Home » Open thread 5/17/22

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Open thread 5/17/22 — 46 Comments

  1. Looks like Project Veritas is at it again…

    From the Tell-Us-What-We-Don’t-Already-Know Files:
    The TRUTH…hatching…
    “Twitter engineer recorded saying ‘Commie as f–k’ staff ‘censors the right’”—
    https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/twitter-engineer-says-commie-staff-censors-the-right/

    Key phrase:
    ‘…“We’re actually censoring the right, and not the left,” the engineer was recorded saying, later adding: “It’s true. There is bias. It is what it is today.”…’

  2. Very moving, watching that little live bird hatching and clinging to life, a miracle. I have seen baby chicks hatch out however I never knew birds had a belly button which makes total sense.

  3. Re the Twitter engineer caught on tape: He seems to be claiming that the leftists would leave the platform (or at least they threatened to leave) if the powers-that-be at Twitter didn’t censor/block/suppress the speech the leftists disliked. And conversely he’s says that the right will tend to just put up with the anti-free speech atmosphere that resulted rather than actually leaving Twitter. Now, I’m not saying he’s entirely wrong about those conclusions, but there’s a couple of things about those assertions that I’m skeptical of.

    Firstly, whether or not the leftists would actually leave Twitter if they didn’t get their way? Personally I highly doubt it. Sure, there may be a small handful of who may leave and stay gone (and one might conclude that nothing of actual value would be lost anyway) but for the most part we’re talking about actual addicts. No matter what they may say, the noisiest and fussiest lefty users are completely captured by Twitter. They could no more quit it than a opioid addict can easily quit popping pills.

    And as far as I know many conservatives have actually left the platform over the years, and many more refuse to ever use it at all due specifically to the repressive environment Twitter has fostered.

  4. Our new Supreme Court Justice is not just a non-biologist.

    She’s also a non-ethicist…(and a non-legalist):
    “Judge Jackson Won’t Say Dobbs Leak Is Wrong and Won’t Object to Protests at Her Soon-to-Be Colleagues’ Homes”—
    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/judge-jackson-wont-say-dobbs-leak-is-wrong-and-wont-object-to-protests-at-her-soon-to-be-colleagues-homes/
    H/T Instapundit.

    It would in fact seem that she’s a whole lot of non-things…

    Or maybe she’s just the model of discretion…

    (At least Harris giggles…)

    File under: Judge Idunno.

  5. Musk, continued.

    “Elon Musk’s Twitter Detractors Were Subsidized With Millions In Taxpayer Dollars”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/elon-musks-twitter-detractors-were-subsidized-millions-taxpayer-dollars

    Lots of covering up here!

    And here, too!
    “How the Palestinians Pay Terrorists as Biden Pumps Millions of Aid Dollars Into Their Government”—
    https://freebeacon.com/national-security/how-the-palestinians-pay-terrorists-as-biden-pumps-millions-of-aid-dollars-into-their-government/

    Meanwhile, the Michael “Who ME?” Sussman trial opens.
    In DC.
    With an Obama-appointed judge…(What’s that you said, Judge Roberts?)
    The only two questions are:
    1. Who, if anyone, will be the fall guy?
    2. How long will it take before the judge decides it’s all a big waste of time?

    Yep, afraid there’s trouble ahead:
    “McCarthy: Durham Barred from Introducing Trove of Fusion GPS Emails at Sussmann Trial”—
    https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/durham-barred-from-introducing-trove-of-fusion-gps-emails-at-sussmann-trial/
    +
    Jeff Carlson:
    https://twitter.com/themarketswork
    Hans Mahncke:
    https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/
    Techno Fog:
    https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog

  6. …trouble ahead… (continued):

    “Jury selection in Sussmann trial spotlights DC’s left leaning– panel includes three Clinton donors;
    “Presiding judge’s wife represents former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, whose text critical of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump led to her departure”—
    https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/jurors

  7. I read that McCarthy piece Barry (which isn’t my habit these days, reading McCarthy) and was surprised to learn what I should have recognized before now, as the fact sits right in front of my face, namely, that the Court has not formally and in unison gathered to denounce the leak. Any dissent by even one Justice would look awful, so without unity no gathering (8-1, say) can be possible. What a fucking horrorshow.

  8. “…horrorshow…”
    Well if you can’t pack the court, the next best thing is to subvert it…

    File under: Horosho, tovarisch!…

  9. This Sussman-trial precis courtesy of The Epoch Times:
    “Clinton Campaign Lawyer Wanted To Create ‘October Surprise’ With Trump-Russia Claims: Prosecutors”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/clinton-campaign-lawyer-wanted-create-october-surprise-trump-russia-claims-prosecutors

    + Bonus: something metaphoric perhaps to ponder…
    “New Black Box Data Of China Eastern Jet Points To Intentional Nosedive”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/new-black-box-data-china-eastern-jet-points-intentional-nosedive

    That plane was entirely vertical, nose-down, perfectly perpendicular to the horizon, when it hit.

    (It certainly looks like we’re in “What-rough-beast” territory….)

  10. Well, today I watched the first Congressional Hearing on UFOs in 50 years, and I must say it was underwhelming in the extreme, and an exercise in bureaucratic bullshit.

    The first thing to be noticed was that neither the Air Force nor the Space Force–the military entities within our government which, one would think, would be the most interested in and familiar with this issue—had witnesses testifying at this hearing.

    Instead, the only two witnesses were Ronald Moultrie, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and Scott Bray, Deputy Director of U.S. Naval Intelligence.

    Given the subject, you would think that the audience for this historic Hearing would be standing room only, but there were many empty seats behind the witnesses in the Hearing room. (Who, one wonders, couldn’t get in to attend?)

    The questions by members of Congress were less than stellar–one Democrat member even asking what kind of legal penalties could be lodged against any civilians who might have the temerity to make a report of a UFO that this member of Congress thought might constitute “disinformation.”

    Moreover, the two government witnesses certainly made their every effort to downplay, and to drain the life out of this subject, including witness Bray showing a “UFO video” that was picked, I’m sure, to make anyone viewing it decide that UFOs were of no real interest or consequence.

    The two witnesses loaded their testimony with a lot of bureaucratese and “glittering generalities” about how they were really, really on top of this issue, and liaising with every relevant agency within the government. But, from what I observed, their whole idea was to bury this issue under a ton of empty rhetoric—“really nothing to see here folks, move on”–as it was clear that their current assumption about, and what they expected to find here, was that presently “unidentified” UFOs were most likely adversarial–advanced Chinese or Russian technology.

    No references by the two witnesses, I noticed, to the specifics of the far beyond our present knowledge or capabilities flight characteristics of some of these unknowns, which might serve to eliminate any adversarial nation technology as the source of these UFOs

    I noted, as well, their apparent disdain for any UFO reports that were not generated within our military (wow, said Bray, they’ve now got 400 whole military generated reports in their system!!).

    Witness Moultrie even “shared” that he was actually a fan of Science Fiction and “had even attended a conference or two,” yet, he claimed not to have any deep knowledge of the past history of the government’s UFO research, no broad knowledge of the major issues and controversies in this field, not to be aware of any other government funded research into UFOs–occurring either within the government, or among private contractors–had no knowledge of any crash retrievals or retrieved materials, and not even an awareness of the very well-known and documented incident of a UFO shutting down our nuclear armed ICBMs at Malmstrom AFB in March of 1967.

    Lou Elizondo has said that one of the problems he encountered as head of AATIP was that his researchers didn’t have clearances that were sufficiently high to get the material they needed.

    When Moultrie was asked specifically whether the people staffing this new DOD UFO research organization had security clearances high enough to get the material they needed and/or had been “read into” the Special Access Programs (SAP) they would, of necessity, need to have access to, to get all possible information on this subject, he gave some general assurance that these government UFO researchers “would have the clearances they needed,” but he never really answered the question.

    Overall, what I took from this hearing was that the government coverup continues.

    See https://www.c-span.org/video/?520133-1/hearing-government-investigation-ufos

  11. Griffin: you might want to listen to the Joe Rogan interview which was very welcoming toward MS. I was prepared to like the guy, I finished it unimpressed. No idea why so many people are enthused about him.
    The little birdie video is so sweet. Great way to start the day.

  12. Eva Marie,

    I’ve heard him numerous times and found him to be just fine. He’s obviously not going to win but my larger point is these are the kinds of candidates we need in deep blue states.

    The run of the mill Republican has no chance but someone like this may have a chance.

  13. Eva Marie,

    No, we need candidates that can draw in some portion of the sane left but doing that in a statewide race in California right now is not realistic. But maybe in some blue cities that might work.

    Just trotting out some Republican congressman or state senator from the Central Valley of California or eastern Washington and expecting them to win over Bay Area, LA, Seattle voters won’t work.

    These states need outside the box candidates in my opinion.

  14. A vote for a third party candidate is still a vote for a Democrat. Be like Musk. Vote Republican.

  15. Eva Marie,

    California is a top two state so it’s no guarantee a Republican will be on the final ballot though it seems that will be the case with governor from what I understand.

    The standard Republican has no chance in California on a statewide election right now that is my point. Vote for them all you want but they will still get like 35% of the vote. Maybe somebody outside the box can show a path to getting closer to victory.

    As a former president once asked someone ‘what do you have to lose?’ voting for me.

  16. Griffin: A long time ago, when Michael Medved was still sane, he said (I’m paraphrasing) if you can’t convince the members of one of the 2 parties that you should be their nominee, how the heck do you think you’re going to convince enough members of both parties to then win an election?
    And that’s the hard truth.
    A vote for a third party candidate is a vote for a Democrat.

  17. “The guy in the bird video, was his name ‘Horton?’”
    It is now!

    Wonderful video.

  18. Arnold Schwarzenegger (sic) was outside the box, Jessie Ventura was outside the box. Any more bright ideas?

  19. Eva Marie,

    I don’t think we are that far apart on this. I’m saying that the Republican candidate in some of these places should be someone like Shellenberger because a run of the mill Republican cannot win and just saying vote for them isn’t going to change that.

    I realize Shellenberger is running as an independent and I don’t know if he is doing that strategically or what but it is someone like him that can win in blue states.

    WA state where I live is not far from CA and we have had increasingly difficult times finding any kind of Republican that has even the slightest chance on a statewide ballot.

  20. As frustrating as it seems sometimes apparently Susan Collins is the type of Republican that can win in Maine and I would rather have her than some Democrat that beat a ‘pure’ Republican.

    Murkowski is another story.

  21. om,

    Was Trump outside the box?

    Should we just keep trotting out the same losers that go up against Inslee, Murray, and Cantwell time after time cuz that is working great.

  22. BTW, Schwarzenegger may be a counterpoint to my argument.

    In the end was having a Republican like Schwarzenegger worth it to Republican voters in California?

    Was he better than Grey Davis or whoever it would have been?

  23. Freezing in panic I’m muttering nicebirdienicebirdienicebirdienicebrrrrr *flop* passes out

  24. Griffin, no we’re not far apart at all. There’s no question that the political landscape is very frustrating.

  25. Griffin:

    Where are all the winners from Western Washington? Or is that whiners? Complaining because Eastern Washington can’t save the whole state? Seems like your two or three counties needs a lot of the work.

    Arnold ran as a republican as a reaction to Grey Davis and turned out to be not much of a republican much less a conservative at all. Governor Moon Beam was certainly of of some type of box, and now California has Governor Hair Gel.

  26. Only half a Murray, or 1/3 a Cantwell, or a Duke Inslee. You west siders have some work to do.

  27. Shellenberger is a very rational candidate but does that constitufe a majority in california

  28. @ Stephen > “Speaking of ballet:”

    The analysis of the meaning of airing Swan Lake on Russian TV was interesting.

    I had no idea that there were so many different “versions” of the ballet.
    A fascinating look into the history of the choreographical changes to make different political points with the staging.

  29. om,

    There are no winners from the west side. Dino Rossi should have been, Rob McKenna is a complete squish but there are also no winners from the east side either.

    It’s a big problem when you have one county that just overpowers the rest. Pierce and Snohomish aren’t nearly the problem that King is.

    Don’t know what the answer is but what they have been doing isn’t working that’s for sure.

  30. What drives the lawyers and law schools to the Left and the far Left? Northwestern University Law School prof, John O. McGinnis argues at City Journal that the rise of the regulatory state in the US has turned them into Court Intellectuals, rationalising ever expansive statist and fascist powers.

    He’s almost too clinical for me, here.
    https://www.city-journal.org/lawyers-for-radical-change

    Anarchy-capitalist economist Murray Rothbard would have put it much more vigorously — as a serious moral indictment — were he still alive. McGinnis does not, even though he leans towards this.

    As Glenn Reynolds puts it, this cannot end well.

  31. Pingback:Never Yet Melted » Heartwarming

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