Republican Senators Murkowski, Collins, and McConnell voted against Pete Hegseth, necessitating the tie-breaking vote from Vice President J. D. Vance.
Hell of a hill for Vance to die on.
Sad!
Friday, January 24, 2025
Trump pardons 23 pro-lifers convicted under cockamamie Freedom of Access to Clinics (FACE) Act, at least 10 others named are still in the slammer
Trump pardons 23 pro-life activists convicted of FACE Act violations
Many are still incarcerated. Lauren Handy, a Catholic convicted for her participation in a 2020 abortion clinic blockade in Washington, has been serving the longest sentence: 57 months.
According to a list maintained by Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Handy is currently in a federal prison in Florida. Idoni is incarcerated in Florida; Marshall and Goodman in Connecticut; Darnel and Calvin Zastrow in Illinois; Hinshaw in Massachusetts; Geraghty in Pennsylvania; Calvin Zastrow in Illinois; and Williams, who was arrested for protesting outside an abortion clinic in New York City, in Alabama.
Repealing the 22nd Amendment is a great idea, but not Republican Andy Ogles' (TN-5) idea of revising it to allow Trump a third term but not Clinton, Bush 43, nor Obama
Constitutional amendment to allow Trump third term introduced in the House
Ogles' idea that Trump was denied the power inherent in two successive terms is an admission that the 22nd Amendment limits the power of the executive.
Is the Congress so limited? No.
Is the Judiciary so limited? No.
The 22nd Amendment is an unfair limitation on the power of the executive.
That is why we have dueling tyrannies, one of the legislative, and one of the judicial.
The one has put us $36 trillion in debt because it has the power of the purse. The other has jammed a code down our throats from time to time because in Marbury vs. Madison the Supremes arrogated to themselves the final say on the meaning of the constitution.
The founders intended the three branches to be separate, contending, equal powers.
The 22nd Amendment prevents the executive from contending beyond two terms, and so we are condemned to focusing unnaturally on who will be president every four years, which has the ironic effect of exalting the presidency to the point that there is all this hubbub all the time about the imperial presidency when our real masters are others, a neat trick those masters work like mad to pull and pull and pull.
Term limit everybody, or term limit no one.
Al Hunt and James Carville laughably pretend that Obama didn't dominate Washington by flooding the zone with shit like Trump is doing
 |
| Hey Obama! Guess where I'm calling from! |
Al Hunt:
And [Trump] dominates today like no other president I've seen. And he
dominates with a reckless disregard for truth and more importantly, for
the rule of law.
James Carville: The Democrats are depressed . . ..
It's comic how these old farts don't remember 2009-2010, how civilian employment crashed by 6 million, how 6 million homes went into foreclosure, how housing wealth evaporated, how hundreds of banks failed, and how Obama was content to hand off all these problems to Democrat gangsters from Wall Street to bail out their cronies and prosecuted no one, all while providing zero leadership to a divided Democrat Congress preoccupied with . . . Obamacare, as if people losing everything in this situation had healthcare as their number one priority.
And then Democrats promptly handed everyone healthcare they couldn't afford and couldn't use.
Talk about depressing.
Talk about shit.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Ronald Reagan appointee blocks Trump's birthright citizenship executive order
 |
| It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. |
Federal district court judge temporarily blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order
... “Ample historical evidence shows that the children of non-resident aliens are subject to foreign powers — and, thus, are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and are not constitutionally entitled to birthright citizenship,” Rosenberg wrote.
Ultimately, the case is likely to be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Native Americans were not made citizens by the 14th Amendment of 1868. It took an act of Congress in 1924 to do that.
It is good that this will be decided by the Supremes, maybe, once and for all, maybe.
S&P 500 new record high close: 6,118.71
The benchmark finished the day at 6,118.71, surpassing its prior all-time closing high of 6,090.27 recorded in early December.
Hegseth advances to a final vote with 51-49 vote to end debate, with Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voting against him
Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon clears a key hurdle in the Senate
I find myself in small company agreeing with two of the most liberal Republicans in the US Senate, but that's what's become of the men.
Amateur hour 2.0: Trump thinks he can tell the bond market what to do when not even the Fed can do that lol
Welcome to the party, pal.
 |
| yippee-ki-yay mofo |
President Donald Trump says he’ll ‘demand that interest rates drop immediately’
Does this dope pay attention? Oh, that's right, he doesn't pay anyone.
Anyway, the Fed cut rates by a full point since the September meeting, and rates on bonds and notes soared anyway.
The Fed can't demand anything, but President Goofy Nuts pretends it can, and he can.
OK, she's right, good for her
Sen. Lisa Murkowski to vote against Hegseth, first Republican to oppose a Trump Cabinet pick
... senators have remained doubtful of his experience and abilities and the alleged behavior that could lead to reprimand or firing for military personnel he would now be expected to lead. ...
USA fascist police state to expand facial recognition to over 400 US airports
TSA has deployed identity verification tools at more than 80 airports thus far, with the ultimate goal of expanding the technologies to over 400 airports in the coming years. These new units, known at CAT-2 systems, take real-time pictures of travelers — the “face capture” aspect of the tools — and then compare the images against their scanned photo identifications — in this case, in a process known as “one-to-one” facial recognition. ...
“On average, the TSA CAT-2 identity verification process took 23 seconds per person,” the analysis said. “It took well under 30 seconds for all demographic groups, and all demographic groups were within a few seconds of the average.”
More.
Never fly.
Swim.
When eating the road kill catches up with you
Tim is the US Representative for TN-2.
Burchett says he believes aliens have underwater bases on earth
“When they tell me something’s moving at hundreds of miles an hour underwater, and our capabilities … and these things, this one was, it was large as a football field underwater. And this was a documented case, and … and I have an admiral telling me this stuff,” Burchett said Wednesday.
Like Pete Hegseth, the early Americans were strong boozers
"ED: What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about American history?
"SY: I first came across W. J. Rorabaugh’s Alcoholic Republic as a graduate student, and it completely changed the way I thought about early American history. From 1790–1840, average alcohol consumption in America peaked at 7.1 gallons of distilled liquor per capita, over three times today’s consumption rate. When I share this fact with my students, it helps explain two important developments: first, the pervasiveness of violence in antebellum America. Alcohol fueled the mobs, riots, lynchings, vandalism, and duals that threatened the nation’s growing urban areas and the often lawless frontiers. Second, the appeal of the temperance movement. My students often scoff at the 18th Amendment and the failures of Prohibition, but temperance had broad popular appeal as a social cause precisely because alcohol was a pressing problem in the nineteenth century. Most Americans knew someone whose drinking had led to domestic violence, suicide, or poverty."
More.
Eaton fire 91% contained, Palisades fire 68% contained, new Hughes wildfire blows up overnight to 2/3 the size of the Eaton
The Hughes fire is north of LA, Eaton to the east, Palisades to the west.
New wildfire near Los Angeles explodes to 9,400 acres, forces evacuations
. . . The Eaton Fire that scorched 14,021 acres (57 square km) east of Los Angeles was 91% contained, while the larger Palisades Fire, which has consumed 23,448 acres (95 square km) on the west side of Los Angeles, stood at 68% contained. . . .
Burnin' ring of fire.
Peak Baby Boomers worked when they were teenagers, at 2.07% of population, still the peak, today at just 0.78% of population
Get a haircut and get a real jobClean your act up and don't be a slobGet it together like your big brother BobWhy don't you, get a haircut and get a real job?
-- George Thorogood, 1993
It's not a perfect one to one comparison, let alone an actual measurement, but about 20% of teenagers worked in 1979, and not quite 12% today:
J6er: Who he pardoned, he pardoned
“I’ve been asked, you know, I’ve been pardoned, how do I feel about people that may have done other things, and they got pardoned. Well, that’s President Trump’s decision. Who he pardoned, he pardoned.
More.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
-- Romans 9:15
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Gold up to $2,759.83, close to record peak $2,790.15
Spot gold added 0.6% to $2,759.83 per ounce as of 0941 GMT. The price hit its highest since Nov. 1 earlier in the session and is close to its record peak of $2,790.15 hit in October.
More.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Pete Hegseth reportedly has had episodes of drinking to the point of passing out
I get the drinking too much until you barf. I mean, that's pretty much been Freshman Life 101 forever and a day. Pete was a freshman in college in 1999-2000.
But it takes a special kind of excess to drink until you pass out.
Is it true?
Who knows.
One incident was allegedly in 2013, when he was about 32, at which time he had earned an MA from Harvard. Another was when he was about 28, in 2009, when his first marriage ended. That's a long time after graduating from Princeton University in 2003.
The precise timeline is uncertain because his birth year isn't precisely known, and the new revelations come from a former sister in law, married to Pete's brother from 2011-2019, who can't remember the dates exactly.
Anyway, I don't get why the new SECDEF absolutely, positively must be this guy, with all this sooty baggage. No one is that indispensable.
From The Wall Street Journal here:
Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, regularly abused alcohol to the point that he passed out at family gatherings, and once needed to be dragged out of a strip club while in uniform, according to an ex-relative’s account of his behavior that was given to U.S. lawmakers and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The sworn statement, submitted in response to a request from Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was signed by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth. It states that she was with Hegseth when he passed out from drunkenness in the bathroom of a bar in Minneapolis in about 2013. It also describes another night, when she said Hegseth drank so much at a restaurant in Minneapolis that the Uber driver had to pull over on Interstate 94 so he could throw up.
In her sworn statement, Danielle Hegseth said she personally observed erratic and aggressive behavior by Hegseth, witnessing him abusing alcohol multiple times over the years. One Christmas in 2008 or 2009, he drank so much that he threw up and passed out, she said. ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)