Oh man, the AP story is even worse. Ramaswamy, swimming with the scum.
High-profile Republicans who back Ramaswamy — including Donald Trump Jr. and influencer Laura Loomer — elevated the video in online posts.
W
wtg
@wtg
Posts
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Governor's race in Ohio -
Meta-thread: Word association thread -
Governor's race in OhioThe ad.
Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign for Ohio governor is pouring $4 million into a bombshell ad in which his opponent's estranged mother attacks her daughter — doubling down on the message despite fierce bipartisan backlash, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Ramaswamy is gambling that the deeply personal attack by Amy Acton's mother — who Acton has said sided with her stepfather after he sexually assaulted Acton when she was 12 — will resonate with voters.
After the ad began appearing Tuesday on social media, many fellow Republicans urged Ramaswamy to distance his campaign from it.
They warned it could backfire at a time when the controversy over the Epstein files has elevated the sexual abuse of children as a national campaign issue.
Driving the news: Ramaswamy's campaign confirmed to Axios that it produced the ad, which began circulating on social media late Monday without language identifying its sponsor.
https://www.axios.com/2026/10/21/ramaswamy-ad-acton-mother-ohio
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Chicago, Toy TownWTTW (Chicago PBS station) has a series called Chicago Stories. This episode is about how Chicago was the center for toy design.
Beanie Babies, Tinkertoys, Radio Flyer Wagons, Operation, Lite-Brite, and Lincoln Logs. These beloved children’s toys have one thing in common: They were all invented in Chicago. Toys revolutionized playtime for children around the world and ballooned into a billion-dollar business. Chicago’s own Marvin Glass and Associates created such classics as Lite-Brite, Operation, and Simon. And then there’s Beanie Babies, which became a cultural phenomenon. Explore how Chicago became the global epicenter of toy design for a time, sparking innovation, business battles, and a cultural legacy that reached around the world.
https://www.wttw.com/chicago-stories/toy-town
Check out the other episodes of Chicago Stories; the one on skyscrapers is pretty cool.
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Major Buang-Ly’s Great EscapeI totally missed this story when it originally happened.
As South Vietnam collapsed under the onslaught of communist forces, one South Vietnamese pilot made a brave and daring escape in a tiny aircraft, miraculously finding a place to land it out at sea, saving himself and his family.
https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/14/major-buang-lys-great-escape/
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Germany is "wrong" to finance UkraineFor me, everything to this point hasn't been an argument at all, simply an exchange of information and opinions.
You did say that you were unconvinced by the AI answer after you said you'd reconsider, so I provided additional background on what its answer was based on. As I said, you're welcome to investigate those links if you have the time and inclination. If you don't, no prob.
Later, gator.
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Germany is "wrong" to finance UkraineThese are the sources that AI used in composing its answer; the links didn't copy when I pasted its response earlier. At least you'll know, if you have the time and desire to do so, upon what it based its response.
From the Brookings Institute, this bit is especially interesting:
Former Soviet President Gorbachev’s View
We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding. Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.
The entire Brookings link is here:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/
Not sure the Wiki link you posted is the treaty we are looking for. This is the one that AI references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany
This last one discusses (now-declassified) communications that happened at the time.
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Germany is "wrong" to finance Ukrainewtg said:
There was a treaty signed by the US with Gorbachev
Could you post a link to that actual document? I have searched and am unable to find it.
Thanks.
I did a quick query to AI.
Did the US ever sign a treaty with Russia that specifically stated that NATO would not expand eastward? Or were there merely discussions with/assurances to Gorbachev from Western Europe and the US about limiting NATO expansion?
Here is the answer;
No. The United States did not sign a treaty with Russia—or the Soviet Union—prohibiting NATO from expanding eastward.
The treaty people often mean is the 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the two German states. It set limits on military deployments in the former East Germany; it did not bar NATO from admitting countries elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union, not the Russian Federation, was the signatory on the Soviet side. <citation src="6,7"></citation>
There were, however, conversations and verbal assurances during German reunification negotiations. James Baker’s “not one inch eastward” phrase and similar remarks by other Western officials are documented. Their meaning and scope remain disputed: some argue they encouraged Gorbachev to expect NATO would not expand more broadly; others argue they concerned NATO’s military role in a reunified Germany, and were never a binding promise about future membership. <citation src="2,4,8"></citation>
So the most precise summary is: no treaty barring broader eastward expansion; yes, there were diplomatic discussions and assurances, but no written, legally binding commitment covering Eastern Europe as a whole. <citation src="4,6,8"></citation>
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Germany is "wrong" to finance Ukraine -
Germany is "wrong" to finance UkraineThere was a treaty signed by the US with Gorbachev, and in it is the provision that NATO would not be expanded.
Not sure that's entirely accurate.
Some history.
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Ric GrenellTop Trump adviser Ric Grenell allegedly outlined a stunning pay-for-influence offer to a Turkish billionaire last year: access to "POTUS," "VIP events" and administration officials, according to a text message, reviewed by Axios, that the White House counsel is investigating.
"Once the money comes to the company here, I will arrange the donation to Kennedy Centre [sic], and you'll be joining the VIP events and get close with the administration, even with POTUS," the May 3, 2025, text says.
Grenell has called the accusations "lies" and denied sending the text message.
Why it matters: Administration officials say the text is a key piece of evidence in the White House's investigation — ordered by President Trump — into whether Grenell abused the president's trust and misappropriated a potential multimillion-dollar donation to the Kennedy Center, which Grenell led at the time.
Grenell also served in another Trump-appointed capacity: as special envoy to Venezuela, where Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon also had contracts.
"We need to make you the 'American face' down in V," Grenell allegedly wrote in the same 2025 text message to Mildon, whose attorneys sent the text, at least one financial document and other correspondence to the White House counsel's office, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Mildon is married to another Trump adviser: former U.S. attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba, who stormed into the Oval Office on Oct. 9 and accused Grenell of hoodwinking her husband into making a Kennedy Center donation that never arrived, Axios first reported..https://www.axios.com/2026/10/19/kennedy-center-text-trump-grenell-habba
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Please pass the popcornPresident Donald Trump is fighting to keep former special counsel Jack Smith from testifying in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, setting up a new legal showdown over the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
The BBC subpoenaed Smith for a deposition as part of its defense, according to court documents filed Monday.
Legal journalist Adam Klasfeld broke the news on X, reporting that Smith “didn’t object to the subpoena.”
“Team Trump opposes,” Klasfeld added.
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Election integrity
Link to videoJust a week after a behind-the-scenes clash with CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl returned to Sunday’s (October 18) broadcast with a scathing report on Donald Trump.
The report touched on the upcoming midterms and the president’s attempts to undermine election voting. Stahl spoke with state and local officials about what some consider to be election interference and intimidation tactics by the U.S. government.
“In my wildest dreams, I never imagined that we would be raided by the FBI,” Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett told Stahl about the Trump administration’s FBI raid on a local Georgia election facility back in January. “They had vests. They had guns. They had all of the equipment on their belts as if they were raiding a drug house.”
Barrett said she was forced to hand over hundreds of ballots and voter rolls, and to this day, has no idea what the FBI did with the material. “I think it was all part of this concerted effort that’s happening nationwide to undermine faith in elections,” she added.
Stahl also spoke with Utah Republican Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, who said the level of federal interference is unheard of.
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So, how weird are you??Turntable pron for the guys.
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Election integrityI think many of us are fearful of Trump shenanigans and interference in the mechanics of the process.
This doesn't make me feel any better.
A few months into President Donald Trump’s second term, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security made an unusual request of its agency focused on cybersecurity: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it.
The appointees wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to procure the machine, examine it and report back the findings so they could be given to the White House, according to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request.
The proposition was shocking to CISA’s career staffers, according to one of the former officials. CISA typically worked to thwart hackers. Moreover, the agency had been directed not to alert the voting machine company if it uncovered flaws, contrary to its standard practices. The request made the CISA employees fear they were being asked to take part in political interference.
“My thought was they could keep it in their back pocket to invalidate any [election] results they don’t like,” one of the former officials said. “This goes against everything CISA represents.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/cisa-election-security-donald-trump
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AmeliaAnd the mystery of her disappearance remains unsolved....
A US expedition that voyaged to a remote Pacific island in the hope of solving the mystery of what happened to pioneering pilot Amelia Earhart has said an object they suspected to be her plane was a clump of washed-up trees.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find that smoking gun,” said Steve Schultz of Purdue University, standing on the sand in front of a blue lagoon on the atoll of Nikumaroro, about halfway between Australia and Hawaii.
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Joined the Aeropress clubOtherwise the Zwilling with auto bloom seems to satisfy our tastes
Duh. It never occurred to me to bloom the grounds in an electric drip. I can do that! I'll try it tomorrow.
Thanks!
Link to video -
Word association thread -
Joined the Aeropress clubYes it gobbles up coffee. I don’t do French press so I don’t know how it compares
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News from the north