Lurker > Antifar

Cpt Pineapple topic
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https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/hunter-biden-tax-investigation/

Federal prosecutors are investigating Hunter Biden's "tax affairs," according to a statement released by the president-elect's son through the Biden-Harris transition team. Mr. Biden's son said he learned about the probe, led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware, on Tuesday.

"I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs," Hunter Biden, 50, said in a statement. "I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors."

An unnamed statement "from the Biden-Harris transition" accompanying Hunter Biden's comments said the president-elect "is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger."

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https://xkcd.com/1122/
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Bunch of people who haven't played a game upset with the opinion of someone who did.
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https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/media/newsmax-fox-news-ratings/

Newsmax TV has notched a ratings win over Fox News Channel for the very first time.

The win, fueled by conservative viewers who are disappointed by the election results, happened Monday evening. In the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic prized by advertisers, "Greg Kelly Reports" on Newsmax out-rated "The Story with Martha MacCallum" on Fox.

The margin was narrow Kelly averaged 229,000 viewers in the demo and MacCallum averaged 203,000 but it is still a milestone in the cable news industry.

Before the election, Newsmax was not regarded as a formidable competitor to Fox; it was mostly dismissed as one of a handful of wannabe challengers.

But President Trump's loss on November 3 changed the cable TV calculus. Viewers who were frustrated when Fox admitted the truth of Trump's loss sought other options. Trump encouraged them to try Newsmax.

Newsmax and Kelly in particular offered a safe space in which Biden was not called president-elect and Trump was not yet defeated.

Through the post-election weeks in November, as Trump's legal team suffered dozens of losses in court in its attempt to overturn the results, Kelly insisted that he believed Trump would still prevail.

His 7 p.m. program consists of long, pro-Trump, anti-media commentaries of the type typically found later in the evening on Fox. And a certain subset of viewers are rewarding him for it. Kelly's show is usually Newsmax's highest-rated show of the day.

"We're here to stay," Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said Tuesday evening. "The ratings are showing that."

Fox News is still four times higher-rated than Newsmax at any given time of day, according to Nielsen. Among viewers of all ages, Fox averaged 1.36 million viewers around the clock on Monday, while Newsmax averaged 316,000 viewers. But Fox is down from its pre-election highs while Newsmax is way up.

Take Kelly's hour: Before the election, his show barely had a heartbeat. The 7 p.m. hour had barely 10,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo and 100,000 viewers overall, according to Nielsen data.
Now the hour has nearly a million viewers on a good night, and Monday was good: 949,000 viewers.

Ruddy pointed out that Newsmax TV is also live-streamed on a variety of platforms, so there is an additional audience that is not measured by Nielsen.

In the 7 p.m. hour, Newsmax ranked third overall, behind CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront," which averaged 423,000 viewers in the demo on Monday, and MSNBC's "The ReidOut," which had 280,000.

The 25-54 demo is critical because most advertising on cable news networks is bought and sold using demographic ratings.

Newsmax seems to be cutting into Fox's demo performance at some other times of day, though it's hard to say for sure.

At 4 p.m. on Monday, for example, "The Howie Carr Show" on Newsmax averaged 101,000 in the demo, while "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on Fox averaged 148,000 in the demo.

One hour later, the gap between the two channels was much wider: "The Chris Salcedo Show" on Newsmax averaged 120,000 while "The Five" on Fox attracted 303,000.

What's the main difference? "The Five" is an intense right-wing talk show while Cavuto's 4 p.m. hour is less ideological. Fox's more opinionated shows outperform its newscasts, even when the newscasts are stacked with conservative guests and storylines.

Newsmax maxes out on talk shows, not newscasts. In the coming weeks, Ruddy said, Newsmax will continue to expand its programming schedule, including a 10 p.m. program led by Rob Schmitt, a former early morning host on Fox.

Ruddy is still brainstorming options for the 9 p.m. hour.

It must be emphasized that Fox is still far ahead of Newsmax by almost every conceivable metric.
But Fox is accustomed to being No. 1 in the 25-54 demo so losing to Newsmax, even for one hour of one day, is a serious shock.

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Doom_Art posted...

why wouldn't someone with military experience be overseeing the military

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/02/504165486/trumps-defense-pick-challenges-rules-around-civilian-control-of-the-military

The National Security Act of 1947, which established the current national defense structure, had a key stipulation, requiring that the secretary of defense be a civilian well removed from military service. In fact, the law is quite clear:

"That a person who has within ten years been on active duty as a commissioned officer in a Regular component of the armed services shall not be eligible for appointment as Secretary of Defense."

The idea was to ensure that the nation's armed forces be controlled by a civilian. Congress almost immediately waived the rule, allowing President Truman to name revered Army Gen. George Marshall to serve as defense secretary in 1950. The law was changed in 2008, reducing from ten to seven the number of years that a nominee must be retired from the military.

Still, Mattis does not qualify, because he retired from the Marine Corps in 2013.

The question is, how big of a problem is this for Mattis' confirmation chances? A few Democrats have already weighed in. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York issued a statement Thursday, saying:

"While I deeply respect General Mattis's service, I will oppose a waiver. Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule."

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith of Washington, says hearings will be needed if he is to support a waiver:

"[While] I like and respect General Mattis a great deal, the House of Representatives would have to perform a full review, including hearings by the Armed Services Committee, if it were to consider overriding the statutory prohibition on recent military officers serving as the Secretary of Defense."

https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/12/08/944231676/bidens-defense-pick-raises-concerns-over-civilian-control-of-the-military
Now, most Democrats ended up voting for Mattis, but some at the time said the waiver was a one time exemption.

Even as several Democrats who had opposed a Mattis waiver said Tuesday they might be open to granting one for Austin, the Senate's narrow makeup the best case scenario for Democrats is a 50-50 split means only a handful of defections could sink Austin's bid.

One key voice in the debate is Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Four years ago he reluctantly voted to give Mattis a waiver but said at the time he would never do so again. "Waiving the law should happen no more than once in a generation," Reed said in 2017. "I will not support a waiver for future nominees."

But when Reed spoke to reporters Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, he sounded open to reversing course.

The lawmaker called Austin a "very qualified general officer" who "brings a lot to the Department of Defense."

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Hippocrates posted...

@Antifar how're your hype levels? Mine are approaching maximum. I need that skyscraper; i need that whodunnit

I'm super hyped, but it's easier because there's still Christmas and games I have to get to between now and then.
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Also recommend Mark Brown's School of Stealth videos
https://youtu.be/Ay-5g36oFfc
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That's a bad tree!
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All those seeking a quality stealth title should play Desperados III, Antifar's official Game Of The Year 2020
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Yeah sure why not
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Now, is that good?
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DezDroppedFreak posted...

Absolutely. Honestly I cant believe this isnt getting as much coverage

The disconnect between "yeah this game gave one of our reviewers a seizure" and "we gave it a 9" is kinda wild.
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I cannot express how happy I've been this afternoon because they really just put in the feature I've been wanting for two years and made it better.
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Forza Horizon 4 just dropped a cool track creator mode that is going to own my life
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Damn_Underscore posted...

Electoral College is NEVER going away.

The only way you can change it is by getting enough states to agree to give their electoral votes to the popular vote winner.

For all intents and purposes, the second sentence here cuts against the first. The practical difference between a national popular vote determining the winner and a national popular vote determining the electoral college winner aren't worth making this your big semantic stand in every topic where the discussion comes up.
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The business end of all this shit is imposing new barriers to voting where none should exist
https://twitter.com/relliotwsb/status/1336392637687984133
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It's not really about the science
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This will result in lawsuits unless it's patched out. It's just plainly irresponsible on CDPR's part
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The Trent posted...

"new government leadership attempts to takes steps to re-unify fractured populace"
"fuck that"

When he talks about outreach to CEO's I'm skeptical that this is really about unifying any sort of populace
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Racing sims like the F1 series or Project Cars 1/2 make fuel management something you have to concern yourself with for longer races.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-08/biden-administration-will-create-position-to-reach-conservatives

The Biden administration plans to create a position to find common ground with conservatives, said Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond, a senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement for the President-Elect. [Antifar's note: this guy is noteworthy for taking a ton of fossil fuel money https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/526405-progressive-group-slams-biden-white-house-pick-over-fossil-fuels]

Right now Im trying to set up the office and Im actually looking at establishing a position that reaches out to conservatives -- because its about moving forward. We cannot stay where we are, Richmond said during the Wall Street Journals CEO Council on Monday night.

He said the offices goal was to forge connections with all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation. Were not elected just to help Democrats or urban cities or minorities, he said. We were elected to help this entire country and that means reaching out to conservatives, that means reaching out to rural areas, reaching out to people who didnt vote for us.

President-elect Joe Biden named Richmond, a campaign co-chair, to head the Office of Public Engagement last month. On Monday, Biden appointed him as one of five co-chairs of his inaugural committee.

Part of Richmonds mandate is to help the incoming Biden administrations relations with Republicans in Congress. He said he would work to create a demand in the country to make politicians work across the aisle and to work together.

He said one area of agreement could be infrastructure. The famous words are, theres no such thing as a Democratic bridge or a Republican bridge, he said at the Journal event.

Congress, he added, should work on a very quick infrastructure bill to put people to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure making the country, greener and cleaner.

Richmond, who will resign his seat representing most of New Orleans in Congress, also said that part of his mandate would be private sector engagement and to serve as a conduit straight into the White House for chief executive officers.

Nobodys going to persuade me that somehow, some way that CEOs in this country are bad people, he said. Business leaders, he added, are creating jobs and they deserve a seat at the table.

Richmond added that business would find an administration that is willing to listen and didnt intend to be punitive.

We will just do those things we find that are absolutely necessary to do and if that means raising the corporate tax rate to achieve infrastructure investment, which is important to both business and to normal everyday citizens, I think that that may be some middle ground that everybody can support, he said at the CEO Council.

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SSJKirby posted...

oh that was definitely because someone else pulled out and they scrambled for a final reveal

I don't think Vin Diesel is someone you scramble for last moment
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Damn_Underscore posted...

Think about the games released approximately between 2000 and 2010 and the only way to play them today is to pull out an old console from storage or hope that a remake was released.

I can play SSX3 and Sonic Adventure 2 on my Series X
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It took a while for me to realize D+ wasn't the show's grade.
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Indies are cool though
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Is it possible that their reviewers have different opinions?
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I'm only dead on the inside
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Just Hitman
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Different reviews are for different audiences, and also this one doesn't seem that negative on the whole.
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https://youtu.be/mFieU54BUvI
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Bosses can and do fire people for far less harmful behavior
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The Trent posted...

so basically reskinned excitebike?

It seems more on par with Trackmania or GTA stunt races
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https://www.theouterhaven.net/2020/12/forza-horizon-4-super-7-update-adds-a-track-editor-to-the-game/

Fuck off, I don't need this owning my life the next four weeks.
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3PiesAndAFork posted...

No fucking way it's that high.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-population.html
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Bump
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https://www.propublica.org/article/nypd-cops-cash-in-on-sex-trade-arrests-with-little-evidence-while-black-and-brown-new-yorkers-pay-the-price?

It was one of the New York Police Departments biggest stings since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014, the direct outcome of a strategy he and top cops have touted in recent years to combat human trafficking: Officers should arrest the true criminals like johns and pimps, while making sure people forced into prostitution get the help they need to get out.

On the ground, the reality has been different from the rhetoric. Teams of NYPD officers have descended on minority neighborhoods, leaning into car windows and knocking on apartment doors, trying to get men and women to say the magic words: agreeing to exchange sex for money. These arrests are based almost entirely on the word of cops, who say they are incentivized to round up as many bodies as they can.

Some of their targets were selling sex to survive; others were minding their own business. Almost everyone arrested for these crimes in the last four years is nonwhite, a ProPublica data analysis shows: 89% of the 1,800 charged with prostitution; 93% of the 3,000 accused of trying to buy sex.

Of the dozens of cops, lawyers and other experts ProPublica interviewed for this story, not a single one believes arrest figures for patronizing a prostitute accurately reflect the racial makeup of those who buy sex in New York City.

I know for a fact that white men are the key demographic, said Meredith Dank, a research professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who, along with her colleagues, has interviewed more than 600 young people who trade sex in the city. In one study, 65% said their main clients are white.

People living paycheck to paycheck lost their jobs over crimes they swore never happened. But facing multiple court hearings and the threat of jail time, they took quick deals to move on with their lives. A former officer who worked undercover told ProPublica she participated in false arrests. Others acknowledged the system could let them slip through.

The problems became clear in interviews with 36 current and former officers and dozens of defendants, prosecutors and defense attorneys; weeks of observing court proceedings; and a review of hundreds of pages of sealed court records.

ProPublica delved into the work of one officer, identified in official documents as Undercover 157, whose cases are replete with allegations of false arrest and sexual misconduct that were never aired in court. Defense attorneys filed complaints with the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD almost three years ago, which still considers it an ongoing matter. In a statement, the NYPD defended the undercover officer as a veteran with approximately 1,800 successful buys and no complaints against him at the NYPD or with the Civilian Complaint Review Board. (The department later clarified this meant no active complaints.)

Even for a department accused in recent months of acting with impunity, those policing New Yorks sex trade appear to operate in an extreme vacuum of accountability. The CCRB, originally created to investigate police misconduct against communties of color, does not address allegations of false arrest and is still trying to gain authority to examine those involving sexual abuse.

In the rare instances when defendants sue, the cases are often settled before officers have to testify.

Since 2014, the city has paid more than a million in taxpayer dollars to at least 20 people who claimed they were falsely arrested in prostitution or john stings. Last year, it paid $150,000 to five young Latino men who said they were laughing off a proposition when they were arrested and $20,000 to a West African taxi driver who said in a sworn deposition that he was walking home when a woman asked if hed walk down the block with her. He told ProPublica he thought she was afraid of walking alone, so he agreed. He was then arrested.

The undercover officer in his case netted 10 arrests in three and a half hours the night she encountered him, earning her four hours of overtime pay.

Eighteen current and former officers who policed the sale of sex in New York City said overtime has motivated them for years. The hours add up over the drive to the precinct, the questioning, the paperwork. You arrest 10 girls, now the whole teams making eight hours of overtime, retired Sgt. Stephen Antiuk said.

Thats what it was all about, making money, from the lieutenant to the sergeant on down, retired Detective John Kopack said. You want to eat? You guys want to make some money tonight? Make some arrests, do what you got to do.

The NYPD did not respond to ProPublicas detailed questions about overtime or the specific incidents in this story. Sgt. Jessica McRorie, an NYPD spokeswoman, said the department maintains heightened vigilance and robust oversight over all of its undercover operations. NYPD spokesman Al Baker said police shifted their prostitution strategy in 2017, leading to fewer arrests of sex workers, more of johns and a greater focus on pimps. He noted that selling sex is still illegal and the department deploys officers where residents report crime without consideration of race or ethnicity.

As New York Citys crime rate fell to record lows in recent years, the NYPD continued to draw criticism for its outsized presence in minority neighborhoods, arresting tens of thousands of Black and Latino people on minor, nonviolent infractions. This dynamic inspired calls over the summer to defund the police, a slogan that depicts the department as an occupying force, disproportionately ensnaring people of color in the criminal justice system.

The statistics for arrests involving the sale of sex reflect a particularly stark example of this trend.

While complaints about prostitution have long been scattered across neighborhoods of all races, arrests for buying sex are not. ProPublica found that in majority Black and Latino areas, police have arrested over three times as many alleged sex buyers as in whiter neighborhoods despite comparable complaints about prostitution and arrests of alleged sex workers in each.

Michele Alexander, who is Black, sometimes worked undercover out of a precinct in Jamaica, Queens, before she retired in 2012. When are we going to Manhattan? she recalls asking her supervisor, after working too many sex buyer stings where the men all looked the same. Negroes arent the only ones who buy vagina. As punishment, she said she was reassigned to an early morning tour monitoring a Manhattan subway station.

Paul Lichtbraun, a retired captain who oversaw vice in Manhattan and the Bronx until 2017, said his unit often focused on buyers, but when it received complaints about prostitution inside high-end Manhattan hotels, theyd only go after sex workers. If I start arresting their paying customers, [the hotels] going to ask me to leave, he said. Are there always people who get off in this world? Of course there are.

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https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/133606578790 0145665
For context:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/12/florida-rebekah-jones-ron-desantis-coronavirus

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The Dakotas
Delaware
Kansas
Nebraska
New Mexico
Pennsylvania

Related
https://twitter.com/HenryKrinkIe/status/1335446563871711233?s=19

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Worth keeping in mind https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2020/12/06/a-warning-about-cyberpunk-2077-reviews/?sh=32856e1b9e2b

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Update: it took 20 attempts but I pulled it off!

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I'm making my way through the DLC of Desperados III, a game I really enjoy. But it turns out that the final mission has a bug where if you do a certain thing along the way, you'll be unable to save during the last part of the mission. The game just freezes on that screen where it tells you that it's saving. This is a game that is reliant on quicksaving and loading, to the point where by default an on-screen prompt lets you know when it's been more than 1 minute since your last save. My first time through a mission tends to be reliant on dozens of saves (and dozens more loads).

This is of course very frustrating, but seeing that there's not much left in the mission, I'm trying to power through, to pull off the perfect run and take out the last 10 minutes or so without the ability to save. (I can still load, from just before the cutscene where the map changes). It's definitely doable, but so far has been just out of my grasp. The experience as a whole has wound up being kinda fun, committing myself to pulling it off instead of restarting the mission (which took me more than two hours to get to this point.)

Have you ever had an experience like this, where an error resulted in a more enjoyable time?

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Air quality and CO2 emissions aren't the same issue

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I lived through Andres Villas Boas and Tim Sherwood. Nothing can cause me pain

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69 over what period of time? The article doesn't specify.

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I'm imagining it a lot

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I think it's very rude of Sony to name their errors after this place.

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Medussa posted...

i've been trying to get into rugby over the last couple years, but possession is definitely the thing that's been eluding me. when does a team have to give it up, and why do they give it up when they don't have to?

My understanding is that this differs based on the code of Rugby. One of them has a 6 tackle rule, the other effectively let's a team keep the ball as long as they can hold on to it. But I'm not sure which is which off the top of my head.

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https://twitter.com/Luke9S/status/1335605371554160640

I know a short clip isn't reflective of much, but I'm curious about the rules or tactical incentives that produce a moment like this?

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Joeydollaz posted...

IMO these are paid for, these are not just random people

Nah, nobody has any interest in rewarding their efforts

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