Linked below is four hours of what is said to be previously unrevealed video of the Chinese authorities very heavy-handed military response to the demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989.*
P.S. Didn’t watch it all, but the opening shots look like what I remember of the few snippets of such video I have seen.
But no of noes, Joni Mitchell became a US citizen (see Instapundit). Must be another sign of the Apocalypse.
Question for Kate:
What’s your take on the proposed 3 amendments in NC. My NC lefties are all up in arms and want a No vote on all 3, including the income tax cap. WUWT?
The brown dog in the vid looks like an ungroomed Airedale to me. A great breed!
physicsguy, the Dems around here are all against the three amendments, which would be enough to convince me to vote “yes” even if I hadn’t already decided to do so. The first is ID for all voters, either in person or by mail. The second, a cap on the state income tax rate. The third, a cap on how quickly local governments can raise property tax rates. The answer is, Dems favor election fraud and want unlimited taxation. And THEN, here in my county, they’re pushing a $25 million bond issue to “protect farm land and open areas.” Seems to me, even in a heavily Republican county, that money is going to go to cronies of the leadership. The resolution is through zoning codes, without public money required, in my opinion.
Voter ID is in force now but could be reversed if Dems take over, hence the push for amendments.
Just north of here, the Asheville area is leftist-infested and the chatter is all against the amendments.
THEN, here in my county, they’re pushing a $25 million bond issue to “protect farm land and open areas.”
==
Greenbelt fetishists create trouble. See Thos. Sowell’s critique of these policies as they have evolved in the Bay Area. He said about 1/2 the sale price of his house was attributable to what these regs do to real estate markets. Unless you have a site of historic significance or unusual aesthetic appeal, this sort of thing is bad business.
==
If you want to delineate a park and place it under the jurisdiction of the county government, you might attempt that with a bond issue. Just recall that the actual cost is not just the purchase of the land and developing any necessary improvements, but also the discounted present value of the posited annual appropriation to maintain the park.
==
IMO, land use regulations in the countryside should have as their motor health and safety concerns and nuisance abatement (and, in re the latter, what might be the implications for people living downwind). If it’s not in a floodplain, you’re not dumping chemical or radioactive waste, you can sink a well and not impinge on your neighbor’s water supply, you can install a septic tank and leechfield which is adequate distance from the well and your neighbor’s property, and the buildings you construct are up to code, there should not be insuperable complaints.
==
As you get closer in, you get governments commanding minimum lot sizes, debarring subdivision of lots, debarring anything but single family housing, contriving to put miles between residential construction and commercial strips. Blech.
Kate,
Same thing here on our Ad 3 which will significantly raise the homestead exemption and for the people with lower incomes and thus smaller houses, could eliminate their property tax bill. The Ds here hate it. Amazing how a mindset that actually likes taxes and wants more exists. I continue to be flabbergasted. I can understand the D politicians as they see it as income they can grift, but the average D voter????
The first is ID for all voters, either in person or by mail. The second, a cap on the state income tax rate. The third, a cap on how quickly local governments can raise property tax rates.
==
Insist on thumbprints, move election day to Saturday or insist it be a holiday, and require those who set up a renewable standing order for a postal ballot to be (1) accredited employees of the U.S. Government or a spouse living in country with said employee; (2) a serviceman or a spouse resident with him; (3) a person under 25 enrolled at a campus with residences; (4) a person eligible to vote but living in the state in institutional group quarters (e.g. assisted living). You could also add people whose doctor attests in a standard form to be homebound and people whose work supervisor attests in a standard form is out of their home county overnight for work > 50 days per year. No more than about 10% of the registered voters should be due for a postal ballot; the list of people being sent one should be published by the first Friday in September and the ballots should be in the mail by 15 September. Those returned should be carefully logged and the identity checks incorporated into an outer envelope. (The inner envelope should have just the precinct listed and have the completed ballots in them). You accept mailed ballots for tabulation until the afternoon before the polls open; you complete the identity checks as they arrive and then lock them away until the afternoon before the polls close. Ballots rejected and ballots arriving too late should be locked away in separate boxes. You should not have any late night surprises as all postal ballots would be tabulated the afternoon of election day at the HQ of the county board of elections.
==
IMO, amendments on tax matters should concern (1) the definition of taxable income, (2) the definition of final sales, (3) the definition of value added, (4) principles of property assessment, and (5) permissible rate structures (not rates).
==
Other things you should be insisting on is that (a) public employee retirement and insurance programs be financed out of assessments on their stated compensation with the withholding remarked on their pay stub; (b) public employee retirement programs be of the defined contribution variety; (c) the only public employees earning early retirement credits should be hands-on construction workers, uniformed police and sheriff’s department officers, and firefighters; (d) the minimum sequestration to finance retirement programs for those earning early retirement credits be twice what it is for ordinary employees (say, 30% v. 15%); that the ’employer’s contribution’ to employee benefit programs be limiting to (i) financing workman’s compensation policies, (ii) financing part of unemployment compensation, (iii) financing part of Social Security per federal law, (iv) financing part of Medicare per federal law. It should also be appended to the state constitution the requirement that mean employee compensation per (FTE) worker for all governments be within a particular % of that for private sector employees and that no public employee receive a compensation package in excess of the 96th percentile of employee compensation per worker in the state’s private sector without a special procedure to be followed. The special procedure would be for local government’s to pass a resolution allowing a named employee a salary increment above and beyond the 96th percentile. The resolution to grant such an increment for a given employee would have to be enacted annually. It could only be enacted at a public hearing for which due notice was given beforehand and could only be enacted by a majority vote of the full complement of elected members of a local council; your council has 11 members with all seats filled, the resolution requires six votes. Any employee receiving such an increment has to be named in the resolution and you have to enact a separate resolution for each employee so receiving. Since the government would still be bound by the requirement that employee compensation per worker be within a certain % of that of private sector employees, the additional increments would come out of the hide of other public employees.
==
It should also be in the constitution that expenditures for miscellaneous perquisites for public employees be tracked and amortized over the mean number of employees eligible for them in a given fiscal year, with the additional increment noted on pay stubs.
==
One qualification on the above is that certain fully self-financing government corporations could have a compensation scale that is industry specific. You might enact that for your water works and municipal gas and electric.
==
It should also be added to the state constitution that public employees are free to join voluntary mutual aid societies but that collective bargaining for public employees is always and everywhere debarred (something that would apply to every government and all affiliated government corporations).
==
Another thing you could enact would be a verbose amendment insisting that all public sector positions bar a few categories named be filled via timely competitive examinations and stripping the state’s judiciary of any authority over their composition. The text would include an explicit and thorough prohibition on DEI in public employment.
==
On tenure in the civil service. It is important that hiring supervisors not have any discretion over the size and composition of an applicant pool. It is not important for the impartiality of a bureau that employee’s feet be nailed to the floor. Three signatures from supervisors and managers in an employee’s chain of command should suffice to remove that employee.
Partisan Democrats will split three ways on this: one set will pretend it never happened, another set will deny it happened, and another set will pretend those on the receiving end deserved it (the talking points for segment 2 and segment 3 are being formulated for dissemination as we speak),
== https://ace.mu.nu/archives/421763.php
First 2 sound like CO too. But we also have a Progressive Tax on our ballot. We have what is called the Tabor Amendment. No raising taxes without the vote of the citizens. They get around it by calling Taxes “Fees”. The Progressive Tax would eliminate Tabor pretty much. We get a tax rebate when the state collects too much tax money. They have done work arounds, and the voters vote for the work arounds. The “They” and “Voters” are all Dems. We also will be getting two DSA idjits as Reps. One knocked off DeGette, after I 30 yrs in office. She replaced Pat Schroeder who was in office for 24 yrs.
The Democrats here in NC insist that Voter ID “suppresses the vote,” which is untrue; and that limiting tax increases only benefits “the rich,” which is also untrue. They just repeat these talking points by rote, unsupported by any evidence or reason.
“Did you buy a MAGA hat after the 2020 election? Jack Smith’s team had your info.”
Former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Trump scooped up information on 639,000 Republican supporters and everyday voters, the Senate’s top lawmaker revealed Wednesday.
One spreadsheet that Mr. Smith obtained looked specifically at people who bought the iconic red Trump campaign Make America Great Again hats after the 2020 election.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full chamber’s senior member, called the information obtained “incredibly invasive” and said there was no possible valid reason Mr. Smith needed it for his criminal investigations of the president.
Of interest to Coloradans and folks in similarly corrupt states, pay attention.
The Trump era’s greatest undiscussed task is reforming CommieKKKrat corruption. Here’s one ongoing avenue of exposure I’ve neglected within the legal system.
From lawyer Robert Gouviea, he says we have an intrepid whistleblower who has done something unprecedented.
“Former judicial discipline director Christopher Gregory triggers panic across the judiciary after filing confidential misconduct records revealing widespread corruption and multi-million dollar hush-money cover-ups.”
Christopher Gregory was on the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline and filed lawsuits in 46 jurisdictions. The Commission then fired or otherwise ousted him from the Board in 2024.
Now, new supporting details, sums Gouviea, overviewing a new court filing explains how it works. Or rather mis-works. Sexist hassassment and Judicial promotion of the accused is involved. And the Denver Post has obtained these documents.
I hope we see what following the money finds. Thus, the scandal has exploded! Preview – DIE position posting and posturing is involved! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbAmSP-qx7o
Gregory filed a motion to the courts is to compel prosecution of this corruption.
Mr. Gregory “has exposed a more than 25-year ongoing pattern of the Justices of the Colorado Supreme Court, Attorney General Philip Weiser, Governor Jared Polis, and many other public officials abusing their offices and misusing taxpayer funds as a coercive means of covering up serious judicial, attorney, and official misconduct. This pattern of public corruption includes the misuse of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars annually to cover up public fraud through hush money contracts, self-controlled investigations, and public relations schemes.”
Phew. If true, it’s damning and strikes at the perverse character of CommieKKKrat corruption and rule.
“Canadian-born Joni Mitchell sworn in as U.S. citizen”
[…] Neither Ms. Mitchell nor her representatives immediately explained the timing, Variety reported.
The outlet described the move as a step toward dual citizenship.The news follows The New York Times’ April list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters, which did not include Ms. Mitchell.
[…]
At the Hollywood Bowl in October 2024, she cursed President Trump from the stage after an audience member shouted an insult at him, and said she wished she could vote because she was Canadian.
Fusion power is making progress, but are they 10 years away from practical power as they have been for the last 50 years? Notice they say the findings are theoretical. But they also say AI money is pouring into fusion research.
Princeton Researchers Find a Lower-Energy Route to Fusion Ignition
* A new Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory model finds that heating plasma first and compressing it second could sharply cut the energy needed to reach fusion ignition.
* Tungsten at just one part in 10,000 could double the pressure ignition requires, a red flag for the dozen-plus next-gen machines built with tungsten walls.
* The findings are theoretical, but a liquid lithium coating could keep tungsten out of the plasma as
I was seeing reports of this yesterday but didn’t say anything while awaiting confirmation. Now it’s confirmed.
The US has throttled Ukrainian Starlink access such that it can no longer be used for control of drones. It shut this capability off without warning, causing several Ukrainian military operations to fail.
It also withheld warning of a Russian ballistic missile strike on Kiev, allowing ballistic missiles to strike multiple apartment buildings without warning. A bunch of Ukrainians were killed in their own homes as a result.
This, combined with the diesel deal, the supply of spare parts for Russian refineries, and the withholding of spare parts for Ukrainian F-16s suggests the Trump administration has switched sides in the Russia-Ukraine war.
mkent:
Beware of Lucy and the Football. Don’t light your other hair on fire.
According to Ukraine The Latest podcast today the Starlink system has been restricted to things moving more than 120 km/hr which would be the fast interceptor drones.
Remember that European press loathes President Trump and the US almost as much as the Democrats. Don’t be like them.
But to be pessimistic, Witkoff (sic) has always been Putin’s inside man and Kushner is useless.
The Democrats here in NC insist that Voter ID “suppresses the vote,”
==
That’s right. It suppresses bogus votes filled out by Democratic ballot harvesters making use of relict entries on voter rolls. They cannot abide that.
@Selfy: “Canadian-born Joni Mitchell sworn in as U.S. citizen”
I did love her first six albums. But when I started reading her interviews…
It wasn’t just the politics. She was so judgmental about her peers and so resentful that she wasn’t seated at the same songwriters table as the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
She even called Leonard Cohen a mere “boudoir poet” and claimed, falsely as far as I could tell, that he had stolen lines from the poet Lorca.
Then there’s the bizarre Morgellon’s business. Morgellon’s is a controversial skin disease … or psychosomatic condition. For months she remained naked in her house because the feel of clothes on her skin was intolerable.
My take is that the fast LA rock lifestyle half-destroyed her and she never put herself back together again.
She did make a surprising and difficult recovery from a nasty stroke. Good for her.
@Bob Wilson: Fusion power is making progress, but are they 10 years away from practical power as they have been for the last 50 years? Notice they say the findings are theoretical. But they also say AI money is pouring into fusion research.
I keep an eye on fusion research. It certainly is my hope we crack it in this century. Our civilization needs huge amounts of relatively cheap, safe energy.
The AI people are pouring money into fusion because they need that energy now.
There is an interesting potential feedback cycle between AI and fusion. As AI gets better, it can make more and faster contributions to fusion research, particularly in materials science. And the more energy AI gets, the better AI gets.
As if things weren’t bad enough, yesterday Iran attacked and sank the Singaporean container ship GFS Pride. Today it struck the GFS Giselle causing structural damage to the hull, but, so far at least, the ship remains afloat. This follows Iran’s attack on five oil tankers and a container ship on 11 October and new reports that the Cape Dao, struck on 23 September and abandoned, is now taking on water and sinking.
The result of all of this is to push the cost of transporting a tanker of oil sharply higher. Freight rates are now 12 to 17 times what they were last year, adding about $30 per barrel to the cost of crude oil.
Trump’s response to these attacks was to announce today that there would be no more attacks on Iran until after the midterms. I hope that’s misdirection and that he won’t allow these attacks on shipping to continue for three more weeks. But Trump has looked extremely weak throughout this whole campaign, and he’s looking weaker by the day. Maybe that will change, but so far the only country he’s willing to get tough with is Ukraine.
Six months ago I said that Trump has put himself in a box that he won’t climb out of. That box is so restricting his actions that there is no viable solution to the Iran problem. He is still in the box.
Absurd. The Islamic Republic is doomed. Trump will see to that.
How much the Iran War effects the midterms, the rest of Trump’s term and 2028 are different questions.
Re: France’s future
The more I read about France’s economic problems, the more I think France is facing a difficult future which the French people refuse to grasp. Their debt is large, their economy is weak, their welfare programs are unsustainable, and its people refuse to compromise those programs.
Much of Macron’s unpopularity is due to his modest pension reforms in 2023 which included raising the retirement age from 62-64. The people lost their minds and protested for months. Macron was forced to go through a parliamentary backdoor to pass the reforms essentially by fiat.
But it wasn’t over. The reforms remain so unpopular that the Prime Minister was forced to suspend them until 2028, so the party wouldn’t lose a no-confidence vote between then and the election in 2028.
The problem as I see it is that the French people refuse to compromise on their social programs. But the math is clear that they are otherwise circling the drain.
And then there are the immigrant problems…
It appears that mkent is in favor or Iran. OMB now prevails. Sad.
And more fuel is flowing west to arabia we will fire back if fired upon if you know a target left on the list we havent him tell me about
And it was spacelink not starlink how ignorant can people be
‘I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but I think it could happen,’ he noted.
Yeah, his support of Russia against Ukraine did it for me…
Joni Mitchell: I have to say I never liked her music at all. Her voice was always “screechy” and I thought her lyrics overcooked. But that’s just me.
I do not know why she sought naturalization at this point. IMO, there should be no space for dual nationality in American law and, if I’m properly informed, it was invented by judges around about 1970.
==
I rather like her work, though the women in my family are more enthusiastic.
Well, Brit Hume was right on the nose in the Biden disaster debate with Trump. /sarc
So much so “The Daily Beast” saw fit to link a Tucker Carlson interview with Hume.
__________________________________
Fox News Pundit Brit Hume: Joe Biden Is ‘Senile’ but Could Still Beat Trump in Debate
“I don’t have any doubt Biden’s senile, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to show up tonight,” Brit Hume predicted.
[To which Carlson replied] “That’s a very smart point.”
Linked below is four hours of what is said to be previously unrevealed video of the Chinese authorities very heavy-handed military response to the demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989.*
P.S. Didn’t watch it all, but the opening shots look like what I remember of the few snippets of such video I have seen.
* See https://x.com/clashreport/status/2109026062730772566?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2109026062730772566%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F829107%2F
Enjoyed the doggie vids.
But no of noes, Joni Mitchell became a US citizen (see Instapundit). Must be another sign of the Apocalypse.
Question for Kate:
What’s your take on the proposed 3 amendments in NC. My NC lefties are all up in arms and want a No vote on all 3, including the income tax cap. WUWT?
The brown dog in the vid looks like an ungroomed Airedale to me. A great breed!
physicsguy, the Dems around here are all against the three amendments, which would be enough to convince me to vote “yes” even if I hadn’t already decided to do so. The first is ID for all voters, either in person or by mail. The second, a cap on the state income tax rate. The third, a cap on how quickly local governments can raise property tax rates. The answer is, Dems favor election fraud and want unlimited taxation. And THEN, here in my county, they’re pushing a $25 million bond issue to “protect farm land and open areas.” Seems to me, even in a heavily Republican county, that money is going to go to cronies of the leadership. The resolution is through zoning codes, without public money required, in my opinion.
Voter ID is in force now but could be reversed if Dems take over, hence the push for amendments.
Just north of here, the Asheville area is leftist-infested and the chatter is all against the amendments.
THEN, here in my county, they’re pushing a $25 million bond issue to “protect farm land and open areas.”
==
Greenbelt fetishists create trouble. See Thos. Sowell’s critique of these policies as they have evolved in the Bay Area. He said about 1/2 the sale price of his house was attributable to what these regs do to real estate markets. Unless you have a site of historic significance or unusual aesthetic appeal, this sort of thing is bad business.
==
If you want to delineate a park and place it under the jurisdiction of the county government, you might attempt that with a bond issue. Just recall that the actual cost is not just the purchase of the land and developing any necessary improvements, but also the discounted present value of the posited annual appropriation to maintain the park.
==
IMO, land use regulations in the countryside should have as their motor health and safety concerns and nuisance abatement (and, in re the latter, what might be the implications for people living downwind). If it’s not in a floodplain, you’re not dumping chemical or radioactive waste, you can sink a well and not impinge on your neighbor’s water supply, you can install a septic tank and leechfield which is adequate distance from the well and your neighbor’s property, and the buildings you construct are up to code, there should not be insuperable complaints.
==
As you get closer in, you get governments commanding minimum lot sizes, debarring subdivision of lots, debarring anything but single family housing, contriving to put miles between residential construction and commercial strips. Blech.
Kate,
Same thing here on our Ad 3 which will significantly raise the homestead exemption and for the people with lower incomes and thus smaller houses, could eliminate their property tax bill. The Ds here hate it. Amazing how a mindset that actually likes taxes and wants more exists. I continue to be flabbergasted. I can understand the D politicians as they see it as income they can grift, but the average D voter????
The first is ID for all voters, either in person or by mail. The second, a cap on the state income tax rate. The third, a cap on how quickly local governments can raise property tax rates.
==
Insist on thumbprints, move election day to Saturday or insist it be a holiday, and require those who set up a renewable standing order for a postal ballot to be (1) accredited employees of the U.S. Government or a spouse living in country with said employee; (2) a serviceman or a spouse resident with him; (3) a person under 25 enrolled at a campus with residences; (4) a person eligible to vote but living in the state in institutional group quarters (e.g. assisted living). You could also add people whose doctor attests in a standard form to be homebound and people whose work supervisor attests in a standard form is out of their home county overnight for work > 50 days per year. No more than about 10% of the registered voters should be due for a postal ballot; the list of people being sent one should be published by the first Friday in September and the ballots should be in the mail by 15 September. Those returned should be carefully logged and the identity checks incorporated into an outer envelope. (The inner envelope should have just the precinct listed and have the completed ballots in them). You accept mailed ballots for tabulation until the afternoon before the polls open; you complete the identity checks as they arrive and then lock them away until the afternoon before the polls close. Ballots rejected and ballots arriving too late should be locked away in separate boxes. You should not have any late night surprises as all postal ballots would be tabulated the afternoon of election day at the HQ of the county board of elections.
==
IMO, amendments on tax matters should concern (1) the definition of taxable income, (2) the definition of final sales, (3) the definition of value added, (4) principles of property assessment, and (5) permissible rate structures (not rates).
==
Other things you should be insisting on is that (a) public employee retirement and insurance programs be financed out of assessments on their stated compensation with the withholding remarked on their pay stub; (b) public employee retirement programs be of the defined contribution variety; (c) the only public employees earning early retirement credits should be hands-on construction workers, uniformed police and sheriff’s department officers, and firefighters; (d) the minimum sequestration to finance retirement programs for those earning early retirement credits be twice what it is for ordinary employees (say, 30% v. 15%); that the ’employer’s contribution’ to employee benefit programs be limiting to (i) financing workman’s compensation policies, (ii) financing part of unemployment compensation, (iii) financing part of Social Security per federal law, (iv) financing part of Medicare per federal law. It should also be appended to the state constitution the requirement that mean employee compensation per (FTE) worker for all governments be within a particular % of that for private sector employees and that no public employee receive a compensation package in excess of the 96th percentile of employee compensation per worker in the state’s private sector without a special procedure to be followed. The special procedure would be for local government’s to pass a resolution allowing a named employee a salary increment above and beyond the 96th percentile. The resolution to grant such an increment for a given employee would have to be enacted annually. It could only be enacted at a public hearing for which due notice was given beforehand and could only be enacted by a majority vote of the full complement of elected members of a local council; your council has 11 members with all seats filled, the resolution requires six votes. Any employee receiving such an increment has to be named in the resolution and you have to enact a separate resolution for each employee so receiving. Since the government would still be bound by the requirement that employee compensation per worker be within a certain % of that of private sector employees, the additional increments would come out of the hide of other public employees.
==
It should also be in the constitution that expenditures for miscellaneous perquisites for public employees be tracked and amortized over the mean number of employees eligible for them in a given fiscal year, with the additional increment noted on pay stubs.
==
One qualification on the above is that certain fully self-financing government corporations could have a compensation scale that is industry specific. You might enact that for your water works and municipal gas and electric.
==
It should also be added to the state constitution that public employees are free to join voluntary mutual aid societies but that collective bargaining for public employees is always and everywhere debarred (something that would apply to every government and all affiliated government corporations).
==
Another thing you could enact would be a verbose amendment insisting that all public sector positions bar a few categories named be filled via timely competitive examinations and stripping the state’s judiciary of any authority over their composition. The text would include an explicit and thorough prohibition on DEI in public employment.
==
On tenure in the civil service. It is important that hiring supervisors not have any discretion over the size and composition of an applicant pool. It is not important for the impartiality of a bureau that employee’s feet be nailed to the floor. Three signatures from supervisors and managers in an employee’s chain of command should suffice to remove that employee.
Partisan Democrats will split three ways on this: one set will pretend it never happened, another set will deny it happened, and another set will pretend those on the receiving end deserved it (the talking points for segment 2 and segment 3 are being formulated for dissemination as we speak),
==
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/421763.php
First 2 sound like CO too. But we also have a Progressive Tax on our ballot. We have what is called the Tabor Amendment. No raising taxes without the vote of the citizens. They get around it by calling Taxes “Fees”. The Progressive Tax would eliminate Tabor pretty much. We get a tax rebate when the state collects too much tax money. They have done work arounds, and the voters vote for the work arounds. The “They” and “Voters” are all Dems. We also will be getting two DSA idjits as Reps. One knocked off DeGette, after I 30 yrs in office. She replaced Pat Schroeder who was in office for 24 yrs.
The Democrats here in NC insist that Voter ID “suppresses the vote,” which is untrue; and that limiting tax increases only benefits “the rich,” which is also untrue. They just repeat these talking points by rote, unsupported by any evidence or reason.
“Did you buy a MAGA hat after the 2020 election? Jack Smith’s team had your info.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/oct/14/jack-smith-collected-info-people-who-bought-red-maga-hats/
Of interest to Coloradans and folks in similarly corrupt states, pay attention.
The Trump era’s greatest undiscussed task is reforming CommieKKKrat corruption. Here’s one ongoing avenue of exposure I’ve neglected within the legal system.
From lawyer Robert Gouviea, he says we have an intrepid whistleblower who has done something unprecedented.
“Former judicial discipline director Christopher Gregory triggers panic across the judiciary after filing confidential misconduct records revealing widespread corruption and multi-million dollar hush-money cover-ups.”
Christopher Gregory was on the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline and filed lawsuits in 46 jurisdictions. The Commission then fired or otherwise ousted him from the Board in 2024.
Now, new supporting details, sums Gouviea, overviewing a new court filing explains how it works. Or rather mis-works. Sexist hassassment and Judicial promotion of the accused is involved. And the Denver Post has obtained these documents.
I hope we see what following the money finds. Thus, the scandal has exploded! Preview – DIE position posting and posturing is involved! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbAmSP-qx7o
Gregory filed a motion to the courts is to compel prosecution of this corruption.
Mr. Gregory “has exposed a more than 25-year ongoing pattern of the Justices of the Colorado Supreme Court, Attorney General Philip Weiser, Governor Jared Polis, and many other public officials abusing their offices and misusing taxpayer funds as a coercive means of covering up serious judicial, attorney, and official misconduct. This pattern of public corruption includes the misuse of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars annually to cover up public fraud through hush money contracts, self-controlled investigations, and public relations schemes.”
Phew. If true, it’s damning and strikes at the perverse character of CommieKKKrat corruption and rule.
“Canadian-born Joni Mitchell sworn in as U.S. citizen”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/oct/13/canadian-born-joni-mitchell-sworn-us-citizen-decades-america/
For the many physics fans on this website.
Fusion power is making progress, but are they 10 years away from practical power as they have been for the last 50 years? Notice they say the findings are theoretical. But they also say AI money is pouring into fusion research.
Princeton Researchers Find a Lower-Energy Route to Fusion Ignition
* A new Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory model finds that heating plasma first and compressing it second could sharply cut the energy needed to reach fusion ignition.
* Tungsten at just one part in 10,000 could double the pressure ignition requires, a red flag for the dozen-plus next-gen machines built with tungsten walls.
* The findings are theoretical, but a liquid lithium coating could keep tungsten out of the plasma as
* AI-era money keeps pouring into fusion.
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Princeton-Researchers-Find-a-Lower-Energy-Route-to-Fusion-Ignition.html
I was seeing reports of this yesterday but didn’t say anything while awaiting confirmation. Now it’s confirmed.
The US has throttled Ukrainian Starlink access such that it can no longer be used for control of drones. It shut this capability off without warning, causing several Ukrainian military operations to fail.
It also withheld warning of a Russian ballistic missile strike on Kiev, allowing ballistic missiles to strike multiple apartment buildings without warning. A bunch of Ukrainians were killed in their own homes as a result.
This, combined with the diesel deal, the supply of spare parts for Russian refineries, and the withholding of spare parts for Ukrainian F-16s suggests the Trump administration has switched sides in the Russia-Ukraine war.
mkent:
Beware of Lucy and the Football. Don’t light your other hair on fire.
According to Ukraine The Latest podcast today the Starlink system has been restricted to things moving more than 120 km/hr which would be the fast interceptor drones.
Remember that European press loathes President Trump and the US almost as much as the Democrats. Don’t be like them.
But to be pessimistic, Witkoff (sic) has always been Putin’s inside man and Kushner is useless.
The Democrats here in NC insist that Voter ID “suppresses the vote,”
==
That’s right. It suppresses bogus votes filled out by Democratic ballot harvesters making use of relict entries on voter rolls. They cannot abide that.
@Selfy: “Canadian-born Joni Mitchell sworn in as U.S. citizen”
I did love her first six albums. But when I started reading her interviews…
It wasn’t just the politics. She was so judgmental about her peers and so resentful that she wasn’t seated at the same songwriters table as the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
She even called Leonard Cohen a mere “boudoir poet” and claimed, falsely as far as I could tell, that he had stolen lines from the poet Lorca.
Then there’s the bizarre Morgellon’s business. Morgellon’s is a controversial skin disease … or psychosomatic condition. For months she remained naked in her house because the feel of clothes on her skin was intolerable.
My take is that the fast LA rock lifestyle half-destroyed her and she never put herself back together again.
She did make a surprising and difficult recovery from a nasty stroke. Good for her.
@Bob Wilson: Fusion power is making progress, but are they 10 years away from practical power as they have been for the last 50 years? Notice they say the findings are theoretical. But they also say AI money is pouring into fusion research.
I keep an eye on fusion research. It certainly is my hope we crack it in this century. Our civilization needs huge amounts of relatively cheap, safe energy.
The AI people are pouring money into fusion because they need that energy now.
There is an interesting potential feedback cycle between AI and fusion. As AI gets better, it can make more and faster contributions to fusion research, particularly in materials science. And the more energy AI gets, the better AI gets.
As if things weren’t bad enough, yesterday Iran attacked and sank the Singaporean container ship GFS Pride. Today it struck the GFS Giselle causing structural damage to the hull, but, so far at least, the ship remains afloat. This follows Iran’s attack on five oil tankers and a container ship on 11 October and new reports that the Cape Dao, struck on 23 September and abandoned, is now taking on water and sinking.
The result of all of this is to push the cost of transporting a tanker of oil sharply higher. Freight rates are now 12 to 17 times what they were last year, adding about $30 per barrel to the cost of crude oil.
Trump’s response to these attacks was to announce today that there would be no more attacks on Iran until after the midterms. I hope that’s misdirection and that he won’t allow these attacks on shipping to continue for three more weeks. But Trump has looked extremely weak throughout this whole campaign, and he’s looking weaker by the day. Maybe that will change, but so far the only country he’s willing to get tough with is Ukraine.
Six months ago I said that Trump has put himself in a box that he won’t climb out of. That box is so restricting his actions that there is no viable solution to the Iran problem. He is still in the box.
Absurd. The Islamic Republic is doomed. Trump will see to that.
How much the Iran War effects the midterms, the rest of Trump’s term and 2028 are different questions.
Re: France’s future
The more I read about France’s economic problems, the more I think France is facing a difficult future which the French people refuse to grasp. Their debt is large, their economy is weak, their welfare programs are unsustainable, and its people refuse to compromise those programs.
Much of Macron’s unpopularity is due to his modest pension reforms in 2023 which included raising the retirement age from 62-64. The people lost their minds and protested for months. Macron was forced to go through a parliamentary backdoor to pass the reforms essentially by fiat.
But it wasn’t over. The reforms remain so unpopular that the Prime Minister was forced to suspend them until 2028, so the party wouldn’t lose a no-confidence vote between then and the election in 2028.
The problem as I see it is that the French people refuse to compromise on their social programs. But the math is clear that they are otherwise circling the drain.
And then there are the immigrant problems…
It appears that mkent is in favor or Iran. OMB now prevails. Sad.
And more fuel is flowing west to arabia we will fire back if fired upon if you know a target left on the list we havent him tell me about
And it was spacelink not starlink how ignorant can people be
Waze is better that garmin by a country mile
The demonic ken doll (talarico) lied again
Fox News veteran issues dire warning to Republicans ahead of midterms: ‘Washout’
Yeah, his support of Russia against Ukraine did it for me…
Joni Mitchell: I have to say I never liked her music at all. Her voice was always “screechy” and I thought her lyrics overcooked. But that’s just me.
I do not know why she sought naturalization at this point. IMO, there should be no space for dual nationality in American law and, if I’m properly informed, it was invented by judges around about 1970.
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I rather like her work, though the women in my family are more enthusiastic.
Well, Brit Hume was right on the nose in the Biden disaster debate with Trump. /sarc
So much so “The Daily Beast” saw fit to link a Tucker Carlson interview with Hume.
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Fox News Pundit Brit Hume: Joe Biden Is ‘Senile’ but Could Still Beat Trump in Debate
“I don’t have any doubt Biden’s senile, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to show up tonight,” Brit Hume predicted.
[To which Carlson replied] “That’s a very smart point.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-pundit-brit-hume-joe-biden-is-senile-but-could-still-beat-trump-in-debate
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Of course Hume qualified both his predictions as possibilities. It still part of a psyop IMO if the possibilities only discourage in one direction.
Which is what we are seeing with the midterms.
huxley, you’re right about France. Sad.
I think Joni Mitchell hit it out of the park with “Help Me,” and “Free Man in Paris” wasn’t too shabby either!