I'm getting so sick of political ads that I actually get excited when I see personal injury attorney ads now.

Currelty I think politcal ads are the best/most realistic deterrant for streaming sports content, because if there's anything worse than political ads it's political ads for someone else's location.

I haven't seen any political ads so I guess I'm lucky. I do get an anti-trump mailing every couple of days from a purported never Trumper group.

Kentucky does statewide elections on the odd years - so we're up for governor, etc., in 2023. It's been pretty much nonstop political ads since 6-8 months before the 2022 election.

Part of it is historical ties. They were used to leverage Egypt, which was closely tied to the USSR during the cold war.

A significant amount of R and D takes place there for weapons and tech. There's an enormous number of tech companies that work out of or have partnerships with Israel.

They are still our closest middle east ally. Given the instability there, granted that's party caused by our own actions, it's nice to have someone to leverage against another countries, have a staging ground, or to share airspace and other resources with in the event of war in the region.

They test our weapons for us.

Israel was largely the reason Saddam was never able to get his hands on nukes.

We share intel.

In the end, what it largely comes down to, is the return on investment in the tech sector. Over 50% of Israel exports are high tech. It's basically become Silicon Valley on a country scale.

I think it's valid to reexamine and ask if it's all worth it, but you can't really say they don't bring anything to the table for us. Despite what the actual answer is to that question, there isn't a single person that is getting to the White House anytime within the next decade or two that has the balls or even the authority, really, to cut ties with Israel.

Another thing I'd add to that is that at Israel's relationship with the United States actually reigns in its response to various threats, and has deterred additional wars declared against Israel by actual states in the region. And creates a balance that generally reduces the odds of a nuclear World War 3. And while it's taken decades, the relationship between Israel and those other states has never been better.

And I think those states are now actually pretty content to have a lightning rod to deal with terrorists. If they're not blowing up Jews they're blowing up Arab states for being too moderate. Those states barely even execute gay people anymore, like Hamas does. Lord knows Egypt's never wanted to open its border to Gaza. In peacetime they ban young Palestinian men from coming through.

Remember that 9/11 was largely over our support of Israel's repressive regime. The thousands of lives lost in that event, the thousands more servicemen and women lost in wars fought over it, and the trillions in tax dollars that were spent. Not to mention the innocent civilian lives lost in the Middle East, the loss of civil liberties, and all the other negative stuff associated with it.

They don't fight alongside us in wars. And I'd question the value of their intelligence after 10/7. Let's not forget they (Netanyahu specifically!) were telling us Saddam had WMDs and was prone to strike with them any day now unless we invaded. They are far more involved than any other country in our elections, exceeding what we claimed Russia was trying to do.

While the high tech exports might be valuable (I'd wager investing the money we give them in tech would probably be just as valuable), I find it hard to believe that all the other negatives are worth that. At least with the Saudis you can point to the oil.

9/11 was largely about troops in the Muslim Holy Land because of the first Gulf War.

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I don't know many countries that would be willing to take in 2 million refugees at the drop of a hat. Especially when those refugees are largely women and children who don't have the skills or abilities to work.

As for the ban, it's because Egypt is a dictatorship. The current dictator athrew out the democratically elected leader who was friendly with the Muslim Brotherhood. It's just a dictator who the United States supports not wanting competition.

There were a lot of reasons, but Bin Laden made it clear that the Second Intifada and the US support of Israel during it was the trigger to launch the attacks.

They used that in propaganda, but they had no problem with US support of Israel when they were taking weapons and training from the US. It wasn't till the Gulf War did they turn against the US. To say that it was due to US support of Israel is some serious revisionist history and taking terrorist propaganda at face value.

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Propaganda is saying they did it because they hate our freedoms. Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were not concerned about the the public relations game.

And yes, the Gulf War did start this as it established troops in the region. Bin Laden's fatwa specifically talked about how this was done to destabilize the Arab world in support of Israel.

The guy spent a decade screaming about Israel and the US support of it. He talked a lot about the repression of Palestinians and it was the duty of every Muslim to jihad for their freedom. Maybe he lied about that and kept his real reasons a secret (maybe it was our freedoms?). But their reasoning was consistent and Israel was always at the top of the list.

To act like our alliance with Israel played no role in the attacks is re-writing history. I don't think either side disputes that.

Meanwhile this is the nonsense the Republicans are wasting time on:

106 Republicans voted to defund the entire office of the Vice President of the United States. Amendment sponsored by Rep. Mike Collins R-GA. pic.twitter.com/Glo2HHIU9Z

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) November 8, 2023

So Republicans continue to lose election after election and their solution: Go even crazier, that's what Americans want!

How much funding does the Vice Presidential Office really need though?

How much does it currently get?

Compared to the whole Federal budget? About what you spend on a stick of gum, if that.

Just another day in DC:


Feds charge three with running high-end brothels allegedly frequented by politicians - POLITICO

I'm not an expert, but $350-$600 seems to be on the low end of the sex-worker spectrum. When you have been hearing about the "$1,000 a night call-girl" since the Heidi Fleiss days decades ago, it seems like there has been a pretty big price reduction in that market.

Damn Biden ruining everything!

Wiki says $2.6 million. About 100 employees.

Why does the office need a hundred employees? Why should it cover any more than Kamala Harris's salary and a couple bucks for an uber in case she needs to cast the tie breaking vote in the senate?

Capitalism.

With the apps & social media nowadays, more competition and ease of access.

The New York Times says the average session with a prostitute is about $150.

Just buying a dinner for my girlfriend seems like a bargain in comparison. Now I just hope she doesn't find out I was googling how much a prostitute costs.

A little competition never hurts.

"How can I fudge a Google search?"

That's only $26k per employee, so I'm guessing that figure is wrong.

I'm still waiting for the "my last prostitute cost me...." post.


Edit: Just to add that just seems ridiculously low. I could see a street walker being on the low end of price scale and probably something simple like $100 or even $50, but someone who has a place of business in a high-end apartment or hotel couldn't possibly charge less than the room cost a day, right? It just seems like the math doesn't work. Women who work in the higher end of the industry generally do it because the money is good (again, not on the low end where it usually for drugs or a pimp). You would to burn through a large number of men a night to make $150 a session worthwhile.

I blame Biden for prostitute inflation! These prices are CA-RAAAAAZY!!

You'd think with Hunter he'd make sure to suppress hooker prices for his own pockets.

The obvious answer is that's what NYT reporters pay for their "level of escorts".

I'm sure the politicians, lawyers etc. pay more for their escorts.

It does make me wish they would legalize it just for the commercials alone.
"Crazy Eddie has the happy ending deals for you! Finish in 10 minutes or your next 10 minutes are free!"

Uh... For most guys seeking these services, the guarantee should be "Last at least 35 seconds or your next visit is free! "

Anyone dumb enough to fill out an intake form for a prostitute deserves whatever punishment they end up getting.

I think they charge extra for that.

It is called "screening." It is actually very common practice now that prostitutes require identification, social media verification, etc. to protect themselves. And men do it because they want to get laid. At least that is what the Reddit for sex workers say. They also agree that the price range is more low end.

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Well done, well done.

Once in a while a mini-prostitution ring in town will be broken up. And based on the photos and ages of the perps and Johns involved in that, and the places where it's happening, there's different categories of this, and plenty of transactions that bring the average price way down.

Manchin isn't running for Senate so that's a guaranteed GOP pickup.

He was dead meat anyway (won in '18 by 3 in a very blue election). With Trump on the ballot in '24, he'd lose by 20. Better to retire now undefeated.

He is going to run for President.

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Good luck. Maybe he pulls some red votes but most of the blue voters in my circle have had literally all they can stand from Manchin.

Hopefully he announces he has built his own spaceship and launches off into space never to be heard from again.

I wonder about that. People may think of him as a "moderate moderate", but he always hit me as just a fully bought shill for the coal industry. Will he have any appeal to the anti-Trump conservatives?

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Who will Dems blame without Manchin and Sinema to be their scapegoats?

Given the Senate map for next year, "Being a minority of 46-47 seats" will probably suffice.

Republicans

Depends on if anyone else in the party allows themselves to obviously be bought by a major lobbyist that doesn’t align with the party line and then hold up every piece of legislation to make sure that the lobbyist that bought them gets what it wants as a concession to pass whatever the party wants to pass. Ideally there wouldn’t be one.

My hope would be that neither party would have to deal with this crap.

No real understanding of the issue, but bad things are happening in the Sudan.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2...r-monitors-say

Also read another article where the Myanmar "rebels" are having success against the junta forces. Around the Chinese border.

T-5 before shutdown.

I don't understand why he proposed 2-tiers with 2 different extension end dates

Johnson announced his pitch to avoid a shutdown. It's already hitting a wall. - POLITICO

It was some deal were the first part that runs out early are the items that will likley to be easy to fund and come to an agreement on. The second part is the harder stuff, and he is hoping to be able to get a better consensus with his party by then to stand firm against the Dems. That is the supposed theory anyway. The pro-Shut Down side of his party is not buying it.

Seems like a "Horses already out of the barn" kind of thing:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says it's adopting an ethics code as the justices face criticism over undisclosed travel and gifts.

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) November 13, 2023