REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Conversation -- February 4, 2024

U.S. House Results

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Mashable: "Following the 2024 presidential election results and [Elon] Musk's support for ... Donald Trump, users have been deactivating en masse. And this time, it appears most everyone has settled on one particular X alternative: Bluesky.... Bluesky has gained more than 100,000 new sign ups per day since the U.S. election on Nov. 5. It now has over 15 million users. It's enjoyed a prolonged stay on the very top of Apple's App Store charts as well. Ready to join? Here's how to get started on Bluesky[.]"

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

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New York Times: “Chris Wallace, a veteran TV anchor who left Fox News for CNN three years ago, announced on Monday that he was leaving his post to venture into the streaming or podcasting worlds.... He said his decision to leave CNN at the end of his three-year contract did not come from discontent. 'I have nothing but positive things to say. CNN was very good to me,' he said.”

New York Times: In a collection of memorabilia filed at New York City's Morgan Library, curator Robinson McClellan discovered the manuscript of a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania as well as other experts authenticated the manuscript. Includes video of Lang Lang performing the short waltz. ~~~

~~~ Marie: The Times article goes into some of Chopin's life in Paris at the time he wrote the waltz, but it doesn't mention that he helped make ends meet by giving piano lessons. I know this because my great grandmother was one of his students. If her musical talent were anything like mine, those particular lessons would have been painful hours for Chopin.

New York Times: “Improbably, [the political/celebrity magazine] George[, originally a project by John F. Kennedy, Jr.] is back, with the same logo and the same catchy slogan: 'Not just politics as usual.' This time, though, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and passionate Trump fan is its editor in chief.... It is a reanimation story bizarre enough for a zombie movie, made possible by the fact that the original George trademark lapsed, only to be secured by a little-known conservative lawyer named Thomas D. Foster.”

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."

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The Conversation -- February 4, 2024

Presidential Election

Elena Schneider, et al., of Politico: "President Joe Biden cruised to victory in the first sanctioned presidential primary Saturday night. Biden easily beat out nominal challenges from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and self-help author Marianne Williamson in a state that he placed atop the primary calendar and where he scored a crucial victory during his 2020 campaign.... Turnout was trending to be roughly around a quarter of the total votes cast four years ago, though that was a much more competitive race.

The New York Times liveblogged South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary results here. The AP called the race for President Biden shortly after the polls closed at 7:00 pm ET. With more than 95% of the vote counted, Biden led with 96.2%, followed by Marianne Williamson had 2.1% and Dean Phillips with 1.7%. ~~~

Alyce McFadden: "South Carolina holds open primaries, so anyone registered to vote in the state can head to the polls on Saturday to participate in the first official Democratic primary of the year.... Polls [are] open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the state, and anyone still in line at 7 p.m. will be able to vote."

Michael Gold: "Donald Trump is off the campaign trail today; Republicans won't hold their primary in South Carolina until Feb. 24. But this morning on Truth Social, he railed against the criminal investigations and civil lawsuits against him as 'Biden investigations for political interference,' a claim he has been making without evidence for months."

Maya King: "Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chairman and a South Carolina native, had to vote at a different polling location today because of a last-minute consolidation by the county elections commission. 'This is what we fight in the South all the time,' he told reporters, calling the change a 'disgusting' mode of voter disenfranchisement."

Maya King: "Jay Parmley, the executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said in a news conference that more than 51,000 South Carolinians had voted early in the state's Democratic primary. Seventy-six percent of those were Black voters."

Reid Epstein: "President Biden won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, giving him the kind of emphatic result he no doubt envisioned when he made the state the first contest on the Democrats' presidential nominating calendar. The election, called by The Associated Press shortly after polls closed, gives Mr. Biden the first set of delegates required to claim the Democratic nomination at the party's convention in August."

Nicholas Nehamas: "As he declares victory in South Carolina, Biden is attending a campaign event in Los Angeles with Black entertainment industry leaders. Earlier today, in Delaware, he visited the gravesites of his son Beau and his first wife and daughter. Beau's birthday is today."

Filip Timotija of the Hill: "President Biden hit former President Trump Saturday, claiming the GOP front-runner doesn't 'stand for anything,' during a stop at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., near his family home.... 'I'm feeling good about where we are, I really am,' Biden said. 'You know, folks are starting to focus in and the guy we're running against, he is -- he's not for anything, he's against everything.... And no, I mean it, it's the weirdest campaign I've ever been engaged in, it's even worse in terms of his behavior than the last time in 2020,' he [said]."

~~~ Marie: BTW, see if you think Nikki Haley is a better performer -- at least when she's scripted -- than either Biden or Trump.

Tara Copp & Lolita Baldor of the AP: "The United States and Britain struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in a second wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have relentlessly attacked American and international interests in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. But Washington once more did not directly target Iran as it tries to find a balance between a forceful response and intensifying the conflict.... The Houthi targets were in 13 different locations and were struck by U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, by British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft and by the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Carney firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, according to U.S. officials and the U.K. Defense Ministry." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi political bureau, responded [to Saturday's U.S. & British attacks] by saying the maritime attacks will continue until Israel's assault on Gaza is over, adding that the strikes 'will not go unanswered, and we will meet escalation with escalation.'... U.S. forces struck a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile in Yemen that was 'prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea,' U.S. Central Command said late Saturday, calling the missile an 'imminent threat' to U.S. Navy ships and commercial vessels." ~~~

~~~ CNN's live updates for Sunday are here.

Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post: "House Republicans are planning to vote on a bill next week that would give billions in military assistance to Israel and U.S. forces in the region, a measure that is destined to come to a head with a Senate proposal expected to package funding for border security with aiding foreign democracies.... The move comes as the Senate is expected to unveil and vote on a supplemental package this week that would fund new measures to control the historic flow of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, while fulfilling President Biden's $106 billion request to also aid Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region. House Republicans' surprise announcement to send the Senate a standalone Israel funding bill sets up dueling votes in both chambers...." The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: I think Donald Trump has been a Russian asset for years; now I'm wondering if Mike Johnson and his anti-Ukraine, pro-Russian pals in the House are, too.

Tracey Tully & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "On Thursday, a Manhattan judge, at the request of The New York Times and two other news outlets, ordered some ... redactions [in charging papers against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to be] removed, making it possible to get a fuller picture of the evidence Mr. Menendez's lawyers are citing to bolster their argument that the indictment against the senator should be dismissed.... Mr. Menendez's lawyers ... argue that overzealous prosecutors are attempting to criminalize normal legislative activity and flouting constitutional protections that are afforded to members of Congress."

Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "In October 2021..., Donald Trump announced that his media company, the owner of the platform Truth Social, had sealed an incredible deal: a merger with a 'special purpose acquisition company' that would deliver to his firm $300 million....' By then, however, the insider trading by investors in the SPAC, Digital World Acquisition, had already begun.... [Multi-million-dollar profits made by investors in the SPAC, including a 'connected' Russian & Ukrainian night-club owner] caught the attention of federal officials who launched a sprawling investigation into Digital World's investors, the details of which raise questions about how Trump ... ended up committed to a business arrangement that federal agents now allege was undermined from its inception by financial fraud. Trump and Trump Media have not been accused of wrongdoing in the case.... Trump allies have claimed that the SEC's delay in approving the merger proves he's being persecuted by the Biden administration." The story goes on about undercover agents from a number of federal agencies, wiretaps, informants wearing wires, a surreptitious phone-data extraction, vacationing with a girlfriend in Cancún, ties to the Russian mob, moving cash to avoid sanctions on Russians, death threats ("I don't fuck around"), and just all the stuff you would expect to see in a movie that exaggerated dramatic possibilities. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Harwell acts all surprised that Trump got involved with a bunch of fraudsters, some with questionable Eastern European connections. I'll bet you're not. It's what he does. The only part that surprises me is "Trump ... [has] not been accused of wrongdoing...."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times channels Donald Trump's brainfarts about Taylor Swift. Amusing but way too literate and intelligible. Full sentences, no misspellings, more-or-less connected thoughts. Dowd writes like an adult; Trump's style is more that of an 11-year-old bully with attention deficit disorder and below-grade-level vocabulary. (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Northern Ireland. Megan Specia of the New York Times: "... for the first time, a Sinn Fein politician [-- Michelle O'Neill --] holds Northern Ireland's top political office [-- first minister --] a landmark moment for the party and for the broader region as a power-sharing government is restored. The first minister role had previously always been held by a unionist politician committed to remaining part of the United Kingdom.... But the story of Sinn Fein's transformation -- from a fringe party that was once the I.R.A.'s political wing, to a political force that won the most seats in Northern Ireland's 2022 elections -- is also the story of a changing political landscape and the results of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended the decades-long sectarian conflict known as the Troubles.... It is not yet clear what a Sinn Fein first minister will mean for the hopes of those who want to reunite the island after a century of separation."

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Reader Comments (8)

It's just too complicated.

A acquaintance who listens to too much Fox (any?) believes that Biden could unilaterally shut down that pesky southern border, but won't.

But Biden can’t. The law won’t allow it.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-biden-border-authority/

The irony: They support the Pretender because they think he’s a dictator.

But why not stick with Biden, I wonder? They apparently think he already is.

February 4, 2024 |

Ken Winkes

Remember that TuKKKer guy? The guy who cost Faux almost a billion dollars with his lies?

Yeah, I know he’s been on ice for a while like the other Swanson products, but now, in a desperate effort to seem relevant, he’s in Moscow, ostensibly to kiss Putin’s ass.

Right wing traitors are all up in arms about the supposed “frenzy” on the left of all those soshulists they claim are terrified that bow tie boy will be gettin’ at da trute. Like they would know truth if it surrounded their house with spotlights in the middle of the night and played sounds of atomic bomb explosions through 10,000 watt speakers in an effort to get them to Wake……The……Fuck…..UP!

But never mind that now.

I, as one of those supposedly petrified soshulists, am thrilled BTB is in Moscow. Maybe Putin will put him up in Kim Philby’s old apartment. Then a messenger from the Kremlin will tell him he’s wanted on the telephone…”Just step over here by the window, Comrade TuKKKer…is nice view from way up here, no? Oops window is open…”

So, no. No petrified screams from me. In fact, how is it they think leftie socialists and Marxists would be outraged that anyone is talking to a stalwart protector of the former Russian communist state? I don’t get it.

While in PutinTown, TuKKKums attended the Bolshoi Ballet. Does he think the gun totin’ homophobic MAGA droolers will be thrilled about him watching men in tights hopping around the stage? Oh, wait a minute. It’s okay. The ballet was about Spartacus [seriously?], so…slaves, empire, violence, insurrection, and crucifixions. Cool! All the stuff they like. Never mind.

So, an interview with Putin, eh?

I can imagine the tough as nails questions…

“Almighty wonderful great leader Putin, why do you think so many idiots around the world can’t understand that you’re fighting Jewish Nazis in Ukraine who stole part of your country?”

Yeah, and like that…

Can’t wait for that to air on…where is he now? Twitter, X, Elon’s Message Board, whatever it’s called now?

Wake me.

Or not.

February 4, 2024 |

Akhilleus

Gander vs. Goose:

https://apnews.com/article/oglala-sioux-reservation-governor-ban-south-dakota-9f811bbd1ffaadf979e4353ad6e961ad

February 4, 2024 |

Ken Winkes

@Akhilleus: I'm having trouble picturing TuKKKer in a box at the Bolshoi. More pleasant to envision: a Moscow back alley where TuKKKer runs into a brute of a nutcracker. Sweet.

Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot for a sec that I abhor violence.

February 4, 2024 |

Marie Burns

Arstechnica

"Over 2 percent of the US’s electricity generation now goes to bitcoin
US government tracking the energy implications of booming bitcoin mining in US.

One independent estimate made by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance had the US as the home of just over 3 percent of the global bitcoin mining at the start of 2020. By the start of 2022, that figure was nearly 38 percent."

February 4, 2024 |

RAS

Russian spy

"Explosive accusations that Latvian member of European Parliament, Tatjana Ždanoka, has been working as a Russian spy for some 13 years are roiling lawmakers across the continent.

Since at least 2003, Ždanoka worked to arrange in-person meetings with her Russian intelligence contacts, from Moscow to Brussels, according to The Insider, Delfi Estonia, Re:Baltica investigative journalism center, and Sweden’s Expressen newspaper, which cite emails and other correspondence throughout their investigation. She has also requested funding from the intelligence officers and shared draft initiatives and press releases with them on several occasions, according to the investigation."

February 4, 2024 |

RAS

I'm glad to see the governor DeSantis has enough confidence in our standing military to send specialist national guard units his own private militia, the Florida guard out to the border on my dime.

He must believe that the Bahamas will think twice before lobbing rockets into Fort Lauderdale.

February 4, 2024 |

Bobby Lee

“Trump and Trump Media have not been accused of wrongdoing in the case.”

The writer forgot the “yet”. Any instance of the words “Trump” and “deal” in the same sentence is automatically analogous to “illegal, wrongdoing, fraudulent, and highly suspect”.

“Honesty, fair play, up front, and straightforward” are terms entirely incompatible with “Trump deal”.

91 counts and counting.

February 4, 2024 |

Akhilleus

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