monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

This hacking is a good thing.

oralloy would support...

Russia is helping ...

Many guests and entertainers were left disappointed upon learning from CNN late Wednesday that Trump would be leaving Florida early. Ticket prices for the New Year's Eve gala have steadily increased since Trump took office, and reached up to $1,000 this year, a person familiar with the matter said.

Bookings for the party increased when it was clear Trump would travel to Florida for the holidays after skipping his traditional visit for Thanksgiving. Guests and performers initially were hesitant to commit to the event without knowing whether the President would show up.

As many as 500 tickets were sold for this year's event, which is somewhat less — but not much — than in years past. The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at Mar-a-Lago has a capacity of 700.

The President had been expected to attend as late as Wednesday. But by the evening, word had emerged that he and the first lady would be departing early the next day. Trump remained largely out of sight at his club during his stay as he fixated on the election results and the January 6 effort to delay certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

That left the party without its usual centerpiece: a speech from the President and a chance to glimpse the first lady.

Like other gatherings at Mar-a-Lago this year, almost no guests wore masks.

That provided a bookend to the start of the pandemic, when a similarly maskless birthday party for Guilfoyle held in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom proved to be an early spreading event.

You engage in childish name-calling because you lack the intelligence to make compelling arguments.

Do you know what week this is in our public schools? I'm not making this up: this week is National No Name-Calling Week. They don't want any name-calling in our public schools. What stupid dork came up with this idea?

(...)

On Wednesday, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced he would join the efforts of his House colleagues to challenge Biden electors from Pennsylvania and perhaps other states. This will not affect the outcome of the election, but it will force senators to go on record for or against Trump. In a statement, Hawley listed Trump talking points: the influence of “mega corporations” on behalf of Biden and “voter fraud.” Hawley seems pretty clearly to be angling for a leg up in 2024.

On Wednesday night, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) made his own play for the future of the Republican Party. He refuted point by point the idea that Trump won. He scolded his colleagues who are signing on to Trump’s attempt to steal the election, calling them “institutional arsonists.”

“When we talk in private, I haven’t heard a single Congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent – not one,” he wrote on Facebook. “Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will “look” to President Trump’s most ardent supporters.” They think they can “tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage,” he wrote, but they’re wrong. “Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.”

Today, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, launched his own bid to redefine the Republican Party with an attack on Trump’s apparent botching of the coronavirus vaccine rollout. In a press release, Romney noted “[t]hat comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.”

But he didn’t stop there. Romney went on to say that he was no expert on vaccine distribution, “but I know that when something isn’t working, you need to acknowledge reality and develop a plan—particularly when hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.” He offered ideas of his own, offering them “not as the answer but as an example of the kind of options that ought to be brainstormed in Washington and in every state.” After listing his ideas, he concluded: “Public health professionals will easily point out the errors in this plan—so they should develop better alternatives based on experience, modeling and trial.”

Romney’s statement was about more than vaccine distribution. With its emphasis on listening to experts and experimenting, it was an attack on the rigid ideology that has taken over the Republican Party. Romney has said he comes to his position from his own experience, not his reading, but he is reaching back to the origins of conservative thought, when Irish statesman Edmund Burke critiqued the French Revolution as a dangerous attempt to build a government according to an ideology, rather than reality. Burke predicted that such an attempt would inevitably result in politicians trying to force society to conform to their ideology. When it did not, they would turn to tyranny and violence.

Sasse’s point-by-point refutation of Trump’s arguments-- complete with citations—and Romney’s call to govern according to reality rather than ideology are suggestive. They seem to show an attempt to recall the Republican Party to the true conservatism it abandoned a generation ago.

...make allowances...

Perhaps it's part of a girls' emancipation therapy practice.

Someone with 'common level' intelligence wouldn't be such an idiot.

You keep saying that, but I don't see any strong evidence of that.

Is it possible that you have common level intelligence, instead of repeatedly claiming to have a genius IQ?

MASKLESS idiots mobbed an A&E doctor today while yelling "Covid is a hoax" as he left a hospital after a New Year's Eve late shift.

Matthew Lee shared a video of the shocking scene as he left St Thomas' Hospital in London.

He tweeted: "Worked the late A&E shift on New Year's Eve and came out to this.

"Hundreds of maskless, drunk people in huge groups shouting 'Covid is a hoax', literally outside the building where hundreds are sick and dying.

"Why do people still not realise the seriousness of this pandemic?"


He later said he felt "disgusted but mostly heartbroken".

"I wish people could see the amount of Covid-19 and death in hospitals, and the sacrifices that healthcare workers make.

"This week alone has been so tough. Their ignorance is hurting others.

"I really wish people would keep themselves safe.”