It’s roundup time again
So much is going on:
(1) Jonathan Turley opines on the Biden family’s threats against those who would testify against them:
(2) Trump says he’ll be making a big announcement, which turns out to be that he’s selling something called NFTs, in this case Trump Digital Trading Cards. What’s going on? Perhaps he’s trying to be funny. But let’s just say that he’s certainly not on a roll these days.
(3) There was praise in the comments for this interview, and although I haven’t read it yet I thought I’d call your attention to it.
(4) One Iranian exile’s opinion of what’s going on in Iran right now:
The demonstrations need to be continuous. The Iranian regime is very weak now. I know many people who were senior in the regime, in the IRGC, and who have stopped working with them. If the demonstrations continue, and larger numbers come to the revolution, and the strikes continue and spread, I think that step by step, the regime will begin to lose control. I think it’s going to happen.
Historically, that’s certainly the way these things tend to happen: first slowly, then all at once, and involving people in the regime or doing its bidding ultimately breaking off with it. I have no idea whether that’s the case in Iran right now, but I hope so.
(5) I’ve certainly noticed – have you? – a lot of people are sick lately. Someone I know who has a bad cough said the pharmacies are out of basic cough medicine and nearly out of more specialty types.
Turley (by no means a conservative) receives a great deal of abuse from the left for having the temerity to be moderately critical of Democrats, especially for their utter contempt for freedom of expression, as does Musk for having bought Twitter, Taibbi for his participation in exposing the biases of the platform, Greenwald and Gabbard for being honest, A Mate for opposing the insanity of our “Ukraine policy” and the funding of “The Welfare Queen” (as Z, the darling of leftists, is aptly described by C Owens). On the other hand, the worthless pseudo-conservatives who appear on CNN and MSNBC or write for the NYT and WaPo are a veritable rogues’ gallery of fools and knaves.
Everyone in North Texas is sick too. The flu, RSV and a nasty upper respiratory infection with a yucky cough is running rampant here. It’s not covid and for most it seems like a z-pack will fix you up pretty quickly.
He did issue a free speech position on social media
See here
https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1603467358038855684?cxt=HHwWiMC4zaHE1MAsAAAA
Apropos of 5)– My landlady has the ugly cough/sore throat/general malaise version of the bug that’s going around here in CT. I see that Neo has already linked to Yale Medicine, and the background info. at the link seems sound to me. I’ve been okay so far– God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, as my grandmother would say. Hope all is well with ArmyMom in North Texas too.
DJT has officially become a parody of himself.
Mrs. Otter and I have had nasty colds for the past week. Not Covid. Probably not the flu either. No fever. But: severe cough, sore throat, sinus congestion, malaise. Plus the usual weird dreams I always get when I’m sick. Does anyone else experience this? Really bizarre.
In the midst of z pac regimen now, seems to be helping. Returning to work tomorrow.
Ugly cough here since early October! Not COVID, and fortunately not too debilitating except for the (really very ugly) cough and some malaise, but jeepers. All symptoms except for the cough have been gone for weeks, and I can’t imagine I’m still contagious, but the cough has hung on and has definitely gotten in my way — until this week, I really couldn’t go out in public without horrifying people. Just in the past few days, it’s finally beginning to fade away. In the midst of it, Mr W had a cold/sore throat that knocked him flat for over a week — also not COVID but more serious than any cold he’s had in years. My daughter’s family has been fighting a similar cold/sore throat thing, apparently viral, for weeks, and my daughter says that’s been the case for all the families in her son’s elementary school class. Everybody seems to be sick, though not with COVID. Such fun!
So rather like a reflection of the United States itself then. Seems fitting, somehow.
Mrs Whatsit:
I had something similar a year ago. A low-grade fever lasted for 2 weeks, which seemed unusual, and the whole thing lasted about 5 weeks.
I guess I was a trend-setter.
Dwaz; sdferr:
Please see this.
5) Just got a text from a friend who is down & out with something. I hope it doesn’t last too long for them as I plan to visit them over Christmas. Maybe forcing a nation into a germophobe posture is not a good idea.
Otter: yep, I get the weird dreams also. It’s almost always fever related, and they can be repetitive. What’s more, when the fever breaks, it’s like flipping a switch, and I can hear it. At that instant the weird dreams stop.
Since Covid arrived, I have not had a single cold, flu or sniffle. I am double vaxxed (Moderna) but no boosters. I have been out in public the entire time, and never wear a mask unless forced to. I don’t know why I have been so fortunate, but I am.
Next Tuesday I go under the knife for my latest hernia repair. They’re warning me of two nights in, followed by a month of recovery. This is because, according to two different nurses, “You’re not 35 anymore, you know.” The surgery was postponed twice for issues with my heart, but that’s all clear now, and I only need worry that some bed shortage will get me shoved off the schedule.
Oh, and I’m part of a RSV vaccine study group. I don’t know if I got the placebo or the vaccine, and won’t for another year. Maybe it’s the magic combo!
Same here. Sore throat, cough, strange dreams.
Mrs. Whatsit reminds me of first grade. I moved to a new state about six weeks after the start of first grade. When I was delivered to my new classroom, I of course started by interrupting the teacher reading aloud. I was already uncomfortable and there was no desk for me, so I got sit in the desk a girl that was out sick. Sitting there in a strange school, surrounded by strangers and some unknown girl’s things listening to the strange teacher reading aloud from a book she was well into. The story was incomprehensible. It was “A Wrinkle in Time”. I was miserable.
the thing about Turley is he’ll say all this stuff, and then turn right around and vote dem. Guarantee he voted for Biden.
Good luck on your surgery, Gordon. I had a hernia surgery five years ago. It’s no picnic, but I’m still here. May the surgeon’s hands be sure and true.
Mrs. JJ had the bad head cold last month. Lasted three weeks. We tested for Covid. Nope. It was just persistent, but she finally (She doesn’t like to take medicines etc.) began using a Netti-pot twice day and Mucinex. It finally went away.
Here’s a link to another (important, I think) interview: Al Arabia with Benjamin Netanyahu — https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2022/12/15/Exclusive-The-Netanyahu-Doctrine-an-in-depth-regional-policy-interview
A small portion of which:
There’s a great deal more on this and on many other subjects as well. A brief look at what’s ahead, one might say.
I hope that this time the Iranians will finally be able to throw out the mullahs and resume more modern living. I’m not optimistic, but as you say, if this is the time, when the tipping point is reached it goes suddenly.
a skewed sense of priorities,
https://www.foxnews.com/us/afghan-soldier-who-fled-taliban-rule-get-to-us-arrested-texas-border
Best of luck on a speedy recovery, Gordon Scott!
Mr. Scott. Learned a hernia lesson fifty-plus years ago. Was in Valley Forge Army Hospital. Knew a major in there to get his nuts tightened. Being a field grade, he had a private room with a television.
The day after his op, watching, iirc, Ed Sullivan who had…a salute to the military with pretty much all comedians.
The maje was in delightful agony. Laugh and cry. Could have done with a couple more days’ rest.
Suggest you bring something like, I dunno, Wuthering Heights for the recovery period.
Gordon Scott, re yep, I get the weird dreams also. It’s almost always fever related, and they can be repetitive. What’s more, when the fever breaks, it’s like flipping a switch, and I can hear it. At that instant the weird dreams stop.
Exactly my typical experience, especially the repetitiveness of the dreams. It’s torture. Same goes for the dreams stopping suddenly when fever breaks or the sickness abates.
Thank you for your good wishes.
What the heck are digital trading cards? NFT? Is President Trump losing it?
Has anyone actually read the fine print at collecttrumpcards.com?
It’s a sweepstakes. Yes, you can buy Trump cards for $99 a pop. If you buy 45, you get 45 chances at a bunch of prizes, including golf, dinners, signed pictures etc. but you also get to have dinner with Donald Trump and 1,999 other people. So for $4500 you can have dinner with the President. The average Joe can have dinner at an exclusive resort with a former President.
How much do you suppose it costs to have dinner with Joe Biden? How much is a ticket to the super bowl?
Dinner with the President is a bargain.
You don’t have to buy a card to enter the sweepstakes, though there is a limit of 100 entries if you’re too cheap to pony up and buy some cards. The cards are guaranteed to have no more than 20 copies, and one of them will be a one of a kind card– which will no doubt make some money.
There are 44,000 cards available for purchase on collecttrumpcards.com. So 488 lucky persons and their spouses will be able to have dinner (assuming there are 488 Americans that have $9,000 to spend on dinner– with the President.
By the way. They are already sold out.
So all you stuffed shirt pompous types that think this is not dignified enough won’t be going to dinner with the President.
It’s still not too late to enter the sweepstakes though. Remember, no purchase necessary.
Yup, I caught a bad URI in Texas in early November, probably in the airport before I flew back to Philadelphia—first such sickness in three years, which was weird because we didn’t isolate at all in 2020 after March. Bad lingering cough and immediate laryngitis. Everyone who learned I was sick told me that everyone they knew was also sick, and with similar symptoms.
The cough is finally gone but my voice is cracked, just in time to NOT be able to sing Christmas carols.
Gordon, have you considered the Kugel Hernia Repair? It is a mesh placed into a small incision and then rolls out to provide support to the affected area. I had the procedure performed a number of years ago when I was 50. No hospital time. I drove myself to the clinic, underwent the procedure and drove home several hours later. As I was moving house at this time, I spent the remainder of the day packing and shifting boxes for the movers arriving the next day. The next day I flew to my new home with no complications. No, I am not an ironman – just a normal X-man! 🙂 The procedure worked great for me.
So all you stuffed shirt pompous types that think this is not dignified enough – Brian E
I might have been a little hyperbolic, but it was late. One of the main principles to understanding showman Trump is never believe anything critics initially say about Trump. During the seven years he’s been in the political sphere, the initial reaction/criticism has been shown to be wrong in nearly every instance.
Obviously the timing of an entirely legitimate statement about protecting free speech with the release of these cartoon art NFT’s seems ill advised. But the juxtaposition of the two created a furor that gave both free airtime.
President Biden is a caricature of a politician– struggling to find the exit to many stages.
President Trump puts out cartoon art.
Which one receives the criticism? Which one is more deleterious to the office of President?
I suspect Trump subscribes to the theory that all PR is good PR.
President Trump only lost the 2020 election because there appears to be no remedy to election cheating. (What category is it when election laws are ignored/not followed) Apparently, given how the courts have treated cases of ignoring law as not illegal there is therefore no penalty for the illegality.
Here we are in 2022 facing the same circumstances as occurred in 2020.
1. Ballots have no chain of custody. The transfer forms when the ballots were moved from one location to another weren’t filled out.
2. Signatures weren’t verified. The curing process wasn’t followed.
3. The officials in charge of the election didn’t know how many ballots they had– several days after the day of voting. This is related to not following the chain of custody.
4. Machines that should have been certified to work before the election, didn’t work properly on election day.
These can’t keep being swept aside as accidents. There can be no accidents when it comes to performing duties around elections. What the courts must decide is if the election process is so fragile that mistakes can occur, then the method of conducting the election must change.
When a court rules that a legislature has created legislative boundaries that are unfair the court takes over the process and creates new boundaries.
When the election process itself has created unfair elections, the court must take over the process and create new procedures.
Up until now the courts have apparently said the individual whose rights have been infringed must be identified. But that can’t happen with the system of voting that is now in place. Other than noting that an infraction of the law has occurred, there is no authority for the observer to stop the process at the only time in the process the ballot/vote can be identified.
Once the ballots are separated from the envelopes, there is no way to identity the ballot that was fraudulent. Until the courts decide that fraudulent envelopes have the same status as the ballots themselves, cheating/failing to follow election law is de facto legal.
All future elections will hinge on how the Arizona election is decided.
After all is said and done re: investigations of the Bidens, the punishments meted out will be a big fat zero.
Think the results of the Durham investigation; a total waste of time and $$$ , but plenty lucrative to those on the payroll of the “investigation.”
What I do not understand is if Joke Bidet was taking $$$$ from his son, these funds should either show up on his income tax returns or should be revealed in his investment portfolio (e.g., a big slug of cash deposited from an “unknown” source), or as some very large purchase / donation he made.
Maybe the new congress can subpoena his tax returns ???
I realize that for republicans to do this, it would require they have cohones, which is an impossibility.
Speaking of cohones – biological attributes that dumbpublicans lack – why do we hear nothing about republican support (money, legal, anything at all) for Kari Lake’s efforts to uncover the election machinations that occurred in the recent AZ elections??
Lastly, if Trump is finished, done for, why do the dems keep attacking him? You would think they would not bother with him anymore and instead begin dumpster diving seeking rubbish on DeSantis.
And if DeSantis chooses not to run for prez, and republican voters decide not to support Trump, then who else is there??
– j e in the first comment – good list
– Brian E wrote: “All future elections will hinge on how the Arizona election is decided.” I fear you may be right. Or perhaps the outrageousness of it all will rouse us from our slumber and propel us toward reversing the descent to tyranny. Let us hope. Spread the word. Stand firm.
– John Tyler — thumbs up.
I agree on all points. I try to imagine a conversation with some of my Democrat friends from my time in college (back when they seemed rational and reasonable). How can they support so many things that are morally unsupportable? What Jedi mind machinations can they use to manipulate themselves into supporting these horrors? I don’t think Kahneman’s work on our biases is sufficient to explain it. I fall back to the demonization explanation. If opponents are immoral and unworthy of respect and basic decency ….
I would love to interview (interrogate?) Althouse, Turley, Haidt, Berenson, the Weinstein brothers, Greenwald, Taibbi about the details of all the abuses. I’d be really curious why they can remain lefties while seeing it all. Why don’t they realize that the abuses are inextricably intertwined with Leftism?
The core of Leftism originates in the hubris to believe that they are capable and entitled to play God with the lives of others. Every part of the resulting evil flows from that rejection of humility, wisdom and moral self-awareness.
[I wasn’t convinced when I first read Horowitz’ statement that the only difference between liberals and communists is in the speed with which the end result is reached. I thought that might be unfair to liberals. Years later, I realize he is correct. Liberals just aren’t willing to acknowledge the inevitable result of starting on a path that rejects liberty and embraces the use of force to dictate to people.]
Brian E:
The problem with the cards is that Trump hyped the announcement in advance as something huge and important. That’s what made it seem ludicrous to people when he actually announced what he meant. His fans were speculating on things like that he was going to run for Speaker, and it turned out to be the trading cards instead.
This fan has learned to temper anything President Trump does/accused of doing for at least 24 hours. Trump got lots of free exposure in 2016 as a novelty. Most on the left didn’t think he could win.
The left learned how to target him in 2020.
He can’t expect any positive pr from the legacy media. It’s unfortunate he can’t expect any from the conservative media either. I understand the need to tarnish the President. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
You remained neutral about the story, to your credit. It’s one thing to be skeptical or puzzled or even dismissive because the President doesn’t act in what is considered traditionally “presidential manner”.
It’s OK for a former president to sell himself for $500,000 per speech. That’s apparently “presidential”.
This is the sort of story, on RedState, that raised my blood pressure. I understand that a battle is going on to tarnish Trump. That’s politics. This wasn’t billed as an opinion piece.
“What on Earth Was Trump Thinking With ‘Trump Digital Trading Cards’?” by Mike Miller
“Look, I don’t know what Donald Trump is trying to accomplish with his “Trump Digital Trading Cards,” but I do know P.T. Barnum ain’t got nothin’ on The Donald. I mean we’re talking MyPillow dude Mike Lindell-quality stuff, here.”…..”Sorry, Trump loyalists, but this is as pathetic as it is hilarious.
If you don’t know, why don’t you find out?
Yes Donald Trump is a showman. That’s not going to change.
The dismissive attitude of Mike Lindell is disgusting. He created an American product, employing 1,500 people and his entrepreneurship has created a net worth over $300 million. He’s fighting for conservative values. What has Mike Miller done besides snark?
But had Miller bothered to look at the website, he would see it is a sweepstakes, that doesn’t require a purchase to enter. And farther down the list of prizes he would have seen this:
Guaranteed Redemption Item Description: One (1) ticket to a 2,000-person President Trump gala dinner, at a location, date, and time to be determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion
Minimum Purchase Requirements: 45 Trump NFTs
It took less than a day to sell the 44,000 digital “cards”. I suspect most were sold to people that wanted to have dinner with the President.
If you go on a website where NFT’s are sold, some of the cards are already trading for nearly $200.
The digital card website makes it very clear these aren’t being offered as an investment, but what makes anything valuable in life is demand vs. scarcity. Would I buy them? No, but then I didn’t buy Bitcoin when it started either.
The artwork is good and the cards are funny.
Neo,
Another that gets my dander up.
The condescension that selling pillows directly or whimsical trading cards are somehow beneath respect.
Disgusting.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603857534737072128
Neo,
Also this by Bonchie at Red State.
“Still, when Trump puts his name on something, he’s responsible for it, and this feels a bit much. Serious presidential campaigns that want to help their party don’t introduce grifting NFT scams meant to deprive dementia-ridden old ladies of their cash. I mean, I thought the Save America PAC’s fundraising tactics were bad, but holy cow, this is next level.
What a disgusting slur.
The Trumpcard website clearly states:
Trump Digital Trading Cards (NFTs) are intended as collectible items for individual enjoyment only, not for investment vehicles.
As I said previously, Trump cards are already selling for nearly $200 on the OpenSea website. Demand v. scarcity.
Brian E:
Yes, as usual, there’s a lot of over-the-top stuff about the cards or whatever Trump does. The problem with the cards, though – as I said – is the way Trump hyped the announcement ahead of time as though it was a big deal and something important and even perhaps serious (that’s what people thought, anyway). It’s not; it’s kind of funny and yet kind of tacky.
in re the Trump Cards – am I the only one thinking that this is a great way to build The Donald’s warchest without running afoul of campaign contribution limits?
You’re not donating to a candidate – you’re just buying merch!
And this isn’t nearly as tacky as Obama’s interview with the lady who bathed in cereal and milk.
https://jezebel.com/watch-the-woman-who-ate-cereal-out-of-a-bathtub-intervi-1681195179
Saw something that suggested that the hype was to make sure their infrastructure came under heavy attack and is robust enough for what comes next. In other words, bait.