March 05, 2024
Daily Tech News 5 March 2024
Top Story
- Apple has launched the new M3 Macbook Air, starting at $1099. (AnandTech)
For that price you get 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD, neither of which can be upgraded. Apple would pay less than $10 for each of those components.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (253) | Trackbacks (Suck)
March 04, 2024
Monday Overnight Open Thread (3/4/24)
***
The Quotes & Tweets of The Day
Quote I BIG news (ignored by media): DC Circuit UNANIMOUSLY rules that Biden DOJ got much longer sentences for J6 defendants than allowed under law. Opinion authored by an Obama appointee & joined by another Obama appointee. Biden DOJ is the MOST partisan & political DOJ in history. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Quote II “As alleged, Mr. Slater, an Air Force civilian employee and retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, knowingly transmitted classified national defense information to another person in blatant disregard for the security of his country and his oath to safeguard its secrets,” Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Matthew G. Olsen Knowingly transmitting classified information to an unauthorized individual should be treated with a quick case of acute lead poisoning. It is treason.
Quote III “We should have stopped saying ‘STEM’ years ago [because] it inappropriately conflates quite different fields. While a college degree will substantially increase your income, some fields are wiser choices than others.” R. Scott Crichlow, a political scientist and faculty senator at West Virginia University, which recently gutted its humanities programs Had the Smoking Nazis not won these grads could have asked their customers if they wanted Smoking or Non along with the following phrase, "Care to supersize that meal?
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:59 PM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Take a Load Off Cafe
Utah
artist unknown. Found at @roamtheplanet
Utah
artist unknown. Found at @roamtheplanet
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:38 PM | Comments (231) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Trump Co-Defendants Inform Judge That They Have a Witness Who Will Contradict Terrence Bradley's Claims About "Not Remembering" Any Details About the Fani-Sweetdick Affair
This rebuttal witness will claim she heard Terrence Bradley talking about it a lot.
She will also testify -- if allowed to -- that Fani Willis warned her staff to not talk to anyone asking questions about her. I know the left always claims "witness tampering!" when Trump even insults someone publicly who's testifying against him. So what's this, then?
Nathan Wade's former law partner made statements on the witness stand that directly contradicted "numerous" conversations he had in private, according to a new Monday court filing. Wade's former law partner Terrence Bradley testified last week that he did "not recall" the answers to most questions posed by defense attorneys, including when the relationship between Willis and Wade began. However, Trump co-defendant David Shafer's attorneys informed the judge Monday that they planned to submit the testimony of a new witness that would seemingly contradict Bradley's testimony, should the court re-open the evidence on the motion to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The witness, Co-Chief Deputy for the Cobb County District Attorney's Office Cindi Lee Yeager, says she spoke with Bradley on a number of occasions between August 2023 and January 2024 about Willis and Wade, according to a proposed testimony. "Ms. Yeager watched Mr. Bradley's testimony before the Court and became concerned as a result of the fact that what Mr. Bradley testified to on the witness stand was directly contrary to what Mr. Bradley had told Ms. Yeager in person," the filing states. Yeager claims Bradley told her Willis and Wade began their relationship around when they met at a 2019 Municipal Court Continuing Legal Education Conference and had "definitively begun" a relationship by the time Willis was running for district attorney. "Mr. Bradley stated that he had personal knowledge of the relationship between Mr. Wade and District Attorney Willis, and included details regarding the use of Ms. Robin Yeartie's apartment and other meetings prior to November 2021," the filing states. She stated that Bradley did not begin representing Wade in his divorce until November 2021.
The judge has closed the evidentiary phase of the trial so this witness will only testify if he permits it. He previously refused to re-open the evidentiary phase, saying he might have enough information already to rule on the case. Unrelated: The New York Times/Sienna poll also is filled with bad news for Biden.
Yeager's proposed testimony also states that she was present in the room when Bradley received a phone call from Willis in September 2023, which was in response to an article published about how much Wade's law partners had been paid by the county. "They are coming after us," Yeager reportedly heard Willis say. "You don't need to talk to them about anything about us."
Trump is making inroads with Latinexes and blackexes, and also with non-college-educated non-whites.
The poll, published by The New York Times and Siena College, is considered to be the #1 overall poll out of more than several hundred, according to 538's pollster ratings. The overwhelming majority of respondents -- 62% of men and 68% of women -- said that the U.S. was headed in the "wrong direction" under Biden. If the 2024 presidential election were held today, 48% said that they would vote for former President Donald Trump while only 43% said that they would vote for Biden; 48% said that they believe that Trump will win while only 39% said that they believe Biden will win. Only 18% said that Biden's policies helped them personally and 43% said that his policies hurt them personally while 40% said that Trump's policies helped them personally and only 25% said that Trump's policies hurt them personally.
Trump led Biden by 13 points with white voters and by 6 points with Latino voters.What?
Biden's share of the black vote decreased by roughly 20% compared to how he performed in 2020, falling to 66%. ... When asked how they felt about Biden's job performance, 17% strongly approve, 19% somewhat approve, 14% somewhat disapprove, and 47% strongly disapproved -- leading to a -25% net approval rating. Trump's net favorability rating was -10% while Biden's was -21%. Vice President Kamala Harris had a -19% net approval rating.In addition, Biden won non-whites without a college degree (working class minorities) by almost fifty points in 2020. (Supposedly.) And now? He's winning them by six.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:30 PM | Comments (185) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Claim: New CNN CEO May Can High-Dollar, Low-Impact Money Sinks Like Anderson Cooper and Fake Jake Tapper
I previously mentioned this general story. But the reporting there was that CNN would likely pressure its Million Dollar Failures to voluntarily reduce their salaries.
This article claims he's looking to "axe" CNN's gold-plated dog turds.Big-bucks talent will become history at CNN as the spiraling network's new honcho slashes budgets and takes aim at anxious anchors with oversized salaries, insiders say. New CEO Mark Thompson is preparing ruthless cuts to remake the network as ratings plunge -- leaving Anderson Cooper, Chris Wallace, Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper facing dates with the axman, a source says. "Anderson knows he's on the chopping block because he makes a whopping $20 million a year. He's already started looking for a new gig!" a network insider exclusively tells In Touch. "Chris Wallace takes $8 million and figures he's a likely target, too!"There's a well-trafficked rumor that Arnold Schwarzenegger played a huge prank on Sylvester Stallone. The two had big egos and were in a big competition for box office supremacy in the mid-late eighties. The rumor goes that Schwarzenegger deliberately leaked the lie that he was extremely interested in a script called Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! Stallone heard this, and then bought the rights to the script. The film went on to bomb. I don't know if that's true, but I'm pretty sure Fox News pulled a Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! with Chris Wallace and CNN.
This article uses more exclamation points than I usually see in a credible news report. This is interesting: The report claim that the Mark Thompson is looking to replace his Million Dollar Failures with people who can actually draw an audience:
Insiders say other network favorites -- including $15 million man Blitzer and $8 million gent Tapper -- are also bracing for the boot!
Is this true? Well, CNN's ratings are crap, of course. And Discovery-Warner head David Zaslav is looking to sell off parts of his ungainly media conglomerate. He's trying to cut the dysfunction out of CNN to make it an attractive buy for some other company. I guess he's trying to pull a Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! with CNN. But first he has to make it look like not-such-a-basketcase.
Sources say he has no use for the star system and the hefty salaries that come with it. He's reportedly seeking to replace marquee names with talent who built their audiences on social media -- including former FOX and NBC anchor Megyn Kelly, who has 1.72 million subscribers on YouTube.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:30 PM | Comments (260) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Former Biden Crime Family Associate: Biden Told Hunter's Chinese and Russian "Business" Partners, "Be Good To My Boy"
You know what I mean by "Be good to my boy," right?
Newsmax:
And I'm sure this is no big deal and totally routine but Hunter Biden met with "the f***ing spy chief in China," as Hunter Biden called him. This according to Jim Biden. The meeting with Patrick Ho isn't new news but some of these details are new:
The transcript of a House impeachment inquiry interview with a jailed former business associate of Hunter Biden sheds light on the Biden family's alleged foreign influence-peddling operation, including the "Biden lift" that tied access to now-President Joe Biden. Jason Galanis' transcribed Feb. 23 interview under oath exposes how the Biden family allegedly capitalized on then-Vice President Biden's high office with the "goal" of raking in "billions, not millions," including the now-famous incident of Joe Biden telling Russian business clients to "be good to my boy." "Our goal -- that is, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, and myself -- was to make billions, not millions," Galanis said in his opening statement to the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means impeachment inquiry investigators, according to the transcript obtained Monday by Newsmax. As multiple business associates have stated publicly and privately for years, the entire value add of Hunter Biden was his family name and his access to his father, which Galanis called the "Biden lift." The transactions under investigation, as Galanis testified, tie foreign influence peddling by the Bidens to business with Russia, China, and former Soviet Union nation Kazakhstan. Access to Joe Biden came with an $18 million business transaction but the ties to China and Biden was at the heart deal, according to Galanis. "The point was less the money and more the Chinese participation," Galanis told investigators in the interview (page 115 of the transcript). "The exchange, the quid pro quo, if you would, was if they invest in us, our financial platform gets bigger, more solidified. They get the benefit of Vice President Biden when he exits office to sit on their board. Both parties get something in the exchange. Now that was what was intended." Along with the influence-peddling allegations, Galanis testified Hunter Biden called his father and used his father to close deals with the Chinese and Russians, evidence the impeachment inquiry can use to pin knowledge of his son's business dealings on the sitting president. President Biden has long denied knowledge of what business his son was conducting, and the White House still calls the impeachment baseless and the allegations of the president's ties to Hunter Biden to be a conspiracy theory. "I was present when Hunter called his father on a cellphone and put the call on speaker," Galanis said in his opening statement, noting Rosemont Seneca business ties to the wife of the late former Moscow mayor, according to the transcript. "Present for the call were Yelena Baturina, an investor in Rosemont projects; her husband Yuri, and the former mayor of Moscow; and Devon Archer." Galanis detailed a May 4, 2014, call between Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden, giving an example of the knowledge of the foreign influence peddling. "We were told to go to an area of the restaurant to gather because Hunter was going to call his father," Galanis said. "Hunter called his father, said, 'Hello,' and 'Hold on, Pops,' then put the call on speaker phone and said, 'I'm here with our friends I told you were coming to town, and we wanted to say hello.' "The vice president said, 'hello,' and some pleasantries, 'Hope you had safe travels,' and seemed like he wanted to bring the call to an end by saying, 'OK you be good to my boy.' "Hunter responded by saying, 'Everything is good, and we're moving ahead.'" The call "stunned" Galanis, showing how quickly Hunter Biden can get his father on the phone with foreign business operations.
In a congressional deposition last month, Jim Biden said he accompanied Hunter Biden to Hong Kong in September 2017 to meet with Patrick Ho, an executive with Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy. Weeks earlier, CEFC China Energy paid Hunter and Jim Biden $5 million as part of a joint venture to find investments for the Chinese firm. The Biden family's arrangement with CEFC China Energy has stoked national security concerns because of the Chinese firm's links to Chinese military intelligence. Middlemen for CEFC China Energy approached Hunter Biden in 2015, when his father was vice president, about potential business deals. According to Jim Biden, he and Hunter Biden had a "pleasant" lunch in Hong Kong with Ho, who also served as head of the China Energy Fund Committee, a think tank funded by CEFC China Energy. At the end of the meeting, Ho asked to meet alone with Hunter Biden, according to Uncle Jim. "Ho said, 'Can I borrow Hunter for, you know, a half-hour? We're going to go in the next room,'" said Jim Biden, who claimed ignorance about what his nephew discussed behind closed doors. Biden's testimony is likely to raise questions about Hunter's previously unknown interaction with a man he has described as "the f--ing spy chief of China." Hunter Biden made that remark about Ho in an audio recording dated May 11, 2018. Just two months after Hunter Biden's secret conclave with Ho, federal prosecutors in New York indicted Ho on charges that he offered bribes to African officials to obtain oil rights for CEFC China Energy during a meeting at the UN General Assembly in 2014.Ho was bribing African officials to get energy deals, but there's no way he would ever bribe American officials.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:37 PM | Comments (157) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Tony Bobulinski Sues Madison Cornbread for Defaming Him by Falsely Claiming He Was Involved In "Shady Business Dealings"
Note that some of you might know Madison Cornbread by her future OnlyFans handle, Cassidy Hutchinson.
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski is suing ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson for implying he was involved in a "shady business dealing" with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows before the 2020 election, The Post has exclusively learned. Attorneys for Bobulinski filed a defamation lawsuit in Georgia federal court Monday, alleging Hutchinson "chose to viciously defame" the "decorated Navy veteran" in her 2023 tell-all book about her time as Meadows' assistant. The suit accuses Hutchinson of lying about a meeting between Bobulinski and Meadows at a Trump campaign rally in Rome, Ga., on Nov. 1, 2020, "dishonestly portraying it to be unethical and, possibly, illegal." It asks for a retraction and an award of $10 million in damages for harming Bobulinski's reputation and making him fear for his personal safety. Hutchinson, a star witness for the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, made headlines in June 2022 when she claimed President Donald Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his SUV and drive up to join his supporters at the Capitol. That purported incident, which Hutchinson said was relayed to her by a White House official, was disputed by the official, a Secret Service agent in the SUV at the time, and the driver. Bobulinski's attorneys, in a letter to Hutchinson's counsel, say their client has every right to expect compensation from Ms. Hutchinson for the damages but will forgo the money if she donates 20% of her book advance to a children's hospital.She's a stupid idiot Social Media Thot who is desperately attempting to extend her 15 minutes of almost-fame. All she "knows" is third-hand gossip -- "and then Muffy said that Buffy had heard from Biff something to the effect of Trump grabbed the wheel of the SUV or something." But she presents these unvetted, unsourced defamations as facts for the leftwing media. She needs to keep coming up with more fragmentary gossip, because, otherwise, why would anyone put her on TV? She is obviously stone-stupid. But she desperately, desperately wants to be TV Personality. What else does she have to offer? Her looks are mid. She's Cheesecake Factory 5, maybe a soft 6 if she'll go into the Changing Station Bathroom with you. I don't know why Tony Bobulinski allowed her such an easy escape hatch. No mercy for Thots.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:41 PM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)
New CBS Poll Finds 52% of Likely Voters Support Trump
Fox News Also Shows Trump with a 49-47 Lead
Looking back at the Trump economy, 65% said it was good, and 28% said it was bad. That contrasts with their evaluation of Biden's economy: 38% claim the current economy is good, while 59% accurately and honestly rate it as bad. Looking back at the Trump presidency, 46% say it was excellent or good. 53% say it was fair or poor. Biden fares much worse: 33% say it's excellent or good, and 67% say it is fair or poor. Trump wins on a question that Democrats used to routinely beat Republican on: Whether a candidate "fights for people like you." 48% say Trump fights for people like themselves; only 42% say that about Biden. 63% say that Trump "has a vision for the country." Only 50% will admit that Biden does (and that vision is finish turning America into a third-world shithole). The Democrat Media's main attack on Trump is failing, too. Only 44% say that Trump "attacked our democracy" by staying in office by illegal means. 56% say he didn't -- 35% say he did try to stay in office, but via legal means, and 21% say he didn't try to stay in office. On illegal immigration -- which, per Gallup, 86% of the public say is either an "important" or a "critical" issue -- Trump wins again. 50% say that illegal immigration will increase under Biden, and only 22% lie and claim that it will fall. Whereas 72% of respondents say illegal immigration will decrease under Trump -- a mere 9% of people lie and claim that Trump will increase illegal immigration. It is so preposterous that Trump will increase illegal immigration that this finding tells us that 9% of the public flat-out lie to pollsters in order to shape public opinion through their stupid answers. Trump wins the battle of physical health and cognitive ability:
Biden is now viewed less favorably than Trump:
Fox News Also Shows Trump with a 49-47 Lead
Hat tip Hot Air, which in turn was alerted to the polls by Rich Lowry. Regarding the Fox News finding that 45% say that Trump's policies helped them, and 48% saying Biden's policies hurt them, he asks "How does Biden survive this?"
Which is exactly what Democrats are lamenting right now:CBS presents its findings in bar graph form. I don't feel like snapshotting fifteen bar graphs, so here are the results written in simple text:
As Super Tuesday makes an historic rematch all but official, voters are comparing not just two presidents, but two presidencies. And right now former President Donald Trump emerges from that comparison as the frontrunner. He leads President Biden by four points nationally, his largest lead to date. Here's why: Voters recall the economy under Trump more fondly than they rate the economy now. While neither gets great marks, voters today look back on Trump's presidency with relatively better retrospective ratings than they'd rate Joe Biden's presidency so far. (For the record, in 2019 people did indeed rate the economy well, but views cratered in Trump's last year in office, during the pandemic.) This is the case, despite the fact that views of today's economy keep inching up. That's not helping Mr. Biden yet, at least not compared to Trump. This is partly because Mr. Biden's policies are expected to cause price increases and Republicans overwhelmingly say they expect lower prices if Trump is elected. This is part of a larger dynamic: Some of Mr. Biden's polling deficits come from his own Democratic base being relatively more critical of him. Twice as many Democrats call Biden's presidency fair or poor than Republicans describe Trump's presidency that way.
Looking back at the Trump economy, 65% said it was good, and 28% said it was bad. That contrasts with their evaluation of Biden's economy: 38% claim the current economy is good, while 59% accurately and honestly rate it as bad. Looking back at the Trump presidency, 46% say it was excellent or good. 53% say it was fair or poor. Biden fares much worse: 33% say it's excellent or good, and 67% say it is fair or poor. Trump wins on a question that Democrats used to routinely beat Republican on: Whether a candidate "fights for people like you." 48% say Trump fights for people like themselves; only 42% say that about Biden. 63% say that Trump "has a vision for the country." Only 50% will admit that Biden does (and that vision is finish turning America into a third-world shithole). The Democrat Media's main attack on Trump is failing, too. Only 44% say that Trump "attacked our democracy" by staying in office by illegal means. 56% say he didn't -- 35% say he did try to stay in office, but via legal means, and 21% say he didn't try to stay in office. On illegal immigration -- which, per Gallup, 86% of the public say is either an "important" or a "critical" issue -- Trump wins again. 50% say that illegal immigration will increase under Biden, and only 22% lie and claim that it will fall. Whereas 72% of respondents say illegal immigration will decrease under Trump -- a mere 9% of people lie and claim that Trump will increase illegal immigration. It is so preposterous that Trump will increase illegal immigration that this finding tells us that 9% of the public flat-out lie to pollsters in order to shape public opinion through their stupid answers. Trump wins the battle of physical health and cognitive ability:
With eight months until Election Day, former President Trump carries voters who say either the economy or immigration is their priority voting issue, and this edge on the top two issues gives the Republican frontrunner a 2-point advantage over current President Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup. The poll also shows Nikki Haley, Trump's last-standing Republican primary challenger, with an 8-point lead over Biden.The liberals at Fox News are still pushing Nikki Haley. That's adorable.
One worry for Trump is that independents actually break for Biden by +8 points.
Additionally, third-party candidates continue to draw from each major party candidate in possible 5-way ballots. That's according to the latest Fox News Poll released Sunday. In a potential rematch, the survey finds Trump receives 49% support while Biden gets 47%. That's pretty much where it's been since September. Trump's advantage is within the margin of sampling error. Biden was ahead in August by 3 points, the first time the 2024 matchup was tested (44% Biden, 41% Trump), and by one point in October (49%-48%) -- both times within the margin of error. Trump's advantage comes from record or near-record support among key Democratic groups, while maintaining strong support among his own constituencies.
For instance, 28% of Black voters support Trump in the head-to-head against Biden, 7 times as many as supported him four years ago (4% in February 2020). In addition, Trump has significant support among voters under age 30 (51%) and Democrats (8%), with near-record support among Hispanics (48%) and suburban women (43%). Some of Trump's strongest groups are White evangelical Christians (68%), White men without a college degree (64%), and rural voters (60%), while for Biden it's Black voters (66%), urban voters (59%), and college graduates (57%).
In a potential 5-way race, Trump (41%) remains ahead of Biden (38%), with both losing support to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (13%), Cornel West (3%), and Jill Stein (2%). The 5-way is less favorable for Haley, as she loses her lead to Biden and barely edges out Kennedy: 35% Biden, 28% Haley, 24% Kennedy, 5% West, and 2% Stein. Haley's woes come from a split among Trump supporters and MAGA Republicans. Only 45% of Trump supporters back Haley, while 38% back Kennedy. It's a similar story among MAGA supporters, as 49% of them go for Haley and 37% for Kennedy.
Biden is now viewed less favorably than Trump:
Trump wins on most major issues -- except for abortion, which is a potent factor in favor of Biden:
A large part of Biden's success in 2020 was that he had a considerable favorability advantage over Trump, but that has disappeared. His favorable rating went from being net positive by 4 points in February 2020 to net negative by 18 points today. But Trump's ratings have only shifted a few points, from -11 to -14 today.
This is extremely important: Voters now say that Trump's policies helped them, and Biden's policies hurt them:
Economy voters back Trump by a 14-point margin. Among abortion voters, Biden beats Trump handily (+56 points), while immigration voters resoundingly go for Trump (+70). The top issue among Democrats and independents is the economy, while Republicans split between the economy and immigration....
Overall, 42% approve of the job Biden is doing and 58% disapprove, which is about where the results were in December, but is far below where he was near the start of his term (54% approve-43% disapprove in April 2021). Compared to where recent former presidents were at this time in their presidency, Biden's 42% job approval is below his predecessors. At the start of their re-election years, Trump was at 45% approval in 2020, Obama 45% in 2012, and Bush 53% in 2004. Trump is the only incumbent who wasn't re-elected. .
So how does Biden survive that? Might be time for another pandemic!
In hindsight, voters are almost twice as likely to say Trump's policies helped (45%) their family during his presidency than say Biden's are helping them now (25%). In May 2019, only 32% said Trump's policies helped them. Yet when looking back at that time, 45% now say they helped. That increase comes not only from a 12-point surge among Republicans, but from his "helped" numbers doubling among Democrats (+and independents (+15) from four years ago. Meanwhile, just a quarter of voters today feel Biden's policies are helping them, as almost half say they are hurting (48%) and another quarter (27%) say they don't make a difference.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:42 PM | Comments (401) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Federal Appeals Court Okays Texas' Law Allowing the Arrest and Jailing of Illegal Aliens
Greg AbbottTexas passed a law making the crime of illegal entry into the US a Texas crime in addition to a federal one. This gives Texas law enforcement the right to enforce this Texas law, even if Biden decides he's a King and can unilaterally repeal the federal law. A federal appeals court has blessed the law. CNN holds out hope:
@GregAbbott_TX BREAKING HUGE NEWS Federal appeals court allows Texas immigration law to take effect. Law enforcement officers in Texas are now authorized to arrest & jail any illegal immigrants crossing the border.
Oh, no!!!
Federal appeals court to allow controversial Texas immigration law to take effect, if SCOTUS doesn't intervene A federal appeals court granted a temporary stay of a lower court's decision to block the enforcement of a controversial Texas immigration law, paving the way for it to go into effect this week if the Supreme Court doesn't intervene. Last week, a federal judge in Austin, Texas, blocked the state government from implementing Senate Bill 4, which would allow state law enforcement authorities to arrest and detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally. Judge David Alan Ezra wrote in his Thursday decision to halt the law that "If allowed to proceed, SB 4 could open the door to each state passing its own version of immigration laws."
I still do not expect this law to survive in the Supreme Court.
Texas appealed the ruling, with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott saying, "We will not back down in our fight to protect our state -- and our nation -- from President Biden's border crisis." Over the weekend, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of Ezra's decision but put its ruling on hold for seven days, allowing time for the Biden administration to go to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court in 2012 largely struck down a similar measure in Arizona dubbed the "Show me your papers" law. The high court concluded the federal government had the power to block the law but let stand a controversial provision allowing police to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws if there is "reasonable suspicion" that the person is in the US illegally.But Texas is now citing the power of states to resist "invasion" as granting it the power to defend its own borders. The Supreme Court may buy into this claim, but I'm pessimistic.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (437) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Supreme Court Unanimously Strikes Down the Colorado Supreme Court's Juvenile Internet Trolling Disguised as a "Judicial Decision"
The three liberal Justices claimed that that goes to far, and that a state could rule that Trump (or any other office-seeker) was barred from seeking federal office if that person had been convicted under the federal law of "insurrection." That's not a crazy position to hold, but the justices in the majority probably resisted it, because they know the left is just spamming out one lawfare case after another, and if they left any wiggle room for another series of lawsuits to exclude Trump from the ballot, they'd leap to do that, and we'd have another nine months of actions to bar Trump from the ballot and a bunch more Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of these lawsuits. So the majority said, "No, that's enough of this bullshit. It ends now." See Ed Morrissey for some quotes from the majority and minority opinions. Here's Amy Coney Barrett, summing up:
The three liberal Justices claimed that that goes to far, and that a state could rule that Trump (or any other office-seeker) was barred from seeking federal office if that person had been convicted under the federal law of "insurrection." That's not a crazy position to hold, but the justices in the majority probably resisted it, because they know the left is just spamming out one lawfare case after another, and if they left any wiggle room for another series of lawsuits to exclude Trump from the ballot, they'd leap to do that, and we'd have another nine months of actions to bar Trump from the ballot and a bunch more Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of these lawsuits. So the majority said, "No, that's enough of this bullshit. It ends now." See Ed Morrissey for some quotes from the majority and minority opinions. Here's Amy Coney Barrett, summing up:
Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.Meanwhile, some reactions, and some failed predictions from the far left:
Ron Coleman"Per Curiam" means "by the court;" no single justice is writing it. A "per curiam" opinion represents the entire court. The ruling here is "per curiam," as it's unanimous.
@RonColeman PER CURIAM, bitches.
It's certainly gratifying that @dhillonlaw client Donald Trump won the Colorado case before the Supreme Court. (I was not part of the superb SCOTUS advocacy, but I was very involved in DJT's challenge to Colorado's actions which SCOTUS upheld.) HAVING SAID THIS, It is no less gratifying to witness the unanimous bench slap delivered to all the wise-ass academic, corporate media and Twitter constitutional law experts
J.D. VanceBecause our "expert class" has long been a pile of glittering mediocrities and on top of that, they all had untreated (and in fact reinforced and amplified) nervous breakdowns in 2016. They're fucking crazy in addition to being incompetent.
@JDVance1 Why did so many law professors fall for a garbage legal theory the Supreme Court just struck down unanimously?
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (635) | Trackbacks (Suck)
THE MORNING RANT: Rivian’s Trajectory Has Hit Its ‘Gradually, Then Suddenly’ Moment; Other EV Follies and Failures
*****
Ford Has Stopped Shipments of its Slow Selling EV Pickup Truck
Meanwhile, with Ford’s F150 Conflagration Lightning electric pickup trucks gathering dust at dealerships and piling up on storage lots all over Michigan, Ford has suddenly announced a suspension of new shipments of its unwanted EV. Automotive journalists have been peppering Ford with questions as to why this is happening. The answers have been either vague or humorous.
“Ford halted shipments of 2024 F-150 Lightning due to ‘headlight issues’” [Detroit Free Press – 02/26/2024]
“Headlight issues.” Uh huh. I believe that Ford’s failed Edsel venture was also due to “headlight issues.” Likewise, when Ford killed off the Mercury brand a few years ago it was due to “headlight issues.”
Electric vehicle startup Rivian Automotive reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $1.52 billion compared with a $1.72 billion loss in the same quarter a year earlier. Rivian said it doesn't expect production to increase significantly this year compared with last year. Rivian also said it is cutting staff. “Today, Rivian also announced it is reducing its salaried workforce by approximately 10 percent,” the company said.Rivian’s existing plant in Normal, IL has a manufacturing capacity of 150k units per year, but it manufactured just 57k vehicles in 2023, which was 7k more than there was demand for, since it only delivered 50k EVs.
The company was expected to produce 81,700 vehicles in 2024, according to eight analysts polled by Visible Alpha, Reuters said. Rivian produced 57,232 vehicles last year.At these sales and manufacturing volumes, there is zero need for a new factory in Georgia. Of course, at these sales volumes and losses per unit, there won’t be a going concern named Rivian that could even occupy a factory in Georgia.
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the September quarter were $7.94 billion, compared with $9.26 billion in the preceding three-month period.$7.9 billion won’t go far when you’re losing $5.4 billion per year. Unsurprisingly, Rivian’s stock price is hitting all time lows. It has plunged 91% since Rivian’s IPO in 2021. Elon Musk is helpfully offering his thoughts on Rivian’s death spiral… “Elon Musk says Rivian needs to ‘cut costs massively’ and its execs should ‘live in the factory’ for the struggling Tesla rival to survive” [Fortune – 02/22/2024] There is a lot of chatter about Rivian needing to be acquired by Tesla or a legacy automaker before it goes bankrupt, but Tesla doesn’t need a money-losing EV line, and GM and Ford are already proficient at losing money on EVs without Rivian in their stable of marques.
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (469) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Mid-Morning Art Thread
Katherine Schmidt
Katherine Schmidt
Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (523) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Morning Report — 3/4/24
Haley, 52, was declared the winner by the Associated Press after taking all 19 delegates at stake in a GOP primary that took place in one of the most heavily Democratic jurisdictions in the country. DC counts just 23,000 registered Republicans. . . Haley’s spokesperson noted that her victory makes her the first woman to win a Republican presidential primary contest in US history.Oh wow. Our first official uterus. Pfft.
Meanwhile, Trump, 77, seemed unbothered by his very first loss. He sarcastically congratulated the former South Carolina governor on being named “Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and DC insiders that want to protect the failed status quo” in a statement Sunday night.Indeed. Tomorrow is Super Tuesday where Trump is expected to sweep the 15 contests with ease. And yet, like radioactive crotch-rot, Haley still persists.
Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy both famously and infamously declared Nikki Haley to be “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels.” But Ramaswamy dropped out of the nomination race while former U.N. ambassador and mouthpiece for the Military Industrial Complex Haley is still in their pitching. But her game is not about winning but about making victory for former President Donald Trump as agonizing, painful and embarrassing as possible. Dick Cheney? Hell, Haley is another LIz Cheney – a RINO obsessed with taking down Trump and advancing the gilded but bloodied racket of the defense contractors who are committed to committing you and the United States to any foreign war anytime as long as they provide the munitions. The problem remains that ultimately, Americans will be providing their children, their husbands, their sons, their mothers and daughters to those foreign wars and they will be coming back in body bags or as wounded warriors who become homeless veterans. . . . . . As she prepares for another shellacking on Super Tuesday and having just lost the financial backing of the Koch Network, it is more than appropriate to wonder just why she is continuing to stay in a race that she cannot win and one in which her very presence guarantees her continued alienation from the Republican base. The answer is quite simple: she is not working for the Republican base but for the Deep State establishment that wants the United States to get back into the fight – any fight. She is laboring for a position and a voice in any potential Democratic administration that would more accurately reflect her views and opinions than any Trump administration would. She is fighting for her defense contractors who are scared as hell that Trump is going to win re-election and shut down this foreign war charade that continues to generate their billions and trillions of dollars in revenue. Haley is the last, best hope in the Republican Party for these amoral, uncaring monsters. Trump’s greatest failing as president was not that he was vindictive – though he certainly can be that in his personal life – but because he did not effectively assess the danger and insidious power of the intelligence, judicial and defense structures that immediately sought to remove Trump from power. He, much like President John F. Kennedy did, really thought the elected officials were in control and that the bureaucracy would actually listen when the commander-in-chief gave an order. That bureaucracy, like a massive barnacle on American democracy, did pay attention, but it did not obey. And when Trump declared that foreign wars were a terrible distraction for America, they decided it was time for him to go.Naturally, Icky Nikki is refusing to endorse/back Trump when he eventually wins the nomination. Look, to be fair, Trump back in 2016 refused to say he'd endorse anyone had he not come out on top but the venom and nastiness dripping from Haley's maw is reflective of our current situation which is radically different from even eight years ago. Trump was and still is running against the DC swamp. Why should he ever endorse any creature who might be a part of it, to whatever degree he/she is? Then again, too many of his own endorsements and staffing boners with RINO frauds and saboteurs played and likely will continue to play a major role in his eventual undoing. He better wise up to that, like yesterday. Of course, if he should overcome whatever cheat is coming our way next November, on top of the Stalinist show trials being hurled at him, the specter of organized and/or nod-and-a-wink approved massive street violence up to and including an attempt on Trump's life or even the military making a move against him – remember, the Junta, bureaucracy and its propaganda house organs have declared Trump and anyone who supports him to be literally Hitler and a threat to "our precious democracy" – looms large. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, the phrase "white Christian nationalist" is being flung from every network and in every newsroom that still pumps out electrons, picas and pixels. You laugh at the hyperbole at your own risk. I take these bastards now at their word because the 100-year grift parading around as American politics as usual has been exposed and is threatened by the MAGA movement. They'll stop at nothing to destroy him and us.
The real fear of the “white rural rage” Chicken Littles is not that rural Americans are a threat to “democracy” but rather that they provide an immovable bulwark against the Deep State’s “master plan” for a totalitarian super-State. All over the West, politicians and pundits continue to extol authoritarianism as “democratic” and denigrate self-government as “populist.” It’s absurdly Orwellian, of course, but since we live in the age of censorship, propaganda, and linguistic chicanery, these word games will continue. Somewhere in the pits of Hell, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao are eager to remind Klaus Schwab and all the other Western globalists how “democratic” their “rules-based international orders” are, too. The globalist authoritarians have instructed the commoners to stop eating meat. Rural Americans have said, “Nah, we’re good. We like steak.” The “new world order” folks have insisted that a great deal of speech must be censored in order to protect fragile adults from experiencing outbreaks of unapproved “hate.” Rural Americans have responded, “Suck it up, Buttercup. Maybe try listening to an opposing point of view sometime. It might just vaccinate you from the plague of groupthink.” The globo-Marxists have demanded that consumers hand over their keys to any car with an internal combustion engine. Rural Americans have laughingly replied, “Not only are we keeping every truck and tractor from the last century in a barn out back but also we can’t wait to buy some new all-terrain vehicles to ride through the backcountry.” Officials who betray their oaths to the Constitution have told law-abiding Americans that they have no right to own a gun. Rural Americans have calmly loaded their weapons in preparation for self-defense and whispered back, “Come and take it.” In disposition and beliefs, rural Americans are the natural “Minutemen” guarding American liberty. Ultimately, attacks against rural Americans — like the left’s attacks against Christians — are a wretched form of bigotry designed to spread the insidious idea that people who live outside city limits are subhuman. Because rural America is filled with resilient people who adamantly defend the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, it represents an antidote to the cancerous form of Marxist globalism killing cities across the country. Because rural America is filled with faithful people who are obedient to God’s will — and not D.C.’s — it remains a natural refuge for those immune from institutional brainwashing. Because rural America is blessed with an abundance of self-sufficient families, hard workers, and freethinkers, it provides a welcoming home for human liberty. For these reasons, aspiring totalitarians must destroy rural America if they are to have any chance at erecting a new system founded on censorship, surveillance, oppression, and tyranny. The problem for the Deep State is that rural Americans know what to do when the SHTF and, in fact, have been preparing all their lives. Mass psychological programs that dehumanize groups of people always precede State-engineered genocides. It is how cognitive warfare specialists pepper society with a preemptive rationale for why some people must be loaded onto boxcars and sent away for “re-education.” Newt Gingrich is certainly right: any nuclear war would be catastrophic. If we’re being honest, though, Americans must also worry about how the totalitarian left is following in the footsteps of Hitler’s Germany. Prepare your mind accordingly.Indeed.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- "Behind the casually venomous expression 'Christian nationalism' lies more than two centuries of ideological war between God-given liberty and state-controlled privileges."
Christian Nationalism: The American Revolution Versus the French Revolution
- Victor Davis Hanson: "If he can praise those he defeats, call for unity, and campaign in 50 states in non-Republican strongholds, then he can win—even despite the hatred of the left, the corruption of the media, the weaponization of the bureaucracy, and the eroding trust in the way we vote."
Gearing Up for ‘Biden’ Versus Trump: Not If, But When and How to Replace Biden
- Daniel Greenfield: "Democrats have become more fanatical about abortion even as it becomes less relevant in a country without marriages, children or even intimacy. The real threat to abortion isn’t coming from Republicans or the Supreme Court, but a society with no more babies to abort."
Abortion is Running Out of Babies
Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:06 AM | Comments (503) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 4 March 2024
Top Story
- The CDC has announced that COVID is basically the flu and should be treated as such at least unless and until a Republican gets elected. (Ars Technica)
Taking the official figures for what they are, COVID is around three times as dangerous as regular flu seasons. The last big flu pandemic in 1968 killed people faster than COVID despite the world having less than half the population it does now.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (129) | Trackbacks (Suck)
March 03, 2024
Sunday Overnight Open Thread (3/3/24)
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The Quotes of The Day
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The Hamsters were giving me issues earlier today. But, I was able to overcome those issues and give you the best comments from the best commenters in the entire world wide webz.
The Comments of The Week
Quote I "I really don't care for those windmills," the 71-year-old says. "I guess I wasn't brought up with that kind of society. Like 50 of 'em together? Who likes all that?" Sheila Wagoner of Keyser, West Virginia.
Quote II “We work very closely with state and local law enforcement to ensure that individuals who pose a threat to safety are indeed the highest priority.” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas
Quote III “Four hundred years of forced labor and never receiving any compensation for it. Now you have the gall to try and prosecute and charge taxes to the descendants of a broken people that you are responsible for causing the breakage.” Academy Award-nominated actor Terrence Howard
The Hamsters were giving me issues earlier today. But, I was able to overcome those issues and give you the best comments from the best commenters in the entire world wide webz.
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:59 PM | Comments (372) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Gun Thread: First March 2024 Edition!
A: No. With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
A: No. With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (320) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Food Thread: Don't Be Such A Sourpuss! 
Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (196) | Trackbacks (Suck)
First-World Problems...
Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (216) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Moral Equivalence Of The Left Is Structural, And Evil
Morality is a living, breathing, changing thing, and can be manipulated to accommodate the needs and desires of humanity. In fact, a moral imperative from one era can be flipped on its head as political needs change.
Sounds nuts, because it is. Morality is a fixed point in our world, and to treat it as a malleable political or philosophical tool is to reject the very point of it. Whether one accepts the source of that morality as God, or one simply accepts its existence, morality provides a powerful structure with which to navigate the world, and the assumption of a flexible moral structure leads to boundless evil. The Enlightenment may have accelerated our scientific inquiry and provided a structure for religious and intellectual freedom, but it also gave us a platform for moral relativism that perversely allows some to reject those freedoms in favor of a rigid orthodoxy of personal pleasure and the rejection of anything even remotely noble or edifying about the human condition. By rejecting the concept of God or religion as the source of a moral code, and replaced it with the historically shaky idea that man is perfectible by his own devices, we are confronted with things like abortion as practically a sacrament of the new-age religion of personal entitlement and pleasure. The idea of a good greater than oneself is relegated to some quaint and naive view of man that has no place in a modern world. Thus the idea of love of country, of respect for tradition, for honor, for care for one's fellow man is an anachronism. Just make sure that government is taking care of our access to personal pleasure, and it doesn't matter what else they do! 400 channels and endless entertainment on demand! So what if people who think differently are languishing in jail? So what if our country (what's that if not a cute and passé idea) is being overrun by looters and murderers intent upon taking what we have built? We can still get great Thai noodles delivered at 3:00am while we smoke high-quality legal marijuana! And that pesky fetus will be gone in a few days so we can get back to what feels good. Just make sure that those horrible religious people who believe in antiquated ideas like human life is precious stay out of our neighborhoods! Arrest them! We need to get to the next protest against Israel...you know, that tiny country borne out of the ashes of the Holocaust that simply wants to live in peace! They are occupiers or colonists or genocidal...or whatever...our Middle Eastern Studies instructor told us that! And let those illegals (what a mean word!) across the border. Give them food and clothing and money and plane tickets to everywhere. Well, except here. We don't really like them, so keep them in those horrid flyover states that don't even know how to make pour-over coffee! That silly talk about American Exceptionalism is so boring! Sure, I am making fun of the silliness of the intellectually flaccid soft left. But they are the useful idiots of the committed left that has been working assiduously for 100 years to undermine the foundations of America, and they are doing a great job. Maybe it's time to return to those supposedly dated concepts of Duty, Honor, Country. They worked for a very long time, and while our technological society is amazingly advanced, have we not regressed in other, more important things?Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (249) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 03-03-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
(HT: TRex)
(HT: TRex)
Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (310) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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