What a ****ing idiot. And he is planning to erase 150 years of the 14th amendment with an exec order. But with this Supreme Court who knows even though the constitution says there is only one way to change the constitution.

But most every country in S America and many in Europe have birthright citizenship. His little scary lies dont fool anyone.

Prolly giving them Pepsi to cure... After they try to drink from the public trough,..

Login to view embedded media

My home away from home is Phoenix Tempe area. Big day for the ASU to win a conference championship!! Go Devils! Beat those clowns and suck on their tears.

Best button ever. I never used it for almost a decade. Ah, it brings peace. Om shanti.

Thoughts
Beautifully shot
Shit ton of politics I forgot about
Can definitely see how the story of Lawerence influenced Frank Herbert
Peter O’ Toole was one good looking guy.
That ridiculous nose on Anthony Quinn
The French Ambassador stole a lot of scenes with little dialogue

POS:

A week after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Elon Musk said his political action committee would “play a significant role in primaries.”

The following week, the billionaire responded to a report that he might fund challengers to GOP House members who don’t support Trump’s nominees. “How else? There is no other way,” Musk wrote on X, which he rebranded after purchasing Twitter and moving to boost conservative voices, including his own.

And during his recent visit to Capitol Hill, Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy delivered a warning to Republicans who don’t go along with their plans to slash spending as part of Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency.

“Elon and Vivek talked about having a naughty list and a nice list for members of Congress and senators and how we vote and how we’re spending the American people’s money,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

Trump’s second term comes with the specter of the world’s richest man serving as his political enforcer. Within Trump’s team, there is a feeling that Musk not only supports Trump’s agenda and Cabinet appointments, but is intent on seeing them through to the point of pressuring Republicans who may be less devout.

One Trump adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal political dynamics, noted Musk had come to enjoy his role on the campaign and that he clearly had the resources to stay involved.

The adviser and others noted that Musk’s role is still taking shape. And Musk, once a supporter of President Barack Obama before moving to the right in recent years, is famously mercurial.

“I think he was really important for this election. Purchasing Twitter, truly making it a free speech platform, I think, was integral to this election, to the win that Donald Trump had,” said departing Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law. “But I don’t know that ultimately he wants to be in politics. I think he considers himself to be someone on the outside.”

During the presidential campaign, Musk contributed roughly $200 million to America PAC, a super PAC aimed at reaching Trump voters online and in person in the seven most competitive states, which Trump swept. He also invested $20 million in a group called RBG PAC, which ran ads arguing Trump would not sign a national abortion ban even as the former president nominated three of the justices who overturned a federally guaranteed right to the procedure.

Musk’s donation to RBG PAC — a name that invokes the initials of former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of abortion rights — wasn’t revealed until post-election campaign filings were made public Thursday.

Musk has said he hopes to keep America PAC funded and operating. Beyond that, he has used his X megaphone to suggest he is at least open to challenging less exuberant Trump supporters in Congress.

Another key Trump campaign ally has been more aggressive online. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whose group Turning Point Action also worked to turn out voters for Trump, named Republican senators he wants to target.

Sign up for the Spin: Your essential take on local politics.



By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and to receive emails from Chicago Tribune.
“This is not a joke, everybody. The funding is already being put together. Donors are calling like crazy. Primaries are going to be launched,” Kirk said on his podcast, singling out Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Jim Risch of Idaho, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Thom Tillis of North Carolina as potential targets. All four Republican senators’ seats are up in 2026.

For now, Musk has been enjoying the glow of his latest conquest, joining Trump for high-level meetings and galas at the soon-to-be president’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in Palm Beach, Florida. The incoming administration is seeded with Musk allies, including venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks serving as the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” and Jared Isaacman, a tech billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Musk’s SpaceX, named to lead NASA.

Musk could help reinforce Trump’s agenda immediately, some GOP strategists said, by using America PAC to pressure key Republicans. Likewise, Musk could begin targeting moderate Democrats in pivotal states and districts this spring, urging them to break with their party on key issues, Republican strategist Chris Pack said.

“Instead of using his influence to twist GOP arms when you have majorities in both houses, he could start going after Democrats who vote against Trump’s agenda in states where the election was a referendum for Trump,” said Pack, former communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Otherwise, if you pressure Republicans with a primary, you can end up with a Republican who can’t win, and then a Democrat in that seat.”

still six months away but seems like the best version of what the Walking Dead could have become

Login to view embedded media

One of the tailgates I frequent had a terrible ending on black Friday. His speaker system crapped the bed and I don't think that it is coming back. I told him that I would buy a bigger system for next year but wanted to see if we had any audiophiles in the house.

I am picking up some used Peavey 215s tonight from marketplace and wanted to see what amp/mixer I should pair them with. I would like to get something with BT built in, a connection for a separate powered sub if needed, and enough power to push them how they are supposed to be. The are rated at 700W program with a peak of 1400 and run at 4 ohm. Will need to also buy some stands and cables so any recommendations there would help as well.

Suggestions

It appears that many people think they know how the the defense department works, but they don’t have a clue.

Our biggest industry is defense and weapons.

We don’t give other countries weapons. They buy them.

The US trains the world how to use the weapons at their expense, not ours. It’s been a symbiotic relationship for years. It’s also a trade negotiation, exchange for certain rights in their countries. Military bases for one.

The DOD considers this a win win situation because the buyers are testing our weapons for us at no cost to us, including loss of life.

This has been going on through multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat.

But now, because Trump has told people other countries are stealing from us and living off of us, everyone that follows him wants to gut the DOD.

That would be the greatest, singular destruction of the economy.

I’m sure that people have heard of favored nation status, etc. to an extent, we also work off a barter system.

Try and wrap your brain around a few things. “In exchange for not charging duty on your products, you let us operate in your country”. And I’m not talking about IBM operating in France in exchange for no duty on French goods.

What will Republicans prioritize when they regain their government trifecta next month? A tax overhaul? Energy production? Border security?
Nope. The GOP’s first order of business: getting rid of math.

Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter

The fractious Republican Party can agree on few things these days. But one of them is near-unanimous frustration with the pesky laws of arithmetic. That cutting future taxes would reduce future tax revenue, for instance, perpetually aggrieves them.

A large chunk of the 2017 Trump tax cuts expires next year, and extending these provisions will be extremely expensive. (That’s why Republicans scheduled them to sunset in the first place: to lower the price tag.) The Congressional Budget Office, the legislature’s official scorekeeper, estimates a full extension would add more than $4 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade.



That’s true even after considering any potential growth effects on the U.S. economy. It might also understate the full cost of GOP tax plans, since it doesn’t include Trump’s other pricey promises: slashing corporate taxes; eliminating taxes on Social Security, overtime and tips. Those would add trillions more in red ink — awkward for a party that fancies itself fiscally responsible.

Follow Catherine Rampell
Republicans’ solution: invent a New Math, Cold-War-style.
Incoming Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) says that since tax rates are currently low, extending these expiring rates another decade shouldn’t count as costing anything because it wouldn’t “feel” like a change. Crapo’s tax-writing counterpart in the House, Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-Missouri), agrees.

This is like saying even though your car lease is up this month, leasing another car should count as free because you got used to having a car. Alas, that is not how budgets work.


Elsewhere Crapo has said that Republicans haven’t paid for similar tax cuts before, so they sure as heck shouldn’t start now. Indeed, he opposed an earlier, fiscally responsible bipartisan deal to expand the child tax credit and certain business breaks because it was paid for.
The CBO’s current budget-scoring methods don’t support Crapo’s fiscal fantasies. But not to worry: House Republican leadership has also been scrounging around for dirt on the CBO, in an apparent attempt to preemptively discredit their ref.

This is hardly the only recent case of GOP legerdemath.
On “Meet the Press” last Sunday, Trump complained that the United States is allegedly “subsidizing Canada to the tune over $100 billion a year,” and “subsidizing Mexico for almost $300 billion.” He appeared to be referring to the size of our bilateral trade deficits with these countries.


Some problems with that: First, paying companies abroad for the products they sell you is not a “subsidy,” in the same way that paying your local supermarket for its bananas is not a “subsidy.” It’s a transaction. Does Trump expect Mexico to just give us avocados, free?
Second is a subtler, more sinister issue: the specific numbers Trump used.

Trump’s figures do not match the official statistics put out by the U.S. Census Bureau or the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative — they are much larger. This is probably because Trump and his MAGA allies have joined forces with some protectionist progressives in trying to change how trade figures are calculated to exaggerate the size of trade deficits. (The short explanation is: They want to stop counting goods that are first imported and then reexported as exports, without making a symmetric change for imports.) This change may sound small and technical but it would massively distort how we measure and understand economic changes — and is symptomatic of Trump’s habit of torturing the data until it confesses.

This country has lost its damn mind.

And I’m here for it.


Login to view embedded media

Ordering an iced tea at a restaurant, and there’s barely any ice in it,

So it’s a luke warm tea.

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
This is my final column for The New York Times, where I began publishing my opinions in January 2000. I’m retiring from The Times, not the world, so I’ll still be expressing my views in other places. But this does seem like a good occasion to reflect on what has changed over these past 25 years.
What strikes me, looking back, is how optimistic many people, both here and in much of the Western world, were back then and the extent to which that optimism has been replaced by anger and resentment. And I’m not just talking about members of the working class who feel betrayed by elites; some of the angriest, most resentful people in America right now — people who seem very likely to have a lot of influence with the incoming Trump administration — are billionaires who don’t feel sufficiently admired.
It’s hard to convey just how good most Americans were feeling in 1999 and early 2000. Polls showed a level of satisfaction with the direction of the country that looks surreal by today’s standards. My sense of what happened in the 2000 election was that many Americans took peace and prosperity for granted, so they voted for the guy who seemed as if he’d be more fun to hang out with.
In Europe, too, things seemed to be going well. In particular, the introduction of the euro in 1999 was widely hailed as a step toward closer political as well as economic integration — toward a United States of Europe, if you like. Some of us ugly Americans had misgivings, but initially they weren’t widely shared.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


Of course, it wasn’t all puppies and rainbows. There was, for example, already a fair bit of proto-QAnon-type conspiracy theorizing and even instances of domestic terrorism in America during the Clinton years. There were financial crises in Asia, which some of us saw as a potential harbinger of things to come; I published a 1999 book titled “The Return of Depression Economics,” arguing that similar things could happen here; I put out a revised edition a decade later, when they did.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Still, people were feeling pretty good about the future when I began writing for this paper.
Why did this optimism curdle? As I see it, we’ve had a collapse of trust in elites: The public no longer has faith that the people running things know what they’re doing, or that we can assume that they’re being honest.
It was not always thus. Back in 2002 and ’03, those of us who argued that the case for invading Iraq was fundamentally fraudulent received a lot of pushback from people refusing to believe that an American president would do such a thing. Who would say that now?
In a different way, the financial crisis of 2008 undermined any faith the public had that governments knew how to manage economies. The euro as a currency survived the European crisis that peaked in 2012, which sent unemployment in some countries to Great Depression levels, but trust in Eurocrats — and belief in a bright European future — didn’t.
It’s not just governments that have lost the public’s trust. It’s astonishing to look back and see how much more favorably banks


And it wasn’t that long ago that technology billionaires were widely admired across the political spectrum, some achieving folk-hero status. But now they and some of their products face disillusionment and worse; Australia has even banned social media use by children under 16.
Which brings me back to my point that some of the most resentful people in America right now seem to be angry billionaires.
We’ve seen this before. After the 2008 financial crisis, which was widely (and correctly) attributed in part to financial wheeling and dealing, you might have expected the erstwhile Masters of the Universe to show a bit of contrition, maybe even gratitude at having been bailed out. What we got instead was “Obama rage,” fury at the 44th president for even suggesting that Wall Street might have been partly to blame for the disaster.
These days there has been a lot of discussion of the hard right turn of some tech billionaires, from Elon Musk on down. I’d argue that we shouldn’t overthink it, and we especially shouldn’t try to say that this is somehow the fault of politically correct liberals. Basically it comes down to the pettiness of plutocrats who used to bask in public approval and are now discovering that all the money in the world can’t buy you love.
So is there a way out of the grim place we’re in? What I believe is that while resentment can put bad people in power, in the long run it can’t keep them there. At some point the public will realize that most politicians railing against elites actually are elites in every sense that matters and start to hold them accountable for their failure to deliver on their promises. And at that point the public may be willing to listen to people who don’t try to argue from authority, don’t make false promises, but do try to tell the truth as best they can.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


We may never recover the kind of faith in our leaders — belief that people in power generally tell the truth and know what they’re doing — that we used to have. Nor should we. But if we stand up to the kakistocracy — rule by the worst — that’s emerging as we speak, we may eventually find our way back to a better world.

Just curious as to what people know about him? He entered the transfer portal today, is from Iowa, and we offered him previously. #8 in the country coming out of highschool. I was surprised Becht got the start over him honestly last year.

Would he have any interest and fit Lesters style? The timing seems perfect and he's got to have at least 2-3 years of eligibility.

A majority of the Supreme Court appeared sympathetic on Tuesday to the Biden administration’s restrictions on kits that allow people to make untraceable homemade guns.
The case centered on whether the federal agency responsible for regulating firearms had acted lawfully in enacting a rule to address a surge in “ghost guns,” weapons made from kits available for purchase online and heralded as easy enough to assemble in less than an hour.
Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the justices that the agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had responded to “an explosion in crimes” connected to ghost guns.
“The reason you want a ghost gun is specifically because it’s unserialized and can’t be traced,” Ms. Prelogar said.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


Among the limits the agency imposed on the kits: requiring gun makers and sellers to be licensed to sell the kits, ensuring the products are marked with serial numbers so they can be traced and having would-be buyers pass a background check.
In recent years, the conservative wing of the court has proved skeptical of allowing federal administrative agencies too much leeway without specific authorization from Congress. Last term, it overturned a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, firearm attachments that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire at nearly the rate of a machine gun.
But at least five of the justices on Tuesday seemed to favor the limits imposed by the Biden administration, with at least two conservatives, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, showing skepticism toward the plaintiffs, gun manufacturers and owners who argued they should be able to purchase ghost gun kits.
When Peter A. Patterson, the lawyer for the gun groups, argued that gun enthusiasts might enjoy building firearms from the kits, Chief Justice Roberts, who had until then been largely silent, questioned whether the kits were really aimed at hobbyists. He drew an analogy to people who love tinkering with cars.
“Drilling a hole or two,” Chief Justice Roberts said, “doesn’t give the same sort of reward as working on your car on the weekends.”



Mr. Patterson responded by pointing to an effort by a reporter in California who ordered a gun kit to assemble. That reporter enlisted friends to help, Mr. Patterson said. (The news article Mr. Patterson appeared to refer to described the process of buying and building a ghost gun “shockingly easy.”)
The chief justice appeared skeptical of Mr. Patterson’s response.
“I don’t know the skills of a particular reporter,” Chief Justice Roberts replied, to laughter.
Got a news tip about the courts?
If you have information to share about the Supreme Court or other federal courts, please send us a secure tip at nytimes.com/tips.

Although it centers on guns, the case before the court is not about the Second Amendment, but rather about the limits of the power of administrative agencies. At issue is whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives acted outside its bounds in issuing a regulation in 2022 to expand the definition of “firearm” under the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene after lower courts blocked the 2022 regulation.
The case, Garland v. VanDerStok, No. 23-852, was brought by gun owners and gun rights groups who argue that the Biden administration rule exceeded the bounds of the federal agency’s power under the legislation.

If you are interested in crypto this should be a must watch event.

The company responsible for bringing XRP to the world and its CEO have been fighting the SEC for a decade and came out on top. The history of Ripple and XRP is a fascinating tale of working thru the government roadblocks and becoming a company that can/will make SWIFT obsolete.

We are in the first inning of crypto integration into all our lives

I am not a person who generally becomes a fanboy of anything but in this case I am.

Login to view embedded media

Saw this comment on another site...any liberals here in this camp?
…...........
@🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵id you hear shitler will never be president? Watch what’s happening. 35 billion to one odds he won all swing states. Your Cheeto is going to jail. Then we drink!! Grab you glass!
................

Or when I learned to hate Northwestern and B1G officiating.

The 2010 Orange Bowl mentioned in several bowl-related threads prompted a visit to the online archives and brought back a flood of memories of when Kirk Ferentz actually had a decent football teams.

One that stands out is the 2009 squad that was 9-0 and potentially headed to an undefeated season when the lowly Wildcats came to town. Iowa had jumped out to a 10-0 lead and the defense had forced a punt which put the Hawks at their own 6.

On second down Ricky Stanzi ran a naked bootleg which was read perfectly by the Northwestern defense. Corey Wooten pulled Stanzi down awkwardly in the end zone. Stanzi fumbled and Northwestern recovered for the touchdown. What was worse, Stanzi lay on the ground in great pain, having severely injured his right ankle. He left the game and freshman James Vandenberg took over but was a less than adequate replacement and Iowa lost. Worse, Stanzi required surgery and was out for the season.

What was especially maddening was that during the sack Stanzi’s facemask was grabbed, twisting his head and body and possibly contributing to Stanzi’s injury.

The foul which would have negated the sack and the NW touchdown was totally missed by the Big Ten officials.

NFL icon Herschel Walker spoke out against former president Obama for his recent controversial comments about Black men not supporting Kamala Harris.

During a recent campaign stop for Harris in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Obama addressed the vice president's dwindling support among Black voters, especially Black men.

"Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers. So if you don't mind, just for a second, I've got to speak to y’all and say that when you have a choice, that is this clean: When on the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, went to college with you, understands the struggles [and the] pain and joy that comes from those experience," Obama said.

Obama even suggested that these voters aren't currently supporting Harris because she is a woman. Obama did not at any point acknowledge that the lesser support may be because of her record as vice president and deeper career history as a prosecutor.

"I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that," Obama said.

Walker is one of many public figures, on both sides of partisan lines, who have criticized Obama for his comments this week.

[Barack Obama], you forgot how hard we fought for our right to vote! Telling us how to vote based on color is a step backward. The bad policies of Biden/Harris have hurt us all. We need unity brother, not division!" Walker wrote in a post on X on Saturday.

Walker is a former all-American football running back who played in the NFL for 12 seasons. Prior to that, he played for the upstart USFL league that intended to compete with the NFL. Former president Trump was an investor in the league and the owner of the league's New Jersey Generals franchise, that Walker played for.

Walker also has a brief history of political interactions with Obama as well. The former president went on a long tirade mocking the former running back during a speech in Georgia ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Obama said that Walker was "someone who carries around a phony badge and says he is in law enforcement like a kid playing cops and robbers," and has a "habit of not telling the truth." Obama even suggested that Walker would be so loyal to Trump, "it means he is not going to be really thinking about you or your needs."

Walker pushed back on Obama’s comments in a statement days later.

"President Obama was here last night. He said I’m a celebrity. He got that one wrong, didn’t he? I’m not a celebrity, I’m a warrior for God," Walker said. "He needs some help, because he got with the wrong horse. Senator Warnock is the wrong horse. You know he can’t do the job, and it’s time for him to leave."
Now, Walker has taken another shot at Obama in a week of very poor press for the 44th president.

Obama has also been criticized by prominent figures on the left, including Bill Maher, former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner and Former BLM activist Xaviaer DuRousseau, who said in a Fox News interview this week that Harris has been struggling with Black men because of her "lack of accomplishments." DuRousseau also said Obama's were "offensive."

"It's absolutely disrespectful, and we're done with Obama," DuRousseau said. "Black men are sick of being reduced to being forced to think with our skin color."

Obama’s comments followed a September 30 Pew Research poll finding that only 84 percent of Black people said they were planning to vote for Kamala Harris for president, while 13 percent said they were backing Trump. By contrast, Joe Biden won 92 percent of the Black vote in 2020.




It's the Obama's of the world that truly want to keep black men in chains, they preach just do what we tell you to do.

Sad truly sad.

funny stuff

AP Top 25 Poll (December 9)


Others Receiving Votes
Baylor (150), Arizona State (143), Memphis (123), Missouri (119), Penn State (90), Arkansas (89), Drake (67), Pittsburgh (62), Utah State (57), Illinois (47), St. John's (43), Maryland (39), Dayton (38), Creighton (32), Indiana (30), West Virginia (30), North Carolina (24), Georgia (21), St. Mary's (20), Texas (8), Rhode Island (3), Loyola Chicago (1)

Dropped Out
Baylor (#15), Memphis (#16), Pittsburgh (#18), Illinois (#19), North Carolina (#20)

=============================

USA Today Coaches Poll (December 9)


Others Receiving Votes
Mississippi State (93), Illinois (72), St. John's (51), Pittsburgh (50), Arizona State (45), Maryland (42), Memphis (39), Drake (35), Utah State (32), Penn State (30), St. Mary's (28), Missouri (21), Creighton (20), Georgia (18), West Virginia (11), Arkansas (10), UC-Irvine (5), Texas (5), Dayton (4), Texas Tech (2), North Carolina (2), Loyola Chicago (2), LSU (1)

Dropped Out
Memphis (#15), Illinois (#17), Pittsburgh (#19), North Carolina (#22)