LeeEsq: there is no reason to doubt that Zegler might really believe what she put on social media about Israel or Gal Gadot
Zegler has been accused of being a narcissist and apparently has admitted the same. My ex was too.
Using flame bait to focus attention on herself would be in character. Even (and especially) at the expense of the primary project. People are supposed to be paying attention to her and not her fellow lead actress or even the movie itself.
So she might only believe in "free Palestine" when it's going to create problems and attention. She certainly is not going to listen to other views, either on what's going on in Palestine or even how stunningly inappropriate it is to bring this up on the set or in interviews.
And if she feels she's not the center of attention on her next project she'll find a different way to be toxic.
When we select for people who are thinking emotionally and not dealing with the real world, we're dealing with people who aren't dealing with the real world.
So if you have convinced yourself that Hamas are the good guys, then them torturing (and otherwise being heinous to) their own citizens isn't a thing. It doesn't happen.
North: consists of the Clintons getting entities to contribute more money to charitable causes
If that's what they were doing, then why did the money stream only exist while HRC was either Secretary of State or expected to be President?
The money disappeared the moment she lost. These groups didn't think about "charity" before.
North: no... nefarious benefit to the Clintons ever being demonstrated.
The money was used to give Clinton insiders jobs between political appointments and to create the same sort of influence that a Billionaire gets.
This was not a politician lining their pockets, it was a politician getting the influence of Bill Gates to fund their own interests.
North: ...provable facts...
I've only put down provable facts. I have admitted it was legal, I'm saying it was also obviously and openly corrupt.
Most people don't sweat the fine details. When the Clintons repeatedly and openly do this they figure out the system is fixed.
In many ways Trump is the result of the Clintons. If Blue is fine with HRC selling pardons and collecting Billions from Russia and the Saudis then that's the ethical standard.
North: ...billions ... requires you loop in the foundation which was regularly audited and found to be above board.
No, it was found to be "legal", as in, "we can't prove anything illegal in court".
The Husband of the Secretary is State is accepting Billions of dollars from states She deals with professionally. This money is used to promote her political agenda and influence.
The entities that were giving the money don't normally do this. These entities entirely stopped giving money the moment she lost power.
All of this was "legal", meaning with marital communications being privileged we have to trust there's no connection. Much like kindergarteners accept that Santa exists.
Pointing to this and claiming "it was above board" takes us to willful ignorance. I fully admit everything that happened was not-provably-illegal-in-court, but that's not the line that most of the electorate uses to decide if there's a problem.
So if you're wondering why Team Red can be expected to back their guy even though the group chat was obviously illegal, a big part of that is we had the Clintons showcase for years just what Washington ethics looks like.
And we also had for that same period of time Team Blue declare in lockstep that this kind of thing should be ignored.
RE: speculative tea leaf reading about unsubstantiated crimes the Clintons are alleged to have committed to somehow
So we're supposed to pretend she wasn't caught (legally) selling pardons?
Marc Rich's wife gave a million or so dollars to HRC's campaign when she badly needed it. Bill gave Marc a pardon.
People as far to the Left as Jimmy Carter have pointed out that there was no reason for the pardon other than the money. And there was no reason for the money other than the pardon.
This didn't rise to the level of "provably illegal in court" which is apparently her personal ethical standard.
That's why the Clintons were constantly being investigated and also why we constantly found we didn't have enough evidence for a criminal conviction.
You say that like it'd be a good thing. Far as I can tell it's only Trump's political opponents who are upset with him and we just had elections. If the system allows/requires elections every 5 months then the gov is so unstable that there will be serious problems.
We had an election and decided to let the clowns rule for a while. Elections have consequences. I don't like it, but the rules say this is what happens.
Yes, they're in the same barrel. But it will blow over until they constantly lie about it and/or continue to do this.
For this to be truly damaging we need a way to keep it in the news for months. So we'd need them to pretend it wasn't a big deal, have more news about it, find they're still doing it, and then have them pretend it's not a big deal again.
The bulk of HRC's damage wasn't in what she did but how she handled the aftermath.
My impression was that she couldn't tell the truth about what she'd done because it was something along the lines of "if I engage in criminal activity like selling pardons I need to be able to destroy the emails". So she was always trying to tell one more self serving lie which would in turn be found out to not be true and kept this in the news for months.
If your opponent is going to let you shoot fish in a barrel, then you continue to do so as long as they let you.
HRC let her email situation drag on for a long time. She'd give a self serving explanation one week which explained everything on the table with the strong implication that this was it. Then we'd have more put on the table and she'd repeat the process.
It was like wanting to be merciful about removing your dog's tail so you'll take it off an inch at a time.
Philip: If the political speech of neonaz.is is protected by that constitution (and they are direct enemies of the US and its citizens), then his speech is equally protected.
We don't allow people who support terrorism to come to this country. Ergo no, his speech isn't "equally protected".
Shortly after the debate in June, "Biden declined to undergo a cognitive exam". Presumably he knew he couldn't pass it.
In Feb 2024, the special counsel said his memory "appeared to have significant limitations".
My impression is his staff knew, but if he was replaced odds were they would be too. "The Biden administration has also been criticized for allegedly gaslighting or harassing journalists who asked questions about Biden's health or age"
Team Blue waited until the last second to notice their guy was unable to talk and then replaced him with someone who managed to get zero delegate votes over two election cycles.
They/we shouldn't be picking a VP based on their group membership but rather on their ability to head the ticket.
If you're going to replace your guy, do it earlier.
If you're going to replace your guy, actually replace him. A President Harris would have looked a lot more Presidential and would have removed the conflict of running both for and against Biden. She could have showed herself righting the ship and taking charge.
Of course that assumes she actually had that ability which is unclear.
Getting opsec about the President's followers to prevent them from doing the President's will seems a little risky politically and normally unnecessary.
Law enforcement didn't realize they were going to have to deal with the President enflaming things as opposed to telling everyone to go home.
Team Blue had an openly unfit leader who no one dared point out wore no clothes. Then they replaced him with a women whose big abilities were her race and her gender, and who over two election cycles got zero delegates to secure the nod.
I'm thinking there's room for improvement in there somewhere.
1) Don't pick a VP unless they can head the ticket.
2) If the top guy is unfit, have him actually step down. Harris the President would have been Presidential and wouldn't have been able to run both against and for Joe.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
LeeEsq: there is no reason to doubt that Zegler might really believe what she put on social media about Israel or Gal Gadot
Zegler has been accused of being a narcissist and apparently has admitted the same. My ex was too.
Using flame bait to focus attention on herself would be in character. Even (and especially) at the expense of the primary project. People are supposed to be paying attention to her and not her fellow lead actress or even the movie itself.
So she might only believe in "free Palestine" when it's going to create problems and attention. She certainly is not going to listen to other views, either on what's going on in Palestine or even how stunningly inappropriate it is to bring this up on the set or in interviews.
And if she feels she's not the center of attention on her next project she'll find a different way to be toxic.
"
When we select for people who are thinking emotionally and not dealing with the real world, we're dealing with people who aren't dealing with the real world.
So if you have convinced yourself that Hamas are the good guys, then them torturing (and otherwise being heinous to) their own citizens isn't a thing. It doesn't happen.
On “Signal Controversy Over Houthi Strikes Deepens”
North: consists of the Clintons getting entities to contribute more money to charitable causes
If that's what they were doing, then why did the money stream only exist while HRC was either Secretary of State or expected to be President?
The money disappeared the moment she lost. These groups didn't think about "charity" before.
North: no... nefarious benefit to the Clintons ever being demonstrated.
The money was used to give Clinton insiders jobs between political appointments and to create the same sort of influence that a Billionaire gets.
This was not a politician lining their pockets, it was a politician getting the influence of Bill Gates to fund their own interests.
North: ...provable facts...
I've only put down provable facts. I have admitted it was legal, I'm saying it was also obviously and openly corrupt.
Most people don't sweat the fine details. When the Clintons repeatedly and openly do this they figure out the system is fixed.
In many ways Trump is the result of the Clintons. If Blue is fine with HRC selling pardons and collecting Billions from Russia and the Saudis then that's the ethical standard.
"
Slade: Isn’t Team Red supposed to be an improvement over Team Blue?
If you mean "throw the rascals out" then the party out of power is always an improvement.
If you mean "has better ethics" then "no". BSDI.
If you mean "economic policy" then Team Red got rid of their economic sanity wing so still "no". Also extra negative points for the economic chaos.
If you mean "war in Israel" then I'd say "yes".
If you mean "war in Ukraine" then I'd say "no".
"
North: ...billions ... requires you loop in the foundation which was regularly audited and found to be above board.
No, it was found to be "legal", as in, "we can't prove anything illegal in court".
The Husband of the Secretary is State is accepting Billions of dollars from states She deals with professionally. This money is used to promote her political agenda and influence.
The entities that were giving the money don't normally do this. These entities entirely stopped giving money the moment she lost power.
All of this was "legal", meaning with marital communications being privileged we have to trust there's no connection. Much like kindergarteners accept that Santa exists.
Pointing to this and claiming "it was above board" takes us to willful ignorance. I fully admit everything that happened was not-provably-illegal-in-court, but that's not the line that most of the electorate uses to decide if there's a problem.
So if you're wondering why Team Red can be expected to back their guy even though the group chat was obviously illegal, a big part of that is we had the Clintons showcase for years just what Washington ethics looks like.
And we also had for that same period of time Team Blue declare in lockstep that this kind of thing should be ignored.
"
And the court case has started: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/27/judge-hearing-signal-case-trump
"
North: in response to genuine, convicted and materially factual right wing crimes.
I was responding to your comparison, "teh emailz” and then I was responding to your claims that the pardons were "unsubstantiated".
North: the vast majority of their alleged crimes exist, overwhelmingly, as a matter of right wing spin...
I already agreed that what she did wasn't a crime if your line is "provable in court".
That doesn't change that She/They were the most openly corrupt politician(s) of their generation, to the tune of Billions of dollars.
Adding a reporter to a group chat (or even having the chat), hits the radar as shear incompetence. That's a problem, I'm not defending it.
I'm not sure it's useful to call it "illegal" when we've already made the decision that we're going to tolerate open corruption.
"
RE: speculative tea leaf reading about unsubstantiated crimes the Clintons are alleged to have committed to somehow
So we're supposed to pretend she wasn't caught (legally) selling pardons?
Marc Rich's wife gave a million or so dollars to HRC's campaign when she badly needed it. Bill gave Marc a pardon.
People as far to the Left as Jimmy Carter have pointed out that there was no reason for the pardon other than the money. And there was no reason for the money other than the pardon.
This didn't rise to the level of "provably illegal in court" which is apparently her personal ethical standard.
That's why the Clintons were constantly being investigated and also why we constantly found we didn't have enough evidence for a criminal conviction.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
You say that like it'd be a good thing. Far as I can tell it's only Trump's political opponents who are upset with him and we just had elections. If the system allows/requires elections every 5 months then the gov is so unstable that there will be serious problems.
We had an election and decided to let the clowns rule for a while. Elections have consequences. I don't like it, but the rules say this is what happens.
On “Signal Controversy Over Houthi Strikes Deepens”
Yes, they're in the same barrel. But it will blow over until they constantly lie about it and/or continue to do this.
For this to be truly damaging we need a way to keep it in the news for months. So we'd need them to pretend it wasn't a big deal, have more news about it, find they're still doing it, and then have them pretend it's not a big deal again.
The bulk of HRC's damage wasn't in what she did but how she handled the aftermath.
My impression was that she couldn't tell the truth about what she'd done because it was something along the lines of "if I engage in criminal activity like selling pardons I need to be able to destroy the emails". So she was always trying to tell one more self serving lie which would in turn be found out to not be true and kept this in the news for months.
It's not the crime, it's the coverup.
"
If your opponent is going to let you shoot fish in a barrel, then you continue to do so as long as they let you.
HRC let her email situation drag on for a long time. She'd give a self serving explanation one week which explained everything on the table with the strong implication that this was it. Then we'd have more put on the table and she'd repeat the process.
It was like wanting to be merciful about removing your dog's tail so you'll take it off an inch at a time.
"
It's not the crime, it's the cover up.
Obama described this as "political malpractice". That's a good description. She managed to constantly look guilty of a cover up for a long time.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/28/politics/hillary-clinton-email-timeline/index.html
"
3. Using a network that hackers can hack.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
David: Except they just hallucinated the ‘he’s living in my house and spending every waking hour with me’
+1. That's insightful.
"
I've seen youtube videos on the behavior of men/women on these dating apps.
He's an extremely high status male who is young, handsome, (rich?), and not married/in-a-relationship. There is far more demand for that than supply.
Those women are used to dealing with the opposite imbalance and are horrified to find out they're the electronic equiv of groupies.
"
The answer is most certainly "...does not a victim make".
They're contacting other men. He's contacting other women. This is not a scandal.
"
Primary challenges drive the Left further to the Left and the Right further to the Right.
"
A sex scandal without sex. Or even meeting anyone. Or even promising to meet someone and/or date them.
Those women think a group of men should be chasing them but instead they all collectively were chasing the same guy.
"
Do I have comments in mod? I'd swear I replied to this.
On “Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, and Protest Expectations”
Philip: If the political speech of neonaz.is is protected by that constitution (and they are direct enemies of the US and its citizens), then his speech is equally protected.
We don't allow people who support terrorism to come to this country. Ergo no, his speech isn't "equally protected".
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_and_health_concerns_about_Joe_Biden
Shortly after the debate in June, "Biden declined to undergo a cognitive exam". Presumably he knew he couldn't pass it.
In Feb 2024, the special counsel said his memory "appeared to have significant limitations".
My impression is his staff knew, but if he was replaced odds were they would be too. "The Biden administration has also been criticized for allegedly gaslighting or harassing journalists who asked questions about Biden's health or age"
"
Team Blue waited until the last second to notice their guy was unable to talk and then replaced him with someone who managed to get zero delegate votes over two election cycles.
They/we shouldn't be picking a VP based on their group membership but rather on their ability to head the ticket.
If you're going to replace your guy, do it earlier.
If you're going to replace your guy, actually replace him. A President Harris would have looked a lot more Presidential and would have removed the conflict of running both for and against Biden. She could have showed herself righting the ship and taking charge.
Of course that assumes she actually had that ability which is unclear.
"
Getting opsec about the President's followers to prevent them from doing the President's will seems a little risky politically and normally unnecessary.
Law enforcement didn't realize they were going to have to deal with the President enflaming things as opposed to telling everyone to go home.
"
I'd say 1,2,8 & 10 were the big problems.
RE: No need to change
Team Blue had an openly unfit leader who no one dared point out wore no clothes. Then they replaced him with a women whose big abilities were her race and her gender, and who over two election cycles got zero delegates to secure the nod.
I'm thinking there's room for improvement in there somewhere.
1) Don't pick a VP unless they can head the ticket.
2) If the top guy is unfit, have him actually step down. Harris the President would have been Presidential and wouldn't have been able to run both against and for Joe.
3) Replace your guy earlier.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
Sigh. One of the problems in a democracy is occasionally the voters decide/insist on bad policy.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.