Sunday, July 19, 2026

I Can’t Do This In A Comment

It’s complicated.
At some point we have to approach the idea that *so* much of our lives- this blog, its comments, my online banking and that neat little mapping function in my brother's new car, actually lives in a "data center" somewhere and we have to make some distinctions and set some priorities. My personal take is "information" > "AI" > "cryptocurrency mining" but even that isn't as simple as I'd like it to be.
Garland was not appointed until February of Biden’s term. He started the investigation soon after, but that began with evidence gathering, which engaged the “due process of law” guaranteed by the 5th and 14th amendments (until the Roberts Court gets to them). And that meant court hearings in order to access information people had, on their phones and such.

That investigation proceeded and convinced Garland it needed a dedicated, i.e, “special prosecutor,” assigned to it.  And then John Roberts decided a GOP president needed to be protected from legal process. That slowed things down for months while the Sinister Six pondered how to package their lunacy; and let’s not overlook Aileen Cannon, who really should have been more strictly overseen by the 11th Circuit.

I appreciate the fans of TeeVee justice, who think it should all be wrapped up in an hour, but IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY! To go really old school, Perry Mason won every case in the preliminary hearing. It doesn’t work that way in real life because no prosecutor ever (well, before Trump’s DOJ) brings a case so weak it can be disassembled there. And for some reason, Hamilton Burger never took a murder charge to a grand jury.

BTW, the one case Perry Raymond Burr Mason ever lost, was a jury trial.  THAT’S real life.

Merrick Garland had to contend with reality, an out of control Supreme Court, and an electorate that didn’t give a shit, and (really) simply didn’t want a woman President.

Dese are de conditions dat prevail. Were it not for Aileen Cannon and the electorate, Trump would be appealing his D.C. criminal conviction by now, and defending himself in a Florida court, probably with a new judge.

Credit where credit is due. Nothing is as simple as we’d like it to be. Not even the subject of “data centers.”
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Still Fighting WWII

Why did POTUS suddenly pivot from "unconditional surrender" to a deal at any cost in Iran?

TL/DR it's the interceptors, stupid.

- it takes Lockheed >two years and $5-15m to make a missile interceptor
- i.e., $10k drones take a $5m missile to defeat
- our forecast was that a) the population was going to rebel and b) we’d quickly take out the missile launchers
- But: Iran murdered 50k protesting citizens before our forces were in place; we didn’t defeat the launch capability as fast as expected
- we were facing down dwindling interceptor supplies
- 50% of patriots are gone and 80% of Thaad interceptors are gone. They cannot be replaced in a relevant timeframe
- if we actually ran out of defenses, US and allies in the region would be slaughtered— and the US would be facing a historic defeat
- we're already rationing interceptors, which is why our soldiers died in Jordan last night and why there are no more Patriots in Ukraine.
- in this context we try to make any deal you can — regardless of cost. Pretend it’s about gas prices if we must.

So we are losing this war. Badly. And what really lost the war was the fucked up defense supply chain that can’t make munitions in a relevant cost or timeframe
— and we have no technology that defeats the enemy in an economically sustainable way.

This is why advanced anti drone and advanced missile defense is so critical. Personally I am bullish on directed energy intercept, particularly space-based directed energy.

Regardless of specific technology, we must be able to build interceptors faster and cheaper than any enemy can build offensive weapons.

Against China right now we lose. Badly. It isn’t even close.

Fortunately we are learning this lesson against Iran not against China—and there is still time to pivot and fix the US industrial base, but only barely.
The U.S. industrial base defeated Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, two industrial powers. It was, honestly, a stunning industrial victory.

McNamara used the lessons of postwar recovery in Vietnam. We bombed the bejeesus out if them, had superior weaponry and technology, all of it cheaper and easier to produce than modern interceptors, and…

Well, the rest is history. We invaded Iran, smashed it up, sent pallets of cash (literally) and then … left.

We invaded Afghanistan with superior technology. They didn’t even have drones. And we… left.

The reason interceptor are expensive is that they have to do a complicated job. Drones will always be cheaper. Anti-aircraft guns in WWII were effective. But planes were plentiful, and got through anyway. Defensive systems can always be overwhelmed by numbers. Armies have relied on that simple tactic for millennia.

“Regardless of specific technology, we must be able to build interceptors faster and cheaper than any enemy can build offensive weapons.”

Wish in one hand, piss in the other. Which fills up faster? So the solution is to weaponize space and use “directed energy weapons”? Which we pinky swear will only be used defensively? Even if we start the war, as we did in Iran?

Sure. That’ll work. Magical thinking will always overcome reality, right?
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πŸ€–

Colorado is a desert. The state relies on snow melt from the Rockies for the bulk of its water supply. Despite what the governor implies, AI doesn’t produce water as a byproduct. It doesn’t even produce snow.

And AI centers that produce their own electricity, lower consumer rates how, exactly? Isn’t that like saying rooftop solar panels make more electricity available to everyone else, and that supply lowers prices? Anybody who sold solar panels that way would be guilty of fraud. πŸ€”

Similarly, much of Texas relies on aquifers for water, aquifers which are not replenishing as fast as urban areas and agriculture are taking water out. But AI is necessary because….reasons.

Trickle down economics: the owners of AI get the oats; the residents of the arid West get what trickles down from the back end of the horse. In this case, whatever trickle of water is left behind.
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“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

Orwell:
The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
And even then....
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Gee, I Wonder Why?

 Gee, I wonder why?

According to reporting by The New York Times, Jordan has rapidly emerged as a new focal point in the U.S.-Iran conflict, with U.S. officials saying Iranian forces have attacked American troops there four times in the past five days including last night's attacks that killed two U.S. service members, left another missing, wounded dozens more, and damaged multiple helicopters.

U.S. officials told the Times the pace and effectiveness of the strikes suggest Iran not only retains substantial missile inventories, but is becoming increasingly effective at penetrating U.S. and allied air defenses.

The Times also reports that Jordan's strategic importance has grown significantly as the U.S. shifted forces there from Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE ahead of the conflict, while some regional partners have placed greater restrictions on U.S. military operations from their territory. According to U.S. officials, Jordan has become one of Washington's most important operating hubs in the region.
Their intelligence is pretty good, too:
According to new reporting from the Wall Street Journal, multiple U.S. manned and unmanned aircraft were reportedly damaged in Iran's attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, which also killed two U.S. service members and wounded several others. Hundreds of U.S. personnel and dozens of aircraft have been temporarily stationed at the base for strikes on Iran. The strike reflects an increasing focus on targeting U.S. air assets as the conflict continues to escalate.
Trump still couldn’t care less.
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They Won’t

They won’t. Anyone expect Tillis to vote against Blanche now? 55 years ago. Where has the political violence in America come from since?

And yet, as the midterms bear down, reporters insist GOP officeholders in D.C. confess privately that Trump is a disaster. Which somehow proves Tillis or Cornyn might not pull a Collins and vote the way everyone expects them to?

The GOP are cultists. And they aren’t neutered. They’re believers. Every last damned one of them. They got rid of the last of the non-cultists in 2024.
War is peace. Lindsey Graham’s death from natural causes shall not be in vain!
Tim Dillon: “They’re in the White House. They have the Congress. They have the Senate. They have the Supreme Court. It is now them. I don’t want to hear about the Deep State anymore. You’re playing everyone for a fool. You have to be one of the stupidest people in the world to fall for this shit at this point”
Or to think the Republicans are just scared of Trump.
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Saturday, July 18, 2026

Breaking The System

Putin

Last night Donald Trump released a declassified document that says his own intelligence community identified Putin as personally running an operation to defeat my father in 2020, built around a fake Burisma corruption scandal centered around me and executed through prominent Americans.

Trump tasked his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to fly to Kyiv and meet a known Russian agent.

The Americans who ran, laundered, and legitimized the operation:

Donald Trump. Rudy Giuliani. John Solomon. Joe DiGenova. Victoria Toensing. Lev Parnas. Igor Fruman. Chanel Rion. Sean Hannity. Steve Bannon. Miranda Devine. Ken Vogel. Ron Johnson. Chuck Grassley. James Comer. Jim Jordan.

To name a few.

An operation formally sanctioned by Trump's own Treasury Department on September 10, 2020, and expanded to include more named actors on January 11, 2021.

Oh, and don't forget the Russian-linked FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who later pleaded guilty to making the entire Burisma bribery story up.

The record exists and we have all the receipts, and more.
I spent the last few months talking to people across the political spectrum, and to people who want nothing to do with politics at all. Here is what I learned.

We are not a divided country. We are a country being divided, on purpose, by an American oligarchy that profits from the fight. They’ve captured our government, denied our healthcare, looted our treasury, and saddled us with crippling debt.

I believe in a New New Deal. Healthcare as a human right. The right of every family to a decent home, and an end to endless wars.

And a dividend paid to every American from the AI economy, because these machines were built on the whole of human inheritance. That inheritance belongs to all of us, and not just to the handful of men playing God with our very existence.

And none of it happens if we just move on. Donald Trump, his family, and his administration are robbing us blind, not just of our money, but of our faith in one another, and they have to answer for it. Truth and reconciliation, not revenge. Then we break the system that let them do it.

The question is not whether we will lose our democracy. The question is whether we will fight to take back what has already been stolen.

I learned in recovery that you can’t heal what you won’t name. Neither can a country.
Truth and reconciliation. We were doing that the only way America does it: in criminal court. (We still haven’t reconciled over slavery or what we did to the natives.) We can do it again. Trump can’t run for office again. But he can be prosecuted for new crimes.

The AI economy is no more inevitable than slavery in America was. It isn’t just being built on our heritage; it’s being built by offloading costs on the public.  It’s the post-13th form of slavery: make the poor carry the weight, let the rich reap the money.

That’s part of the system we need to break.
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It’s What Trump Would Do

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Friday, July 17, 2026

Too Dumb To….

 Nope.

"Since Mr. Trump declassified the memo, we can quote the part he didn’t," wrote the [WSJ Editorial] board. Specifically, the memo says, “Vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results. The systems in each voting location are not connected to the Internet or to each other, and many methods for exploiting them rely on physical proximity.” And even if some results were compromised, “audits and paper trails very likely would uncover such an effort.”
Mullin has no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s quite confident in his ignorance. And his incompetence.
West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner, a Republican, former state GOP chairman, and a Trump appointee to a U.S. Department of Agriculture post during his first term, issued a statement Friday after the president's speech, asserting no one in the federal government has flagged a genuine danger to his state's upcoming vote.

"West Virginia has yet to receive a call from the White House, the intelligence community, or any other federal agency, alerting us to a real, existing threat to our 2026 general election," Warner said.

He framed that federal silence as consistent with his own office's findings.

"That's great news for us, because it's exactly what we're seeing on our end, as well," he added.

Warner said the state stays open to "any actionable intelligence," but until it arrives, "we'll stay the course."
Maybe Mullin needs to put it into a tweet.

Oh, let’s drive nails in the coffin:
Same Old Shit.
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Mad As A Hatter

Where’d he get that idea?
Jonathan Swan says that when President Trump returned to office, he pressured the intelligence community to produce some kind of evidence proving that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Trump’s Thursday night address was the best they could do.

Jonathan Swan: One way of looking at last night is as the culmination of an almost six-year effort. We have some reporting in the book that, in early 2021, Trump was telling people privately that he thought he could be reinstated as president that summer and was being encouraged by some people around him that this was a possibility.

When he came back into power this term, he started to put pretty intense pressure on the intelligence community to come up with some kind of evidence that could prove the 2020 election was stolen.

Last night, one way of looking at it is that this is the best they can do. Essentially, this was their best effort to prove that case. Of course, they didn’t. But that’s the genesis of last night.
My favorite bit is that, in the summer of 2021, he thought he could be reinstated. Trump is not “undermining faith in elections” in some wily Machiavellian scheme. He’s screaming yellow bonkers.  He has no idea how this works, and no capacity for facing reality.

He’s not a sub genius. He’s a narcissistic moron.
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Trump Is The Asshole Nextdoor Neighbor

The one who complains about the smoke from your house. When it’s on fire.πŸ”₯ 
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“These Matters That With Myself I Too Much Discuss/Too Much Explain”

Really? Sure seems like you want to change the outcome. This also sounds like extortion. Now, Congress can do that, as they did when they withheld highway funds from any state that didn’t lower the highway speed to 55.  But the Administration doesn’t get to decide to do that. 

Pretty sure the courts have said that over and over since DOGE left town.

And while we’re talking about the Oklahoma plumber:
What’s the over/under on how long before they throw this guy to the wolves and disavow any knowledge of his existence? ETTD. Even airports. Let’s talk some more about Platner. Fox heard me. Who knew?
James Carville criticizes CNN for not airing President Trump’s speech last night:

Blitzer: How would you advise the Democratic Party to handle President Trump's speech last night?

Carville: I would advise them to attack CNN, ABC, NBC, because they didn't air the speech. And I think the president acting loonier than a tune is newsworthy. I don't think we should have hidden that from the American people. I think it should have been blanket coverage of it. He's literally off his rocker.
Let’s have this argument again. πŸ™„ (I don’t think Carville is wrong (YMMV), but I think the sound of TeeVees changing channels/switching to Netflix, would have been audible from space. If you don’t know Trump is looney by now…. Besides, the news is not exactly portraying him as a genius, today. But attacking the networks? Why does everyone want to act like Trump? Maybe old guys really do need to get out of the way.) 🀦‍♂️ Stupidity really is contagious. Please identify the crime. By citation to the applicable statute. Yes, they can get away with “running out the clock.” Besides, KY law says Bashear can’t appoint a replacement, and Bashear says the KY constitution says he can. The courts have to resolve that one. And unless McConnell’s dead, he’s still a U.S. Senator.

Still don’t see how anyone has a dog in this fight. This is, at worst (if McConnell’s dead), a misrepresentation. It’s not fraud. And who has relied on it to their detriment? The people of KY, who are down a Senator? Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. And I’m just talking about civil torts. Criminal fraud is even harder to establish.

Just let it go. The Senate only has about 30 days left in the year anyway.
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Top O’ Mind This Morning

 So, what’s next?

Is the gash in the room with you right now? Still no sightings of the gash. Must be shy. Let them eat Italian embassy. How’s that working out for him? Two networks didn’t carry it. Fox won’t talk about it. CNN shredded it. And voters are still wondering, literally, what it has to do with the price of eggs. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
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The Plumber From Oklahoma Has Thoughts

Voting machines are not connected to the internet. There is a paper trail for ballots. This claim is demonstrably false. Under what statutory or constitutional authority? The Sinister Six gutted the VRA. What have you got? Because that would be illegal? Zombies 🧟‍♂️ are real! And they collect Social Security, too! 

And haven’t you lost enough cases trying to access voter rolls? Please cite the applicable criminal statute(s). Somebody give him a copy of the First Amendment. With guys like this? When Trump said he was after the worst of the worst, no one knew he meant ICE agents. πŸ™„ See above. πŸ‘† 

Keep calm and carry on.
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Well, I Believed In U.S. Elections….

... until last night.

Now I’m an elections atheist. And it’s all Trump’s fault.
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Trump Did Us All A Favor

There are also a lot of variations on this theme:
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What’s The Best Response To Still More Allegations Of Election Interference?

Let's see: The 25th Amendment requires the POTUS to voluntarily step aside, or a majority of the Cabinet and the VPOTUS to vote to force him to step aside. The Senate is likely to approve the nomination of Blanche, a man who calls himself Trump’s lawyer, and acts like it. Blanche is not an outlier among agency heads. How many members of Trump’s Cabinet are likely to vote to force him to step aside (they can’t vote to remove him, only the Senate can do that)? Much better response.
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Thursday, July 16, 2026

S.ame O.ld S.hit

And he was going to declare Ossoff and Warnock illegitimate tonight, right? Tuberville expected it.

Trump never said what China did, except try to make him not look “hot.” He never actually said they changed the electoral outcome. And he’d need to prove that in court to justify seizing ballot boxes. He certainly can’t do that and not face court challenges. There is no provision in law or the constitution for doing what Himes says Trump will do.
The documents Trump is referring to right now, and CNN has reviewed all of them, largely discuss vulnerabilities that have been known for years and/or are reflected in the 2021 US intel community assessment.

None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results — including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost — were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would’ve changed the outcome.
The documents & notes Trump is referring to in his speech were largely intended to round up everything the US government had information about that could potentially be considered, per a source w/ direct knowledge.

After analysis, the intel community decided to either incorporate them in the 2021 minority report or assessed -- based on verbiage in the documents themselves -- were not concrete enough to view as consequential enough, the source said.
It’s over, people. Let it go. But Trump has the evidence!

Uh-huh.
This is how authoritarianism begins. Right?
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Post-Mortem

Same as it ever was, then. You can’t blame Trump for this. So why is the DOJ going to court to get them? That’s why.
Warner: Since he's been reelected, he has single handedly dismantled much of the election protection security system that candidly was set up during the Trump administration. He's dismantled the foreign malign influence center at the director of national intelligence and gotten rid of the FBI efforts, the NSA efforts….
ETTD. Everything. And how do they “check” them? Against what? Do they check to be sure Ken Paxton is living at the address where he’s registered to vote with the Texas SOS? Yeah. So what do they “check”? That my father is alive? He’s not. And he hasn’t voted since he left the house he’d lived in for 50 years. He may still be on the voting rolls. But he hasn’t been “active” on them for over a decade. So what do they “check”? There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun. Or, you know, not. And 60 court cases said he didn’t.

Same as it ever was.

Finally: this is a pretty decent summary of the speech:
We watched Trump's dangerous and deranged speech so you don't have to. Here are the moments you need to know about:

— He openly laid groundwork to challenge the midterms. He claimed our elections were "compromised," clearly setting up the justification to tamper with results before a single vote is counted.

— He said he'll "correct vulnerabilities" in our elections. Translation: he told you exactly what he plans to interfere with.

— He contradicted himself on China in real time. He first claimed China was "working to influence" and "undermining confidence" in him, then said he was doing a "great job" with them back when he made the claim. He couldn't keep his own conspiracy straight.

— He claimed China rigged the 2020 election, this time by getting journalists to write bad stories about him, because China supposedly wanted Biden to win since Trump was "wise to them."

— He said they found "burn bags" from the Obama Administration full of supposedly incriminating material, without ever saying what was actually in them.

— He said he needs "urgent measures" to stop our elections from being "hacked," citing Maduro's rigged machines in Venezuela in 2020 as his "evidence."

— He attacked networks for not airing him live, accusing them of being "part of the conspiracy to rig elections" and suggesting they should lose their broadcast licenses.

— He announced he wants to seize voter data from states he's deemed "vulnerable" ahead of the midterms.

This was a sitting president telegraphing, step by step, how he plans to undermine the 2026 midterms with egregious lies and conspiracy theories.
China tried that. And I’m still unclear exactly how Trump “challenges” the midterms. He didn’t mention Warnock and Ossoff, but Warnock’s question is a good place to end:
Warnock: "Look at this from a common sense perspective. I won two elections -- in '21 and '22. Our congressional delegation is majority Republican, so are you saying that on the same ballots that elected my Republican colleagues, their ballots are legitimate and the ballots that elected Ossoff and myself are illegitimate?"
Trump had the same problem in 2020. But none of his 60 cases survived long enough to face it. Authoritarianism doesn’t work in America because no one person is in charge of all the governments.
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“Fox spent little over 5 minutes on Trump’s speech and then shifted back to Iran.”

Warnock: "Look at this from a common sense perspective. I won two elections -- in '21 and '22. Our congressional delegation is majority Republican, so are you saying that on the same ballots that elected my Republican colleagues, their ballots are legitimate and the ballots that elected Ossoff and myself are illegitimate?"
This should be good. Me, my daughter, my wife: everybody was doing it.
Trump: Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes like levels never thought possible to hacking, exploitation and foreign interference. Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you
Not enough pictures? Wait, I was told he was going to interfere in the midterms.
Trump: Today we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela. This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never ever be hacked or compromised like it was in the past.
What does this have to do with 2020? Or today? Walking around on legs that were blown off. (My parents probably stayed on the voter rolls for a few years after their deaths. I never got new registration cards for them, though. If they were sent to the address of the house they sold, they were either discarded or returned. I know I get a new card every few years. I suppose the Secretary of State could review the death records, but they can’t connect names to addresses. How could they be sure? My parents didn’t die in the county where they were registered to vote (they never changed their registration).

I suppose I’ll be purged from the rolls someday when that card is a dead letter. My parents certainly haven’t been “active” on the rolls since they died.) Pretty sure we knew this in 2021. Just like we knew “dumb” is spelled with a “b.” He has no idea how broadcast networks, work. Or what the first amendment is. (No, I’m not going to touch that “plot” idea. It doesn’t deserve further attention. Grandpa is sundowning.) If you stayed this long,Trump finally got to the point. Though what the SAVE America Act has to do with 2020, Maduro, and countries “meddling in our elections,” is unclear. Perfect ending.
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Feature, Not Bug

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“A White, Crystal Like Substance” πŸ§‚

“Is there a lot of smoke around here to suggest that something terribly wrong and unconstitutional happened?” said Jeff Edwards, an Austin attorney who recently won a significant U.S. Supreme Court case regarding a fatal Amarillo police shooting of a Black teen during a traffic stop. “Oh my gosh, yes.”
So a search for drugs is a good cover?
A federal search warrant filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation states investigators found multiple bags containing a “white crystal-like substance” they believe “is consistent with methamphetamine” inside Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s work van. This comes a little more than a week after he was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Houston.

According to the affidavit, FBI investigators sought authorization to search Salgado Araujo’s work van for evidence related to potential federal drug offenses, including possession with intent to distribute controlled substances and simple possession.
Because that’s what Stephen Miller thinks they all do.
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So It’s Incompetence, Then?

I mean:
State and federal health officials have confirmed 1,645 cases of cyclosporiasis, and the cause of the stomach-churning parasitic infection spiking across the country remains under investigation.

More than 5,100 additional cases are also being investigated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Confirmed or suspected cases have been reported in 34 states.
In 71 years I’ve never even heard of this. Is it just coincidence I hear of an epidemic of it in Trump’s second administration?
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What If Trump Gave A Speech…

Ossoff: "Here's what's going to happen tonight: the world's most famous sore loser will deliver a prime-time presidential sour grapes address to pursue his 6-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control and the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country. I expect the president to reheat debunked conspiracy theories about the repeatedly litigated and audited and confirmed 2020 presidential election in Georgia, an election that Donald Trump lost. And let me be very clear about this: if the President declares Georgia's election illegitimate, or if the President declares Georgia's sitting United States Senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate. It's Donald Trump who tried to defraud Georgia voters in that election, Donald Trump who tried to commit election fraud when he called Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger -- and it was caught on tape, and you should play the tape to your viewers today -- and badgered and bullied Georgia's top election official to 'find him' the votes that he needed to win in a state where he had lost."
… and nobody listened?
"NBC and ABC will not carry Trump on their respective networks but will carry on their digital feeds, NBC News Now and ABC News Live. Expect CBS to do the same," Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Flint reported on X, hours before the speech was to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
I really didn’t think Jesus loved me this much. Would that be the audience searching for Trump’s speech live online tonight? All, what, three of them? Anyway, deep background, if that’s still necessary.
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The Statute Of Limitations Has Entered The Chat

If there was evidence upon which charges could be made, it would be more appropriate to turn the materials over to the DOJ,

But it’s my understanding the information about foreign election interference was known in 2020 (when WHO was President?), and declassified in 2021.
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Crooked As A Dog’s Hind Leg

Ken Paxton recently bought three condominiums at a luxury resort in Utah, a set of purchases that offered fresh insight into his wealth amid his run for Senate.

The properties, along with a dozen others owned by Paxton, are at issue in his ongoing divorce negotiations with his wife, State Senator Angela Paxton, who has accused him of adultery.

Mr. Paxton, 63, purchased the condos, worth a total of $1.6 million, in February, according to local property records, and transferred them to his blind trust. On the deeds, Paxton listed his address as a Dallas-area home. Police records indicate a woman who is not his wife lives there. Paxton, who has been photographed vacationing with the woman, has not directly addressed the relationship.

Public records reviewed by The Times show Mr. Paxton, his blind trust and another family trust now own at least 15 properties worth around $9 million, including a luxury cabin in Oklahoma, three homes in Florida and a plot of land in Hawaii.

Mr. Paxton’s expanding real estate portfolio has raised questions in the past about how he has amassed his wealth, despite his $153,000 salary as attorney general. Both Mr. Talarico and Mr. Paxton’s opponent in the Republican primary, Senator John Cornyn, have suggested Mr. Paxton has used his public role to benefit himself. Mr. Talarico has disclosed one property on his state and federal filings, as well as an annual salary of less than $100,000.
This is normally not a scandal in Texas. Texas officeholders not in the Lege (which is a part-time job) often get wealthy in office. LBJ did it (which is not an excuse). But times have changed.  And Talarico is throwing down: He says he’ll be on stage for the debates whether Paxton is there or not.
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“…until morale improves.”

The Blue Angels flew by the Houston hospitals during Covid, on of which is close enough to my house I could see them go by from my yard. We “saw” them mainly by the noise. There are a lot of trees here, and they were low enough to be in the tree line, though that was due to the angle between me and them. The noise was very loud, though, even at that distance. It preceded them, and lingered after they were out of sight.

But it was nothing like this:
Not to mention the sand that was whipped up. Kegsbreath cares. It’s all about the performance.
Rep. Balint on Hegseth's obsession with testosterone, his announcement of testosterone therapy for troops, and his attacks on women in combat:

"I think it is indicative of the fact that there are so many people in this administration that have some weird, intense, homoerotic, feelings towards men while also being incredibly homophobic, and not just homophobic, but like hate-mongering, fear-mongering about the LGBTQ community.

So, let me be clear. I don't think the homoeroticism is the weird part. The weird part is that they pretend that that's not what it's about.

And so, Pete Hegseth is like the example of this, like the manly, manly, rugged, macho man, and it's like, I don't know if you know who Tom of Finland is...this is a gay male porn that was drawn by a man. And, like, Pete Hegseth is the embodiment of that.

So I feel like they must be looking at that as their example for what men look like. And in terms of not promoting women, we know what this is all about.

The military, whether you support the military-industrial complex or not, it has always been merit-based. The people who are the best of the best rise to the top.

And so the fact that he has systematically been keeping down women and people of color gives up the whole game. It's actually not about a merit-based system anymore."
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Eight Days A Week

The minimum?

“It’s a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 25th of December.”
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Sometimes History Rhymes

I’m only surprised the FCC Chair isn’t threatening them.
Major broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—along with cable outlets including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC have remained silent on whether they intend to preempt regular programming to carry the speech, the Daily Beast reported Thursday morning.

As of Tuesday evening, the Thursday 9 p.m. time slot across networks continued to display "their standard scheduled content," with no indication that coverage would be interrupted for the presidential address.
I usually watch PBS in Thursday night, but I fully expect them to cover it. So that’s a miss.

Well, no, the local station doesn’t have it scheduled, either. This looks promising.
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