Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

The New York Times reports:

The Virginia man arrested this month on charges of placing two pipe bombs in Washington on the night before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has given a detailed confession, according to court papers released on Sunday night.

In the public first hint at a motive in the case, the documents said that the man, Brian J. Cole Jr., felt he needed to “speak up” after he began to suspect that the 2020 election, in which President Trump was defeated, had been “tampered with.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/us/politics/jan-6-pipe-bomb.html

Is the accused angling for a pardon?

The government's memorandum in support of pretrial detention is here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.287328/gov.uscourts.dcd.287328.17.0.pdf

Our prisons likely would not be filled to capacity if accused persons would simply realize that one reason God gave us five fingers on each hand is to help remember the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE&t=858s

[Kazinski]

What doesn't add up about his confession is he started buying pipe bomb components months before Jan 6th, it seems he was looking for an excuse to make one and an event where it would get some attention.

[Michael P]

Indeed. From the government's memo, he bought end caps for pipes as early as October 2019 -- long before any of the primaries, much less the general-election shenanigans like illegally certifying 315,000 votes.

[AmosArch]

Its very telling the Biden folks couldn't catch what seems to be a literal mentally handicapped person for years. Probably afraid of what he might do to their 'insurrection' narrative. They're evil but not stupid like the ones who genuinely swallow their stories.

[Kazinski]

Absolutely crazy playoff scenario in the NFC South.

You'd think that Carolina and Tampa Bay would control.their own destiny when they meet head to head next week because the Saints and the Falcons have been eliminated from the division title.

But its actually the Falcon that control who wins the division. If they win their last two games against Rams and Saints then Carolina couldn't lose the division even if the wanted to, and the Bucs can't win it even if they beat the Panthers.

If all three teams end up 8-9 then Carolina wins the three way tiebreaker, even though they would lose a 2 way tiebreaker against Tampa by SOV, if they both end up 8-9.

Its not out of the question for Atlanta to beat the Rams tomorrow, especially since the Rams have been eliminated from the number 1 seed, and they have already clinched a playoff spot, they might start resting starters week 17.

[Michael P]

David Frum at https://x.com/davidfrum/status/2005270380739752216?s=46 :

Since 2015, Canada has tripled its Indigenous spending - paying more than on national defense. Over those same years, Indigenous people have suffered a catastrophic collapse in health and well-being: on average almost a full decade of lost life expectancy.

This is a recurring problem with many forms of charity: it pours good money after bad, enabling people to keep making poor choices. Grants need to be coupled with responsibility and accountability, with an expectation of growth and change rather than a fixed mindset. The hard part is that the kind of responsibility, accountability, growth and change often depend on the particular situation. It's usually impractical to prescribe those from a central government or even a state capitol.