Tuco

I had not noticed this: FARA violation? yep, easy one there money laundering / wire fraud? makes sense, either through Fraud Inc or through Toensing making false statements / obstruction of justice? makes sense, the dude can't say hello without lying campaign finance violations? Um, that's not just Rudy anymore. It's possible it's carry over from Fraud Inc, but that was pretty small amounts and I thought prior to Rudy being hired by them. It's also possible it is an interpretation of him soliciting "a thing of value" for Trump's campaign in the form of an investigation from the Ukrainians. It's possible it's something more.

And the FBI never generated anything actionable when they announced they were reopening the investigation on Hillary's emails. It was the investigation, not the evidence, that mattered.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/joel-greenberg-letter-written-for-roger-stone-says-matt-gaetz-paid-for-sex-with-minor “I did see these acts occur first hand...” In case this story didn’t have enough ick factor.

On the first part, you are right. I misread it and it does materially change what you were saying. But I still think you are running with typical Republican talking points about the liberal wealthy controlling academia and culture. Your basic premise allows one to easily jump to "scientists are fabricating climate change research because Soros" bullshit. But, there isn't really any factual claims there, so it's pointless to debate.

I could believe that the FBI would refuse Hunter's hard drive. (That's what she said...) If it's not relevant to a criminal investigation and Rudy is portraying it as Hunter's property, I don't believe they would have the right to actually do anything with it.

Reform the police is also pretty nonspecific. Tell me the version that actually indicates we are pulling money out of police departments and into programs to deal with root causes. Whether are not you agree with that policy shift, it is fundamentally different policy than the "reform the police." We've reformed the police many times. But their scope and budgets continue to grow.

First of all, the "highest reaches of academia" are not in the top 0.1% of the wealthiest people in the country. You pivoted from making "coastal elites" about economic inequalities to making it about higher education. GOP messaging is effective. Secondly, do you really think "Latinx" was conceived at the "highest reaches of academia"? Are you thinking that some university president just made that shit up? I could certainly see it getting birthed at some academic conference on language and feminism. I don't really know where it originated. First place I saw it was in a proposed changes to Dem Party bylaws in Nebraska. I had not seen in "the media" prior to that I don't really give a shit about it one way or the other. When I think about it, I try to use gender neutral terminology like, "actor" instead of "actress", or "server" instead of "waitress." But I do recognize that is different than creating a new word to push gender neutrality. I also recognize that such efforts do tend to annoy some people - white, black, Latinx, whatever - which costs votes. But I hate a Roman named Status Quo.

For the most part, I call them Republicans. This idea that the fucking Rockerfellers are driving BLM or Latinx is beyond idiotic.

People like to bust on "defund the police" as some messaging train wreck. Put here's the thing: activists said "reallocate funds towards community services" for years, but nobody gave a shit. Eventually, they cast it in dramatic terms, and people paid attention to it. It's now a discussion, and that discussion has turned into action in some locations. Activists aren't trying to win elections, they are trying to generate action. That may be a major pain in the ass for many of the Dem politicians who are generally on their side, but it drives change. Nothing will fucking change if you are unwilling to stake out an unpopular opinion and challenge perceptions. And politicians can't do that and still win.

"coastal elites" Yep, GOP messaging works pretty well.

What's uncomfortable about it? Clinton was saying that economic reform is not the only progressive issue. The ellipsis part is where she stated she would consider breaking up the big banks if warranted, but the point was that there are other progressive issues where she had a stronger resume than Bernie for progressives. You know, all those irrelevant "woke" issues that Berniebros are continuing to shit on.

What he is missing is "...if the 'woke" voters will still turnout for the moderate candidates." But if they don't, the Dem doesn't win. Same thing with labor. If we can just ignore labor and they still vote for us, the job becomes easier. If we ignore the pro-choice voters, and they still vote for the us, we win. It applies to every fucking group. Moderate Dems are welcome to test the theory. Go run in Florida on minimum wage and felon voting, but tell BLM to fuck off and see if you win. Building a coalition is hard, and has always been. It was hard when Carville was still relevant. What has changed is who those factions are and how you balance their concerns.

And, for anyone who wasn't following this much 1.5 year and half ago, or has forgotten: Rudy is frequently portrayed as Trump's lawyer. At least when it comes to the Ukrainian scandal, that's really not true. Trump, and the power of the presidency, was the product not the customer. Just like Michael Cohen was selling influence on Trump for various lobbyists, and Elliott Broidy was selling influence for foreign powers, Rudy was selling influence for a Ukrainian fugitive named Dmitri Firtash. Firtash is a Ukrainian oligarch who made his fortune in the gas industry by getting sweetheart deals from Russia on gas sold to Ukraine. He is currently living in Vienna, fighting extradition to the US on different corruption charges. Firtash paid Lev and Igor (remember "Fraud Guarantee) to help fight the extradition. Fraud Guarantee hired Rudy for $500k to assist in that effort. Firtash was Rudy's ultimate client in trying to get the DOJ to drop charges. Firtash also hired Toensing and deGenova as his official attorneys in this effort, paying them about $1M. This has all been well documented since prior to the first impeachment. It seems like foreign lobbyists laws are fairly messy, and previously not enforced well. With Rudy, it seems fairly obvious he was lobbying Trump for a foreign agent. I imagine with Toensing and deGenevo, it's a little trickier to distinguish "lobbying" and being a legal advocate. But I am curious if they were a conduit for money flowing to Rudy. Certainly Rudy would trust them more then Lev and Igor, and they would have some coverage under attorney-client protections. When Rudy was paid by Lev and Igor, it was via a different law office. So, how did this all play into Ukrainian investigations of Biden and the firing of Maria Yovanovitch as ambassador. My guess is that was a question of trading favors. Firtash wanted charges dropped. Trump wanted a Ukrainian investigation of Biden. There were elements in Ukraine who wanted Maria fired because she was representing a foreign policy that would push them out of power. Those Ukrainian elements (which didn't include PM Zelensky) gave interviews and implied an investigation was thwarted in Ukraine. Trump fired Maria. Rudy facilitated this for Firtash, because then Trump would owe a favor. But, Trump never got an official, credible investigation. Firtash didn't get a pardon. And then Trump, with Rudy's involvement, pushed PM Zelensky to open an investigation by dangling military support as the motivator. A lot of that is speculation on my part. It's also possible that Rudy was getting paid by other actors, particularly around Ukraine's natural gas industry, that pushed some of this. But as far as I know, Trump didn't pay Rudy for any of this, and I don't think Rudy was working for free. Follow the money.

The only thing I know about Rich Signorelli is that he is full of shit. Toensing and diGenova have been Republican machine hacks for decades. The only thing that changed was that Trump nows run that machine, which means the machine does more obviously stupid and illegal shit. But they're still the same fucks they've always been.

I thought that was his base.

National: Trump. For many reasons, not the least of which is that he’d expect to win. Because he’s just that stupid and delusional about his abilities. Local: Pete Ricketts.

Chris Baker, KFAB conservative radio host in Omaha: Subsequently deleted, and account removed from Twitter. KFAB is "reviewing." Because, you know, there is a lot to read through and analyze. It takes time. Fuck Chris Baker. Fuck KFAB. Fuck KFAB's advertisers.

In some ways, I think we may be relying to much on history for explaining the current political environment. It's the standard narrative that the "white working class" is pushed towards Trumpism because of "economic uncertainty". I think that narrative is pretty shaky. A couple of points. 1. The typical analysis on the rise of Nazism is usually paired with severe economic distress in Germany. While I understand there has been a growth in wealth inequities in the US, we are not seeing massive unemployment or inflation. To the contrary, we are/were near record lows on both. Uneven growth has perhaps priced some people out of population centers - like San Francisco or New York - but those are still heavily blue areas. 2. To Bozo's point, certainly there have been folks that have been displaced by technology, but I believe there are more people with free time and luxuries compared to 20 years ago. I'm not sure how to quantify that, but I think the rise of paid sports for kids would support that. The percentage of dual income families peaked around 1990, and has slightly tapered since [Pew]. Average home sizes have increased, by nearly 1000 ft in 40 years, and with smaller families, that has mean nearly doubling the sf per person [ok... AEI sucks, but not sure if they are gaming the numbers.] Number of cars per person has increased [DOE] . Maybe my perception on comparative wealth is skewed by growing up poor, and now being upper-middle class. But I believe people are generally better off today than they were 30 years ago. So, if I am right, what the fuck is happening? Some other potential explanations: A. Environmental concerns are a greater threat to middle class life style than job security. Certainly there are a lot of people who can afford to buy $50k trucks. But, they are continually told that in order to address climate change, they should scale back the size of their truck, or scale back how much they drive it. If they own a big house, they are told about the environmental impacts of it. Travel causes emissions. Eating meat causes emissions. (insert fart joke here). Don't water that your grass too much. Don't dump your oil down the storm sewer. In the Dem bubble, we rightly identify that many in the middle and lower class vote against their own interests on tax code or health care, but do we recognize the resistance to actually following progressive efforts regarding environmentalism? The problem is that environmental issues are too important to just back off because it costs votes. I think Dems/progressives need to recognize the hill that needs to be overcome. While we are telling folks that they need to by with less - not because they can't afford it, but because the Earth can't - the Republicans are telling them that climate change is a hoax. It's a pretty little lie. And once they are hostile to progressives, it's easy to dismiss basic analysis of the tax code or health care disfunction. B. The internet has made it too easy to compare yourself to others, and 50% of the people out there are below average. Maybe in absolute terms, things have gotten better for middle class and certainly I don't believe there is want of 1930s Germany. But, on a day to day, constant barrage of information demonstrating what you lack, is the psychological damage the same. That's from the internet. That's from a well tuned marketing machine, that includes social media plants. It's reality shows focused on the wealthy. Does this create a sense of want? On a subset of the internet, I am curious how porn might play into this. You get a lot of older white guys, many with fat wives, and they are regularly watching something they will never, ever have. Sure, they might be able to hire a couple of pros to recreate the scenario, but they are still part of it, which will leave the experience a little...short. You get the "cuck" rhetoric, which really highlights an insecurity around sex. More obviously, you have the incels. Only some of them have been radicalized to violence, but many others have found solidarity in hating women for their lack of success.

This. He seems legitimately surprised that having a sugar-daddy relationship with an underage girl might put him in prison. Above everything else, he is just so fucking stupid.

I got poked today. It felt great.

I wonder how many women priests would tell a battered woman that she could either 1) stay with her abuser, or 2) divorce him, but it would be a sin to ever have sex again. Because that's advice offered by celibate old men who have "thousands of years" of providing marital directives.

I'd say that's a distinction with little difference. Pope Francis, for all his intelligence, earnest study, and fine moral character, does not understand anything beyond the outline and stereotypes of a mature, sexual relationship. None of them do. Not a single fucking one of them. Yet, they set the rules on contraception, divorce, and gay marriage. And people actually listen to them. I was raised Catholic. I credit a scholarship to a Catholic high school to give me the stability to get into a good college. I've known a lot of priests, and even corresponded with one for a few years. Like any other profession, some are really good people and some are assholes. But I would never listen to any of them when it comes to real life relationships. You might as well take fashion advice from a blind man.

"There is also scant evidence their machines, or ozone in general, can safely eliminate SARS-CoV-2..." That's the critical word. It's not that tough to kill (deactivate, neutralize, whatever) coronavirus. Ozone will definitely kill bacteria, and likely "inactivate" most viruses, but so does a lot shit. You could, as Trump suggest, inject bleach. You could, as my idiot brother-in-law did, claim that his gym was safe to reopen because he used a machine that vaporized hydrogen peroxide. The trick is not killing a whole lot of human cells with it. So I could see this as a reasonable approach to sanitizing equipment (masks, equipment), but terrible for sanitizing spaces. One of the techs that HVAC vendors are pushing is "needle point ionization": basically jolting the air with electricity to split molecules and give them a charge. It does a couple of things: 1) makes contaminants clump together, so they can be filtered out more easily, 2) damage the molecules in viruses. But, when you split O2 molecules, they recombines as O3 (ozone). They have to monitor to the ozone production, to avoid degrading the interior air quality. What responsible engineers view as a dangerous byproduct, Kobach is pursuing as a goal. (Assuming he was pushing space sterilization, not equipment sterilization.)

PSA: My daughter got her first dose today at the fairgrounds super site. It was crowded, but fast. She has no health issues, is 22, and handled Covid with light symptoms 3 months ago. If she can get one, any of you old fucks can. Sign the fuck Dallas area Texans. Get safe.

This is, or should be, the correct answer. Particularly today, when the various factions of Representatives regurgitate different versions of reality, it is needed. Before you can address a problem, it needs to be defined. That definition shouldn't be by lobbyists or factionalized media. If Congressman Dumbfuck from Florida wants to claim that the real problem on January 6th was Antifa, let's put that out in front of Congress to vet it. Will it make a difference to Congressman Dumbfuck? Probably not, as Matt is too busy selling his version of reality to be bother by its veracity. But the tool is still there, regardless if the Congressmen chose to use it.