Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[digitaldog]

Hilarious:

Stormy Daniels Says Alleged Sex With Trump Was ‘the Worst 90 Seconds of My Life’

https://www.khou.com/mobile/article/news/nation-world/stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-talk-trump-in-podcast-episode/507-028fa430-ddd7-41c1-ab7e-933967935426

[josh.reichmann]

General reminder - no ad hominem attacks or posts designed to denigrate. My version of moderating will be to remind you to breathe. Take a moment. Find your wit without the poisonous urge to damage the other person. See it as a challenge.

[faberryman]

Speaking of our friends in NATO, they will immediately reduce the defense expenditures now that Biden is showing he'll back off from some of Trump's hard-nosed positions especially the cancellation of relocating thousands of American troops from Germany to other European NATO countries, who were meeting their financial defence commitments, unlike Germany and others.  So now, Biden has pissed off those NATO countries who were better supporting America and NATO.  So your argument NATO leaders didn't like Trump is as true as there are NATO countries that don't like Biden.  So now there's no incentive for these other NATO countries to keep supporting defense as they have.  Biden turned on them.

Sounds like you think Trump's moving 12,000 troops from Germany to Poland, and building a big base in Poland at enormous cost to accommodate them, to punish Germany for not meeting its defense spending goal and reward Poland for meeting its defense spending goal is a good idea? Sounds like an expensive way to reward an ally. What do we get out of the deal? A new base in Poland? I don't remember that being on anyone's Christmas list. How is our strategic interest advanced?

[digitaldog]

Charles J. Cooper, a stalwart of the conservative legal establishment, said that Republicans were wrong to assert that it is unconstitutional for a former president to be tried for impeachable offenses.
His argument:
www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/us/politics/charles-cooper-trump-impeachment.amp.html

[Peter McLennan]

What happens when poster A ignores poster B and poster B ignores poster A?

I'd use the term "recursive ignorance".

[Robert Roaldi]

Hilarious:https://www.khou.com/mobile/article/news/nation-world/stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-talk-trump-in-podcast-episode/507-028fa430-ddd7-41c1-ab7e-933967935426

His time is valuable, maybe he doesn't like to dawdle. 

[jeremyrh]

Sounds like you think Trump's moving 12,000 troops from Germany to Poland, and building a big base in Poland at enormous cost to accommodate them, to punish Germany for not meeting its defense spending goal and reward Poland for meeting its defense spending goal is a good idea? Sounds like an expensive way to reward an ally. What do we get out of the deal? A new base in Poland? I don't remember that being on anyone's Christmas list. How is our strategic interest advanced?

Germany deployed the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan, after the US.  Since the Afghanistan jaunt was a response to 9-11, it seems to me that the Germans have been doing their fair share in supporting the US as a NATO ally. Of course you can't expect a real estate dealer to understand how these things work.

[faberryman]

Germany deployed the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan, after the US.  Since the Afghanistan jaunt was a response to 9-11, it seems to me that the Germans have been doing their fair share in supporting the US as a NATO ally. Of course you can't expect a real estate dealer to understand how these things work.

The thing I can't understand is why Trump awarded Poland a new military base. There were four countries (in addition to the United States) that spent at least 2% of their GDP on defense.

Greece – 2.38 percent
United Kingdom – 2.21 percent
Estonia – 2.16 percent
Poland – 2 percent

Poland wins the prize for being in fourth place? What's that all about? Seems like maybe Greece, the UK, and Estonia would say screw it, and reduce their level of defense spending to an even 2% as well. Obviously, there is no reason to spend more.

[faberryman]

So I guess the question that has been on everyone's mind these past few days is why a woman would spray her hair with Goriila Glue?

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/woman-used-gorilla-glue-spray-213400717.html

[jeremyrh]

So I guess the question that has been on everyone's mind these past few days is why a woman would spray her hair with Goriila Glue?

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/woman-used-gorilla-glue-spray-213400717.html

Yes - now that I'm no longer spending time wondering why a grown man would spray his face with orange dye, I have time to devote to this conundrum!

[Robert Roaldi]

So I guess the question that has been on everyone's mind these past few days is why a woman would spray her hair with Goriila Glue?

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/woman-used-gorilla-glue-spray-213400717.html

This is very off-topic, but I suspect it may interest you. Our local cable company has a junction box on my neighbour's front lawn. It is about 2 feet high and has a cylindrical plastic cap on it that is about 1 foot in diameter at its base. The plastic cap broke about halfway up 4 years ago. I suspect it happened during a cold winter when plastic becomes brittle. It gets covered with several feet of shovelled or blown snow for several months per year. I secured it in place with Gorilla tape and this is its 4th winter after the repair. I suspect that the tape will hold longer than the rest of the cap.

That poor woman.

[Robert Roaldi]

Post-mortem on the pandemic, https://www.npr.org/2021/01/07/954424826/americas-pandemic-failures. This is a 50 min podcast interview from NPR's Fresh Air with Lawrence Wright a staff writer with the New Yorker. They review the high and low points of the USA's response to Covid.

I wish people would do more post-mortems and internalize what they learn. I don't know why so many people want to re-invent the wheel.

The intro blurb "The U.S. has only 4% of the world's population — and yet it accounts for 20% of all COVID deaths. 'New Yorker' writer Lawrence Wright discusses America's "plague year." We'll talk about the mishandling of the outbreak and his novel 'The End of October,' about a deadly pandemic."

[faberryman]

This is very off-topic, but I suspect it may interest you. Our local cable company has a junction box on my neighbour's front lawn. It is about 2 feet high and has a cylindrical plastic cap on it that is about 1 foot in diameter at its base. The plastic cap broke about halfway up 4 years ago. I suspect it happened during a cold winter when plastic becomes brittle. It gets covered with several feet of shovelled or blown snow for several months per year. I secured it in place with Gorilla tape and this is its 4th winter after the repair. I suspect that the tape will hold longer than the rest of the cap.

That poor woman.

I brought up the subject of the Gorilla Glue Girl simply because the impeachment hearing is boring me to tears.

[Robert Roaldi]

I brought up the subject of the Gorilla Glue Girl simply because the impeachment hearing is boring me to tears.

I can imagine.

[LesPalenik]

This is very off-topic, but I suspect it may interest you. Our local cable company has a junction box on my neighbour's front lawn. It is about 2 feet high and has a cylindrical plastic cap on it that is about 1 foot in diameter at its base. The plastic cap broke about halfway up 4 years ago. I suspect it happened during a cold winter when plastic becomes brittle. It gets covered with several feet of shovelled or blown snow for several months per year. I secured it in place with Gorilla tape and this is its 4th winter after the repair. I suspect that the tape will hold longer than the rest of the cap.

One of the most valuable posts in this section.

[faberryman]

As you may know, one of Trump's impeachment lawyers is an observant Jew and requested that should the trial not be wrapped up by Friday evening, that the trial be postponed until Sunday, so that he could observe the Sabbath. No one had any problem with that, except we now learn Trump has objected because the trial would take longer. So, the lawyer withdrew his request. The link to the story is below, but it is really not worth reading. However, what was interesting is that the reporter remarked on what Trump has been up to since the inauguration and shared this little vignette:

"He has alternated between evenings at Mar-a-Lago and his nearby golf club, where one recent evening he was taped handing out cash to onlookers."

Handing out cash to onlookers? Here is the video:

https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/05/report-donald-trump-cash-handing-out-video/

I remember once I went to the carnival and there was this guy handing out free tickets to go in the tent to see a fived-legged cow.

Original story:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/politics/trump-impeachment/index.html

[Robert Roaldi]

Handing out cash to onlookers? Here is the video:

https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/05/report-donald-trump-cash-handing-out-video/

He wasn't wearing a mask.

[faberryman]

Trump is going to stiff David Schoen on his fees. The guy has been reading his presentation out of a binder for the better part of an hour.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

"He has alternated between evenings at Mar-a-Lago and his nearby golf club, where one recent evening he was taped handing out cash to onlookers."

.. taped by Gorilla tape, I hope?

[Peter McLennan]

I remember once I went to the carnival and there was this guy handing out free tickets to go in the tent to see a fived-legged cow.
Original story:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/politics/trump-impeachment/index.html

Which confirms my long-time description of him as a carnival barker.