Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

The State of the Union; winner or loser?

[Dr. Ed 2]

I think Trump should have made a bigger point of no FEMA MONEY for snow removal UNLESS YOU FIND FEMA.

What’s not being said are the massive overtime expenses that blue states have incurred I’m a state level and on the municipal level, and that they’re planning on a FEMA bail out. And even with that, there are some roads not open yet, and it’ll be April but football Boston and New York City have fully recovered.

[Brett Bellmore]

Shouldn't be hard, their address is in the public record.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Some of it was good. Trump had to falsely claim that Iryna Zarutska was killed by an illegal alien, because of course he did.

Liked the Sage Blair segment.

[not guilty]

The Defendants have now filed a notice of interlocutory appeal regarding the preliminary injunction which United States District Judge Richard Leon issued in favor of Senator Mark Kelly that prohibited the Secretary of Defense blocked him from punishing the senator for advising troops not to follow illegal orders. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.288365/gov.uscourts.dcd.288365.40.0.pdf

I would not characterize this appeal as frivolous, in that there is a dearth of law dealing with the First Amendment rights of retired military personnel, and there are arguably some procedural defects in the District Court's order regarding the lack of specificity as to what conduct is enjoined and the failure to address an injunction bond.

That having been said, the facts here are very favorable to the establishment of precedent regarding the First Amendment rights of military retirees. The District Court's order is not binding precedent. An order from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the preliminary injunction on the merits will be precedential. Secretary Hegseth seems to have forgotten the First Rule of Holes: STOP DIGGING!

[Mr. Bumble]

"...and there are arguably some procedural defects in the District Court's order regarding the lack of specificity as to what conduct is enjoined and the failure to address an injunction bond."
Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
Maybe judges should try following the rules?

[santamonica811]

Is "Nothing to see here" the correct response to a post that DOES specifically highlight that there may be a problem? Did you mean to give your response to a different comment?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Heaven forbid that the Republicans play by the same rules the Democrats do.

There been democrat presidents in the past, and there will be again in the future. I don’t think a precedent that one can’t lose a military pension for pissing off the president is a bad thing. I personally knew retired officers who dearly wanted to publicly state what they thought of Clinton….

[santamonica811]

Man, janitors run in rarefied circles. Who knew?

[Dr. Ed 2]

The difference between a janitor and a custodian is that a janitor has to shovel snow, something I’ve been doing a bit of in the past two days.

So I guess, well….

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Secretary Hegseth seems to have forgotten the First Rule of Holes: STOP DIGGING!"

Why? Seems good to have the issue clarified at the DC Circuit.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Who is that evil witch from Virginia, and since when are we supposed to fall for a CIA psychopath?

She was more vile and disgusting that someone from New York. People from Virginia are noted for their good manners and good breeding — the ability to twist a knife politely. She makes Trump look polite, I didn’t realize that was even possible…

And as to the psychop, please tell me that the American Republic is not stupid enough to not understand. That whole thing was choreographed. Applauding pursuant to the script the time applause becomes a binary on off is what as planned, otherwise it wanes and wanes — there are always some who start applauding a half second before the rest and they’re always a few that applaud beyond everyone else.

This was the first time I got so disgusted. I had to shut the bitch off before I broke my computer — the first time in 40+ years that I was unable, physically unable, the sit through a SOTU response.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The Trump haters will never give him credit, but it appears that Donald Trump right a wrong last night.

Trump said Russian pilots, didn’t he?

During the Korean war, it was super top secret that those men are being flown by Soviet pilots. Everyone knew they were Soviet MIGAs, China had not yet developed the technology to copy them and the only other countries with jet technology, i.e. the British, French, and Americans, had vastly different designs.

But neither the USSR, nor the US wanted it known that it was the actual Soviet Air Force pulling the trigger on American pilots, the concern was that would quickly escalate into a global thermonuclear war. So the Soviet pilots were under order to shoot and kill any of their fellow pilots who bailed out or otherwise weren’t able to make it back across the border, and Americans falsely claimed they were Koreans.

But these were first generation fighters without any of the computer assistance that exist today, and it simply wasn’t possible to take farm boys who never driven a car and expect them to instantly be able to fly a high speed jet fighter without instantly crashing it. That was quite a bit of physics one had to know, actually still has to know.

Everyone knew they were Soviets because they were speaking Russian on the radio, this the days of analog radio where anyone could receive it. My guess is that he didn’t receive the metal he should have 70 years ago because it was classified, his legitimate heroism was an inconvenient fact that got ignored any he quietly kept his mouth shut for 70 years.

Hence, even if he didn’t deserve the congressional medal of honor for what he did that day, and he may well have deserved it, he’s also been recognized for honorably keeping his mouth shut about the Soviet pilots.

And as to the other guy, the helo pilot, am I the only person who noticed the other guy in uniform had to sit him down in his chair, that he wasn’t able to do it himself? He still has some serious injuries…

Freedom isn’t free…

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

The Trump administration lied about how smoothly the operation went. But Trump lied about the success of his first military order the Raid on Yakla which was a FUBAR mission that ended with a dead little American girl and 9 of her little friends along with a fallen SEAL.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And the Epstein matter has heated up.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/02/22/jeffrey-epstein-secret-files-storage-units-united-states/

IANAA — a private detective who removed CASM and put it into a storage somewhere would be considered an accessory after the fact wouldn’t he? Just on this alone….

This just got really interesting….