As the evidence for at least an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden mounts, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and co-host Ben Ferguson discussed the latest bombshell - 170 suspicious activity reports (SARs) from six banks over the past few years - on their podcast with House Oversight Chairman James Comer

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1684653912689872896?s=20


SARs are submitted and sent to the Treasury Department when banks "have a strong suspicion" that a crime has been committed, so as to protect the bank.

As Comer emphasized, these are submitted "very seldom."

If someone were to have two, the chairman explained, it would be hard for that person to open up a bank account.

Submitting an SAR, Comer added, also is "inviting the regulators to come in and regulate," which is the last thing banks want.

The 170 reports are thus quite significan

Or not. Seems they’ll be covered in rocks naturally within days. Leave them. No SAR, you get to feed wildlife or become scenery. Just like Everest. A few bodies might make a good deterrent for anyone on the fence or over confident.

Reminds me of when I was in New Zealand. Our flight out of Milford was cancelled for low clouds, and some Japanese tourists took the plane sightseeing around Milford fjord. They crashed into the fjord, hundreds of meters deep. The family wanted to send robots to recover the bodies, but I couldn’t fathom (no pun intended) why. For a fraction of the cost the entire family could visit them in New Zealand every few years for eternity….no brainer!

I’ll never understand you humans.

No, I'm all in favor of Morons--

However, I'm not in favor of the amazing people in SAR putting their lives on the line to recover the smears lefts on rocks that used to be these people. Living in WA, we have a lot of "really wants to kill you" wilderness here, including North Cascades Nat'l Park and Olympic Nat'l Park. Every single year, someone's predated body needs to be pulled out of the middle of one of these places by either a helo crew or the poor bastards who have to hike a bazillion miles to pack out what's left of Chuckles.

The number of SAR people who've died here is sobering. Every single one of them could have just walked away, but they went into danger's way to save people too stupid to save themselves. Sometimes their reward is to be spit on, like the ranger at Yellowstone who was berated by the father of a kid who dived into a hot spring after his dog (by "kid", I mean adult kid, not Timmy). The father wanted his kid's body recovered, no matter what. The ranger had to explain that the kid completely dissolved about five minutes after he fell in. The father then refused to speak to the ranger any further.

This shit doesn't happen in a vacuum. Someone's going to have to look at these human bird droppings and see that shit in their sleep for the rest of their lives.

Right after Jackass came out, a couple of friends-of-a-friend decided to stage their own version of the movie -- with a hornet's nest. They found the thing hanging from a tree at the edge of a field and it was not remotely on the small size. Also, this was in late August and the queen had already flown away, leaving the drones to slowly starve to death. Thus, the enormous number of stripey-stripey sting-stings were already good 'n' pissed-off.

They were about to get moreso.

So chowderhead A and chowderhead B have a brilliant plan: they're going to shoot this enormous ball full of astoundingly-irate murderous insects with a shotgun while they're filming it. If you're hearing banjos playing and luke-warm cheap beers being cracked open, you're about in the right frame of mind.

Places, everybody!

The stage is set: on one end, at what's decided to be "minimum safe distance", are our erstwhile David Attenborough/Jonny Knoxville knock-offs. At a decidedly NOT minimum safe distance away is the arthropod version of the T'sar Bomba. All we're missing now is a Mossberg, enough idiocy to think this can end any way but badly, and a camera. With far too much alacrity for what's about to happen, all three are provided.

Aaaaaand, ACTION!

* BOOOM! *

At first, surprisingly, nothing happens. This period of stasis lasts roughly a picosecond. Then, unsurprisingly, things start to happen and they happen far more quickly than the Chuckle Brothers planned on. This plays out in three acts:

Act 1: "Hey, uh, why is the nest still there?"
Act 2: "Uh-oh..."
Act 3: "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!"

Hubris takes many forms, and schadenfreude takes twice as many, but both combined were statistically zero compared to the number of hornets involved in this fiasco. Had the two Mensa escapees who irked said hornets thought this thing through -- stop laughing -- perhaps they would have arrived at the conclusion that 1. a shotgun slug is not the preferred load-out when dealing with a ball made out of wasp puke and 2. being the only two things visible within a 20 mile radius of the ball made out of wasp puke pretty much negates the mystery of who the hornets are going to sting the ever-loving fuck out of.

With their plans in ruins and the nest not, our heroes decide to quit the field. This is the first smart thing they've done since looking at that big ball of wasps and deciding it was redolent with untapped hilarity. The hornets are having none of this white flag nonsense, however, and they decide to quit screwing around and really inflict some pain. It's a quarter mile back to the car and the hornets are going to make them pay for every inch of it.

The final score:
Hornet losses: meh, they were all going to die in a few weeks anyway.
The chucklenuts: 23 stings, a dropped shotgun, and three minutes of footage that they took in the pre-YouTube era and thus is lost to time.

Moral:
Hornets are not toys.

I thought I addressed that. Travel was also open between states, and many countries with "free travel amongst nations" had no-travel/stay at home orders in place, unlike the U.S., and afaik, mandatory quarantine for all international travelers.

Again, because he eradicated the international Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, I can legitimately ascribe every single non Chinese death and most Chinese deaths to his actions directly. A pandemic on this level WAS foreseen after SARS, Ebola, and Swine Flu, it's why we created the GHSB. It's why we had a pandemic response plan that Trump completely ignored and actually denied it existed for months and months.

I also am going by facts. My facts say that at least four things Trump did against professional advice took us from prepared to minimise any pandemic to at worst a foreign epidemic to a place where months after pandemics start our leader denied any danger and made no moves to stop it.
1) Eradication of the GHSB, missed opportunity one to have zero US cases and avoid a pandemic completely.
2) Repeated early public denial of the danger while encouraging others to do the same and go about business as usual, missed opportunity two to have zero US cases, and a missed opportunity to minimize any spread if quarantining travelers (something else he failed miserably to even consider early on) failed.
3) Encouragement of those who trust him to ignore all mitigation efforts, don't mask, don't social distance, don't shut down non essential businesses, don't close schools, don't listen to medical professionals....missed opportunity number three to minimize US infections to thousands instead of hundreds of thousands. Remember the many months he said grandma would gladly die to get people back to work, pretending many months in that only feeble octogenarians get sick?
4) Denial of a prepared response plan, never following it and claiming total ignorance, missed opportunity number four to follow prepared plans based on science from day one, missing the opportunity to keep our infection rate at S Korean levels.

That's four well researched and vetted moronic, irrational, and irresponsible mistakes he personally made that multiplied our infection rate by 100- infinity times (if we could have had zero without his multiple massive and stupid mistakes, which is not just possible but likely, he can be said to have CAUSED every single US case, multiplying our infections by infinity.). There were more, but I'm beating a dead horse.
Remember, his real plan was natural herd immunity, with an expected 3-60 million deaths depending on who you asked.

I say if intelligent decisions could have avoided all US infections, and that's undeniable IMO, you can lay the blame for as high a percentage as you like on the leader who made bad dangerous decisions out of pure narcissistic ignorance and hatred of his predecessor...up to 100%. 80-90% still seems like I'm coddling him, at least two failures could have made cases zero, and others minimized it to under 10% of what we have. All four I listed almost certainly allowed >90% giving every doubt and giving him all possible credit....so yes, I'm satisfied I'm not exaggerating.

Obama's responsible and responsive planning and execution stopped Ebola from ever spreading here despite it making it to our shores, and it was FAR more contagious and deadly. Had we had Trump then doing the same things, there would be tens of millions dead and likely still spreading disease, imo.


Edit: let me try analogy...If a mayor removes the stop signs from 4 way highway intersections, they are responsible for every wreck that happens, even though other towns with stop signs still have wrecks at intersections. Trump pulled the signs, removed the flashing red light, and cut first responder funding, and claimed there never was a highway code to follow and he takes no responsibility for the jump in highway deaths.

Yep, obama was responsible for those responses, and trump is responsible for these.

Oh i remember SARS and Swine Flu - they were just like this right?

Oh yeah and when they happened, there was a giant block of ever faithful republicans supporting everything Obama was doing.


Hmmm wait...

And saying "don't be racist against chinese americans, you can still eat in chinatown" isn't stonewalling on a travel ban.

What BS are up pushing?

Blaming Trump for begin at the for front and Democrats railing against his measures.

Personal responsibility and sensibility are foremost not government.. Protect yourself and your loved ones..

Your spin is like blaming Obama for SARS or EBOLA. Grow up.

Trump is the right man for this job.

Timeline as far as I know it...There seems to be...a disproportionate amount of golf...


1/3 Trump learns about coronavirus outbreak in China from intelligence officials.
1/3 Trump holds Miami, FL rally.
1/4 Trump plays golf.
1/5 Trump plays golf.
1/ 8 CDC issues warning about coronavirus.
1/9 Trump holds rally in Toledo, OH.
1/14 Trump holds Milwaukee, WI rally.
1/18 Trump plays golf.
1/19 Trump plays golf.
1/20 1st US case confirmed.
1/22 Trump "...we have it totally under control. It is going to be just fine".
1/23 Hubei, China goes on lockdown
1/24 Global cases over 1,000
1/27 Trump holds Wildwood, NJ rally
1/27 Global deaths over 100
1/30 Trump holds Des Moines, IA rally.
1/31 Global cases over 10,000
1/31 Trump enacts China travel ban
2/1 Trump plays golf.
2/2 Trump "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
2/2 Trump plays golf.
2/5 End of impeachment
2/10 Trump holds Manchester, NH rally.
2/10 Global deaths over 1,000
2/13 Senators Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and Kelly Loeffler (R., Ga.) sold off millions of dollars in public stock following a closed-door briefing on the coronavirus
2/15 Trump plays golf.
2/19 Trump holds Phoenix, AZ rally.
2/20 Trump holds Colorado Springs, CO rally.
2/21 The first Italian cities go on lockdown
2/21 Trump hold Las Vegas, NV rally.
2/25 Trump "...we are down to 15 cases, will be zero soon."
2/27 Trump "One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
2/28 Trump holds Charleston, SC rally and says worries about the virus is the new "hoax".
2/29 1st American dies from coronavirus.
3/2 Trump holds Charlotte, NC rally.
3/6 Global cases over 100,000
3/6 Trump “Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. We—they’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful.”
3/7 Trump plays golf.
3/7 Trump says "No I'm not concerned at all. We've done a great job".
3/8 Trump plays golf.
3/9 The whole country of Italy goes on lockdown
3/11 ~~CDC~~ WHO declares SARS-CoV-2 a pandemic
3/13 Trump declares a national emergency.
3/13 Trump "No, I don't take responsibility at all".
3/17 Trump "I’ve always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”
3/19 Trump enacts travel ban on European countries.


3/27 Trump signs Covid-19 relief Bill
3/28 U.S. deaths surpass 1000
4/1 U.S deaths surpass 5000.
4/3 Trump fires intelligence community inspector general who flagged Ukraine whistleblower complaint that lead [self sic] to his impeachment.
4/4 "The models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die...I want to come way under the models. The professionals did the models. I was never involved in a model. But – at least this kind of a model.”

I dunno. This timeline doesn't seem to show him being very concerned.


1/3 Trump learns about coronavirus outbreak in China from intelligence officials.
1/3 Trump holds Miami, FL rally.
1/4 Trump plays golf.
1/5 Trump plays golf.
1/ 8 CDC issues warning about coronavirus.
1/9 Trump holds rally in Toledo, OH.
1/14 Trump holds Milwaukee, WI rally.
1/18 Trump plays golf.
1/19 Trump plays golf.
1/20 1st US case confirmed.
1/22 Trump "...we have it totally under control. It is going to be just fine".
1/23 Hubei, China goes on lockdown
1/24 Global cases over 1,000
1/27 Trump holds Wildwood, NJ rally
1/27 Global deaths over 100
1/30 Trump holds Des Moines, IA rally.
1/31 Global cases over 10,000
1/31 Trump enacts China travel ban
2/1 Trump plays golf.
2/2 Trump "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
2/2 Trump plays golf.
2/5 End of impeachment
2/10 Trump holds Manchester, NH rally.
2/10 Global deaths over 1,000
2/13 Senators Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and Kelly Loeffler (R., Ga.) sold off millions of dollars in public stock following a closed-door briefing on the coronavirus
2/15 Trump plays golf.
2/19 Trump holds Phoenix, AZ rally.
2/20 Trump holds Colorado Springs, CO rally.
2/21 The first Italian cities go on lockdown
2/21 Trump hold Las Vegas, NV rally.
2/25 Trump "...we are down to 15 cases, will be zero soon."
2/27 Trump "One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
2/28 Trump holds Charleston, SC rally and says worries about the virus is the new "hoax".
2/29 1st American dies from coronavirus.
3/2 Trump holds Charlotte, NC rally.
3/6 Global cases over 100,000
3/6 Trump “Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. We—they’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful.”
3/7 Trump plays golf.
3/7 Trump says "No I'm not concerned at all. We've done a great job".
3/8 Trump plays golf.
3/9 The whole country of Italy goes on lockdown
3/11 ~~CDC~~ WHO declares SARS-CoV-2 a pandemic
3/13 Trump declares a national emergency.
3/13 Trump "No, I don't take responsibility at all".
3/17 Trump "I’ve always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”
3/19 Trump enacts travel ban on European countries.


3/27 Trump signs Covid-19 relief Bill
3/28 U.S. deaths surpass 1000
4/1 U.S deaths surpass 5000.
4/3 Trump fires intelligence community inspector general who flagged Ukraine whistleblower complaint that lead [self sic] to his impeachment.
4/4 "The models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die...I want to come way under the models. The professionals did the models. I was never involved in a model. But – at least this kind of a model.”

Great, informed video. Mild nitpick from a scientist - SARS-Cov2 is an RNA virus, while the visuals show DNA...

As a weird side note to this, and how good Canada's SAR is, we just launched three satellites this summer. They're going into a geosynchronous orbit above the Atlantic. They're going to be able to track ship signals, create hi def images for rescue, and keep communications with vessels in distress.

I'm always impressed with our SAR capabilities. I wish we still sent DART teams to other countries to help.

OK, re-read it...it said (among other things, and sorry to keep cut and pasting)...


Carrera is upset because:
Sar-sleaz-ian is an new-age-feminist hack who finds porn disgusting, and feels pity for any women who performs sex acts for money.
She belittles porn actresses like Mercedes & Cytherea as lowly abused victims.
Then, at Mercedes' request, refuses to support Cytherea when she ACTUALLY becomes a victim.
Yet, she denies the agency of sex-workers to choose their profession, referring to them as "prostituted women".
This is why Sar-shittyhumanbeing-ian is a hypocrite, a fuax-intellectual, and [as Mercedes succinctly puts it] damaging gender relations.

Which to me all boiled down to me wondering if she's really that silly as to disenfranchise what I see as the most feminist of professions, or are some people just portraying one out of context quote that way, because I know there was a smear campaign against her that made some things up about her, and had other actual factual gripes, and they confused everything.

The reason I 'cherry picked' ONLY that part of the comment was that I already knew the rest of it from seeing evidence of it, her being a fraudster and con artist. I needed no convincing of that, and it had no bearing on the other point, which was new to me.
That's why I never disputed those other claims, so I don't feel I need to explain why they aren't implying all you said, and why evidence of them misses my focused question's point.
OK?

You immediately lost all credibility with "Sar-sleaz-ian".

I'm sorry, I was talking about the actual video, the actual people involved, and the actual things being said. My bad for going off topic.

If you want me to discuss the imaginary people in your head, with hilarious names like Anita Sar-IMSODUMBHOHOHO-neesia-STUPIDPOOP-n, you will have to give me a cast list and some background. I mean, if it's not about Sarkeesian and what you and I can demand that she does on twitter, what is it about? Could it be about... ethics in games journalism?

Ugh, everyone in this thread is acting like an asshat.
I'll start with you tho.

Carrera is upset because:

Sar-sleaz-ian is an new-age-feminist hack who finds porn disgusting, and feels pity for any women who performs sex acts for money.

She belittles porn actresses like Mercedes & Cytherea as lowly abused victims.

Then, at Mercedes' request, refuses to support Cytherea when she ACTUALLY becomes a victim.

Anita is literally profiting off the fuax-oppression of women in gaming media & culture. [Cherry picking instead of highlighting the actual corruption in the culture]

Yet, she denies the agency of sex-workers to choose their profession, referring to them as "prostituted women".

This is why Sar-shittyhumanbeing-ian is a hypocrite, a fuax-intellectual, and [as Mercedes succinctly puts it] damaging gender relations.

Anita Sarkeesian is a troll and a puppet.
She's only stirring up shit to further her career.
It's more vile & disgusting than any of the stuff she's railing against.

Shit, this whole thing is some stupid first-world problem bullshit.