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Francisco 2.0

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Posts posted by Francisco 2.0

  1. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/donald-trump-black-voters-retail-stores-117756

     

    Quote

    President Donald Trump’s outreach to African American voters is coming to a storefront near you.

    As part of an ongoing effort to increase Trump’s share of the black vote this fall, the president’s reelection campaign unveiled plans on Wednesday to open a series of “community centers” in empty retail spaces across the U.S. where paid staffers and volunteers will spend the next several months courting black voters with literature, celebrity meet-and-greets and “woke”-branded attire.

     

    20200226-black-voices-trump-merch-politi

     

     

    20200226-black-voices-secondary-poster-p

     

     

     

     

     

  2. What could possibly go wrong, Chapter 8,722:

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/college-senior-white-house-personnel-office-117493

    Quote

    The White House has hired a college senior to be one of the top officials in its powerful Presidential Personnel Office, according to three administration officials familiar with the matter.

     

    Quote

    James Bacon, 23, is acting as one of the right-hand men to new PPO director John McEntee, according to the officials. Bacon, a senior at George Washington University pursuing a bachelor’s degree, comes from the Department of Transportation, where he briefly worked in the policy shop. Prior to that role, while still taking classes, he worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he was a White House liaison, according to two other officials. At HUD, he distinguished himself as Secretary Ben Carson’s confidential assistant, according to two other administration officials.

     

     

    Quote

    Bacon worked for McEntee on the Trump campaign’s earliest days and also did some work on the advance team. He later did operations on the Trump transition. Bacon would have graduated on time if he had not taken time off from school to work on the campaign, an official said.

    Bacon will be PPO’s director of operations overseeing paperwork and will assist on vetting. The role was previously filled by Katja Bullock, who is in her late 70s and was a veteran of the office in both Bush administrations, as well as the Reagan administration.

     

     

  3. 19 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

     

     

    Counterpoint.  Think I'd rather listen to the CDC than Larry "Captain Cocaine" Kudlow, but that's just me.

    https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-count-united-states-6c7b12f1-42e5-4316-af04-60008a4216ae.html?utm_campaign=sitaware

     

    Quote

    57 people have been diagnosed with novel coronavirus in the U.S., an increase in cases largely driven by the repatriation of American citizens from the cruise ship Diamond Princess in Japan, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday.

    The big picture: As more countries experience community-wide transmission, CDC official Dr. Nancy Messonnier told reporters that it's now a question of when the same will happen in the U.S. — and how many citizens will develop a severe illness.

    Two of the cases were contracted through person-to-person contact.

     

    Quote

    The CDC outlined standard public health measures to mitigate spread of the virus on Tuesday, including what closing schools and businesses would look like in a U.S. pandemic.

    "We really want to prepare the American public for the possibility that their lives will be disrupted," Messonnier said.

    Schools and workplaces may need to explore tele-commuting and online assignments. Hospitals also may need to regroup patients.

     

  4. Also, for more speculation, here's the titles of Season 5 episodes. Episode 6 is interesting.

     

    41 1 "Magic Man" Bronwen Hughes Peter Gould February 23, 2020 TBD
    42 2 "50% Off" Norberto Barba Alison Tatlock February 24, 2020 TBD
    43 3 "The Guy For This"[48] TBA TBA March 2, 2020 TBD
    44 4 "Namaste"[49] Gordon Smith Gordon Smith March 9, 2020 TBD
    45 5 "Dedicado a Max"[50] TBA TBA March 16, 2020 TBD
    46 6 "Wexler v. Goodman"[51] TBA Thomas Schnauz March 23, 2020 TBD
    47 7 "JMM"[52] TBA Alison Tatlock March 30, 2020 TBD
    48 8 "Bagman"[53] Vince Gilligan[54] Gordon Smith April 6, 2020 TBD
    49 9 "Bad Choice Road"[55] Thomas Schnauz Thomas Schnauz April 13, 2020 TBD
    50 10 "Something Unforgivable"[56] TBA Peter Gould & Ariel Levine April 20, 2020 TBD
  5. On 2/24/2020 at 2:03 AM, Bama Chick said:

    I don’t think Jeff is harmless. At first I thought Gene was just being paranoid but when then I realized he’s also the taxi driver from last season.
    I’m undecided on whether he’s law enforcement or cartel or something else but looks like Gene is gonna try and take care of him.
     

    After sleeping on this a few days, I don't think he's law enforcement, or do I think he's wound up in a cartel.  I think it's one of those small world things that caused Jeff and Gene to come together, and I do believe that Jeff may have a relative or friend that Saul fucked over or somesuch.  Francesca's brother?

     

    EDIT.  Kim is from Nebraska.  Kim's brother?

     

     

  6. So, my kids organically found the Simpsons on Disney + a month ago or so.  I've never watched the show in front of them, and honestly, the first 12-13 seasons I have hard wired mentally.  After that, I kind of grew apart from the franchise.

     

    Kids started on Season 1, Episode 1 (they are up to Season 7 now) and lately I just randomly throw out upcoming quotes of whatever episode they are watching.  They think I'm some kind of Simpsons savant.  The oldest thought I was cheating somehow.

    • Like 1
  7. 37 minutes ago, nnm said:

    I worked parking at Pedaling the Prairie bike ride today. Warmup for the MS150. Working the parking is a volunteer position for my son’s school—all proceeds go to the school’s athletic booster club. The parking attendants are all parents like me, or coaches at the school. 

    We had to park them in the Waller County Fairgrounds parking, which is starting to get pretty high grass/weeds in some places, but still parkable/drivable. Most of the folks were fine.  Typical recreational cyclists, understanding the situation, just nice folks. 
    But every 50 cars or so would come the knucklehead that would ignore our directions, ignore the guys in yellow vests and big red lightsaber type flashlights, ushering them into neat, tidy rows, where everyone has an escape route. No, these delicate flowers were smarter than all the rest of the people, and would drive around the attendants, parking where they wanted to instead of where we asked them to, thereby backing up the line into the parking lot even more, and completely screwing up the pattern, flow, and system. 

    Idiots. 

    And this is where I'd casually walk over after they had disembarked their vehicle, and using a pair of side cutters, cut off their valve stems.

     

    • Like 1
  8. Chiming in.

    Went to WDW last summer.  Get home, and a few weeks later wife tells me she wants to go back this summer (as a 40th birthday present to her).  I'm good with that, but after a few days, I tell her there's no way the two of us can go and leave our kids at home, so the trip was booked....last August?  September?  I have no idea.

    I think we are in for 10 days this year.  All of the Star Wars shit is the highlight, so I suspect  have full knowledge I'll drop more than usual on stuff.  I think we are staying at the Contemporary this time.  Wife takes care of all the fast passes/meal plan/scheduling stuff.  It's her wheelhouse.  

    After this summer, we have agreed to take a break from Disney for a while.  3 trips in 5 years to WDW kinda adds up, and not just financially.

  9. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/grenell-trump-critic-116648

     

    Quote

    resident Trump’s new acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, has for years been a vocal Trump loyalist, using his Twitter account to boost the president’s policies on everything from 5G and NATO to the Iran deal and the economy. 

    But Grenell wasn’t always a Trump supporter: In 2016, before the New York real estate mogul became the GOP presidential nominee, Grenell called Trump “dangerous” and spoke out regularly in favor of former Ohio governor John Kasich, according to deleted tweets recovered by cybersecurity firm Nisos and obtained by POLITICO.

     

    Quote

    “He’s dangerous!” read one deleted Grenell tweet from March 24, 2016, the day Trump tweeted that “NATO is obsolete and must be changed to additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on!”

    The tweets underscore a key irony of the Trump era: Some of the president’s fiercest critics during the 2016 race have since transformed into his most passionate defenders, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who warnedthat Trump would be an “authoritarian president”; GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, who denounced Trump as “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who would destroy the Republican Party; and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvany, who called Trump a “terrible human being” right before the 2016 election.

    Grenell seems to have undergone a similar evolution.

     

    Quote

    “Trump is dangerous. Wake up. He’s reckless,” he replied on another occasion to a user who had written “vote Trump.” He urged his followers to read Trump’s interview with the Washington Post editorial board, in which Trump said, “I think NATO as a concept is good, but it is not as good as it was when it first evolved … I’m not even knocking it, I’m just saying I don’t think it’s fair, we’re not treated fair.”

    “NATO needs reforming. But Trump is questioning its usefulness,” read another deleted Grenell tweet from March 24, 2016.

     

     

    Spoiler

    ive days later, in another since-deleted tweet, Grenell wrote, “If you think Trump knows foreign policy issues then absolutely yes, you are stupid.” Vox highlighted some of Grenell’s criticisms in March 2017, when Trump was considering nominating Grenell to be U.S. ambassador to NATO. Nisos was able to recover more than 1,000 deleted tweets belonging to Grenell’s account through a proprietary scraper that extracted and screen-captured archived tweets via the Wayback Machine. 

    Grenell did not respond to a request for comment, nor did he dispute the authenticity of the tweets, but a person close to him said: “As a foreign policy commentator, he opined on foreign policy issues and ideas. He strongly supported Donald Trump as the best GOP candidate overall.”

    Grenell’s appointment as acting DNI comes as Trump, in a post-acquittal victory lap, has begun purging his administration of anti-Trump career employees and political appointees. But the fairly conventional Republican view of U.S. foreign policy Grenell articulated in 2016 appears to be at odds with Trump’s complete dismissal of international organizations, treaties and alliances.

    “NATO only works when the US leads it,” reads another deleted Grenell tweet from March 24, 2016. “The UN, too.” Trump has berated the United Nations as “a waste of time and money,” and “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” 

    But Grenell also appeared to prefer Trump’s rivals for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, Kasich and Carly Fiorina. Even former Florida governor and GOP candidate Jeb Bush got some love: “@JebBush is right,” Grenell’s account tweeted on Oct. 28, 2015, during that campaign cycle’s third GOP debate. “@DonaldTrump talks about foreign policy like it’s a simple board game. #Unserious.” 

    During a GOP debate on Jan. 28, 2016, Grenell’s account heaped praise on Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO. “The GOP needs #CarlyFiorina,” reads one tweet from that night “.@CarlyFiorina for the win. #Loveher,” reads another. 

    By February, Grenell appears to have moved over to the Kasich camp. “John Kasich is presenting the most new ideas,” reads one tweet from February 13, 2016, the night of another GOP debate. 

    During the March 10, 2016 debate, Grenell’s account tweeted: “John Kasich is very good and comfortable on foreign policy.” During a March 22, 2016 Kasich, appearance on the Fox Business show “Varney & Co,” Grenell’s account tweeted: “@JohnKasich is on with @Varneyco talking the most intelligently about Brussels attacks. He is strong and yet thoughtful.” 

    On March 24, 2016, when a new Pennsylvania poll was released, Grenell’s account wrote: “Pennsylvania can save America by voting John Kasich,” adding in another tweet: “John Kasich needs to stay in this race until the end. Many people know [Ted] Cruz just can’t win in November.” 

    A former Kasich strategist, John Weaver, told POLITICO that Grenell was never involved with the campaign in any capacity. Though “he did show good judgment for a bit,” Weaver joked. 

    Grenell has long espoused hawkish views toward Russia. He was harshly critical of what he viewed as Obama's solicitousness toward Moscow: In 2014, for instance, he called for a larger missile defense shield in eastern Europe following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and a surge in funding for the U.S. government-funded outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 

    “NYT says Putin defies ‘the United States,’” Grenell wrote in March 2014. “Why isn’t it Putin defies Obama?” 

    There's no indication that Grenell, who Trump nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Germany in September 2017, has dialed back his criticism of Russia's policies.

    But he does appear to have atoned for his anti-Trump commentary. He began supporting Trump publicly after he became the GOP nominee, writing in June 2016 that he would support the Republican candidate over Hillary Clinton and, in August, that the election “is a choice between 5,000 conservative appointees and 5,000 liberal appointees.” 

    He also began to mock reports that said Russia had interfered in the election to boost Trump’s candidacy, writing in December 2016: “[T]hose Russians must have demanded that Hillary not campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan, too.” And he promoted the WikiLeaks disclosures, praising news organizations that reported extensively on the hacked DNC materials and criticizing those that didn’t. 

    “The WikiLeaks reporting is excellent,” he tweeted at conservative news outlets Daily Caller and Independent Journal Review on October 12, 2016, days after WikiLeaks released emails Russia had stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta. “Keep it up,” he wrote. On October 14, 2016, Grenell complained that the Twitter feed of MSNBC’s Katy Tur had “almost no WikiLeaks content,” and called on NBC News executives to “take action against her advocacy.”

    By that point, the Obama administration had released an unprecedented joint statement from intelligence officials—minutes before the Podesta emails WikiLeaks dump—accusing the Russian government of interfering in the election through hacking.

    But Grenell was undeterred. In January 2017, his account tweeted “this sums it up” above a meme of two dogs saying: “We’re glad you’re home! The Russians pooped in the hallway,” implying that Democrats were using Russia as a scapegoat for their loss. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy.

    As acting director of national intelligence, Grenell will oversee the very intelligence agencies that drew the conclusions about Russia’s interference that Grenell downplayed. “Russia always tries to interfere in elections,” Grenell wrote on April 3, 2017 in a now-deleted tweet. “Obama should have done something about the fact they hacked the DNC. He was President.” 

    At ODNI, Grenell will also have declassification authority, and has aligned himself with Trump’s claims that the Obama administration was “spying” on his campaign. In one deleted tweet from April 2017, Grenell wrote: “Obama team listened in on Trump team, then selectively leaked info. Most people call this spying.” 

    One of Grenell’s senior advisers at ODNI, Kash Patel, played a key role as a Hill staffer in helping Republicans, particularly former House intel chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), try to discredit the Russia probe in the year after Trump’s victory.

    “@DevinNunes is solid,” Grenell wrote on March 24, 2017 in another since-deleted tweet. Nunes had briefed reporters that day on his findings about potential surveillance of the Trump campaign. “Measured, focused, and serious,” Grenell added of Nunes. 

    Nunes stepped aside from the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe two weeks later as he came under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over reports he “may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information.” He was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.

     

    • Like 1
  10. Coming soon, and you know it will:  loyalty tests for government employees.  Or even "rewards" for narcs.

     

    https://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-personnel-chief-targets-never-trumpers-2ee51bfd-03f9-4971-8308-863c81ace5f0.html

    Quote

    Johnny McEntee called in White House liaisons from cabinet agencies for an introductory meeting Thursday, in which he asked them to identify political appointees across the U.S. government who are believed to be anti-Trump, three sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios.

    Behind the scenes: McEntee, a 29-year-old former body man to Trump who was fired in 2018 by then-Chief of Staff John Kelly but recently rehired — and promoted to head the presidential personnel office — foreshadowed sweeping personnel changes across government.

     

    Quote

    But McEntee suggested the most dramatic changes may have to wait until after the November election.

    Trump has empowered McEntee — whom he considers an absolute loyalist — to purge the “bad people” and “Deep State.”

    McEntee told staff that those identified as anti-Trump will no longer get promotions by shifting them around agencies.

     

    Quote

    Several administration officials have already been targeted in a post-impeachment blitz.

    Barely 48 hours after Trump was acquitted in the Senate, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a key national security official who testified during the impeachment inquiry that Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "improper" — was "escorted" out of his White House post.

    U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who also testified in the impeachment investigations, was fired the same afternoon.

    Trump has also promoted or brought back several people he considers core loyalists — including McEntee, former White House communications director Hope Hicks, and U.S. Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell.

    McEntee's job already is being tested with Trump's decision to tap Grenell, a staunch loyalist who has never worked for an intelligence agency, as the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Trump has said it's only a temporary move until he names a new permanent director.

    But his efforts to put a Republican congressman in that job, thereby plucking him out of a Senate race with a complicated GOP primary, aren't going smoothly.

     

  11. 1 hour ago, South Austin said:

    I'm guessing she just went on a huge shopping spree that hasn't yet hit his credit card bill.

     

    Nah, she has a job and her own credit (and we don't co-mingle finances).  She may have done something similar, but I would never see the bill.

     

    1 hour ago, Stunns38 said:

     


    Or she’s eyeing that new Lexus (especially if y’all are from Dallas).

     

     

    Now, that's a possibility.  It's getting time to upgrade her ride.

     

    54 minutes ago, Marfa Low Crown said:

    I hate you.

    Girlfriend of 5 years started losing interest in sex almost a year ago.  She swears up and down it's not me or anything I've done and thinks it might be the start of menopause. I'd stick around and be patient in this but the problem is that she does fuck all to 'help me out' yet she expects fidelity... and she has gotten it. 

    Broke up with her on Sunday. I had to tell her the truth, "I've come to realize that my best chance of having sex again begins with breaking up with you.". 

    She agreed it's not fair....said she even considered letting me have a gal on the side if the idea didn't make her so jealous. I'm sure in a year or a few months or whenever
    this thing passes she'll wanna do the wild thing 5 times a day but I won't be around for it. FML. 

     

    Been there, done that (with the ex, but that wasn't the reason she is an ex).  Good for you being honest with her, and good luck.

     

    • Like 1
  12. 8 hours ago, Hmbre97 said:

    I'm going to Vegas beginning of June for a conference but I'm boring and don't drink or gamble so I need some suggestions of other things to do. Conference is over on a Thursday so I'm thinking of staying out there and flying back Sunday instead. I'm even open to renting a car and traveling those 2 days. 

    Mount Charleston; only an hour away

    Hoover Dam is close by and a neat tour.  They have a longer tour that requires reservations for.  Shorter tour just show up.

    As suggested, check out a few shows; there's plenty of variety.

    Food?  Line up different places to go Thur-Fri-Sat evening.  World class dining is everywhere, if that's your thing.

    Mob Museum downtown is highly recommended; I've been twice.

  13. I fully expect the next DNI briefing will be in the oval, and only Team GOP will be invited.

    The sad thing is, there's no mechanism any longer to stop this kind of shit, other than human decency and abidance to law.  And those two things left the Republican Party on January 20, 2017.

  14. Read this story.  Then think about the implications of governing (or anything of importance) via Twitter:

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/how-saudi-arabia-infiltrated-twitter

    Quote

    Ali Alzabarah was panicked. His heart raced as he drove home from Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters in the early evening on Dec. 2, 2015. He needed to leave the country — quickly.

    Earlier that day, Twitter’s management accused the unassuming 32-year-old of accessing thousands of user profiles without authorization to pass their identifying information — including phone numbers and IP addresses — reportedly to Bader al-Asaker, the head of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s charity and private office. When the conversation concluded, management seized Alzabarah’s laptop, put him on administrative leave, and escorted him out of the building.

     

    Quote

    Arriving home at San Bruno’s Acappella Apartments — a complex so close to San Francisco International Airport he could hear planes fly overhead — Alzabarah planned his escape. At 5:17 p.m. he called a handler, identified as Associate-1 in the FBI complaint, who arrived in a white SUV two hours later. Driving around Alzabarah’s neighborhood, the two men called “Foreign Official-l” — al-Asaker, according to the Washington Post — at 7:20 p.m., and again at 7:22 p.m. and 7:31 p.m. They then called Dr. Faisal Al Sudairi, the Saudi consul general in Los Angeles, at 8:30 p.m., 8:38 p.m., and 9:26 p.m. Shortly after midnight, the consul general called Alzabarah back and spoke with him for three minutes.

     

    Quote

    Early the next morning, Alzabarah, his wife, and daughter boarded a plane for Saudi Arabia.

    From May 2015 until he was exposed that December, Alzabarah spied for the Saudi Arabian government inside Twitter, a criminal complaint from the FBI alleges. (Unless explicitly attributed to other sources, the details and allegations that follow are taken from the FBI’s criminal complaint.)

     

     

  15. 8 minutes ago, Goredho said:

    I think it does.  If Stone gets something less than 2 years, he can probably just do the time, get a cookie when he gets out and Trump doesn't have to run any political risks in pardoning him.  If its longer than that, Trump absolutely pardons him, and will face a lot of ultimately inconsequential criticism for it.

    Like he gives a fuck about political risks at this point.

    I can see Trump pardoning him asap.  Like, after the sentence is announced, assuming it is legal to do it that soon.

     

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