Charles McGuinness

"That is why, dear reader, though I am a congenital optimist, for the first time I believe that if the behavior that this administration has exhibited in just its first six months continues and is amplified for its full four years, the America you know will be gone. And I don’t know how we will get it back."

Thomas Friedman sees the end of America.

Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/o...

U.S. to Require Some Foreign Visitors to Pay Bonds of Up to $15,000 for Entry

I'm sure next up is requiring certain tourists to wear ankle monitors while in the states.

I'm struggling to think of a reason other than the project has "Carbon" in its title.

This only makes sense if the goal is something like this:

It's worth noting that Florida voter rolls are considered public information and, clearly, will be used to judge you by the administration.

"Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the grand old party!"

Does this end with Abbott in exile and a Dutch governor of Texas? That would be awesome.

"tech bro's crypto wallet" ;-)

Annualized, that's almost $1000 per person per year in Trump's favorite taxes. Good ol' tax-and-spend GOP.

I try to ask myself if I'm adding anything of value to the conversation.

(I often fail, but at least that's what I aim for)

Trump’s Domestic Use of Military Set to Get Worse, Leaked Memo Shows A Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by TNR signals top-level discussions about a potential escalation of the Pentagon’s domestic anti-immigration role, and lays out new details.

Last line of memo (YOU is presumably participants):

«YOU should ask how DoD is planning to more effectively support DHS during the next instance of “L.A.-type” operations.»

US court upholds order blocking immigration agents' patrols in California After 'roving patrols' led to indiscriminate detentions of citizens, a US appeals court rejected the federal government's appeal to overturn a July ban on the raids, over accusations of racial profiling and rights violations.

US court upholds order blocking immigration agents' patrols in California

I must admit switching to Ghislaine was framed was not what I was expecting, but any conspiracy in a storm I guess?

Now we know your teacher's favorite password!

So they picked diseases that are the cheapest to address, from a group that only has about 1/3rd who are old enough to get them, and discovered ... Medicaid didn't help much!

It is as if they started with the conclusion and cherry picked the data that supported it.

The study only considered outcomes related to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. (Again, diseases more prevalent in older populations).

Second problem: Meds for these diseases are amongst the very cheapest of prescription drugs. Have all three? You can get by on $10/month.

3/

The study looked at people in Oregon who got access to Medicaid through a lottery vs. those who did not. The people were of ages 19 to 65, with the ages skewing younger.

This is the first problem: younger people are healthier.

2/

I see the "Oregon Study" on Medicaid is making the rounds again to try to prove that Medicaid doesn't actually help people.

The Oregon Study is a study, but in how to mislead with statistics. It does not prove what the headline says, and is so limited in its data that it's just bad science.

1/

There is no such thing as optics if you're blind...

I'll just add my voice: libertarians fear too much state power. Trump is everything libertarians are against.

We learned a lot from Ollie North about this back in the 1980s. Data doesn’t die, there’s a copy somewhere.

Who knew Napa was full of (heirloom) beans?

They're not far from me, now I want to visit their store.

Thank you!

If states ignore the EO and issue birth certificates to children without any indication of their parents' status, how does the federal government even know? Wouldn't the 10th amendment prevent them from imposing additional burdens? Also, birth certificates are kind of error prone, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯?

The Olympics need to be moved out of the USA unless California can gain independence in time.

Maybe Vancouver? I hear Canada isn't insane like our government is.

A clear version of that speech we heard part of in the above clip.

If I were to start a California guerrilla movement, we would secretly replace all the signs on the road with ones in kilometers & kph.

I think it's from the 1960s and was made by a NJ firm called Loevsky & Loevsky.

I'd keep it, but I have a 100yo lamp on my desk so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Children starve to death in Gaza before our eyes, people are snatched off the street by the Gestapo, and universities & news organizations install political commissars.

Which of these gets all the attention?

Epstein?

Maybe Epstein just provides some people an easy way to ignore far worse things.

This is mostly clickbait.

Canada has been upgrading its port capacity for quite a while now. Ocean shipping has always avoided US tariffs and is cost-effective. There is no land corridor between Canada and Mexico that doesn't go through the US, so no "northern corridor" unless you mean "the ocean".

Somebody has got to hack it...

Marion Richardson handwriting model 1946 I think that this is the handwriting model that I was taught (very briefly!) in my first term of my first year at Middle School in England, in 1980. I don’t know that it is, but then I doubt that my f...

If you think her penmanship style is odd, remember that she grew up in England, not the US, and there are differences in the cursive writing that was taught in UK schools.

If you think her penmanship is sloppy, that's a different topic...