Home » Open thread 12/15/23

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Open thread 12/15/23 — 38 Comments

  1. Someone please enlighten me.

    Does Texas have the authority to deploy Texas National Guard units to the border for the purpose of taking action to shut down illegal immigration?

    If Texas does have the authority, why hasn’t it done so?

    Same questions for Arizona, New Mexico, and California.

  2. I would also like enlightenment. My assumption is that entering the country illegally is a federal offense, not a state offense.

  3. The stench of hypocrisy must be strong in the NPR studios. This morning the local outlet is waxing eloquent about their “unbiased” news coverage in order to solicit donations

    Immediately after, they interview what must be a tame (ex-GWB admin) Republican “analyst” who also waxed eloquent, about how in pursuing an impeachment inquiry…
    – Republicans risk backlash,
    – Are simply seeking revenge,
    – Have no hard evidence,
    – Will never convict Biden,
    – Are hopelessly divided, etc.

    And not an unbiased word was uttered about…
    – Dozens of shell companies,
    – Bank records of suspicious transactions from China, Russia, Ukraine, etc.,
    – The moving goalposts of the story of Joe’s involvement,
    – Witnesses who directly met with Joe as a business partner,
    – Whistleblowers alleging DOJ coverup and slow-walking,
    – Hundreds of messages and photos on the laptop, the one that was hidden from the public during an election,
    and of course not a drop of reflection about the Democrats’ years of lawfare against Donald Trump.

    Unbiased, my ass!

  4. Texas has a unique contract with the US Federal Government. If memory serves me (and it sometimes fails) TX did not eagerly join the Feds, then they kind of joined the Feds then they left, then when they finally did JOIN THE FEDS, they did so with a unique to their state agreement. This agreement lets them break apart into as many as 5 separate states if they should decide to leave the union. It may be possible that under this “unique” agreement there may be other elements unique to TX that would allow them to protect their borders. I don’t know for certain, but where there is smoke there is something cooking, and my concern is that “we the people” don’t have a photocopy of the actual agreement. That would be nice. We lived in TX in 1982-84. On almost every private and state building the TX flag flew higher on the pole than the US flag. Just sayin

  5. I think I can see the “weak ankles”, but I don’t understand about her technique other than it seems to be a forerunner to what we today call “modern dance”. Please give us more details so that we can learn more. I am so grateful for your ballet videos–they help me with the day!

  6. It’s back! Over the past few months, we have seen a number of comments here on the “UFO” topic — as recently as 9 December ( https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/12/09/open-thread-12-9-23/#comment-2712617)

    To further stir the pot, Tucker Carlson had the whistleblower David Grusch, on his show for a full hour discussing once again his allegations of US Gov officials having detailed knowledge of information and hard evidence of extra-terrestrial life forms. I won’t link to Tucker, but it’s on Twitter, posted two days ago.

    According to Mr. Grusch, since 1933 (yes, starting 90 years ago in Mussolini’s Italy, complete with allegations about the Vatican’s involvement) we have gone up the chain from WW2 sighting of “foo – fighters”, to retrieving “wreckage” in the 50’s, to contemporary radar recording of encounters with modern fighter pilots, and now we have “biologics” samples, presumably in some freezer. Finally, Grusch mentions possible communications by the US Government with these entities. Hard to top that, I’d say, short of little green men showing up and walking across the Rio Grande, the way everyone is supposed come into the USA nowadays.

    This entire subject is getting more bizarre by the day. It’s getting harder and harder to believe that if any of these things are actually true, how the many hundreds of people that must know what is going on could keep such absolute silence.

  7. Same questions for Arizona, New Mexico, and California.

    Democrat governor in AZ courtesy of failing voting machines on election day.

  8. Concerning VP Harris: “Her one upside compared to her boss is that she tends to know how to exit a room without assistance.”

    Unfortunately, she never seems to know when it’s time to!

  9. I saw Vivek for the 5th time in CB last night. It is posted online at X for those interested.

    I asked a question about him taking up the policy idea of making student loans dischargable in BK. I had brought it up that weekend in Cherokee.

    He said his staff is looking at it. So if he advocates for it, it will be thanks to Dave Begley. Me!

    As a campaign issue, I think this is great. Many people will like the idea. No cancellation of ALL student debt. But there is no policy reason why student debt shouldn’t be treated like nearly all other debts. If one files Ch. 7 or 13, there are pros and cons. Let people decide.

    A 10-year-old boy said he wanted to be an author. He asked the last question. Vivek’s answer was very interesting and inspirational. It said a lot about Vivek. That kid had to be thrilled. I talked to his mom and said she should send him to the Jesuit high school of Omaha. They live close by.

    Yeah, I think Vivek would be a great President. No one is changing my mind. He’s the best candidate I’ve ever seen.

  10. Anne-
    Sorry, no.
    Texas did have some unique relationships with the federal gov at one time, but most likely the Civil Was and the subsequent amendments eliminated all of that. It would be an interesting SCOTUS case, for sure.
    Re the state flag- based on several decades of residence in 5 Texas cities, the state flag never flies above the national flag. I have often seen it flying alone without a national flag, but never subordinate to it- that would be illegal and unpatriotic. State offices always have both, with the national flag appropriately higher or to the right, as federal laws mandate.

  11. …we have seen a number of comments here on the “UFO” topic — as recently as 9 December…

    ??? Try almost every day! 🙂

  12. Roll-aid–One answer often given to how the government could have kept this secret for so long is, first, to look at the level of secrecy during the Manhattan Project–yes, the Project was penetrated by a few Soviet spies–but the rest of the workforce of more than 125,000 apparently kept the secret secure over several year’s time.

    (Your might also ask yourself, how has the Catholic church, the Vatican, survived these two millennia, and how many secrets has the Vatican kept over these last almost 2,000 years?)

    Then, there is the consideration that, at the beginning, say, in the late 1930s, 1940s and 50s, the siege mentality of the era, and the fact that the government had no way to combat or hamper these UFOs (and still doesn’t), meant that people involved in these crash retrieval and reverse engineering projects had both good rational and patriotic reasons to try to keep this great secret contained, as the government (and private contractors) worked toward understanding and, then, countering these craft.

    (How’s that mitigation effort going, by the way?)

    As the decades went on, however, and that initial patriotic fervor and fear started to wane a little, I’d imagine that things were also generally contained through a combination of the government’s very effective disinformation campaign–which labeled anyone reporting sightings or inside information as crazy, the threat of prosecution and very heavy jail time for leaking classified information, plus reported intimidation measures, according to Grusch, up to and including murder.

    As see it, rather than these assertions by Grusch and others being harder and harder to swallow, I see that more and more rather convincing information is leaking out and adding up, that more and more trained observers are telling what they have seen and experienced, that the government itself has demonstrated that it has been and is researching UFOs as a real phenomenon, that with the passage of the 2024 NDAA, containing the remnant of the Schumer Amendment, the Congress has officially signed on to the belief that there are non human intelligences (NHIs) and off world technology to be dealt with, that more and more highly qualified scientists are getting involved in research on the UFO Phenomenon, and that more organizations are starting to be formed and position themselves to take advantage of the new Reality they perceive as on the horizon.

    As they say, after a time, so much quantity has a quality all of it’s own.

  13. Anne:

    She’s just not strong in general in the technical sense. You don’t see bravura turns or anything like that. It’s often a lot of little running steps and a great deal of flow. She is also, as I already indicated, quite turned-in for a dancer. This particular dance is more modern-dancey than most of her selections, but it suits her because of the turned-in quality of her technique. Ballet requires exaggerated turnout, ordinarily. In addition to flow, Pavlova had very beautiful feet, however. She danced in a time when the blocking in pointe shoes was much weaker than it is today and pointe work therefore more difficult.

  14. I see that the Iranian proxy Houthis in Yemen are stepping up their attacks, not only against Israel—US warships recently intercepted some Houthi missiles headed for Israel—but now they’re escalating to attacks against, including boarding and capturing, commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

    They’ve now captured a Japanese cargo ship and reporting says that normally passive Japan my be instituting some type of “kinetic action” agains these Houthis if current diplomatic efforts fail.

  15. Question: I think someone posted a quote to the effect of “the only thing holding this country together is prosperity.” Anyone have a source for this?

  16. Re: Authority of Texas to shut down the border . . .

    The Constitution – Article 4, Section 4.
    Guarantee of Republican Government. —

    The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

  17. P.S.–Looking at some stats, it appears some 50-60 ships transit the Red Sea every day, and this makes up some 12% of the world’s commerce by ship.

    P.P.S.–I’ve also seen a recent report saying that, given China’s increasing militancy and it’s actions vis-a–vis Japan and it’s interests, the Japanese government has decided to take steps to move away from it’s past pacifism, and to reinvigorate it’s military forces, with the intention of using them if necessary.

    Perhaps a Japanese military reaction to Houthi attacks and piracy may be the tryout of Japan’s new policy.

  18. Snow on Pine:

    How to keep a secret? Security clearances, need to know, hierarchy of information, access restriction to data and physical (geography) observation, active measures (counter intelligence). Nope it’s all too secret. And of course the Catholic Church!

  19. }}} Roll-aid–One answer often given to how the government could have kept this secret for so long is, first, to look at the level of secrecy during the Manhattan Project–yes, the Project was penetrated by a few Soviet spies–but the rest of the workforce of more than 125,000 apparently kept the secret secure over several year’s time.

    Dude, they did this by several measures — having the place be a black hole of employment, for one… People who went there and actually learned anything didn’t come outliterally — until the end of the war. There was a very very short list of people who were allowed to leave the site, period, once they knew what was going on…

    Second measure was a high degree of compartmentalization. Only a small percentage of the eventual 130k workers knew anything about why they were doing what they were doing. And they weren’t talking.

    https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/security-and-secrecy/

  20. 3 immutable laws of the universe:

    1. No secret stays a secret;

    2. Every massacre has its survivor;

    3. The Germans will always counterattack.

  21. }}} 3 immutable laws of the universe:

    1. No secret stays a secret;

    Not quite true.

    As Benjamin Franklin said:

    Three may keep a secret,
    If two of them are dead….

    😛

    This is one reason I assume the Kennedy assassination wasn’t a conspiracy. Someone, on his deathbed, would have revealed shit by now.

    The only excuse I have encountered which miiiiiiight hold water is the notion that it was accidental misfire by one of the SS detail which actually killed him. This would explain a coverup after the fact which people probably would have kept secret, and it’s not such a widespread kind of knowledge that, unlike a conspiracy to commit the act, would needfully have lots of people aware of it.

    As to why cover it up, well, in addition to pure CYA and general embarrassment, it’s also obvious that, at the time, it certainly would have demoralized the nation to have Kennedy killed by a really stupid Eph Up like that.

  22. …This is one reason I assume the Kennedy assassination wasn’t a conspiracy. Someone, on his deathbed, would have revealed [something] by now….

    E. Howard Hunt alledgedly did, as did David Sanchez Morales (although not on his deathbed.)

    Also, conspiracists point to the large number of people who had knowledge of events, who died violently without the opportunity for a deathbed confession.

    As to why cover it up, well, in addition to pure CYA and general embarrassment, it’s also obvious that, at the time, it certainly would have demoralized the nation to have Kennedy killed by a really stupid Eph Up like that.

    Not to mention that all the Right People said that Lee Oswald did the deed.

  23. }}} Not to mention that all the Right People said that Lee Oswald did the deed.

    The main problem with the Only Oswald theory is the inexplicable magic bullet, thanks to the Zapruder film, we know there were only three shots that went into the car itself.

    There ARE some other very suspicious stuff, mind you. One report of Oswald in Russia is that he supposedly went hunting with a group of co-workers, and had a shotgun. According to the co-workers, he could not hit the broad side of a barn — with a shotgun, FFS.

    Yet somehow he comes back and he’s a hell of a crack shot.

    Lots and lots of “things that make you go, ‘Hmmmm…’ ” in this situation, unfortunately.

    Not a big supporter of CTs, mind you, this is the only one until this last 10-15y where there actually seems like something might be there.

  24. OBloody:

    Read the Bugliosi book Reclaiming History, which makes it clear beyond a doubt that Oswald acted alone, and deals with every one of the supposed objections to that conclusion. You don’t have to read the entire book; the first 400 pages or so are enough, and they are actually a fascinating read.

  25. Howard Hunt had been scapegoated, by the company, in a bogus libel trial, that
    mark lane had arranged, so he allegedly blamed a whole host of the Agency supergrades that had dissed him, Cord Meyer and the like,

  26. Howard was sort of an American analog to Sidney Reilly, in his scheming, he was trusted by my paisans, maybe he shouldn’t have been, he had lent himself to the Johnson campaign to surveil Goldwater,

  27. how much did the bureau and the company know about oswald, who had defected to the Soviet Union, who had been to the Soviet and Cuban Mission in Mexico City, Charles Thomas, as the Times and politico reporter Phillip Shenon,
    note they knew a great deal, now as with the Okhrana and Stolypins killer, Bugayev, they may not have directed him, but they certainly didn’t move to preempt his actions,

  28. the reason I bring the point up, is because Joannides was the Company operative, tailed to watch the DRE, who in turn were watching Oswald, the local leader in New Orleans, Carlos Bringuier became a minor footnote thanks to Oliver Stone’s JFK thanks to Tony Plana, as well as another one of my paisans Tomas Milian, (previosly known for Spaghetti westerns)

  29. yes a shotgun is something different than a mannlicher carcano rifle, a weapon that was 50 years old, but the action served a purpose for Thomas Dodd, a New Deal Liberal and staunch anticommunist, who they suddenly discovered he was corrupt, but not before infringing our rights to self defense in a quixotic exercise,
    his son was full Commie, and later corrupt Subprime pusher,

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