Talk about whatever you like in the comments.And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.
22 જુલાઈ, 2025
Sunrise — 5:16, 5:18, 5:30.
Talk about whatever you like in the comments.And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.
પોસ્ટ્સ
111 ટિપ્પણીઓ:
Red sky in morning
Former President Straw Man has issued a statement: "Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,"
An honest question, maybe dumb, for people here. what is the point of AI?
So far, I see huge, acres big, centers, sucking power, and water out of entire regions. increasing electricity rates, and water bills.
Grok, or any of the AI chat bots are clearly biased, and in my limited experience with them wrong.
They are systematically sucking up the worlds intellectual and emotional output, in many cases outright stealing from authors and inventors
For what purpose? It seems, like with 'smart' phones, AI just makes people more stupid, less serious, and unable to remember simple facts without consulting the oracle of AI
Is there an end game? a glorious 22d century future we are approaching rapidly.
from where I sit, as an old guy, it just seems like a great way to dumb down people, control what info they see, and help them to become willing sheep.
again, dumb question, but I don't see what the hupla is all about.
"So far, I see huge, acres big, centers, sucking power, and water out of entire regions. increasing electricity rates, and water bills."
Sounds worse than air travel, doesn't it?
I think Artificial Intelligence has great potential for scientific and medical research. The Chatbots? They're entertainment. Resource-sucking entertainment. IMHO.
Real estate is slowing down here in Silicon Valley.
Agent says high interest rates(obviously)
But ,also, many tech employees expect AI to replace them.
AI lies better and faster then any Democrat. Both Voxday
https://voxday.net/2025/07/22/correction-7/
and Karl Denninger:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=253664
discuss this today. Voxday published an article the other day quoting Karl from a "sourced" blogpost from an AI inquiry. Problem- said article did not exist. Anywhere on Karl's blog. And especially not on the date the AI said the post was published...
Always, ALWAYS, go to the source.
And why was Voxday quoting Karl? In his post a few days back headlined Scott Adams is a Liar.
I wonder if Scott is going to hire a lawyer to sue for libel... or defamation. Which requires the statement made be false, knowingly false. And Voxday makes a pretty good case for his headline.
Trump administration objects to central bank project, alleging mismanagement by chair ~ FT
The renovation cost so much because Trump insisted on more marble and less glass back during his first term. Im not kidding.
The Fed’s architects wanted glass in the HQ renovation, but Trump appointees to a local commission pushed for marble ~ Fortune
https://fortune.com/2025/07/19/federal-reserve-headquarters-renovation-glass-marble-trump-appointees-powell/
The renovation of government buildings is under the management purview of GSA, an independent federal agency, known as the General Services Administration. Powell is the Chair of the Federal Reserve. Powell would not ultimately be in charge of the Federal Reserve building renovation because the responsibility falls under the GSA. The GSA is notorious for cost overruns, padding contracts, and nefarious activities. They work with construction and maintenance corporations, amongst others. They oversee and are in charge of all federal building real estate.
SHould close italics...
"But ,also, many tech employees expect AI to replace them". that is already happening, especially if you are a white American.
Musk, Microsoft, and other companies decided years ago to replace white males with Indians.
"Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion..."
Ahhh, yes- the Party of Consensus has spoken.
Getting a bunch of people to believe something doesn't make it so.
Botfly needs to provide a list of the lies he alleges.
The issue, Mr. President, is that you and your associates used manufactured intelligence to smear your successor with colluding with Russia. And you used it as a predicate to spy on him. Address that.
Russiagate's Architects Suppressed Doubts to Peddle False Claims
This is a very informative article. Among other things,, it gives lie to the "17 intelligence agencies" bullshit.
AI is the new hydrogen bomb.
US Olympic team to comply with Trump's 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports' executive order
Shoot.
Mr. President, we must not allow... a chat bot gap!
Hillary hid - and the corrupt democrat-Soviet media and Comey et al helped her hide - Russian Uranium One insider money flow to the Clinton Foundation.
@Jimmy
I asked Grok your question.
Short answer:
1. Automation. AI takes over repetitive and risky tasks (defusing bombs, mining — reducing human error and danger.
2. Efficiency. It speeds up research, instantly scanning transcripts or scientific studies.
My favorite application of AI is the chess coaching at chess.com. Games are instantly analyzed. In the old days, I’d play a few games and a week later our chess coach would go over them. Now I can play bots significantly better than I am. In the real world I just wouldn’t have access to those kind of players. And whether I’m playing bots or humans, the analysis comes as soon as the game is finished. AI and I go over ever move of the game, with the AI suggesting better moves when applicable. Which makes learning a lot easier. Not to mention that going over losing games is psychologically easier with AI than going over them with a human.
Getting better at chess isn’t that meaningful in the grander scheme of things but I think all learning is easier with AI. It’s so much less embarrassing (if at all) getting an answer wrong and having AI correct you instead of a teacher in front of a room of your fellow students.
And it’s democratized. Regardless of access to good schools, everyone has the ability to take advantage of AI to learn. (At least for now anyway.)
Well, yesterday I was sentenced. 30 days suspended, 6 months unsupervised probation, $50 fine. We plan to appeal, and ask for a pardon. The conviction itself is the real punishment.
RR
JSM
Grok defuses bombs? What a guy!
What did they say you did, john?
Just got through some more Sinatra movies.
Assault on a Queen. Mid-60s heist film. Frank and a bunch of Euros find an old german sub and try to rob the Queen mary ocean liner on the high seas. Silly but fun. I can see why Sinatra did these sort of movies in the mid 60s, he doesn't have really act. He's just Frank Sinatra.
Silliness: We're supposed to believe this skinny 50 y/o is a deep sea diver and boat operator, what whatever.
Double Silliness: The U-boat is found years after WW II in mint condition. Y'see the U-boat captain let all the crew escape, then committed German hari-Kari by taking the ship down to the bottom, and then dying when the air ran out.
Usually WW II subs took a posse of highly trained seaman to blow the tanks and rise to the surface, but Frank Sinatra is a leading man, so he does it all himself!
Original Mike said...
Grok defuses bombs? What a guy!
One profession where trial and error is not a learning option.
But AI- or just properly structured programming- could replace a lot of teaching jobs. My two youngest learned to read using the original Leappad learning system. Before kindergarten. You know, one of those white supremacy things where we do things to give our children a leg up...
@john mosby
So sorry to hear. Is the fact that it’s over for now a relief?
Also tried to watch "Lady in Cement". This is glorified Rockford Files episode. Frank is a PI (Tony Rome again) and finds a dead blond while deep diving for treasure. Shenanigans ensue.
Everytime there's some gunplay we get "wah,wah" comic music. And semi-good, semi-bad guy is played by Don Blocker of Bonzana. Richard deacon (Mel) shows up to add even more comedy. It went on and on, and i finally quit 1/2 way through. Only 93 minutes, it should have been a TV movie of the week.
Brennan ignored objections: ‘The assessment will stay the same.’
"Top officials working on an intelligence community analysis about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election were overruled by CIA Director John Brennan, according to records exclusively reviewed by The Federalist. The records are related to ongoing criminal investigations into Brennan and other top intelligence officials for their roles in launching the Russia collusion hoax."
I imagine piloting a submarine takes a highly skilled crew.
There's a scene in a WWII movie I forget the name of where a nervous landlubber asks the sub captain how far down his boat will go. "Oh, she'll go all the way to the bottom if we don't stop her".
“Hunter Biden is the Joe Rogan of the Left.”
BTW, still waiting for the Trump DOJ/FBI to tell us about the J6 pipebombers, how many FBI/DHS/etc "Assets" were in the crowd, why Ray Epps protected, and what Pelosi and Mitch the bitch McConnell were up to.
Tomorrow is new left knee day. Outpatient surgery.
Right knee was replaced Feb 3. Post-op was very painful, but knee doing great. Switched surgeons for this one. He uses the Cryoneurolysis technique which freezes the nerves for three months. Supposed to reduce pain by 50%.
Fifty years off playing basketball on asphalt has a way of destroying cartilage.
... undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia ... did not successfully manipulate any votes ...
An Economist/YouGov poll in December 2016 found that 52% of Democrats (and 18% of Republicans) considered it “definitely” or “probably” true that “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President.”
Copy of poll results here. Scroll down to Table 54. Conspiracy Theories–Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President.
They are trying to make this an up is down, black is white, wrong is right sort of world, John Mosby. We all have to fight against this effort. If an appeal is expensive, maybe start a Go Fund Me and I’ll be among the first to donate.
RC. ole buddy, I just wanted to make it clear that I am not spying on you for the Mossad.
That's another guy. I'm in the weather department.
OM: This was a prosecution for misdemeanor assault in a donnybrook with illegal subway dancers in the DC Metro. I claimed self-defense from assault and false imprisonment, as well as citizen's arrest and LEO powers for those offenses and robbery/fear (which is essentially what subway dancing is). The judge (you don't get a jury for 180-day misdemeanors) rejected my affirmative defenses.
Iman and others who want to support this court battle, I have both a gofundme and a givesendgo:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-law-officer-in-need-of-justice
https://www.givesendgo.com/christy
Prof, I apologize if this violates the blog rules.
I appreciate everyone's support. Even if you disagree with me, you probably don't want to see a social death penalty applied for a de-minimis violation. And there is the whole 2-tier justice thing.
RR
JSM
Professor, do you have your "types of sunrises" classifications summarized somewhere? I recall you mentioning this before. Maybe you have a post describing them? Trying the Blogspot search engine now.
I found the Sunrise Types post, from 9/9/2020!
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/09/today-marks-1-year-anniversary-of.html
It's important to honor the fog.
U.S. and Japan Reach Trade Deal ~ WSJ
'The president says Tokyo will face 15% reciprocal tariffs instead of the 25% he had threatened'
"Japan will pay Reciprocal Tariffs to the United States of 15%.”
Good lord he either still doesn't understand how his own tariffs work or he is just being allowed to keep lying to his own people. America is cooked.
He really is desperate to distract attention away from Epstein.
Done deal, Mr. Mosby!
kak is wackier than a squirrel on meth.
Thanks very much, Iman! A luta continua!
RR
JSM
👆just sayin’☝️
May the force overpower the farce!
Obama and his apparatchiks were pressed for time at end of 2016. The reason this came to head on December 8th-9th was that the electors were going to vote on December 19th and they still hoped to change enough of their votes to give Clinton the Presidency but it required an explosive charge of Russia helping Trump win backed by official U.S.intelligence agencies. That is the reason it was done and when it was done. Note how the leaks to the press started the very next day on December 10th.
"Subway dancers." I can imagine.
"the electors were going to vote on December 19th and they still hoped to change enough of their votes to give Clinton the Presidency but it required an explosive charge of Russia helping Trump win backed by official U.S.intelligence agencies."
It's ok when they do it. Admirable even.
Jimmy Kimmel - still not funny.
"RCOCEAN II said...
Just got through some more Sinatra movies."
Official trailer The Man With the Golden Arm .
Re. AI: Long seemed to Zavier a giant waste of time - like TikTok or porn. Waste of resources too, considering energy and hardware needed to create and sustain it.
I begin however to understand the fascination Althouse seems to have sparring with Grock. AI will, it seems, lie without remorse and without a "tell" like left-shifted eyes. But catch it in a logic trap or contradiction, and see what it does. Perhaps good training for a trial lawyer.
But for fact based questions, readily tested, it is marvelous. To turn off some annoying new Windows "feature," to find how to add or remove icons from Ubuntu's "Show Apps" screen, or resolve some gnarly issue with a Synology NAS (bought from Amazon thru Althouse' portal) - if I put a tightly phrased question to Google, the AI answer fast and usually spot-on.
Ex-socialite Ghislaine Maxwell will try to cut a deal with federal authorities during a jailhouse meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, sources told The Post.
Blanche said Tuesday he plans to meet with the convicted madam, currently serving a 20- year sentence in Florida for sex trafficking young women for her former boss, notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
“She’s going to make a deal,” said Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer and law professor who was pals with, and previously represented, Epstein, who died in federal custody in August 2019.
“That’s the way things are done. They make deals with the mafia, so I’m certain they are going to try to make a deal with her.”
"Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,"
Well, except for the Dutch intelligence service, who had broken into the Russian FSB internal communications system and reported that the Russians themselves were mystified at the charge because they had done nothing of the kind.
"An honest question, maybe dumb, for people here. what is the point of AI?"
Do you remember the Internet of Things (TM)?
Your TV was supposed to be connected to your refrigerator, so the TV could tell you that you had left the fridge open. Or you were out of milk. Or something.
The way it works is, for over a decade, Intel made chips run faster, and Microsoft made Windows need faster chips. That worked great, for both of them. But eventually, the chips got so fast that there really wasn't any way to make e-mail and web-surfing need a faster chip. So, the marketers asked themselves, "What New Thing (TM) can you do with these fast chips, and the possibility of Edge Computing (TM)?". The answer was, IoT (TM).
That idiotic scheme has now collapsed, and all the assholes who made VP on the strength of its supposed Potential Market Share (PMS) (TM) have retired to spend more time with their families. But the gaping maw of big tech is always open, so the Next Big Thing (TM) is AI (TM).
Now, as hype scams go, AI is unusual, in that it has captured the public imagination. The marketers always say that the Next Big Thing (TM) is going to restructure society and the economy, and also get you laid. But no one who was not paid by chipmakers ever had the least interest in the Internet of Things. Does any sane human being want a refrigerator that, for a considerable additional cost, allows a stranger on the other side of the world to turn it off? No. What is unusual about the current hype, AI (TM), is that it makes those neat images, and also gives the appearance of conversing. A lot of people are simply unable to recognize that, say, Grok, is not your grandmother, or the cashier at the local convenience store. Althouse, for example, has somehow convinced herself that there is a person known as Grok, and he (?) is one of the smartest and most knowledgeable people she knows. She can't get through a day without "conversing" with this imaginary being. I worry about her.
But while she is clearly deluded, her delusion is probably much less destructive than that of all the managers who have allowed themselves to be convinced that they can replace all those pesky employees with "AI". As Charles Mackay memorably stated, "“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."
It is always risky to bet on the end of a delusion. As Keynes famously said, "The market can stay irrational a lot longer than you can stay solvent". But I think we are nearing peak AI madness, with the advent of "AI agents". Stripped of its marketing hype, an AI agent is a computer program that you authorize to make legally binding agreements on your behalf. Essentially, you give power of attorney to a computer (which computer? Who knows. It's all in the cloud, whatever that means). What could possibly go wrong?
Iman said...
kak is wackier than a squirrel on meth.
7/22/25, 8:54 PM
He's on Richweed ®️
Jupiter you are wrong. What’s worse is that you’re also an insult machine. Why can’t you make your point without being a jerk?
Anyway you point to the internet of things. But what about the internet? What about the iPhone?
No one thinks there’s person named Grok. That’s silly. But Grok or any AI is already immensely helpful. Maybe that will change. Just as Google started out as an impartial search engine and ended up being a useless ad purveyor. But right now it’s the golden age of AI and it’s immensely helpful to people.
Big Mike:
Dutch security services watched Russian hackers break into email accounts at the State Department, the White House, and the Democratic National Committee and passed critical intelligence along to U.S. officials between 2014 and 2016, according to a report in January 2018 by the Dutch news outlets Nieuwsuur and Volkskrant.
This intelligence from Dutch security services reportedly prompted the Federal Bureau of Investigations to first look into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In the summer of 2014, Dutch AIVD and MIVD intelligence agencies infiltrated computers used by Cozy Bear, one of two state-sponsored Russian hacking operations U.S. intelligence officials believe swiped emails and other documents from the DNC in 2016. Their goal was to influence the general election in favor of President Donald Trump.
It looks like the Dictator in Ukraine is about to fall due to people rebelling against corruption.
I can't wait for the new government in Ukraine to start naming names on both sides of the Atlantic.
OM: ""Subway dancers." I can imagine."
Don't have to imagine - here is some video. Do please keep in mind that the lenses create some distortion of the space involved:
https://tinyurl.com/bde6nxnm
https://tinyurl.com/2s9j65wj
RR
JSM
PS: Thanks very much to the overnight donors! Very generous! - j
"the electors were going to vote on December 19th and they still hoped to change enough of their votes to give Clinton the Presidency but it required an explosive charge of Russia helping Trump win backed by official U.S.intelligence agencies."
The point of a long presidential campaign is to thoroughly vet each candidate so that there are no explosive charges in hiding. We really failed by electing Obama, it appears.
@Yancey, good catch. That timing escaped me.
@Breezy, we managed to dodge the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua and The Brat. Two out of three ain't bad.
Jeffrey Epstein's appearance at Trump's wedding raises new questions about the Clintons' marriage.
“ In the summer of 2014, Dutch AIVD and MIVD intelligence agencies infiltrated computers used by Cozy Bear, one of two state-sponsored Russian hacking operations U.S. intelligence officials believe swiped emails and other documents from the DNC in 2016. Their goal was to influence the general election in favor of President Donald Trump.”
Except that much of that was untrue. It was much more likely that the DNC document acquisition was an inside job. Possibly by Seth Rich, DNC staffer, murdered on the streets of Georgetown, possibly in retaliation. The hacked emails bore evidence strongly suggesting a direct dump to a memory device, instead of via an external infiltration. Plus the Russian hacking information appears to have actually come from the Obama WH. Notably, the Cozy Bear theory disappeared fairly quickly, and wasn’t really considered by the various government reports looking for Russian involvement. Moreover, Assange has essentially verified that it wasn’t a Russian hack that led to the documents ended up with Wikileaks.
That some Intelligence officials believed that it was Russian interference provides Alamos zip support for your theory. It could easily have been the corrupt FBI personnel from its Counterintelligence Division (Peter Strzok’s coworkers), who were the ones investigating it for the FBI. And put together the RussiaGate conspiracy, that extended up through the FL documents case against Trump. Which DNI Gabbord is releasing evidence involving the Obama WH and Obama himself.
Let me remind you that Trump’s joke about asking the Russians about what was in Clinton’s email was directed at the fact that they had hacked her illegal email server four years earlier, and appear to have been exporting her emails in near real-time. Your Russian hacking the DNC server claim was to change the National focus from the illegal use by Clinton of her illegal email server while Secretary of State.
Also, a 1000% drop in prices is, indeed, not possible.
"This is somebody nobody else can do. I can get the drug prices down… 1000% 600% 500% 1500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable." ~ Donald Trump
Finally, a leader who understands numbers don’t matter as long as you say them loudly. Next up: reversing gravity by 3000% and curing disease with a 700% handshake.
Yes, AI is nothing but a passing fad. No more significant that the fax machine, right Jupiter? "The cloud, whatever that is". I suspect you are in for a surprise.
"Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,"
That isn't really the issue. The issue is whether Obama, Brennan and McCabe deliberately and materially misrepresented the intelligence community's consensus for purely political reasons, using material that they knew to be disinformation, to undercut the incoming administration.
They did.
In the summer of 2014, Dutch AIVD and MIVD intelligence agencies infiltrated computers used by Cozy Bear, one of two state-sponsored Russian hacking operations U.S. intelligence officials believe swiped emails and other documents from the DNC in 2016. Their goal was to influence the general election in favor of President Donald Trump.
Gadfly--Trump didn't come down the escalator until June of 2015. You need to polish your turn some more.
turd. What the hell.
test
OFF
Thank you, Mezzrow.
to undercut the incoming administration
…and to be more specific about the meaning of undercut, the intent was to create a political environment where Trump was ousted, either through a no confidence Watergate scenario or through manipulation of electoral college votes or where electoral count act alternate electors could become plausible. Remember at the time Trump had not attempted that route and thus the wording of the Constitution and the electoral count act still had generally accepted meaning…
"Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,"
That isn't really the issue.
It isn't just not really the issue. It is not at all the issue. The issue is as you say:
whether Obama, Brennan and McCabe deliberately and materially misrepresented the intelligence community's consensus for purely political reasons, using material that they knew to be disinformation, to undercut the incoming administration.
The Obama office's framing is pretty much exactly like all that noise from the Biden administration and the entire mainstream media about Hunters laptop - "Hunter Biden drug use and so forth is a nothing burger!" An attempt to deflect attention from the real issue.
It's Day 2 of "Not Arresting Obama."
Trump says he's guilty of Treason. The Director of National Intelligence says he's guilty of Treason. They've referred him to the FBI/DOJ and Pam Bondi/Cash Patel are protecting the scruffy Kenyan.
Oh, have a cup of tea or something, FLC.
George Webb restaurants in the Milwaukee area give a free hamburger to all patrons if the Brewers win 12 games in a row. The had won 11 going into last night's game against the Mariners in Seattle, which they lost 1-0. Oh well.
I am not sure whether it meets the definition of Treason, but what the Counterintelligence Division did by acquiring four FISA warrants on Carter Page to electronically surveil Candidate, President-elect, and esp POTUS Trump and his inner circle utilizing information they knew to be false (e.g. the Steele Dossier) months before the first warrant application was filed, comes close. Yes, federal employees and officers lied, in sworn statements, in order to electronically surveil their Constitutional boss, from whom was delegated the entirety of their power.
The jays in my yard are on a tear this morning! Like do many Hollywood people, they're beautiful to look at but I wish they'd shut it.
federal employees and officers lied, in sworn statements, in order to electronically surveil their Constitutional boss, from whom was delegated the entirety of their power.
And while it may not have rendered Trump 100% (or 1000%) unable to carry out his duties, it certainly had the effect of material interference in those duties. They failed to remove him from office via bloodless coup, but they managed to eat up a ton of his time and attention, and also to create an unbelievably toxic environment for anyone who might actually try to support or work for him or his agenda. It's a miracle to me that he's been able to pull together the team he has - a cadre of strong, intelligent people who apparently don't GAF (or don't GA sufficient F at least) about the reputational damage they'll be subjected to, the obstructions thrown up in their way, even the threats of prosecution that we saw actually carried out against members of the Trump 45 team.
…as it’s become relevant again the lefties try to hack the electoral college was subject of a blog post here but search here is futility. As I recall it was blogged here with Althouse asymmetry, without comment and not an opinion of the absurdity or an ‘expert says’ we don’t do that. As it stands iI find it difficult to conclude Obama’s actions were not part of that operation…
Botfly is doing the cowardly thing of making claims and not backing them up. The reality is Gabbard didn’t lie. Botfly did.
"Federal employees and officers lied, in sworn statements, in order to electronically surveil their Constitutional boss ..."
These would all be felonies punishable by 20 years in prison.
If only we had a cop to arrest them.
Sadly, Pam Bondi is a girl. So she doesn't have the cajones to do it. And this is why you never hire a girl to do a man's job.
My bank changed the online login from an email 2nd factor to a text message. My landline phone has no text so I visited the bank and added a cell phone number to the account. Now online access to the account is blocked. It's the era of nothing works.
The Democrats hate the Electoral College until they think they can subvert it. Tells ya all you need to know
the scruffy Kenyan will be arrested by ICE when he cashed pension check with fake CT SS #
--- As Charles Mackay memorably stated, "“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."
USA Fencing finally agrees that biological males are, in reality l, biological males, and can only compete in male tourname
nts.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/usa-fencing-changes-transgender-policy-cites-new-guidance-from-us-olympic-committee.amp
This was after Damien Lehfeldt's disastrous and perjured testimony to the congressional DOGE hearing. Oh and he and the rest of the woke clowns on the athletics board are also getting sued for trying to hide oversight documents by fellow board members!
Couldn't happen to a more deserving smug, PoS.
No need for a federal prosecution of Obama. Lots of other options:
1. As I mentioned before, just impeach him post-term, as was done to Trump.
2. Trump could pardon him. Yes, pardon him. Have a big Oval Office address where he lays out the incriminating evidence, then, for the good of the country, rolls out a big Ed McMahon check-sized pardon and gives it a non-autopen Sharpie signature. Bonus points if Trump says he's the bigger man.
3. Red states could prosecute Obama in state court for violating their state election laws, civil-rights laws, campaign-finance laws, etc. Both for in-office and post-term conduct. Make him say his shenanigans were exercise of Presidential powers protected by the Supremacy Clause. The process is the punishment, and the legal fees alone will make him sell off the Vineyard property (more likely, some donors will sell of their property, but it's all fungible Dem money).
4. Make a pardoned, immunized Obama rat out his subordinates.
RR
JSM
Epstein and Jizzlaine were at Chelsea clintons wedding.
Many of us suspected that something weird was going on during the COVID period. There was a 'body snatchers' kind of behavioral strangeness (to me) during that time, people suddenly acting very oddly, following instructions from policy makers who were in turn, receiving instructions. It was similar during Trump's first term, there was that polarization thing, a steady societal pressure of either emotional commitment to MAGA or intense dislike, condemnation, disregard being heaped on MAGA by those aligned against it. It was very clear in Washington DC, active shunning of administration people in all aspects of society, not just within politics.
Then across the US and the world, there was the wholesale cancellation of people by faceless authorities, people being attacked for their political or medical beliefs, social media accounts simply wiped, opinions sneakily ghosted, people de-banked and de-institutioned, people fired, all without accountability. I really didn't understand what was motivating it. But all of these have a common thread: Actions that are morally wrong, sometimes illegal, but determinedly in the gray legal areas and always without personal accountability. Actions kept behind the face of the institutions if at all possible. We're seeing it even now.
We don't know what happened in those Daily Intelligence Briefing meetings, we just know what the outcome was: A decision to attack Trump and render his adminstration ineffective and powerless. My point is, Obama doesn't have the kind of intellect that can command and direct those kinds of things, and keep it together, integrated.
I wonder if Obama, the community organizer that gained a Senate seat through dirty divorce dealings, who slouched his way lazily through that position, and then suddenly became President, I wonder if he's been a front man, in some ways. I wonder if he's been propped up the whole time. Consider the magnitude of this effort - why would someone as lazy as Obama be focused on pulling something like this off? He was at the end of his second term, and set for life.
I'm sure he knows dirty politics, Chicago style, and I'm pretty certain he is both conversant and willing to apply those tricks. But this manipulation of human behavior, and the obvious, profound change to what we see as human norms, that's not as a result of a changing society, being influenced by technology, or natural disaster. It feels more like manipulation, human style. I wonder if it has been the IC that has been pushing this profound societal change all along, an extension of the world-shaping events of 9/11.
Those of you opining that AI is just a passing fad should stop embarrassing yourselves. I work daily with real-world applications of AI, and not just the entertaining personal uses, such as those described frequently here by Althouse regarding her conversations with Grok.
Among other things, AI is spectacularly good at analyzing, debugging, and even creating certain types of programming code. It can, and does, search and sift through thousands of resumes in seconds instead of weeks to score and rank the top job matches for any given job specification as well as provide a detailed gap analysis for every candidate. I could go on.
AI will continue to improve. People who recognize both its capabilities and limitations, and who apply AI appropriately to real problems will end up benefitting from doing so. People who don't will yada-yada about it. And be out of a job. As an example, forget learning to code.
Aggie said. " this manipulation of human behavior, and the obvious, profound change to what we see as human norms, that's not as a result of a changing society, being influenced by technology, or natural disaster. It feels more like manipulation, human style."
Excellent comment. I share your feelings.
I'd add - Then we all watched as puppet Joe's vote totals jumped and everyone was banned from reacting. Jump ahead 4 years and enter the very strange, under-qualified, not very bright -- terrified line-regurgitating Kamala. She was the most absurd of the hyper-controlled. Who or what has this power?
Aggie and Peachy: fear and inertia can explain a lot.
Governments feared making the wrong call on Covid.
People just feared Covid.
Result: draconian measures which people followed without question. The few that did question got the weight of everyone else’s fear dropped on them.
And inertia: if you’re a Dem, you’re a Dem, from your first vote at birth til after you’ve left this Earth. Lefties treat their party like a street gang they can never leave. They just went along with all the Covid measures. It helped that lockdown was good for the laptop class and the free money was good for the non-working class.
So I would say it’s not much of a conspiracy, just a convergence of interests and natural human reactions.
RR
JSM
As far as AI is concerned what about this?
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/ai-coding-platform-goes-rogue-during-code-freeze-and-deletes-entire-company-database-replit-ceo-apologizes-after-ai-engine-says-it-made-a-catastrophic-error-in-judgment-and-destroyed-all-production-data
john mosby -
the sheeple factor.
To John Mosby,
I also think that if the DoJ does decide to prosecute this, Obama will either be named as an unindicted co-conspirator who is unindicted due to Executive Privilege or through a direct pardon issued by Trump (I like that idea, by the way).
To Aggie,
I think they didn't put a lot of thought into this- it was a Hail Mary pass to attempt to sway enough electors to put Shelob in the White House (hell, the entire operation may have been at her demand/request). When that failed, it evolved into entrapment of Flynn and the subsequent Mueller plot- in for a penny, in for pound thinking.
My main interaction with AI chatbots is double-checking my math problem solutions. When I first started doing this back in 2023, they were terrible at solving such problems. They have vastly improved over that time, however, and almost never mess them up any longer.
"the Brewers …had won 11 going into last night's game against the Mariners in Seattle, which they lost 1-0. Oh well."
My fault. For the first time this season I looked up the MLB standings yesterday. I know not to do that.
The Brewers had the best record in baseball. But now they will start their slow slide into mediocrity.
My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.
Trump has settled on the perfect way to end the Epstein scandal: have Merrick Garland pretend to investigate it.
Do you remember the Internet of Things (TM)? ... That idiotic scheme has now collapsed
Yes and no. Some things have Internet capabilities that are essentially useless, and probably a security hazard to boot. My wife has a vacuum cleaner that I refuse to connect to our home wifi. The oven and dishwasher and clothes washer and dryer likewise. However, I do appreciate the ability to check the temperature in our refrigerator and freezer, and get a notification if it climbs to unsafe levels. And being able to remotely check and control much of our house's lighting with the Lutron system, as well as our door locks, pool equipment, thermostat and garage doors, has been a godsend.
One of the reasons that I like AI is that it answers really stupid questions without all the eye rolling (figuratively speaking) that humans engage in. As an example - I knew one person’s sunset is another person’s sunrise but I couldn’t envision it. So I asked Grok. Grok gave me three different ways to think about it. 2 of them weren’t helpful to me. But the third one was. There’s no way I could ask most humans that question without getting a lot of snide comments. There are a lot of examples as students are learning where they just don’t understand a really simple concept. But rather than risk being made fun of they’re silent and their problems just snowball. I get that AI has a lot more important functions but it’s excellent at teaching slow learners.
Not to long ago, I recall Botfly reminding us that Mueller sent 13 criminal referrals for Russians involved in interfering with the 2016 election. One of those cases was tossed when the Russian challenged the charges. What were those other 12 charges? These were 12 Russians accused of hacking the DNC servers. This was supposedly evidence that they wanted Trump to win (not just wanting compromising material on Democrats).
That brings us to today. Russians had information on Hillary’s health issues and decided not to leak it less it hurt her chances of winning in 2016. Where might they obtain that information? Why would they want to help Hillary win?
https://www.wsj.com/politics/justice-department-told-trump-name-in-epstein-files-727a8038?st=zBt3ap&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Justice Department Told Trump in May That His Name Is Among Many in the Epstein Files
Bondi also told president at the meeting that Justice decided to not release more Jeffrey Epstein documents because of the presence of child pornography and the need to protect
When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a “truckload” of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials.
In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said. Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told. Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing.”
No wonder the WSJ went ahead with the Trump birthday card to Trump, they knew there was incoming revelations.
This fella is such an obsessive ,Chronic LIAR, "did Bondi tell you your name in files? OH NO HE SAYS! RIGHT WINGERS GO oh he didn't mean that. CROOKED AND CRIMINAL AS THE DAY IS LONG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Eb26cynzQ&t=36s
Justice Department Told Trump in May That His Name Is Among Many in the Epstein Files
Bondi also told president at the meeting that Justice decided to not release more Jeffrey Epstein documents because of the presence of child pornography and the need to protect victims the guy is such a chronic ,obsessive LIAR nad his MAGS'S GO oh yeah who cares so he is a chronoc obsessive LIAR :(
You cannot believe a MAGA /THEY HAVE BEEN brain fried by the perp and LIES MEAN NOTHING TO THEM. Indeed, just last week President Trump was asked by a reporter if Attorney General Bondi had told him his name was in the files (video below).
When pressed, he replied, “No, no. She’s given us just a very quick briefing, and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they’ve seen, and I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden—you know. We went through years of that.”
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