“‘This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions. He took the coward’s way out,” said DeSantis, while dodging responsibility for his own words.
@OzarkHillbilly: This highlights something interesting I find about Elon’s shift to the right, which may never have been that big a shift to begin with (he’s always been anti-union, for one), but it does present some conflicts with his past as the guy whose entire brand was connected to electric vehicles, which he has described as critical to fighting climate change. At the debate, Vivek called the “climate change agenda” a “hoax,” and said that “Fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity.” I’m not saying it’s impossible to square this circle–Elon for one has already come out against subsidies for electric vehicles. But there is tension between what the two have advocated, whether either of them wants to admit it or not. Vivek seemed aware of the contradiction in a tweet he wrote back in April:
Vivek Ramaswamy
@VivekGRamaswamy
This is concerning. When we’re all forced to drive electric vehicles, the real master won’t be Elon. It’ll be Xi Jinping, and the name “Master Plan 3” is eerily spot-on. I love what @elonmusk is trying to do with Twitter but doubling down with the CCP is another matter. Companies should & will continue to do whatever allows them to be most successful, but it’s the job of U.S. policymakers not to let American companies sell Xi Jinping the rope today that he’ll use to hang us tomorrow. That’s exactly what the climate cult accomplishes, and electric vehicle subsidies are one of many small pawns in that game.
Even back then, you can see he’s trying hard to make nicey-nice with Elon and avoid insulting his Tesla legacy while still acting as a shill for the fossil-fuel industry and implacable foe of alternative energy. Of course I’m under no delusion that Elon will lift a finger to push back against what Vivek is doing. It’s a match made in heaven, and nobody seems more intent on destroying Elon’s legacy than Elon himself.
@Kylopod: Well, Ramaswamy won’t directly confront Elon because he doesn’t want to be called a pedophile (and he probably thinks he can milk the relationship for a few million $) and Elon likes anybody who strokes his ego, so yeah, a match made in Hell.
Russia state TV Host Evgeny Popov said on his show on Friday that they’re hoping to see Ramaswamy as the Republican nominee if their favorite candidate Trump won’t make it:
“We should take a closer look at this Mr. Ramaswamy. The last time, we had installed President Trump for Americans…Why not try again? Let’s give it another try and see how Ramaswamy will perform, in case Trump doesn’t manage to win the post of the President.”
In Russia, multiple indictments of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump prompted intense coverage and detailed discussions in the Kremlin-controlled state media. Russian propagandists and analysts speculate that the criminal prosecutions won’t hurt their favorite candidate, but only bolster his popularity. Encouraged by their belief that most of the GOP’s top contenders would limit or stop U.S. aid to Ukraine, Russian talking heads nonetheless prefer Trump himself.
snip
During his Saturday show on channel Solovyov Live, Yevgeny Satanovsky continued the same train of thought, lionizing Trump alongside some of the most prominent historic figures: “He is like Nelson Mandela, like Martin Luther King Jr., he is being persecuted by an evil shadow government!” Satanovsky feverishly claimed that Trump might be assassinated, like Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy.
Sentiments aside, Putin’s mouthpieces are considering Trump’s runners-up, in case he is unable to reach the finish line. The Russians initially placed their hopes in Ron DeSantis, whose Russian nickname is “Number Two,” but another contender captured their attention after the first Republican debate. Vivek Ramaswamy became an overnight success in Moscow, because of his geopolitical naiveté and statements about cutting U.S. assistance to Ukraine.
Friday’s broadcast of 60 Minutes included a montage of Ramaswamy’s debate performance set to Johnny Thunder’s 1968 song, “I’m Alive.” Multiple clips of his statements were peppered throughout the segment and featured all over Russian state media, including RT.
Political scientist Vladimir Kornilov pointed out, “What’s most important—the most telling moment—did you hear the excitement in the audience when Ramaswamy said he wouldn’t support continued U.S. aid to Ukraine? There was an ovation in the auditorium! This shows that Ukraine will certainly experience problems!”
@OzarkHillbilly: Elon Musk has loooooong had a bee in his bonnet about communications/PR efforts. It’s one of the first things he gets rid of, because he finds it completely unnecessary. His disdain for PR…shows.
Lewis said it wasn’t until she began receiving hate mail that she realized there might be a connection between the fire and her support for Braxton. One note she received reads: “You f**cking n****r b***h get your n****r ass out of my town right now with non n****r mayor braxton or die or get burn down. I’ve been watching you 4 kids right and your n****r new home. If you do [sic] get out of my town you and that n****r non mayor Braxton gona [sic] die.” The letter included images of swastikas and a drawing of Braxton and Lewis being hung from a tree.
I’m tellin’ you it’s all the fault of those nefarious purveyors of Critical Race Theory!
On the more serious side, it’s a fairly horrific tale.
“You don’t stand up to Trump, how are you going to stand up to the president of Russia and China?” Coffey asked…
Scott rejected Coffey’s characterization that he is unwilling to stand up to Trump. “The premise of the question is why don’t you stand up to Trump, you’re just wrong that I don’t,” Scott said. “I was one of the few people that actually stood up against those major issues whether it was Charlottesville or other major challenges he had. I’m the guy that stood up and talked about the disagreements that we had.”
At the Republican debate on Wednesday night, Scott was one of six candidates on stage who raised their hand when asked if they would support Trump in the general election should he win the GOP nomination and is also convicted of crimes. Trump faces numerous criminal charges across four indictments this year.
Coffey later called Scott out for not condemning Trump’s actions on Jan. 6. “The president on Jan. 6 wanted to destroy our country, do you agree with that or not?” Coffey asked.
“I do not,” Scott answered…
Is 79 year-old retired Iowa schoolteacher Scott Coffey available to moderate the next CNN town hall?
Trump is complaining that he has to stay home and fight The Radical Left Deranged Communist Fascists persecuting him instead of going to a PGA event in Scotland. Life is so unfair.
I’ve been watching the Creamfields livestream all weekend and have a couple of thoughts:
1. How freaking cold is it in England right now. Everyone looks freezing and wet.
2. One of the only good things to come from the Pandy is festival livestreams. Hell, I might even pay a small-ish amount to watch this if they had every stage. But getting to bounce along to John Summit, Camelphat and Hannah Laing has been great.
3. I desperately want to be half naked a festival right now.
Edit to add:
4. It’s hilarious to actually watch DJs. These people have no rhythm at all. They are just up there playing music and twitching. All of them terrible dancers.
@Beth:
It’s been a generally miserable summer in England. There was a brief heatwave in June, since then every other day has been storms or low pressure frontal systems coming in from the west, and winds veering north.
Seems to be due to warm Arctic, the jet-stream is running south of UK.
So, much of continental Europe is baking under trapped hot air, while we are getting, in summer, the westerly’s that normally dominate autumn and spring.
Just hiked a mountain (Eastern US Mountain, not Western or European, so those unfamiliar with what we call a mountain hereabouts should adjust their expectations). I’ve been hiking this same mountain in the Adirondacks almost every year for twenty years, and it still amazes me. We stumbled upon it by accident when our kids were pre-school age and we saw it listed in a trail book as “Easy”. That was a mistake, albeit one copied by every other trail book for the next 10-15 years. Just under four miles round trip but the ascent quickly arrives at a series of steep rockfalls, with much more clambering than hiking involved. It ends with a rough hewn timber ladder for the last 30 or 4o feet, and a bit more clambering, but then you are rewarded with a breathtaking view. I’ve seen as many as 6 sets of mountain ridges fading off into the far, far distance. A pretty walk in a pine forest along the ridge, with four or five rock promontories supplying incredible lookouts along the way. Then a steep climb down through another rockfall, longer than even the longest one you climbed up and just as steep, although slightly less challenging since in many places you can skooch into the pine on one side or the other where there are plenty of young trees to help lower yourself down. Finally you come out into a magnificent mountain pond, with huge rocks sloping gently out of the surrounding pine forest to form makeshift beaches. The family always goes swimming in the usually icy water, but I’m a firm believer that once you can swim well enough to save your or a kid’s life you are never obligated to go into the water again unless that need arises. So a pleasant walk around the pond, then another steep descent with a completely different set of magnificent views. Finally, just to let you catch your breath, the last mile is a gently rise through the woods until you get back to the parking lot and stretch out your legs and shoulders.
Agreed. I showed my sons so many things most people can’t imagine, and never regretted one second of those adventures, even if we had to wonder how we would get out of the situations we found ourselves in.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, it’s preferable to the searing heat they had in the Med region in July, and in parts of the US.
But British farmers are having serious problems with harvesting grains and hay.
At the least it’s going to mean grain drying is required.
So up goes the price of bread.
Trespassing on DougJ’s turf, today’s “both sides” NYT:
FBI called in after ‘racially motivated’ Florida shooting kills three Black people because of CRT indoctrination of children.
“‘This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions. He took the coward’s way out,” said DeSantis, while dodging responsibility for his own words.
How to say, “I have no business running for president” without saying, “I have no business running for president.”
Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants Elon Musk to be his presidential adviser
Would probably have the musk melon in charge of communications. I mean after the bang up job he’s done with twitter he’d be a natural fit for the job.
@OzarkHillbilly: This highlights something interesting I find about Elon’s shift to the right, which may never have been that big a shift to begin with (he’s always been anti-union, for one), but it does present some conflicts with his past as the guy whose entire brand was connected to electric vehicles, which he has described as critical to fighting climate change. At the debate, Vivek called the “climate change agenda” a “hoax,” and said that “Fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity.” I’m not saying it’s impossible to square this circle–Elon for one has already come out against subsidies for electric vehicles. But there is tension between what the two have advocated, whether either of them wants to admit it or not. Vivek seemed aware of the contradiction in a tweet he wrote back in April:
Even back then, you can see he’s trying hard to make nicey-nice with Elon and avoid insulting his Tesla legacy while still acting as a shill for the fossil-fuel industry and implacable foe of alternative energy. Of course I’m under no delusion that Elon will lift a finger to push back against what Vivek is doing. It’s a match made in heaven, and nobody seems more intent on destroying Elon’s legacy than Elon himself.
Trump has, as of last night, made 7.1 million dollars off his mugshot-related merch.
@Kylopod: Well, Ramaswamy won’t directly confront Elon because he doesn’t want to be called a pedophile (and he probably thinks he can milk the relationship for a few million $) and Elon likes anybody who strokes his ego, so yeah, a match made in Hell.
@CSK: I wonder how much of that is for Rudy?
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s easy. None of it.
https://twitter.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1695592078015701090
“JuliaDavis”
snip
@CSK: Say WHAT???? But but but I thought he and Rudy were best buds!
@OzarkHillbilly: Elon Musk has loooooong had a bee in his bonnet about communications/PR efforts. It’s one of the first things he gets rid of, because he finds it completely unnecessary. His disdain for PR…shows.
@CSK:
You’re being too generous. He’s paying Rudy millions, except the total is followed by i.
This woman is either incredibly stupid or incredibly cynical.
http://www.rawstory.com/alina-habba-trump-intelligent/
He became the first Black mayor of a rural Alabama town. Then a white minority locked him out
I’m tellin’ you it’s all the fault of those nefarious purveyors of Critical Race Theory!
On the more serious side, it’s a fairly horrific tale.
@CSK: Hey, if y’all wanna make Trump richer buying mugshot tchotchke, that’s y’all’s bidness.
@Jen: No no noooo… He’s a master of PR.
Dawg, what a joke he is. I would be the worst PR person in the history of PR and he makes me look good.
@CSK: But he only hires the best! Yeah, he needs a new team of lawyers. I would never hire any lawyer who would practice with her.
Tim Scott has tense back-and-forth with New Hampshire voter over support for Trump:
Is 79 year-old retired Iowa schoolteacher Scott Coffey available to moderate the next CNN town hall?
Trump is complaining that he has to stay home and fight The Radical Left Deranged Communist Fascists persecuting him instead of going to a PGA event in Scotland. Life is so unfair.
@DK: Hey! That’s 79-year-old retired *New Hampshire* schoolteacher!
@Jen:
I agree. Credit where credit is due, DK.
I’ve been watching the Creamfields livestream all weekend and have a couple of thoughts:
1. How freaking cold is it in England right now. Everyone looks freezing and wet.
2. One of the only good things to come from the Pandy is festival livestreams. Hell, I might even pay a small-ish amount to watch this if they had every stage. But getting to bounce along to John Summit, Camelphat and Hannah Laing has been great.
3. I desperately want to be half naked a festival right now.
Edit to add:
4. It’s hilarious to actually watch DJs. These people have no rhythm at all. They are just up there playing music and twitching. All of them terrible dancers.
@Beth:
It’s been a generally miserable summer in England. There was a brief heatwave in June, since then every other day has been storms or low pressure frontal systems coming in from the west, and winds veering north.
Seems to be due to warm Arctic, the jet-stream is running south of UK.
So, much of continental Europe is baking under trapped hot air, while we are getting, in summer, the westerly’s that normally dominate autumn and spring.
@JohnSF:
That sounds awful.
Just hiked a mountain (Eastern US Mountain, not Western or European, so those unfamiliar with what we call a mountain hereabouts should adjust their expectations). I’ve been hiking this same mountain in the Adirondacks almost every year for twenty years, and it still amazes me. We stumbled upon it by accident when our kids were pre-school age and we saw it listed in a trail book as “Easy”. That was a mistake, albeit one copied by every other trail book for the next 10-15 years. Just under four miles round trip but the ascent quickly arrives at a series of steep rockfalls, with much more clambering than hiking involved. It ends with a rough hewn timber ladder for the last 30 or 4o feet, and a bit more clambering, but then you are rewarded with a breathtaking view. I’ve seen as many as 6 sets of mountain ridges fading off into the far, far distance. A pretty walk in a pine forest along the ridge, with four or five rock promontories supplying incredible lookouts along the way. Then a steep climb down through another rockfall, longer than even the longest one you climbed up and just as steep, although slightly less challenging since in many places you can skooch into the pine on one side or the other where there are plenty of young trees to help lower yourself down. Finally you come out into a magnificent mountain pond, with huge rocks sloping gently out of the surrounding pine forest to form makeshift beaches. The family always goes swimming in the usually icy water, but I’m a firm believer that once you can swim well enough to save your or a kid’s life you are never obligated to go into the water again unless that need arises. So a pleasant walk around the pond, then another steep descent with a completely different set of magnificent views. Finally, just to let you catch your breath, the last mile is a gently rise through the woods until you get back to the parking lot and stretch out your legs and shoulders.
Life is good.
@CSK:
Hehe touché. And his name is David Coffey, not Scott Coffey.
These would be my campaign-ending gaffes lol
@DK:
Oh hell, if that’s your idea of a campaign gaffe, you’ve definitely got MY vote!
DK DK RAH RAH RAH!
@JohnSF: I wish I was so cursed.
Agreed. I showed my sons so many things most people can’t imagine, and never regretted one second of those adventures, even if we had to wonder how we would get out of the situations we found ourselves in.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, it’s preferable to the searing heat they had in the Med region in July, and in parts of the US.
But British farmers are having serious problems with harvesting grains and hay.
At the least it’s going to mean grain drying is required.
So up goes the price of bread.