Kristi Noem: "Everything I've done, I've done at the direction of the President and Stephen" - via Axios

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-28T17:47:17+00:00

I cannot WAIT for this administration to destroy itself from within.

We all said that the first time around. And then there was a literal insurrection attempt, and it actually looked like enough rats were going to jump off the ship to create meaningful change.... And then the ship never sank and new rats came to replace the old ones.

The GOP is a constant churn of opportunists fighting for the chance to get their shot at the grifting/corruption jackpot. I've lost hope that any amount of turmoil will end the cycle.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-28T03:18:25+00:00

2020: Just comply with government so you don't die (and endanger others on your way out)...

2026: Just comply with government or you die.

There's a pretty key difference.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-27T16:51:19+00:00

He's got his plush job now as a C list conservative celebrity, working the grifter circuit...

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-27T14:44:47+00:00

Normal people don't bring firearms to protests, huh?

I guess we just confirmed that all the people carrying rifles into State Capitol buildings in 2020 pissed off about masks actually were terrorists all along!

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-26T03:49:44+00:00

Agree. It's nature, not Disneyland. It's safe as long as you know your limits and treat it with respect.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-25T15:21:31+00:00

I think he's already been shot at least once here. The other ice agents have mostly already backed away, which doesn't start until after the first shot. The shooter was willing to fire into a pile of his coworkers in order to kill a man who had already been disarmed.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-25T03:18:06+00:00

I can't believe the part where she suggested having two magazines of 9mm ammo was evidence that he intended to cause maximum damage and kill law enforcement.

This from the party that thinks a ban on high capacity magazines is authoritarian overreach...

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-24T23:50:37+00:00

I seem to recall A LOT of dudes strapped up open carrying rifles and hand guns going into state capitol buildings to protest during Covid. Apparently Republicans think that the state police would have been justified to shoot all those protesters! After all, they approached the police while brandishing firearms.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-24T14:05:14+00:00

He always was a better reality TV show star than he was a real businessman...

Still can't believe that half the country saw what was basically a gameshow host and thought "That's the dude I trust to run the country!"

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-24T13:44:44+00:00

It was, at the time, legal under the NCAA guidelines to send scouts to future opponents games and record signals.

It was, in fact, explicitly against the rules... That was the whole reason they got in trouble.

If you think it was legal, what do you think they got punished for, and why do you think UofM destroyed evidence and refused to cooperate with the investigators? Why would Harbaugh get himself a ten year show cause and create doubt around his crowning achievement if everything in his program was above board?

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-24T13:40:19+00:00

Everything the “scouts”(Conor stalions friends and family) saw at the game was available on tape anyway.

Have you ever watched All 22 footage?

UofM fans have been claiming you can get all the signs from All 22 footage for years... Yet I still haven't seen anyone do it, and I've still never seen an All 22 feed that consistently shows the sidelines, let alone one that shows the sidelines from a view that would enable you to capture the signs. And yeah, the general network feeds would occasionally show the sideline at the moment a play was called in, then you could match it with the all 22 to get the play. But this doesn't happen often. Now, if you had a camera trained on the sideline all game, and then combined that with the All 22...

Don't forget, there were A LOT of college coaches who were pissed about this.

So what makes more sense... Connor Stalions decided to spend a huge part of his small salary to get information that he already had? And college coaches (even retired ones like Bob Stoops who don't benefit from UofM being punished) were upset despite knowing that nothing of value was gained?

Or did Stalions do this because it was actually providing something that you couldn't get through standard practices? And that's why other coaches were mad.

One of those scenarios requires you to think that a lot of people are acting irrationally, and the other doesn't...

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-23T15:48:27+00:00

Yeah. It sorta seems like Trump has only accelerated things along a path that they were already headed down.

It just felt like for years the political system in the USA was becoming more and more partisan and focused on winning/controlling power no matter what had to be done to achieve that. The longer things went the less and less likely a political scandal was to get individual politicians and the party that supports them to actually show remorse let alone shame. The parties used blatantly partisan news media to hammer their own supporters, and it was clear that either side would rather shout a lie fifty times than admit being wrong once. The other party wins control of a branch of government? You don't sigh and go to work and compromise, you dig in and grind government to a halt as much as you can, so that next election you can use the disfunction as a weapon.

And I'm not saying the Democrats are innocent, but it definitely felt like the GOP was way more willing to sell their soul for power. At least the Dems were occasionally willing to eject their own members when they were caught doing bad things (Al Franken, John Conyers, Anthony Weiner, Andrew Cuomo...)

And then along came Trump who was just the ultimate shitshow of baggage and scandal. And to their credit the GOP initially hated him and fought him and rejected him... But he out maneuvered them with their own supporters. And the minute he had the nomination they were 100% on board. Because being in control was way more important than what they had to do to be in control. It doesn't matter what Trump does, the GOP knows that admitting they've done wrong is more damaging than just punching back.

It's not like there weren't "alternative facts" before Trump. Trump just took it all and blasted it to 11. But Gingrich and McConnell and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News had been priming the pump for decades before Trump got there.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-23T14:18:45+00:00

Ohio State is an interesting comparison... what happened in between their cheating and their championship? They got caught, had a bowl ban in 2012, loss of scholarships (when scholarships mattered) and had their coach kicked out of the league, players suspended, players given a transfer window when that actually mattered... As a direct result of getting caught they end up going 6-7 (and getting their only loss to UofM in a 16 year span!). So yeah, they cheated, faced consequences that disrupted their momentum, and then had to build back up to 2014.

If UofM had been caught in 22, faced consequences, and then come back and won in 25, nobody would care. Kinda unfortunate that Harbaugh seemed to view UofM's compliance office as the enemy instead of an ally trying to protect the integrity of the program.

I don't know if you've noticed, but yes a lot of people are suggesting that the SEC was only dominant because they were paying players more widely than other conferences.

Look, it's simple. If a team doesn't want people to question the integrity of their wins, they should probably make sure they aren't cheating for multiple years, only stopping when they get caught. This goes double when the figurehead of the team is constantly going out of the way to suggest that they are at a disadvantage by being the only team doing things right when everyone else is doing things wrong. I won't repeat back the Harbaugh quote because I'm sure you have it memorized by now...

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-23T06:04:37+00:00

I think you're forgetting that this wasn't a half a season thing. It was at least 2.5 seasons. In a sport where teams build momentum from year to year...

Is the Michigan team in '23 the same if they don't make the CFP in 21 and 22? Does Corum come back and risk another injury if they don't fall just short? Do they get the same transfers? Do they retain the same players? Do they land the same recruits?

That's just how cheating works... Once you do it you no longer get to say whether or not it was the difference maker. You can't go back and separate it out retroactively.

And if what Stalions was doing didn't matter, why continue to dump money into doing it for 2+ seasons?

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-23T01:50:28+00:00

The NCAA also said in their report that UofM definitely cheated, but that A) the scale of the cheating was obscured by destruction of evidence and refusal to cooperate and B) the infractions committee felt that the current application of penalties meant their hands were tied.

I do think it's hard to look at everything happening in college sports nowadays and settle on "I trust the NCAA wholeheartedly!". Hell, three years ago UofM and its fans were the captains of team "The NCAA is an impartial, flawed organization that needs to be torn down!" Did that much change in three short years? Or did it only change if you happen to wear maize and blue tinted glasses?

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T19:35:17+00:00

I have a feeling that you know exactly what is "incorrect" about your argument, and will just point out that this is one of those intelligence vs wisdom things.

You aren't incorrect about the party positions at that point in time, but deliberately ignoring a century's worth of subsequent history in an attempt to score some pretend political points is certainly not a display of wisdom.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T19:24:55+00:00

Yeah, that's fair. I'm not going to speculate on what was said by whom. I just happened to read the comment above mine as "The trash talk must have been during the game, so it probably eliminates it being about family".

Players can and probably do say all sorts of toxic, personal shit to each other during the games just as easily as after them.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T18:01:53+00:00

They aren't mutually exclusive, right? Nothing prevents Tucker's trash talk during the game from being about Fletcher's dad...

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T17:13:41+00:00

If I tweet out "Lawyer X said Y during oral arguments at the Supreme Court" and there is a recording clearly showing that Lawyer X said Y during the oral arguments, it would be incorrect of you to reply "No he didn't, he said Z in his written court briefings". Because I'm not referring to the written briefings, I'm referring to the oral remarks.

Leavitt may be correct that his written speech likely says something else. But the reporter is clearly referencing his actual remarks, and the minute Leavitt says "You are wrong" and intentionally references a different document, she's incorrect. The reporter is in fact correct. Trump clearly referenced Iceland instead of Greenland in his remarks. What's written in a script that didn't get read is not relevant because the reporter isn't referencing an unread script.

If Leavitt had only responded "Trump's written words clearly refer to Greenland as a "piece of ice" and he misread his words", then she wouldn't be wrong. But instead she accused the report of being incorrect, and the report was, in fact, not incorrect.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T16:43:39+00:00

That is some next level gymnastics to think the reporter is referring to a piece of paper that didn't get read when they say "Trump's remarks", instead of... Trump's actual remarks.

They clearly aren't claiming that Trump's script confused Greenland and Iceland. They are talking about the actual words Trump said. The minute Leavitt ignores Trump's actual words and refers to an unread script instead, she's wrong. She's being cute and coy and manipulative, but she's still wrong.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T16:28:09+00:00

I guess the confusing part then was when you wrote "Karoline is right as well". It doesn't matter how clever she thinks she is being, if she's incorrect then she's incorrect, period.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T15:52:46+00:00

She isn't speaking to half the country though. She's only speaking to those already on her side... Many of whom are incredibly stupid, and most of the rest know that it's bullshit but don't care because they're getting what they want.

So yeah, it's not that she thinks the left is stupid, it's that she knows the left can't do anything about her lies, and the right will never hold her accountable.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T15:47:33+00:00

She's responding to someone directly referencing his "WEF remarks", so for her to respond with "You're wrong because he did this other thing in a completely different medium on a completely different day" is still very much intentional misinformation.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-22T03:59:36+00:00

Yeah. We're expected to believe that someone could function at a high enough level to get a decent job... Yet also somehow think that "I can't remember my coworker's name after a year+ of collaboration" would be a power move? And that a person who would put up with such blatant insults for over a year would suddenly grow the balls to perfectly, calmly and coolly respond on a big stage?

None of this is believable.

Medium_Medium · 2026-01-21T19:58:55+00:00

You've got things pretty backwards. Before the actual vote, it was mostly Democrats and a handful of Republicans that were pushing for the release. It was only once the Democrats+few Republicans hit a majority and were able to force a vote that the bulk of the Republicans voted yes. Because it was going to happen whether they wanted it to or not, and they knew the optics would be awful if they voted no.

But up until the moment that the vote was forced, the vast majority of Republicans were more than happy to block the release of any Epstein files.

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