Friday, October 02, 2026

We Get Comments On Proof Texting

From:
I’m guessing Hegseth hasn’t gotten to verses 16 ff. of Psalm 33?
Psalm 33

Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright.

2 Praise the Lord with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.

3 Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.

4 For the word of the Lord is right; and all his works are done in truth.

5 He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

6 By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

7 He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

9 For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.

10 The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.

11 The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.

13 The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men.

14 From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.

15 He fashioneth their hearts alike; he considereth all their works.

16 There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.

17 An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.

18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;

19 To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.

20 Our soul waiteth for the Lord: he is our help and our shield.

21 For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name.

22 Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.

“The Devil can cite scripture for his own purposes.” Usually by proof texting.
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Reform Is Coming

"What is becoming increasingly clear is that the administration does not see itself as a litigant before the court and does not see its attorneys as bound by court orders. It sees DOJ attorneys as somehow coequal with SCOTUS, the only attorneys in the federal system not bound by ethical rules."
Like SCOTUS, which does not consider itself bound by ethical rules. It only pays lip service to them.

Meanwhile, in the OMB:
Russell Vought is neither co-equal to, nor superior to, Congress. Art. I gives Congress the authority to allocate federal funds; not the executive branch, and certainly not OMB.

Congress can straighten that out. It can also straighten out the DOJ, and even impose enforceable ethical standards on the Supremes.

Maybe people aren’t voting for the Democratic Party. But they are voting for reform.
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Random Associations

Theo Von to Mayor Mamdani: I know that you were offering a night out for parents and childcare. Tickets for the opera, which is just a chance for somebody to have a new experience. And the stabilization of rent control. It sounds like you're just trying to give people a chance to take a breath.
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Thursday, October 01, 2026

“It’s The Dumocrats’ Fault…”

...that prices are coming down? But Republicans will fix it?

Is this the new Republican strategy?
Well, if they’re not interested, is it really a rally?
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Youth Is Wasted On The Young

And the moon landing was faked because the earth is flat and the moon is made of green cheese.

He was born in 1980. He doesn’t even realize it was GOP Congressmen who convinced Nixon to resign, because he would have been the first President forcibly removed from office.

But all the witness testimony was ginned up by the “deep state.”

Oh, to be young and stupid again, and imagine this will lower the price of gas.⛽️ 
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“America! Love It Or Leave It!”

In his defense, he’s too young to remember that wholly unAmerican sentiment.  OTOH, he’s really, really stupid. And racist. I suppose his excuse is, he’s listening to his master’s voice.
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I Remember The 1970’s

And then came the next 46 years.
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“You’re Paying A Lot Less…” 😵‍💫

"… for gas and diesel and food than you think you are. And you’re getting sleepy…your eyelids are very heavy…”😵‍💫 Self-hypnosis is a helluva drug.
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“Make Me Richer…”

“…I’ll give you a McDonalds cheeseburger.” 🍔 *

*Fries extra. BYOD.


VOTE LIKE TRUMP IS ON THE BALLOT!


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Talafreakout

No idea what he’s talking about. But I remember Texas Republicans in the Lege warning that Talarico was “dangerous” back when he was still running for the nomination. They meant politically dangerous. They were right. Talarico is part of the reason for that. But Trump is the bigger danger in Texas. Not that Talarico is riding on that wave alone.
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So Thirsty

I recommend people read Time's interview with Trump to get a sense of the president's grave cognitive impairment. Trump is either unwilling or unable (or maybe both) to answer the questions he's actually asked, so he just rants and raves while the interviewers do their best to provide structure to his random brain firings.
Like this: War is peace, and genocide is a good thing.
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[Unintelligible]

Whaddya bet none of these parts of the transcript ever make it off Twitter?
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The Amount Of Grift…

... and sheer hucksterism and confidence gaming in the high reaches of American business makes you wonder why we admire “captains of industry” in the first place. Sure reckoning is at hand. But I’m not optimistic.
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Wednesday, September 30, 2026

For Want Of A….

... and all for the costs of an egg.

Can Congress impeach him yet?
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Hopefully The Last Word(s) On The Schmitt Matter

18 USC 1621;
Whoever—

(1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true
That’s the literal “legal definition” of perjury as it applies to anyone who testifies at a Congressional hearing. There are three parts (oath, tribunal, stating something the testifies knows not to be true), but what sets perjury apart from lying under oath, or mere misrepresentation, is that word “material.”

The question of a perjury charge against Jack Smith for his testimony in the House or the Senate, turns on the question of materiality. What is “material” to the Congress members is that their phone records were used as material in a criminal investigation. But that isn’t necessarily material to a court.

Besides, Smith answered the questions put to him by House members, and didn’t answer the questions they didn’t ask. One of the Senators tried to make much of this, as if Smith’s failure to offer information was tantamount to “willfully and contrary to such oath [stating] …any material matter which he does not believe to be true.” Smith said what he believed to be true, in answer to the questions he was asked. He didn’t say no records of the content of the calls were retrieved in the investigation. But he wasn’t asked if they were. If  the House Committee had wanted an answer to that question, they could have asked it.

So the perjury accusation there is almost over before it’s started. If the DOJ takes it up, it will be another loser for them. It will be interesting to find out if they are tired of losing.

Okay, then there’s Schmitt’s perjury trap. He actually accused Smith of perjury for saying he’d (Smith) not been to a basketball game in Atlanta in February, 2024. But even if he had been, what if Schmitt had presented his “evidence,” and Smith had said: “Oh, that basketball game!” Would his prior confusion have been perjury? Nope. Would it even have been a misrepresentation? Nope. If Smith had intended to mislead, he wouldn’t say, “Oh, I forgot.” That’s very poor evidence of intent to mislead. Put more in line with the law, Smith didn’t try to state a matter which he knew not to be true. And besides: was the matter material?

Schmitt tried to get Smith to deny he was in Atlanta so Schmitt could prove Smith had met with Fani Wallis. And if he had? What then?

Except Smith didn’t meet with Wallis, and denied being in Atlanta. And how would it be material if he had stopped over in Atlanta on the way to Florida? Or attended the Hawks game that night? Would it prove he met with Wallis?

Without that proof, is Smith being in Atlanta in February, 2024, material? To what? There’s a large gap between a text message, and a material issue. Smith being in Atlanta doesn’t prove Smith met with Wallis. Absent that proof, Smith is not testifying on a material issue. So maybe perjury could have been established. But not because Smith didn’t remember being in Atlanta; which is all he testified to.  And Schmitt never presented any evidence that Smith had met with Wallis. So Smith’s testimony was not willfully contrary to the truth. And then he realized he was at a basketball game that day; in Maryland. So in fact it never could have been a perjury case. Schmitt never had that, even on the evidence he thought he had. He could never prove materiality; and he could never prove Smith lied.

Schmitt simply never knew what he was doing, or what he was talking about.

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The Schmitt Hits The Fan

OTOH: Like Trump, Hawley can’t say what the crime would be. And how many of the people he ran from on J6 were pardoned of their crimes? (We’re gonna need several constitutional amendments when this is over. We should really start them in January. Trump can’t do anything about them, and if he campaigns against them, it might actually help their chances.) Which conspiracy theory kinda explains this:
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) sent a four-page letter dated Wednesday to R. Culver Schmid, chairman of the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, accusing Smith of "serious misconduct" when he obtained senators' phone records during his investigation of Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Hagerty wrote that Smith subpoenaed Verizon for non-content records of calls made by Hagerty and other sitting senators. Along with the subpoena came a nondisclosure order barring Verizon from telling anyone about it, including the senators themselves. Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., issued the order.


The GOP senator argues that Smith's request to the judge left out the fact that the records belonged to members of Congress. He says it also left out the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause and a federal law that allows Senate service providers to notify the Senate of legal demands for its data.

As a result, Hagerty wrote, he never had a chance to challenge the subpoena, and he also claimed the order was "apparently also written by Smith, and rubber-stamped by the judge."

"Smith's actions have set a precedent that a legislator should think twice before answering the phone," Hagerty wrote.

The senator alleges that Smith violated rules requiring lawyers to be candid with courts in one-sided proceedings and he asked the board to seek "the most serious remedy possible — disbarment." He cited Smith's "lack of remorse" and a "chilling effect on legislative communications."

The letter says that when senators questioned Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, he stated that "we submitted these nondisclosure orders consistent with the law and department policy."
Of all the things that will never happen, Jack Smith getting disbarred over this will never happen the most. (Key point: the records in question belong to the common carrier, not the customer.)
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Maybe Change The Channel

Apparently he’s also a plumber: Trump elaborated:
Trump claimed an injured pilot managed to open the cockpit door before an Israeli plumber rushed in, pulled the other pilot from his seat and grabbed the controls.

“Having never flown a plane, he took the stick, lifted it up and leveled out the plane before it crashed,” Trump said.

“Now, this is the story that I heard,” Trump quickly added. “I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got from Bibi.”

Trump then dropped what he called “the craziest thing” about the wild tale.

“When I asked why he did that, he said he watches the show ‘Air Disasters.’ You know the show? It’s that crazy show,” Trump said. “But he said he watches it a lot, and he learned from watching that show sort of how to fly.”

"I mean, you tell me, this is the craziest thing," Trump said.
Yes it is, Grandpa. 🙄 Or just more attention to the fact.
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Win With Trump!

And then he lists his accomplishments: If I didn’t have the video, you wouldn’t believe me. Tell that to Paxton. 🤷‍♂️  Win with Trump! He's an expert on space. His head’s full of it. And what fills the space...
Trump: There's a tunnel going to what will be, I think, the greatest ballroom ever built. It's also a tremendous military complex with a drone port.

You literally will be the first group ever to enter. Don't fall over the edge because it's a long way down. And only a Hispanic could survive that fall.
... is racism. Don’t expect to hear any of those sound bites on the news tonight, or Sunday morning.
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Now Shut Up And Take Your AI!🤖

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Bubble? 🫧

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AI Is More Trustworthy Than Your Doctor 🤖

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The Trump Effect

Hasan Piker on Trump 2.0: “What did he do? He enriched his favorite friends in the Epstein Class. Refused to release the Epstein Files. Did liberation day tariffs that he had to back away from. The ICE funding led to killing Americans and kidnapping many more American neighbors. War in Ukraine has not ended in the first 24 hours, neither did America’s unlimited loyalty to Israel. He’s now waging war with Iran that’s skyrocketing gas prices because Benjamin Netanyahu urged him to. DOGE cuts didn’t lead to a subsidy. Your food is poison, the lettuce gives you diarrhea. Everything sucks”
HOW HOT IS IT? And what Trump has made possible:
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The Old Ways Are Still The Best

As MS Now has reported, FBI officials say the bureau has been placing people on the Most Wanted list whose capture is believed to be imminent. In other words, these officials tell us—they are gaming the system. One fugitive was captured in Mexico an hour and 13 minutes after being placed on the list.
Patel learned something from J. Edgar.
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Schmitt Was Their Perjury Trap 🪤

It's like watching the “bad guy” trying to fool Bugs Bunny. Basketball can only be NBA. Right?
He can't even get his cover story right. There were multiple NBA games that night.

Somebody should tell Sen. Schmitt about the Law of Holes: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

This is what Republicans are doing instead of working to solve the very real crises facing American families.
Schmitt bought his perjury trap from Acme. Sure, dude. Tell it to Katie Britt. Cue the Looney Tunes closing music.🎶 
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Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Quacks And Idiots And 🤖

Sure, we can trust AI:
In June 2025, Jesse Van Rootselaar received an email notification from OpenAI. Van Rootselaar had been using ChatGPT to discuss committing potential acts of violence—including a mass shooting at a shopping mall—and now OpenAI had banned that account. But the troubled teen living in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was not deterred and soon logged back on with a second account.

What happened next was astonishing: Van Rootselaar told ChatGPT about the account ban, noting she had specified “a famous real-world mall as the target” and herself as the perpetrator, but also claiming the scenario hadn’t been real. In response, ChatGPT explained why such violent content would be flagged—and then offered tips on how to evade its own safeguards. It advised Van Rootselaar to always frame her content as fictional or hypothetical in order to “never get flagged again” by OpenAI’s moderation systems.

“Don’t use real-world locations,” ChatGPT said, later adding: “You can still be twisted. Just be clever about it.”

Over the next eight months, Van Rootselaar, who identified as transgender and used she/her pronouns, continued to use this second ChatGPT account to focus on violence. She discussed building and using firearms and homemade explosives, fantasized about becoming a notorious mass killer, and asked about the timing of previous real-world school shootings just before committing her attack, according to three separate sources with knowledge of the matter and material I reviewed from Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT history.

Van Rootselaar carried out a suicidal mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School this past February, killing a total of eight people and injuring dozens of others. In the aftermath, the Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had banned her first ChatGPT account for discussing “scenarios involving gun violence” but had decided not to alert authorities, despite the urging of some employees on OpenAI’s safety team. In a subsequent open letter to Canadian government leaders, OpenAI confirmed the ban and disclosed the existence of her second account, but gave no information about what the second account contained.
Medical advice, legal advice, plain old fashioned good advice, is not a matter of just data; nor of a large language model. My daughter has a larger vocabulary than almost anyone I know She was tested, in high school, with a box of cards. A simple test: give the meaning of the word until you hit a word you don’t know. The box ran out of cards before she ran out of words she knew. The cards went well past the collegiate level. But as much as I love her, and as smart as she is, I would not blindly follow her advice. I might follow the legal advice of a lawyer I trust. I know what legal analysis involves, and it’s a great deal more than data and vocabulary words. So why would I ever trust a computer with my medical diagnosis? AI may also tell you how to plan a mass shooting. Which I guess is the power to free us from ethical tyranny… 🤷‍♂️ Better to be led by Kennedy and Oz and Vance, and ChatGPT? Yeah, I don’t have to be an expert in anything to call “bullshit” on that.
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The Song That Never Ends

This is reaching Tuberville levels of stupid, and Trump levels of delusional.
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The Takeaway From Today 😹🤡

(Benny had to delete that one.) The horror! The horror! (What does this have to do with the price of diesel? Or food?)
Kennedy: Here's my opinion about Mr. Smith. I'm sure Jesus loves him. But everyone else who believes in the rule of law thinks he's an idiot. He's a bottom feeder in the Washington swamp. He's a political operative masquerading as a prosecutor. He's the kind of Washingtonian who would unplug your life support to charge his cell phone.
Well, opinions are like assholes. (Is Jack Smith moving to Louisiana to run for the U.S. Senate?)
CHARLIE KIRK SHOW: Gotta give you some flowers. Dang! So you had text messages from Jack Smith's team confirming he was going to a Hawks game, and he sat there acting dumbfounded?

ERIC SCHMITT: It was the only NBA game going on at that time in Atlanta. He claimed later that he was at another game. Here's the thing -- my job is to ask the questions

(All of Schmitt's facts were wrong and were debunked during the hearing in near real time, but The Charlie Kirk Show hosts won't acknowledge that)
Reality is such a bitch! BTW: This picture convinces me that Schmitt’s questions were supposed to be the perjury trap 🪤 of this hearing. 🤡  It’s also the reason Hawley ended the hearing with this: But that didn’t sell it, either. Katie Britt proves me right.
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By The Way…

They’re selling snake oil… ...with the plan... ...to simply own and control everything.
Musk: When you have robots and you have superintelligence, that means that everyone in the world can have better medical care than anyone here, including me. And wouldn't that be wonderful?

Reporter: Not if they haven't got a job

Musk: Well, jobs are going to change. Jobs have always changed. But being a computer used to be a job. It used to be buildings full of people doing calculations. But now digital computers do those tasks. I don't think anyone is pining to go back and do calculations all day. So I think we'll see an evolution of roles.
With Tech Bros as the Lords of Evolution.

Nice work if you can get it.
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I See Dumb People 🤡

Sure he does.
Trump absurdly claims: We had a convention a couple of weeks ago that a lot of you said, oh, it's a midterm. It's never been done before. It's going to be a failure. And they put it against the NFL. And we had 107 million views, and the NFL had 25 million views. It was really successful
Everything he says is trustworthy.
He thinks the Oval Office is beautiful now, too. Maybe he can get a data center built next to Mar A Lago.
Trump: This a group that loves local communities they love our country. They're going to work with local communities for the data centers in particular and they're going to work to make the community happy. That might be supplying oil and gas. It might be supplying education. It may be helping teachers financially, helping people along financially. You’re going to see that Data Centers are very popular.
Trumplandia. The sad thing is, he thinks it works that way. Yeah, about that:
BREAKING: Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa has filed an official request to inspect unredacted communications between Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and Elon Musk and his companies, after roughly 1,400 pages of records released last year were heavily redacted.

The state previously argued that portions of the communications could be withheld because they contained “intimate and embarrassing information.”

In a letter sent to Abbott’s office today, Hinojosa invokes a provision of the Texas Public Information Act governing information requested by lawmakers for legislative purposes. She is seeking the same records previously released to the Texas Newsroom, but “without any redactions whatsoever,” including material deemed “embarrassing” or “intimate.”

Hinojosa says the records could shed new light on Musk’s relationship with Abbott, including his companies’ lucrative state contracts and tax incentives, as well as Musk’s campaign contributions. She argues Musk has turned Texas into a corporate playground and says greater transparency is needed to expose what she describes as corruption in Abbott’s relationship with powerful tech interests.

She is requesting that Abbott’s office arrange an inspection of both the redacted and unredacted records on or around October 13.

Now Texans may finally learn what was considered so “intimate and embarrassing” that it was kept from public view.
Abbott was heavily promoting data centers until the polls showed how unpopular they are. Not exactly an answer. So maybe this is: "Trust us.” Tech bros as the vox populi. Or not. 🤡
You knew this was coming. 🤦‍♂️
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The Jack Smith Senate Hearing In One Exchange

Graham: Do you really believe Lindsey was going to destroy evidence that was not even in his possession?

Smith: I believe your brother was a patriotic public servant. He was not a target of our investigation. In fact, he likely would have been a witness in our case. Your brother investigated the claims that Donald Trump was making. He found them to be false.

Graham: I think you were just trying to bully my brother. You should be ashamed of yourself. Shame on you!
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No, I’m Not Through With This Yet

Yes, Sen. Leghorn actually did that: And Schmitt really thought he’d triggered the perjury trap the GOP wanted this hearing to be: And then Sen. Klobuchar pointed out Smith went to see the Hawkeyes play in Maryland on February 5, 2024, and not the Hawks in Atlanta. Which is what Smith testified to. He even told the committee to check with the U.S. Marshals, as two were with him at the game.

And yeah, that’s gonna be the takeaway. Grassley knew it; he left early. Sen. Leghorn took charge, called on Sen. Graham, and announced he would turn the committee over to her, because he had better places to be.

🤡
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Your Reminder That The SOE Made Her Money Promoting Fake Wrestling

Education Secretary Linda McMahon: "AI is definitely a tool used correctly. I've seen it in action. I have visited the Alpha School in Austin, Texas, where they use AI for the first two hours every single morning. The students have their headsets on, they are watching their computers ... it is incredibly effective"
...it was movies; and film strips; even speed reading machines (anybody remember the ‘60’s push for “speed reading”?). Lots of “education technology.” I learned more about the basics of atomic physics from the public library (I still remember some of the books I read in 5th grade) than I did from the Disney movie (I think it was “Our Friend the Atom.” Whatever the title, it was bald propaganda).

It’s all bullshit. Learning from looking at a screen is equivalent to watching a YouTube video about riding a bicycle; without ever getting on a bicycle. Or learning to play piano, by watching someone play the piano. If you don’t do, you don’t learn. Period.
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OMG, It Gets Worse 🤡

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Anyone Wanna Tell Him?

Apparently Trump is establishing a government AI program. He thinks that means he wins: Who’s going to tell him Congress won’t be back until November, and Save America was dead in the Senate already? Even if it passes in December, the Democrats will repeal it in 2027. It also knows who won in 2020: Even what hasn’t been done by Trump’s DOJ:
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