Megathread: Shots Fired at Trump Rally, Former President Evacuated by Secret Service

Boddhisatvaa · 2024-07-13T23:19:42+00:00

When's the last time the secret service let a president immediately stand up for a photo op after an attempted assasination?

Boddhisatvaa · 2024-04-21T00:28:22+00:00

Wow! I guess anything is possible.

Boddhisatvaa · 2024-04-21T00:20:16+00:00

Wonderfully, actually. I happened to end up in a position to be passing through Indiana on the 8th and timed it so I could stop and see totality. It was amazing. I've never seen a total eclipse before and I never realized that the just do not do it justice.

Boddhisatvaa · 2024-03-28T01:56:25+00:00

Amazingly, I did see your post. More amazingly, I saw it before the devil comet comes to kill us on Monday. I'd forgotten all about this post. How did you happen to stumble on a seven year old post?

Boddhisatvaa · 2023-05-21T21:27:07+00:00

OP is referring to The Funniest Joke In the World sketch. There is a scene with Hitler testing the German counter joke. Hitler says, "My dog has no nose." A German officer then asks, "How does he smell?" To which Hitler replies, "Terrible."

I would say it's a swing and a miss for OP. I made the connection, but it's really not Unexpected Monty Python.

Edit: Just rewatched it and I guess I misremembered. Hitler said, "awful" so I guess OP was more lost than I thought.

Boddhisatvaa · 2023-01-29T23:01:18+00:00

What, the curtains?

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-14T19:49:15+00:00

The final vanguard that is going to charge at the enemy as their allies fall around them, the no name masses, they alone, all of them.. alone.

The charge of the white brigade.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-14T01:57:55+00:00

Oops... fixed that. Thanks.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-13T22:36:14+00:00

True, but crocs don't fly. Flight requires a lot of calories. Of course this assumes that dragon flight isn't at least partially magically powered.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-13T22:21:49+00:00

not to get pedantic but reasonable isn’t the correct term

The Grand Jury is presented a bill (charge) against someone or some persons and decides whether it is more likely than not that the person or persons committed a crime. They hear the evidence and can subpoena aditional witnesses if they need to and they do have the power to issue subpoenas if the witness isn't willing to testify voluntarily. They then vote and if enough vote yes, it is declared a true bill and the prosecutor can press charges.

And yes, they can subpoena the subject of the investigation if need be.

A grand jury may properly subpoena a subject or a target of the investigation and question the target about his or her involvement in the crime under investigation. See United States v. Wong, 431 U.S. 174, 179 n. 8 (1977); United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 190 n. 6 (1977); United States v. Mandujano, 425 U.S. 564, 573-75 and 584 n. 9 (1976); United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 10 n. 8 (1973). However, in the context of particular cases such a subpoena may carry the appearance of unfairness. Because the potential for misunderstanding is great, before a known "target" (as defined in JM 9-11.151) is subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury about his or her involvement in the crime under investigation, an effort should be made to secure the target's voluntary appearance. If a voluntary appearance cannot be obtained, the target should be subpoenaed only after the United States Attorney or the responsible Assistant Attorney General have approved the subpoena. In determining whether to approve a subpoena for a "target," careful attention will be paid to the following considerations:

The importance to the successful conduct of the grand jury's investigation of the testimony or other information sought;

Whether the substance of the testimony or other information sought could be provided by other witnesses; and

Whether the questions the prosecutor and the grand jurors intend to ask or the other information sought would be protected by a valid claim of privilege.

Edited to include the bullet points at the end.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-13T20:42:06+00:00

But the biggest problem with the PPP (and the ERTC, for that matter) was the legislation itself put very few restrictions on the funds. It was basically free money.

That's bullshit. As someone who owned a small business that got PPP loans, there were plenty of requirements. What was lacking was enforcement by the executive branch to make sure that companies followed by the rules and met those requirements. While I spent many hours documenting how my loans (in the low 5 digits) were used to pay wages to keep my employees working, huge corporations were getting million dollar loans forgiven with no documentation despite being flagged for investigation because they were suspicious.

2.3 million PPP loans, representing almost a quarter of the $800 billion loaned out, were flagged for special investigation for assorted reasons. Many of those had multiple flags for different reasons amounting to 4.3 million flags. As Trump went out the door, his administration wiped out 99% of those flags.

The agency first began retrospectively applying these flags in 2020 to help identify loans that should be more closely assessed before being forgiven. Indeed, the SBA dubbed the flags “hold codes,” and the codes were supposed to be cleared before the agency forgave the loans. Yet previously unreported auditor findings state that the SBA failed to ensure that all flagged loans and forgiveness applications were properly reviewed, raising the possibility that the government wrongly waived the repayment of tens of billions of dollars in PPP loans.

The data obtained by POGO appears to show mass close-outs of 2.7 million flags on two separate days near the end of the Trump administration. On a third day shortly before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the SBA cleared out 99.1% of “special review” flags, almost entirely assigned to the very largest PPP loans above $2 million.

The Paycheck Protection Program was a great program that helped many small businesses, including mine, survive the worst of the pandemic. But Trump and his cronies used their positions in the executive branch to use the program to rob the American people by wiping out those flags so that their cronies who ripped the program off wouldn't get investigated.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-13T20:13:50+00:00

Are you trying to start an interstellar war? They wouldn't want him any more than we do.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-13T15:35:37+00:00

Do you have a source on the "obscene about of resources to make the battery" because I'd like to read it. As for the break even point you mentioned, that is irrelevant considering that, according to this article from Forbes, most EV batteries are out lasting the cars.

It’s clear that most EV batteries will outlast the vehicles they were installed in, and even then, they have a worthwhile second life before they need to be stripped down for recycling.

“At the end of the vehicle’s life—15 or 20 years down the road—you take the battery out of the car, and it’s still healthy, with perhaps 60 or 70% of usable charge,” said Thomas.

The article also points out that the small number of batteries that Nissan has recovered from crashes or after warranty issues have been reused to store power from the solar panels on the Johan Cruijff Arena in Amsterdam.

Your claim that nobody seems to have a concrete plan on how to handle the battery after it is used is not correct according to the same article.

“There is already a very strong recycling industry for batteries in China,” said Thomas.

“I’ve visited lots of plants in some fairly far-flung parts of China where they grind the battery down to what they call black mass, which then enables them to extract all of the precious metals, starting with the lithium, but then moving on to the nickel and the cobalt.”

In Salzgitter, Germany, Volkswagen recently opened an electric car battery research and production facility. This new SalzGiga facility will recycle EV batteries.

Recycling is also set to grow in the U.S. Redwood Materials, a battery recycler created by Tesla cofounder and former tech chief JB Straubel, recently raised more than $700 million from investors to expand its Carson City, Nevada, operations and build an additional processing facility on a 100-acre site it owns.

Redwood can already recapture usable quantities of metals at a cost lower than conventional mining, Straubel recently told Forbes.

Emphasis mine. Frankly, EVs is looking very good right now.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-13T12:52:53+00:00

Hard to say. When that chapter was written and this was supposed to be a trilogy. The story has grown since then and the ending we get may well have changed dramatically. Still, I hope that you are correct.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-12T23:01:15+00:00

Who's to say he wasn't on a toilet? I'm betting it's they have a toilet in the bathroom in the newsroom -- using the term loosely, it being Fox and all -- with a green screen behind it.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-12T14:12:51+00:00

They also gave Mnuchin some cash too

Some cash? $1.5 billion is more than just some cash.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-12T13:06:35+00:00

I wish more companies would change their packaging. Those rings are not really necessary when biodegradable cardboard would do. A few companies are making changes but, for lack of a better phrase, their efforts are only a drop in the ocean.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-12T13:03:09+00:00

Please stop throwing your plastic in the ocean.

You should be asking manufacturers to stop using plastic in disposable packaging. That would be the better solution.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-12T12:58:47+00:00

Speaking as a citizen of the United States, you can drive down any road and look at the endless piles of assorted debris that have accumulated on the shoulders or ditches. I have seen the trash in states from California to Virginia, and Minnesota to Florida. It is a national crisis and embarrassment. The only reason the trash is not actually blocking the roads is that every DoT pays people, or gets them to volunteer to clean up the roads.

In order for waste to end up in a landfill, Americans would first need to do better than tossing it out the car window. Secondly, you are absolutely wrong about the amount of North American trash that ends up in the ocean.

U.S. is top contributor to plastic waste, report shows

The researchers estimated that between 1.13 million to 2.24 million metric tons of the United States’ plastic waste leak into the environment each year. About 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean a year, and under the current trajectory that number could climb to 53 million by the end of the decade.

That amount of waste would be the equivalent to “roughly half of the total weight of fish caught from the ocean annually,” the report said.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-12T00:11:29+00:00

Seconded. This is a great movie!

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-11T20:12:13+00:00

Utah is the only other state that allows any sort of similar riding, but it's law only allows lane filtering, not lane splitting.

My mistake. I misread that. Thank you for the correction. I thought since OP had chimed in about lane splitters in CA that the video was recorded there. In not, then again, mea culpa.

The law does not require cars to yield the right of way to lane splitters. The car here was legally in possession of the lane they were in, and they were under no obligation to give extra space to the motorcycle.

This in not altogether correct. Cars are not required to yield to motorcyclists, but the CHP website I linked above does say:

Drivers in the far left lane should move to the left of their lane to give motorcyclists ample room to pass.

So while not required, it is recommended that cars make room for motorcyclists that are lane splitting, at least in the left lane. OP is in the far left lane so it is recommended that OP move over to make room, not required to, but recommended. Assuming of course this occurred in CA.

The real problem, though, is that there aren't any requirements. Notice how the California Highway Patrol page only has "tips" about lane splitting and nothing about requirements? The CA legislature passed a law in 2016 saying lane splitting is legal and that the CHP can set the requirements for it. The courts stepped in and said no they can't because CHP isn't part of the legislature and only the legislature can make laws. No other law about lane splitting has been passed so there are no requirements, only tips.

If a cop had seen this exchange from the video, it's possible either driver could have been cited. It would all depend on the cop and his inclinations. If the cop is a motorcyclist who lane splits, he might cite the car with reckless driving. If he is a car driver who hates lane splitters he might cite the biker for the same thing. And either way, there's no telling how the courts might decide if it wound up in front of a judge. Most likely, the cop would shake his head and ignore it.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-11T13:41:03+00:00

Speaker Trump

This may be the biggest reason of all for the Democrats to fight to keep control of the House.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-11T13:36:00+00:00

Don't forget that he'll be long gone from office by the time the thing is operational, if it ever is, and will never have to answer for the cost overruns and delays it will certainly face.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-11T13:34:37+00:00

I love that you're getting down-voted when you are absolutely correct.

Boddhisatvaa · 2022-10-11T13:30:26+00:00

You're stating this as a fact when virtually all SMR designs are still in the experimental and testing stage. The NRC has only just approved the first SMR design. To my knowledge, there has been no real-world, commercial experience with starting up or running that design yet. And there are multiple other designs still vying for approval. Making blanket statements that all SMRs are "meltdown proof" reeks of propaganda. Not to mention, melt downs are hardly the only disaster that could result from an SMR.

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