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Monday, December 23, 2024

Post #7059 M: Trump’s Bank Deregulation; How "Fact-Checking" Actually Works; Jonathan Turley Vs David Karpf on Free Speech, Musk, and X

 Quote of the Day

He left us and we rejoiced; 
then an even more unbearable person came.
Arabic proverb  

Trump’s Bank Deregulation

How "Fact-Checking" Actually Works

Jonathan Turley Vs David Karpf on Free Speech, Musk, and X

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Musical Interlude: Christmas 2024

Gene Autry - Up On The House Top (Ho Ho Ho)

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Post #7058 Social Media Digest

 Facebook

X/Twitter

Post #7057 M: 10 Great Career Options For The Unemployed Kamala Harris; McClanahan on Has the Republican Party Been Hollowed Out? ; GML on Scott Horton: Russia, Ukraine, and US Foreign Policy

 Quote of the Day

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, 
never regains its original dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

10 Great Career Options For The Unemployed Kamala Harris

McClanahan on Has the Republican Party Been Hollowed Out?

GML on Scott Horton: Russia, Ukraine, and US Foreign Policy

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall

Musical Interlude; Christmas 2024

Gene Autry - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Post #7056 J: Happy Winter Solstice!

 Pandemic Report

The latest CDC weekly stats:




There's still just a modest pickup to the winter surge with a pickup in test positivity rates and deaths. Vaccination rates remain disappointing; I think Chicago is at just 10%. There are  still some high profile infections, including Gov. Scott (R-VT). Just a reminder: with 2 holidays over the coming week and a half, travel and social gatherings are at risk.for infection.

Latest COVID news items include:

  • A 2020 paper published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID treatments has been retracted, a big deal in academic research
  • Life expectancy which dipped a couple of years during the pandemic has closed to within half a year of prepandemic highs..
  • "Molecular and cellular level research shows a sharp sex divide for long COVID—women are more vulnerable"
  • "How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic"
  • " 6% of US adults have long COVID, and many have reduced quality of life."
  • "1 in 5 adults with Long COVID struggle with daily activities"
  • "Breastfeeding after COVID-19 vaccination is safe, with minimal changes to milk composition"
  • Legal and political issues during the pandemic continue including
    • Eagles fumble COVID-19 coverage case as judge rules for insurer"
    • "Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots"
    • "Dutch official misquoted in article did not say COVID was a NATO operation"
    • "Nancy Pelosi Profited as Luxury Napa Resort Won COVID-19 Bailout"
  • "Review of US vaccine injury reimbursement program shows less than 3% of claims eligible for compensation"
  • Prosecution of COVID relief fraud and other crimes continue including

Other Notes

The blog readership is back to the recent normal pageviews. I expect to publish a couple of essays off the coming week and should easily surpass the 500 post goal this year. for a number of weeks on X I straggled to get a viral tweet/post (of 1k impressions) I got my second big one, this time for over 10K. Odd. you never can tell what will capture the attention of other X users. In this case, I debunked a claim that Rob Reiner would set himself on fire if Trump won the election. I 've gained a little surge of followers after being stuck under 50 for a while.

Well, after the Texas Longhorn's overtime loss in their first season SEC championship game (in overtime), Texas played Clemson in the home "wildcard" game in this new format of the college football playoff. Texas has one of the strongest, if not the strongest, defenses in college football. but it didn't look like it when Clemson chewed up half the clock on the opening touchdown drive. But Texas answered with a streak of scoring drives, largely on a great running game which went AWOL against Georgia. But after a pick-6 and resurgent Clemson offense in the second half and a sputtering Texas offense, Clemson seemed poised for a comeback in the fourth quarter when Texas stopped Clemson near the goal line and had a breakaway touchdown run.

There are certain tech workarounds I've discovered on my own. for instance I like to use Joplin to webclip things I'll clip posts for sources I use in my blogposts or transaction receipts.) But occasionally the extension fails in Chrome (the button to save does not appear). So, I used an old tech trick in this context: I'll toggle the extension on and off. A similar concept involves a "remove duplicate messages" add-on on freeware Thunderbird. (sometimes Thunderbird will hiccup and download messages again).. Every once in a while the add-on option disappears from the interface. i find that flicking the add-on odd and on plus restart Thunderbird will resolve the issue.

I'm getting increasingly annoyed at paywalls. For example i ran into 2 or 3 in compiling my COVID bullet lists above. I refuse to pay for the promotion of their content. A similar thing on X/Twitter, For instance, the WSJ was trending on a story that staff has been covering up Biden's aging/cognitive issues but when you click on the link you get a teaser lead-in and a hard sell to subscribe. ironically, i was one of the first paying customers (I think it cost about $49/year (not one of those gimmick teaser rates: they just kept raising the rate to a point too high)). WAPO did a similar thing. I always thought they should implement something like a nickel or dime per pageview but the idea I'm going to pay over $100 to see a single story is unrealistic.      

Amazon has mostly resolved my Prime membership refunds for memberships they canceled, the first when I didn't recognize the charge. I think they still owe me the sales tax on the first cancellation but that may be in process.  

Post #7055 M: How to reduce housing costs; Stossel on The White Pill: Big Government Can Be Defeated; How Court Historians Turn Political Villains into Heroes | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

 Quote of the Day

Everyone thinks of changing the world, 
but no one thinks of changing himself.
Count Leo Tolstoy  

How to reduce housing costs

Stossel on The White Pill: Big Government Can Be Defeated

How Court Historians Turn Political Villains into Heroes | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Steve Kelley via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Christmas 2024

NewSong - The Christmas Shoes

This song always gets me. I'll never forget the first time ii heard it. I was filling up a rental on a business trip in LA. i had to stop whay i was doing to finish listening to the song.

Friday, December 20, 2024

Post #7054 M: Creepy AI-powered Surveillance Cams in 5,000 Cities; The cruelty of Trump’s immigration policies; McClanahan on Is Biden the Pardon Master?

 Quote of the Day

The manner in which it is given 
is worth more than the gift.
Pierre Corneille

Creepy AI-powered Surveillance Cams in 5,000 Cities

The cruelty of Trump’s immigration policies

McClanahan on Is Biden the Pardon Master?

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Political Cartoon

courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Christmas 2024

Judy Garland, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Post #7053 M; Weekend Update; Stossel Interview: Lenore Skenazy; Yellen is sorry, Predicts financial crisis

Quote of the Day

Children are our most valuable natural resource.
Herbert Hoover  

Weekend Update

Stossel Interview: Lenore Skenazy

Yellen is sorry, Predicts financial crisis

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Political Cartoon


Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Christmas 2024

Pentatonix - Where Are You, Christmas? 

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Post #7052 Bad Elephant of the Year 2024


Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
        Former Rep Matt Gaetz



To readers it may seem I'm rerunning two of the past winners of my mock annual award of Republicans behaving badly for 2021.In fact. I was sorely tempted to add Lauren Boebert last year over the theater incident where she and her companion were thrown out for groping in a public place. I also came close to nominating Gaetz for last year's motion to strip McCarthy of the Speaker position basically freezing work in the House for nearly 3 weeks until Johnson's election.. There are multiple time mock award recipients such as Andrew Cuomo of my companion "Jackass of the Year'. And, of course, Trump has won multiple times (e.g., 2020, 2022), although I could have listed him for 9 consecutive years.

There were alternate candidates in consideration including Anthony D'Esposito (NY-4), recently defeated for reelection.. He also has had ethics charges against him, involving Clinton-like sexual harassment (whether or not voluntary), corruption and nepotism.

MTG in this case is being chosen for her role , taking advantage of a razor-thin majority (4 seats) in the House and liberalized rules for a motion to vacate the office,  to motion for removing Johnson out as Speaker. Greene was irate over Johnson allowing a vote on Ukraine aid, which she opposed in this case..She recruited more than enough votes (if it came to the motion--about 19. I think the Dems, hardly pro-Johnson. didn't want another weeks-long impasse of Republicans trying to steer a candidate through a fragmented caucus, joined the majority in tabling the motion. Oddly enough, Greene had been a McCarthy backer last year. The fact that MTG knew she was risking an indefinite freeze in all House activity over a narrow GOP majority is unforgivable.

My rationale for naming Trumpkin ally Matt Gaetz isn't related to the Speaker mess. Gaetz. Joel Greenberg, then a friend of Gaetz, was convicted by the feds of child sex trafficking and other offenses. Gaetz became the related focus of 2 cases, the Justice Department and the Houe Ethics Committee. A principal charge involved Gaetz allegedly having (compensated) sex with a 17-y3ar-old female minor (they supposedly crossed state lines making it a federal crime). 

In addition to the Justice Department probe, the House Ethics Committee has investigated similar allegations and subpoenaed testimony from the woman, who was a teen at the time, at the center of the investigation. The committee reportedly interviewed at least six different women who described attending parties where Gaetz was also present. At least one was under the age of 18 at the time and told House investigators that the then-congressman had sex with her, according to ABC News. 

Allegations surrounding Gaetz and sexual encounters with minors also came to light in a civil case brought by Florida lobbyist Chris Dorwoth, who had previously sued Greenberg and others in an effort to distance himself from the controversies involving Gaetz. Dorworth has since dropped the lawsuit, but in court filings made public earlier this year, three eyewitnesses testified that Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old woman minor at a July 2017 party hosted at Dorworth’s house that included “alcohol; cocaine; middle-aged men; and young attractive females,” one witness stated.   

 It should be noted noted the Justice Department dropped charges. Matt. of course, regards it as an exoneration, but according to other lawyers involved in the investigation:

[T]he investigation into Gaetz had stalled, according to attorneys who have represented witnesses and people who have been subpoenaed or have spoken to investigators. The attorneys briefed about aspects of the case said the probe stalled over concerns about the credibility of two key witnesses or a lack of direct evidence implicating Gaetz

The Justice Department likely felt there was insufficient evidence to win conviction, maybe a reasonable doubt that  Gaetz knew the age of the minor, there may be certain inconsistencies in witness testimonies, maybe Gaetz himself didn't hire the girl, etc. This doesn't mean Gaetz wasn't at the booze/cocaine/sex party or didn't have sex with a minor; they still had the burden of proof to convict beyond a reasonable doubt in a jury of Gaetz' peers.

The fact is Trump initially chose Gaetz to be his choice to be Attorney General, no doubt as a pit bull loyalist he wanted carry out his retribution in response to Russiagate, the criminal trials against him internal personnel running their own agenda, etc. Gaetz, of course, ardently defended Trump in the first/Ukraine impeachment  Gaetz was an appallingly bad choice. First, both he and Trump were personally vested in their encounters with the Justice Department. it is difficult to believe they would act with regard to the rule of law, independent of their experiences but Gaetz was manifestly unqualified. He has never been as much as a local prosecutor, never mind lead prosecutor on the state or federal level. Gaetz had a moral obligation to turn down the nomiation for multiple grounds 

Gaetz withdrew, basically at least 4 GOP Senators were unlikely to confirm (Alaska, Maine, Kentucky,  Utah) and he could only lose 3. He had resigned his House seat in the hopes of stopping a House ethics report. the Senate had asked for it but got pushback. oddly, as i write this, they've flipped and decided to release it; i've provided more detail in a recent essay.)

Post #7051 M: Why Politicians Love Tariffs; Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Cold Open ; 2025’s Federal Deficit May Be the Biggest Ever

 Quote of the Day

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics 
do not know what religion is.
Mohandas Gandhi  

Why Politicians Love Tariffs

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Cold Open 

No kidding; I was on X/Twitter at the time the killer was apprehended  and it was surreal with thousands of tweets saying stuff like 'Let the hot guy go!'

2025’s Federal Deficit May Be the Biggest Ever

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Tom Stiglich via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Christmas 2024

Leon Redbone & Zooey Deschanel - Baby, It's Cold Outside

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Post #7050 M: McClanahan on Krugmans' Funny Farewell; Why is American Healthcare so bad? ; Dumb BLEEP of the Week

 Quote of the Day

Half the world is composed of people 
who have something to say and can't, 
and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
Robert Frost  

McClanahan on Krugmans' Funny Farewell

Why is American Healthcare so bad?

Dumb BLEEP of the Week

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Christmas 2024 

Madonna - Santa Baby

Monday, December 16, 2024

Post #7049 Rant of the Day; Trump's Cabinet Choices

 To be honest, I wasn't thrilled with Trump's picks in his first term either. In particular an unorthodox pick of an oil executive as Secretary of State and for someone who ran on a somewhat isolationist America First foreign policy in fact, Trump also had 5 Cabinet picks rejected in his first term. only one was an initial pick, Andrew Puzder, for Secretary of Labor. The former restaurant operator (of fast food chains like Carl, Jr.) was dogged by worker group complaints and old stories of alleged spousal abuse.  He didn't have enough Senate votes. In early 2018 Trump fired his Veteran Affairs Secretary and replaced him with Ronny Jackson, the Physician to the President. Senators argued Jackson lacked managerial experience and there were some complaints from staffers at the White House. He eventually withdrew, probably unable to secure enough Senate votes. Defense Secretary Mattis did not agree with Trump's decisions to cut staffing in Syria and Afghanistan and Trump promoted Patrick Shanahan to replace him. Details emerged of old domestic violence allegations against other family members, and Shanahan withdrew. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats resigned in 2019, and Trump nominated Congressman John Ratcliffe to replace him. Ratcliffe ran into qualification issues and lackluster Senate support and withdrew but Trump resurrected his nomination a second time and prevailed.Finally , Finally,  Chad Wolf had been Acting Secretary of Homeland Security since 2019 and was formally nominated in Sept 2020 but the session expired without a floor vote. Trump resubmitted him in Jan. 2021, but when he rebuked Trump on J6, Trump withdrew him. Wolf resigned as acting head about a week later along with 2 other Cabinet secretaries, unhappy over J6. (You can see his Cabinet history here.)

Now, to provide some context, some 29 Cabinet picks have failed their (first) nomination, the majority of those withdrawn. The last one to fail a Senate vote was in the GHW Bush administration. 3 Presidents have at least 4 failed nominations; Tyler, Clinton, and Trump, Gaetz being Trump's latest. If you look at specific Cabinet posts, the ones that seem to cluster are: Defense, Attorney General, Treasury, Intelligence, Commerce, HHS, Veteran Affairs, Labor.

Hence, if I were looking at risk of nomination failure, I would thoroughly vet those first 4 posts, and also Secretary of State, given the centrality of POTUS' role in shaping foreign policy. I don't know his candidate lists or selection processes. There could be an idea, say, you want to reform an organization or an organizational culture, bringing in an outsider with out-of-the-box thinking can be a favorite. One example of this involves  Lou Gerstner was CEO Nabisco before IBM hired the cookie man as its CEO. I remember I had made one of my first stock transactions in my retirement account buying  IBM shares, not so surprising for a recent MIS professor. I thought I was buying the dip. Nope  I had caught a falling knife. Akers, the former CEO, was focuses on a path of divesting the company into separate units of types of technology, like chips, printers, storage, software, etc., i.e., "Baby Blues". Gerstner flipped this strategy on its head. He saw helping customers cope with integrating technologies was a competitive advantage service (including non-IBM products) was a growing business. In fact, in 2006 I worked for Applications on Demand, which basically provided  24x7 managed Oracle ERP applications and databases, in many cases hosted in IBM data centers, a variation of today's cloud computing. In context, IBM developed SQL, a now standardized language used to access and change objects in relational databases developed in products like IBM's DB/2, market leader Oracle RDBMS, and Microsoft SQL Server. I think IBM's market capitalization went up 6 fold until Gerstner retired in 2002 and yes, I made a nice profit off my long-underwater shares.

Maybe Trump had out-of-the-box thinking when he selected ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State in 2017. Maybe he was impressed by Tillerson's business negotiations with Russian entities. Trump undermined Tillerson from the start by alienating and bullying  allies while  embracing adversarial autocrats. Trump wanted to cut the State Department by a third and Tillerson implemented a hiring freeze. Morale in the department plummeted, and experienced talent left, which Trump saw as a feature not a bug, while he could scapegoat Tillerson for morale issues he himself caused. Somehow Tillerson lasted 14 months before Trump publicly fired him by a tweet, not directly. The relationship with Trump had deteriorated (see here), but, e,g., Trump was still calling Jong Un "Rocket Man": later Trump would flip his position and even steal souvenirs like letters and a cocktailnapkin among Presidential records. And how does he replace him? With his CIA director Pompeo. Who better aspires confidence like telling a diplomat "I know what you did last summer."?

Who would I prefer to be Secretary of State? There are answers to that. I would like to see someone with proven negotiation skills, international exposure (e.g., trade negotiations), broad familiarity with foreign affairs, and principled like Vance who resigned in the Carter Administration when Carter made a failed attempt to free the Iranian hostages using the military, undermining Vance's attempts to stitch together an economic response among allies as an alternative to military operations. Another example was former Dem nominee William Jennings Bryan who served under Wilson and opposed American intervention in WWI, resigning. I don't see Trump hiring anyone who is not a yes man. i just discussed how Tillerman wanted dialog with North Korea while Trump was bellicose and mocking its head of state. I would like to see some exposure to foreign service, international agreements (like free trade), maybe something like a US ambassador or envoy, including the United Nations, leadership in the State Department, etc.

Sen. Rubio, Trump's choice for Secretary of State, is pretty much a hawk/neo-con, he has been hawkish on Venezuela, Gaza via Israel, and Iran; Trump professes to be the peace President but has selected neo-cons/hawks like John Bolton in the past. Trump tries to justify it by saying that he likes to play good cop/bad cop (he plays the former, of course) and argues that the "bad cops" are effective at changing the status quo and taking things in the right direction. That comes across as a self-serving rationalization. In fact, Trump has been playing a bad cop on his own, threatening to cut off NATO protection to allies not spending enough on military spending and taking credit for any related spending. I think Trump's selections have set a negative tone for international partners and expectations. As a noninterventionist i would oppose Rubio. 

When I initially started  this essay, Trumpkin loyalist Matt Gaetz, the former high-profile extremist Florida Congressman (recall his feud with former Speaker McCarthy) was Trump's choice to be Attorney General. I tweeted on multiple occasions against this; Trump has repeatedly promised retribution against his prosecutions on J6 and classified documents, never mind Russiagate and what he terms a "politicized Justice system" under the Biden Administration. I've written a number of posts on Trump's egregious behavior and will not review it here, but on Russiagate, I think Trump publicly asking Russia's help in recovering Clinton's emails and having Junior meet with Russians looking for political dirt on Clinton were improper and contributed to speculations of collusion. His attempts to stop the Mueller investigation also contributed to the impression 'where there's smoke, there's fire'. Mueller was a rare widely respected/trusted Republican, and Trump only hurt himself by trying to intervene  instead of waiting confidently for the investigation to run its course.

As for J6, it was entirely illegal and improper to insert himself into state elections like Georgia's trying to flip results, to pressure Pence to illegally and unconstitutionally block official state elector votes to keep Biden's votes below the 270 electoral votes needed. As to the classified documents case, he had no rights  for the classified documents he stole, and he had no right to sidestep a lawful subpoena for the remaining classified documents. These were not fabricated charges. And you have no right to pursue reprisal prosecutions against prosecutors or Congressional investigators for doing their jobs.

But more specifically to Gaetz, he never served as a prosecutor on either the state or federal levels. There are also character issues such as the allegations he paid for and had sex with a 17-year-old minor. The House allegedly was in the process of finalizing/releasing the report when Gaetz resigned from Congress. In addition reportedly at least 5 Republican senators opposed his nomination: Collins, Murkowski, Curtis (Romney's successor), McConnell, and Mullin (OK) (the Senate has 53 Republicans, meaning Gaetz was mathematically eliminated because Vance (VP elect) needs 50 to vote in a full Senate.  So Gaetz withdrew (thank God).

Trump has named Pam Bondi, Florida's former AG, I don't object to her as much as Gaetz, but I loathed her overzealous enforcement of price-gouging laws, and I would prefer someone with former federal experience like ex-US Attorney Chris Christie.

The next one I particular oppose and have frequently tweeted against unqualified Pete Hegseth, Trump's selection for Defense Secretary, a former FNC weekend host, has no military leadership experience, no background in foreign policy . He has some military experience but so do thousands of others. Quoting Higgins, a former RNC researcher: "According to my professional assessment at the time, Hegseth was unqualified for the more junior positions he was being considered for in 2016 [for a more junior post], and eight additional years spent at Fox News has not made him any more qualified to run the Department of Defense, an organization with 2 million employees, and one that regularly interacts with foreign military leaders and is critical to our national security and global standing."

Another questionable pick is RFK, Jr. for HHS. RFK is infamous for falsely alleging a link between vaccines and autism. I am strongly pro-vax. not only is RFK, Jr without any relevant experience or expertise in public health, his crackpot anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories and misinformation pose a threat to public health. Quoting Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law: “To say that RFK Jr. is unqualified is a considerable understatement...The minimum qualification for being the head of the Department of Health and Human Services is fidelity to science and scientific evidence, and he spent his entire career fomenting distrust in public health and undermining science at every step of the way.” ["[RFK] would have sway over health agencies like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that fall under the purview of HHS"]

Kash Patel is also an unacceptable choice to head the FBI. He is a blatantly partisan hack who has basically promised to implement Trump's explicit vows of "retribution" for Russiagate, etc. As former AG Barr noted: "Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world's preeminent law enforcement agency.” "[Others] view Patel as a personification of Trump’s vow to pursue retribution against his enemies once he takes office. Critics fear Patel’s fierce loyalty to Trump and his history of embracing conspiracy theories, like a false contention that the “deep state” attempted to overthrow Trump’s presidency, would influence his actions at the FBI. They point to his deep investment in the MAGA movement as evidence of his motivations and of how steeped he is in politics, something that both Democrats and Republicans contend they want to keep out of the law enforcement agency." 

In summary, I normally believe in giving a President a lot of discretion over his QUALIFIED selections One general problem is that Trump thinks he's above the law and he puts personal loyalty over duty to Constitution and the law. That's why he fired Comey, who had been a lifelong Republican, as FBI director. FBI directors normally have 10 year terms. Trump himself chose Wray (another Republican) to replace Comey, but evidently he didn't do enough to purge the "deep state" so he is replacing him with Trumpkin loyalist Kash Patel (authoe of a pro-Trump children's book) with no obvious qualifications. Trump has a long enemies list, including journalists, politicians (especially the J6 Committee) and various 'Deep State" bureaucrats allegedly conspiring against him. The above choices were purely political either loyalties or campaign allies (like RFK who withdrew from his independent candidacy and endorsed him), none with compelling qualifications. In the case of Rubio, I'm not crazy about Trump nominating hawks which he rationalizes as playing good cop, bad cop. We can't afford unqualified people as AG, FBI director, Defense Secretary, HHS or others.

Post #7048 M: McClanahan on When Twitter Historians Can't Read Primary Documents; Inflation is back to 4%; Army Ads When We're About to Go To War

 Quote of the Day

Practice is the best of all instructors.
Publilius Syrus 

Inflation is back to 4%

McClanahan on When Twitter Historians Can't Read Primary Documents

Army Ads When We're About to Go To War

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Musical Interlude: Christmas 2024

Andy Williams - It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Sunday, December 15, 2024

Post #7047 Social Media Digest

 Facebook

 


X/Twitter