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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 8:32:03 GMT -8
Intelligence is like an underwear. It is important that you have it, but not necessary that you show it off. Bibi's Got Trouble
"His approach was flawed. Hamas has been in power in Gaza since 2007, Netanyahu was elected in 2009, they have been in charge almost simultaneously. And it's during that period that the Islamist threat has grown so much," Hazan told AFP. Netanyahu's 'back to wall' amid public demand to crush Hamas |
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 8:33:50 GMT -8
I Guess "Support" Means a Bra or a Jock Strap to Previous Guy
Former President Donald Trump is arguing to a judge in Colorado that he was not required to "support" the Constitution as president, reported Brandi Buchman from Law & Crime.
The argument came as he seeks to dismiss a lawsuit filed in the state by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), seeking to have him disqualified from the ballot in the state under the 14th Amendment. The Insurrection Clause of the amendment prohibits those who have "engaged in insurrection" against the United States from holding a civil, military, or elected office unless a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate approve.
But Trump's lawyers are arguing that the specific language of the Constitution argues that this requirement only applies to people in offices who are bound to "support" the Constitution — and the presidency is not one of those offices.
"The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution — not to 'support' the Constitution," said the filing by Trump's attorneys. "Because the framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to 'support' the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President."
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 8:39:04 GMT -8
Microsoft May Owe Macro Money
The US Internal Revenue Service is asking that Microsoft pay a whopping $29 billion in unpaid taxes from 2004 to 2013, the company said in an official filing on Wednesday.
"We disagree with the proposed adjustments and will vigorously contest the (demand) through the IRS's administrative appeals office and, if necessary, judicial proceedings," the company said.
In a blog post, Microsoft said the issue with the IRS was with its transferring of revenue across international jurisdictions during the period.
The practice, called cost-sharing, is practiced by "many large multinationals...because it reflects the global nature of their business," the company said.
"We strongly believe we have acted in accordance with IRS rules and regulations and that our position is supported by case law," the blog post added.
Microsoft said that the appeals process with the IRS would take years and if it failed, the company would fight in the courts.
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 8:40:55 GMT -8
Paxlovid may reduce the chance of long Covid. Why don’t doctors prescribe it more?A consensus has emerged among experts who study and treat long Covid: Paxlovid seems to reduce the risk of lingering symptoms among those eligible to take it. The idea is intuitive, experts say. Paxlovid prevents the coronavirus from replicating, so researchers think it may also reduce the risk of an infection causing inflammation or organ damage, which in turn can lead to chronic illness. Clinical observations and a large study published in March support that theory. Among the 282,000 people in the study who were eligible for Paxlovid, the drug was associated with a 26% lower risk of long Covid. “Research definitely backs up that it helps prevent lingering symptoms — it helps prevent long Covid,” said Ashley Drapeau, director of the Long Covid Clinic at the GW Center for Integrative Medicine. Some patients who took Paxlovid during their illness also seem to have less severe long Covid symptoms overall than those who did not, according to Drapeau. But doctors who treat people for active Covid infections say they aren’t widely prescribing Paxlovid, since the medication interacts with several common drugs and is only approved for people vulnerable to severe illness — older adults and people with underlying medical conditions. Data from the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System indicates that just 30% of patients who qualify for Paxlovid are being prescribed it, said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the system’s chief of research and development.
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 8:43:13 GMT -8
The Republicans Chose Scalise, But They Haven't Elected Him
Now that House Republicans have chosen Scalise as their speaker nominee, Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has been acting as speaker pro tempore since McCarthy was removed, can bring the vote up on the chamber floor.
It's unclear when he'll do so.
Scalise is still trying to gather the 217 GOP votes needed. Several House Republicans have said they’re not ready to get behind him and he can only afford to lose four of them.
Republicans are eager to avoid the drawn-out floor fight that happened earlier this year when it took McCarthy 15 ballots to be elected speaker.
If no candidate wins a majority, the House will continue to hold votes until one does. That has happened only 15 times in the chamber’s history, 13 of them before the Civil War.
We Will Have to Ask Previous Guy Whether They Support Him.
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 8:45:58 GMT -8
Speaking of Previous Guy
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just days after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel prompted the latter to declare a state of war.
The Republican front-runner also called the Lebanon-based, Iran-backed militant organization Hezbollah “very smart” (Did he mean "Hamas"?) amid escalating tensions across the Middle East.
During an event in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump recalled to supporters what he described as “a bad experience with Israel.” He claimed Netanyahu had at the last minute pulled out from a joint U.S.-Israel operation to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
Trump decided to go ahead with the strike anyway, he said. His version of events has not been confirmed.
“We did it but I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing,” Trump said.
“We were disappointed by that. Very disappointed,” Trump later added. “But we did the job ourself and it was absolute precision, a magnificent, beautiful job. And then Bibi tried to take credit for it. That didn’t make me feel too good but that’s all right.”
Trump suggested the story wasn’t previously known. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s classified information.’ Well, maybe it is, but I don’t think so,” he added.
Who's the Boss?
Instead of keeping terrorists and terrorist sympathizers out of America, the Biden administration is inviting them in. You know why? Because he’s got a boss. Who’s his boss? Barack Hussein Obama. Barack Hussein. Barack Hussein Obama. Remember the great Rush Limbaugh? Barack HUSSEIN Obama. He’d go ‘Barack HUSSEIN Obama.’
Gee, Donald, say “Hussein” again. I don’t think we got it the first five times.
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 9:12:41 GMT -8
The Show Trial Must Go On
Donald Trump obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans using financial statements that a court has since deemed fraudulent, a retired bank official testified Wednesday at the former president’s New York civil fraud trial.
Trump’s “statements of financial condition” were key to his approval for a $125 million loan in 2011 for his golf resort in Doral, Florida, and a $107 million loan in 2012 for his Chicago hotel and condo skyscraper, former Deutsche Bank risk management officer Nicholas Haigh testified.
But although the bank didn’t conduct its own full appraisals of Trump's properties, it sometimes gave sizable “haircuts” to the values he'd placed on such holdings as Trump Tower and his golf courses, Haigh said.
“I think the phrase we used might have been ‘sanity checks’ on the numbers,” he said.
Those numbers helped Trump secure bigger loans and lower interest rates, said Haigh, who headed the risk group for the bank’s private wealth management unit from 2008 to 2018.
A judge last month ruled that the former president and his company, the Trump Organization, committed years of fraud by exaggerating the value of Trump’s assets and net worth on the financial statements he gave to banks, insurers and others to make deals and secure loans.
Trump's longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, acknowledged in testimony Tuesday that information in the financial statements wasn't always accurate.
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 9:15:57 GMT -8
Koch Isn't Done Destorying America
According to a profile published Tuesday in Forbes, in 2022, Koch donated $4.3 billion in Koch Industries stock to Believe in People, a newly formed 501(c)4 nonprofit organization. The organization is run by Koch's inner circle, including Chase Koch, his son, Dave Robertson, co-CEO of Koch Industries, and Brian Hooks, the co-author of Charles Koch's last book. The organization is so new, it has no publicly available filings.
In 2020, Koch also donated $975 million in Koch Industries stock to CCKc4, another 501(c)4 organization controlled exclusively by Chase Koch. (The organization's name is his initials.) In its 2020 IRS filing, CCKc4 listed its mission as "N/A."
But while little is known about the current activities of Believe in People or CCKc4, as 501(c)4 organizations, a large percentage of their assets — in this case, billions of dollars — can be spent directly on political campaigns. Koch was able to make this money available for political spending without paying a dime in taxes.
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 9:18:48 GMT -8
In War, Both Sides Believe THey are Right as They Commit Attrocities
The language of mass murder we’re hearing is intentionally bloodless.
When the Israeli military kills Palestinians, they speak of “collateral damage,” not families blown apart. When the defense minister talks about cutting off electricity and water to Gaza, he speaks only of fighting Hamas “animals” — not of the hospital patients and formula-fed babies likely to die as a consequence.
You see the same among Hamas’s Western apologists. They do not gleefully post pictures of Israeli children executed in their beds. Instead, they cheer pictures of Hamas breaking down the border fence with Gaza, calling it “decolonization” — ignoring that Hamas fighters broke down those fences to commit intolerable acts of mass slaughter.
A case in point of this moral evasion is an essay by Tariq Ali, a prominent British public intellectual. Ali’s essay furiously goes through a litany of abuses committed by Israel against Palestinians, all real enough and worthy of condemnation. But when he gets to the actual actions of Hamas, he retreats to pure abstraction instead of talking about Hamas gunning down teens at a music festival.
“The elected leadership in Gaza begins to fight back,” Ali crowed, asserting their right to do so “by any means necessary.”
By. Any. Means. Necessary.
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Post by mhbruin on Oct 12, 2023 9:21:58 GMT -8
Gasoline Cars May Someday Suffer From Stockholm Syndrome
A ban on gasoline and diesel-fueled cars from a commercial district of Stockholm's downtown in 2025 will be the first for a European capital, a city official said Thursday.
The ban will take effect in a 20-block area of shops, pedestrian walkways and a few homes in order to curb pollution, reduce noise and encourage use of electric vehicles said Lars Strömgren, the city council member for the Greens who's in charge of the Swedish capital's transportation.
Many European capitals have restrictions on gasoline and diesel cars, but Strömgren says Stockholm’s complete ban would be a first.
“We need to eliminate the harmful exhaust gases from (gasoline) and diesel cars. That’s why we are introducing the most ambitious low-emission zone to date,” Strömgren told The Associated Press. The idea is to create an "environmental zone” where only electric vehicles will be allowed. There will be some exceptions such as for emergency vehicles and transportation for the disabled.
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