Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

Republican politicians are like basketball players who occasionally pass the ball the other team as a show of good faith to prove that they aren't mean-spirited. They are retarded.

[iam416]

No where was it stated or implied that The Media was encouraged to do anything by DJT and then do his bidding

...and...

If the US has such an 'in', or can develop such an 'in', you don't think the US wouldn't use/encourage the media to cloak our interest in the lab or potential sources?

Again, LMMFAO at PDJT's Administration "encourag[ing] the media" to do anything ("cloak our interest in the lab or potential sources") and The Media going along with it. And, again, I ordinarily wouldn't respond to utter nonsense, but that was just too hilarious. And, hey -- I got a double down "I DIDN'T SAY THAT" in response, and I do enjoy exposing unrepetent liars. (And, I'm gonna have to admit...saying someone "dumbed" it down while using, lol, "small modicum" is absolutely hilarious -- or, heh, completely, totally, absolutely hilarious).

[Mike]

I'll save them all a bunch of time. A mob of several hundred hyped up right-wing nut-jobs rioted at the Capitol because they swallowed a lie sold to them by everyone's favorite failed casino owner. Despite proving themselves to be a bunch of ill-informed nimrods, to the best of my knowledge, not a single one of them was armed with firearm. The Left wants us to believe that the strongest, most powerful nation in the history of the world was in peril because of a hockey stick and a fire extinguisher.

The end.

[iam416]

There ya go.

[lineygoblue]

Mike with the door-slammer.

[Hannibal]

The Reichstag fire without the fire.

[Tom W]

They thought that they would get away with it, too.. just like those "mostly peaceful" protestors did last summer.

[CGVT]

You are a special kind of naive or just blinded by ideology if you think that they would not have tried to hang Pence (on the behest of the Orange Jackass) if they had gotten a hold of him. Or if you think they wouldn't have seriously harmed or killed Pelosi or numerous other of their "enemies"

It was an insurrection and an attempt to keep the Mango Mussolini in power. Plain and simple.

The end

[CGVT]

Meanwhile the Morons on Parade tour continues.

Do all you wingnuts have your tickets?

2021-05-08T002309Z_412460424_RC2CBN9ZSKFO_RTRMADP_3_USA-CONGRESS-GAETZ_gqqxrq.jpg

[iam416]

CG,

I think the salient point are the media tactics. Sure, things are dynamic and change. But there was a sort of religious absolutism to espousing the approved line before that is not in play now. Before, you could not question or offer differing opinions on things (like the origins of the virus). To do so was heresy, racism, and conspiracy theory moronics. You could get banned from social media -or in some cases fired from your job- for failing to march lockstep with the approved line. Now, we’re saying, “To say the origin of the virus was a Chinese lab is very reasonable” as they shadow-edit articles to allow for that opinion and unban topics of conversation. Conditions on the border demanded exposure and demagoguery. Now? We just tell the media they aren’t allowed and they shrug and say “okay”.

I find the obvious pendulum swing dangerous.

Trump was a dangerous child, but I don’t see how anyone can honestly argue that the media doesn’t treat things like the virus, the border crisis, the economy, and our position on the world stage with China and Russia completely different under Biden than they did with Trump.

There definitely seems to be a “Cult of Biden” culture developing.

I meant to co-sign on this. It's rare that Alabam"Alum" is so correct.

[Mike]

Yes, CG. An “insurrection” that delayed the proceedings in Congress by 2 hours. There was all of one round fired and it was directed at a rioter. Boy that was a close call! We were almost living in Trumpistan!

[Jeff Buchanan]

On Talent's link to the Samuel Kronen article: ideas that I had not heard articulated in a cogent but very long, involved but well documented (as to the author's points) piece. You cannot be drinking alcoholic beverages and read this, let alone understand it .... well maybe AlabamAlum can. Rational, makes sense, predicted outcomes are worrisome.

The problem is that it takes some intellectual acumen and convinceability ( the latter not a quality of the woke left) to grasp what Kronen is saying, what he is warning about and how hard it will be to eliminate white guilt, the wrongness of the progressive left on racism in America and how they consistently (going way back in US history) believe little progress has been made.

On the Jim Geraghty piece on the origins of SARS2: Only one issue with this piece. It is the suggestion that intelligence analysts have been collecting and sitting on a pile of data. I don't think so. I go back to my USMC career and at several points, as as pilot and later as a CO with clearance to know shit, I was stunned by what the intel community among all the agencies, knew.

I flew from the deck of America on this mission and have joked that the intell prior to another A6 lobbing a Laser Guided 250lb bomb through Kaddafi's bedroom window (his bedroom window lased by Marine Recon units just outside Kaddafi's residence), could tell you what his shit smelled like and what he ate after the dump he took hours before the raid - BTW he got tipped off and fled to his bunker moments before the bomb exploded in his bedroom. One of his kids and his wife in a distant bedroom were injured. This was 40 years ago!

So, no, my take, based on my experience with military intelligence, is that Trump did get a detailed brief in Virginia in early January based on what I believe was pretty good intel about what analysts thought had happened. The way this is done is by setting out multiple likely scenarios and setting probabilities for each. There was probably also responses to each scenario. Presidents choose one and appropriate government reps, e.g., JCS, State, in that briefing develop a plan and carry out the president's order.

Government often seems chaotic. I've been in secondary military briefs (not the one given to the presidents). It is not at all chaotic. Since then, the intel community has been updating the scenarios based on additional data. I feel pretty confident Trump received and Biden is receiving daily briefings on SARS2 and what the PRC did and is up to now. A t his point in time, the evidence is likely solid that SARS2 was engineered, infected workers and/or scientists in Wuhan who then spread it to others ..... IOW, a massive fuck-up that the PRC doesn't want to admit for obvious reasons. There are political considerations that rightly come into play. I hate those but they are necessary buffers.

The public and the press is likely receiving highly scripted and sanitized intel briefings that will not suggest or give identity to the source of the intel. Not getting anything meaningful is more like it. They are meant to shape public opinion to support the administration's views. It's the tip of the iceberg we're getting in the public domain What is actually known about how massively the PRC fucked things up is not known to us. I believe that what's below the water line is very detailed and supports the view I speculate about above. JMO.

[iam416]

On Talent's link to the Samuel Kronen article: ideas that I had not heard articulated in a cogent but very long, involved but well documented (as to the author's points) piece.

I thought you'd appreciate it.

On the Jim Geraghty piece on the origins of SARS2: Only one issue with this piece. It is the suggestion that intelligence analysts have been collecting and sitting on a pile of data.

I must have missed this. Yeah, I would take issue with that, too.

[Jeff Buchanan]

..........I must have missed this. Yeah, I would take issue with that, too.

My NYT's evening news feed had a link (I can't read it because I don't subscribe to the paper itself just the news feed) has this tease:

• Intelligence officials told the White House they had unexamined evidence about the virus’s origins.

Since I can't open the piece I have no idea what that is. "piles of data"? I still tend to think that despite the too often appearance of infighting and inefficiency in connecting the dots, there's been a shit-ton of organizational changes involving CIA, NSA, State and the FBI to provide the president with a clear picture of events, both on-going and potential, that might threaten national security.

TBH, I think this headline is based on the purposeful distribution of what the Biden administration wants the press and Americans to know. The purpose of that is to facilitate public support - already pretty high - for what I hope is a demand for full accounting by the PRC of what the president should articulate as having happened in Wuhan. To wit: you fuckers fucked up, caused massive deaths and global economic damage as a result and we're calling you out.

Well, that's what I'd like to see. We won't but Biden may sniff around the edges of it publicly and may privately let Xi know he's got the goods ...... I'll keep quiet if you'll - name the thing you most want the PRC to do. It's called strategic leverage. A step down from brinksmanship.

[Hannibal]