address fields in the emails, Fusaro was copied on the messages, which all date from late 2011.Five days before the caucus, in late 2011, Sorenson abruptly switched his support from Bachmann to Paul, and the Bachmann campaign at the time charged that he had done so for money.
- Benton is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, Rand Paul is Benton's uncle -in-law. Benton lived in Rand Paul's house for a number of years.
- Benton ran Rand's run for Senate in 2010 and Grandpa Paul's 2012 Presidential Bid.
- In an Oct. 29, 2011 email, a representative of Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, a Republican, asks the Paul campaign to provide Sorenson with $8,000 per month in salary for him, $5,000 per month in salary for a Sorenson ally, as well as $100,000 in contributions for a newly created PAC that Sorenson planned to use to support conservative candidates for Iowa state office.
- In exchange, the email, which was allegedly written by Aaron Dorr, executive director of Iowa Gun Owners, says Sorenson would abandon his support for Rep. Michele Bachmann‘s campaign, endorse Paul, campaign for him and provide access to an email list of Iowans who support homeschooling.
- That is, the director of Iowa Gun Owners is so deep inside the pockets of the Pauls that he can offer six-figure bribes on the Pauls' behalf.
- Benton was convicted of bribing Sorenson to throw his support to Ron Paul and given two years probation. Just two days after his conviction, Benton was setting up the illegal meeting for payment scheme on Roman Vasilenko's behalf.
- This sort of open corruption and graft was so appealing to Mitch McConnell that he hired Benton to run his 2014 Senatorial bid. Benton was forced to step down after many reporters questioned such open corruption but to this day, Benton still serves as the primary channel between McConnell and the Pauls.
- Trump pardoned Benton in January of this year, explicitly as a favor to Rand Paul.
- Benton is accused setting up a meeting between Trump and Vasilenko in Sept 2016 at a Philadelphia Fundraiser. Since the price of admission was a $25,000 donation to the Trump campaign and no foreign national should therefore be able to attend, Vasilensko mingled with his translator and had his picture taken with many top GOP officials without batting an eye. It just wasn't that strange to have Russians openly loitering in the belly of the GOP in 2016, apparently.
- Wead is a longtime GOP operative and consultant, whose ties to the Russian business magnate go back decades.
- Wead is credited with authoring the Bush campaign phrase "Compassionate Conservative."
- Wead has given lectures in Russia bolstering Vasilenko's self-help seminars and in 2009, Wead appointed Vasilenko to the board of directors for a Christian boarding school where Wead was president.
- Although the price of dinner with Trump was minimum $25,000, Wead and Benton's consulting firm took a check for $100,000 from Vasilenko.
- Benton tried to tell the Trump campaign that he had already made his donation (that is tried to hold on to all of the money himself) until Trump's fundraisers insisted. Benton paid the $25,000 minimum and we can assume Benton and Wead split the $75,000 remainder. Whether Trump, the Pauls, and McConnell also all get a taste of that money is unclear but that's the way it works in Russia and other mob organizations. Certainly, nobody in the GOP has bothered to condemn such fairly straightforward bribery by one of America's principle enemies. I wonder what Vasilenko asked Trump for and whether that request came straight from Putin? From what little we can tell of Trump's presidency we should probably assume he got whatever he asked for.
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Current events
Thank you very much. Laura and I are honored to be with you. Madam Vice President, Vice President Cheney. Governor Wolf, Secretary Haaland, and distinguished guests:
Twenty years ago, we all found -- in different ways, in different places, but all at the same moment -- that our lives would be changed forever. The world was loud with carnage and sirens, and then quiet with missing voices that would never be heard again. These lives remain precious to our country, and infinitely precious to many of you. Today we remember your loss, we share your sorrow, and we honor the men and women you have loved so long and so well.
For those too young to recall that clear September day, it is hard to describe the mix of feelings we experienced. There was horror at the scale -- there was horror at the scale of destruction, and awe at the bravery and kindness that rose to meet it. There was shock at the audacity -- audacity of evil -- and gratitude for the heroism and decency that opposed it. In the sacrifice of the first responders, in the mutual aid of strangers, in the solidarity of grief and grace, the actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people. And we were proud of our wounded nation.
In these memories, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 must always have an honored place. Here the intended targets became the instruments of rescue. And many who are now alive owe a vast, unconscious debt to the defiance displayed in the skies above this field.
It would be a mistake to idealize the experience of those terrible events. All that many people could initially see was the brute randomness of death. All that many could feel was unearned suffering. All that many could hear was God's terrible silence. There are many who still struggle with a lonely pain that cuts deep within.
In those fateful hours, we learned other lessons as well. We saw that Americans were vulnerable, but not fragile -- that they possess a core of strength that survives the worst that life can bring. We learned that bravery is more common than we imagined, emerging with sudden splendor in the face of death. We vividly felt how every hour with our loved ones was a temporary and holy gift. And we found that even the longest days end.
Many of us have tried to make spiritual sense of these events. There is no simple explanation for the mix of providence and human will that sets the direction of our lives. But comfort can come from a different sort of knowledge. After wandering long and lost in the dark, many have found they were actually walking, step by step, toward grace.
As a nation, our adjustments have been profound. Many Americans struggled to understand why an enemy would hate us with such zeal. The security measures incorporated into our lives are both sources of comfort and reminders of our vulnerability. And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.
After 9/11, millions of brave Americans stepped forward and volunteered to serve in the Armed Forces. The military measures taken over the last 20 years to pursue dangers at their source have led to debate. But one thing is certain: We owe an assurance to all who have fought our nation's most recent battles. Let me speak directly to veterans and people in uniform: The cause you pursued at the call of duty is the noblest America has to offer. You have shielded your fellow citizens from danger. You have defended the beliefs of your country and advanced the rights of the downtrodden. You have been the face of hope and mercy in dark places. You have been a force for good in the world. Nothing that has followed -- nothing -- can tarnish your honor or diminish your accomplishments. To you, and to the honored dead, our country is forever grateful.
In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people. When it comes to the unity of America, those days seem distant from our own. A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together.
I come without explanations or solutions. I can only tell you what I have seen.
On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know.
At a time when religious bigotry might have flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith. That is the nation I know.
At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw Americans reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees. That is the nation I know.
At a time when some viewed the rising generation as individualistic and decadent, I saw young people embrace an ethic of service and rise to selfless action. That is the nation I know.
This is not mere nostalgia; it is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been -- and what we can be again.
Twenty years ago, terrorists chose a random group of Americans, on a routine flight, to be collateral damage in a spectacular act of terror. The 33 passengers and 7 crew of Flight 93 could have been any group of citizens selected by fate. In a sense, they stood in for us all.
The terrorists soon discovered that a random group of Americans is an exceptional group of people. Facing an impossible circumstance, they comforted their loved ones by phone, braced each other for action, and defeated the designs of evil.
These Americans were brave, strong, and united in ways that shocked the terrorists -- but should not surprise any of us. This is the nation we know. And whenever we need hope and inspiration, we can look to the skies and remember.
God bless.
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Current events
September 1, 1939
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
-WH Auden
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Artistic expressions
Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan. The longest war in American history. We completed one of the biggest air lifts in history with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts felt were possible. No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history, and only United States had the capacity and the will and ability to do it. And we did it today.
The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravely and selfless courage to the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professional. For weeks, they risked their lives to get American citizens, Afghans who helped us, citizens of our allies and partners and others onboard planes and out of the country. And they did it facing a crush of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country.
They did it knowing ISIS-K terrorists, sworn enemies of the Taliban, were lurking in the midst of those crowds. And still, the women and men of the United States military, our diplomatic corps and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well. Risking their lives, not for professional gains, but to serve others. Not in a mission of war, but in the mission of mercy.
Twenty service members were wounded in the service of this mission, thirteen heroes gave their lives. I was just at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer. We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay, but we should never, ever, ever forget.
In April, I made a decision to end this war. As part of that decision, we set the date of August 31st for American troops to withdraw. The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan National Security Forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.
That assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military draw down turned out not to be accurate. But, I still instructed our National Security Team to prepare for every eventuality, even that one, and that’s what we did.
So we were ready, when the Afghan Security Forces, after two decades of fighting for their country and losing thousands of their own, did not hold on as long as anyone expected. We were ready when they and the people of Afghanistan watched their own government collapse and the president flee amid the corruption of malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to us personnel and our allies.
As a result, to safely extract American citizens before August 31st, as well as embassy personnel, allies, and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years, I had authorized 6,000 troops, American troops to Kabul to help secure the airport.
As General McKenzie said, this is the way the mission was designed. It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack and that’s what it did. Since March, we reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan with multiple warnings and offers to help them leave Afghanistan. All the way back as far as March.
After we started the evacuation 17 days ago, we did initial outreach and analysis and identified around 5,000 Americans who had decided earlier to stay in Afghanistan but now wanted to leave. Our operation Allie Rescue ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out. We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden. We got out locally employed staff in the United States Embassy and their families, totalling roughly 2,500 people. We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others who supported the United States out as well.
Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave. Most of those who remain are dual citizens, long time residents, but earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan. The bottom line, 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave. And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.
Secretary of State Blinken is leading the continued diplomatic efforts to ensure safe passage for any American, Afghan partner or foreign national who wants to leave Afghanistan. In fact just yesterday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that sent a clear message about the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward. Notably, freedom of travel, freedom to leave.
Together we are joined by over 100 countries that are determined to make sure the Taliban upholds those commitments. It will include ongoing efforts in Afghanistan to reopen the airport as well as overland routes, allowing for continued departure for those who want to leave and deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
The Taliban has made public commitments broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans. We don’t take them by their word alone, but by their actions. And we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.
Let me be clear, leaving August the 31st is not due to an arbitrary deadline. It was designed to save American lives. My predecessor, the Former President, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove US troops by May the first, just months after I was inaugurated. It included no requirement that the Taliban work out a cooperative governing arrangement with the Afghan government. But it did authorize the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders among those who just took control of Afghanistan.
By the time I came to office the Taliban was in it’s strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country. The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces. But if we stayed, all bets were off.
So we were left with a simple decision, either through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war. That was the choice, the real choice between leaving or escalating. I was not going to extend this forever war and I was not extending a forever exit.
The decision to end the military lift operation at that Kabul airport was based on the unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisors. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff and all the Service chiefs and the commanders in the field, their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of the remaining Americans and others out of the country was to continue with 6,000 troops on the ground in harm’s way in Kabul, but rather to get them out through non-military means.
In the 17 days that we operated in Kabul, after the Taliban seized power, we engage in an around the clock effort to provide every American the opportunity to leave. Our State Department was working 24/7 contacting and talking, and in some cases walking Americans into the airport. Again, more than 5,500 Americans were airlifted out. And for those who remain, we will make arrangements to get them out if they so choose.
As for the Afghans, we and our partners have airlifted 100,000 of them, no country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country than we have done. We will continue to work to help more people leave the country who are at risk. We’re far from done.
For now, I urge all Americans to join me in grateful prayer for our troops and diplomats and intelligence officers who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul at a tremendous risk with such unparalleled results. An air-lift that evacuated tens of thousands. To a network of volunteers and veterans who helped identify those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport and provided them for their support along the way. We’re going to continue to need their help. We need your help and I’m looking forward to meeting with you. And to everyone who is now offering or who will offer to welcome Afghan allies to their homes around the world, including in America, we thank you.
I take responsibility for the decision. Now some say we should have started mass evacuation sooner and, “Couldn’t this have been done in a more orderly manner?” I respectfully disagree. Imagine if we’d begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuated more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war. There still would have been a rush to the airport, a breakdown in confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission.
The bottom line is there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenge and threats we faced. None. There are those who would say we should have stayed indefinitely, for years on end. They ask, “Why don’t we just keep doing what we were doing? Why do we have to change anything?” The fact is, everything had changed.
My predecessor had made a deal with the Taliban. When I came into office, we faced a deadline, May one. The Taliban onslaught was coming, we faced one of two choices. Follow the agreement of the previous administration, or extend to have more time for people to get out. Or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war.
To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan I ask, “What is of vital national interest?” In my view, we only have one. To make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland. Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place, because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan.
We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 over a decade ago. Al-Qaeda was decimated. I respectfully suggest you ask yourself this question, “If we’ve been attacked on September 11th, 2001 from Yemen, instead of Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan, even though the Tali bond controlled Afghanistan in the year 2001?” I believe the honest answer is no. That’s because we had no vital interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America’s homeland and our friends, and that’s true today.
We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago, then we stayed for another decade. It was time to end this war. This is a new world. The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. We face threats from al-Shabab in Somalia, al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula, and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia.
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INT. THEATER LOBBY.
A lined-up crowd of ticket holders waiting to get into the theater, Alvy and Annie among them. A hum of indistinct chatter can be heard through the ensuing scene.
MAN IN LINE (Loudly to his companion right behind Alvy and Annie)
We saw the Fellini film last Tuesday. It is not one of his best. It lacks a cohesive structure. You know, you get the feeling that he's not absolutely sure what it is he wants to say. 'Course, I've always felt he was essentially a-a technical film maker. Granted, La Strada was a great film. Great in its use of negative energy more than anything else. But that simple cohesive core...
Alvy, reacting to the man's loud monologue, starts to get annoyed, while Annie begins to read her newspaper.
ALVY (Overlapping the man's speech)
I'm-I'm-I'm gonna have a stroke.
ANNIE (Reading)
Well, stop listening to him.
MAN IN LINE (Overlapping Alvy and Annie)
You know, it must need to have had its leading from one thought to another. You know what I'm talking about?
ALVY(Sighing)
He's screaming his opinions in my ear.
MAN IN LINE
Like all that Juliet of the Spirits or Satyricon, I found it incredibly...indulgent. You know, he really is. He's one of the most indulgent filmmakers. He really is-
ALVY (Overlapping)
Key word here is "indulgent."
MAN IN LINE (Overlapping)
without getting... well, let's put it this way...
ALVY (To Annie, who is still reading, overlapping the man in line who is still talking)
What are you depressed about?
ANNIE
I missed my therapy. I overslept.
ALVY
How can you possibly oversleep?
ANNIE
The alarm clock.
ALVY (Gasping)
You know what a hostile gesture that is to me?
ANNIE
I know- because of our sexual problem, right?
ALVY
Hey, you... everybody in line at the New Yorker has to know our rate of intercourse?
MAN IN LINE
It's like Samuel Beckett, you know I admire the technique but he doesn't... he doesn't hit me on a gut level.
ALVY (To Annie)
I'd like to hit this guy on a gut level. The man in line continues his speech all the while Alvy and Annie talk.
ANNIE
Stop it, Alvy!
ALVY (Wringing his hands)
Well, he's spitting on my neck! You know, he's spitting on my neck when he talks.
MAN IN LINE
And then, the most important thing of all is a comedian's vision.
ANNIE
And you know something else? You know, you're so egocentric that if I miss my therapy you can think of it in terms of how it affects you!
MAN IN LINE (Lighting a cigarette while he talks)
Gal gun-shy is what it is.
ALVY (Reacting again to the man in line)
Probably on their first date, right?
MAN IN LINE (Still going on)
It's a narrow view.
ALVY
Probably met by answering an ad in the New York Review of Books. "Thirtyish academic wishes to meet woman who's interested in Mozart, James Joyce and sodomy."
(He sighs; then to Annie)
Whattya you mean, our sexual problem?
ANNIE
Oh!
ALVY
I-I-I mean, I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
ANNIE
Okay, I'm very sorry. My sexual problem! Okay, my sexual problem! Huh?
The man in front of them turns to look at them, then looks away.
ALVY
I never read that. That was-that was Henry James, right? Novel, uh, the sequel to Turn of the Screw? My Sexual...
MAN IN LINE (Even louder now)
It's the influence of television. Yeah, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a-a high, uh, high intensity, you understand? A hot medium... as
opposed to a...
ALVY
(More and more aggravated)
What I wouldn't give for a large sock o' horse manure.
MAN IN LINE
...as opposed to a print...
Alvy steps forward, waving his hands in frustration, and stands facing the camera.
ALVY (Sighing and addressing the audience)
What do you do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you? I mean, it's just maddening!
The man in line moves toward Alvy. Both address the audience now.
MAN IN LINE
Wait a minute, why can't I give my opinion? It's a free country!
ALVY
I mean, d- He can give you- Do you hafta give it so loud? I mean, aren't you ashamed to pontificate like that? And- and the funny part of it is, M- Marshall McLuhan, you don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's... work!
MAN IN LINE (Overlapping)
Wait a minute! Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called "TV Media and Culture"! So I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan- well, have a great deal of validity.
ALVY
Oh, do yuh?
MAN IN LINE
Yes.
ALVY
Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. So... so, here, just let me- I mean, all right. Come over here... a second.
Alvy gestures to the camera which follows him and the man in line to the back of the crowded lobby. He moves over to a large stand-up movie poster and pulls Marshall McLuhan from behind the poster.
MAN IN LINE
Oh.
ALVY (To McLuhan)
Tell him.
MCLUHAN (To the man in line)
I hear- I heard what you were saying. You-you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.
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Artistic expressions
There is no escape — we pay for the violence of our ancestors.
Paul Muad'Dib
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I have tried a bunch of different ways of maintaining some kind of consistent internal reference method for arguments and I've never been really satisfied by any method I've experimented with. I wonder if there's some excellent standard debaters have seen here or particularly on other sites with big advantage in clarity or style?
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DebateArt.com
'Twas such a manner of disease, 'twas such
Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands
Whilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones,
Unpeopled the highways, drained of citizens
The Athenian town. For coming from afar,
Rising in lands of Aegypt, traversing
Reaches of air and floating fields of foam,
At last on all Pandion's folk it swooped;
Whereat by troops unto disease and death
Were they o'er-given. At first, they'd bear about
A skull on fire with heat, and eyeballs twain
Red with suffusion of blank glare. Their throats,
Black on the inside, sweated oozy blood;
And the walled pathway of the voice of man
Was clogged with ulcers; and the very tongue,
The mind's interpreter, would trickle gore,
Weakened by torments, tardy, rough to touch.
Next when that Influence of bane had chocked,
Down through the throat, the breast, and streamed had
E'en into sullen heart of those sick folk,
Then, verily, all the fences of man's life
Began to topple. From the mouth the breath
Would roll a noisome stink, as stink to heaven
Rotting cadavers flung unburied out.
And, lo, thereafter, all the body's strength
And every power of mind would languish, now
In very doorway of destruction.
And anxious anguish and ululation (mixed
With many a groan) companioned alway
The intolerable torments. Night and day,
Recurrent spasms of vomiting would rack
Alway their thews and members, breaking down
With sheer exhaustion men already spent.
And yet on no one's body couldst thou mark
The skin with o'er-much heat to burn aglow,
But rather the body unto touch of hands
Would offer a warmish feeling, and thereby
Show red all over, with ulcers, so to say,
Inbranded, like the "sacred fires" o'erspread
Along the members. The inward parts of men,
In truth, would blaze unto the very bones;
A flame, like flame in furnaces, would blaze
Within the stomach. Nor couldst aught apply
Unto their members light enough and thin
For shift of aid- but coolness and a breeze
Ever and ever. Some would plunge those limbs
On fire with bane into the icy streams,
Hurling the body naked into the waves;
-Lucretius
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It seems to me that the Olympics is irrationally overburdened by the Greek anachronisms the organization re-instated in 1896. Specifically that the Olympics should take place every four years in one place.
Now, I understand that scale and infrequency are part of what lends the Olympics its sense of occasion but I think the ultimate goal of promoting athletics and modelling peaceful international competition and cooperation are undermined by that very scale and infrequency.
- The massive scale of the event places an unreasonable burden on the host city to build facilities- often single use facilities that are demolished or else decay through underutilization.
- Such overbuilding is hugely inefficient. The same amount of money could represent valuable infrastructure investments if spread around to many metropolises in need of new or improved facilities.
- The burden to build too much infrastructure on a 12-year deadline seems to regularly promote corrupt overcharging by builders as well as corrupt bribing of Olympic officials to bring all that wasteful new construction to town- money that is never re-couped by the events themselves. Some argue that hosting the Olympics improves a host cities reputation but I don't think that claim can be quantified so I'm skeptical.
- Spreading new construction money around would allow more efficient use of existing infrastructures and smaller-scale targeted improvement might also substantially reduce Olympic corruption.
- Because many different events must be crammed into one metropolis, many sporting events must suffer non-optimal or even totally inappropriate conditions-too warm or too cold, artificial ice, or sand, or grass, or water, etc. Spreading out the Olympics geographically would allow a better match of sport to geography and allow some cities that could never possibly host the whole gamut of events to shine geographically or specialize in a reputation for one kind of sport.
- The Olympiad (4 year cycle) model is based on the ancient Greek calendar which included one leap day per year for a 1461-day base cycle. That ancient model does not reflect our global sense of seasonality anymore and puts a lot of pressure on athletes.
- Many athletes in many different sports hit their peak athleticism for a much shorter window than 4 years and never get a chance to show off their best on the biggest athletic stage by misfortune of birthdate or an injury that occludes their one shot at greatness.
- Making many sports annual events would allow many more athletes an opportunity to shine internationally and more accurately reflect the athletic body by eliminating the pressure of happenstance injury or off-peak performances.
- It seems a shame that we may never learn the names of the best athletes in a sport because a single fault of timing or circumstance.
- Some athletes might have less such peak consideration (team sailing, perhaps or ) and could be free to determine the best time cycle to promote their sport.
- Furthermore, many sports only get an international audience at the Olympics and the four-year gap severely discourages continued interest.
- Annual events should increase audience interest and allow more narrative to emerge in less-watched sports.
- The time pressure to run so many sports simultaneously means that many smaller events get occluded by more popular events and never get a real shot at increasing interest in their events. Spreading events out across the year would give smaller events a better chance to be the most interesting sporting event on tv.
PROPOSAL1: Spread events out geographically, lending Olympic prestige to a wide variety of international communities that might be very appropriate for one or two events but totally incapable of hosting the big show.
PROPOSAL2: Customize iterations to the sport- many sports would enjoy improved competitiveness and audience interest from an annual cycle.
PROPOSAL3: The technology of audience viewing is changing faster than the 12-year cycle of rewarding broadcasting rights. The Olympics would do better to take control of the broadcasting of their international events on a digital channel of their own, which would allow them to stay more nimbly on top of changing viewership models. Done right, The Olympics could realize far more direct profit from advertisers than they might by selling broadcast rights 12 years out.
PROPOSAL4: The Olympics could improve their brand considerably by seeking to be the venue for all international contests. The World Cup, for example, is another Olympiad style international contest that might do very well under the imprimatur of the Olympic brand. That particular event might be too popular to be interested but there are plenty of other international contests that might improve their brand by joining the Olympic brand umbrella. If the brand maintained a reputation for fair conduct and consistent standards, the Olympics could go a long way to standardizing international competitions across a wide variety of athletic matches.
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At the risk of provoking Wylted's anti-vax boner, I do see a trend developing that does not comport with my understanding of vaccine effectiveness and post-vaccination breakthrough risks.
I'm talking about recent stories like this:
- Three TEXAS HOUSE DEMOCRATS who TRAVELED to WASHINGTON, D.C., TEST POSITIVE for CORONAVIRUS
- All three lawmakers, whom the Texas House Democratic Caucus did not identify, are fully vaccinated, which helps protect against severe illness
- YANKEE's COVID-19 OUTBREAK: AARON JUDGE AMONG six YANKEES to TEST POSITIVE; RED SOX GAME FRIDAY will be PLAYED
- The rival clubs will play Friday following New York's six COVID-19 positives
- MAY 18th- 9 VACCINATED YANKEES PLAYERS and STAFF TESTED POSTIVE for COVID— HERE's HOW that HAPPENS
- POSITIVE COVID-19 TESTS KNOCKED NC STATE BASEBALL out of the CWS. WHAT about VANDERBILT?
None of this refutes the conventional wisdom- that vaccines are not 100% effective; that breakthrough cases in the vaccinated are rare; that vaccinated people get less sick than unvaccinated. However, we are told that the variability in vaccine immunity is individual- that sometimes some immune systems just don't respond as vigorously as we'd hope. If that is the primary variable however, then the rarity and randomness of breakthrough cases should prevent clusters of cases, right?
So out of a relatively small sampling of Texas Democrats who flew to Washington- at least 3 out of 65 vaccinated all get sick at once. A 4.6% breakout rate. On a 40 man Yankee's roster we've had 15 breakthrough cases since the beginning of May- a 37.5% breakthrough rate.
I suppose we don't have enough information yet, and some totally non virological explanation might yet account for these anecdotes (Everybody on the Yankee's lying about getting vaccinated seems possible tho not likely). I'm just wondering if these breakthrough clusters might not be challenging our understanding of vaccine effectiveness. Is there some virologic element I'm not considering? Is plane travel amplifying exposure? Are these breakthoughs associated with the Delta variant?
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Science and Nature
Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’étendard sanglant est levé
L’étendard sanglant est levé
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger nos fils, nos compagnes!
Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons!
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!
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The best document thus far showing the scope and nature of the Jan 6th attack is from NYT Visual Investigations. I'd encourage anybody to watch it before drawing conclusions. The section relevant to Ashli Babbitt's shooting starts at 25:39 - 28:40.
- We should note that the small vanguard Babbitt was in had an opportunity to threaten House members because AZ -R Paul Gosar continued speaking for 15 minutes after lockdown was called. Gosar was one of the original organizers of the "Stop the Steal" movement and has been accused by multiple House members of orchestrating the attack. Gosar is also the first politician to start demanding the name of the officer who killed Ashli Babbitt, which is strange because almost nobody on Earth is in a better position to know that individual's identity than Gosar.
- Gosar was one of the last to leave the chamber so unlike us, he can see the identity of the officer on the far side of the door, protecting Gosar's escape.
- We can see from the video that the man holding the gun is wearing a suit and probably black.
- Metropolitan police confirmed that the shooter was a plainclothes Capitol Police officer.
- Given Gosar's proximity to the shooter and the fact that there can't have been many extra officers hanging around 90 minutes after the violence began I think its very likely that the shooter is the security officer seen advising the House to don masks at 26:09. That's the back of Gosar's head in the foreground.
- The Congressional Record only list the speaker as "a security officer" but its seems hard to believe that Gosar couldn't id a guy he works in the same room with all day or at least look him up in the congressional directory
- Further, it's public knowledge that the officer has not returned back to work. I might not be able to figure out who shot Babbitt from a list of black plainclothes floor security officers who haven't been to work for 6 months but I assume that's a simple task for Gosar.
- I see no reason not to conclude that Gosar's (and by extention, Trump's) supposed ignorance is all pantomime.
- Nevertheless, I think the shooter's name should be released. I understand this information exposes an officer who has already sacrificed much in service to our Legislature to increased vitriol and harm but I can't see how the public can maintain oversight of police violence without public access to individual names and records. Trump's reasons are entirely scummy but we should release the name anyway.
Here is Trump latest round of lies regarding his attempts to nullify by violence the voice and choice of the American people as expressed on Nov 2nd.
FOX's "Sunday Morning Futures." with Maria Bartiromo- Sunday, Jul 11
BARTIROMO:....And I know that you have had some time to reflect on what took place on that day, January 6.Talk to us about what you're thinking about as you reflect. What happened that day, from your standpoint?TRUMP: So, there was a big rally called. And, actually, when I say big, who knew? But there was a rally called.And a tremendous number of people, the largest one I have ever spoken before, is called by people, by patriots. And they asked me if I'd speak. And I did. And it was a very mild-mannered speech, as I think has been -- in fact, they just came out with a report in Congress, and they didn't mention my name, literally.
In fact, the report mentions Trump 27 times. The bipartisan report makes no judgement regarding Trump's claims of fraud in the election but explicitly credits failures in the Intelligence Committee, Dept of Defense, and the National Guard as largely contributing to harms of Jan 6th. Apparently, Trump didn't know he was in charge of those depts. The entirety of Trump's speech on that day is included in the report as relevant to the insurrectionists' mission.
But what they were complaining about and the reason, in my opinion, you had over a million people there, which the press doesn't like to report at all,
The permit for the event was bumped from 5,000 attendees to 30,000 on Jan 3rd. Best estimates of crowd size range between 8,000 and 30,000 attendees.
because it shows too much -- too much activity, too much -- too much spirit and faith and love. There was such love at that rally.
You had over a million people there. They were there for one reason, the rigged election. They felt the election was rigged. That's why they were there. And they were peaceful people. These were great people.The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love. The love -- the love in the air, I have never seen anything like it.
And that's why they went to Washington.BARTIROMO: You know, Mr...(CROSSTALK)TRUMP: And, by the way, I can tell you that I thought -- because I was hearing from a lot of people there are going to be a lot of people coming there, much bigger than anybody ever anticipated by many times.And I had suggested to the secretary of defense, perhaps we should have 10,000 National Guardsmen standing by. And he reported that, as you know, but I -- we should have -- and he was turned down. I said, it's subject to Congress. They run it. Nancy Pelosi runs it. So, it would be subject to the Capitol Police and the other things, whatever they need.But I said, perhaps you need 10,000, because I think the crowd is going to be very large. Who knows? Maybe two people will show up. But I think it's going to be very large.Anyway, he had that. He went to them. They said it won't be necessary. They were the ones that were responsible. They were the ones. And this came out very loudly in the report.
The president, [Acting Defense Secretary Christopher ]Miller recalled, asked how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day. "We’re like, ‘We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’" Miller responded. "And Trump goes, ‘You’re going to need 10,000 people.’ No, I’m not talking bullshit. He said that. And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’"
But Trump didn't ask for it, although as both Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard and leader of the Stop the Steal movement, only Trump had an accurate sense of what was needed and the capacity to meet that need. Miller and Pelosi both confirm that nobody talked to Pelosi's office and of course, the report comes to the opposite conclusion of Trump's assertion.
BARTIROMO: Yes, that report showed FBI operatives potentially aware.But there are unanswered questions here. What did the FBI know? Why weren't your Cabinet secretaries briefed? What did Speaker Pelosi know, Chuck Schumer, McConnell?Do you have any answers to that? They continue to call this an armed insurrection.TRUMP: Oh, I think they knew plenty.
Trump is here accusing Pelosi, Schumer, and McConnell of secretly knowing more about the size and intentions of Trump's own ally and faulting them for not requesting more help from him and the armed forces Trump commands while NOT faulting himself who is in ultimately in charge of both sides of the equation. How entirely disconnected from reality Trump seems to be. Naturally, the FOX interviewer has no curiosity regarding this claim.
BARTIROMO: And yet no guns were seized, Mr. President.TRUMP: Right. There were no guns whatsoever.
Let's recall that police weren't arresting or frisking the rioters so an accurate assessment is impossible Police report that at least hundreds of guns were in evidence on the rioters and plenty of holster bulges are in evidence on video. Of the 14 rioters arrested (mostly that vanguard held at gunpoint by police while evacuating the Senate), 2 were charged with carrying weapons without a permit. If we extrapolate that sampling percentage and apply to the 8,000 besieging the capitol we get more than a thousands guns but that's just speculation. Others arrested had pepper sprays, stun guns, tasers, brass knuckles, lead pipes, knives, and a whip. Police found a Tavor X95 rifle with a telescopic sight, a Glock 9 mm with high-capacity magazines and more than 2,500 rounds of ammunition, at least 320 rounds of armor-piercing bullets, an AR-15-style rifle, a shotgun, a crossbow, several machetes, smoke grenades and 11 Molotov cocktails in two cars owned by rioters parked near the Capitol. Two pipe bombs were discovered concealed next to the entrances to the RNC and DNC's national HQs.
And yet Antifa, which went into Portland and went into so many other places, Seattle -- they took over a big part of Seattle. People died. And there were plenty of guns there, by the way -- and in Minnesota, in Minneapolis. They got -- there was no repercussions for them. And yet they have people still in jail. There were no guns. There were no guns.
Of the 14,000+ charges associated with George Floyd protests, most were misdemeanors and a majority of charges have been dropped. Of the 500 felony charges brought, most are still pending trial. About 30% of all felony charges are associated with Portland rioters.
And, by the way, while you're at it, who shot Ashli Babbitt? Why are they keeping that secret? Who is the person that shot...BARTIROMO: Well...TRUMP: ... an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman, a military woman, right in the head? And there's no repercussions.
In fact, Babbit was shot once in the upper right chest.
If that were on the other side, it would be the biggest story in this country. Who shot Ashli Babbitt? People want to know, and why.BARTIROMO: Well, that's right.And I want to talk about that, because Ashli Babbitt, a wonderful woman, fatally shot on January 6 as she tried to climb out of a broken window.
That's quite false. Babbitt was climbing in through a window she and her band had just broken and that window was the last physical barrier between the rioters and the fleeing congressmen (including Gosar). The plainclothes policeman and his pistol were literally the last line of defense and Babbitt was the only rioter to breach that line. Of all the rioters that day, Veteran soldier Babbitt was the closest any got to their intended targets and the only who breached every line of defense. [27:50-28:40] The rioters at that door backed down pretty quickly after that single shot.
Her family has spoken out. Her family has been on "Tucker Carlson." And they want answers as far as why this wonderful woman, young woman who went to peaceful protests was shot.Do you have any information? There is speculation that this was a security detail in a leading member of Congress' security detail, a Democrat.(CROSSTALK)BARTIROMO: What can you tell us in terms of who shot Ashli Babbitt? What do you know, Mr. President?TRUMP: So -- so, I have heard that.I will tell you they know who shot Ashli Babbitt. They're protecting that person. I have heard also that it was the head of security for a certain high official, a Democrat.
Capitol Hill Police have confirmed that the shooter did not belong to any individual security detail.
And we will see, because it's going to come out. It's going to come out.
Again, there's no reason to think Trump can't have the name of Babbitt's shooter at will, since some of Trump's closes alliest were eye-witnesses to the shooting and were the very individuals being protected by that shooting from the breach by Babbitt. Those same Trump allies, Gosar, Biggs, and Brooks particularly voted against recognizing CHP valor in the wake of the attack. Gosar has refused to even shake hands or acknowledge the cops who may have saved his ass that day.
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Politics
WiKiPEDiA:
During the award ceremony in the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru where Berry was awarded the gold medal for the hammer throw, she raised her fist at the end of the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in protest against injustice in America "and a president who's making it worse." Berry's protests led the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to issue new guidelines in order to allow peaceful expressions of protest "in support of racial and social justice for all human beings." Berry has stated: "I'm here to represent those who died [due] to this systemic racism."
Berry was reprimanded by the International Olympic Committee, who placed her on probation for 12 months, prohibiting her from any form of protest for a year. Her act cost her sponsorships, and she estimated that she lost $50,000.
In June 2021, during the U.S. Olympic track and field trials for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Berry turned away from the U.S. flag during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner". She said of the national anthem's timing that "I feel like it was a set-up". According to a spokesperson for USA Track and Field who stated, "The national anthem is played every day according to a previously published schedule", the anthem was scheduled to be played at 5:20 p.m., though on this occasion the music started at 5:25 p.m. Berry claims an official told her the anthem would play prior to her arrival on the podium. Berry has accused critics of her protest of favoring "patriotism over basic morality," although her activism has been alleged to be performative.
I respect Berry's right to free speech and would not interfere with that right although I also respect the IOC's right to protect its brand name and sanction participants as that private, international body sees fit.
For me, however, the larger consideration is the duty of American citizens to the American people while representing our people on any international stage. I support the right of Colin Kaepernick to take a knee to the extent that the gesture was not particularly disrespectful, brought attention to an important national concern, and was done with the support of the team Kaepernick represented. I would not have endorsed the same act on foreign soil or while representing a national team. When representing our nation, we have an obligation to set aside certain personal priorities in favor of the advantage of demonstrating a proud, cohesive, and loyal nation of peoples to competing nations.
I question the gesture of turning a back to the American Flag- which may represent a racist system but also represents the best protection and guarantee against that racism. Kneeling or raising a fist does not suggest the rejection that the gesture of turning one's back clearly implies.
If Berry wants to protest American racism, then bring that protest to an American forum and not when the priority is clearly to show our Nation off to best advantage. Let's keep our arguments in the family.
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Current events
I Hear America Singing
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
-Walt Whitman
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Artistic expressions
If you are innocent until proven guilty but then you are proven guilty and convicted in a court of law but then your conviction is overturned and your guilty verdict thrown out without exonerating you in any way....are you innocent or guilty?
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People
The much anticipated DNI preliminary assessment was released last Friday. My assessment of their assessment is that I could have written most of it for them years ago, it was that predictable.
##########EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)
hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP.
AVAILABLE REPORTING LARGELY INCONCLUSIVE
Limited Data Leaves Most UAP Unexplained…
Limited data and inconsistency in reporting are key challenges to evaluating UAP.
- But Some Potential Patterns Do Emerge
Although there was wide variability in the reports and the dataset is currently too limited to allow
for detailed trend or pattern analysis, there was some clustering of UAP observations regarding
shape, size, and, particularly, propulsion. UAP sightings also tended to cluster around U.S.
training and testing grounds, but we assess that this may result from a collection bias as a result
of focused attention, greater numbers of latest-generation sensors operating in those areas, unit
expectations, and guidance to report anomalies.
- And a Handful of UAP Appear to Demonstrate Advanced Technology
In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or
flight characteristics. In a small
number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with
UAP sightings.
The UAPTF holds a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating acceleration
or a degree of signature management.
UAP PROBABLY LACK A SINGLE EXPLANATION
- Airborne Clutter
- Natural Atmospheric Phenomena
- Foreign Adversary Systems
- Other
UAP THREATEN FLIGHT SAFETY AND, POSSIBLY, NATIONAL
SECURITY\ EXPLAINING UAP WILL REQUIRE ANALYTIC, COLLECTION AND
RESOURCE INVESTMENT
#################
- The report seems to deliberately ignore the possibility of unclassified US tech but that is to be expected from the DNI. To my thinking, the revelation that most of the reports happen around US testing and training facilities is a big red arrow pointing at US experimental craft.
- I was surprised that 80 of the 144 reports showed up on more than one sensor- that is, had some kind of radar ping to suggest that the object was not a trick of light but physical- that is a much higher proportion than I would have expected.
- Of those 80, "a handful" (let's guess less than 10) demonstrate at least some characteristics worth further investigation- multiple sensor confirmations, propulsion, acceleration, radio emissions, signature management (that is, stealth).
- None of the recently leaked UFO incidents seem to match any of these handful.
- It would be nice to correlate the worthy handful with testing facilities but I suppose that's too much to ask.
I think that a rigorous examination of such reports is a reasonable security precaution and I think it is to the benefit of everybody that pilots feel free to report such phenomenon in a timely manner without a lot of hoo-hah. We should be able to turn on a lot of eyes on unexplained objects in a short period of time. If there is US tech we are trying to keep secret, commanders should have enough information to know when to turn all eyes on and when to stand down. I wish DNI and military reports were a little more willing to dismiss and debunk the obvious bullshit but I suppose that bullshit helps to mask the secret tech (and perhaps that tech's shortcomings as well). Ultimately, I am fine with spending a little more taxpayer money to improve the speed and quality of the sensors we can turn on UFOs but I am more convinced than ever that the US Govt has a pretty good handle on the nature and scope of most UFOs already.
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Science and Nature
A Litany for Survival
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
-Audre Lorde
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Artistic expressions
This year, NYC Pride has elected to "ban corrections and law enforcement exhibitors at NYC Pride events until 2025." That is, police may not march in uniform.
Apparently, this is meant to be read as a critique of police performance:
"The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason. NYC Pride is unwilling to contribute in any way to creating an atmosphere of fear or harm for members of the community. The steps being taken by the organization challenge law enforcement to acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward, in hopes of making an impactful change.
"Effective immediately, NYC Pride will ban corrections and law enforcement exhibitors at NYC Pride events until 2025. At that time their participation will be reviewed by the Community Relations and Diversity, Accessibility, and Inclusion committees, as well as the Executive Board. In the meantime, NYC Pride will transition to providing increased community-based security and first responders, while simultaneously taking steps to reduce NYPD presence at events."
- I question the honesty of any person who pretends to be traumatized or afraid of harm from police marching in a pride parade. I am a person who has been harmed and harried by police just for being gay but I have absolutely no difficulty separating those bad cops from the manifest good of cops marching as proud queer police or marching in solidarity with the gay community. It takes no education to understand that the cops with anti-gay agendas don't participate in pro-gay celebrations. NYC Pride is punishing uniformed queers and allies, who deserve better than most to be proud of the difficult work they do and the nasty prejudices they overcome to do it, for the faults of uniformed homophobes who'd never recognize the honor in marching. NYC Pride is guilty of ignorant and self-defeating prejudice at best and active harm against unpopular minorities within the gay community at worst.
- NYC Pride commemorates a battle between the gay community and the police fought 52 years ago on the very streets of this weekend's parade route. The fact that uniformed queers march openly at pride is a demonstration of the victory of the gay rights movement. The fact that straight police march openly in solidarity with the gay community is another important victory. That NYC Pride can't recognize the value and importance of such triumphs suggests that NYC Pride has dropped its eyes from the Prize.
- NYC Pride also suggests that they intend to privatize as much of the security and public safety functions as the city will allow, at substantially increased expense. Less security at a higher price for an obvious and frequent target of political terrorism is a dangerous price to pay for a little misbegotten virtue signaled. Naturally, the police will still be counted on the save marchers in the event of any real emergency, which ultimately demonstrates which community is remaining more faithful to peace and harmony and which is breaking that trust.
- I'd encourage police everywhere to tell NYC Pride to go fuck themselves with a 20 inch rainbow sparkle dildo and march anyway in full uniform, in pride and solidarity. After all, who the hell is going to stop them? The people who know what it means to fight for civil rights also know how to tell good cops from bad cops and will always have the good cops' back.
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Current events
The Western Conservative Summit, an annual gathering of conservatives in Denver, was a scaled-back event this year, but that didn’t stop it from making headlines on Monday.
In a straw poll conducted at the summit, 371 attendees were asked who they would vote for in the 2024 presidential election, and out of 31 potential Republican and Democratic candidates, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished at the top.
Western Conservative Summit 2021 non-partisan approval voting poll results:
1. Ron DeSantis - 74.12%
2. Donald Trump - 71.43%
3. Ted Cruz - 42.86%
4. Mike Pompeo - 39.35%
5. Tim Scott 35.58%
If Trump want to maintain his current domination of the Republican Party, it looks like he's going to have to take out the Governor of his own home state.
Naturally, I'm no fan of DeSantis's governorship but I have to believe that a guy who holds a bachelor's from Yale in history and a Harvard law degree would make a improvement in intellect over Trump and I have to believe that a Seal Team One member who fought at the 2nd Battle of Fallujah would make an improvement in loyalty to country over Trump. I'll hope that Republicans lose generally but I certainly would like to see a better Republican shut out of that party the worst American citizen ever.
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Current events
Nobody can deny that the Democrats have come more than halfway on the two major bills before Congress right now. Today is the first and largest test of Republicans willingness to actually do the job they were elected for.
Yesterday, Barack Obama threw his support behind Joe Manchin's scaled back voting rights compromise that must pass Republican filibuster today. Following Stacey Abrams endorsement last week, Obama is giving in on two long held principled objections to National VoterID and voter roll purging.
From this point forward, the only reason that VoterID, which enjoys 80% support nationally (84% minority voter support)is not law is Republican pigheadedness and pantswetting over Trump's stranglehold on the party apparatus. If Republicans block this bill today, Republicans will have unarguably justified the structural changes Democrats are considering to regain America's capacity to make law- first and foremost shifting the filibuster.
Here are the main points of Manchin's compromise bill:
1. Make election day a public holiday
2. Mandate at least 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections
(include 2 weekends)
3. Ban partisan gerrymandering and use computer models.
4. Require voter ID with allowable alternatives (utility bill, etc.) to prove
identity to vote
5. Automatic registration through DMV, with option to opt out.
6. Require states to promote access to voter registration and voting for persons
with disabilities and older individuals.
7. Prohibit providing false information about elections to hinder or discourage
voting and increases penalties for voter intimidation.
8. Require states to send absentee by mail ballots to eligible voters before an
election if voter is not able to vote in person during early voting or election
day due to eligible circumstance and allow civil penalty for failure.
9. Require the Election Assistance Commission to develop model training
programs and award grants for training.
10.Require states to notify an individual, not later than 7 seven days before
election, if his/her polling place has changed.
- Absentee ballots shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage.
- Require the Attorney General to develop a state-based response system
and hotline that provides information on voting.
11. Allow for maintenance of voter rolls by utilizing information derived from
state and federal documents.
12. Establish standards for election vendors based on cybersecurity concerns.
13. Allow provisional ballots to count for all eligible races regardless of
precinct.
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Politics
Summer Stars
Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.
-Carl Sandburg
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Artistic expressions
MY DICK: Like a Atom Bomb
YOUR DICK: some old chewing gum
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Miscellaneous
We have a tie and Disc has suggested a dual topic. We have two winning topics:
THUMB WAR [1]-
- PRO: INDIVIDUALISM is ETHICALLY SUPERIOR to COLLECTIVISM
- UNCONVENTIONAL DEBATE FORMATS SUCH as THAT in THIS THREAD SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED
username has earned 1pt!
Discipulus_Didicit has earned 1pt!
Submit the most popular single-post argument affirming either winning topic
- earn three points
- one post only per topic per round per DARTer
- no commentary or critique or campaigning, please- just arguments and likes
- popularity is decided by number of likes
- we can like as much or as little as we want
- we don't have to argue to vote
- we don't have to vote to argue
- I won't submit any arguments but I may use likes to break a tie
- Contestants can join at any point in the contest
- Sincere and friendly participation is requested
- If we do more than one of these, all points earned will be cumulative and perpetual in radiant glory
PERPETUAL and CUMULATIVE RADIANT GLORY POINTS COUNTER:
username:1
Discipulus_Didicit:1
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Forum games
I think we should all play a casual, freewheeling contest of arguments, decided by number of likes. The structure of this contest is simple.
IN this FORUM TOPIC
- Submit the most popular topic for one round of arguments
- earn one point
- topics can be on any subject except that this our DART website, its content and membership are entirely off the table
- more than one topic may be suggested by any DARTer but each topic should be posted separately for the purpose of distinguishing number of likes
IN a SECOND FORUM TOPIC
- Submit the most popular single-post argument affirming the winning topic
- earn three points
- one post only per round per DARTer
- no commentary or critique or campaigning- just arguments and likes
IN a THIRD FORUM TOPIC
- Submit the most popular single post counter-argument refuting the winning affirmative argument
- earn two points
- any contestant that wins both PRO and CON arguments for the same round earns ten points
- one post only per round per DARTer
- no commentary or critique or campaigning- just arguments and likes
- popularity is decided by number of likes
- we can like as much or as little as we want
- we don't have to argue to vote
- we don't have to vote to argue
- I won't submit any arguments but I may use likes to break a tie
- Contestants can join at any point in the contest
- Sincere and friendly participation is requested
- If we do more than one of these, all points earned will be cumulative and perpetual in radiant glory
So, for today, we just want topics
IN this FORUM TOPIC
- Submit the most popular topic for one round of arguments
- earn one point
- topics can be on any subject except that this our DART website, its content and membership are entirely off the table
- more than one topic may be suggested by any DARTer but each topic should be posted separately for the purpose of distinguishing number of likes
Time for submissions will be evaluated according to level of participation. If nobody wants to play that's also fine... just thought we might try something new
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Forum games