Trump Tweets About Flynn, Senate Passes Tax Bill, Voyager 1 Thrusters Fired Up: A.M. Links

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  NASA

  President Trump tweets about Michael Flynn, Trump's outside counsel responds to clarify.

• The Senate passed a tax plan that must now be reconciled with the House's version.
• The United Nations warned that millions of people in Yemen face starvation and its cities are running out of clean water amid an ongoing Saudi blockade.
• The president of Honduras is cracking down on election protestors who accuse him of rigging the vote.
• CVS has reportedly agreed to buy Aetna for $69 billion.
• The Metropolitan Opera suspended conductor James Levine after a report that he was accused of molesting a teenage boy in the 1980s.
• NASA scientists fired up the thrusters on Voyager 1 for the first time in 37 years.

Comments

[Bee Tagger]

CVS has reportedly agreed to buy Aetna for $69 billion.

Nice and convenient.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

[loveconstitution1789]

I guess CVS will now really be in favor of keeping ObamaCare.

[Libertarian]

Will Walgreens now buy an insurance company on the opposite corner?

[Griffin3]

CVS purchased Caremark in 2006, regulators were vaguely skeptical of the deal, but CVS assured them that they would not change any of Caremark (who serviced many military family prescriptions) current practices. Then the purchase went through, and Caremark changed the rules so their prescription must be filled at CVS, and would not be covered elsewhere. Mostly independent pharmacists took the hit. When combined with another CVS sponsored law at the same time that said of pharmacies dealing in scheduled narcotics could only be sold to businesses with 10 years' history in pharmaceuticals (IE, no new independents, independents could only sell to corporations), more than half of the independent pharmacies in this area went out of business.

Maybe this sort of vertical integration is kosher under the ideas of free market capitalism, but it still points to CVS being right bastards who shouldn't be trusted with any thing they do or say.

[BestUsedCarSales]

When combined with another CVS sponsored law at the same time that said of pharmacies dealing in scheduled narcotics could only be sold to businesses with 10 years' history in pharmaceuticals

Big red flag right there that there is some cronyistic bullshit happening there.

[Griffin3]

National Proletariat Radio was crapping themselves over the whole mess this morning, saying that possibly CVS could save money merging with Aetna and pass it on to their customers, but if they kept the money instead, that would be wrong. I was yelling at the radio. Like a crazy person. Again.

[BestUsedCarSales]

I don't know why, but I did notice that the radio this morning was unusually praising of this particular merger, which I thought was strange. Good or bad, I would usually expect the people on the radio to be raising some alarm about this, talking about vertical integration or monopoly or something.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

They're an enlightened new england company, that's why.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Are you willfully confusing government cronyism with free markets, or just so confused by years of drinking statist Kill-Aid that you don't know the difference?

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Trump tweets about Michael Flynn, Trump's outside counsel responds to clarify.

...on Instagram.

[Bee Tagger]

They should really look into Snapchat if the President just needs to get things off his chest but doesn't want to be held accountable later.

[loveconstitution1789]

I was thinking the same thing.

Or Tinder, so Trump could update his Presidential profile on there and people could swipe left or right on whether they like Trump.

[Juice]

This will be the new way to elect the president.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The president of Honduras is cracking down on election protestors who accuse him of rigging the vote.

If you're rigging the vote, why bother with protestors?

[Bee Tagger]

NASA scientists fired up the thrusters on Voyager 1 for the first time in 37 years.

NASA going through a tv trope mid life crisis.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

This made me wonder .... how does Voyager keep its antenna aligned with Earth? Are there ion thrusters or something similarly miserly with fuel? I know the RTG power is gradually fading and it won't be able to broadcast at all in another ten years or so, but in the meantime, it seems like even a tiny pointing wobble would make its signal too weak to be received on Earth.

And I know it's probably pretty stable -- once aligned. But it still must have some small but measurable pointing drift, it can't be perfect.

[loveconstitution1789]

"However, as with all spacecraft, Voyager 1 needs to correct its course while being adrift in space and NASA has discovered a new way to keep its antenna pointing the right direction.

The Voyager 1's propulsion system has two kinds of thrusters to help it steer through space ? Altitude Control Thrusters (ACT) and Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre thrusters (TCM). The ACT is responsible for keeping the antenna aligned towards Earth so as to let Voyager 1 'talk' to NASA scientists."
Deccan Chronicle

[Mike Laursen]

I think they messed up a bit. They meant to write "attitude" not "altitude".

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Well, suppose that's the answer I deserve for the question I literally asked.

What I really meant, reading between the lines, was wonderment at the idea that traditional fuel-powered attitude thrusters could have enough fuel to last this long, and wondering if they used ion thrusters (almost certainly weren't available back then) or had some other trick to make them so miserly as to last this long.

[BYODB]

Simply put they don't need to correct that often.

[Libertarian]

NASA scientists fired up the thrusters on Voyager 1 for the first time in 37 years.

Kudos to NASA. My car won't start if I leave it sitting for just a month.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

That's because you are firing your thrusters too much when you drive.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Senate passed a tax plan that must now be reconciled with the House's version.

Any Cornhusker Kickbacks?

[Conchfritters]

Scott Frost is the new coach - they don't give a shit about anything else. Now would be a good time to route the Keystone pipeline right through the heart of the Ogalalla aquifer - they won't notice.

[Pro Libertate]

UCF's AD seems like a winner, if it's been the same guy.

[Bee Tagger]

President Trump tweets about Michael Flynn, Trump's outside counsel responds to clarify.

If Trump is owned by the Russians then that makes him a bot and not to be taken seriously thereby eliminating evidence that he's owned by the Russians.

[Fist of Etiquette]

NASA scientists fired up the thrusters on Voyager 1 for the first time in 37 years.

It took them that long to get a can of Dry Gas out to it.

[Bee Tagger]

The Senate passed a tax plan that must now be reconciled with the House's version.

If the House is even older and whiter, I fear for the state of the tweets.

[Ken Shultz]

Trump has officially endorsed Roy Moore, once again smashing the Overton window.

CNN and MSNBC hardest hit.

[Jerryskids]

"Trump Endorses Accused Child Molester Roy Moore" - that's the semi-static chyron on CNN. And yet nobody's asking the obvious question of what the hell happened to the Democratic Party such that a party that had a lock on state offices in the Deep South as recently as 20 or 30 years ago has now fallen into such disrepute that a large portion of the Alabama electorate prefers an accused child molester to a Democrat.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Better a child molester to a commie, eh?

[Libertarian]

Seriously, I think this is a philosophical question that hasn't been addressed. At what point on the spectrum should a crime be a bar to election?

Burglary?
Assault?
Drunk driving?

Or is child molestation the only one?

[loveconstitution1789]

To be fair, with Roy Moore its an accusation for a sex crime. Actual negligent homicide is not a barrier for Democrats to run for a Senate seat though.

"Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, on Friday, July 18, 1969. According to Kennedy's own testimony, he accidentally drove his car off the one-lane bridge and into a tidal channel. He swam free, vainly tried to rescue Kopechne, left the scene, and did not report the accident to authorities for ten hours. Meanwhile, Kopechne drowned in the vehicle that was submerged underwater. The next day, Kopechne's body and the car were both recovered by a diver. Kennedy pled guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of a crash causing personal injury; he later received a two-month suspended jail sentence." -wiki
Ted Kennedy ran for reelection from 1962 until his death in 2009.

[Lee Russell]

Child molestation, attempted rape, pedophilia, and threatening teenage girls using your position in the DAs office is so much worse than accidentally wrecking your car with your drunk companion.

[Tony]

At the very least one doesn't excuse the other contrary to what some of these free-thinking nonpartisans have been so desperately arguing for weeks.

[damikesc]

Leaving her to die is measures worse.

...especially since, when found, she died trying to find oxygen to breathe.

He left her there to die, slowly, by drowning.

[Tony]

How does that make Roy Moore's child molesting OK, again?

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

It doesn't dipshit, but the real question for you and your conscience is, why did you forgive Ted Kennedy for so long, and only now develop morals when the other party shows its corruption?

And the corollary: why do you still forgive your party leaders for having sucked up to Harvey Weinstein for so long, when his moral corruption was so well known for all that time? Ditto for Nancy Pelosi in particular for not condemning her own kind for so long.

[Tony]

When did I do any of those things?

[Fuck you, Shikha (Nunya)]

I'm sorry. Was there some 11 year old that I didn't about with Roy Moore? Words have definitions, and those definitions matter. I'm tired of hearing people say anything about pedophilia regarding the allegations.

That said, he was a POS before the allegations came out. None of the allegations impacted my decision. He is an instant no, and he is possibly a several assaulter.

[Rhywun]

I think any proven felony ought to cover it.

[Zeb]

I'd put it at felonies that victimize other people. There are too many felonies that shouldn't be criminal at all.

But practically, I think it has to be up to the voters. There can't be any legal barrier for anyone who meets the age and citizenship requirements. IF there were a legal bar to people convicted of certain crimes from holding office, it would create a means to exclude whole classes of people from holding office.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

How about we just not have an office?

[BestUsedCarSales]

I've wondered before how things would be if it was possible to just vote "no" during an election, leading to the office remaining vacant.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

I've wondered how many people would vote "None of the above" if they knew that such a winner would eliminate all spending, taxing, and regulation in that district by said government, ie, if it had real consequences.

[Vernon Depner]

Or, check this box for secession.

[Pro Libertate]

That's a great idea. Have that hanging over the heads of government officials each election.

[BYODB]

Or how about this:

if enough people selection "No" a lottery is held of all the legal residents of the area, based on some criteria, and whomever wins becomes office holder. I don't see any random retard doing a worse job.

[Rhywun]

There are too many felonies that shouldn't be criminal at all.

Good point. I change my answer to "none".

[Ken Shultz]

Why stop at crimes?

As the elite it's our right to dictate to the little voters whom they can and can't vote for.

What's the point of being an elitist if you can't circumscribe the choices of the little stupid people?

[Ken Shultz]

P.S. If there's any correct answer, it's treason and/or corruption.

If the voters wish to recall their representative for any reason, they should be free to do so.

[Ron]

when both sides are equally corrupt and equally guilty of the crimes you listed what difference does the crime then make when voting

[Lee Russell]

It's a racial thing in the South. Blacks vote for Democrats and whites vote for Republicans. You obviously don't live in the South because you would know this already.

[Pro Libertate]

That's absurd and wrong. There are quite a few white Democratic voters throughout the South.

[Tony]

Well Democrats molested all those children and it was curtains for them in the South. Oh no wait. Democrats thought black people should have some rights. That's what did them in. Such wonderful people there in the South.

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

Season's greetings from Dixie. Now, fuck off slaver.

[Rebel Scum]

Seconded.

[damikesc]

Tony, odd that Clinton did well in the South. As did Carter. And all of the segregationists, save 3, stayed Democrats until the end.

Hell, Moore was a Democrat when he was allegedly hitting on underage girls.

[Tony]

And going by the logic you seem to be stringing together, it was bad when he touched those girls because he was a Democrat, but it's OK now that he's a Republican.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

No, he's simply pointing out that if he were still a democrat yoi would vote for him.

[Tony]

Projection. And I'm not even the one claiming to be above partisanship like you liars.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

You don't have to explicitly claim to be non-partisan, it's right out in the open for all to see when you pretend Ted Kennedy and Harvey Weinstein and Anthony Weiner and all that 89 year old molester are not Democrats.

[Philadelphia Collins]

He's ok with pulling their bodies apart but draws the line at molestation.

[MarkLastname]

The south is so terrible for black people that there's net migration of blacks from north to south these days.

[BYODB]

I had no idea that Lincoln was a Democrat or that Byrd was a Republican. Do tell us more about how white is black and up is down.

[Crusty Juggler]

An eye-popping Christmas craze! Women are taking the ugly holiday sweater trend to an extreme by decorating their exposed breasts to look like REINDEER

I can't wait for the office Christmas party!

[DJF]

But you better not touch,.

You better not stare

Or the "Me Too" hash tag will ruin your Christmas.

[loveconstitution1789]

Keep us abreast of that situation.

[BestUsedCarSales]

I can't wait for the office Christmas party!

Why wait? Nothing's stopping you from jerking off in your home office now.

[Crusty Juggler]

I can't look at a gussied up titties at home, bro.

[Libertarian]

Time to admit we live in an era where "gussied up titties" is not the name for a fantastic band, but a description of a Christmas decoration.

[loveconstitution1789]

You can!

You need some reindeer looking accoutrements, an imagination, and a mirror.

[loveconstitution1789]

Some women are busy accusing men of inappropriate touching while other women are setting a trap.

[Rhywun]

Christmas party? Yeah, right. Don't expect to see another one of those any time soon.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

Don't boop the snoot, Crusty.

[sarcasmic]

I've been keeping track of Voyager news, and it really is amazing that a hunk of metal that is almost as old as me is hurtling through space and still sending news back to its creators.

[Chipper Morning Truthjammer]

You know who else is an amazing hunk of metal hurtling through space?

[sarcasmic]

Voltron?

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

V'ger?

[Bacon-Magic glib reasonoid]

Ironman?

[Rich]

Maynard James Keenan?

[Mike Laursen]

Gigantor?

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Tony's rusted intellect?

[Vernon Depner]

Gort?

[Curt]

R2-D2?

[Pro Libertate]

Pretty cool, huh? Though it's still well within the solar system, despite what NASA keeps saying.

[Tom Bombadil]

"The United Nations warned that millions of people in Yemen face starvation and its cities are running out of clean water amid an ongoing Saudi blockade."

Did they also warn that their human rights commission is infested with retards?

[BestUsedCarSales]

Yep, it's a footnote on page 37. I think someone was getting fired that day or something and just went nuts.

[Rebel Scum]

The president of Honduras is cracking down on election protestors who accuse him of rigging the vote.

The Russians really get around.

[Tony]

So election tampering is practically tradition in many parts of the world. Russia is known to have had a hand in in in several cases. But America is immune because of its extra strong security measures? Long history of never having any problems? Only in Chicago right?

[sarcasmic]

Tony, the Legendary Slayer of Straw Men! A wonder to behold!

[Kivlor]

Tony, maybe it's time to stop crying. We know, it hurts that despite all the usual Democrat cheating, you still lost. But seriously, a year is enough time to mourn.

[Tony]

Truth matters. Do you really want to go to your deathbed having let fat Sean Hannity fill your head with bullshit?

[Philadelphia Collins]

"Truth matters". But not to statists.

[Kivlor]

If truth mattered to you, you'd give up on screaming at the sky and just get on with your life. Truth is, Trump won. You lost. By the grace of God.

[Fuck you, Shikha (Nunya)]

I'm pretty sure I can go back a year or two ago to find your posts regarding how "election engineering" (my new term) was something Republicans used to excuse their losses and how great our system really is. You're losing your shit here over a joke.

[chemjeff]

"NASA scientists fired up the thrusters on Voyager 1 for the first time in 37 years."

NOOOO! That is how we get V-GER!!!!!!

[Tony]

Everyone's up bright and early defending child predators. Feels good to have some stability in the world.

Oh no, not legendary music icon James Levine. Just the gross, useless theocrat from Alabama.

[sarcasmic]

On my Pandora.

Who the fuck is Levine?

[Tony]

Uncultured oaf.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Levine is an uncultured oaf? Tony, that doesn't fit with the tony vibe you project around us bumptuous libertarians.

[sarcasmic]

I, who listen to euro-pop, am the uncultured one? Jeez. I'm a hipster compared to you. Which is an insult to both of us.

[Vernon Depner]

Without pederasts, arts education in this country would grind to a halt.

[Domestic Dissident]

Giants head coach Ben MacAdoodle fired.

I wonder if Ben MacAdoodle could possibly be related to Mrs. and Mr. Megan MacAdoodle. Lord knows the male MacAdoodles are both a couple of incompetent frauds.

[Curt]

Nicolas Maduro to introduce a new crypto currency called the Petro to try to shore up collapsed economy.

(Picture a link here if I was a little smarter). I read the article on Reuters. Should be easy enough to find and someone can probably add link.

I'm guessing he didn't read the H&R commentary from last week's article about bitcoin. Value of the currency depends entirely on people's faith in that currency. Plus, the whole concept of state-sponsored crytpo-currency seems to be missing most of the point.

[BYODB]

Not necessarily, but almost certainly in the case of Maduro.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

For what it's worth, Bill Clinton set the precedent that a sexual predator, accused of rape, and other sexual misconduct, is not worth removing from office. Take a look at how many dem senators did not vote to remove as part of the impeachment process.

[BYODB]

This x1000.

The bar was set pretty low already. It took everyone something like twenty years to even slightly question if what went on during the Clinton administration might have been a problem.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Apparently, Still not a problem. When Trump put the Clinton accusers in the front row, people still didn't want to really talk about. That was just last year.