Politics And Current Events

[count2infinity]

I thought the sharpie on the hurricane map was the best...

"Sir, you're wrong, here's the map..."

"Gimme dat! *squeek* No I'm not."

[NTP66]

I thought the sharpie on the hurricane map was the best...

"Sir, you're wrong, here's the map..."

"Gimme dat! *squeek* No I'm not."

Followed by him saying that he had no idea how the sharpie writing got on the map.

[Tomas]

They all do. NY Times will publish something off the wall next week, and WSJ the week after. All of it to drive "discussion" or clicks.

A few weeks ago a WSJ opinion piece called for Jill Biden to stop using the honorific "Doctor" because she had never delivered a baby.

I have seen this picture posted on a lot of PhD office doors (including mine):



....

alongside (since 2007):

[NTP66]

[meow]

That dude is a Bond villain, no?

[DigitalGypsy66]

Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, John C. Demers, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, William F. Sweeney Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), Dermot Shea, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), and Roy T. Cochran, Director, U.S. Army Counterintelligence Coordinating Authority, announced today the arrest of COLE JAMES BRIDGES, a/k/a “Cole Gonzales,” a Private First Class in the U.S. Army, on federal terrorism charges based on BRIDGES’s alleged efforts to assist ISIS to attack and kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East. BRIDGES was charged by Complaint with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and attempting to murder U.S. military service members. The FBI and Army Counterintelligence arrested BRIDGES today, and he will be presented on Thursday, January 21, 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “As alleged, Cole Bridges betrayed the oath he swore to defend the United States by attempting to provide ISIS with tactical military advice to ambush and kill his fellow service members. Our troops risk their lives for our country, but they should never face such peril at the hands of one of their own. Today, thanks to the efforts of the agents and detectives of the JTTF, and our partners in the Department of Defense, Bridges is in custody and facing federal terrorism charges for his alleged crimes.”

Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers said: “Bridges is charged with giving military advice and guidance on how to kill fellow soldiers to individuals he thought were part of ISIS. This alleged personal and professional betrayal of comrades and country is terrible to contemplate, but fortunately, the FBI was able to identify the threat posed by Bridges, and today’s charges are the first step in holding him accountable for his crimes. ISIS ideology continues to infect those who would threaten the nation’s security from within and without, and we will continue to fight this threat.”

FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. said: “As we allege today, Bridges, a private in the U.S. Army, betrayed our country and his unit when he plotted with someone he believed was an ISIS sympathizer to help ISIS attack and kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East. Fortunately, the person with whom he communicated was an FBI employee, and we were able to prevent his evil desires from coming to fruition. Bridges could have chosen a life of honorable service, but instead he traded it for the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence. This case should serve as a reminder that the FBI’s New York JTTF will never quit in its commitment to protect our Nation from all those who seek to do it harm.”

[nocera]

I thought that was Paul Bearer.

[NTP66]

[Tomas]

It's great to see that Lindell is still able to utilize the great "freshmen" techniques:


In his email to NBC News, Lindell said: "All the evidence against Dominion is before the Supreme Court. ... China and others used the machines to corrupt our election! Here is one page of the proof."

The email did not include an attachment. When asked if he had mistakenly omitted it, Lindell sent another email with an empty attachment and a third with screenshots of illegible text.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/my ... s-n1254676

[NTP66]

He definitely looks like a reply-all clown.

[nocera]

Ah that's the same strategy that Jerry Lundegaard used on his financing documents.

[tifosi77]

Re pardons

A lot has been made about Trump's pardons, because they've been unusually.......... close. Like, I don't think it's very common for Presidents to run around dosing out pardons to people in their immediate orbit who were convicted of crimes involving their work on behalf of the President. A disproportionate amount of his pardons involve either corruption/abuse of authority matters, or - weirdly - war criminals.

But setting aside the unusual nature of who he has been pardoning, Trump has been uncommonly stingy in using the pardon power, issuing by far the fewest number of pardons by a President even compared to other one-termers (up to now, at least; the next 21 hours might change that drastically lol). It got me curious, and I found that by an enormous margin the period of time with the most pardons covers the FDR-Truman-Eisenhower administrations. FDR I get, as he was in office for 12 years, and his numbers do far exceed any other President. But Truman and Eisenhower are also both well above the average of all other Presidents. The next biggest spike in pardons covers the Wilson administration. I haven't done a dive into all those pardons to see what's what, but it struck me that those periods cover post-war years. I wonder if that is more than correlative in some way.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

82 Stupid Things From The Trump Era You Probably Forgot About
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/da ... mp-moments

This gave me some laughs today. Note that this is Buzz Feed and a lot of these moments are nit-picky (tape on your tie is pretty standard, especially when filming), but I thought the thread could use some levity.

I totally forgot about the national championship fast food feast, the hurricane sharpie and raking the forest. What a strange 4 years.

I see it as a meme semi-often

it still pisses me off. Imagine growing up in a poor household but you get a college scholarship and end up winning the ultimate championship. You get invited to meet the president of the united states and you're served...**** McDonalds

**** Trump. This is worse than the insurrection stuff

[tifosi77]

That dude is a Bond villain, no?

In the Stolen Picture/Simon Pegg parody version of Bond, yes.

[tifosi77]

Pentagon won’t say what got 12 Guard troops sent home from Biden inauguration duty in D.C.

Twelve National Guard troops deployed to Washington, D.C., ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration were flagged during background checks and have been sent home, Defense Department officials confirmed Tuesday, offering scant details as to what raised suspicions about them.

Two of those were flagged for “inappropriate comments or texts,” Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the Nation Guard Bureau, told reporters, including one reported within their own chain of command. Hokanson’s comments refute a Tuesday story from the Associated Press that all 12 troops removed from the Capitol had right-wing militia ties.

“If there’s any identification or anything whatsoever that needs to be looked into, out of an abundance of caution, we automatically pull those personnel off the line and make sure that they’re not part of the mission set ― and in certain cases, we make sure that they get sent home,” Hokanson said.

[NTP66]

Pentagon won’t say what got 12 Guard troops sent home from Biden inauguration duty in D.C.

Twelve National Guard troops deployed to Washington, D.C., ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration were flagged during background checks and have been sent home, Defense Department officials confirmed Tuesday, offering scant details as to what raised suspicions about them.

Two of those were flagged for “inappropriate comments or texts,” Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the Nation Guard Bureau, told reporters, including one reported within their own chain of command. Hokanson’s comments refute a Tuesday story from the Associated Press that all 12 troops removed from the Capitol had right-wing militia ties.

“If there’s any identification or anything whatsoever that needs to be looked into, out of an abundance of caution, we automatically pull those personnel off the line and make sure that they’re not part of the mission set ― and in certain cases, we make sure that they get sent home,” Hokanson said.

I wonder if it has something to do with this clownpuncher:

[Dickie Dunn]

Some of the biggest pieces of **** I have ever met were fellow military members. The completely blind “support our troops” mantra from a specific side of the political spectrum is infuriating nonsense.

[tifosi77]

"The most offensive thing I've ever heard"

Sounds like you need to get out a bit more there, Gov Greg.

[shoeshine boy]

Some of the biggest pieces of **** I have ever met were fellow military members. The completely blind “support our troops” mantra from a specific side of the political spectrum is infuriating nonsense.

especially when you consider the number of former military members that were involved in the shenanigans on 1/6/21

[DigitalGypsy66]

[count2infinity]

[tifosi77]

Reminds me of the scene in Stand By Me

What are you gonna do, shoot us all?

No, Ace. Just you.

[Troy Loney]

[AuthorTony]

Reminds me of the scene in Stand By Me

What are you gonna do, shoot us all?

No, Ace. Just you.

Such a perfect scene.

Edit: Actually, it's a damned perfect film.

[Shyster]

Also, being in education in my past life.... there are many, many administrators and professors at colleges with Ed.D. degrees that people refer to as Dr. It's not like it's Shyster with a J.D. demanding people call him Dr. Shyster. That'd be weird (please correct me if I'm wrong here, Shyster).

Lawyers with J.D.s don't usually call themselves doctor or refer to other lawyers as doctor. Whether we can do so has been the subject of a number of ethical opinions over the years from the ABA [Shyster spits derisively] ethics committee. The ABA originally said that lawyers couldn't use the title, but then it reversed itself and said they could. Some state bars also issued opinions that lawyers shouldn't use the title, but some of those have also reversed themselves. There might be a couple states that prohibit the practice, but most do not. The vast majority of lawyers don't use the title, however, and probably wouldn't even think of doing so.

As an aside, the whole reason that lawyers get a "doctorate" degree was because lawyers were tired of getting crap from their doctor golfing buddies. The original first law degree was the Bachelor of Laws, or LL.B. There are actually two more graduate law degrees: the Master of Laws (LL.M.) and the Doctor of the Science of Law or Juridicae Scientiae Doctor (J.S.D.), so calling the first degree a "bachelor" degree makes sense. But the LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees purely academic/research degrees that are really only relevant for law professors and the like and are irrelevant for 99.9% of lawyers who just want to practice law. Those lawyers got tired of their physician golfing buddies given them crap for only having a "bachelor" degree, so in the 1960s most law schools switched over to granting the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree as the first-level degree so that lawyers could also say "I have a doctorate degree."