Carter Page tells me he can't guarantee he did not discuss easing of sanctions w Russian contacts; “Let’s see what the FISA transcripts say”
— GeorgeStephanopoulos (@GStephanopoulos) April 13, 2017
When the figurehead for the crime cartel is a two-bit grifter with a loose lip, it’s hard to recruit good wetwork men…
The greatest mystery in the Russia scandal so far is to figure out who keeps telling Carter Page that going on TV is a good idea
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) April 13, 2017
Carter Page will be awesome as the Bill Pullman character in the gritty reboot of "Ruthless People." https://t.co/0QjmHTPtHi https://t.co/2S2Vq9HHO2
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 13, 2017
Carter Page won't say who brought him on to the Trump campaign https://t.co/potOrodYbS
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 12, 2017
Tinder. https://t.co/CgVZlnoIJV
— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 12, 2017
rikyrah
Mulvaney Lays GOP Budget Ideology Bare
by Martin Longman April 12, 2017 3:14 PM
President Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney was unusually blunt during an interview on CNBC. As Jonathan Chait notes, Republicans usually make some effort to justify tax cuts for the wealthy, for example by denying that they will cause the deficit to grow. But Mulvaney is candid about not caring whether the deficit grows.
What I’d like to focus on is one turn of phrase: “wealth-transfer payments [are] a misallocation of resources.” Mulvaney essentially says that if you build a road or a bridge or a tunnel or an airport that you’ll have something tangible in the end even if there are cost overruns or the contracts are needlessly expensive. I think the idea is that maybe the government isn’t the most efficient source of funding for building stuff, but it can get the job done.
On the other hand, wealth-transfer payments get you absolutely nothing. So, by his reckoning, a subsidy to provide health coverage or financial assistance in getting a college degree or money set aside to assure kids aren’t malnourished, none of these things ever result in anything worthwhile.
I suppose there’s a broader ideology about efficiency here, in the sense that he’s framing this as a matter of using money in the most sensible way. But there’s also a value system on display. It’s not just that there is suddenly good deficit spending (tax cuts for the rich) but there’s also a belief that it’s a misallocation of money to invest in people. Maybe investment in people is a little harder to judge in “tangible” results than investment in physical infrastructure, but it’s not impossible. Because they were no longer hungry, someone could concentrate in class so their grades went up. A person became the first person in their family to get a college education. A doctor’s visit detected high blood pressure, which allowed the patient to take life-extending measures and medications.
We can debate the precise meaning of the word “tangible,” but it’s pretty clear that Mulvaney doesn’t value these kinds of positive results of wealth-transfer payments.
In any case, he provided proof that he doesn’t care about deficits. When it comes to deficits caused by failing to tax the rich, he says he really doesn’t care.
ArchTeryx
It’s like I said in a Great Orange Satan diary by Major Kong: I put more thought into the average round of World of Tanks then the Gang That Doesn’t Shoot Straight does into actual warfare.
WoT is a multiplayer arcade game (and bonus: It’s run by Russians!). Actual warfare kills and maims. That’s what’s so sad to me.
rikyrah
WHY
was the bomb dropped on Afghanistan?
WHY?
ArchTeryx
@rikyrah: Because they could.
hovercraft
The same person who keeps telling Twitler that he’s also great in TV interviews and that Lying Spice is a great spokesperson.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: Approval ratings. Jeez, you’ve seen this before.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
It worked with Syria, Fareed Zakaria, a real serious foreign policy journalist said he became president, the DC foreign policy experts loved it, so why not try it again?
He needs love, dammit!!
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
As you know better than anyone, ‘deficits’ always meant ‘giving my money to lazy blacks.’
@ArchTeryx:
Well, Russia told Trump he couldn’t do it on Syria, and China told him he couldn’t do it on North Korea.
The Moar You Know
Wow, just go ahead and say you’re guilty; you’re 95% of the way there.
This guy should realize he’s in some “deep shit” territory. People usually have unfortunate accidents for selling out their nation like that, current hazard seems to be with bathtubs. He should lawyer up and shut the fuck up. He’ll do neither, of course.
Bill E Pilgrim
Idea: Joe Pesci Airlines: When United is just too violent.
geg6
@rikyrah:
Because it’s the biggest bomb EVAH! Which gives Dolt 45 a chubby. So of course they dropped it. Where really doesn’t matter. It’s the chubby that matters.
hovercraft
What the hell?
Law enforcement officers may be illegally selling guns, ATF says
The head of the ATF’s office in Los Angeles has sent a memo to Southern California police chiefs and sheriffs saying the agency has found law enforcement officers buying and reselling guns in what could be a violation of federal firearms laws.
The memo from Eric Harden, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Los Angeles Field Division special agent in charge, describes the finding as an “emerging problem” and expresses concern about “the growing trend of law enforcement officials engaging in the business of unlicensed firearms dealing.”
He did not say how many officers the agency has found purchasing and reselling weapons, but the memo — dated March 31 — says some officers had bought more than 100 firearms. Some of the guns have been recovered at crime scenes.
But Harden wrote that the goal is “to educate, not investigate, to ensure law enforcement officials comply with federal law in order to avoid unnecessary public embarrassment to themselves and your department/agency.”
I think that ship has already sailed. Again WTF?
bystander
Mike Allen is on MSNBC but I have the sound off. Makes watching his muppetish mouth almost enjoyable.
Just one more canuck
@rikyrah: blowing stuff up just because you can is fine when you’re a host of Mythbusters but not when you’re the president
catclub
@The Moar You Know:
Which nation. US or Russia?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
What everyone else said. Plus the Toddler-in-Chief has a new set of toys to play with and, by God, he’s going to play with them!
Thanks again, idiot Stein voters who told us all that Trump would never get us into a war, unlike that evil Hitlery!
hovercraft
Former Australian PM Calls Trump ‘The Most Psychologically Ill-equipped President In US History’
In a speech to Australia’s National Press Club, Evans called “manifestly the most ill-informed, under-prepared, ethically challenged and psychologically ill-equipped president in US history,”
Oh yes, we are more respected than we’ve ever been.
zhena gogolia
What does “Tinder” mean? I thought it was a dating site.
The Moar You Know
@hovercraft: Things have improved. My grandfather bought his pistol directly from the Montgomery police department, way back in the day. They would just ask for new guns and sell their old ones. No paperwork of course.
Now they actually have to buy them. The unfairness!
p.a.
Page may be one of those people who think they’re the smartest person in the room when they’re not even the smartest potted plant in the room.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@rikyrah: I think this is the answer:
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, I guess he’s saying Tinder brought Carter Page into the campaign.
Maybe some day I’ll understand tweets.
hovercraft
GOP Rep: ‘Bullcrap’ That Taxpayers Pay My Salary, I Pay My Own
“You said you pay for me to do this,” he said in one recorded exchange, posted online Monday. “Bull crap, I paid for myself. I paid enough taxes before I ever got here and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to do it. I do it as an honor and a service.”
Farthestnorth
Just want to say how proud I am of the crowd that showed up at Rep.Coffman’s CO6 town hall last night. Despite being treated like a criminal to get in–advance ticket necessary, photo ID to prove I’m a constituent, searched my purse, no food water or signs allowed and more security than I have ever seen at any venue–we were a lively bunch, mostly polite but didn’t hesitate to express displeasure when he evaded or ignored questions, which was most of the time. Lottery for questions so not everybody got to ask one, but I was impressed with how thoughtful most were. 2018 can’t come soon enough. I voted against him last time; will actively work against and contribute what I can to opponent next year
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I once scared Fareed Zakaria in the gym at the Philadelphia Marriott downtown (City Centre – whatever they’re calling it these days).
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: And he won’t care about deficits caused by wars. This is Bush Part 2.
Aleta
-BBC
hovercraft
What is this hear from Twitlers kids week?
WaPo: Trump Kids Worry That Family Business Will Take A Hit From WH Chaos
Trump’s three oldest children — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric — and Kushner have been frustrated by the impression of chaos inside the White House and feel that their father has not always been served well by his senior staff, according to people with knowledge of their sentiments. The Trump heirs are interested in any changes that might help resuscitate the presidency and preserve the family’s name at a time when they are trying to expand the Trump Organization’s portfolio of hotels.
“The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, they’re not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage,” said one well-connected Republican operative, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s family. “It would be so protectionist, nationalist and backward-looking that they’d only be able to build in Oklahoma City or the Ozarks.”
Mike in NC
@hovercraft: Great, now he’s going to bomb a bunch of harmless kangaroos and cute koalas.
gene108
@hovercraft:
Damn straight we are!
Trump’s taking action!
Unlike Obama, who didn’t stand up to anybody and just gave speeches.
Conversation someone had with me recently, about Trump.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
That took me a few minutes to figure out. (Had to Google “Tinder” because I had forgotten there was a matchmaker site with that name.)
Miss Bianca
@Farthestnorth: glad to hear it – Tipton is having a town hall next Thursday in Pueblo West, may try to get in.
Adam L Silverman
The answer to the question of who brought Carter Page into the campaign is AG, and then Senator, Jeff Sessions and retired Ambassador Richard Burt or it is Sam Clovis. All of them are denying it.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/the-mystery-of-trumps-man-in-moscow-214283
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: And he’s never gotten over it, has he, Adam? That’s why he turns all creamy at the thought of our dropping bombs on other countries. IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!
Mike in NC
@Aleta: I really miss Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares” TV show. Too bad he never visited a Trump property.
piratedan
@zhena gogolia: may have been the profile… aggressive young “go-getter”, not impeded by morals and ethics, looking to get ahead by leveraging Russian contacts for fun and profit, please reply to…..
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
I believe you.
marcopolo
Page is like a character out of a movie like the “Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Doofus was coined to describe his ilk.
BTW for St. Louis blogfolks, I just learned Congressman Clay will be holding a town hall in the Central West End branch of the St. Louis Public Library tomorrow afternoon at 4 pm. I was in the audience at our Senator McCaskill’s town hall yesterday morning outside of St. Louis and if people have the time and opportunity I urge them to try to attend. McCaskill took questions on the Trump/Russia probe, on supporting Planned Parenthood, on government support re current local flooding, on Climate Change, on the defunding of the EPA, and whether Trump could be impeached among other topics.
She began by talking about her work in the Senate investigating the opioid crisis (the US has 5% of the world’s pop but consumes 80% of the world’s opioids), and the challenges the US needs to address to ensure local economies work and there are decent jobs for folks (mentioning how automation & robotics will directly affect driving related jobs in the near future, and for example how bringing a factory back to the US from another country might not provide many jobs if all the work is done via robot manufacturing).
It was a very supportive crowd (though the venue was only half-full), and I could have been on the TV, the local public radio, and quote in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (as I was the first person waiting to get in) if I wasn’t really averse to seeing myself in the local media. Needless to say, all the reporters found more compliant and less media averse subjects in the people sitting near me.
Hope everyone is enjoying weather like we have in St Louis today–about 80 and sunny with way too much pollen but what can you do in Spring.
bystander
@Adam L Silverman:
On purpose?
Iowa Old Lady
@Just one more canuck: OK totally irrelevant, but did you see it the time they shot that cannonball through the wall of that guy’s house?
SiubhanDuinne
@hovercraft:
Well worth clicking through to watch the video clip of the former foreign minister.
PJ
@hovercraft: Did you read about the racketeering re cigarette smuggling (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/us/alcohol-tobacco-firearms-cigarettes-millions-secret-bank-account.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article) and the paying for things like the NASCAR boxes (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/us/politics/alcohol-tobacco-firearms-atf.html) the ATF has been up to? It’s run like a criminal syndicate.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
How, just by being your huge menacing self or did you actually say, BOO?
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Unlikely. @bystander: No. @hovercraft: Here’s what happened.
We were both there for the American Political Science Association annual meeting. I was on a panel having something to do with terrorism. Went down to the gym early to get a workout in before getting cleaned up and eating my body weight in eggs and bacon and fresh fruit at the breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant. He was in there doing Deity knows what with a couple of 10 or 15 lbs dumbbells. He’s tiny, but my shoelaces are bigger around than he is. Anyhow I come in, say good morning, turn my iPod on, put a workout bench in position, put my water bottle down, wipe the bench down (cause I don’t trust that anyone ever cleans up equipment in a gym), put my towel down, grab a pair of 90 lbs dumbbells and start cranking out dummbell chest presses. He quickly moved to another part of the gym. Later that day he saw me in a suit and tie with my conference name tag on and did a double take. Good times.
Chris
@hovercraft:
I’m struggling to find any of the forty four others that might prove him wrong. I can think of some really dumb and unqualified ones, but on his level…? Having trouble.
I can easily think of presidents who have more on their conscience, but Trump’s not even been at it for a hundred days. Give him time.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
He explicitly said in the CNBC interview that he doesn’t care about “Productive” deficits like for tax cuts for people who will put that money to good use, you know the rich who then turn around and hoard it, or off shore it, or reduce their tax burden even further through Capital Gains, or hopefully pass it on tax free to their heirs, oh and he guesses infrastructure is okay, and war too since it could also help big business. It’s just those deficits that are caused by you know helping people that he has a problem with, those have never been shown to be useful at all.
marcopolo
@rikyrah: Another thing to consider is we’ve had this bomb in our arsenal for quite a few years (Adam might know the exact amount of time) and it wasn’t until now it was actually dropped. I guarantee you there have been prior occasions when its use has been suggested and Obama didn’t take the bait (nor Bush if it was available to him). But our orange nightmare, now with the adulation of the talking class, will say yes to anything that goes boom. And yes, I do think he would drop a nuke in a heartbeat if he thinks he can get away with it. No moral/ethical/other psychological restraints on this excuse for a human being.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
And then the producer grabbed Kari (who was pregnant at the time) and said, “We need you to go talk to the homeowner! He won’t yell at a pregnant lady!” ?
Cal-OSHA really, really hated “Mythbusters.”
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
haha, Adam’s trying to get us all excited again
Splitting Image
@Chris:
It’s because it’s an AND operation. James Buchanan was psychologically ill-equipped to be President, but he was one of the most experienced people ever to get elected, so you can hardly call him under-prepared. Finding somebody as ill-informed, as under-prepared, as ethically challenged, and as psychologically ill-equipped? Tall order.
I think you have to go further afield than American history. The Roman Empire, in particular, produced many fine candidates. Egalabalus, Caligula, and Nero would all be in the running.
Adam L Silverman
@marcopolo: The first tests of the GBU 43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) were in 2003. They did a production run later that year of 15. They’ve sat in inventory ever since. The Russians, in response to the development of the MOAB, developed their own variant which they claim is four times as powerful.
My guesstimate is that this was, despite actually targeting an ISIL (which is what a good chunk of the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are now being referred as and/or calling themselves) cave system based redoubt (Fire for effect), really a demonstration that we can destroy the DPRK’s tunnel system test range for their nuclear weapons program (Fire for range).ETA: I’ve just read the reporting on this. Apparently the request originated with the Commander of US Forces – Afghanistan and worked up the chain of command for approval. Given the command and control adjustments that have been made in regard to decision making by the Administration I am unclear if this went beyond Commander CENTCOM for approval. However, this bottom up approach is consistent with what I’ve been told is the decision making process – requests work up to the National Security Council and National Command Authority, they don’t originate there – that LTG McMaster has implemented since becoming National Security Advisor.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@hovercraft:
No useful defined as “not useful to me and mine”. It’s all about redistribution of wealth ever more upward with those bastards. Some days I think the only way things will change will be violent and involving much of the 1% seeing their heads on affixed to the end of pikes.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
Well its not like those guns are going to plant themselves when the police shoot a black man to death.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@marcopolo:
Smoke em if you got em.
TenguPhule
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Welcome to the Dark Side. We have cookies.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Hence the crack about your size.
@Chris:
Someone posted a link last week showing that since WWII republican presidents have been getting steadily worse. Reagan and Poppy are ranked higher, but Nixon, Ford, Shrub, and now this, they are raked in the lower third. Our last few are all rated pretty well except Carter. JFK, LBJ, Clinton, and Obama are all in the top 20. Twitler is of course a whole new level of sucktitude and dangerous, but if this trend continues……
Can it get worse? Asking for the planet.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Splitting Image:
Somebody here in the commentariat developed the Caligula-Nero Derangement Scale (10 points, max). How many Neros was Trump’s latest performance?
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
His head is definitely destined for a pike.
TenguPhule
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Eleven.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
Yes. SATSQ.
Chris
@hovercraft:
Oh, yeah, totally. The party just keeps getting worse, and the Fox Effect might just have made it permanent.
John Revolta
@Mike in NC: We’ll save Australia.
Don’t wanna hurt no kangaroo.
We’ll build an all- American amusement park there……….
They got surfin’ too!
marcopolo
@Adam L Silverman: So there you go, Bush had it to use and somehow through the course of two wars managed not to. I am very very grudgingly giving W a little credit for speaking out publicly now about how unAmerican (and dumb policy-wise) the planned Trump budget cuts to our foreign healthcare aid (and AIDS) efforts are. Doesn’t nearly make up for the karmic disaster of his presidency but you take was you can.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@hovercraft: You forgot Truman.
Also, who the fuck are the asshats who keep moving Nixon up into the 20s (#28 for the most recent one) of these historical surveys? (Although now he does rank five spots ahead of W.)
TenguPhule
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): The EPA.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I am petite, which the dictionary describes as “delicately dainty”. And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
bystander
@Adam L Silverman: OK, but you can really menace a guy with some veiled, threatening moves of a 90 pound barbell. Just saying.
I was hoping the story was going to end with, “…then my dumbbell went whizzing by that dumbbell’s head as I shouted, ‘Now I feel presidential.'”
rikyrah
They know DAMN WELL why this Act was created…because Native children were being STOLEN FROM THE RESERVATIONS AND STRIPPED OF THEIR HERITAGE.
PHUCK OUTTA HERE!!
………………………..
A Right-Wing Think Tank Is Trying to Bring Down the Indian Child Welfare Act. Why?
Native Americans say the law protects their children. The Goldwater Institute claims it does the opposite.
By Rebecca Clarren
APRIL 6, 2017
On the wall above his desk, attorney Timothy Sandefur keeps a copy of The Liberator, a 186-year-old abolitionist newspaper that features an etching of a slave auction on its masthead. Sandefur is the vice president for litigation at the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, a nonprofit right-wing think tank with a donor roster that includes the Mercer family (Donald Trump’s biggest campaign contributors) and Donors Trust, a dark-money funnel for the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, and others. Goldwater is largely known for its efforts to limit regulation, promote tax cuts, expand school choice, and advance private-property rights.
Recently, the Goldwater Institute has stepped into an entirely different legal arena: an effort to dismantle a landmark law called the Indian Child Welfare Act. ICWA requires that before private and public agencies place Native American children in foster care or with an adoptive family, they try to keep nuclear families together or, if that fails, to place children with their extended family, their tribe, or a member of another tribe. It was passed in 1978 after government programs removed a large number of American Indian children from their families. But Goldwater and Sandefur argue that, rather than protecting Indian children, ICWA subjects them to an unfair set of rules that don’t apply to other kids—a type of discrimination that Sandefur likens to Jim Crow.
CWA “is obviously racial discrimination,” Sandefur said when I visited his office in March. Picking up a biography of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, he added: “I’ve been writing a lot about my great hero Frederick Douglass. I think his answer is that we all have a right to be treated equally by the law.”
Cloaking its efforts in the language of civil rights, Goldwater has launched a coordinated attack against ICWA alongside evangelical and anti-Indian-sovereignty groups, adoption advocates, and conservative organizations like the Cato Institute. Since 2015, Goldwater has litigated four state or federal cases against ICWA, and filed several briefs in support of other cases. Goldwater’s stated goal is to have the US Supreme Court strike down ICWA as unconstitutional. The implications go far beyond child welfare: Many tribal members fear that if Goldwater is successful, it could undermine the legal scaffolding of Native American self-determination.
Gary Williams, a member of Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community, was driving across the Arizona desert, listening to the radio, when he first heard about one of the Goldwater Institute’s ICWA lawsuits. Williams immediately pulled over to the slim edge of the highway to listen carefully. His heart raced.
Williams is a living example of what could happen to American Indian children without what he calls “the safety net” of ICWA. His mother, a member of the Gila River Indian Community, died before he turned 1, and before ICWA was law. Williams and his three older siblings were placed in Arizona’s foster-care system. Over the next 15 years, he was separated from his siblings and sexually and physically abused. In all, he lived in seven different foster homes and one large institution.
For most of his childhood, Williams didn’t know that his mother was Native American; all he knew was that he didn’t look like other kids. By the time he learned about his heritage, most of his extended family had died.
“I feel cheated,” Williams said recently. “I would have loved to grow up on my reservation. I would much rather be able to hug my grandparents than talk to a mound of dirt—but the state took that right away from me.” Williams can’t get that time back, but he has tried to reconnect with his tribe; he now works as one of Gila River’s gaming commissioners.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, Louise Mensch reported this months ago. Our MSM is slooooow.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@TenguPhule: Question was updated before I saw your answer. That said, it doesn’t explain why his ranking keeps moving five to nine spots every time a survey comes out.
LurkerNoLonger
Quite the headline in my local paper. Twirling. Twirling. Twirling towards freedom!
marcopolo
@Adam L Silverman: I wasn’t implying that Trump requested the use of the bomb from the get go–he’s so in the dark about just about everything I can’t imagine he would have even known about its existence. But it is hard not to believe that at some point in the last decade and a half that a request to use this ordinance did not occur at least once and was not acted on.
And if it was used (in addition to on an actual tunnel complex that I guess it was designed for) as a demonstration to N Korea that we can collapse their nuclear testing tunnel complex, working through that thought experiment is just crazy. What we drop this to screw up their testing, then they retaliate by opening fire on Seoul? Kim, due to his position and how he maintains it, would have to order some kind of counter attack just to show he too has balls. That way lies crazy land.
Adam L Silverman
@bystander: Nope, I think he was just worried I might drop one on him. I almost always use a TRX these days, but when I lift free weights I lift big.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
My apologies, I misrememberd how delicate you are.
“Middle East Realignment” by Dr. Adam Silverman, USAWC
So dainty.
patrick II
@rikyrah:
The broader ideology is that free market capitalism is a natural system, not man-made, and that interference with it by government is akin to trying to change, and make less efficient, the natural order. That partly comes from first; economists attempt to copy the success of physics and make economics a science, similar to behaviorism’s failed attempt to do the same in psychology, second; partly from religious conflation of “the invisible hand” with the hand of god (you will find many conservative religious people believe poor people are sinful and deserve their poverty), and third people’s amazing ability to rationalize their economic success as entirely their own doing and proof that they are right living geniuses.
It is sadly amusing to watch the wealthy spend billions each year on propaganda and lobbying to make sure laws are written to further ensure themselves of continuing success while at the same time asserting that anyone else wanting to change laws to benefit someone else is somehow destroying the “natural order”.
TenguPhule
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Seriously, the EPA and other non-evil stuff he did. Those who experienced the lead/acid rain pre-EPA world really give his numbers a boost.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I reported it here months ago.
Adam L Silverman
@marcopolo: There’s several things right now that could all contribute to its being used. The first is we’ve depleted a lot of ordnance with the daily strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq over the past two years. And by a lot I mean A LOT! When you combine that with what the target was, a cave system in the mountains, then when the Courses of Action were being worked it up it might have made sense when they were wargaming them to use 1 of these rather than 21 1,000 pounders from a B 52 given how many of those were on hand and what the planned, upcoming missions that require them in Iraq and Syria might be. And if this was a bottom up request, and never got beyond Commander CENTCOM, which we don’t know now and may never know, that may be all there was too it.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I remember. Just a general comment on our esteemed media who seem to have so much time for things like ‘her emails’ and no one left to do any other work.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: That’s a body double used for security purposes…
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Tracking.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: But wasn’t the MOAB designed for primarily surface damage? Underground targets were supposed to be hit with munitions designed to deliver payloads after burrowing, not midair explosives.
hovercraft
Adam and Miss Betty you’re slacking!!
Horse attacks alligator at Florida state park
By: Samantha Jordan
April 13, 2017 5:10 AM
Nursing school grad Krystal Berry caught the crazy moment on cellphone video while visiting Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in Micanopy on Wednesday. In the video, the alligator is seen just minding its own business when the horse decides to trample over it.
The alligator hisses and starts moving away but the horse comes back for more and ends up getting bit on the leg by the ticked off reptile.
‘I didn’t see any signs of distress for gator or the horse, but I did contact the reserve,’ Berry tells the Daily Mail. ‘They sent someone out, but I didn’t hear back.’
According to Berry’s Facebook post, she was ‘still shaking’ after the incident. It’s believed the horse was trying to protect a baby horse nearby.
Watch Here.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman: Suuuuuuurree
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Florida Horse!!
(OK, now I’ve seen…almost…everything)
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
Florida, the Monty Python of states. Anything can and does happen, it doesn’t have to make sense, in fact it’s better if it doesn’t.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Use on tunnel systems, as in this case, is within the deployment specs for this type of ordnance. There is a larger bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, that is intended for something like the DPRK nuclear test tunnel facility.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I had that saved for late this evening!
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I think Florida Horse is definitely worth front-paging.
Splitting Image
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It’s early yet. He has plenty of time to burn Washington to the ground.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: Here’s the minute or two before the video you linked to:
And people, use landscape mode to take pictures and make videos on your phones!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I’ve also got an 8 year old in Ohio that drove his 4 year old sister to McDonald’s for burgers in the chute as well.
Eric U.
@Adam L Silverman: I like how the horse kicks the crap out of the alligator, spots some tasty looking grass, eats a while and then goes back to kicking the alligator
Adam L Silverman
@Eric U.: Got to be properly refreshed between rounds for peak performance. You do NOT mess with wild horses. They will mess you up. And that was no small gator either.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Miss Bianca: @Adam L Silverman: I’ve taken my horse through a McDonald’s drive through. Actually, my friend/trainer took her, and his horse through, since he was driving. We did not get them hamburgers. Same friend refused to take my later (best) horse through the KY Horse Park Xmas lights drive many years later. He claims he now regrets it. I told him it would be a better story than McDonalds, and would only have added about 20 minutes to the trip back. In fairness, we were bringing my baby home from having a chip removed, and it’s probably not recommended to extend a trip 3 days post op. But still – the story.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Sorry ;-(
But you can still use it, this thread is pretty much dead ;- )
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman:
Is that “petite” as in the Addams Family TV show intro (Lurch)?
efgoldman
@Aleta:
Regulations are for little people.
Miss Bianca
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: A chip removed? Bone chip, or microchip?
@Adam L Silverman: I still think you should use the “fuck off, Jake!” husky puppies video sometime…
Chris
@Millard Filmore:
Aaaaaaand… earworm.
efgoldman
@hovercraft:
Wasn’t there a Roman emperor who named his horse prime minister, or something?
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Miss Bianca: They’re not mutually exclusive.
efgoldman
@TenguPhule:
He gets no credit (or rather he does, but shouldn’t) for signing a bill that was passed by almost-unanimous, veto-proof majorities in both houses.
It was the politically smart thing to do, but he was just following the parade, not leading it.
Miss Bianca
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: I ask because I’m looking at a TB who apparently has a bone chip in his left fore, was wondering if they were hard/expensive to remove…
catclub
@efgoldman: My impression is that health inspectors always find zillions of violations, but most are easily fixable. This seems like lazy reporting – Trump’s place, some violations found, news! No context, such as last year they had the same number, or the typical number found at any establishment.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Miss Bianca: 20 years ago it was ~1500USD, and the seller took it off the price, and insurance covered it. This was LH, and easily removable. I’d be wary of an OTTB with a chip, since those joints get a lot more stress than a 5 year old Dutch/TB got. We can talk more off site if you’d like. And I have an appointment to read your stuff on my calendar(which I keep snoozing along with an appointment to reply to an old friend).
Origuy
@efgoldman: That was Caligula. He named his favorite horse, Incitatus, consul, according to Suetonius. Historians doubt a lot of what Suetonius wrote, but even if Caligula did that, it may not have been insanity, but a calculated action to show the Senate how meaningless they were.
Miss Bianca
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: yeah, let’s email – I’m taking some horses back and forth between CO and VA later this month and I was thinking of taking a detour to look at a CanterUSA horse in Michigan…I’ll send you the link, I’m looking for gut reactions from horse folks!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Origuy: There was a non-insane History Channel program that had the “troll, not insane” hypothesis as the operative thesis regard Caligula that was fairly informative. It also argued that the “battle against Neptune” was actually intended to humiliate the legions for welshing on his British campaign.
Just One More Canuck
@Iowa Old Lady: They talked about the incident on one of the shows but I had never seen what happened until I googled it just now – that was nuts. My favourite episode was the exploding water heater
glocksman
@catclub:
There are 2 kind of violations here in my state: “critical” and “noncritical”.
The broken fridge & rusted racks would be “critical” and something to be really concerned with.
The undercooked fish is another concern.
The rest of it needs to be addressed, but isn’t immediately a risk of making someone sick.
Mike E
@Adam L Silverman: it’s pronounced “senner city” in F’luffya*
*Fiddle-elfia is also acceptable
J R in WV
Butt I don’t understand why they didn’t go for a ( GBU-57A ) ground penetrator if they were dealing with tunnels or caves. Get the explosion deep first. But maybe the MOAB works well against underground stuff, esp. when it isn’t reinforced concrete and blast-proof doors…