Bessent did what is widespread, and unpunished, so that he should be told "bad boy" and left to his Department and its running. As Cook should be left alone to do her job. Give her a "bad girl:" too, if that will settle your mind.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
I may not get all the facts and thoughts out there into this post about Bolsanaro and Trump, but I hope I get enough.
Start with an earlier thing, Trumpian motives for saying Brazil gets humongous tariffs imposed because Bolsanaro was put on trial for a coup attempt. E.g., this BBC item from August 2025.
Too close to home for Donny, published today.
COUNTERPUNCH, two days ago describes codefendants also found guilty and sentenced. Real sleaze. Trump's kind?
WMHD (What Might Hegseth Do) as a thought experiment, no link.
"The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil's supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro," Rubio wrote on X."The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt," he said.
Brazil's Foreign Ministry called Rubio's comment a threat that "attacks Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and the compelling evidence in the records." The ministry said Brazilian democracy would not be intimidated by the United States.
Bolsonaro, who had close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, became the first former president in Brazilian history to be convicted for attacking democracy after a majority of five justices on Brazil's Supreme Court voted to convict him on Thursday. He was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison.
"Well, I watched that trial. I know him pretty well--foreign leader. I thought he was a good president of Brazil, and it's very surprising that could happen very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn't get away with it at all," Trump told reporters when asked about Bolsonaro being found guilty and if that means additional sanctions.
[...] Trump, who also faced a variety of criminal charges and ultimately became the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime last year, [...] In July, he imposed 50% tariffs on most Brazilian goods to fight what he has called a "witch hunt" against Bolsonaro. He later exempted some Brazilian exports, including passenger vehicles and a large number of parts and components used in civil aircraft.
That same month, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over Bolsonaro's criminal case, accusing him of authorizing arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppressing freedom of expression.
A how high Rubio showing, where Trump said "Jump." Ditto Bessent at Treasury.
One place I got my mind wrong, I thought it was Bolsonaro who handed Elon the chainsaw at APEC. It was an Argintine. Bolsonaro may be, (and was judged), a really bad actor, but it was not him being that chainsaw tacky.
Aside from that, a little past, present, and Rubio "promise" about the future, blogged here briefly over a grudge feeling one pissed off former scorn-monger election-loser had in a coincidental embrace of another. One fucking hell of a way to do foreign policy, but that's only the Crabgrass thought, and others may see it differently.
Crabgrass belief: Brazil got it right. Good voters get good results.
It arguably deserves more trenchant analysis, and I am sure in Brazil due attention is given. Crabgrass is not the place to overreach in commentary where little here is known but what's web content.
However, it had to be mentioned. Not commenting about it would have been negligent. It needs attention, and Crabgrass gives it some. The U.S. in a bad posture perhaps should not be dwelt upon, but there's been sooooo much bad posture these days that the nation needs a figurative chiropractor, to adjust its spine.
__________________UPDATE________________
It is one of the web's good outlets. It recently published an op-ed about political murder.
COUNTERPUNCH also opined on tariff impact on farmers and how things could be better. Beyond give a bigger subsidy to offset tariff impact. Again, a worthwhile outlet, left oriented.
FURTHER: The site seems more set on commentary than attempted or feigned "just the facts reporting" with two additional items highlighted. Here. Here.
Using AI generated data to train AI? Great idea?
If you cannot trust MIT, who can you trust?
From the MIT Technology Review -
The trouble is, the types of data typically used for training language models may be used up in the near future—as early as 2026, according to a paper by researchers from Epoch, an AI research and forecasting organization, that is yet to be peer reviewed. The issue stems from the fact that, as researchers build more powerful models with greater capabilities, they have to find ever more texts to train them on. Large language model researchers are increasingly concerned that they are going to run out of this sort of data, says Teven Le Scao, a researcher at AI company Hugging Face, who was not involved in Epoch’s work.
The issue stems partly from the fact that language AI researchers filter the data they use to train models into two categories: high quality and low quality. The line between the two categories can be fuzzy, says Pablo Villalobos, a staff researcher at Epoch and the lead author of the paper, but text from the former is viewed as better-written and is often produced by professional writers.
Data from low-quality categories consists of texts like social media posts or comments on websites like 4chan, and these examples greatly outnumber those considered to be high quality. Researchers typically only train models using data that falls into the high-quality category because that is the type of language they want the models to reproduce. This approach has resulted in some impressive results for large language models such as GPT-3.
One way to overcome these data constraints would be to reassess what’s defined as “low” and “high” quality, according to Swabha Swayamdipta, a University of Southern California machine learning professor who specializes in data-set quality. If data shortages push AI researchers to incorporate more diverse data sets into the training process, it would be a “net positive” for language models, Swayamdipta says.
In the old days, when processing power and memory were in shorter supply, the word was garbage in garbage out.
Now MIT can say it with many more words. We have come a long way, and the way out is obscure.
Ask the Unibomber?
google = use AI output to train AI
See what you get.
UPDATE: I was contemplating a post with well linked authority about something I'd not seen posted about yet, expecting it for some months.
The Epstein and the Ehud Barak
Mossad. That's what some say about who created Epstein and the honey pot.
Epstein was Jewish, The Victoria's Secret guy was Jewish. Leonard Black? Jewish. So it's low-grade easy to say it was all part of the Jewish conspiracy, which gets mentioned a lot on various web segments.
What interests me, and I have nothing like proof either way beyond the circumstantial -
If you web search = Epstein Barak business ventures
See what you get. Tune the search if you feel that's needed. See what their mutual greed produced. Search Barak separately to get his Wiki Bio.
Then try Wikipedia for names you may get as to money making thoughts Epstein and Barak may have shared for trial ventures they considered, something that may have hit the shoals or still be going.
Something perhaps existing for one purpose, but having commercialization possibility elsewise?
There is stuff online but I will let you find it and make inferences from it. Suffice it to say that if Epstein had his honey pots stocked with cameras having a remote feed, via the internet available tech as then might have existed, such as then leading edge tech one might market for feeding video to a 911 site to aid its responsiveness, wouldn't that possibly suggest streaming the activity at the honey pot to remote storage, somewhere, so that if the FBI or US intelligence people were to have the right warrant to look, (warrantless searches, they don't happen do they), then they might not find any incriminating video evidence on site at the honey pot? And if live-streamed somewhere, where would you guess? Ventures, patents, there might be a circumstantial trail, but only hard evidence - if it happened that way which is uncertain - if you know the remote data storage site being streamed to and have access to it.
And, have a nice day. Technology is your friend. Look how it helped Kash and the Mormons track down Robinson. It can do that to, with you. The Unabomber wrote about yesterday's technology and we need to contemplate its movement given the tons of money, hardware, brain power, and electricity being invested into tomorrow's AI. We have a future, but who other than you is charting it and bringing it to being. And for what reasons are they routing things in the directions things are moving? With all of your best interests in mind? Making a better life for the children?
FURTHER: Selfless benevolence is the major human motive. What being "human" means.
Only the good die young.
Reconciling opposing thoughts is sometimes easy, sometimes hard, right?
See what you find if you search. See what you think about it.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Stephen Miller has a darkness problem. How did he get this way? When he lost his hair. what?
This online item speaks for itself.
What's the point of this bluster? I will stop posting quivering in fear? Make me tremble?
Go figure. We've a First Amendment Miller's aware of, but does he honor it in his speaking against freedom of expression? We're going to get these leftists - I'm old enough to say I hear it, I doubt it.
Blustery weather passes, and the sun shines again. As to me, it is Stephen, go after the Soros family first, get them and I will take your raised voice seriously. Otherwise, have a nice day.
Leave things there. There is no need to go beyond what's been said. Only, is this helping Trump, or hurting cred in general? That's for each reader to figure. What does JD gain?
UPDATE: Lyndon Johnson made martyrs at Kent State and Jackson State, and alienated a large part of a generation into distrust of power. Also, roughly a century ago U.S. action solidified popular resolve in Mexico. Stephen Miller nonetheless pushes on. Wisdom in some places is in short supply, usually where hubris is in excess. And ranting satisfies no need of the people of our nation. Miller can still show an upward sloping or at least stable learning curve, or can take the free hand Trump is giving him and fuck things up royaly, well past today's already heated feelings and counterfeelings. Pop the popcorn and watch.
Monday, September 15, 2025
Why not release the total package, Epstein Files, which is something Charlie Kirk publically advocated. It would be trustworthy instead of a shit-show.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/stephen-miller-issues-unhinged-threat-172426683.html
Carrying a New Republic item -
Stephen Miller Issues Chilling Threat Over Charlie Kirk’s Death
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling2 min readWhite House deputy chief of staffSpeaking with Vice President JD Vance Monday during a tribute to Charlie Kirk on the far-right firebrand’s eponymous show, Miller said that he intended to “channel all the anger that we have” against the left, claiming that leftist groups and nonprofits had created “terrorist networks” that led to Kirk’s murder.
“The last message that Charlie sent me … was that we needed to have an organized strategy to go after the left-leaning organizations that are promoting violence in this country,” Miller told Vance, celebrating what he described as focused anger. “I will write those words onto my heart and I will carry them out.”
Miller elaborated that, per his belief, these supposed terrorist organizations had produced “organized doxing campaigns” and “organized cells” that facilitated violence.
“It is a vast domestic terror movement,” Miller said. “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.
“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller added.
The little shit Miller does not have a heart. He is the Tin Man and Scarecrow in one persona. No brain either. And Miller's not acting in Charlie's name, he is his own man doing his own shit and saying it's not mine, it's somebody else's. Or I'll steal a dead man's aura. It's his child. Abusing Kirk's name and memory or not, it is Miller's bastard thing. Do a paternity test. His. Hunt a witch for Miller, not Kirk in retrospect.
Vance should know better. A witch hunt does no one any good, and gets distrust as it's due reward.
Since Charlie Kirk's been shot, his thinking is now frozen, but he and Tucker Carlson had a fairly long conversation, and you can watch it and think about it for yourself.
Link. Who are these two, and where do they sniff out a truffle, and where do they show something we should worry over?
Or think, they're all one way, good: or all one way; bad. It may be a pick and choose, and a general impression on the whole, with caveats.
And the thought, wealthy people and those who control big corporate business; how does social liberalism and economic liberalism (with the term liberal in its larger sense, say progressivism instead) split?
Let people live, if they show up every day on time and punch out a good quota of widgets, or is our national character something else, and if so, what?
Tucker saying he's worked menial jobs, his family made him do it in summers? Something like that.
Facing middle and old age lifting and fitting stuff is not the same as trying a summer of it.
And demonizing boomers? They had numbers, bur only a handful had hands on power, and shaped things to mirror a non-bluge population system, in terms of equal distribution of national product and enjoyment of a dream of some kind?
Finally, I thought of turning people loose on the item without front loading some of my thinking, but I did not. I can be faulted for that.
I think false prophets can sound legit to some, not others, and your prophets making sense might at the same time be my false ones, so watch and form your own take on the two talking at length.
It could reflect on you and how your childhood stood as much as about the two and what they share.
Trump's health. He is making major decisions and needs all the help, including exercise, good diet, and learning to trust others, even if not the most loyal or obsequious.
At a week and a half from 81, I know old age, but at 200 lb I do not abuse my body as if I were a flab ridden 320 pounder. Which Trump seems to have allowed himself to be.
I'd get sleep and park the golf cart a bit of a short walk from the green to get a few steps in. Little things.
He lacks the discipline. He indulges short term, and fats out. Not body shaming, but health shaming, given his position in politics. He owes us, the nation, the best decisionmaking good health he and unlimited med resources can give us.
His history of pigheadedness and coincident bad business decisions and bankruptcies suggest he needs to have the best of advisors and to trust them. His lifelong inferiority complex, for which he's found compensating postures and conduct need revision. He'll never be all Fred wanted, but live with it and be the best possible, given genetics and environment and personal slobbish indulgent history leading to this point.
He's let himself whale out.
His mental acuity is not what it was thirty years ago in sharper-minded Apprentice entertainment days. He's slipping and slurring and meandering from the point. He needs JD to not only front the stuff, small and bigger, but to have an entire competent cabinet with everyone on board saying, "Health matters." He says he's healthy, but he is not, and likely believes he's deluding people when we see and know.
Anyone saying this is a healthy man is in self-delusion, or lying.
That said, the job of others in politics is to try to channel help and positive personal feelings, even if thinking his policy is a road to the Great Depression of this century. Obama had to overcome the Bush 2008 disaster, Biden to overcome the Covid mishandling and lack of pandemic preparation, which is going worse under the Kennedy chap.
Bad things, and bad health are each capable of being fought against.
This cheap fist pumping, "Fight, fight, fight" is delusional for a man who will not even eat well or trust enough those he elevates to positions of trust. Hegseth and Kennedy are physically fit, overly so perhaps, but mentally impaired, and they've so far had relative longevity in Trump 47, despite publicly expressed misgivings of others.
Trump at his core is an awful judge of people, wanting to install those less gifted than himself, to his detriment since he is more salesman and sound-bite specialist, than gifted in any needed sense.
He even delivers his sound-bites these days in writing, Truth Social, where ghost-writing is a question?
Washington, D.C., we have a problem.
___________UPDATE____________
At the Pentagon 9/11 memorial service Trump looked bad, but after finding the speech he gave online, he read the teleprompters on each side clearly, turning obviously from one to the other as he read. It was, however, reassuring that his vocal power had not degenerated greatly in a short few days, where speculation over a possible stroke has been given media attention.
If he'd had a stroke it did not impair his reading or articulating skill more than, say, the middle of last month or earlier. He is living a hard 79th year, and it was encouraging, his voice, even with media speculation. However, health is a concern, and his attendance rather than sending JD for the event was also encouraging.
I absolutely hope he keeps his health able, and if going into difficulty that he has the good sense to acknowledge when it might be time to cut this second term short, if that ever becomes the case.
He is not there yet, but he and staff must show care and discernment.
(I would provide a link to his speech but I found online only a composite with other more extensive lead-in content irrelevant to Trump's part of the Pentegon event.) Readers, please search the speech if caring enough, or take my analysis that he stood with no sway, and gave the speech from the two teleprompters, which is not unique, Biden having on occasion used a pair of teleprompters to aid his official event speeches.
It is a worry, but so far the point of considering ending the term before its scheduled end has not been reached. As best as Crabgrass has seen.
If the term ends early, JD appears like-minded to where policy would largely remain as it's been under Trump. Whether you view that as good or bad is a separate question.
Saturday, September 13, 2025
Minnesota has had a disgruntled madman shoot legislators, while Utah has had a 22 year-old white man from a devoutly gun-loving family choose to gun down an idealogue-prosyletizer. Guns do kill people. So regulate them wisely.
The Hortmans dead, the guy Kirk dead, multiple past multiple-target-persons-shootings via assault rifles, more so than with handguns which are specifically made and sold for shooting people becuase you don't hunt with a Glock. It's under powered to drop a bear, and the range of accurate targeting even by experienced shooters exceeds many hunting distances where a long gun shot could succeed. In short, guns designed for warfare or street action - all that leading to thoughts of time to more soundly regulate firearms and firearm ownership. Walz may call a MN leg special session for that very purpose.
Republicans stoop to babble speak and evasion to push stand your ground (aggressive) measures, while not wanting guns regulated. MinnReformer notes Republican Walter Hudson babble-speak about revolution somehow, discussed but not, says Hudson, advocated by him. And Hudson has been analyzed by Steve Timmer in Steve's left.mn postings here and here. (Hudson is not in Republican leadership making Crabgrass think of some of the brothers frats kept away from rushees during Rush Week, back when.)
Hudson votes with the Republicans, so they accept him, but have they honored or featured him? He is more inclined to feature himself, possibly confusing leadership by what he says.
But that's not Stand Your Ground thought, although Hudson might agree with it. He surely stands his ground, politically. Leadership sometimes having to clean the ground after him.
Now, mom in the burbs Republican Kristin Robbins sees herself fit for the Governor's Mansion, and makes Stand Your Ground a thing to co-sponsor. Beyond that she is eager to serve Minnesotans better than others, where others, both parties, feel the same about their talents. She favors economic projections in state made without inflation adjustments. Despite inflation happening and everyone knowing that.
The links on Robbins again are to Timmer's analyses.
What you get is a drift that some Minnesota Republicans are lesser than others.
Now, while on guns and gun-love let us join in featuring a Utah family in togetherness over firearm feel and stroking:
John Lennon, years ago, gunned down. , gunned down. Ghandi. Two Kennedys and a King. And this family is bringing up the youngsters gun-happy while the older brother got Charlie Kirk in the neck. Sick? Yes. I don't live in Utah and would not move there. Somebody might shoot me. And yes, Minnesota is not a best example of other ways. We have Boelters. And we do not need kerosene on the fire via Stand Your Ground as a universal thing, since in public vs in one's safe home, you first try retreat when feasible in public if threatened, while in the home there may be a more defensive reaction to a wrongful entry. But each case should rely on its own facts without a bias toward standing ground and shooting it out and damn the other options.
Friday, September 12, 2025
Honesty is the best policy. Not say dishonesst, if misleading is a better word.
A Rebecca Weber states online, or more accurately - has it stated online for her:
Rebecca Weber
Biography
Well, it's this Rebecca Weber:
 |
| click to enlarge and read |
The Wikipedia page for her cash cow promotion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Mature_American_Citizens - states in opening paragraphs::
And she smiles atop a poll page which does not include Release the Epstein Files, unless you write that into the poll under OTHER.The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) is a United States-based conservative advocacy organization and interest group, founded in 2007. It was founded by Daniel C. Weber, a retired insurance agency owner, who also served as its president.[1][2]
AMAC is a membership organization for people aged 50 and over.[3] The group calls itself "the conservative alternative to the AARP."[2] It is one of several organizations to position itself as a conservative rival to the AARP; others include the American Seniors Association and 60 Plus Association.[3][4][5]
Political activities
AMAC describes itself as "vigorously conservative" and gained support from talk show host Glenn Beck and other conservative figures.[6] AMAC strongly opposes the Affordable Care Act (ACA)[7][8] and has pushed for its repeal.[4] In March 2014, AMAC claimed a membership of 1.1 million members, up from 40,000 in 2008, which it attributed to backlash over the ACA.[4]
AMAC supports a plan for Social Security which would gradually increase the earliest retirement age to 64 (from 62) and "guarantee cost-of-living increases in a tiered structure based on income."[4] AMAC supports the oil and gas industry, claiming that they "are safer for the environment than ever before." The group's president, Dan Weber, called for a rollback of Obama administration policies to promote clean energy.[9]
The AMAC has a volunteer "delegate" program, aiming to select an AMAC member in each congressional district across the country to meet and lobby members of Congress.[10]
In February 2017 AMAC issued a warning to the upcoming 2017 Academy Awards ceremony to not tolerate speeches against President Donald Trump, threatening to launch a boycott of theaters.[11]
https://amac.us/poll/amac-ceo-rebecca-weber-news/
On that page two lenders listed as sponsors. You can search the web on that, it might be one lender with two ad spots, I don't know, I did not bother searching it.
WTF does "non-partisan" mean to you? 501(c)(3) dress-up. or something with more gravitas?
Don't ask me. Ask yourself.
Things move fast in Utah. Suspect in Kirk situation said to be in custody. [UPDATE Authorities have a confession from a person in custody.]
Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-says-suspect-in-charlie-kirk-killing-taken-into-custody/ ("by Reuters")
Suspect in Charlie Kirk killing identified as Tyler Robinson – reports
According to multiple reports, citing law enforcement sources, a suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been identified as Tyler Robinson, 22, who is local to Utah.
We’re due to hear from FBI director Kash Patel and Utah officials shortly. We’ll bring you the latest lines as we have them.
Trump gives the "official story" to Fox and Friends, i.e., Rupert's thing, Hegseth's former thing, gets the sit-down disclosure - here. Also, Fox, here, he's Israel's friend (Indirectly staking ground: Mossad did not do it over Epstein files).
Times of Isreal coverage, here and here. Doth protest too much?
We await the "suspect" Trump/FOX has fingered to be given a chance to release a statement. (We'll wait a long time, likely from counsel, after indictment.)
WE GOT OUR GUY AND THAT'S IT. FULL STORY. ALL THAT'S FIT TO TELEVISE.
(I posted without taking time to watch the Fox and Friends dog-and-pony, so, did Trump say anything about Kirk and his stance on the Epstein files? You'd have to watch to give me a certain answer, but our guesses likely don't diverge.)
UPDATE: While on the subject of Trump, here's latest Guardian coverage of things in Brazil.
"Trial of the Centdury," they headline it that way.
- only a state of mind -
FURTHER UPDATE: https://jewishinsider.com/2025/09/charlie-kirk-obituary-israel-antisemitism-conservative-youth/
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, while, like Sherlock, considering here, here and here; the latter item saying:
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he includes President Trump among those who should tone down their rhetoric in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
”I mean, there is a lot of rhetoric. And the president himself engages in it — he called it a hostile act to co-sponsor the Epstein resolution,” said Massie, who was a leading voice in pushing a motion to force the release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “I think that’s ridiculous rhetoric.”
“It’s amusing,” he added. “It doesn’t offend me that he’s over the top with the rhetoric, but some people take it literally, and he should probably tone that down himself.”
Massie has often been at odds with his party, refusing to back GOP priorities that would raise the debt limit, including Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
In response, Trump said Massie was “not MAGA” and has encouraged someone to primary him.
“Thomas Massie, the worst Republican Congressman, and an almost guaranteed NO VOTE each and every time, is an Embarrassment to Kentucky,” Trump wrote in one post on Truth Social in July. “He’s lazy, slow moving, and totally disingenuous — A real loser!”
He added, “Never has anything positive to add. Looking for someone good to run against this guy, someone I can Endorse and vigorously campaign for!”
The feud has further escalated after the Kentucky Republican filed a discharge petition earlier this month on a resolution to release the Epstein files, an effort that is inching closer to a sufficient number of signatures to force a vote.
Eyes on the prize. How will JD spin that? With ignoring the Kirk-Epstein Files connection being guessed as a part of it. The don't look here, look there spin where Ohio Haitians might also somehow play a role.
JD cooks a stew when intending to.
See what the suspect identity-and-story are, but don't ignore Kirk - Epstein Files as an overarching theme.
Weigh all the rhetoric pending before Kirk got shot, and now, after, but understand Crabgrass has opinions colored by long set politics in viewing circumstances, so keep an open mind, as will be tried here.
-------------------------------------------
The BBC item uses images in a advertorial manner. As in,
RELEASE THE FUCKING FILES, ALREADY and CHIPS FALL AS DESERVED, MR. TRUMP.
FURTHER: The BBC item went online two days ago, i.e., the day before Epstein file influencer Kirk was shot dead from some angle. That explains why the Kirk situation was not analyzed by the BBC then. It had not yet happened, being the next day's news.
FINAL UPDATE: Facts get in the way of many favored theories, but a confessing perp is a situation you accept. You don't try to argue with it.
The Kirk - Epstein Files theory was nice, but not the case. The story seems the shooter shot Kirk because Kirk was a small-minded hateful asshole, and not for any reason beyond that.
If Stephen Miller had made a low-security public visit to that school on the 9/11 anniversary, who knows.
Now, release the files. Kirk is a closed book. The files are anything but that.
FINAL FINAL UPDATE: There is something barbaric about my wanting to use Kirk's death to focus sunlight upon his stance on the Epstein Files. That is admitted.
Read Howie Klein's post on Kirk's passing, and get a feel for the why sense behind how I've written this up as I did. Klein details things I presumed readers would already understand. If not, Read Klein's item.
Honor the living with the truth, first, always - as much because the dead will not care anymore - and truth must always prevail. The clean fact is I have no grief over Kirk being shot. I feel for wife and children, but Kirk put them second to his shtick, which was a closed and hateful message. Sympathy dries up for me when a hater passes.
I don't miss Henry Kissinger, for instance. He made 100 years but the Reaper got him, and do you miss him? I don't miss the Dulles brothers. Roy Coen.
.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Charlie Kirk. Gone. There will not be anyone else who can talk like him, to him. [UPDATED]
Link. Charlie Kirk, with a beard.
UPDATE: I will not miss this voice. Things will be better without it. Glib propaganda is propaganda, and the man was glib in his demagoguery. There are many who want to take his place.
We did not need this voice. We should not miss it. We should do better without Charlie Kirk.
FURTHER UPDATE: You like things to make sense in accord with your way of thinking. With that caveat, https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/did-donald-trump-order-charlie-kirks-killing-to-dodge-epstein-file-scandal-x-erupts-with-conspiracy-theories-after-activists-death-669873.html
Timing?
Suspect in long sleeves, atop hot building where Kirk wore a white tee shirt sheltered by a tent? Possibly long sleves to hide distinctive tattoos? Not for comfort. A now tattooed cartel grad from
WHINSEC?
A transgender shooter, shooting when Kirk was speaking that way? Too convenient. Also, here.
Every flavor of theories, Trump saying leftists did it. The caveat applies to Trump as much as to Crabgrass liking the theory going with the pic. One size does not fit all.
FURTHER UPDATE: A patsy in the long sleeves? The James Earl Ray theory? A rifle stashed in the woods, conveniently, by somebody. Or, what about a staged thing, Kirk still alive in hands of Witness Protection, to be relocated somewhere into Elon's empire for a well paying low-key steady job? (Like they did with the Butler shooter whose shot supposledly dinged Trump's ear??)
Any theory fits, and there is the idea it was staged so that Kirk could "die" loving Trump but not embarrassed by having to back off the Release the Epstein Files insistence.
Is MTG releasing names as she declared she would? I've not heard of her doing so.
FURTHER UPDATE: Did you know the School for the Americas was still going? Not shut down as a cartel human resources channel? Has Hegseth replaced the Commandant with a white guy?
Friday, September 05, 2025
Thoughts about Dr. Lisa Cook, scholar and public official.
Start with the Berkeley PhD Thesis, where Proquest offers a preview. That preview shows interest and research in 1995 Russian credit and banking realities. More insight would need to study the entire thesis, which is not easily obtained online, and for which my own talent and learning is limited.
What is apparent is that a methodology was being explained prior to data analysis, and constraints were highlighted such as the social and historical situation led Cook to note that inquiry of whether private funds were the basis of financing an enterprise, it was not considered proper to ask about how the private funds used in initating a venture were acquired.
It looks like sound scholarship to Crabgrass, and the judgment of Berkeley's economics faculty counts for more than Crabgrass impressions. The thesis committee read the entire work, I did not.
In August of this year NPR featured a review of Cook's scholarship prior to her Fed Board appointment. Endogenous growth theory gains mention at the start of the NPR analysis. Cook saw complications, this dialog from the NPR item:
DUFFIN: So Lisa is pretty sure she's found a blind spot in the hot new economic theory. Maybe innovation also requires safety and equality.
CHILDS: To test her hunch, she needs to find a pool of inventors, where some were subject to violence and inequality, and others weren't. For innovation, there actually is a way to count ideas - patents on inventions. She'll look at data from 1870 to 1940 and compare the number of patents filed by Black and white inventors. If Black inventors file fewer patents during periods of increased violence and lawlessness and they file more patents when violence and lawlessness decrease, then she's proven it.
COOK: The thing that I was deluded about was that all these data were just hanging around and available. Patents were not searchable. There was no Google Patents. You know, race is not recorded on a patent record.
CHILDS: Lisa will have to, patent by patent, figure out a way to identify the race of each filer for the 2 million patents filed in that 70-year period.
COOK: It took me a year to identify the names and then a year to match them to the data and then another year to fail at that (laughter).
DUFFIN: So she plots out the number of patents filed per year chronologically on a graph. She can look back in time and see how Black innovation grew or fell in different times and places throughout this history.
CHILDS: Starting at the beginning of her dataset in 1870, the Civil War was receding in the background. The 14th Amendment had recently passed.
DUFFIN: During this period, African Americans made a lot of gains - holding office, owning property and filing more and more patents. She sees the line on her graph rise.
CHILDS: They invented all kinds of things in this period - an elevator, rotary engines, a tapered golf tee, a dough kneader, a telephone system, a fertilizer distributor.
DUFFIN: But then the story her dataset was telling her took a turn.
COOK: There was a sharp decline in patenting right at 1900, around the time of Plessy v. Ferguson and thereafter.
CHILDS: Plessy v. Ferguson - the Supreme Court ruling that gave official legal sanction to a so-called separate but equal America. Legislators were passing laws that pushed African Americans into not-at-all-equal homes and schools or just cut off access to things altogether. But then she sees another big dip in the patent filings from African Americans and realizes that 1921 was the year of one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history, the Tulsa race massacre.
DUFFIN: This one neighborhood in Tulsa had become famous as a bustling, affluent community. But in late May of 1921, mobs of white men invaded the town. They massacred residents. They also firebombed the neighborhood from airplanes. This haven of Black affluence burned to the ground.
COOK: Tulsa demonstrated that no one would help them - no one. At every single level, nobody had their backs. They were all afraid.
DUFFIN: It was a message that was heard across the country.
COOK: If I'm a Black inventor in another city, why would I ever invent anything if I thought the intellectual property was never going to be defended?
CHILDS: Patent filings by African Americans dropped off across the country.
COOK: The divergence between white patenting and Black patenting was just so stark.
That focus on patenting as a measure of enthusiasm of whether it helped bridge racial cultural bias is shown by reviewing items returned from a search: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24&q=lisa%20cook%20michigan%20state
For instance, this item was returned as part of the scholar search, a jointly written NBER Working Paper.
"Policies to Broaden Participation in the Innovation Process" was a 2020 Brookings Hamilton Project paper. "Inventing Social Capital" was a theme.
The purpose of writing about Cook is not to catalog the titles of the Scholar rreturned list but to gain a general impression that she used innovation economics, specifically patenting, as a tool to examine racial dimensions, and also gender issues. As a black woman, it made sense to pursue research to objectively learn things her own experiences suggested. Michigan State though enough to admit Cook to its faculty.
Cutting to a separate author's review of Cook's appointment process ideas and worries here; a 16p 2023 analysis with this abstract:
On May 10, 2022, Dr. Lisa Cook was confirmed by a 51-50 vote in the U.S. Senate as the first Black woman to join the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. A coalition of groups supporting her nomination worked to counter attacks from Republican senators with a track record of targeting nominees of color and to contain the impact of right-wing critics on social media. A comprehensive communications strategy built around emphasizing her experience and expertise included tactics to prevent racialized attacks on Dr. Cook from becoming mainstream. Identifying a clear opposing figure, depriving social media trolls of amplification, and turning the phenomenon of white privilege to her advantage all played a role in the public interest communications strategy that aided Dr. Cook’s successful confirmation.
The item begins:
Based on her qualifications alone—both education and experience—Dr. Lisa Cook merited a quick and easy confirmation as a nominee of President Joseph Biden to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. A professor at Michigan State University who, in addition to her academic research, had been a White House staffer and overseer within the Federal Reserve’s system of regional banks already, Dr. Cook could hardly have possessed better credentials for the governing body of the nation’s central bank.
From a public-interest perspective, Cook represented an important step forward for the Fed. Thanks to her own research, she was in the position to advance the Fed’s incipient effort to understand the role of race in the U.S. economy. In time, she might provide a push to policy ideas that would help the Fed to craft policies to address the racial inequities that pervade the U.S. economy.
But as the first Black woman selected to join the Fed board, Dr. Cook had every reason to expect a challenging confirmation process at the hands of Republican senators who, with a track record of throwing sharp, disingenuous jabs at nominees of color (Linskey, 2021), would participate in the Senate debate over her confirmation. Seldom does a person of color, particularly a woman, escape such a process in the current political environment without having to brave this kind of treatment.
The U.S. Senate did eventually approve on May 10, 2022—by the narrowest possible margin of 51-50—the nomination of Dr. Cook. She now sits on the board of the Fed as it grapples with inflation, a possible recession, and stresses in the financial system.
While nothing can take the place of the right nominee, that outcome reflected, in part, a
strategy designed by a coalition of nonpartisan groups who all shared an interest in policies
designed to make the economy, and the financial system in particular, more just and stable. They laid in a strategy to set the right public tone both before and after Dr. Cook’s nomination to the Fed on January 14, 2022. The groups saw the challenge coming, prepared for it, anticipated what the opponents would do, and worked strategically to push positive messages while deflecting or ignoring a disinformation campaign on social media.
What follows is an assessment of the communications strategy and tactics employed to
support Dr. Cook’s confirmation—and ultimately achieve economic and financial policies built around equity and stability. This case study will focus on the communications aspects of Dr. Cook’s nomination that bear on the challenges when the person in question is a Black woman, focusing on nonstandard media and public relations tactics that might be adapted in other public interest efforts.
Adopting a clear strategy and sticking to it proved successful, as did the fortitude to avoid certain standard but resource-intensive tactics and to instead brainstorm new ideas. ountering disinformation with reframing and refusing to dwell on opponents’ falsehoods and lies may have been the most useful tactic. Direct rebuttals of baseless or racist attacks ran the risk of being resource-intensive without necessarily achieving the goal, unless in the service of rebutting a figure who embodied the opposition narrative about Dr. Cook in the Senate. Also, choosing the right validators—in this case, prominent and experienced white men who lent the privilege and prestige they enjoyed—proved useful.
[...]
The upshot, beyond that start, detail of the confirmation approach and 51 to 50 confirmation vote, is given to show that Cook had already faced racial BS before Bill Pulty by reading the entrails of a chicken or some other means formed opinions of a "mortgage fraud" intent and tattled as quick as you can say Jack Robinson, to his beloved mentor and president, so the latter could claim "for cause" to discharge Dr. Cook from her Senate confirmed seat when the Senate process had been a test of lack of any solid cause beyond racial animus to oppose the appointment of Dr. Cook.
It by its nature was a big and hard uphill push in the Senate, and Harris had to cast the deciding vote, but that fight was not to be summarily derailed by Trump saying "for cause" Bill Pulty tells me.
Those are the main part of my thoughts - a competent person, with competence beyond reasonable doubt, with ideas Trump opposes, and a trumped up for cause claim, an assertion by another federal official who's been kind of a head hunter of people he can accuse and tattle on to Trump. Not that such is any part of Bill Pulty's job description, with it, basically, a side talent he appears in multiple instances to exude.
Cook is suing so the courts will do their thing. But for now, it sure as hell looks as if Trump is jumping to a conclusion not because it is firm or solid, but that it is one serving his purposes so that he wants to believe.
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