Warner on Russia.

Senator Mark Warner talked with Politico about the Russia investigation. There is no doubt Russia interfered with our election. And the trump campaign was at least complicit, though it seems likely it was more than that. So the questions the senate intelligence committee are trying to answer are: how far did it go? And how involved was the trump campaign?

It's a good article, link below. 

But here was a quote that struck me:

"If you add up all of the money Russia spent interfering in our election; if you add on what they spent in the French elections, where Facebook took down 50,000 sites that were connected to Russia because they'd seen the Russian intervention, if you add up what they spent on the Dutch elections, where the Dutch hand-counted all of their ballots because they were so afraid of Russian intervention. You add all that up and you're still talking about less money than the cost of one new F-35 airplane."

It's either an indictment on just how vast (and expensive) our military is, in sort of a ridiculous context, or its shows how sophisticated the hacking effort was. 

Or perhaps it was a little of both.

Without dropping a single bomb, Russia was able to move the United States and parts of Europe off of the national stage, and now can focus on shaping global policy the way it sees fit.  In effect, they waged war - and won the opening skirmish - for under $100 million. And no one was killed on the battlefield; though surely some did (and will) as a result of the action, and the resulting decisions of the man in power.

And, unfortunately, some of the people who are key to balancing the US's power are involved, complicit, or just want to shape America in their own way...and are simply letting all this happen or providing cover.

You could probably rightly argue that Russia managed to win that battle, too.  And now has total victory within its reach....

Article https://apple.news/APtabYAXzTbyrE3DDsbo27g

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Star Trek discovery: followup

Oh. My. GAWD. This show is freaking incredible. I am mesmerized, fascinated, and totally hooked.

It's damn good!

I love the characters. I love the storyline. I love the sci fi aspects....

Wow.

Spoilers ho!

So it turns out the fan theory was correct and the writers took the easy way out and made Tyler be Voq. I'm disappointed. But it works in the storyline and they handled it really well. He's a mix of Klingon and human and needs l'Rell's help to control it.

The doctor is dead. Staments is in the matrix more or less. And he meets himself and gets manipulated.

In the alternate universe, tilly is called Killy and she's the captain of discovery.

Phillipa is the supreme leader/empress. And she's got some clever insights.

Our Burnham winds up commanding the shenzhou and she and lorica are working to find a way home.

Except lorica...is actually from the alternate universe! So he is deeper and has a crazy back story. And he's manipulating Burnham. There was a fan theory about this, and it sure seemed like that was likely...but it played out really well and the revelation was really slick.

It's so wild. I can't wait to see where they take us next! Lots of great twists and turns.

I'm glad to have a show like this to watch.

He wants to testify under oath?

Humility is not a strong suit. The truth is whatever he believes it to be. Tangents are expected. And he believes he seems to think he's above the law.

By all means, go for it.

I so want this to be true...

I went to a $100k soirée to laud trump. He didn't come, and that's okay, but those boorish sevants put plastic spoons in the pate. Oh the humanity.

There’s a sucker born every minute

That quote is attributed to PT Barnum, and though there is some debate about whether he actually said that, the sentiment is generally considered accurate.  He was talking about the things people would pay to see.

In this case, I'm referring to people who paid between $100,000 - $250,000 to attend the inauguration celebration with the self-aggrandizing clown in the White House.  

Emoluments clause be damned, he was getting rich off people who wanted an audience with him and who would celebrate him as being great. It was scheduled at mar-a-lago last night.

Except he couldn't leave Washington because of the shutdown.  Sure he *could have* left, but the gop insisted he not to because then it would be clear it was a trump shutdown, and they'd have to own.  

But as Barnum aLeo said "the show must go on," and they held the celebration anyway.  So those suckers paid money for a cheesy night of celebration, mediocre food, and probably a T-shirt.  

Refunds....hahahahaha

To me, that's hilarious.  

And of course, trump was said to be brooding.

And about mar-a-lago....

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/trump-mar-lago-tax-deal-veiled-from-irs-review/pYex7aWWSm6Zz4qQRU5twI/

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We have entered the upside down.

A republican controlled house. A republican controlled senate. A de facto republican in the Oval Office. And of course when you can't reach consensus on a budget bill you blame the dems for not playing nice. Sure. Sounds about right.

It's amusing to me that when I read (something most of us should do) about this, there are many thoughtful articles and op-eds about what transpired. They discuss facts and what should ideally happen to fix it. Heck even Chuck Schumer (currently the gop whipping boy) had said they were entertaining offers to build a wall just to get a deal done; and it was reasoned and considerate. 

As you might imagine, many of these appear from dem-leaning sources. 

Meanwhile the gop led commentary is mostly short, non insightful (and even mind numbing!) nonsense that are all the talking points the republican "leadership" has issued. There's no fact, no detail, it's misleading. And as I said makes no sense. 

And much of it is fraught with misspellings. Two key things I want to remind folks about are: this does not simply open borders and let the terrorists walk in. And this does not defund the military. Those are both stupid talking points. 

Educate yourself. For example you might read an article like this one:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/19/trump-misfires-with-claim-that-military-would-shut-down-during-government-shutdown/?utm_term=.d5d6b4dad68c

Surely where we are is in the upside down. Things don't make sense. It's dull and grey. And there's a demagorgon. But he has crazier hair. Stranger trump things?

Short. Sweet. To the point. That's the beauty Dave's iPhone. 

The countdown is on

On one channel it's the Cartoon Network, and there's a countdown to the new gumball cartoon series. A couple of channels away, on msnbc, there's a countdown to the government shutdown.

So is it safe to assume that the government shutdown has become a cartoon? Certainly all the character involved are cartoonish, so there's that...