Saturday’s Forum
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FILED UNDER: Open Forum
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About Musk and drug use etc. …
“Don Moynihan substack”
Lots more at the link
Video on what’s taking the new AF1 so long
Note that every word on technical issues applies to the bribe plane as much as to the two 747s Boeing is already working on. The bribe plane is never going to qualify as a suitable AF1, even if El Taco calls it that and uses it in that capacity.
Tulsi Gabbard plans to make Trump’s daily briefing into a video presentation, since he can’t or won’t read it.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/gabbard-considering-ways-revamp-trumps-intelligence-briefing-rcna209805
The MAGA reach back – RFK Jr, weathermap sharpies, fake studies, and science denialism, all in pursuit of political domination.
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A vote, a voice for MAGA, is a call to retreat for our human civilization.
Pete Hegseth has his drink on and is threatening China. I will defer to Joyner and some of the other military pros here, but I’ll be damned if I see how we fight China without support from Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
And I’ll be equally damned if I can see why any of those countries – in range of many Chinese missiles – would risk war to support a US regime which is actively trying to damage their economies. Why in God’s name would South Korea put Seoul at risk? Why would Japan risk its ports, airfields and factories? Would the populations of either country support such a move in support of an untrustworthy maybe ally?
Without the allies our unstable president is busy crapping on, where do our ships refuel and refit? Where do we stage for a counter-invasion? Are we contemplating a fight where we are limited to aircraft carriers standing well outside the range of Chinese missiles? Guam is a long way from Taiwan, and a single pinpoint 1700 miles from the war zone seems like a pretty shaky position.
Piece on the Federalist Society:
Describes what it has been up to now.
Discusses how it is in conflict now with the Trumpists.
Some speculation on various different ways it might change in response to new ethical (Trumpist) environment.
“Substack – Programmable Mutter”
Here are the concluding paragraphs:
According to the WaPo, Trump has decided that the Library of Congress is his. Has he ever even set foot in a library? Any library?
Why does Trump have a hard-on specifically for Harvard?
It’s creepy and stalkerish.
@CSK:
Like Gabbard has any intelligence to report…
@de stijl:
Probably because neither he nor any of his kids could get in there. With Trump, it’s always about revenge.
Imagine being Melanie. Man, that’d suck. I know she is responsible for taking the deal for gain, but the devil’s in the details. Eye candy trophy wife to a foolish buffoon. I seriously doubt they’ve ever slept in a gold-plated bed together once.
She can’t even have a lover, a paramore. It’d get noted and reported. Hence the: “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket. She did willingly sign on the indicated line, so my empathy is truncated, but still. That would suck.
Worse, yet: Baron. Lil dude did not ask for any of this, and now it’ll be his burden to bear his whole life. You don’t get to choose your parents. OMG, I’d be so fucking rebellious in his shoes.
I hope he finds a way.
@de stijl:
Performative. MAGA has to ascert itself over the “educated elite.” Education, science, true intellectualism, can puncture the hollow rationalizations of a power mad Right. MAGA is marking territory, making an example of Harvard.
@de stijl:
Performative. MAGA has to ascert itself over the “educated elite.” Education, science, true intellectualism, can puncture the hollow rationalizations of a power mad Right. MAGA is marking territory, making an example of Harvard.
@Kathy:
Gabbard’s intelligence mostly comes from Moscow.
Imagine the hue and cry if a D administration hired on an obviously compromised mole as DNI. I am still boggled that Gabbard got confirmed. Wow! Not one R dissented; that’s telling.
One nice thing about stupid is that it announces itself.
@charontwo:
From the link within the piece, why Trump chooses the kind of lawyers and cabinet/judicial appointments he does:
The Kompromat division of the FSB is working nights and weekends to keep up. New hires and interns to manage the servers. To teach field agents how to PowerPoint effectively.
The Hegseth files, alone, are terabytes.
Gabbard has a whole rack and chassis. Dedicated 24/7 support.
Imagine if things were flipped. If this were a D president.
El Taco was swindled. The bribe plane he got from Qatar is worth $100 million less, and it’s older than the bribe plane they gave to Erdogan.
Really, he should invade Qatar and take all its other jets for this insult.
Or admit he’s not worth as much as a competent dictator.
@de stijl:
Well, I wouldn’t trade places with Melania for any amount of money. But, as you point out, she willingly made the deal. She knew precisely what she was getting.
It’s uncomfortable to speculate about their sex life for a multitude of reasons (the inevitable imaginary visual is beyond repellent), but I’d be willing to bet that they haven’t had intercourse since Barron was conceived. As long as Melania fulfills her trophy function, Trump is satisfied. After all, Trump said he married her because he wanted other men to drop dead with envy when he walked into a room with her on his arm.
As for Barron, he looks just like his father, so why shouldn’t he be like him in other respects?
Up until earlier I’d never seen a Tesla Cybertruck parked and still. Until then, always on the road.
Holy crap! It’s so aggressively ugly. The angles are just so wrong. Did Homer Simpson design this?
It was a company car for an HVAC company. You roll up in that thing and about 70% of potential customers are just gonna say “nope!”
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dislike new, innovative designs. I welcome and generally appreciate push-the-edge designs, but the Cybertruck looks like it was drawn by an 11 year old edgelord looking to be paid in Robux.
On some things, I am an early adapter. Appreciate futurism. This, though. This is a travesty. A war crime.
It’s so misshapen!
@de stijl:
I saw one parked near mine the other day. I could have hit it taking out my car (I didn’t for some reason). It was also painted a darker gray, which didn’t help its look.
This was Homer’s car
@de stijl:
I think the car has a certain movie-style air vent look, so this fits. The shiny, not-strong-enough, ugly air vents the hero crawls through, like in Die Hard, but somehow in car form.
@Kathy: Even IT has better lines and look than a cybertruck.
@Gustopher:
Good point. The fit and finish is a lot like half-assed duct work.
My fridge has better sheet metal. And it’s low-end Frigidaire studio apartment level fridge.
I never spend big money on appliances. Can you keep my shit cold reliably? Can you cook my cold shit reliably? Are you not aggressively ugly? If so, welcome aboard!
Speaking of Qatari airplanes, in today’s European soccer club championship final, Qatar Airways beat online gambling company Betsson. At least that’s what it says on their jerseys. The teams are from Paris and Milan.
I have owned a dishwasher most of my adult life.
I have used a dishwasher zero times in my adult life. I’m single. It’s easier to clean as I go and only use what I need. I use my dishwasher to store infrequently used pots and pans.
I have a sink, running water that gets hot, access to soap, hands, and a scrub brush. It never occurs to me to run used dishes, etc. through a dishwasher. That is an unnecessary, wasteful step. It would take me weeks to fill it up, and after four meals, I’d run run out of cutlery and dishes.
Trump has pulled his nominee to be head of NASA, Jared Isaacman, on the grounds that he is not “in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda.”
@CSK:
“Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.”
@de stijl:
I know about Sparkle Motion, but I’m afraid I don’t get your meaning in this context.
@de stijl:
I’m not against the concept of dishwashers, but for me, it’s entirely impractical. I’d feel extravagant using it. For me, superfluous. Unnecessary.
But, I always know where my stockpot is stored for that one time I need it maybe twice a year.
Everything in it’s place.
@de stijl: Or, it’s also possible that the dishwasher people are correct about a dishwasher using less water to wash even a small load of dishes than the sink uses. I neither have a dishwasher, a place to plumb it into, nor concerns about needing to conserve water where I live, so I don’t spend any time thinking about it. “Wasteful” has multiple definitions and contexts all the same.
I personally do not like the look of the Cybertruck. However, I have non-MAGA friends who do. They say it looks like a Mars rover sort of vehicle, which they think is cool.
@Jay L Gischer:
Maybe you can direct them to this Wikipedia page. There are photos of several Mars rovers, and none looks like an overturned fridge on wheels 🙂
To the larger point: there’s no accounting for taste.
@de stijl:
@CSK:
A friend of mine thinks it’s because Barron didn’t get accepted to Harvard, whereas Malia Obama was accepted. We know how much Trump hates Obama for mocking him about his Birther fetish at the 2011 White House Correspondents dinner, so if this conspiracy is true it makes perfect sense.