The year was 1971. An unidentified man (who called himself Don Cooper) hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727, while in flight in the Pacific Northwest.
He announced that he had a bomb, showed it to a flight attendant, and then demanded $200,000 cash, and parachutes. The plane landed, he was given the cash and parachutes. The passengers were allowed to get off the plane. Then after takeoff, the man was left alone in the back of the plane. He deployed the rear staircase, and jumped out into the night, somewhere in the vicinity of Mt. Saint Helens.
No trace of his body was ever found, and no one came forward to identify the police drawing of the suspect.
Some of the money was found years later.
Here is the summary of the story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper
What happened to “D. B. Cooper?”
1) He died during the jump or upon hitting the ground or water.
2) He landed safely, but died trying to find his way out of the wilderness.
3) He got away and lived in hiding the rest of his life.
The Hedgehog Report - Phoenix Edition 
97 responses to “Unsolved Mysteries: What happened to D. B. Cooper?”
First
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First.
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Fraudcis security detail has been terminated
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OK, Bitterlaw. You beat me.
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I say he died during the jump/landing.
If he had gotten away with it, I think he would have been caught or eventually sought a book/movie deal.
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D.B. Cooper has been identified at Richard Lloyd McCoy, Jr. That’s my summation. He jumped out of a United Airlines flight over Utah just months after the “D.B. Cooper” highjacking. This time he asked for $500,000 (inflation maybe), and four parachutes. McCoy was a former Green Beret and military helicopter pilot that served in Vietnam.
His two children always claimed that a “D.B. Cooper” parachute was hidden in their house and later found matched the “D.B. Cooper” chute according to Dan Gryder.
McCoy died, I believe, in a car accident, just three years later.
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One of the mysteries with Cooper was that he carried a paper sack, and nobody knows what was in it. Given he was not seen with goggles or proper skydiving gear, that is what was presumed to be in his sack. Otherwise he jumped into freezing rain driving by incredible wind, and landed wearing flimsy loafers on his feet. He probably suited up, put on goggles, and landing boots. He seemed to have knowledge of parachutes, suggesting he had jumped before.
He ordered several parachutes, so as to suggest he would force a hostage to jump with him, so as to ensure he didn’t get a bad chute.
My view is that he never survived the fall, either landing badly, getting badly injured and then dying of exposure or something like that. The fact that some of the money was found in the wilderness suggests strongly that he never survived.
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Interesting.
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John, here is a picture of McCoy.
Not sure if its a good match to the Cooper drawing.
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So why would McCoy, if he was Cooper, leave some of the money in the wilderness to be discovered years later?
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McCoy actually died in Virginia Beach in a shootout with FBI agents, according to wiki.
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The other view is that McCoy was the classic copy-cat criminal, seeing how easily “Cooper” did it.
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Headline: Pro-Hamas Foreign Students Are About To Be Deported
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Very much like I thought the Alcatraz escapees survived their trip across the Bay, I think Cooper had a plan in place to survive. The money found was planted to distract searchers into thinking he had died.
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“The money found was planted to distract searchers into thinking he had died.”
Classic violation of Occam’s Razor. No criminal would “plant” money out in the wilderness where it would likely rot before being found.
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Some newscasters are saying Trump has talked more to the press, answering questions and doing spontaneous news conferences, in 4 days than Biden has done in 4 years.
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Well, maybe the money was not deliberately “planted,” but some may have escaped the bag it was carried in when he landed on the ground. As usual, everything about the conclusion of this heist is pure speculation.
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Looking at the sketch, Cooper was really Lee Harvey Oswald (who survived the shooting in Dallas)?
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Oops. You said McCoy.
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I am of the same mind as John Goggin as to D.B. Cooper.
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Trump terminates Dr. Fauci’s security detail after Biden’s last-minute pardon.
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Walt is immortal. He was probably jumping out of many planes with money in the 1970s.
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I wonder if any of the Cooper eyewitnesses ever weighed in on the picture of McCoy compared to the Cooper drawing.
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So I know you have all been waiting for my prediction on the MLK, JFK and RFK files.
So here goes.
jason’s predictions:
JFK : Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy
RFK: Sirhan Sirhan acted alone and there was no conspiracy
MLK: James Earl Ray acted alone and there was no conspiracy
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I agree with Buck Sexton, on his show today he said if there was anything earth shattering in those files they would have been leaked long ago, he said the “government is terrible in keeping secrets”.
As for anything “interesting”, he thought maybe there will be details about surveillance on MLK that might embarrass the government, not much else.
Of course we could both be wrong.
We will know soon enough.
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DB Cooper?
I don’t think he made it.
To me, the most likely explanation for the money found on the riverbank was that in the dark he parachuted into the river, some of the money found its way to the bank and was found years later.
Hitting the icy water and tangled with a parachute means he probably drowned and his body was carried away by the current and eventually into the ocean.
Like the Angling bros, if he had survived it is likely someone would have said something about it by now.
I put his odds of having survived at 10%.
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If there WAS any conspiracy, the documents would have been long ago shredded.
Absolutely ZERO chance, the released papers will show this:
CONFIDENTIAL!! TOP SECRET!!
Lyndon Johnson ordered the JFK assassination so he could ascend to the presidency and reverse the direction the country was headed under President John F. Kennedy.
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“D. B. Cooper” and the three Alcatraz escapees are a lot like UFOs. Everybody “sees” them, but they never show up.
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No short fat broads protecting Trump….mostly big bruisers
https://x.com/MELANIAJTRUMP/status/1882829344009232580?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1882829344009232580%7Ctwgr%5E4d5804c26787e6fd1e91d2901a6a3c438ea43cd9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fsister-toldjah%2F2025%2F01%2F24%2Fwatch-donald-trump-touches-down-in-western-north-carolina-floats-big-fema-change-n2184760
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Angry, much?
James Carville to Biden:
“Just go to your condo in Rehoboth and stay there. And that’s not because we’re bad people, or we’re mean people. It was all his doing, all his doing, this entire thing.”
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If there WAS any conspiracy, the documents would have been long ago shredded.”
I think this will be the next step for the conspiracy theorists.
THE FILES WERE HACKED!
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headline:
It’s Come to This: NY Times Worries Defeating Murderous Drug Cartels Will Hurt the Economy
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The Files were Hacked!!
But by who??
Probably by the trio of Bigfoot, Elvis, and Walt Disney, who was thawed out for a few minutes to help with the file hacking, and then refrozen.
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I don’t know.
Could be the Deep State, but that would be the first time they actually did something secret.
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There is a rumor on social media that Barack Obama is banging Jennifer Anniston.
I don’t like spreading rumors so I won’t spread this one.
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Jason is 100% correct in his predictions. Doesn’t mean whatever is in the files is the truth. Shocking to me that there are really people out there who believe Oswald acted alone.
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So here is my planned schedule for threads. Bitter and Vic can freely override:
a) post interesting political polling whenever released.
b) Fridays I will post an Unsolved Mysteries thread, like I have with D.B. Cooper and escape from Alcatraz.
c) Other days will periodically post alternating “Who said it?” quote contests and “Where is this?” google maps contests as open thread starters.
d) Then Bitter and Vic can fill in with threads whenever they want or if I am missing in action for a few days.
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Shocking to me that there are really people out there who believe Oswald acted alone.”
What is shocking to me is that some people believe there was a conspiracy and that there is a Deep State.
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Doesn’t mean whatever is in the files is the truth”
There we go.
I am prescient genius.
I would retire except I know I am indispensable here.
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It’s Come to This: NY Times Worries Defeating Murderous Drug Cartels Will Hurt the Economy”
I saw this. Evidently without cartels there could be an avocado shortage.
This will impact Jeb! terribly, I hear he still has a big inventory of guaca bowls on hand.
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I am tempted to do these “Unsolved Mysteries” threads, just to see what we would get:
a) Did the Apollo astronauts really walk on the moon?
b) Is the earth really round or is it flat?
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From the Halls of Montezuma, to the border with Mexico!
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1882850277835128859
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Final thoughts on D.B. Cooper…it is believed that the original D.B. Cooper opened the aft stairwell with the belief that he jumped somewhere over southwest Washington state. I know the area a little. But I’m of the belief that ‘Cooper’ didn’t jump here but threw out a banded money block to throw investigators off his trail…..you notice that most of the money was together and not scattered for miles.
Then ‘Cooper’ actually jumped somewhere approaching Reno where the Northwest Airlines was scheduled to refuel and continue onto Mexico.
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Lets talk trash.
*******************
In Martinsburg WV back in the fall of 2024, they were doing a renovation of the big library building that was built in the 1980s or 1990s(?) and to their horror, they discovered some asbestos. This required that the library be shut down until the asbestos problem was abated. It will remain shut until June, 2025 when they expect the work to be done. The cost of removing the asbestos, etc. will be $1.6 million. I guess this also includes the government directive that every book has to be taken off the shelves and wiped down.
**********************
In NC, after hurricane Heleine and flooding, there was over 3 million cubic yards of debris–fallen trees, collapsed houses, all sorts of drywall and asbestos in homes and businesses that has to be removed and replaced due to the floodwaters that has to be removed and dealt with.
So far they have removed about 1 million cubic yards of debris.
Two million more cubic yards to go.
I do not know if there are any efforts to sort the debris into metals, etc. and scrap/recycle, or if any efforts to saw up all the downed trees to make huge firewood piles to sell or give away.
_____________________
In CA wildfires that destroyed so many tens of thousands of homes, there is concern that the charred remains are toxic.
How will they deal with the removal of all this debris?
Will they suspend current environmental laws in order to facilitate the speedy removal of the debris?
Will they just declare all that area a brown zone?
Will they fine the homeowners for not spending a fortune to remove the toxic debris from their properties?
Where will they PUT all the toxic debris and will they try to treat it? How expensive will that be?
*****************
They also say that after EVERY CA wildfire, there is an increase in a certain respiratory ailment that spikes and affects thousands who have to seek and get treatment.
***********************
Discuss and opine.
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John – Did the ramp in the back stay open that long? Nobody went back to check when it first opened?
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b) Is the earth really round or is it flat?
It is pretty flat in Kansas, Iowa, etc.
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John, he may well have jumped closer to Reno. Nobody knows exactly when he jumped. But the idea that he would toss out a block of money sounds like the sort of idea someone comes up with who is determined to believe he got away, even after some of the money was found in the wilderness.
Cooper had a lot on his mind to try to be successful. He did forget and leave behind his bowtie in the seat. But its like zero chance he would stop and say, “wait a minute, I should throw out a wad of money early on the needle in a haystack chance it will be found in the coming days so they will think I was killed.”
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Walt, I think common sense, for once, will have to prevail for the cleanup, even in California.
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You know the Cultists would start overplaying their hand soon
“House Republican Andy Ogle Proposes Constitutional Amendment to Allow Trump a Third Term in Office”
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Other questions:
Did the dinosaurs go extinct because of an asteroid, climate change, or Walt was a relentless hunter?
Was the first tide on Earth a low tide or high tide?
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Where will they PUT all the toxic debris and will they try to treat it?
That was my immediate question. The debris will be enormous that is cleared from destroyed or damaged home sites. There’s something like 16,000 homes tagged as destroyed, so far, in both the Palisades and Altadena fire areas. It boggles the mind to fully comprehend the scope of destruction. Our son’s girlfriend’s aunt & uncle lost their place and, like so many others, are in shock not knowing what to do. The local college, just blocks away from us, has a gymnasium full of donated clothes and goods that fire refugees can sort through, filling bags supplied by IKEA, to meet some of their needs. Today Trump will visit locally, and is asking to have a round table discussion with leaders in Santa Monica. That should be interesting……
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Gee, Serpent head hates demented
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No DB Cooper body was never found. I’d think his body would have been somewhere near the money.
Chicon
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Ever found….Where’s the gin?
Chicon
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The money in Cooper’s backpack would have been stuck to the body until the body rotted significantly enough to release the backpack and contents to the flow of a river and wash it further downstream.
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Breaking
REPORT: Trump administration halts aid to Ukraine, other countries, “shocking” officials, with the order being sent by Sec. of State Marco Rubio – POLITICO
·
72.4K
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hristopher F. Rufo
@realchrisrufo
·
Follow
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump Administration has moved to dismiss the case of Dr. @EithanHaim, the heroic whistleblower who exposed the child sex-change program at Texas Children’s Hospital.
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Judge dismissed the Haim case with prejudice.
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Funny newsom parody impersonation:
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“EXCLUSIVE: The Trump Administration has moved to dismiss the case of Dr. @EithanHaim, the heroic whistleblower who exposed the EVIL AND HORRIFIC child GENITAL MUTILATION program at Texas Children’s Hospital.”
Fixed it.
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Thom Tillis sinking Hegseth?
Chicon
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It’s always a rino.
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“Thom Tillis sinking Hegseth?”
-Is Mitch still voting Nay?
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Zzzzzz….
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Or Mitch hasn’t been told how to vote?
They are withholding his oatmeal from him?
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I would vote to confirm Hegseth. He is dedicated to return the military to a fighting force rather than a woke social experiment, and that is the priority.
There are better nominees to be had.
GOP senators should be free to vote as they wish, they are not elected to rubber stamp Trump’s picks or agenda.
All can be true.
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Personally, hoping for a 50-50 tie, so Vance gets more airtime.
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“There are better nominees to be had.”
-Give a list, would love to check them out.
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They are withholding his oatmeal from him?”
McConnell is 82.
Let’s see if the Cultist will be talking about oatmeal for Trump when he is 82 and still President.
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If Trump freezes up giving interviews and exhibits the type of behavior that any old person shows, I will definitely say the same thing about him.
I would have ZERO problem with Vance assuming the Presidency, and him picking a DeSantis/Youngkin/Rubio/Stefanik/Rand Paul to be his VP.
Maybe it would enhance the Republican Party’s chance to win in 2028 if that happens?
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Still, give the list, got all weekend to look up the names of all those better nominees you speak of.
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Give a list, would love to check them out.”
Mike Rogers would be my first pick. Mike Waltz second.
Tom Cotton, Jodi Ernst, Mike Pompeo would all be good candidates.
Maybe even DeSantis although I doubt he would be interested.
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My parents had to replace a furnace from our house built in 1924. The contractor said they could pay to have the asbestos removed with all permits for a lot of money or just have it removed since there were no building plans on file. It was New Jersey in the 1980s. There were no permits and who knows where it went?
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Vance to break tie.
Biden’s, Beotch, the Maine Chicklet, and the Ak drat vote against.
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I guess the Ghost of Mitch didn’t like the oatmeal they gave him for dinner…
I’m not surprised the old gasbag would cause a problem for Trump, but I’m a bit surprised he’d mess with Thune.
Chicon
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Biden’s Beotch basically said that Hegseth did not have enough experience.
Biden’s Beotch prolly realizes his grifting is cut off.
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Lol, the Boston’s mayor sure changed her tune on arresting illegals.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/massachusetts-governor-maura-healey-changes-her-mind-about/
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“Mike Rogers would be my first pick. Mike Waltz second.”
-I see Rogers served on a House Intelligence committee. Too close to Big Government for me. Waltz already has a job, and I like him there.
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“Tom Cotton, Jodi Ernst, Mike Pompeo would all be good candidates.”
-Cotton great, although I like him where he is, hopefully move up to a higher leadership position eventually.
Ernst – NO. She was OK with the woke crap.
Pompeo – ok, although I tend to go for newcomers who have served in lesser positions, as opposed to re-runs. I do like Pompeo.
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“Maybe even DeSantis although I doubt he would be interested.”
-Agreed.
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I’ll give Mitch a hearty Thank You for allowing Vance to be the deciding factor, give him more credit with MAGA, to make sure those votes stay in the family!
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“3) He got away and lived in hiding the rest of his life.”
-One change: He got away, and has been the silent leader of The Deep State ever since.
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North Carolina State is playing Deep State tomorrow.
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Today was a day Trump shone as a president representing the interests of the people. In NC he and his wife patiently listened to a number of stories illustrating how inept and disinterested the Biden Administration was in helping these people. He then flew to the west coast to inspect the urban areas destroyed by fire, ending with a round table discussion with Mayor Bass and various CA politicians. In both settings Trump held his own, focused on getting aid and help to the people, rather than engaging in verbal tussles with ideological leaders having no new approaches to the tragedies before them. It was also apparent he paid more attention to what was offered by people directly involved with the catastrophes – the victims and first responders – rather than “suits” more interested in pandering to the people while doing little to really help them.
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Walt said…North Carolina State is playing Deep State tomorrow.
Not fair. NC State won’t even see them coming.
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BTW, bravo to Pete Hegseth in squeaking thru the confirmation vote. Around the world rank and file military men/women will be cheering their new SecDef – someone who has real battle experience, understands what they go through, and has their back.
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Bass seemed incompetent in the trump meeting. I think she pissed off a lot of locals (who may not even have voted for trump)
18 months for permits?,
cannot return to home until maybe another week?
cannot clean up one’s property now?
crAzee
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“BTW, bravo to Pete Hegseth”
-SECOND THAT!
VP Vance put him over the top!
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https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/01/hegseth-squeaks-by.php
“I believe that until tonight, going back to the Clinton administration, there were only two occasions on which any member of a president’s party voted against any cabinet nominee. So the disloyalty of three Republican senators is extraordinary. It is particularly unfortunate, since the Democrats’ opposition to Hegseth was based mostly on anonymous smears.
I think Murkowski is a closet Democrat, and Collins is a squish. Which maybe she needs to be, to win in Maine. But Mitch McConnell? He has spent his whole adult life working for the Republican Party. Why would he betray his party on his way out the door? I don’t know, but didn’t John McCain do the same thing?
I don’t know what gets into some Republicans, but I think a common theme, when contrasting themselves with the always-loyal opposing party, is to say, “We’re better than the Democrats.” I’ve got news for them: you’re not better, you’re just dumber.”
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Hoping Tulsi and RFK get voted in. I would like to see this full group work together.
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https://x.com/ccadelago/status/1882828346691908027
-Whoa! 2 conditions for federal aid for California
Go big or go home!
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https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2025/01/23/hollywood-nominates-a-dude-for-best-actress-n4936312
Also California-inspired.
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I’m sure the usuals will poo-poo Trump’s call for Voter ID, by saying things like “The states set their own rules for elections.”
Agreed, they do.
But now, California Democrat politicians, and their voters, may well have to decide if they want suspect election counts more than they want federal aid $$.
Good, I hope Trump and a Republican Congress hold them to that standard, as I am pretty sure almost every state Trump won would already pass that Voter ID test.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/24/eu-digital-surveillance-child-protection
-We have already seen what happens when government gets more power, the Obama-Biden and the Biden-Harris administration – they go after political enemies, not bad people. The FBI and DOJ just spent 4 years going after J6 “trespassers” and 80-year-old-pro-lifers, instead of child predators and fentanyl dealers. The EU, and their leftist governments, will simply use this surveillance to go after political enemies who want to diminish the power of the state over the individual.
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Cheers, and Goodnight!
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NT
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