Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Tom W]

It won't be running long, Jeff. About the only thing that the chairman and his puppeteers are good at is weaving new doomsday fables about SARS2.x.

[Mike]

I was taking that differently...he said yeah they're murderers and such and working with them's a little scary, but I also stand to make a lot more money so that's why I'm gonna set up a rival league to the PGA.

Trump's also involved because of course he is. Just like the NFL, when a sports league snubs him, he tries to take revenge in whatever way he can.

So the full context is that he has been upset with the PGA because they own all the rights to the players’ highlights. For example, if Phil puts a clip of him from a PGA tour event on his own website, he has to pay royalties to the PGA. Apparently, those rights are worth $340M annually to the PGA.

He, and others, have grown tired of the arrangement. But as he said, the players have no leverage to negotiate a better deal because where else are you gonna go play? Now the Saudi’s are proposing a “Super League” and trying to poach the worlds best players.

As Mickelson said, that presents an opportunity to at least feign interest in jumping ship. He then went on to blast the Saudis and indicated he kind of hopes the league fails. He clearly got comfortable speaking with his biographer and accidentally spoke the truth. And for that his primary sponsor dropped him.

[Tom W]

We should all be grateful to the Saudis after all that they did for us after 9/11.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Nice folks.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Giuliani has supposedly cut a deal with the Jan 6th Committee. Won't rat out Trump. But will rat out anyone else.

**************************

The former president’s attorney is prepared to reveal his contacts and the roles played by Republican members of Congress in the scheme Giuliani helped orchestrate to have then-vice-president Mike Pence stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

Giuliani is also prepared to divulge details about Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence to adopt the scheme, and the effort coordinated by him and the Trump White House to have legislatures certify slates of electors for Trump in states actually won by Biden.

But the former president’s attorney has indicated that he will assist the select committee only if his appearance is not pursuant to his subpoena, and does not have to give records or discuss his contacts with Trump over executive and attorney-client privilege concerns.


Rudy Giuliani poised to cooperate with January 6 committee | Rudy Giuliani | The Guardian

[Dr. Strangelove]

Biden puts sanctions on the Nord Stream pipeline. Ted Cruz lifts his hold over State Dept nominees that he's been implementing forever.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Putin has to just be shakin in his boots!

[Mike]

The Mickelson story goes deeper than I originally thought. I should have known 'ol FIGJAM was playing both sides against the middle. Smartest guy in the room and all (FTR, I can't stand the guy). It's a little difficult to follow why the Tour players lashed out at him (aside from hating him as standing principle), why his sponsor dropped him, and his lengthy "apology" directed at nobody in particular - with the exception of Saudi-backed LIV Golf Investments.

Seems he was working behind the scenes to encourage guys to sign up for the Saudi Tour as a way to leverage the PGA, all the while HE never had any intention of defecting to play for those "scary motherfuckers". No everyone hates him. Even more than usual. The story is largely portrayed as him getting horse-whipped for speaking out against the Saudis but it's really more because of his duplicitous ways.

[iam416]

As Putin's Cock Holster bravely RE-institutes sanctions against Russia, it's important to remember the following:

Last May, President Joe Biden waived Trump-era sanctions against a major company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — as well as its CEO, Matthias Warnig, a former Stasi agent and a Putin “associate.”

Last November, as Russian troops were already massing on the Ukrainian border, Biden officials convinced congressional Democrats to drop the sanctions from the defense-spending bill. Last month, Biden sent two administration officials to Capitol Hill to lobby the Senate to kill Ted Cruz’s bill that would have reinstated the sanctions. At the time Chris Murphy, who for years peddled Russia hysterism at home, noted that “the administration was pretty powerful and pretty persuasive today.” Apparently, since Democrats then used a tool of racist oppression to stop the sanction bill — though you wouldn’t have known it from the headlines, as the media suddenly forgot the word “filibuster.”

Only today, after his administration declared an invasion was an inevitability, did tough-guy Biden finally let sanctions move forward. I’m all for making Putin’s life as uncomfortable as possible moving forward, but why didn’t Biden leave sanctions in place and use the potential of waiving them as a carrot. As some oil-industry execs have pointed out, if Putin takes Ukraine it won’t matter anyway. Perhaps Nord Stream 2 sanctions wouldn’t ever have made a difference, but they almost certainly won’t now. Why was Biden so intent on letting Russian oligarchs off the hook? (I suspect two reasons: one, the president’s strategy of appeasing Putin in hopes of incentivizing good behavior; two, it rhymes with Bermany.)

The "grown-ups" are back in charge. JFC.

[Hannibal]

[Tom W]

The "grown-ups" are back in charge. JFC.

Yeah, well, they've got their hands full trying to get past Trump not getting over the 2020 election.. and trying to convince the rest of us to be as obsessed as they are.

[Mike]

Ukraine is ranked as the most corrupt country in Europe (after Russia, if you count them). They have been experiencing rapid population decline since the early 1990s, averaging a loss 300,000 people annually - 40% during that time frame.. Their GDP per capita is $3,700 USD - lowest in Europe.

So let the punishment fit the crime. Russia will can be responsible for Ukraine. I'm sure it will be great for Putin.

Putin, of course, can barely feed his own fucking army. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-be-moved-soon

Postings spotted by military analyst Rob Lee on Monday showed about 100 soldiers camped out – or rather lying down – at a train station about 20km from Ukraine’s border, without rations and having to buy food for themselves.

Russian troops based in Belarus, in forests near the town of Khoyniki, 50km from the Ukraine border, were described by one local a few days ago as people who “drink a lot and sell a lot of their diesel fuel”, suggesting a lack of discipline despite the heightened political tensions.

I have no idea why everyone is scared of that dolt. Fuck him. Sanctions are worthless. Either bomb the fuck out of his troops or roll out the red carpet and send him a nice house-warming gift. All the posturing is ridiculous. Ukraine is strategically unimportant to the United States. If Europe won't stand up to him, that's their problem. What we SHOULD be doing, without a doubt, is start pumping as much oil as possible to drive the price down. Putin at $100/barrel is Mr. Tough Guy but he wouldn't be pulling this shit if it was half that.

[Mike]

Yeah, well, they've got their hands full trying to get past Trump not getting over the 2020 election.. and trying to convince the rest of us to be as obsessed as they are.

We have to figure out what happened on January 6th. There's rumors of a break in at the Capitol. My money is on Danny Ocean and his cast of sneaky bandits.

[Mike]

The 2 prosecutors leading the Manhattan DA's investigation into Trump abruptly resigned

Their resignations reportedly came after the new Manhattan DA said he wasn't sure about moving forward with the case.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pros...ned-nyt-2022-2

I bet they'll get him next time.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Good stuff, Mike. The thing is that what the Russians are good at is fighting on the cyber space battlefield. Putin can bring down the Zelenksi government without a single tank rolling into Kiev. All it takes is a few computer viruses here and a few there and coms go down, people panic and government officials are easy targets for special forces units. In fact, I think that's the plan.

The rest of the buildup is, as you point out, large encampments of vodka swilling, undisciplined young Russian men who are more likely to get shot by their CO's for not following orders then following them to get shot by Ukrainians. Tanks and artillery pieces look good on overhead satellite imagery but when they can't be maintained or properly operated and supported, they won't go far. BTW, that's probably not true of Russia's elite forces. Small in number but entirely capable of taking out Zelenski and the leadership that surrounds him. I doubt that crowd of Ukrainians is going to be hanging around in Ukraine for long. See ya.

The two sides have baked their cakes. The West's sanctions could be effective but the economic cost to the West is going to be very high ...... this after the pandemic's economic shit storm. Meanwhile, I don't think Vlad is altogether a rational being and he is surrounded by his cronies that are all into the Mother Russia bullshit he's mouthing. He's not going to back down in the face of the "posturing" by the UK, EU and US. Unloading a few million tons of munitions on his exposed forces might work but that isn't going to happen. So, fuck it. Hold on to your asses.