TriGirl

Hopefully they go after the whole family: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ivanka-trump-brand-20170418-story.html It doesn't matter how much they "try" to separate themselves, or how they've "placed restrictions on [their] team to ensure that 'any growth is done with extreme caution.'" Foreign governments will still give preference to their deals and brands either trying to garner favor, or feeling like they've been pressured to do so. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I like going back and watching West Wing episodes. It's incredible what was taboo and political suicide just 12 years ago (really, just 2 years ago) compared to what is going on today. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Was watching C-SPAN today (yeah, I do that). A congressman from Illinois was introducing a bill to expand the Presidential Records Act to include social media. No shit, he called it the COVFEFE Act (capitalized because he turned it into an acronym). http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/illinois-rep-introduces-covfefe-bill-archive-trump-tweets/story?id=48000604 ETA: Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement (COVFEFE) Act See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

From news reports this morning: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/13/politics/chris-ruddy-bob-mueller-trump/index.html and (bolding mine) Point being, he intimated that his good friend was considering this move, so the media took the bait and talked about it endlessly yesterday. Then today, "well, I never said he actually told me that." So NOT the way to run a government. Or a news cycle, for that matter. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/06/13/npr-trump-weighs-firing-mueller-according-to-confidance This story sounds like the classic "trial balloon". Who knows? a) what is MPR? b) I've been wondering whether this is a fake news story perpetrated by the "friend." He is, after all, the CEO of Newsmax. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I'm spending the day at Z-Hills. Right along the path, and a WIDE OPEN field. Might even jump out of a perfectly good airplane sometime during the event.

Not to mention counting as "opportunity for fraud" many more people registered in more than one state -- like Ivanka Trump. Doesn't mean they VOTED in two states' elections, and therefore are not guilty of fraud, but interesting double standard all the same. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Just like the mob boss who says he's confident you'll weigh your options and decide not to testify against him. And how's your sweet grandmother doing? The bills from her recent trip to the hospital must be pretty big. What a shame. I really hope you have some luck with that soon. Two days later, the hospital calls to say an anonymous donor paid off your grandmother's bills. And Nana calls to say she had a strangely personal exchange of pleasantries with some "polite, nicely dressed young men" walking past her house yesterday. But we can't expect the judge to believe the mob boss has attempted to tamper with a witness, because he didn't offer to pay off the hospital bill for a change in testimony, and no one made any threats to you or your grandmother. That's roughly what I got from the senator from Idaho during his turn to question Mr. Comey yesterday. I thought he sounded like a mob lawyer. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

That lawyer must at least be worth some of what I'm sure he's charging the president, as I'd be willing to bet he confiscated POTUS' phone during the testimony, and possibly tied him to a chair. That would have been the only way to keep him from tweeting -- short of asking him, "does this rag smell like chloroform?" See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

But why was it made now? Just sayin', quite a coincidence. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

That's what I was thinking as well, but not until about an hour after I read the statement. It was probably one of those situations where he was caught off guard, and couldn't believe what he was hearing. He probably thought about something along those lines the next day and said to himself, "damn, I should have said xxx instead!" See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

No. There is a difference between being pressured and being asked. Comey said he didn't feel pressured, and therefore thought simply recording the summary of the meeting was sufficient action. But then he was fired.

Yeah, that drove me nuts the other morning. Looks like Gorka needs a bit of education on what constitutes "policy." He seems to think "policy" is simply what executive orders do: officially codify the policy. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I'm sure it doesn't hurt that he was from Louisiana. The state has very welcoming tax incentives for the TV and film industry. They just needed a new topic for making a film here, and telling the story of someone who also ultimately was murdered here means location shots are authentic. (I have no evidence this was the motive for making this movie -- these are just my own suppositions. However, the Hollywood East incentives are certainly coincidental at the very least) See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Goooooo WHISTLEBLOWERS!!! (Samantha Bee joke about Dark State [University]) See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

^^^^^This.^^^^ How is no one outraged that he isn't doing his job? He isn't doing the job that 49% of the voters hired him to do. How are they not upset by his behavior? How many positions are still vacant, awaiting a nominee? (federal judges, service secretaries, ambassadors, even cabinet and sub-cabinet positions). This is all stuff that should have been done during TRANSITION. He's almost half way through his first year. We're past the, "let him get his feet under him and understand the job" grace period. He is wholly unqualified for the job and should be removed from office. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

We made a mistake in Iraq trying to "keep lights on" by installing small solar panels on street lights. Those were either stolen, or couldn't be kept clean (sand storms) and therefore didn't work well, or were destroyed by the elements. The logic was that they could continue to consolidate electricity to the buildings that really needed it (hospitals, schools, municipal buildings), but still have lights on for safety. We should have looked at it from the other direction. We had renewable energy kits that we sent out to the forward operating bases, to reduce the requirement to have fuel trucks out on all the highways. We should have used some of those types of kits on the roofs of the main buildings that needed constant power. Easier to secure/guard, centralized cells to facilitate cleaning and maintenance, etc. Then they would have had more electricity left over to disseminate to the populace. And if someone attacked one of these buildings or succeeded in sabotaging or stealing the kits? Pretty easy to show how that behavior hurts the citizens, as their reliable electricity that was running all day now is back down to 2 hrs/day because some jackass crippled the solar generator atop the hospital. I also had an idea in graduate school regarding Iran. Iran claims that they need to develop nuclear technology for civil use, so they can sell more of their fossil fuels abroad in order to support their economy. Why don't they instead become the regional dominant source for energy by focusing development and engineering on improved renewable energy collection? Tesla wouldn't have had to develop the solar roof shingle/tile if Iranian R&D had done it 10 years ago. They could have perfected the solar farm and the wind farm, and may have found a way to store that energy safely by now. Selling the batteries, exporting the energy they generate to neighbors, and selling the more efficient panels for home use. Excellent diversification of their national assets. Too bad they wanted to cling to their insistence on nuclear for domestic use. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I would agree that POTUS is the one who most refuses to leave the Groundhog Day he has made out of the day after the election (insists on reliving it over and over). And his followers also are still trying to live in the past (yes, we KNOW he won. Move on). But it does not help Sec. Clinton's case for her to cast these dispersions, either. I loved the address she gave at Wellesley College. But I was disappointed when I later got a text from a relative who implied Sec. Clinton was essentially campaigning to replace Mr. Trump as POTUS -- as in remove him from office and inaugurate her. Huh? I heard nothing of that in her speech. Yet it wouldn't surprise me if that relative has simply heard too much of the red-state rhetoric where she lives to realize she was inferring more from the speech than what was said. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

We chose the conditions of our agreement and there is no penalty for not meeting them. What, does he want the world to also pay us if we don't meet the time table? Not to mention, the other countries about whom POTUS is complaining are not exactly First World WRT their nationwide access to the latest technology. Sure, India and China have pockets of modern living, but the majority of their citizens across their territories do not have ready access to this. Therefore, it's going to take them a bit longer to work to catch up even to our starting point. No, they can't easily cut their carbon emissions the same percentage per year that we can, but they can start the programs to get new technologies slowly dispersed across their countries (how many time zones does China span again?) They aren't starting from the same level as we are, so we can't expect the same progress. OTOH, isn't the US the consumer of a significant cut of the world's energy? I think that gives us a significant responsibility also to set the example of cutting down the dirty energy we employ. IMHO. Of course the agreement isn't equal across the board. That's because none of the signatory countries are equal to any other in their starting point, usage, technology, requirements, etc. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I was going to post in the "gaffes" thread -- I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when he said he was elected to make decisions in the interest of America, not in the interest of Paris. [facepalm] How stupid can this guy be? He delivered the line like he really believed the benefactor of the agreement is Paris. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Nice to see your congregation admit that the science isn't settled. Reminds me of a Christopher Titus joke: denier: "98% of climate scientists say the evidence supports climate change, but 2% say it doesn't. So, the evidence is inconclusive!" Titus: "So, if I'm only 98% inside your wife, did she really cheat on you? Or is the evidence inconclusive?" See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

This. My lettuce-based green salads are always "chopped" salads for this very reason. Romaine, shredded carrots, sliced celery, black olive slices, diced hard boiled egg. Cucumber if I have some around. Topped with "lite" Asian toasted sesame dressing, shredded cheese and almond slivers. And as Jimmy says -- BIG! Full head of romaine just to start it all off (for one person). OTOH, my favorite salad to make for guests is a cauliflower based salad with tequila vinaigrette dressing. Red onions, mandarins, green peppers, IIRC -- I'll have to look it up in my tequila cookbook for all the ingredients. Lots of colors, great flavor! [ETA -- Excellent topic, Andrea!] See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

That's because Prime Minister Markovic is a) just happy to be there (yet to be inducted into NATO), and b) much more gracious of a diplomat. The Lithuanian president, on the other hand, is looking at POTUS like, "are you f*ing kidding me?" See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I'm on TECO (house in Tampa). Haven't been able to do the search recently.... because as I also mentioned, each home owner should do their own cost-benefit analysis, and what they can afford. I've recently done some other work on the house, which has combined to reduce the power requirements dramatically. When I have more people living in the house in the future, I'll look into the solar upgrades at that time. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Another example of the failure of decency. Though these facts are kind of telling: -a majority (estimates vary) of votes were already cast before this incident, between early voting and absentee ballots. -he still only barely won more than 50% of the vote (50.2%) -- even with all the votes that had already been cast before the assault was reported. Gives me a little hope for the future of Montana. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!