Allegro du concerto pour piano et orchestre, en fa dièse mineur, op.20
Alexander Scriabin

DaveGinOly | January 29, 2025 at 4:26 pm
Remember, Milley created a bottleneck in the chain of command during the final hours of the Trump administration, requiring that only orders issued or approved by him were to be followed, effectively elevating himself above the POTUS, the lawful civilian authority at the top of the military chain of command. He can’t be tried for this criminality, but he should be demoted for it. (Nancy Pelosi encouraged him in this venture, and she remains exposed to prosecution for her part in it.)

Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaugh
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RFK just gave a flawless answer to Bernie Sanders asking if health care is a human right.

Bet Sanders didn't expect an answer this intelligent... he interrupted RFK IMMEDIATELY.

SANDERS: Is it a human right? Yes or no?

RFK: In the way that free speech is? It's different, because free speech costs nothing. In health care - if you smoke cigs for 20 years, and you get cancer - you are now taking from the pool of resources..-

12:12 PM · Jan 29, 2025

But Sanders wasn't done. He went off on a crazy rant about baby onesies that were produced by an organization that Kennedy had been involved with that said, "Unvaxxed unafraid" and "No vax, no problem." But apparently Sanders didn't know or couldn't absorb that Kennedy said he was no longer part of the organization or on the board. He just started shrieking his head off. Kennedy started laughing, as did Megyn Kelly, who was sitting behind him in the audience.

"Are you supportive of these onesies?" Sanders screamed.

"I'm supportive of vaccines," Kennedy calmly replied.

Sanders continued to scream, "Are you supportive of this clothing which is militantly anti-vaccine?"

Kennedy and Kelly started laughing, because it was just so ridiculous. "I'm supportive of vaccines... I want good science." //

DK1969
4 hours ago
Healthcare is not a human right because it's product of someone's labor (scientists, doctors, administrators etc.). If one has a right to product of someone's labor, it's called slavery.

(((Harry Enten))) @ForecasterEnten
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"Big League" for Trump. His approval rating is significantly higher at the start of his second term than at the start of his first.

Moreover, Trump's made history as the first president to be more popular at the start of his second term than at ANY point in his first term.

11:22 AM · Jan 24, 2025

Abortion has been a notoriously divisive issue in America, but actually I see an emerging consensus: that abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks, and restricted thereafter. Even in the reddest of red states, voters reject total abortion bans. And in blue states, almost no one supports third-trimester abortions except to save the life of the mother. And so I support the emerging consensus that abortion should be unrestricted up until a certain point. 

But I also believe that we can reduce more abortions in America by choice than by force. This is at the heart of the “More Choices, More Life” policy we’ve developed. Every abortion is a tragedy, and by better supporting mothers, parents, and families, we can dramatically reduce abortions across the board. //

I'm going to support President Trump's policies on Title 10. I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year. I agree with him that the states should control abortion. President Trump has told me he wants to end late-term abortion, he wants to protect conscience exemptions, and that he wants to end federal funding for abortions here and abroad as Title 10 states. I serve at the pleasure of the president, I'm going to implement his policies. //

Lankford asked, "Will you step in and say that healthcare individuals have the right of conscience again as the federal law allows?"

Kennedy responded:

The first thing that occurs to me when you ask that question is what patient would want somebody doing a surgery on them that believes the surgery is against their conscience being forced to perform that. I don't know anybody who would want a doctor to perform a surgery that the doctor is morally opposed to.

Kennedy took his argument further: that recognition of conscience exemptions is a part of the diversity of thought that the country needs to return to. //

LANKFORD: Will FDA move to be able to actually give transparency to the America people and to say, "this drug is no different than any other drug, we're not going to protect it just because it's political to some folks." People should know side effects on this drug and there should be reporting?

KENNEDY: It's against everything we believe in this country that patients or doctors should not be reporting adverse events. We need to know what adverse events are, we need to understand the safety of every drug, Mifepristone and every other drug. And President Trump has made it clear to me, one of the things, he has not taken a position yet on Mifepristone—a detailed position, but he's made it clear to me that he wants me to look at the safety issues, and I will ask NIH/FDA to do that. //

Indylawyer
6 hours ago
Those are the sorts of responses I was hoping to hear. I do not expect the federal government to eliminate abortion by legislative fiat anytime soon, and certainly not by administrative fiat. But the Democrats and RINOs have long been twisting law and policy in all sorts of hideous directions in order to promote and encourage abortion. Our abortion policy at the federal level ought to be similar to what Lincoln sought to do with slavery - recognize that it is immoral and contrary to natural law while acknowledging it that states have certain sovereign powers and we need to temporarily permit them to exercise their discretion not to protect unborn life within their borders until we can build a true national consensus that abortion has to be eliminated. RFK Jr.'s responses sound consistent with that. //

St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
7 hours ago
And so I support the emerging consensus that abortion should be unrestricted up until a certain point.
There is no “emerging consensus that abortion should be unrestricted up until a certain point.” As a practicing Catholic, I believe all abortions are immoral, even in the incredibly rare cases of rape or incest. The child is innocent, has an immortal soul, and deserves a chance to live his or her life. Note: Some pregnancies are not viable (e.g., ectopic pregnancies), and in those sad cases, it is permissible for a doctor to terminate the pregnancy to save the mother’s life. //

There's no arguing with these different numbers that a majority of Americans support this because they're all the same across the different pollsters, Enten said. 

Enten, the data nerd, also explained how the numbers have changed over time, from Trump's first term to now, that it's now 20 points higher than it was just before Trump came into office the last time. Enten concluded that gave Trump a "lot more leverage to go with the American people" to address the issue, "I think the American people are going to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt to do what he wants to do.”

Enten also noted the number of people — 55 percent — who want legal and illegal immigration reduced. That's a 14-point rise from 2023. 

Piano Concerto in B Flat Major

1. [Allegro]
2. Un poco adagio
3. Allegretto
   Emilie Mayer

DOT should certainly enforce refunds for services charged but not provided. But they shouldn’t lock airlines and airfare search sites into displaying specific charges in a standardized way, the same everywhere. We should be encouraging competition in meeting consumer needs, not making airline sites and Expedia displays the same forever. It’s not only seat and bag fees that matter – and even those don’t always matter!

United has received its 1,000th mainline jet, claiming the title of the world’s largest mainline fleet. The aircraft ‒ a 737 MAX 9 with registration N77584 ‒ was delivered by Boeing on Monday.

With this latest delivery, the Chicago-based carrier not only has 1,000 aircraft in its mainline fleet but also has the most airplanes of any airline globally. Data from aviation analytics company Cirium shows that United took delivery of 57 total aircraft last year. //

The airline now trumps the mainline fleets of both Delta and American, which were the previous titleholders. According to planespotters.net data, Delta has 985 aircraft, while American has 978.

Look up the adjective biweekly in this dictionary and you will see it defined as "occurring every two weeks" AND as "occurring twice a week." Similarly, the adjective bimonthly is defined as "occurring every two months" AND as "occurring twice a month."

For this, we are sorry. But we don't mean "sorry" in the sense that we feel penitence; we are not to blame. We mean "sorry" in the sense that we feel a kind of sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond our control or power to repair. //

One such case, sort of, is very similar to the cases at hand: the language offers us biannual for "twice a year" and biennial for "every two years." This is useful and elegant, but, alas, also frequently botched, with biannual so frequently used to mean "every two years" that we've had to enter that meaning in our dictionaries. But here another solution is readily available: skip biannual altogether and use in its place the common semiannual.

Ah, semi-! Just as a semicircle cuts a circle in half, so too does the prefix semi- semantically cut what it is affixed to in half: semiweekly means unambiguously two times per week; semimonthly means two times per month; semiannual means two times per year.

As we've said many times here, the normal community understanding on contribution licensing is inbound=outbound, which is to say that contributors agree for their contributions to be licensed under the project's existing licence.

In the case of copyleft licences, as the linked question says, this is actually a requirement of the licence. In the case of the permissive licences like MIT, however, it's just a community understanding. Unless the project required a CLA from you, you could make an argument that you never licensed your contributions to the project at all, but I'd expect it to be a hard, uphill business to convince a judge of that (indeed, as Bart points out (thank you, Bart!), given GitHub's embedding of in=out in their TOS, it will likely be next to impossible).

But the project is completely entitled to change to a proprietary licence, and unless you can convince a judge that you never agreed to licence your contributions, you have no right to demand they stop using your contribution. One of the many advantages of copyleft licensing is that, once contributions have been accepted, the project can no longer unilaterally relicense. The permissive licences don't give the same protection, and this is generally understood, so what they've done, though not nice, is neither unlawful nor unethical.

One thing you can do is to take the copy of the MIT-licensed source you've found, and make sure it's available from your website (or at least, not solely from your github account). You have every right to do that, and as the search engines pick it up, you may hope that their proprietary-licensed version is supplanted by the free version.

On this site you will find all the German U-boats of both World Wars, their commanding officers and operations including all Allied ships attacked, technological information and much more. You can also browse our large photo gallery and thousands of U-boat books and movies. While hundreds of U-boats were lost some of the boats are preserved as museums today.

We also have a huge section covering the Allied forces and their struggle with the U-boat threat - not to mention the Pacific war. Included there are all the Allied Warships and thousands of Allied Commanding officers from all the major navies (US Navy, Royal Navy, ...) plus technical pages and information on the air forces.

Imagine if a woman lost her right to vote, protected by the 19th Amendment, simply because she crossed into a state with different historical views on sex roles. Or consider if a journalist’s First Amendment protections were recognized in one state but ignored in another. Such infringements are unthinkable — and rightly so.

Yet this is precisely the reality facing law-abiding gun owners who travel with concealed-carry permits. Their constitutional right to self-defense, which has been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, is undermined by a patchwork of state laws.

Like other rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment exists to protect individuals from government overreach. Allowing states to restrict concealed-carry permits undermines the universality of these protections.

In states with left-leaning legislatures, such as New York and Illinois, gun rights are subjected to restrictions that would never be tolerated if applied to other constitutional rights. This double standard is deliberate. Unlike other amendments, the Second Amendment has been politicized to the point it is often treated as a second-class right. //

National reciprocity streamlines these inconsistencies by requiring states to honor permits other states have issued, similar to how driver’s licenses are universally recognized. Importantly, this legislation would not force states to change their permitting standards. It would simply ensure that permits granted in one state are respected in another, preserving the rights of permit holders while respecting state sovereignty.

Concealed-carry permit holders are statistically among the most law-abiding groups in the country. They commit crimes at rates significantly lower than the general population, including police officers. Allowing them to carry across state lines would not lead to chaos or increased crime. Instead, it would affirm their right to protect themselves and their families wherever they go.
A Matter of Equality and Justice

At its core, national concealed-carry reciprocity is about equality under the law. The current system effectively creates a two-tiered structure of Second Amendment rights, where citizens in some states enjoy full protections while others are without. This disparity is fundamentally at odds with the principles of equality before the law enshrined in the Constitution.

Leftists argue that national reciprocity would infringe on states’ rights. However, states’ rights cannot justify violating individual constitutional freedoms. Just as states cannot override the First or 14th Amendments, they should not be allowed to undermine the Second. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and its protections must apply equally to all Americans.

Discover and continuously monitor every SSL/TLS certificate in your network for expiration and revocation to avoid PKI-related downtime and risk.

With the Electoral College votes now cast, here is a recap of how Americans voted in 2024. //

Trump won 77,284,118 votes, or 49.8 percent of the votes cast for president. That is the second highest vote total in U.S. history, trailing only the 81,284,666 votes that Joe Biden won in 2020. Trump won 3,059,799 more popular votes in 2024 than he won in 2020 and 14,299,293 more than he won in 2016. He now holds the record for the most cumulative popular votes won by any presidential candidate in U.S. history, surpassing Barack Obama. Running three times for the White House obviously helps.

Kamala Harris won 74,999,166 votes or 48.3 percent of the votes cast. That was 6,285,500 fewer popular votes than Biden won in 2020, but 774,847 more than Trump won in 2020.

More than 155 million Americans voted in 2024: 156,302,318 to be exact. That’s the second largest total voter turnout in U.S. history in absolute terms. It is also just the second time that more than 140 million people voted in a presidential election.

In relative terms, voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent. That is below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020, which was the highest voter turnout rate in a U.S. presidential election since 1900. Nonetheless, turnout in 2024 was still high by modern standards. The 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon (63.8 percent) is the only other election in the last 112 years to exceed 63 percent voter turnout. If you are wondering, the election of 1876 holds the record for the highest percentage voter turnout: 82.6 percent. That was one of America’s most controversial and consequential elections—and not in a good way. It was also an election in which more than half the adult-age population was ineligible to vote.

Wisconsin holds the place of pride as the state with the highest voter turnout in 2024—76.93 percent of eligible voters in the Badger State voted. Five of the six battleground states that switched from Biden to Trump saw their turnout exceed the national average; only Arizona (63.6 percent) was below, and then just barely. Hawaii holds the distinction of being the state with the lowest voter turnout. Just 50 percent of Hawaiians voted.

A Landslide Election or Not?

Early election coverage described Trump’s victory as a landslide. But whether you go by the Electoral College vote or the popular vote, it was anything but. The 312 Electoral College votes that Trump won are just six more than Joe Biden won in 2020, twenty less than Barack Obama won in 2012, and fifty-three less than Obama won in 2008. Trump’s Electoral College performance pales in comparison to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s landslide victory in 1936 (523 electoral votes), Lyndon Johnson’s in 1964 (486), Richard Nixon’s in 1972 (520), or Ronald Reagan’s in 1984 (525). In terms of the popular vote, more people voted for someone not named Trump for president than voted for Trump in 2024, and his margin of victory over Harris was 1.5 percentage points. That is the fifth smallest margin of victory in the thirty-two presidential races held since 1900. //

The 2024 election was the tenth presidential election in a row in which the margin of victory in the popular vote was in the single digits. That is a record. The longest prior streak began in 1876, when seven consecutive elections were decided by single digits. The last person to win the presidency by a double-digit margin was Ronald Reagan in 1984. He won by eighteen percentage points. The last time someone won the presidency by more than five percentage points was Barack Obama in 2008. He won by seven percentage points. The bottom line is that whatever one makes of the mandate that Trump did or did not win last month, the United States remains deeply divided politically.

Since the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, which ruled it unconstitutional to force public sector employees to pay union dues or be coerced into union membership, labor statistics show that unions have stalled and continue to lose ground. The new age of employment and self-employment has opened up different avenues and forms for working Americans, ones that encourage freedom and flexibility. A January 25 news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered the sobering facts on how little draw union membership has for the American worker.

The union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—was 9.9 percent in 2024, little changed from the prior year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.3 million, also showed little movement over the year. In 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union members.

Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.

Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.

Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures. //

The order also targets the alleged science behind the treatments. It calls out the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care Version 8 as "junk science” (The Arguments Supporting 'Gender-Affirming Care' Have Never Been 'Based on the Science' – RedState) and directs all agencies to "rescind or amend all policies that rely on WPATH guidance."

As a kicker, the Department of Justice is directed to investigate deceptive practices or misinformation regarding the long-term effects of gender-affirming care, including potential fraud or violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. //

anon-o6eq
7 hours ago
Many countries in Europe have already taken this position after the Cass Report was released in England. Cass found that most of the science supporting child transitions was based on faulty data and an inappropriate relationship between WPATH and the organization doing their research to support their recommendations. Cass found that as many as 95% of kids who identify as trans as children will revert to their biological sex by the time they are adults if they are not treated with anything other than talk therapy. That is now the way most major European countires treat children who identity as trans - psychotherapy only until they are 18.

C. S. P. Schofield anon-o6eq
5 hours ago
This lines up with something my late mother was told in the 1950’s. She was being hired as a history teacher at a girls school (private) and her headmistress told her that many girls going through puberty would be uncomfortable with their bodies and blossoming sexuality. Some would develop same sex crushes, and some would experiment with masculine identity. The best course was to treat all this quietly as normal. Don’t make a fuss unless there’s a serious problem. The vast majority would get over the phase.

OrneryCoot
3 hours ago
There is something inherently wrong with the idea that the leader of the executive branch of government cannot fire persons under his authority, tasked with implementing his policy, in the executive branch. That is all kinds of "only in Washington" dumb. Trump is right to blast through that and try to tee up a SCOTUS decision. In the meantime, I will breathe a sigh of relief that these people are removed from their positions of power. Democrat appointed workers in the administrative state are open sores that need to be cut out. //

TexasVeteran
6 hours ago edited
Milley reminds me of General Thomas Conway, the backstabber who conspired with others to replace George Washington with Horatio "Granny" Gates. What a disaster that would have been. To get satisfaction, Washington encouraged his supporters to challenge the conspirators to duels! Talk about FAFO!

When challenged Gates cried, apologized and begged forgiveness. Conway fought a duel with Brigadier John Cadwalader, who shot Conway in the mouth. "I have stopped the damned rascal's lying tongue at any rate," he said afterwards. We could use a little Colonial justice today!

We need fewer Milleys and Conaways!🤦‍♂️. //

UpLateAgain
3 hours ago edited

3. " the infamous incident where he called "Chinese counterpart on two occasions in the final months of Trump's first term, warning him the U.S. military had no plans to strike China in a bid to avert tensions between nuclear-armed countries."

It was even worse than that. Milley reportedly told the Chinese that he would be the one who determined whether or not nuclear weapons would be deployed...... and said this in a room full of major US Commanders.

THAT is tantamount to assuming overall command of US forces and constitutes a coup. i.e. treason... plain and simple. He may not be chargeable because of the pardon, but he should lose ALL his stars... and in fact, his commission. I don't know if they can take his retirement without a criminal conviction. Officers generally retire at their highest grade achieved. There may not be anything they can do about that. But commissions exist at the pleasure of the President. Trump should be able to revoke it. //

GreyBob Sarcastic Frog
5 hours ago
Nine ranks of enlisted soldiers: private (E-1) to sergeant major (E-9) five ranks of Warrant Officer, and nine ranks of officers Second Lieutenant (O-1) to General (O-9). Sometimes there is an extra general rank, but usually only in times of a really big war.

Busting this guy down to private would be fun, but not allowed under what he is being investigated for.

President Trump followed up his rampage through the National Labor Relations Board (Trump Goes Pearl Harbor on the National Labor Relations Board, Fires Chairman and General Counsel) by firing two Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioners and its general counsel. The newly reduced EEOC can no longer bring enforcement actions or initiate rulemaking as it doesn't have a quorum. //

Under Joe Biden, the EEOC bullied companies into submitting to DEI and replacing Equality with Equity.

Much like the defenestrated acting chairman at the NLRB, the two fired Democrats were not happy about the cruel turn of fate. //

Unlike the NLRB commissioner, whose firing seems questionable because the law says NLRB commissioners can only be fired for cause, the EEOC's enabling legislation does not require that.

The EEOC now only has two members and cannot act until President Trump nominates replacements. This is mostly a good thing.

I think there is something else going on with these firings. It seems like the Trump White House may be teeing up a challenge to a Supreme Court case.

In 2020, the CFPB was challenged for its blatantly unconstitutional structure. Under the law, it was managed by a single director who could only be removed "for cause." The Supreme Court agreed that allowing a single individual to control an agency outside the reach of the president to remove them was unconstitutional.

I believe the target of Trump's removal of three commissioners, one who can only be removed for cause and two without similar protections, is to convince the Supreme Court to overturn Humphrey's Executor vs. United States. This 1935 decision held that the president could only remove the commissioner of independent agencies for reasons established by Congress. The Selia decision established that did not apply to single commissioners; Trump wants to take a run at it to see if he can get that precedent overturned the way Chevron was reversed last summer; //

We'll see how this turns out, but even if Trump is wrong, the NLRB and EEOC will not be lumbering about the countryside and disturbing the livestock until the Supreme Court speaks. //

OrneryCoot
3 hours ago
There is something inherently wrong with the idea that the leader of the executive branch of government cannot fire persons under his authority, tasked with implementing his policy, in the executive branch. That is all kinds of "only in Washington" dumb. Trump is right to blast through that and try to tee up a SCOTUS decision. In the meantime, I will breathe a sigh of relief that these people are removed from their positions of power. Democrat appointed workers in the administrative state are open sores that need to be cut out.

Lisa Boothe 🇺🇸
@LisaMarieBoothe
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This portrait, while gorgeous, says I have seen some things and am taking no crap these next four years.
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BREAKING: First Lady Melania Trump’s official White House portrait
3:54 PM · Jan 27, 2025