Tucker as well

Interesting discussion on Democracy Now featuring Ronan Farrow.

There's also a MAX film, Surveilled, that should be worth watching.

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Flash back to Donald Trump’s first campaign for president. It should have been doomed when he mocked John McCain’s years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Or when he fantasized about one of his supporters shooting Hillary Clinton. Or when, on that “Access Hollywood” tape, he was heard reveling in the genital prerogatives of fame.
But no. And that wasn’t just because there were so many Americans so dissatisfied with conventional politicians and politics that Trump’s provocations seemed a necessary solvent for the status quo. It was also because his offenses were so numerous, and came along with such frequency, that no single scandal could get lasting attention. Each faded into the crowd.
Trump desensitized his audience as his improprieties became their own unremarkable norm. And while he may not have plotted it that way, he definitely learned his lesson.
His selections for senior jobs in his new administration attest to that education.
It’s galling that he chose a son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner, who spent two years in prison for witness retaliation, tax evasion and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, to live in 60,000-square-foot splendor in Paris and swan around the Champs-Élysées as the next American ambassador to France.
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But is that any worse than Kash Patel storming around America’s capital in the role of F.B.I. director? As Garrett M. Graff, a historian and journalist, explained in a recent guest essay for Times Opinion, Patel’s disposition is as dangerous as his résumé is irrelevant to the post. He was chosen on the basis of his flamboyant obsequiousness to Trump, in defiance of a long tradition of F.B.I. directors who were steadfastly independent from the presidents they served. And he has vowed repeatedly to seek vengeance against Trump’s opponents and critics.
But there’s little sign of serious resistance to Patel’s confirmation from Republicans in the Senate. They have slimier fish to fry — for example, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s designee for defense secretary.
Hegseth was a comely Fox News host. He has a great head of hair. But as head of two different advocacy organizations, Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America? He was apparently a disgrace. In an article in The New Yorker this week, Jane Mayer reported that Hegseth was forced out of both jobs “in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety and personal misconduct.” That allegedly included incidents of intoxication so severe that “at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.”
Such charges might be less credible were Hegseth’s own mom not so censorious of his sloppy and sexist ways. Sharon LaFraniere and Julie Tate of The Times reported that in 2018, she sent him an email “on behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way,” in her words. She wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man.”
On Wednesday, she attempted damage control in an interview on Fox News, saying that her son had changed. Her son, meanwhile, ricocheted around Capitol Hill trying to get skittish senators not to look at what he’s done but to look at how he looks. He also spoke at length with Megyn Kelly for her SiriusXM show. He told her that the accusations against him reflected “the art of the smear.”

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But Trump himself was reportedly having second thoughts and toying with the idea of swapping out Hegseth and swapping in Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom Trump despised and disparaged until three seconds ago. Object of ridicule to object of affection: “Meatball Ron” would be traveling one of the most well-trod paths in TrumpLand.
But Hegseth’s troubles better the odds that the conspiracy theorist and carcass fetishist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. winds up the secretary of health and human services and that the al-Assad apologist and Putin fangirl Tulsi Gabbard gets to run national intelligence. There’s only so much resistance that Republican senators can muster. Only so many times that lap dogs this thoroughly muzzled can bark.
Trump’s picks for lofty posts speak to his veneration of scoundrels — to his belief that rules are for sissies and the strong take what they want however it must be taken. He embraces one binary above all others: If you’re not predator, you’re prey.
And government is for gloating. That’s what he’s doing with his planned nominees — showing what he can get away with, whom he can stick it to.
But his choices are also a tactic. As Peter Baker wrote in The Times on Monday, Trump “appears to be following a sort of swarm strategy, flooding the Senate with many contentious nominations that might not pass muster in normal circumstances and forcing the incoming Republican majority to choose which, if any, to block and which to let through.”
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It’s overkill meant to overwhelm: a blitz approach. And with this surfeit of sordid cabinet prospects, Trump has created a yardstick that generously measures anyone without, say, a criminal conviction, a rape accusation or a fortune amassed by highly suspicious means.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In a cabinet of such wretchedness, Kristi Noem is Snow White.

Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson has some free time in his schedule after the Lions clinched the No. 1 seed in the NFC on Sunday night, and he’ll be taking at least a few head coach interviews before his team continues its quest for the Super Bowl.

Johnson is set to interview for the New England Patriots’ and Chicago Bears’ head coaching vacancies this week during the Lions’ playoff bye, NFL’s Tom Pelissero reported Monday afternoon.




“I am told Ben Johnson does intend to interview with both the Patriots and the Bears for their head coaching positions this week. He is interested in those jobs, he has been intrigued by the Bears’ job for some time, and now that the Patriots’ job with Drake Maye at quarterback has become available, that is certainly a possibility to monitor,” Pelissero said on NFL Network.

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It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

If the dumbshit hadn't pulled Iowa out of ERIC he wouldn't have this problem:

Iowa voters’ registration status could be revoked if state elections officials cannot confirm a voter’s U.S. citizenship under legislation proposed by Iowa’s top elections official.



Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate plans to propose the measure as part of a package of bills he plans to introduce to state lawmakers when they convene starting Monday for the 2025 session of the Iowa Legislature.


Pate deployed a similar tactic during the November 2024 general election. His office cross-checked state voter registration and voting activity information with state transportation department documents to produce a list of over 2,000 Iowans whose citizenship the office could not confirm.




Pate then instructed local elections workers to automatically challenge the ballots of any Iowans on that list. Hundreds of Iowans’ ballots were challenged, and some cases of noncitizen voters being registered or having voted in previous elections were discovered by county elections officials.


Critics of Pate’s directive pointed out that his list could be working on outdated information because some state Department of Transportation documentation is several years old. Pate acknowledged the potential for outdated information and attempted to obtain additional citizenship information from federal immigration agencies, but was rebuffed.


Pate and Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird have sued the federal government over its refusal to share the requested citizenship information.


Pate plans to introduce legislation that would allow the Iowa Secretary of State to cancel the voter registration of Iowans whose citizenship is not confirmed. He said he would use the same process and state information that he used during the last election, and added that he hopes for more robust cooperation from the federal government to resolve cases where an Iowan's U.S. citizenship is unclear.





According to Pate’s office, the legislation would help maintain clean and up-to-date voter registration lists, balancing voter participation with election integrity.


“The end game here, we want to establish that you’re eligible to vote in Iowa when you register. We don’t really want to put all that burden at the tail end when they’re going in to vote,” Pate said. “And that’s citizenship, that’s residency, that’s those the question of you are who you say you are. Those things are what we want to do early in the process.”


Iowa law allows voters to register on Election Day at the polls, provided the voter supplies the required documentation: state-approved proof of identification — like a driver’s license or other state-issued ID — and residence, like a utility bill or paycheck.


Iowa Senate President Amy Sinclair, a Republican from Allerton, said Senate Republicans have not yet discussed the proposal with Pate, but that it fits with their views on election integrity.


“I think Iowa law and federal law both are pretty clear in that only citizens should vote. We want every single eligible person to be able to go out and exercise their right to vote, and we don’t want people who aren’t eligible to get to vote,” Sinclair said. “So while we haven’t had that conversation specifically, I think it would be in the vein of the election integrity that Senate Republicans have historically pursued to support Secretary Pate in making sure our voter rolls are as accurate as possible for the folks working the polls.”

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Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican from New Hartford, similarly said House Republicans have not yet discussed Pate’s specific proposal but would be willing to give it consideration.


Iowa Sen. Janice Weiner, of Iowa City, the new leader of the minority-party Senate Democrats, said “obviously” noncitizens should not be allowed to vote, but also cautioned against a law that could disenfranchise some eligible voters.


“When people do the work to become a citizen, it’s not easy. It’s an arduous process. And then people are rightly very proud when they become citizens, to be able to register to vote,” Weiner said. “And it’s really important that whatever is done be done in such a way that it doesn’t have a chilling effect on people who have worked hard for and earned the right as a U.S. citizen to cast their vote.”


Iowa Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, of Windsor Heights, the leader of the minority-party House Democrats, criticized Pate for his directive last year coming so close to November’s general election.


“I’m all for as much information as we can get to make sure that our voting system is secure and that the voters should be voting,” Konfrst said. “I want to make sure that it’s not a political witch hunt and that we’re actually working with the goal of ensuring that more people who are able to vote can vote than trying to reduce the amount of voters in the state.”


Gov. Kim Reynolds declined to be interviewed for The Gazette’s legislative preview series. Reynolds supported Pate’s directive for the 2024 election.


Civil rights groups sued Pate’s office over his directive, claiming it treated some naturalized U.S. citizens differently than others by forcing them to take extra steps to vote. A federal judge denied the groups’ request to stop Pate’s order.

Streamlining election recounts​

Pate also plans to propose legislation that would streamline election recounts in Iowa.


Pate’s proposal would require all counties to conduct their election results canvass on the same day, clarify that all recounts must be district-wide within the county and allow for larger recount boards in the state’s more populous counties.


Similar legislation was introduced in the previous General Assembly and initially had strong bipartisan support, but the bill stalled and failed to pass.


Pate has stressed a need for the legislation to make Iowa’s recounts more consistent — rather than having a patchwork of recount procedures across different counties — ever since a messy recount in a historically close Eastern Iowa congressional election in 2020.


“We’re going to improve on the recount policy a little more,” Pate said. “We came a long ways from that (congressional) recount four years ago.”


The 2025 session of the Iowa Legislature is scheduled to begin Monday at the Iowa Capitol.

Two bodies were discovered in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane on Monday after a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the airline said in a statement on Tuesday.
JetBlue Flight 1801 departed Kennedy Airport in New York at 7:49 p.m. Monday and landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport at 11:10 p.m., according to flight tracker data. The bodies were discovered during a routine post-flight maintenance assessment of the plane, the airline said.
Paramedics pronounced the two people dead at the scene, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. It was unclear how long the people had been in the landing gear compartment.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages Kennedy Airport, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how the individuals may have gained access to the aircraft.
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Landing gear compartments, located under an aircraft’s wings and at the front of the plane, have long been used by people attempting to travel undetected on airplanes. The airline did not say whether the two people who were found dead on Monday were stowaways.
Such attempts to hide in landing gear compartments have proven deadly in the past. The compartments open and close upon takeoff and landing to deploy and retract wheels and other landing components, and other stowaways have fallen to their deaths from the openings, sometimes landing in public spaces along flight paths.
Those who can stay within the compartment risk being crushed by landing gear when it is withdrawn back into the aircraft, along with other hazards, including severe temperatures, pressure changes and lack of oxygen. Many stowaways die of hypothermia.
As recently as Christmas Day, a body was discovered in a wheel well of a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Hawaii. In 2023, a man was found alive in a landing gear compartment after a commercial flight from Algeria to France, though he was suffering from severe hypothermia.
An investigation was underway on Tuesday to determine the identities of the two individuals discovered in Fort Lauderdale and how they might have accessed the aircraft before it departed from New York, JetBlue said.

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“This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred,” the airline said.

Democrats are lobbying President Joe Biden to get as many illegal migrants into the United States as possible and ensure they stay indefinitely before he leaves office and President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House.

This week, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Alex Padilla (D-CA) sent a letter to Biden asking him to reward large groups of illegal aliens in the U.S. with immigration benefits before he exits office next month.

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Yep, suppressing wages is great for the poor and middle class ... on no, I mean it's great for the elites who hate the aforementioned groups.

Last night's embarrassment may skew the results but let's ask

....a source tells 247Sports. He appeared in 11 games this past season.

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Got a few minutes with Fran this morning. Some thoughts from him on the Wisconsin loss in here.

WATCH:

For those that don't know he took some time last night to shit talk CC. Super Neanderthal stuff, "she looks like a caveman" level.

Dude is in a free fall.


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I mean they are here ILLEGALLY! 🤡 'It’s outrageous that this individual took advantage of our shelter system to engage in criminal activity,' Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey said >

Massive lawsuit drama.

Any Skip Bayless fans here?

I’m waiting to see who’s first to support
The attacker.

Just got off the phone with a source and received some intel on football's class of 2025, a new name to watch for.

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Help me understand this level of evil you subscribe to >

I am a fan of high rye and high proof bourbons. I have the means to get what I want within reason. "Within reason" is different for everyone including me and my wife. I have multiple bottles in my cabinet that are in the $150-$200 range and a couple more than that.

Right now, I'm on the lookout for a bottle of Little Book Edition 1 "The Infinite". The msrp is $200 with secondary markets selling it for double that. I'd probably be willing to go to $300-$350. My wife doesn't understand that at all. What would you be willing to pay for a single bottle?

Any chance it’s wrapped up by 2026? I have a visit planned there during the first half and would rather not deal with the whole clearing customs and needing my passport thing.