I've flown plenty of times since 9/11. I'm aware of the identity requirements (though there are ways around them, if you're willing to budget the lead time). As for Amtrak, while TSA talked about it, that never happened, and you don't need an ID when crossing a land border, which is what people who are against it claim to fear.

I'm not one of those opposed to a national ID. I think a lot of fraud could be eliminated by going the route that Estonia did. It would be a lot easier to get employment by just providing the federal ID and validating the certificate. But the reactionaries refuse to even discuss it, so it never goes anywhere.

Trump isn't a Russian agent, but he is very likely a Russian asset. An agent is one who acts on behalf of another at their direction, and Trump isn't quite that. An asset is one who provides information, services, or influence for another, whether controlled directly through payments or other tangible benefits or indirectly through manipulation, and Trump is very much in the latter camp. Those controlled through manipulation are often preferred because they may not even know it's happening. Trump is convinced that he is running the show, even though it's clear to most people that Putin is pulling the strings.

The courts have started pushing back, and the administration is complying where they're unable to string out or play with the decisions. And they're quickly running out of room to do that, as the judges are catching on to their methods and closing any real or perceived loopholes in their decisions. One judge wrote a 137-page decision for a temporary restraining order, not only ripping apart the government's position but taking pains to close out every opening she could find for the government to slip past it. The administration is also demanding expedited appeals, and Trump himself is demanding that SCOTUS take up appeals more or less directly, but the system isn't rushing the government appeals where it is taking up appeals by plaintiffs rather more quickly.

That's not to say that Trump won't decide to ignore them at some point, but that doesn't seem to quite be happening so far, and while Trump himself might ignore orders, there are thousands of people below him who might not.

Almost no one anywhere declares war anymore because declared wars trigger webs of complicated responses. Since the end of WW2, there have been only eight declared wars:

- The Arab-Israeli War in 1948
- Mauritania declared war on Israel during the Six-Day War as a show of support for the Arab League
- The Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia in 1977-1978
- The Uganda-Tanzania War in 1978-1979
- The Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988
- The Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon against a breakaway state in 2017
- The Second Western Sahara War between the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic that claims Western Sahara against Morocco in 2020

Two of those (Mauritania's declaration and the Second Western Sahara War) are basically wars in name only, with no notable fighting taking place. None of the other notable wars of the latter half of the twentieth century were declared. Not the French-Indochina War, not Korea, not the Angolan War, not the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, not the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, not the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. I could go on with many others, and none of them directly involved the US. All were undoubtedly wars.

War declarations trigger mandatory legal responses by other nations. Countries have to stop supplying declarant countries with goods that could be used in war, most clearly munitions but sometimes civilian goods with dual purposes. They have to intern troops and materiel of declarant nations. They may have to take certain internal actions that can be economically painful. To get around this, most countries simply don't declare war. It's an absurdly simple way to game the system that everyone plays, because anyone who does play it ends up at a disadvantage.

The US didn't charge anyone with treason for activities that took place during the Cold War. Even Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen didn't get treason charges despite inflicting catastrophic damage to US intelligence efforts.

SSN assignments were randomized starting June 2011. While the 999-99-9999 format is the same, nothing else is. My kids were born 16 months apart in the same hospital after that date, and there is zero similarity between their SSNs.

SSNs are used because there's a massive backlash to anything else that could replace it and fulfill the same functions. SSNs are as close as we get to a national ID system, and any proposals to implement a national ID are met with paranoia, with many asking when "Papers, please?" will become the standard mantra when trying to go anywhere. It gets especially bad when proposals include embedding a government-signed certificate in a chip (similar to how Estonia does it), which invariably gets certain religious groups up in arms over "mark of the beast" claims.

I'm also a history buff. And I used to be a JFK assassination conspiracist, so I know about most of the claims that are out there. I am not aware of anyone who has offered up significant evidence that the wounds were "obviously" from steel-jacketed rounds. And even if they were, the audio is very strong evidence that Hickey did not fire his weapon. The audio doesn't necessarily rule out a second shooter (there has long been a claim that there was a shooter in another building), but it does eliminate Hickey's weapon as the source of any of the shots.

Reducing overhead for sake of reducing overhead is never a good idea. Some overhead is unnecessary, I agree. But cutting all of it wholesale despite the presence of useful overhead isn't the answer.

That's not a solution. That's giving up.

They're chasing this because they don't know what dark energy is. Scientists didn't stop trying to understand gravity after Newton's description, and they didn't stop after Einstein produced a better one. And for whomever figures out dark energy (if anyone does), scientists aren't going to stop with that.

The files are mostly rereleases without as many redactions, and the redactions don't change much. They're things like which CIA stations were sending cables (e.g., London to Lisbon), some addresses, and even a Social Security Number. Those who were looking for something substantial have expressed anger and disappointment.

I presume you're talking about the claim that has gotten recent attention, that Secret Service (not CIA) Agent George Hickey, Jr., accidentally fired his AR-15 when the driver of the chase car he was in suddenly accelerated, his shot hit the back of Kennedy's head, and that the Secret Service was so embarrassed that they conspired to hide the evidence. If so, this claim does not work for several reasons.

First, if he had fired at the exact moment that Kennedy's head exploded, his fellow agents would have tackled him as a potential conspirator and the most immediately visible danger.

Second, the AR-15 and the Carcano rifle that Oswald fired do not sound the same. Witnesses would have heard two different kinds of shots.

Third, even if they did sound the same, all the shots captured by the open mic on one of the motorcycle cops' helmets sounded approximately the same. If a shot came from relatively close and in the open air, it would have a different sound profile and volume than the others, coming from open air instead of from a restricted window.

Fourth, that would have been a one-in-a-million shot. The president's head would have been a small part of the area swept by the muzzle of the rifle.

Trump isn't a Russian agent. There is evidence that he is a Russian asset, though. Whether that is because they have dirt on him (possible) or just that he's easily manipulated into repeating their talking points (very likely), the end result is the same: US policy is shifting in favor of Russia.

He seems to have issued it after it started to get some use. That doesn't look good.

Newsom desperately wants to be something bigger, but he wants it far too much for him to get it.

As an AC pointed out, the Department of Labor has a chart showing the minimum combined cash and tip wages by state and territory, and it is legally required.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/w...

The final paycheck has to meet minimum wage. They start with hours worked and the basic wage, supplement it with reported tips (credit cards have been a big boost here), and then see if it meets the minimum. If not, they have to cover the gap.