The Hat and The Hair: Episode 89

by | Jul 25, 2018 | Hat and Hair, SugarFree | 215 comments

Michael Cohen Secretly Taped Trump Discussing Payment to Playboy Model

 

“Secret listeners!’ Donald wailed as he pulled the drawers from his desk one by one and emptied them onto the floor. Pie was cowering behind the couch while fumbling to open a package of Ding-Dongs.

“Donald! Calm down!” the hair said again.

Donald seized the iPod sitting on his desk and dashed it to pieces against the wall.

“Hey!” the hat screeched. “That was mine! All my Mariah Carey albums were on there!”

“Bugs! Taps! Microphones!” Donald screamed as he kicked apart the piles of junk dumped out of his desk; yo-yos, Matchbox cars, butt plugs, bioluminescent Jesus statues, empty Diet Coke cans and bottles, a melted Fleshlight, cans of Play-Doh, Air Force One barf bags, Legos, pieces of a pirate costume, packets of ketchup and bottle of steak sauce, a box set of the second season of Dallas and a running tape recorder went flying in all directions.

“No one is recording you, Donald,” the hat said, eyeing the tape recorder as it went past him.

“I never say anything that can be recorded,” Donald wheezed. He tried to pull down the heavy drapes of his office window and failed, swinging from the briefly and landing hard against bulletproof glass and wire mesh.

“Donald! Are you OK?” the hair asked. He moved across the littered desk to peer over at Donald on the floor.

Pie popped up from behind the couch, her teeth black with snack cake, “Sir?” she asked, spraying crumbs and filling.

“Oh my fucking GERD!” the hat yelled. “Have some fucking dignity, you fat sow!”

Pie ducked down and peered from around the side of the couch. She threw a piece of Ding-Dong toward where Donald lay and bolted from the room.

“The tape is out, Donald,” the hair said. “There’s nothing we can do about that now.”

“It’s not me on the tape,” Donald whined.

The hat gave a disgusted snort.

“It’s not Michael Cohen on the tape,” Donald wheedled.

The hair sighed heavily.

“I haven’t even met her?” Donald warbled in a pained falsetto.

“Don’t eat that!” the hair snapped as he saw Donald’s hand reaching for the clump of wadded cake Pie had thrown.

“OK,” Donald said, sulking.

“Sit up, Donald,” the hat said.

Donald rolled onto his side and sat up among the scattered trash on the floor.

“You’re bleeding, Donald,” the hair said. Donald’s hands rubbed his head, smearing the blood from tiny wounds where he had pulled the hair off his head in a rage.

“Go into the bathroom, Donald,” the hair ordered.

“Where?” Donald asked, his voice like a lost child.

“The Presidential Shitter. Go in there and get cleaned up,” the hair said gently. Like the last mastodon in a tar pit, Donald struggled and stood and started to walk away.

“Donald,” the hat said. “Work on it. What I told you to say. Work on it in the Shitter. In the mirror. Say it until you can say it, you know?”

Donald nodded absently and lumbered away.

The light came on in the Presidential Shitter as he closed the door behind him. He filled in the Presidential Sink and splashed a little cool Presidential Water on his face. He took a few deep breaths and then faced himself in the Presidential Mirror.

“I… I…,” he began and then swallowed forcefully. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

215 Comments

  1. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Nice punchline

  2. CPRM

    Glorious!

    • The Other Kevin

      Seconded. So many nice little details.

  3. Q Continuum

    Great stuff as usual.

    Serious on topic question: Will Cohen get disbarred/censured/arrested for violating attorney-client privilege like this? How about for tape recording the meeting without consent?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      New York is a single party state, so he is free and clear on the potential wiretapping charges.

      • Q Continuum

        “New York is a single party state”

        …but enough about the Dems.

      • kbolino

        For a minute, I thought your comment was redundant. I had to go back and think of the other interpretation of “single-party state”.

    • The Other Kevin

      I think those tapes were confiscated during the “investigation”, which complicates things a bit.

    • Hyperion

      “Serious on topic question: Will Cohen get disbarred/censured/arrested for violating attorney-client privilege like this? ”

      Yes, but then Cuomo will pardon him.

  4. Q Continuum

    “a melted Fleshlight”

    Having been the proud owner of a Fleshlight for the past 2 years, I can say that all you clowns who don’t have one are voluntarily using flint instead of a Zippo. It is a great leap forward in masturbation technology and a worthwhile investment. You penis and your hand will thank you.

    • Creosote Achilles

      I’ve got two. A wife and a g/f.

      *rimshot*

      • Q Continuum

        “*rimshot*”

        rimjob?

      • Spudalicious

        “Paging HM. Heroic Mulatto to the white courtesy phone, please.”

      • Old Man With Candy

        I always wondered why you had so many empty cartons of C cells.

      • Spudalicious

        So a former coworker once remarked that he could sit on his hand until it was numb, turn it around and it would feel like somebody else. I always wondered why he wanted it to feel like some strange dude was jerking him off.

      • Chipwooder

        I just go left-handed when I want to spice things up a bit.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Was this Vagina Butt?

      • commodious spittoon

        “I like a woman with callouses and big meaty knuckles.”

      • Bobarian LMD

        I just go left-handed

        Because you like to be jerked-off by a palsied stranger?

      • Q Continuum

        “Vagina Butt”

        +1 anovaginal fistula

      • Old Man With Candy

        It’s always fun to work at a place where you can give people nicknames like that.

      • Spudalicious

        “+1 anovaginal fistula“

        Think anal queefing.

      • Creosote Achilles

        That is another advantage yes.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      I can say that all you clowns who don’t have one are voluntarily using flint instead of a Zippo.

      You’re calling us antiquated?

      • Hyperion

        +1 non-luddite lighter.

    • Hyperion

      So, there’s a first. I have never seen anyone admit they own a fleshlight. Let alone talk about the advantages of it. NTTAWWT.

      • Q Continuum

        Women have been bragging about their battery operated friends for years and saying it’s “empowered”. While I don’t find masturbation especially empowering, I’m not going to deny myself the benefits of technological advancement in Onanism.

      • Florida Man

        Women are sexy, men are gross, so women talking about toys is hawt and men talking about toys is gross. I hope that helps.

      • Q Continuum

        You still need a Fleshlight.

      • jesse.in.mb

        Look at who showed up to be objectively wrong today.

      • Florida Man

        It’s not my world view, I’m just explaining it. You know I’m a pan-try-sexual.

  5. jesse.in.mb

    Like the last mastodon in a tar pit, Donald struggled and stood and started to walk away.

    I was moved, spiritually, by this.

    • Tundra

      *hands jesse a towel*

    • Hyperion

      I was caught up in great contemplation over how the last mastodon managed to get out. I guess by walking over the less fortunate ones.

  6. Q Continuum

    OT but SF worthy (kind of).

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rachelcromidas/polyamory-sex-iud-birth-control

    “Rachel Cromidas is a writer, reporter, and editor in Chicago[…]She most recently served as the editor-in-chief of the local news site Chicagoist.”

    It’s no wonder you’re perpetually broke and editing 5th rate papers with double-digit circulation; your personal life sounds so complicated and time-consuming, you probably can’t hold down a decent job. NTTAWWT.

    • Q Continuum

      Also:

      “For monogamous couples, it can be especially hard *to keep choosing yourself*”

      Emphasis mine. Freudian slip?

      • Q Continuum

        One more:

        “If that’s not love, I thought as I made the appointment, I don’t know what is”

        Get back to me when you’re carrying your Alzheimer’s ridden spouse to the bathroom only for her to have an accident on the way so you’re stuck cleaning semi-solid shit off her, yourself and the carpet all while having her mistake you for a coworker she had 40 years ago.

        If you can’t envision yourself doing that happily, don’t get married.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think she’s got love and narcissism/hedonism confused.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Last summer, this was me. A couple months into dating Sam, an indie musician–slash–dog walker with soulful brown eyes, I got that itch — the one that fills your brain with hormones and urges you to forget to wear a condom.

      I don’t really know what to say to that. She’s got an inner desire to procreate with a loser with no life prospects?

      • The Other Kevin

        After she ditched the condom, she got an even bigger itch.

      • Spudalicious

        Known as herpes.

      • commodious spittoon

        Hey! He’s a musician and a dog-walker. That’s, like, two jobs, man. How many jobs do you work?

      • Michael

        +1 total unemployment rate

    • SugarFree

      When You Have 3 Boyfriends, Getting An IUD Is Complicated

      That’s a lot of action for one teenage boy.

      • The Other Kevin

        Sounds like someone is bragging. “My life is really complicated because I have SO many boyfriends!”

      • Chipwooder

        Huh…..she looks exactly like my cousin, who I’ve always assumed is asexual because she’s well into her 40s and I’ve never heard mention of any significant other of any kind – male, female, whatever.

      • SugarFree

        Does your cousin also talk like a bad Vulcan cosplayer?

        In choosing to fluid-bond with Sam, I was choosing to be a different person than the woman Daniel and Charlie expected me to be. In my mind, I didn’t choose him over them.

      • Chipwooder

        That’s an actual quote? Christ.

      • Q Continuum

        Fifty Shades of Gray, The Return.

      • jesse.in.mb

        I can’t even. Where would a straight woman even pick up this term? It was the dry clinical version of “we’ve been together long enough and trust each other not to go out and do something stupid and bring HIV back to our home so we’ve dispensed with condoms inside the relationship”. Decontextualized from the high-risk reality of gay sex from the late ’80s to the aughts when PrEP started becoming prevalent and new infection rates declined dramatically–except in Atlanta because everyone apparently raw-dogs randos near the CDC–it sounds more retarded and awkward than it did used in its original context (where it was already very awkward sounding).

      • Creosote Achilles

        It’s common jargon among non-monogamous folks. Esp. for types of non-monogamy that are open ended but longer term in various ways. How the crossover happened I don’t know, but it happened at least 15 years ago if not earlier. I know I’ve heard/used it for at least that long if not longer.

      • Not Adahn

        It used to be used among straights a long time ago, as a step in a relationship. But I don’t think I’ve heard it used in over a decade.

      • Q Continuum

        In ascending order of “intimacy”:

        Fluid bonded – Ejaculate in orifice
        Blood brothers – Mingle life energy
        Vomit bonded – Taste what I had for lunch
        2 partners, 1 cup – Taste what I had for lunch yesterday
        Shared bank account – What are you stupid?

      • commodious spittoon

        Are drinking buddies liver bonded?

      • jesse.in.mb

        I remember an article a few years ago where HSers were pretty down to bone, but when they were serious they’d share passwords to important accounts.

        A) I’m sure it was just someone trying to write a story with an untapped angle, B) I guess I’m not into the modern intimacy because trying to get into my accounts gets you booted from my life.

      • jesse.in.mb

        That’s actually really interesting. I’ve only been exposed to it in the context of gen-x gay couples sorting through the implications of trust and HIV. Then again most of my daily encounters with straight couples discussing anything along these lines is long-married boomers and casually dating millenials, so maybe I just missed the demographic for straight people using the jargon?

      • Q Continuum

        Russian roulette. The threat of disease or death makes the encounter that much more exciting.

      • Creosote Achilles

        I think maybe that’s it (missing the demo). It is an issue for consideration for committed non-monogamous couples and the phrase encapsulates it with the same basic issues of trust and disease, but with pregnancy thrown in the mix. Unless you have a sort of closed poly household, the pregnancy thing can throw a spanner in the works.

        My SWAG as to how it migrated would be that the west coast, and San Francisco in particular have large non-monogamous communities that usually have some overlap with gay communities and that’s where it made the jump.

      • Not Adahn

        Quite possibly. IIRC, it was a gen-X thing. Or it could have been regional, since I was living in the great fly-over country at the time.

      • Old Man With Candy

        I’d have those moles looked at by a competent physician.

      • SugarFree

        Yes, the edges on that lower one are very irregular.

      • commodious spittoon

        Speaking of which… has anyone done at-home mole removal? I have one on my thigh that chafes when I work out.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I put out traps and little poisoned pellets.

      • Jarflax

        There may be some advice in this thread

      • Suthenboy

        Yes I have. Iodine, fingernail clippers.

      • Q Continuum

        Suthen and Lachowsky account for about 85% of the testosterone on this board.

      • Tundra

        Yes. I used to think I was tough.

        I wonder how soy lattes taste…

      • Suthenboy

        Well y’all, when you have a funny looking mole pop up overnight and grow like a weed the thought of dying of skin cancer is a powerful motivator. That sting doesnt seem so bad then. All you think is ‘get that fuckin’ thing off of me, now’.

        I spent too much time in the sun as a kid so I am a little paranoid.

      • Suthenboy

        Oh, and that was more than ten year ago and it never came back.

        *wipes sweat off of brow

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Just go get it frozen at the dermatologists. They get all of it that way. Unless of course, you want to start digging away at it, in which case have some paper towels handy to clean up the mess.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I freeze em with r-22 Refrigerant

      • R C Dean

        have some paper towels handy to clean up the mess.

        Always.

      • Suthenboy

        Try dry ice.

      • SugarFree

        Now she can write an entire article about how heteronormative Google is! She gets to eat this month!

      • R C Dean

        Why is getting an IUD more complicated if you have more boyfriends? Its not like you need a separate one for each boyfriend.

      • jesse.in.mb

        I think doctors are (or at least were) reluctant to…install? them for women who are non-monogamous. Perhaps she was too honest with her doctor?

      • R C Dean

        Hadn’t heard that. Quick check shows you are right. Multiple sex partners increases your risk of STDs, and IUDs and STDs are a bad combo.

      • DesigNate

        Because she has to explain to the two booty calls she hasn’t known very long why she’s got one?

  7. Brett L

    Now I’m thinking of the SNL where John Goodman played Linda Tripp(?) recording Monica Lewinski.

  8. Count Potato

    “bioluminescent Jesus statues”

    Are these an actual thing?

    • The Other Kevin

      If not, they should be. Let’s get a prototype together and divert some orphans to the production line.

    • The Hyperbole

      Not sure if they are bioluminescent but I’ve heard you can get pink plastic dashboard Jesuses (Jesusi?) that glow in the dark.

      • Brett L
      • Yusef drives a Kia

        That’s the real one, Good stuff great movie

  9. Chipwooder

    But why was the fleshlight melted?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      We’ll all be better off if you didn’t ask questions like that.

      • tarran

        Oooh! That’s a nice chunk of change for the IJ (or whatever charity you selected for your smile account)!

      • Chipwooder

        55 gallons?? Even I don’t jerk off THAT much.

      • Old Man With Candy

        When you’re built like me, you use large quantities.

      • SugarFree

        His penis is very, very dry. Like a terrapin tail.

        And there’s nothing wrong with that.

      • Jarflax

        and his lovers aren’t old enough to produce natural lubricants yet.

      • Q Continuum

        The models sitting in the drum are a nice touch.

      • Hyperion

        Isn’t it a bit like… I don’t know, weird when the delivery person shows up at your door with that?

    • Bobarian LMD

      Maybe he tried to warm it in the microwave?

    • Hyperion

      “But why was the fleshlight melted?”

      Not sure why, but I assumed that Pie had reverse engineered it. I’ve been around here way too long.

      • Hyperion

        ‘Umm, I can explain…’

        Delivery person ‘What? Oh, I didn’t even notice that was a 55 gallon drum of sex lubricant, I mean everyone orders that, right? I just delivered two of those to the elderly lady next door’.

      • Hyperion

        Shit, that reply was to Jesse, not myself.

  10. tarran

    The first mention of the tape recorder had me giggling uncontrollably. Thanks guys!

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Pie popped up from behind the couch, her teeth black with snack cake

    I miss Hope.

    • Q Continuum

      We all do. We all do.

    • Brett L

      YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE TOO BIG AND ALL CAPS?

      • jesse.in.mb

        The correct answer was “a big pile of the tops of columns”

    • Creosote Achilles

      Heard that on the radio this morning. How the hell does that happen? It would seem to my ignorant ass always worked in the private sector where this wouldn’t just cost you your job it’d cost you your career self that you’d want to make sure the choo-choo fits the rails it’s going to run on somewhere early in the planning phase of the project.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I thought train tracks were all the same width: 6’6″; the same as Roman chariots.

      • kinnath

        But the ones that they ordered are probably the wrong size to fit the tracks, as the new streetcars are substantially larger than the old ones.

        “It appears the error will require either a change order for design of the streetcars or incur new costs for construction of new or retrofitted maintenance barns,” wrote Lisa Herbold, a Seattle councilor, in a municipal blog post.

        Same wheel base — bigger bodies. That’s how I read it.

      • kinnath

        Even with monocle, I manage to fuck it up.

        But the ones that they ordered are probably the wrong size to fit the tracks, as the new streetcars are substantially larger than the old ones.

        “It appears the error will require either a change order for design of the streetcars or incur new costs for construction of new or retrofitted maintenance barns,” wrote Lisa Herbold, a Seattle councilor, in a municipal blog post.

      • Q Continuum

        “Same wheel base — bigger bodies”

        *lights John signal*

  12. The Late P Brooks

    TW: random pointless whine

    I’m getting really tired of this android phone and all the pointless memory-hogging google bloatware which is constantly “updating” itself.

    I’m seriously thinking about reverting to a fliphone.

    • Q Continuum

      “I’m seriously thinking about reverting to a fliphone”

      DO IT. Next to dropping Derpbook, dispensing with a smartphone is the best Luddite decision a person can make.

      • commodious spittoon

        But how will I make increasingly incoherent posts at you people when I’m sitting at the bar ignoring everyone there?

      • robc

        I dropped Facebook 10 years ago.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      I’m pretty sure I’m going to go iphone for my next phone after having used android for almost 10 years. The way google destroyed notifications with Oreo really pissed me off

    • Gilmore

      i had similar problems. i uninstalled everything, stripped it bare, then slowly added the few things i use a lot. it tripled the battery life.

      you still can’t avoid the “apps constantly updating themselves” problem, but there are fewer of them, and you can set it to only update over wifi, so its less noticable.

      resist the temptation to use things like “weather widgets” or stock-portfolio-tracking apps

      and turn your gps off permanently, only turn it on when you turn ‘mapps’ app on.

      • Gilmore

        *that said, i’d strongly consider adding a flipphone to this same line. i’d happily leave smartphone off until i wanted to use it for web-browsing, but use flippy for text/calls.

        would like to see what the current options are for that. what’s available in the flip phone market?

      • ChipsnSalsa

        calls.. what are those?

      • Q Continuum

        I have an Alcatel flip 2. It is capable of connecting to 4G and has a very stripped down internet browser which I only (very occasionally) use for calling a Lyft. Beyond that, depending on your carrier, you can bring your own (easier with AT&T since any unlocked GSM phone will work).

      • invisible finger

        And with the GPS off you’ll never find your phone if you lose it. Like I just did.

    • Sean

      I’m still rocking a LG Cosmos 2. Love it.

    • Tundra

      My OnePlus 5T rocks. The battery lasts for fuckingever and it has zero extra shit.

      Five stars. Will buy again.

    • trshmnstr

      I disabled it all and it stopped bothering me.

      • trshmnstr

        My new note 8 hasn’t been bad bloatware wise. There were a few annoyances to disable, but nothing extreme. I got the factory unlocked version.

        I can’t find a damn browser that I like though. Opera mini is the least sucky, but I have to load Eyepiece as a bookmarklet, it doesn’t play nice with last pass, and it has some scrolling bugs.

      • jesse.in.mb

        What have you tried so far (besides Opera Mini)? I’ve been oddly happy with standard Firefox (and Firefox Sync especially) on my tablet, phone and personal computer.

      • trshmnstr

        I ran standard Firefox for a while, but was having some memory hogging issues with it. I also got sick of Mozilla hopping on the SJW train and telling me about it every chance they got. I used Chrome for a bit. Not bad, but I’m trying to deGoogle my phone as much as possible. Regular Opera was disappointing. Mini Opera isn’t great. Opera Touch sucks. I haven’t used dolphin in years, so I may give it another crack. I didn’t really give Firefox focus a fair shot, either. Ideally, the browser I find will run userscripts (like Firefox). If not, it must be able to run bookmarklets (most of the newest browsers are doing away with bookmarks)

      • trshmnstr

        After a quick download, I remember why no Firefox focus. No way to run Eyepiece when I’m surfing glibs

      • Mojeaux

        I posted down below for my experience, but Firefox eats thru my battery if I don’t put it to sleep manually.

        I have a Galaxy S7 and I love it.

        I also disabled all the bloatware I could, AT&T’s and Samsung’s.

        I have an iPad. I have to, for my work. That and my ancient Mac which I also only use for one small part of my work, are the only Apple prodicts in this house. I would never buy an iPhone.

        I also successfully created my own icons as home screen shortcuts to my personal web pages I reference a lot.

  13. mexican sharpshooter

    Pie ducked down and peered from around the side of the couch. She threw a piece of Ding-Dong toward where Donald lay and bolted from the room.

    I’ts a recording device!

    • Jarflax

      I always had a hard time with Lovejoy as a town boss.

      • invisible finger

        Maybe. But Lovejoy pissing in an antique chamber pot made a lot of sense.

    • kinnath

      I saw that. I loved that show. I have serious doubts that the magic will come back after all the years off.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Good. About time.

    • Desk Jockey

      Almost done with Deadwood for the first time. Watching it at the same time as Westworld exposes how boring the dialog and characters are in Westworld IMO

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I struggled with the conclusion to season 2 of Westworld. There seemed to be some philosophical contradictions being delivered.

      • slumbrew

        I’m giving up on Westworld. I can’t take how stupid it all is, particularity Delos security, plus I don’t care about the characters in the least. Don’t care who lives, who dies.

      • Q Continuum

        The orgy scene in Westworld was the only redeeming quality.

      • The Last American Hero

        So it’s Wild West Game of Thrones?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The general message is that humans are irredeemable. I’m not much for self-loathing.

      • kinnath

        Deadwood was modern Shakespeare.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Exactly. Now who’s up for some pussy and pharaoh?

      • kinnath

        I’m not sure any show can stand up to a direct comparison with Deadwood.

      • Florida Man

        Welcome back Kotter?

  14. The Late P Brooks

    I’d have those moles looked at by a competent physician.

    You misspelled “credentialed”.

    • kinnath

      April 2017

    • Brett L

      Nothing ever fills you again?

      • Q Continuum

        +1 hot dog in a hallway

  15. Tundra

    “Bugs! Taps! Microphones!” Donald screamed as he kicked apart the piles of junk dumped out of his desk; yo-yos, Matchbox cars, butt plugs, bioluminescent Jesus statues, empty Diet Coke cans and bottles, a melted Fleshlight, cans of Play-Doh, Air Force One barf bags, Legos, pieces of a pirate costume, packets of ketchup and bottle of steak sauce, a box set of the second season of Dallas and a running tape recorder went flying in all directions.

    Sometimes I am so fucking jealous of you, SF.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    *that said, i’d strongly consider adding a flipphone to this same line. i’d happily leave smartphone off until i wanted to use it for web-browsing, but use flippy for text/calls.

    I’m a tracterrorfone customer, so i don’t think multiple devices on the same number is an option.

    I already have one outdated android phone in use as a strictly wifi appliance. Another is always an option. Texting requires an active phone line, but my texting has dropped to virtually nil since the girlfriend dumped me.

    • Q Continuum

      The ability to surf the web/use goofy apps is a completely manufactured need in your life; it’s, as the Unabomber would put it, a “surrogate activity”. Drop it and you’ll go into psychological withdrawal for about 2 weeks then wonder why you ever cared about it in the first place. Smartphones are a plague upon society.

      • kinnath

        GPS-enabled golf application. Real-time weather radar. Google maps and Expedia when I am on the road.

        That’s pretty much it.

      • RBS

        How else am I someone going to get on xHamster at work?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Two weeks. How long before I stop jonesing for a Glib fix?

    • The Last American Hero

      There is a nice young lady for you in the polyamory thread.

    • jesse.in.mb

      I have mixed feelings on this issue. Frankly the only person I’ve seen cover it effectively is Scott Shackford. Conservative and liberal media outlets carefully curate about 2/3 of the details in the politics and policy to make their political enemies look like child hating monsters, and it’s reaaaaaallly tiresome. The lines of attack were drawn between the time that MA legalized gay marriage and when the prop 8 vote happened. Catholic Charities was acting as a clearing house for the state’s adoption system and voluntarily shut down in MA because they assumed they would fall afoul of the new legal structure there. Meanwhile the entirely private adoption system run by the Church of Latter Day Saints continued providing adoption services to exclusively heterosexual married couples as they saw fit. Shackford’s position, and I absolutely agree with it, is that any limiting of avenues for people to leave “the system” and be permanently adopted is bad, but during the Prop 8…discussion. Marketers in favor of Prop 8 aggressively championed a narrative that faith-based adoption agencies were wiped out in MA because of gay marriage and that (mostly false, but kinda true) narrative became the prevailing “truth” in how the issue was discussed, which as led to the current round of political gamesmanship between the GOP and Pelosi.

      • Q Continuum

        “entirely private adoption system”

        That’s the key right there. If an outfit is receiving state money, then I think there’s at least an argument for making them comply with prevailing marriage definitions. But govt (prog and otherwise) can’t abide letting private organizations run their own affairs. FWIW, I think the only conditions prospective parents need to meet are to pass a background check, have the financial means and not be crazy.

      • jesse.in.mb

        To this point (and I’ll admit I got so tired of there being no clear-eyed coverage of the topic that I rarely attempt to follow it anymore) these cases have always involved public-private partnered organizations to date. It’s entirely possible I missed a story about entirely private organizations though.

        I’m actually fine with a group like Catholic Charities running a front-end for the state adoption agency and discriminating as they see fit provide that there’s some direct public access to the adoption roster that isn’t mediated by private and potentially discriminatory orgs.

        Part of the game here is that both sides are reasonably and honestly concerned that their opponents policies will limit ways that children will get adopted, but they are deeply dishonest wrt how much their own policies will cut into those numbers in other ways (Eddie, back on TOS was at least very honest about how much and why he felt that gay couples should be banned from adopting children and felt it was better they be in the system than be raised by a vetted two-parent home).

      • The Other Kevin

        I agree with you Q. Having adopted 3 kids, 2 from foster homes, I can tell you that there are lots of older or special needs kids that need a home but don’t get one. There’s no reason to limit those kids’ chances of getting adopted, outside of something illegal, unsafe, or abusive.

        For newborns, however, there is competition, and I think a lot of these laws against same sex couples is aimed at limiting that competition. When we first looked into adoption, Catholic Charities did the screening, and couldn’t understand why we’d want to adopt even though we hadn’t exhausted all the medical options. Their adoption classes were basically support groups for infertile couples. When we went straight to the state, and told them we were open to special needs or older kids, we were treated like royalty.

      • Q Continuum

        What about international?

      • kinnath

        I was on a business trip to China one time. We were flying out on one of the Chinese airlines. There were about 2 dozens couples with infants in arms waiting at the gate. Someone explained that we were on one of the “baby flights”.

        Apparently there is/was a surplus of infant girls in China. Who knew?

      • The Other Kevin

        We looked into that, but it’s a LOT of money. At the time it was about $18k to get an infant. In Indiana, they will give you a monthly check if you foster a kid classified as special needs, and will continue that check and medicaid for the kid even after they are adopted, up to the age of 18. They did that to encourage permanent placement. Must not be putting too much of a strain on the budget, the state just declared a record surplus this year.

      • Q Continuum

        “if you foster a kid classified as special needs”

        How old were your kids when you got them if you don’t mind my asking?

      • The Other Kevin

        First one was 2, the next was 7, then we did a private adoption of a newborn (we actually got to see her born). The foster kids still have some issues, especially the one who was 7. No telling what kind of neglect or drug issues they got from their parents. They are 21, 18, and 13 now. So far the baby’s making up for her sisters in terms of school and behavior issues.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        Did they throw in a free gun to?

      • The Other Kevin

        No, but as part of our home inspection we were required to have at least 3 firearms within arms reach anywhere in the house.

      • Raven Nation

        I remember catching a piece of one of Michael Medved’s radio shows where this came up. Callers were distraught over gay couples being allowed to adopt. Medved is a “family values” conservative and he declared that he would prefer straight couples over gay couples when it came to adoption. But he was also very firm that kids being adopted by gay couples was far preferable to leaving kids in a state-run system.

    • Hyperion

      What we need are more kids in unstable and abusive foster care situations!

      Well, I mean there’s nothing wrong with that unless they’re illegal immigrant children, right?

  17. The Late P Brooks

    calls.. what are those?

    “It’s a PHONE. You TALK on it!” said me, in a past life.

  18. Nephilium

    OT – But what happens when the polite fast food chain moves to America’s Hat? Will the politeness cancel each other out? Will they make a name for being rude? Will the government allow them to close on Sundays? Will there be poutine?

    • Q Continuum

      Hate crimes will rise dramatically.

    • Not Adahn

      I will knife someone for some waffle fries with fried chicken, cheese curds and gravy.

      • Not Adahn

        Oh goddammit, now I want poutine with fried chicken.

      • Nephilium

        I’ll just leave this here…

      • Not Adahn

        “Vladimir Poutine?”

        Russian bot confirmed!

        My local creperie only has grilled chicken, not fried for their poutine. Their angus short rib is a pretty awesome topping though.

        http://www.ravenouscrepes.com/menus/main-menu/

    • mexican sharpshooter

      They’ll form a politeness singularity. Next question?

      • Q Continuum

        NO ONE IS SAFE

  19. The Late P Brooks

    The ability to surf the web/use goofy apps is a completely manufactured need in your life

    I *hardly ever* grab my phone and randomly start looking stuff up the way a lot of people do. I have a couple of news apps and a stock price watchlist that i check. It wouldn’t be that hard to wean myself off.

    The thing which instigated today’s outburst is that just as I have begun to use google music regularly (mostly in the car), it has quit working for some reason; I assume it’s because I don’t have enough free memory. Hence the bitching about memory-hogging bloatware. I’ll see if Pandora still works after it finishes updating.

    • Mojeaux

      I use RadioTunes for someone else’s playlists. I use PowerAmp for my own music library.

      I have a Galaxy S7 which I love. I disabled all the bloatware I could (I’m on AT&T and had to disable a whole bunch of its and Samsung’s bullshi). Google is not such a problem for me because I barely use gmail, I only use calendar because I haven’t found a better alternative, and I have almost nothing else dependent on it except the Play Store.

      I don’t have anything that automatically updates. I shut that off long ago, but then I am a very slow updater. My shit works. I’m not messing with it. I’ll update manually when I feel like it.

      Just updated to Oreo, however. It was supposed to help with battery life. There are two things that was eating battery: Having email auto-check and Firefox. If you don’t put Firefox to sleep, it’ll chomp thru battery life like crazy.

      Weather widget doesn’t take much power, but I’m not using the native one. I use Transparent Clock & Weather. I use the native camera and gallery, calculator and clock, messaging and email.

  20. Scruffy Nerfherder

    As someone who made cell phone equipment for many years, buy new smart phones every two years and prop my fucking stock up.

  21. Nephilium

    Gods damn it Firefox. What I want out of you is a competent web browser, not whining:

    Big corporations want to restrict how we access the web. Fake news is making it harder for us to find the truth. Online bullies are silencing inspired voices. The not-for-profit Mozilla Foundation fights for a healthy internet with programs like our Tech Policy Fellowships and Internet Health Report; will you donate today?

    Who’s playing Buzzword Bingo out there?

    • Old Man With Candy

      will you donate today?

      “I gave at the sperm bank.”

    • Q Continuum

      Translation: TWUMP IS A MEANIE! GIVE US MONEY NOW?

      • Nephilium

        They’ve got three footers I’ve noticed on the new tab for the most recent version. The one above, one about the “Awesome Bar”, and then this one:

        The Mozilla Foundation stands up for Net Neutrality, copyright reform and strong data protection laws around the world. As a non-profit, we count on donations from supporters like you to drive this advocacy work. Will you help fund the movement today?

        At least for this banner, one and a half out of three ain’t that bad.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Where are they posting that?

      • Nephilium

        On the footer at the bottom of new tabs. Version 61.0.1. As I mentioned above, it looks like there’s three footers in rotation, that one jumped out at me with the Big Corporations and Fake News being in there. I almost closed the tab out of habit…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They can fuck right off with that shit. Deliver a product, not a virtue signal.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Big corporations want to restrict how we access the web. Fake news is making it harder for us to find the truth. Online bullies are silencing inspired voices.

    Oh, for fuck’s sake.

    • Suthenboy

      This five time governor/KKK member grandpa, was he a republican or a….democrat? Which one of those candidates has the haunted past?

      Fuckin’ NYT. Lying commie shitweasels.

      • Q Continuum

        “Benjamin Franklin Stapleton (November 12, 1869 – May 23, 1950) was the Mayor of Denver, Colorado, USA, for two periods (comprising five terms), the first from 1923 to 1931 and the second from 1935 to 1947. He also served as a high-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan and the Democratic Colorado State Auditor from 1933 to 1935.”

        Well, mercy me! He was a Democrat!

      • Suthenboy

        Better to put the sins of the father on the son than consider a common philosophy between two men.

    • Raven Nation

      “The goal, said Ms. Shields, was not to push students toward a preferred answer, but to help them understand language, debate it and listen to the arguments of others.”

      Bullshit

      “Brooklyn Luckett, 12, who is black, said she was so alarmed by the news that her school was named for a Klan member that she spent her first day of the lesson in the counselor’s office.”

      Maybe the school should concentrate on making sure their students can handle debate.

      • R C Dean

        Sounds like li’l Brooklyn didn’t learn the lesson (“understand language, debate it and listen to the arguments of others”). I hope she has to repeat the class until she does.

      • Chipwooder

        Everyone knows that the long-dead namesakes of schools are the most active of poltergeists, haunting the minority pupils with a fury.

      • Nephilium

        Maybe they should hold a sueance?

    • Florida Man

      I don’t know anything about this dude. Good nominee or literally Hitler? Those are the only 2 choices.

      • slumbrew

        1) Better than whoever Hillary would have put forward
        2) Has made rulings that seem to indicate we all can’t have privacy because ‘teh terrorists’ (Rand Paul’s objections).

      • Florida Man

        Hmm.

      • Gadianton

        He’s going to overturn Roe v Wade, mandate open carry of assault weapons in schools and churches, and sacrifices illegal alien babies in the dark of the moon.

        /prog

      • Q Continuum

        Don’t forget institution of the one-drop rule for newly re-legalized slavery.

      • Florida Man

        So…mixed bag.

    • Suthenboy

      I have to laugh every time I see one of those. Whichever republicans are not putting together a montage of video showing all of the democrats denigrating americans needs knots put on their heads.

    • Jarflax

      The left reached its greatest power following the Fabian strategy of infiltration of institutions and making incremental changes. I think their new strategy of internecine warfare over relative purity and victimhood is the one chance we have of getting back some of the blessings of the enlightenment.

      • creech

        Oh, you mean the Libertarian Party’s strategy? Advocating Incremental changes will get you denounced by many of the “purer than you” types who think the LP was founded as a libertarian philosophy discussing supper club.

  23. westernsloper

    pieces of a pirate costume

    lol…….hey, just you wait a minute that is not funny and totally a normal thing to have in ones desk. Or maybe in a box in the closet. Actually, forget I mentioned it.