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President Donald Trump revoked a requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes and other attacks on terrorist targets outside of war zones.

Trump formally ended the requirement with an executive order on Wednesday, months after signaling such a move. The administration last year ignored a May deadline for an annual accounting of civilian and enemy casualties required under an order signed in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama. The order was part of an accountability effort to minimize civilian deaths from drone strikes.

Trump Cancels U.S. Report on Civilian Deaths in Drone Strikes

One of my favourite Soylentils, ~realdonaldtrump, has been missing in action for several weeks. There were no tweets since Feb 19th, and I was worried that something had happened.

Thankfully, ~realdonaldtrump is back. I can only assume that he was on vacation (perhaps in Vietnam?). Anyways, I'm glad he is back and tweeting here again.

An election may have been stolen in North Carolina. While evidence continues to be gathered, officials are investigating whether a paid Republican campaign contractor collected mail-in ballots from likely Democratic voters and never turned them in, possibly changing the result of the election. It’s a crisis of democracy: State election officials told a hearing Monday that North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was subject to a “coordinated, unlawful, and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme” orchestrated by a GOP operative.

Here’s my question: Where is the voter fraud crowd? You know, the folks who cry “crime” when two people named John Smith vote in the same state? Their silence in the face of seemingly serious election fraud reveals their fundamental bad faith and hucksterism.

I served with many of the celebrities of the voter fraud pack when I joined President Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in 2017. ... The documents that were released reveal the truth: Contrary to statements by the White House and Republican commission members such as vice chairman Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, the commission uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud. ... Kobach claimed the few instances of fraud were “the tip of the iceberg,” the judge, a George W. Bush appointee, concluded that “there is no iceberg; only an icicle largely created by confusion and administrative error.” Despite this resounding defeat, Kobach continues to rely on the same discredited statistics, and voter fraud remains a top-line GOP concern.

Now that North Carolina is investigating what could be systematic election theft, you’d think people so committed to seeing fraud where it doesn’t exist would be sounding the alarm. What’s alleged in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District is not an occasional individual registering to vote when she is ineligible, but a sustained program to steal the votes of others.

Why doesn’t the ‘voter fraud’ crowd care about what happened in North Carolina?

UPDATE: North Carolina Elections Board throws out the tainted results and orders a new election!
North Carolina elections board orders new House election after ballot tampering scandal

Voters will go back to the drawing board with new primary elections in the Ninth District after the board’s vote.

Paul Manafort "intentionally" lied to special counsel Robert Mueller's office, breaking the plea agreement that made him the star cooperator in the Russia probe, a federal judge found on Wednesday.

Manafort "made multiple false statements to the FBI, the OSC and the grand jury concerning matters that were material to the investigation," including his contacts with his Russian associate during the campaign and later, Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote on Wednesday.

Manafort was convicted of various financial crimes in August, and then cut the deal to plead guilty to two charges of conspiracy and witness tampering in September.
In all, Jackson determined Manafort intentionally lied about $125,000 he received for the legal bills, about another unnamed Justice Department criminal investigation and about his interactions with his longtime Russian associate Konstantin Kilimnik while he was campaign chairman and later.

Jackson noted twice in her order that two of the topics Paul Manafort lied about, Kilimnik and payments he received for his legal bills were "material to the investigation."

Judge voids Paul Manafort plea deal, says he 'intentionally' lied to the FBI, special counsel and grand jury

Boy, they sure do lie about Russia a lot!

Reducing drug costs feature prominently in Trump's State of the Union Address.

However, his much-touted NAFTA re-write would grant an additional ten years of patent protection to pharmaceutical patents. That means generic medications will take ten more years to come to market and allows pharmaceutical companies to charge monopoly prices for ten years longer.

That will not result in cheaper medications.

Stronger Drug Patents in New NAFTA To Cost U.S. Manufacturing Workers Jobs

Why some people are worried about drug patent protections in the new NAFTA

Brexit is the gift that keeps on taking, and we haven't even left (the EU) yet. That happens at midnight on 29th March.

The thorny issue of the Irish border has yet to be solved as this Channel 4 News report explains despite Nigel Farage's blatant stupid signalling on Irish TV.

This was in a week where Gerard Batten, UKIP leader, formally wrote to the Queen asking her to suspend Parliament (i.e. British sovereign democracy) to prevent Remainer MPs sabotaging Brexit. It is worth noting that the last time a monarch interfered with Parliament England became a Republic.

Meanwhile in Sunderland, which overwhelmingly voted Leave, the local Nissan car factory will not be making the new X-Trail model due to Brexit uncertainty.

And, of course, there are plans to evacuate the Queen "if Brexit turns ugly."

Why would Brexit possibly turn ugly when there will be no downsides. only upsides?

I had my date with Annie last night. We live in the same community, so I took her to the local park for some skating. There is a park near where I live that has a lagoon for people to skate on in the winter. They have fireplaces and they put Christmas lights on the trees. It's beautiful to be there at night. There were maybe a dozen other skaters on the huge lagoon. Absolutely perfect.

Annie and I skated around and around while chatting. We talked about my relationship and she said that she has been learning about polyamory by watching youtube videos and such. It's really nice to hear that, as she isn't walking into things blind. We went down a narrow, dark part of the lagoon and reached a dead end. I brought her in close, went for the kiss, and DENIED.

She would later tell me that she would not let me kiss her before she talks to my wife to make sure everything is on the up and up. I was a little dissapointed, but I respect that.

We skated for a long time - a couple hours, then I took her to a restaurant nearby and we got some dessert and chatted some more. At the end, the bill comes and she refused to let me pay for it (which is super rare and always a good sign). I let her pay, but insisted that she let me pay for the next one.

I took her home, told her that normally after a date like this I would end it with a kiss, and she allowed me to kiss her cheek. I did, and with that, the date came to a close.

I learnt that Annie comes from a pretty Christian background and so is pretty inexperienced when it comes to sex. She also told me that she likes to move slowly.

It was a great night, and I feel something for her that I don't feel for Jasmine. I like Jasmine, but I don't get that electric feel like I did from Annie.

Tonight I'm seeing Jasmine. I'm kind of dreading it because I think I need to have a talk with her. I would like to see more of Annie, and because I don't have a lot of free time, my time with Annie will come at the expense of time with Jasmine. I also think that Jasmine wants more from me. I think she is falling in love with me and I just don't feel that way about her. It might be a tough night tonight.

Yet another aristarchus submission, yadda, yadda, yadda. But this was was particularly funny. So the Ed response was again vacuous:

We're sorry, your submission "Far-right Proud Boys leader arrives at Roger Stone's house to show solidarity with Trump associate" was declined for the following reason:

The editors felt it inappropriate for them to correct the issue themselves. Please feel free to correct the issue yourself and resubmit.

And I was just about to resubmit, after I fixed the "nothing" that was wrong with the fine submission. But then I realized, it was a trap! No matter how many times I submit a submission about the submissiveness of the Proud Boys, and their ex-leader, a formerly Proud Man, I know it will be rejected. The only reason I can surmise is that we have some Proud Boys on the Ed crew? Possibly? But it bothers me that more and more, aristarchus submissions are purged from the queue very quickly, as if to not let Soylentils see them, so as to mold and manipulate our opinions. Not censorship, you say? It's TMB's blog, and he can do what he wants, you say? Perhaps. But it just seems that more of a chance should be given to a philosopher as old as I am, just in case I may have learned something along the way about right-wing nut-job movements, and how to expose them. Hey! Did you see that great stuff by Ann Coulter! What a skeletal babe, that one! And she is famous, why? For the same reasons Roger Stone and Sean Hannity are going to Federal Pound for not quite canines?

Post Scriptum: in the linked Fine Article there are many photos of the alleged T-shirt, and tattoo. Nixon, eh? Whatever. Better than Ann and here McCarthy fetish, and it is not one of the Beatles.