[TabletMag] BLUF:
At the same time, there is a growing consensus among reporters and thinkers on the left and right‐especially those who know anything about Russia, the surveillance apparatus, and intelligence bureaucracy‐that the Russiagate-collusion theory that was supposed to end Trump’s presidency within six months has sprung more than a few holes. Worse, it has proved to be a cover for U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement bureaucracies to break the law, with what’s left of the press gleefully going along for the ride. Where Watergate was a story about a crime that came to define an entire generation’s oppositional attitude toward politicians and the country’s elite, Russiagate, they argue, has proved itself to be the reverse: It is a device that the American elite is using to define itself against its enemies‐the rest of the country.
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#7
"he Russiagate-collusion theory that was supposed to end Trump’s presidency within six months has sprung more than a few holes. Worse, it has proved to be a cover for U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement bureaucracies to break the law, with what’s left of the press gleefully going along for the ride. Where Watergate was a story about a crime that came to define an entire generation’s oppositional attitude toward politicians and the country’s elite, Russiagate, they argue, has proved itself to be the reverse: It is a device that the American elite is using to define itself against its enemies—the rest of the country."
Yep, that's the tip of the iceberg. They got the rest of the iceberg melting somewhere.
[DAWN] A New York judge sought to avoid a testy tech-age free-speech showdown between Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... and people blocked from his Twitter account on Thursday, proposing the president just mute rather than block them.
In a unique case given rise by Trump’s relentless use of Twitter to communicate to the American public, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said she was not ready to decide whether people have a right to complain, protest and insult in the comments section of his Twitter feed.
President Trump’s tweets are reported by numerous television and cable shows, newspapers, magazines, comedians, columnists and pundits, and of course websites, blogs, and tweets, almost all of which allow comments or letters to the editor. Those who have been blocked by him therefore have plenty of other venues where their disagreements can be seen, and they can even write letters or emails directly to the president to inform him of their opinion. If the court rules that President Trump is nonetheless forbidden to block them, it won’t be long before all public figures, including actors and Instapundit personalities like the Kardashians are likewise forbidden to block those who say mean things to them... though those other public figures will not be able to send the Secret Service to interview those who make threats.
Seven people from around the country ‐ including a comedian, a professor, a policeman and a singer ‐ joined together in a lawsuit after Trump blocked them from seeing and commenting on his tweets.
Trump’s tweets, which cover everything from public policy to what he sees on television and attacks on Democrats, are seen by millions of people and often draw tens of thousands of comments each.
The seven plaintiffs, though, are among "a few hundred" blocked by Trump, according to Ujala Sehgal, communications director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which also joined the suit.
Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, said he was summarily blocked in June 2017 after he reacted to a Trump tweet by replying with a photo of the president superimposed with the words "Corrupt Incompetent Authoritarian".
"At first I was kind of proud, like ’oh he cares about me,’" Cohen said.
"But then very quickly I realized that a lot fewer people were seeing my tweets and my political efficacy, my ability to speak to my fellow citizens, was impaired by that. And I think that’s not the way our government should act." Nicholas Pappas, a New York comedian who was blocked by Trump last year for his critical comments on immigration policy, told the court that the result was that comments on the president’s tweets were mostly positive. It’s important that critics’ opinions are also represented, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
I can't believe any judge would agree to hear such a case (except for Hawaiian judges). If it was me, each plaintiff would get a $5,000 fine and a weekend in jail for wasting the court's time.
#2
Oh Joy! We're about to find a right to Twitter. Oh Joy!
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/11/2018 10:37 Comments ||
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#3
You have the right to block or hang-up on telephone calls and defriend people on FB. According to Twitter's rules, you can block people on Twitter. Here.
It would seem like there are potential stalker abuses or opposition parties flooding your Twitter account with garbage.
[LATIMES] The price of the California bullet train project jumped sharply Friday when the state rail authority announced that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $77.3 billion and could rise as high as $98.1 billion — an uptick of at least $13 billion from estimates two years ago.
The rail authority also said the earliest trains could operate on a partial system between San Francisco and Bakersfield would be 2029 — four years later than the previous projection. The full system would not begin operating until 2033.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
As former Assembly speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said; “If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved. The idea is to get going. Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.”
The future called. They said it's really fookin expensive there.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
03/11/2018 3:44 Comments ||
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#2
In the private sector that kind of nonsense will get you foreclosed on by your creditors real fast.
#3
For that kind of money someone could buy 3000 helicopters for 10 million each; invest the remaining money at 2%, pay the pilot 250k/yr. and be up and running shuttling folks in a few months. Just charge customers fuel and maintenance.
#6
Things will calm down in California when the leftie govt and their commissars run out of other people’s money. Then the people get to fight over the already chewed bones in the dog yard. Venezuela is the model.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/11/2018 10:22 Comments ||
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#7
They say the project can't be done on a "pay-as-you-go basis." Is this because California's estimated "wall of debt" is currently something like $443 billion and their credit has tanked? Maybe people are beginning to worry about their public pensions being paid?
For those interested in the plan and where the HSR is planned to go, check it out here. You can even leave comments about the plan.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2018 13:08 Comments ||
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#12
If they weren't so damn crooked we could afford it and it would be a good thing. Japan did it. California should be able to do it but corruption gets in the way.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/11/2018 14:04 Comments ||
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#13
The business plan never worked without massive subsidies
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2018 14:12 Comments ||
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#14
Only chance this project had is if they had tried it in the 90s when California was flush with tech money and the environmentalists hadn't infected everything with their madness. At this point there is no chance.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2018 15:08 Comments ||
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#17
If this was anything other than a stupid way to funnel money to their buddies, they'd simply ask the Japanese rail companies for an estimate and could have a real, safe, working train in less than 5 years. For probably less than 10 billion.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] A New York judge sought to avoid a testy tech-age free-speech showdown between 
[LATIMES] The price of the California bullet train project jumped sharply Friday when the state rail authority announced that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $77.3 billion and could rise as high as $98.1 billion — an uptick of at least $13 billion from estimates two years ago.
