Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Friday, June 17, 2022
Dinesh’s Stupid Movie
As much as I’m enjoying the January 6th committee’s careful assembly of evidence proving former President Trump is a douchebag, I wasn’t seeing much in the way of a criminal offense until this week’s underreported story about how Trump used his “STOP THE STEAL” fundraising appeals to grift his supporters out of $250 million, none of which was, in fact, used to fight election fraud.
It didn’t even go to the poor saps who got themselves arrested at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Instead, the $250 million seems to have been funneled exclusively to Trump businesses, family and friends.
And let’s not forget Steve Bannon’s “We Build the Wall” swindle; Trump sending out a fundraising appeal to raise funds for his new private plane; and a Trump-affiliated organization paying Kimberly Guilfoyle $60,000 to give a two-minute speech on Jan. 6 (introducing her fiance, Don Jr.). Every time you think you have your arms fully around Trump’s con, you realize it’s unfathomably more cynical and far-reaching than you could have imagined.
Is there anyone in Trump World who isn’t trying to fleece the Deplorables? Haven’t they suffered enough?
Which brings me to Dinesh D’Souza’s movie “2,000 Mules.” The movie tells Trump diehards (a dwindling crowd) that their man probably DID win the 2020 election!
Using cellphone tracking data obtained by “True the Vote” (which sounds like a group named by Melania Trump — “BE BEST!”) D’Souza claims to have proof that 2,000 people delivered multiple ballots to election drop boxes in the five crucial battleground states that Trump lost.
There are two problems with this.
First, the movie doesn’t show what it says it shows.
— Cellphone tracking isn’t precise enough to distinguish between liberal activists stuffing drop boxes, and store owners, police officers, delivery men and others who have perfectly legitimate reasons to be within a few yards of the same drop box every day.
— In all five battleground states D’Souza considers, it is perfectly legal for third parties to drop off ballots for others, with varying degrees of lenience. Pennsylvania, for example, allows a grandparent, grandchild, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, in-law, household member, caregiver or jailer to drop off someone else’s ballot.
— Even if every cellphone dot represented a left-wing organizer illegally dropping off another person’s ballot, that still wouldn’t make the ballot invalid. A legal ballot can be illegally delivered, although the guy who delivered it might be in trouble.
These flaws have already been well aired elsewhere.
The second problem — my problem with the movie — is the idea that Trump’s 2020 loss cries out for an explanation. We know for a fact that Trump was wildly popular, sailing to a landslide election on the love of a grateful nation. Only something nefarious could explain his defeat!
Hello? Trump lost only one demographic in 2020 compared to 2016. What was that demographic? …
Answer: WHITE MEN!
How did liberal activists pull off that?
In the five states where D’Souza deploys his hocus-pocus cellphone data — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — Trump lost 8% of white voters compared to 2016. He lost 12% of white men.
That’s according to Trump’s own pollster, the highly respected Tony Fabrizio, as well as everyone else who’s looked at the 2020 election data. It was also predicted by anyone who supported Trump in 2016 — and then watched him piss away his presidency for four years by betraying his base.
True, lots of Deplorables clung to Trump as their last hope in a country that has betrayed them over and over again. But some of them noticed.
See if you can detect the subtle shift as Trump dumped ordinary Americans and adopted the prejudices of our ruling class:
During the 2016 campaign, Trump said of “Dreamers” (as illegal aliens call themselves): “I want ‘Dreamers’ to come from the United States. I want the people in the United States that have children, I want them to have dreams also. We’re always talking about ‘Dreamers’ for other people.”
One month in office, Trump said of the “Dreamers”: “We are gonna deal with them with heart … You have these incredible kids … some absolutely incredible kids.”
So much for getting illegals “out of here so fast, your head will spin.”
During the campaign, Trump sided with rural Americans, who like guns — and don’t live in opulent, lily-white redoubts where guns aren’t needed. He emphatically opposed “gun-free zones,” bans on “assault weapons” and expanded background checks, saying an armed citizenry prevents mass shootings.
One year into his presidency, Trump said: “I like taking the guns early. Take the guns first, go through due process second. … Some of you are petrified of the NRA. … They have great power over you people … they have less power over me. What do I need?”
What do you need? You needed Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, you cretinous moron. Anybody in those states care about guns?
Most stunningly, Trump blew off the signature promise of his campaign: the wall. While he was busy sucking up to Wall Street, Kim Kardashian, RINOs, Silicon Valley, the gun-grabbers and illegal aliens, not one mile of wall got built.
He finally got around to the wall his last year in office. Total new wall across a 2,000 mile border completed during the entire Trump presidency: 47 miles.
Yeah, it’s a total baffler how a president who spent four years ignoring his base could have lost.
Imagine if Ronald Reagan, after running in 1980 on winning the Cold War and slashing taxes, had gotten into office and started bleating about our “inordinate fear of communism,” instead of opposing the Soviets at every turn and driving The New York Times to fits of apoplexy? What if he’d left the top tax rate at 70% and suddenly started releasing criminals recommended by Kim Kardashian? And, for the cherry on top, suppose he’d turned his presidency over to his bimbo daughter and nimrod son-in-law?
Instead of a 49-state landslide and two decades of peace and prosperity, we’d have gotten a D’Souza conspiracy movie about how the Democrats cheated.
COPYRIGHT 2022 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Thursday, June 16, 2022
Elon Musk addressed Twitter employees on Thursday ahead of his $44 billion acquisition of the company
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO agreed to buy the company earlier this year, but has since expressed what seems to be hesitation about the deal, alleging that Twitter has not accurately disclosed the number of fake or spam accounts on the service.
Here are some of the answers to employee questions
1 Hour Ago
Meeting has ended and employees are worried about layoffs
The all-hands meeting concluded around 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
According to a source, the majority of the reactions on Twitter’s Slack messaging board were negative in nature.
Employees expressed that many of their worries about layoffs, remote work, a reduced focus on content moderation and inclusion and diversity measures were confirmed.
Employees also sent memes about how to brand themselves as exceptional, according to the source, an apparent reference to Musk’s note that exceptional employees could likely continue to work remotely and would not have to fear layoffs.
—Lauren Feiner
1 Hour Ago
Musk wants Twitter to reach 1 billion daily active users
Success at Twitter would look like a significant increase in daily active users, potentially topping 1 billion, Musk said, according to a source.
Twitter said in its Q1 2022 earnings that it had 229 million monthly daily active users.
Musk’s definition of success would also include whether Twitter is helping further civilization and consciousness, he said.
—Lauren Feiner
1 Hour Ago
Musk diverts into discussion of aliens
Musk briefly diverted the conversation into a discussion about aliens and human consciousness.
He said he hasn’t seen actual evidence of aliens, according to a source.
—Lauren Feiner
1 Hour Ago
Musk says he doesn’t care about being CEO
Musk doesn’t care about being CEO at Twitter, he said, according to a source.
He said he cares about driving the product in a particular direction, but isn’t too hung up on titles.
—Lauren Feiner
1 Hour Ago
Users should be allowed to say what they want on Twitter, Musk says
When it comes to legal but potentially harmful speech, Musk told Twitter employees, that people should be allowed to say what they want.
But that’s different from Twitter promoting that speech, Musk said, according to the source.
Users have the right to filter out content they don’t want to see, he added. Musk said the standard is much more than not offending people, it’s that they are entertained and informed.
Musk reiterated a sentiment he made online earlier that if 10% of the far left and far right are upset, Twitter is doing the right thing.
Addressing the topic of inclusion and diversity, Musk said the most inclusive thing to do would be to get all humans on Twitter.
He said he believes in strict meritocracy.
—Lauren Feiner
1 Hour Ago
Musk addresses question of possible layoffs at Twitter: The company needs to get healthy
Musk said layoffs at Twitter will depend on its financial situation.
“It depends. The company does need to get healthy,” Musk said, according to the source. “Right now the costs exceed the revenue”
Musk said there has to be some rationalization of headcount or else Twitter won’t be able to grow.
“Anyone who is a signification contributor has nothing to worry about,” he said.
—Lauren Feiner
2 Hours Ago
Musk has a strong bias toward in-person work
Musk, who recently told his employees at Tesla to come back to work in their offices 40 hours a week or resign, seemed to draw a distinction between working remotely at the car company and at Twitter.
“Tesla makes cars, and you can’t make cars remotely,” Musk said, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Musk did not detail what his policy on remote would look like for Twitter employees and said if someone is exceptional at their job, remote work is fine, according to the source.
But, Musk said his “bias is strongly towards working in person.”
—Lauren Feiner
2 Hours Ago
Musk on how he can build trust with Twitter employees
“If someone is getting useful things done, that’s great. If they’re not then I’m like why are they at the company.”
-- Lauren Feiner
2 Hours Ago
Elon Musk on free speech
Elon on free speech (paraphrased): People should be allowed to say anything they want, but that doesn’t mean Twitter should promote it.
-- Lauren Feiner
2 Hours Ago
Musk asked why he loves Twitter
Elon when asked why Twitter: “I love Twitter”, “I learn a lot from what I learn on Twitter.” It’s a “great way to get a message out”, “some people use their hair to express themselves, I use Twitter”
-- Lauren Feiner
2 Hours Ago
Employees are asking questions
Employees submitted questions s they are most interested in - no promise they will answer but highest ranked in categories of workplace policies (i.e. remote work), free speech, Elon’s suggested product improvements and relationship with employees -- Lauren Feiner
THE WORST IS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR......
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Abortion foes, accustomed to small wins, ready for a big on
By MATT SEDENSKY
yesterday
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The first of them arrived outside the clinic past 4 a.m., before a steady rain fell and a scalding sun rose, and all along, they had prayed for a moment like this.
It’s abortion day at Planned Parenthood and, try as they might, those who lined the street hadn’t had much luck changing any minds.
Now, a patient pushes out of the center’s doors, limply drags her feet across the parking lot, and heads straight into the arms of an anti-abortion counselor who, a short while earlier, asked her not to do what she came here for.
One of the clinic’s rainbow-vested workers, Allison Terracio, sees what’s unfolding and cries, “They got one!”
A majority of Americansbacks abortion rights, and Terracio believes the anti-abortion group’s sidewalk coterie uses trickery, empty promises and manipulation in the guise of kindness to sway women from something they’ve already carefully thought through.
She is as alarmed as her opponents are hopeful.
As the patient walks away with the counselor, it feels as if every eye on the block has followed. The circle of praying Catholics, the smattering of evangelicals at every clinic driveway, even the lone protester here, Steven Lefemine, who stands by himself with a sign with a graphic photo of an aborted fetus, all seem riveted by the apparent change of heart.
“This is a glorious thing that’s happening here!” 66-year-old Lefemine exclaims.
For tens of millions of Americans who see abortion as wrong, it’s gone this way for a half-century: One woman swayed to reconsider as dozens of others follow through. One clinic’s doors closed only to see desperate patients go elsewhere. One law passed, another overturned.
A movement built of tiny steps and endless setbacks, though, now seems poised for a massive leap.
The possibility of looming success, perhaps undoing the constitutional right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade, isn’t talked about much here, though. That’s left to others entrenched in this fight. Those here on the front lines of the battle are focused on the task at hand: To change a single mind and, in their eyes, save a single life.
When that happens, Valerie Berry, the 27-year-old program manager for the biggest of the groups here, A Moment of Hope, says she’ll feel the tingle of goosebumps or the well of tears. Sometimes, she has burst into a joyous dance.
On this day, she’s not there yet with the patient who exited the clinic. But the woman is here beside her, sharing her story and openly discussing if there’s some way she can have another baby.
“It’s a miracle every time it happens,” Berry says. “In some ways, even a conversation is a miracle.”
Berry and a colleague lead the woman across the street from the clinic to their group’s idling RV, where she says she’s about seven weeks pregnant. She tells of a tough upbringing in foster care, an abusive partner who’s now out of the picture, the struggles of raising a 3-year-old, the problems with money, the hope of finding a new home and starting a career in music, all the things that seemed impossible even before her period failed to arrive and morning sickness started sapping her will.
Yet for all the reasons the woman lists to end her pregnancy, Berry feels encouraged that she’s reaching her. When she suggests the woman come see a doctor allied with her group who can prescribe something for the nausea while she weighs her decision, she is receptive. And when a colleague floats considering adoption, the flat rejection of the idea assures them.
“No,” they say the woman told them. “My child will be with me and we’ll just tough it out.”
The goosebumps return. Berry is tingling. Something miraculous is happening.
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
B.39 Tom Jones - Greatest Hits (2CD) 2008 Flac Format : Veson Tang : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Tom Jones - Greatest Hits from my buddy Veson Tang!
Green Green Grass Of Home Is Within The 40+ Tom Jones Selections.
ENJOY!
Ron
DEATHS MOUNT FROM MURDER-SUICIDES BY PILOTS
Alan Levin - Yesterday 10:00 AM
(Bloomberg) -- For decades, commercial airline travel has gotten progressively safer. But one cause of deaths has stubbornly persisted: pilots who intentionally crash in murder-suicides.
Preliminary evidence suggests the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Corp. jet in March may be the latest such tragedy, a person familiar with the investigation said. If confirmed, that would make it the fourth since 2013, bringing deaths in those crashes to 554.
So as aircraft become more reliable and pilots grow less susceptible to errors, fatalities caused by murder-suicides are becoming an increasingly large share of the total. While intentional acts traditionally aren’t included in air-crash statistics, they would be the second-largest category of deaths worldwide if they were, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. By comparison, 1,745 people died as a result of pilot error, mechanical failures or other causes on Western-built jets from 2012 through 2021.
“It’s scary,” said Malcolm Brenner, a former human-behavior investigator with the US National Transportation Safety Board who worked on the probe of the 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 crash, which was found to be an intentional act. “It is a major cause of concern. It’s one the industry needs to address.”
So far, however, these rare but deadly acts have defied simple solutions. While improving mental-health care is a priority, those who have chosen to kill themselves and scores of others at the same time on jetliners mostly didn’t reveal any clues beforehand to coworkers, friends or family.
And because of the taboo nature of suicide, the cases create unique political and cultural challenges, at times leaving such events shrouded in mystery or open to dispute. The probe into Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s disappearance over the Indian Ocean in 2014 found it was likely flown there on purpose, for example, but the Malaysian government’s report contains no information on who may have done so or why.
The risk of dying on an airliner has declined significantly in recent decades as a result of innovations in safety equipment, aircraft reliability and pilot training. After 5,005 people died on Western-built jets from 2001 through 2010, the total fell to 1,858 the next decade, according to data compiled by Boeing Co., AviationSafetyNetwork and accident reports. The odds of being on a plane involved in a fatal accident was about one in 10 million, according to Boeing.
But deaths attributed to pilot suicides bucked that trend, actually moving upward, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. If the China Eastern crash is confirmed as the latest such suicide, it will mean that deaths due to intentional acts have exceeded all other causes since the start of 2021.
So far, Chinese authorities have revealed few specifics about what led the China Eastern jet carrying 132 people to crash March 21. The flight, a Boeing 737-800 from Kunming to Guangzhou, was cruising at about 29,000 feet when it suddenly dove at high speed, according to Flightradar24 data. Surveillance videos show it hurtling nose-down toward the ground.
Read more: China Watchdog Says Probe on China Eastern Plane Crash Continues
Government authorities and Boeing haven’t announced any potential safety issues with the plane since then, suggesting no systemic faults have been uncovered. Preliminary information from the jet’s crash-proof data recorder indicates that someone in the cockpit initiated the dive, said a person familiar with the probe who wasn’t authorized to speak about it. The likelihood the crash was intentional was earlier reported by the trade publication Leeham News and Analysis as well as the Wall Street Journal.
China’s embassy in Washington didn’t respond directly to questions about whether the crash was intentional. Investigators are conducting the probe “in a science-based, meticulous and orderly manner” and will release information “in a timely and accurate fashion,” the embassy said in an email.
As with any crash investigation, it can take months or years to conduct the tests and analysis needed to pinpoint a cause and rule out even the most remotely possible system failures.
In addition to the Malaysian plane lost with 239 people aboard, a Lam-Mozambique Airlines jet with 33 people went down in Namibia in 2013 after the captain locked the copilot out of the cockpit. In 2015, a Germanwings GmbH copilot also locked out the captain before slamming into the side of a mountain in France with 150 aboard.
Four other intentional crashes occurred on airlines around the world prior to 2013, killing another 389 people, according to AviationSafetyNetwork and accident reports. The incidents don’t include terrorist acts, such as the planes that crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.
After the Germanwings crash, which French investigators found was caused by a copilot suffering from mental-health problems, US and European aviation regulators expanded programs to give air crews access to more psychological treatment and encourage them to come forward without fear of losing their jobs.
Surveys of airline pilots have shown that about 4% to 8% have contemplated suicide, which is roughly the same rate as the population at large. Far fewer people actually attempt to carry it out -- and the handful of successful pilot murder-suicides on airliners is infinitesimally small by comparison.
Airline pilots must pass periodic medical exams to maintain their licenses and have been reluctant to report depression or other mental illness for fear of losing their livelihood, said Quay Snyder, a doctor specializing in aviation medicine who is co-leader of the US Aerospace Medical Association’s mental health working group. The association has joined with regulators, airlines and unions to create peer-to-peer counseling and other programs to allow pilots to receive treatment while retaining their licenses.
Safety Measures
But a panel advising the US Federal Aviation Administration in 2015 found there was “no convincing evidence” that screening for suicidal tendencies would prevent incidents such as Germanwings.
“It is quite difficult to predict who is going to commit a murder-suicide,” Snyder said.
Other possible ways to prevent pilot suicides run counter to long-standing safety or security measures.
The sophisticated locks on cockpit doors that allow pilots to keep out other crewmembers were put in place to prevent hijackings. French authorities recommended against changing the door designs in the wake of the Germanwings crash, saying changes could undermine security.
One idea -- adding automated limits on a pilot’s actions in the cockpit -- would require a dramatic shift in the philosophy of aviation safety.
“I’m a firm believer in the pilot who’s on the flight deck being the ultimate person or device in charge of the aircraft,” said Benjamin Berman, a former airline pilot who also worked as an accident investigator. “I don’t see technology supplanting that role. But that leaves the pilot in control, allowing him or her to do whatever they want.”
Multiple Pilots
Even the simple solution to always have at least two people in the cockpit, which was recommended by European regulators after Germanwings, is no guarantee that someone bent on bringing down a plane couldn’t do it. While details of what happened aboard the China Eastern jet remain unclear, it had three pilots in the cockpit -- a captain, copilot and trainee -- according to Chinese media reports.
For now, aviation groups are calling for expanding pilot access to mental-health treatments while acknowledging that routine psychological care might not make a difference in the extreme murder-suicide cases.
“It’s so rare,” said David Schroeder, a former FAA psychologist who along with Snyder leads the Aerospace Medical Association’s mental health efforts. “That’s the difficulty. How do you try to predict that? How do you intervene when almost all flights are not like that?”
(If you or someone you know is struggling, contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at +1-800-273-8255.)
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Some Old Times
I was sittin' here thinkin' about old times
Some old times
Some old friends
And suddenly it shot accross my mind
I wish that I could see you again
I Remember
how we used to sit and talk
At the table
Holdin' hands
We said we loved each other I recall
And then we made
some future plans
But the
years have come and gone
And a whole lot has happened since then
But tonight babe your memory's
awfully strong on my mind
And I wish that I could see you again
It's funny
how a feeling will come back
It'll come on back,
and make you blue
Cause I just saw a picture in my mind
Bout a time, of me and you
Guess I better straighten out this mind
straighten it out
Go to bed
And pray that I don't
dream about old times
Some old times
Gone and dead
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