Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

See Page 4 of the Providence PD affidavit:
https://www.scribd.com/document/968825317/Claudio-Manuel-Neves-Valente-Affidavit#from_embed

Apparently it is now possible to recover DNA -- not just fingerprints but actual DNA -- from shell casings, including spent brass. I didn't believe this but apparently it ha been possible for the past 3-4 years. And Connecticut's lab, from what I have heard, is fairly reputable.

It appears that they have DNA from two DIFFERENT people on the ammo, and as the ammo came from three different brands, it wasn't someone in the factory, even if they still package ammo by hand, which I doubt.

So who is the second person????

[hobie]

I realize it is disappointing that you hayseeds didn't get your radical left antisemitic terrorist tranny shooter. But in a second-shooter conspiracy lies hope.

[Dr. Ed 2]

WHOSE DNA IS IT?!?

"The science" says another person is involved.

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/live-updates-new-developments-in-brown-mit-professor-shootings/3864904/

The perp was "using aps to communicate" -- communicate with whom?!? Isn't communicating with a fugitive an accessory after the fact or something?

Notwithstanding that, who was he communicating with, and why?

[hobie]

"communicate with whom?!?"

DoorDash? Could have been ordering a pizza

[Michael P]

Isn't communicating with a fugitive an accessory after the fact or something?

Mere communication is not enough. From https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/accessory_after_the_fact :

An accessory-after-the-fact is someone who assists 1) someone who has committed a crime, 2) after the person has committed the crime, 3) with knowledge that the person committed the crime, and 4) with the intent to help the person avoid arrest or punishment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Tell that to Dr. Mudd.

All he did was provide emergency medical care to an injured man.

[Michael P]

Setting aside the (still-controversial) issues of fact in his case, Samuel Mudd was charged and convicted for aiding and conspiracy to murder, not with being an accessory after the fact.

As to "all" he did, from Wikipedia, on top of being seen in the company of three of the definite conspirators and delaying reporting his assistance to Booth, "An acquaintance named Daniel Thomas also testified that in early 1865 Mudd had predicted that Lincoln and his cabinet 'would be killed in six or seven weeks'." The trial was rushed and done by a military tribunal rather than civil court, but there was evidence against Mudd that implicated his actions before Lincoln was shot.

[ducksalad]

Tremendous announcement today, in the White House, on “Most Favored Nation” Drug Pricing. There has never been anything like it in the Medical World. Prices are now dropping at levels never seen before. This alone should win the Midterms for Republicans! No Democrat could have come close to doing it. Prices will be dropping by 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, and even 800%!

Presidential immunity even covers the laws of mathematics.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Prescriptivist mathematics have no place in Trump/MAGA's battle against inflation. Trump acolytes get that inflation can boost prices by hundreds of percent. After that happens, it demands a reciprocal hundreds of percent decrease to undo. Only Trump knows how to deliver that.

[Malika la Maize]

According to the intertubes Americans eat around 20 billion hot dogs a year and around five billion tacos. How much would that gap have to be closed for tacos to be an American food?

[hobie]

Are you asking something to the effect that if we were to consume enough sushi we could claim it as an American invention?

[Malika la Maize]

Not invention, more like adoption. Iirc we didn’t invent hot dogs but it’s an iconic American food now.

[Michael P]

Hot dogs are tacos. https://cuberule.com/

[Brett Bellmore]

Seems unlikely; Hot dogs are much more convenient, and Americans value convenience.

Unless somebody at the Mall starts selling pretzel tacos. I'd give that a try.

[DDHarriman]

I wonder what the Biden Whitehouse coordination was with the DOJ on Mar-a-lago raid after they took it offline?

[Malika la Maize]

Disappointed. Frustrated. Suspicious.

Several of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims said Friday that Justice Department failed them with its partial release of files related to the federal investigations into Mr. Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of teen girls and young women. They said the release of thousands of pages of photographs and heavily redacted documents did little to shed new light on the investigations and the scope of Mr. Epstein’s crimes or conspirators.

“They are proving everything we have been saying about corruption and delayed justice,” said Jess Michaels, one of the earliest known victims of Mr. Epstein. “What are they protecting? The coverup continues.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/epstein-files-victims-reaction.html

[Michael P]

The flailing New York Slimes should bother to do some research before writing whiny Letters To The Editor on non-editorial pages.

https://legalclarity.org/what-is-redacted-information-and-why-is-it-done/

And somehow, there is still too much information in this release for some people:

“So many of the photos are irrelevant,” said Marina Larcerda, who has said Mr. Epstein sexually abused her when she was 14.

[Malika la Maize]

Again, Dear Leader says FAILING NYT, not flailing, you’re going to get reported and the MTG treatment!

[Michael P]

You're not my boss, and somehow Donald Trump still seems fine with my version. You should stop acting like he's as totalitarian as you are.

[Sarcastr0]

In another context it'd be pretty funny. They blacked out dang near everyone except Bill Clinton.

It's pretty blatantly fucking around and not following the law. If only they had a ton of time to work on this.

[Dr. Ed 2]

My land acknowledgement:

This land was cleared by White Christians.
This country was founded by White Christians.
This university was built by White Christians to educate White Christians, which should be the overriding priority of this university.

[Malika la Maize]

The etymology of mistletoe — a plant with small, oval evergreen leaves and waxy white berries — likely comes from the Anglo-Saxon words for manure — "mist" or "mistel" — and "tan" (sometimes rendered as "toe"), meaning "twig" or "stick."

"It literally means bird poop on a twig," according to Susie Dent, a British lexicographer and author of Guilt by Definition.

The name stems from the way its seeds are carried by birds and dropped after passing through their digestive tract. This method of seed dispersal is called endozoochory, says Tristram Seidler, a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the curator of the UMass Amherst Herbarium.

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/nx-s1-5641015/mistletoe-dung-manure-etymology