Behind the scenes. More chaos.
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Kennedy Center -
Governor’s race in GAUnder the fluorescent lights of an American Legion hall near Atlanta, in front of more than a dozen Democratic activists, Geoff Duncan apologized for all the things that he did as a Republican.
He regrets opposing gun control. He’s sorry for fighting the expansion of Georgia’s Medicaid program. And he’s most remorseful about supporting some of the strictest abortion rules in the country.
“Unlike most folks in politics, I’m willing to say I’m sorry for that,” Duncan said.
He’s doing a lot of apologizing these days because the former Republican is running for governor as a Democrat, trying to win over members of his newly-adopted party in a crowded primary in a critical battleground state. Although some view Duncan as an interloper, he’s pitching himself as Democrats’ best chance to break their 24-year losing streak for Georgia’s highest office..
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Nationalize the electionsYea, he went there. I kinda figured that the Fulton County raid was setting the stage.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/trump-republicans-nationalize-elections-rcna257098
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Animal anticsPenguins come in from the cold.
https://www.wane.com/dont-miss/penguins-at-long-island-aquarium-brought-inside-due-to-extreme-cold/
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Ammon Bundy -
Kennedy Center -
Ammon BundyYou are now entering The Twlight Zone...
Link to videoNot so long ago, Ammon Bundy was the most famous right-wing militia leader in America. His two armed standoffs with federal agents had made him the face of the Patriot Movement: a loose assemblage of anti-government extremists, Second Amendment maximalists, and more than a few white nationalists. Even some mainstream elements of the Republican Party embraced him as a modern folk hero. But Bundy’s criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown now threatens to make him a pariah within his own community.
In November, Bundy self-published a long essay titled “The Stranger,” in which he labeled the Trump administration’s treatment of undocumented immigrants a “moral failure.” “To call such people criminals for lacking official permission” to be in the country, he wrote, “is to forget the moral law of God, the historical truth of our own founding, and the Constitutional ideals that continue to define justice.” On a recent livestream following the killing of Renee Good in Minnesota, Bundy told his audience that ICE’s conduct “clearly looks like tyranny.” If the government threatened his family, he said, he would fight back by whatever means necessary.
I spoke with Bundy a few hours after federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. “It’s sickening to me,” he told me over the phone, “just to see the parallels of history repeating itself.” (In his November essay, he had compared the administration’s treatment of immigrants to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.) He added, “When it comes to the more humanitarian side of it, I think the left has it much more correct than the nationalist right.”
Atlantic:
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Happy Groundhog Day -
Happy Groundhog DayAnybody watching the movie today?
Woodstock Willie didn't see his shadow. Early spring here!
Phil had bad news for Punxsatawney. They get six more weeks of winter.
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Kennedy CenterGuess this is one way to avoid the embarrassment of cancellations.
President Trump said Sunday he will move to close Washington's Kennedy Center performing arts center for two years starting in July for construction, his latest move to upturn the storied venue since returning to the White House.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/01/nx-s1-5695832/kennedy-center-renovations-trump
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Some jokes landed with a thud, and the room fell silent repeatedly.The orange man spoke at a black tie dinner last night.
WaPo:
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ICE in Portland ORPortland Mayor Keith Wilson urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to resign and told their bosses to leave Portland in a scathing statement issued Saturday after federal agents launched tear gas at a large crowd protesting near the Portland ICE facility.
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson wrote. “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.”
Thousands of protesters, including children, marched through Portland and enveloped the blocks around the South Waterfront facility Saturday afternoon. Federal agents launched tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets at the crowd shortly after it arrived after some crossed the building’s property line and approached its security gate.
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Weather where you are threadI used to love to go for a walk in Door County after a fresh snow. The animal tracks crisscrossing the road were like a map of where anything had been, and in most cases, what they were. There was one time when we saw a long snake-like line through the snow. We finally figured out that it was Morgan, our neighbor's golden retriever. Bill had left Morgan's leash on him in case he needed to restrain him if a car drove by. The leash dragged behind the dog, creating the snow snake.
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Liam and his dad ordered released -
Melania, the movie isn't doing too well -
Straight up Gestapo ShitChris Christie on This Week, regarding MN: The administration is addressing the PR problem, not the actual problem. Trump is worried about the polls and doesn't care about what's really happening in MN. Homan is just an outwardly calmer but probably no different than Bovino, face to the public.
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Good news from TexasDemocrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections.
The loss was a major setback for Wambsganss, a conservative activist whose advocacy in recent years helped make Tarrant County — nearly half of which is covered by Senate District 9 — a testing ground for socially conservative policies. Long active in GOP circles, Wambsganss rose to prominence in 2022 when she helped the GOP fill North Texas school boards with candidates who held Christian conservative views. The movement’s success resulted in an explosion across the country of book bans, rewriting of curricula and a thinner line separating church and state.
In a statement, Wambsganss said the outcome was a “wakeup call” for Republicans, but she insisted things would shake out differently in November, when she and Rehmet will face off again for a full four-year term representing the district.
“The dynamics of a special election are fundamentally different from a November general election,” Wambsganss said. “I believe the voters of Senate District 9 and Tarrant County Republicans will answer the call in November.”tps://www.texastribune.org/2026/01/30/texas-senate-district-9-runoff-rehmet-wambsganss-special-election/
Rehmet was far outspent in the leadup to the November election, spending $68,000 compared to millions spent by the two GOP candidates. He remained financially outgunned heading into Saturday, with Wambsganss reporting a whopping $736,000 in expenditures compared to Rehmet’s roughly $70,000, according to campaign finance filings with the state.
Outsiders have also been spending on the race. VoteVets, a progressive national veterans PAC, poured in roughly $500,000 to boost Rehmet. Patrick, the upper chamber’s presiding officer, contributed $300,000 to Wambsganss’ campaign through his PAC, Texas Senate Leadership Fund.
Rehmet entered Saturday with no cash on hand while Wambsganss had $310,000.
“We have an opportunity to really show that if you have a good message and you stick to voters and what they want, listen, that you can win an election as an underdog, that you can overcome millions and millions spent against you,” Rehmet said in an interview Friday. “As long as you’re doing the right thing, you can get elected.”
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Liam and his dad ordered releasedThe 5 year old who was taken by ICE with his dad. DHS says the mother wouldn't take him and the father said he wanted the boy to go with him.
The mom fills in a few key details, including that they were in the US legally under a Biden program that was rescinded by the orange man:
The ruling from the judge:
A 5-year-old boy and his father must be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they’ve been held after being detained by immigration officers in Minnesota, a federal judge ordered Saturday in a ruling that harshly criticized the Trump administration’s approach to enforcement.
Images of Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, being surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers sparked even more outcry about the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who sits in San Antonio and was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, said in his ruling that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
Biery had previously ruled that the boy and his father could not be removed from the U.S., at least for now.
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-minnesota-boy-detained-a1ef2144c03a0136ef123f5a3685ee44
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This dinosaur isn’t extinct yetIn the age of cloud computing, it's easy to forget that IBM (NYSE: IBM) still sells its hulking mainframe systems. Following IBM's fourth-quarter earnings report, it's clear that the mainframe business is not only surviving but also thriving.
Here's an incredible fact IBM CFO Jim Kavanaugh disclosed during the earnings call: IBM's mainframe business recorded its best fourth quarter revenue in more than 20 years. Revenue soared 61% year over year, adjusted for currency, driving a 17% increase in the infrastructure segment.
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The potato promptI use the ‘potato’ prompt with ChatGPT every day — here is how it finds the holes in my logic
Using this prompt word automatically triggers my custom instructions and gives better results
Somebody who uses ChatGPT or another AI chat bot, let us know if this works....
