Monday Morning Links

by | Apr 27, 2020 | Daily Links | 417 comments

Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas!  And what a glorious morning it is as Kim Jong-Un is dead…or Un-dead. Who the fuck knows.

 

Meanwhile, everyone is speculating who his successor will be while wildly talking out of their asses.  Here, North Korean expert, Michael Malice, gives a good breakdown for everyone.

 

CNN caught removing from their Google Play online library the episode of Larry King Live where Tara Reade’s mother calls in lamenting her daughter’s alleged sexual assault by Joe Biden.

 

Speaking of Tara Reade, Senate Democrats don’t actually think that we should believe all women.

 

Our tech overlords protecting us again.

 

Viral video from doctors critical of the national lockdown.

 

That’s all I got for today, I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.

About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

417 Comments

  1. Nephilium

    So will Kim go Romero, Rage virus, or hopping vampire style of undead?

    • UnCivilServant

      None, he will burst into a colony of all-consuming malicious grubs.

      • Nephilium

        Well his father was a cockroach alien, so anything is possible

      • bacon-magic

        I’m waiting for the sequel.

    • straffinrun

      Troll cuz it looks like he’s setting some people up. I’ll trust the South Koreans on this one.

      • UnCivilServant

        Side possibility – it starts as a troll job, but someone takes the opportunity of rumors of his demise to assassinate him.

      • straffinrun

        You know who played dead to flush out enemies?

      • PBRstreetgang

        Tupac? He’s still playing the long game though.

      • AlexinCT

        Was he not a one pack towards the end there because of a previous shooting to the groin incident?

      • Grosspatzer
      • westernsloper

        Jerimiah Johnson?

      • Festus

        ^^^ Good answer, good answer!

    • AlmightyJB

      He’s going to rise after 3 days as The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost.

      • Grosspatzer

        He might rise again as this

      • AlmightyJB

        Lol

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  2. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    Speaking of Tara Reade, Senate Democrats don’t actually think that we should believe all women.

    *rummages through junk drawer*

    Now where did I leave that shocked face?

    • Atanarjuat

      They’re giving up the ability to Kavanaugh RBG’s replacement, all to protect Biden, who isn’t going to be the nominee anyway. I don’t get it.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        If Biden gets torpedoed before the convention they’re stuck with Bernie.

        There’s no way they’re going to let that happen.

      • Rhywun

        Loading…

        Plus several alternatives in the air that are just as bad.

      • Festus

        Karens and Cucks will vote for anybody with a great big D behind them. I think it’s the Wookie.

  3. Pat

    CNN caught removing from their Google Play online library the episode of Larry King Live where Tara Reade’s mother calls in lamenting her daughter’s alleged sexual assault by Joe Biden.

    Technical glitch, I’m sure.

    • Festus

      Why the love for the Dems from the tech giants? I get that they are left-leaning but who do they think would be more controlling? It makes no sense whatsoever.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Social signaling to their peer group and fear of being an outcast

        The days of the iconoclast techie are long over.

      • Pat

        You’re making the classic error of assuming the businesses are disinterested money machines. They aren’t. Never have been. And especially now, you can’t operate as a “corporate citizen” at a prominent national level without being very strongly ideological.

      • Festus

        Yeah, it was sorta “beg the question” but really…

      • AlexinCT

        Like a slew of other historical idiots that felt if they appeased the people feeding the non believers to the crocodiles, these morons think that by doing what they are doing they will get a special exemption. They forget the historical lesson that while their personal enemies will be the first lined up against the wall, all subsequent waves will be populated by people like them that have become cumbersome or annoyances to the masters.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        They get to help make the rules that keep the competition out.

      • Endless Mike

        This – Tech GIANTS benefit from government control – it’s the little guy (and the consumer) that gets screwed.

    • AlexinCT

      Why is it that all these holier-than-thou “right-think or we will destroy you” people always seem to have the same sort of tech glitches? Not that I am surprised that those that align with them find nothing there that should make them question their support/allegiance. After all, these are the people that believe the ends justify the means, and as someone put it here that it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.

    • JD is Unemployed

      Apparently CNN called bullshit on that (see update down page) and effectively said that it was Google what done it, if anyone did it at all (riiiiight). Of course it must be a glitch.

  4. Pat

    Our tech overlords protecting us again.

    Effective treatment of this virus is evil because orange man bad.

    • straffinrun

      Gaia got Corona from Uranus.

    • Mad Scientist

      I have a policy about being extremely skeptical of any reporting this lazy. The entire article is screen shots of Twitter posts.

  5. Donation Not Taxation

    Worcester, Massachusetts

    Although Massachusetts, government order voluntary not mandatory

    ‘Worcester establishes April 27 as ‘Take Out Day’ in effort to help small businesses amid coronavirus pandemic’

    By Michael Bonner | mbonner@masslive dot COMet

  6. Donation Not Taxation

    ‘Worcester establishes April 27 as ‘Take Out Day’ in effort to help small businesses amid coronavirus pandemic’

    — Michael Bonner | mbonner@masslive

    Worcester, Massachusetts

    Although Massachusetts, government order voluntary, not mandatory

  7. Donation Not Taxation

    Hello, Banjos and other Glibs

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  8. Donation Not Taxation

    ‘Gang Of Masked Bandits Steals Another $500 Billion From Your Grandchildren’

    The Bee

  9. Donation Not Taxation

    The governors of Colorado and Georgia announced nearly identical plans to loosen cower in place. Can you tell from The Washington Post’s reaction which governor is an openly homosexual Democrat and which is an openly Christian Republican?

    TRIGGER WARNING: The Washington Post

    ‘Gov. Jared Polis outlined a plan to ease statewide stay-at-home and nonessential business closures Monday. All nonessential retailers may soon offer curbside delivery and can fully reopen, at half-staff capacity and with protective measures. Offices and personal services can do the same in May. Schools, universities, gyms remain closed, along with indoor restaurant and bar service.’

    ‘Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s move Monday to lift restrictions on a wide range of businesses, one of the most aggressive moves yet to reignite commercial activity in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, put his state at the center of a deepening national battle over whether Americans are ready to risk exacerbating the public health crisis to revive the shattered economy.’

    • AlexinCT

      As long as you remember that the dnc operatives with bylines have “A story” to tell you (and never “The story/facts”), you should quickly be able to dismiss the idiocy and bias.

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Not believing bias not same pretending bias not there

        Thought common practice Glibertarians post choice examples bias and derp

  10. straffinrun

    It happened all at once. His hands were on me and underneath my clothes. And then he went down my skirt and then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers.

    Hmmm, there are two possibilities.

  11. Atanarjuat

    That’s a fun song. Not too familiar with it. Might listen on the next car ride with my young’un. He’s becoming a teenager and likes to listen to antique pop hits, Michael Jackson and the Beatles and the like.

    • Rhywun

      It’s the same song as “Jet Boy Jet Girl”. I remember hearing both on the radio around the same time.

      • Atanarjuat

        Interesting, probably will refrain from sharing that with the child though.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Now he’s got to retweet the retweet and respond to it.

      • Rhywun

        I’ll wait for Dr. Eugene Gu’s diagnosis.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Big government conservatism, to the rescue

    In 2020, the economic libertarians who once defined conservatism have disappeared. Instead the most interesting debate is among Republican policymakers crafting large-scale programs to get government checks into the hands of economically disenfranchised people as quickly as possible.

    The two most notable politicians crafting stimulus policy for Trump to sign are Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri. Before the coronavirus crisis, both senators had taken stabs at articulating a new kind of policy populism for the GOP that was self-consciously anti-libertarian, skeptical of big business, and more comfortable with big government. When the economy started crashing in March, Rubio, the chairman of the Small Business Committee, helped dream up the massive Paycheck Protection Program, which has the government shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars out the door every month. Hawley, who is only 40 years old and was elected in 2018, wanted — and wants — something even more expansive: a program that would pay businesses to keep their workers on the payrolls.

    ——-

    Perhaps not surprisingly, the GOP populists see the pandemic as accelerating the still inchoate big government impulses that Trump has often, though inconsistently, represented.

    “This is going to jumpstart the already simmering debate over how the right should deal with domestic policy,” said Henry Olsen, one of the leading intellectual champions of a more economically interventionist conservatism. “Clearly there’s going to be demand for many types of stimulus. There’s going to be demand for the view that we’re not going to let this happen again. And a libertarian, hands-off policy doesn’t really respond to that.”

    Yes, of course. They want to be loved.

    Those stupid libertarians would just stand by and fiddle while Rome burned.

    • straffinrun

      Republican governors are striking a balance between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Democrat governors are choosing one and going with it. (Democrat governors? Democratic governors? *shrugs*)

      • Atanarjuat

        Legend has it “Democratic” is the original name for party members but some rabble rouser (maybe Rush Limbaugh?) started calling them Democrat Party to make people associate them with rats.

    • Donation Not Taxation

      Nero Claudius Caesar, libertarian?

    • Donation Not Taxation

      ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ — George Santayana
      In US, Spanish flu pandemic followed by Roaring 1920s. US President Donald J. Trump and the Democrats and Republicans of the US Congress prima facia appear to be trying to avoid a Roaring 2020s after this pandemic.

    • Atanarjuat

      In 2020, the economic libertarians who once defined conservatism have disappeared. Instead the most interesting debate is among Republican policymakers crafting large-scale programs

      “In the circles I travel in, no one ever mentions fiscal conservatism anymore!”

    • DrOtto

      There’s also a false supposition in that article that a “libertarian, hands off policy” would have shut the economy off intentionally in the first place.

    • Overt

      “Those stupid libertarians would just stand by and fiddle while Rome burned.”

      I don’t wanna do nothing, there’s plenty to do!
      The question I ponder is: Who plans for whom?
      Do I plan for myself, or leave it to you?
      I want plans by the many, not by the few

  13. Pat

    Commissioners may soon pull the plug on Harris County’s pop-up hospital at NRG Park

    HOUSTON – Channel 2 Investigates has learned Harris County Commissioners could pull the plug on the temporary medical shelter at NRG Park as early as next week.

    The facility, with a potential price tag of $60 million, was designed by Garner Environmental Services, a Deer Park company, to help with a surge of coronavirus patients at the Texas Medical Center. But that surge never materialized and the facility sits empty right now.

    Construction on the temporary medical shelter began just over two weeks ago and was finished in a matter of days. It features 250 beds and is equipped to handle an influx of COVID-19 patients.

    “We don’t want to be caught flat-footed,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo at the time. “We are working to stay ahead of this.”

    wE ArE aLl iN ThIS ToGEtHER!!!!!!!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo

      She seems to be showing up quite a bit lately.

    • Chipwooder

      Elect a 27 year old grad student with no executive experience, or even basic business experience, of any kind whatsoever to the chief executive of a 4 million person county and this is what you get.

      Why are county supervisors in Texas called judges anyway?

      • robc

        They are in KY too. McConnell was Judge Executive before he was Senator.

    • Festus

      I swear that the next time that I hear that phrase is going to result in a violent Mop on radio reaction. Stay Home. Stay Safe. Stay Sheep. Fuck You.

  14. PieInTheSky

    the economic libertarians who once defined conservatism – when was this once?

    • Nephilium

      They had a nightmare about it a couple weeks back. Don’t question their lived experience!

    • Pat

      Reducing the tax rate is suicidal anarcho-capitalism.

      • AlexinCT

        What they should be reducing is the size of government. Lessen the size of that money wasting Leviathan, and less spending will follow.

    • Donation Not Taxation

      From The Conscience of a Conservative (1960) until Donald J Trump announcing candidacy (June 15 or 16, 2015), major tenet American conservatism rhetoric (talk not action) cut spending everything not prisons, national security, law enforcement, homeland security,
      borders, similar. 1980s Rush Limbaugh and US President Ronald Reagan lasting legacy conservatism’s rhetoric reducing tax rates to increase tax revenues (Laffer curve).

      YMMV comparing to ‘economic libertarians ‘

      • PieInTheSky

        talk not action – irrelevant than

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Modern libertarianism is ‘talk not action’.

  15. Brawndo

    A few weeks ago, I considered myself fortunate to still be working. Working in a grocery store, I don’t get all the glamor, hookers, and blow that you might expect. But it is a fairly recession resistant industry. I felt pity for my friends and the millions of others who were laid off due to the lack of a backbone in their governors.

    I let my friends that were laid off know that my store was hiring, but they politely declined, saying that they were making more from unemployment than they were making before. Indeed, they are making more than I do when you combine the 600/week plus the states unemployment compensation, and that’s after I volunteered to work 6 days a week because we were having trouble keeping up with the volume. I realize not everyone laid off is sitting on their ass at home (and being called heroes for it! /Barf), but I’m starting to get insanely pissed.

    /Endrant

    • Atanarjuat

      I have a former coworker, laid off the same time I was, who botches everyday on Facebook about our broken Florida unemployment system. When a family member responded “you have a CDL, why not go get an essential truck-driving job?”, he could only splutter.

      What is the $600/week if not the states’ unemployment compensation? Private insurance?

    • Festus

      Extra ten bucks a day for being a “hero”. *ROTATES FICKLE FINGER OF FATE*

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      If you aren’t getting glamour, hookers and blow from working at a grocery store these days, you are doing it wrong. Try locking up the TP in the back room so you can distribute it in exchange for hookers and blow.

      • Grosspatzer

        *Makes note to speak with eldest son when he gets back from work*

  16. Festus

    Ugh. Last night was a broken crutch. Thanks, Glib-Chat. Thanks a lot. Week after week and expecting a different outcome. What do they call that again? Never mind. *applies ice pack to forehead*

  17. Drake

    I watched the Fox WSJ show yesterday morning. They interviewed the Swedish Foreign Minister about their commie cough response. Seeing her logical explanations on why they quarantined at risk people and not the healthy people was just depressing. I’ve gone beyond angry at this point – now it’s embarrassing. She’s a leftist of course, but actually seemed to care about her people’s financial and psychological well-being. And she was saying things far more fiscally responsible than the the most “conservative” Republicans in Congress.

    I wish I could find a video.

    • Fourscore

      “I was surprised as everyone else that the economy/stock market tanked when everything was shut down”

      /Fourscore

    • AlexinCT

      Our marxists are using their scorched earth policy in desperation to get rid of orange man. They will burn down the planet to make their way back into power. They are desperate to change the course because their attempts to hide the criminality and corruption of the Obama administration, the weaponized bureaucracy it created, and the team blue machine, is all coming to an end. Now it is about protecting the perps and keeping the gains the weaponization of the bureaucracy produced, to counter the changes made by bad orange man.

    • robc

      Old PJ O’Rourke joke about Swedish socialists: The socialists got elected to power and stayed in power by refusing to implement it.

      • Drake

        Our socialists have become movie villain psychopaths. They’re willing to burn everything to the ground for an election win. They and their Karens are now too invested in the panic to listen to the doctors in the video and just back off.

        Later today the idiot Governor of NJ will announce his plans for re-opening. I’ll bet money that the plan will be long, complicated, and purposely unpleasant just to make sure we all know who is in charge.

      • AlexinCT

        Our socialists have become movie villain psychopaths.

        That seems to have occurred the day after it became obvious to them bad orange man managed to win an election they thought they had rigged in favor of crooked Hillary and team blue. The insanity comes from the desperate need to hide the criminality and corruption of the weaponized Obama administration bureaucracy and protect this shadow government they put in place and to salvage the reputation they manufactured of Obama not running one of the most corrupt administrations ever and trampling all over our freedoms and rights.

  18. Pat

    Minister says COVID-19 is empowering domestic violence abusers as rates rise in parts of Canada

    Canada’s minister for women and gender equality says that the COVID-19 crisis has empowered perpetrators of domestic violence as consultations reveal that abuse rates are rising in parts of the country.

    “What the pandemic has done with the self-isolation measures, with the closures of some of the support systems, is create a powder keg,” Maryam Monsef said in an interview with CBC News.

    Climbing rates of domestic violence have been reported around the world amid orders to stay indoors and limit social interaction to curb the spread of COVID-19. Closures of some shelters and reduced capacity at others is worsening the problem, with the United Nations calling for immediate global action to halt the surge.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Canada’s minister for women and gender equality

      Grievance studies major dream job

      • AlexinCT

        Weavol hunter: The fucking weavols are everywhere!!!!

    • Brawndo

      This lazy language is infuriating. The virus isn’t causing people to beat their spouses. The virus didn’t shut down the economy. It is our reaction to it that is causing these things.

    • Festus

      Yeah, it was the second story on the CBC last night. Fucking idgits. No mention of why people might be feeling a little batty over the lock-down, just a bunch of pissing and moaning regarding how violent men become violent when they get locked up at home for no reason by Government fiat and maybe your wife is a bitch and your kids are hellions. Nope. All on the man. Wifey is going a little nutso but she’s safe as milk.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      This is the same twat who wrote the anti-Isalmophobe bill.

      The Liberals are all about identity politics. Even during the pandemic.

      • Festus

        We hates them we does! (former card-carrying member of the NDP) Yes, I was a socialist forty years ago.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    It was a beautiful sunny spring day, yesterday. I popped the lid off the 914 and went for a cruise. I went by my regular bar, and saw the owner was there doing some maintenance and getting ready to re-open. Stopped and talked to him for a little while. Had a beer. Took off out of town, and decided to go by some other friends’ house, since I hadn’t seen them for who-knows-how-long. Sat outside and drank beer and talked with them for a couple of hours, and came home. Hung out outside for a while. Altogether an abnormally (eerily) normal sort of day.

    I will report myself to the authorities for chastisement and re-education later.

    • Nephilium

      35 this morning outside. Supposed to finally get up into the 60’s this week.

    • Endless Mike

      You’re in Bozeman, right? What’s your favorite bar?

    • Festus

      #9 and #34. About a dozen honorable mentions. Nice one!

    • prolefeed

      24

    • Q Continuum

      Because badorangeman wasn’t President?

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

    • Atanarjuat

      Probably related to the pernicious racism of naming the contagion after its point of origin.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Disinformation- we haz it

    America’s “anti-vaxxer movement” would pose a threat to national security in the event of a “pandemic with a novel organism”, an FBI-connected non-profit research group warned last year, just months before the global coronavirus pandemic began.

    In a research paper put out by the little-known in-house journal of InfraGard – a national security group affiliated with the FBI – experts warned the US anti-vaccine movement would also be connected with “social media misinformation and propaganda campaigns” orchestrated by the Russian government.

    Since the virus hit America, anti-vaccination activists and some sympathetic legislators around the country have led or participated in protests against stay-at-home orders designed to slow the spread of the deadly virus. More than 50,000 people have died in the US.

    ——-

    The paper, entitled The Anti-Vaxxers Movement and National Security, was co-written by Dr Mark Jarrett, the chief quality officer, senior vice-president and associate chief medical officer at Northwell Health; and Christine Sublett, a health industry-focused cybersecurity consultant.

    It lays out a pandemic scenario remarkably similar to the one now afflicting the US along with most of the world, including that “social distancing and isolation have impacts that include loss of manufactured goods, reduced food supply, and other disruptions to the supply chain”.

    The article then turns to the anti-vaccine movement, arguing that sufficient resistance to vaccination would hobble the chances of reaching herd immunity to a highly infectious pathogen.

    The paper also says that such movements have received a boost in recent years due to their “alignment with other conspiracy movements including the far right … and social media misinformation and propaganda campaigns by many foreign and domestic actors. Included among these actors is the Internet Research Agency, the Russian government–aligned organization.”

    What, no libertarians? I am disappoint.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Vaccination at gunpoint is the only logical solution

      • Drake

        Freedom is never the answer.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Yep. This is what the vast majority of “anti-vaxxers” are concerned about. Not that vaccines are bad, but that the government shouldn’t force children to receive every vaccine under the sun with no discernment. Anyone who questions why an anti-STD vaccine must be given to newborns gets the label. Anyone who simply asks what the fuck happened to Hannah Poling gets the label. Even if the same questioners are at the doctors on day 60 to get their kids the DTAP and polio.

        Instead the media focuses on a few nutjobs that are as rare as flat-Earthers and fictionally spin everyone as anti-vax. It’s their standard playbook. They tried their damn best to spin VA’s lobby day as a white national-supremacist protest by focusing on three unrelated Canadian supremacistsfederal agents instead of the tens of thousands peaceful and concerned VA gun owners.

      • Festus

        I swear it wasn’t me!

    • Chipwooder

      Christ, James Jesus Angleton wasn’t as obsessed with Russian operatives as the modern FBI and Democratic Party.

    • leon

      I’d say the FBI and the Intel community is far more dangerous to the US?

    • wdalasio

      Honestly, from what I’ve seen (admittedly little) anti-vaxxers have played little or no role in the protests over the national house arrest. This has to do with people objecting to their lives being destroyed with no discernable benefit beyond avoiding hospitals getting overloaded, a point we have long since passed.

      • leon

        What also is happening is them trying to put people against mandatory vaccines in the same camp as anti-vaxxers.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There’s the acceptable approach where you take all your vaccines per government recommendation and then there’s all the lunatics.

      • wdalasio

        True. But, I don’t think vaccines (pro- or con) have anything to do with the current protests. Or if they do, it’s tangential, at best. People are upset about the national shut-down, not the prospect of a vaccine against the virus. The only way you could tie the two together is, “Unless you support blind, mindless, obedience to the state, you’re a nutcase!”.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Some prominent Dems are starting to float the idea of keeping the lockdowns until a vaccine is developed and made available. And that it will be required to receive the vaccine in order for individuals to be released from lockdown.

      • invisible finger

        And most of them are the same Dems who took the side of anti-vaxxers when it came to allwoing non-vaccinated children in schools.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That would (or should) instigate an armed revolt.

        A vaccine is years away or may never come. We cannot continue like this or we will starve.

      • invisible finger

        “The CDC has said that roughly 25% of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic across all age groups.”

        That is an unusually LOW percentage for respiratory viruses. Which makes it dubious.

      • invisible finger

        damn squirrels

      • wdalasio

        I’ve heard some people pushing that idea. Honestly, I’d no idea that anyone of any prominence would try floating that insanity. The minimum estimate on the time to develop a vaccine, the minimum, is a year and a half. You can’t maintain a society that long with everyone locked up in their homes. It’s utter lunacy to try to pretend that you can do it. And trying to do it would mean the deaths of millions.

        These people are out of their damned minds.

      • leon

        Joe Biden’s health policy adviser said this on national television. He said that Americans will have to get used to living without a paycheck, because this is so important that we be locked down for 18 months till we get a vaccine.

        Looking at it with a clear head, it is clear that the socialists are using this to try to scare people into accepting being forced to accept not working and being paid by the government.

      • wdalasio

        He said that Americans will have to get used to living without a paycheck, because this is so important that we be locked down for 18 months till we get a vaccine.

        Then, he’s off his damned rocker. It doesn’t matter how much fiat money they throw at people if there’s no goods for that fiat money to buy. The end results are going to be chaos and destruction.

  21. Nephilium

    In further bad news , several breweries have kegs that have sat long enough to start going stale.

    • Festus

      I’m doing my part! Would you like to learn more?

    • PieInTheSky

      They should have donated it to the homeless

      • AlexinCT

        Homeless people don’t waste their time with beer, man… They want the hard stuff.

      • DrOtto

        Hand sanitizer?

      • AlexinCT

        That shitz da bomb man…

    • AlmightyJB

      I’ve been doing my part.

      • Nephilium

        This is specifically referring to kegged beer. With all the bars/restaurants closed. Draft sales have fallen off a cliff. DeWine at least allowed the breweries to repackage beer that was in kegs in cans/bottles (if they had the equipment, and the supplies). Doesn’t look like that happened in all the states. I’m curious to see what DeWine’s “master plan” is this afternoon.

      • AlmightyJB

        Yeah, I’m waiting for it as well. I’ve been keeping a couple of Growlers of draft refilled. Just did a Thirsty Dog Irish Setter Red and a Restoration Brew Worx Eclipse Swartzbeir over the weekend.

      • Nephilium

        The issue here is the county health board requested that breweries only fill newly sold growlers. So that adds to cost (and more clutter I don’t need), then there was the crowler shortage (several places are still out). I’ve found only one bar filling brought in growlers so far.

  22. Festus

    Mornin’ Banjos! The Senate Dems pleading the 5th on the Tara Reade affair after the Kavanaugh debacle is one of the skeeziest political moves that I’ve ever witnessed. We can only hope that this back-fires spectacularly.

    • leon

      It also helps put into perspective all the GOP senators and party officials who were saying that Kavanaugh should withdraw his nomination because of the allegations. Did they think that the Dems would ever be like that?

      • Festus

        FINGERBANG!

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

      • Festus

        And an extra “Mornin” to you too! Hope you and yours are doing well in these trying times.

  23. AlexinCT

    Blue on blue live fire incident….

    Frighting thing is that that ghoul believes that they will be writing more checks, cause they still have a lot of those left in the checkbook..

    • Ozymandias

      HOW DARE YOU!

  24. PieInTheSky

    Men are pressuring and gaslighting women on dating apps to hook up irl and eschew social distancing.

    I spoke to some women this has happened to and asked the dating apps what they plan on doing about it:

    https://twitter.com/annaroseiovine/status/1253698777547968515

    I find it strange being active on dating apps in a pandemic if you have no interest in meeting with someone, but I think that pressuring and gaslighting is a bit much. It is a fucking dating app. Cannot be gaslight on a fucking dating app. Turn that shit off.

  25. Scruffy Nerfherder

    You know who else spread unproven theories about risky treatments?

    As the novel coronavirus swept through communities around the world, preying disproportionately on the poor and the vulnerable, one disadvantaged group has demonstrated a remarkable resistance. Women, whether from China, Italy or the U.S., have been less likely to become acutely ill — and far more likely to survive.

    Which has made doctors wonder: Could hormones produced in greater quantities by women be at work?

    Now scientists on two coasts, acting quickly on their hunches in an effort to save men’s lives, are testing the hypothesis. The two clinical trials will each dose men with the sex hormones for limited durations.

    Last week, doctors on Long Island in New York started treating Covid-19 patients with estrogen in an effort to increase their immune systems, and next week, physicians in Los Angeles will start treating male patients with another hormone that is predominantly found in women, progesterone, which has anti-inflammatory properties and can potentially prevent harmful overreactions of the immune system.

    • Grosspatzer

      Schumer appears to be COVID-free. Coincidence?

    • Atanarjuat

      “Citizen, show your vaccination papers or line up for an estrogen shot. Compliance is mandatory.”

    • leon

      Which has made doctors wonder: Could hormones produced in greater quantities by women be at work?

      :CRIES IN “THEIR IS NO BIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GENDERS”:

      • AlexinCT

        I am with bathed breath waiting to see the report by our esteemed scientific consensus science people on how the other 52 genders were impacted by COVID-19….

    • B.P.

      “…preying disproportionately on the poor and the vulnerable…”

      It seems to have preyed on the wealthy in the U.S., since they’re the ones who travel more.

    • Rhywun

      disadvantaged group

      OFFS.

  26. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Thanks for the Malice link. What a clusterfuck that place is.

    My prediction, Biden gets spiked in the next few weeks. There is no way he survives both the perving and the dementia.

    I haven’t heard that song in a long time. I loved this comment:

    Dream Of A Tiger
    7 months ago (edited)
    This dude snorted half of Colombia cocaine reserves before filming this lol

    I think that’s accurate.

    Have a great day!

    • LJW

      Too bad they didn’t hold onto this until a couple weeks before the election. I’m worried Cuomo might come in. Not that I’m a big fan of Trump but I’ll take him any day over anyone on the left.

      • Chipwooder

        Cuomo is staggeringly corrupt. Can’t see him being viable, even against Trump.

      • AlexinCT

        Cuomo is not close to being as corrupt as Hillary Clinton, and for that matter, even Obama, and one got elected president while the other managed to lose an election that had been completely rigged in her favor by the other’s criminal weaponized bureaucratic machine’s activities. Never say never….

      • Chipwooder

        Multiple close associates of Cuomo’s have gone to prison during his term, or am I wrong about that?

        Of course Hillary was more corrupt, but she also had the first woman president thing working in her favor. Cuomo doesn’t.

      • AlexinCT

        He should claim he is not male but invent a new gender to get even more support from the wokesters?

      • Agent Cooper

        Cuomo’s order to send CV-positive patients back to nursing homes would normally kill the hopes of any normal candidate. We’ll see.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Men are pressuring and gaslighting women on dating apps to hook up irl and eschew social distancing.

    I spoke to some women this has happened to and asked the dating apps what they plan on doing about it:

    Okay, Karen.

    • AlmightyJB

      What “they” are going to do about it?

      Children don’t need to be on dating apps.

    • Q Continuum

      Because women are mindless automatons incapable of making their own decisions and/or resisting being bullied.

      Also, I guess it’s just impossible that women might get lonely too and want to risk Kung Flu for human contact.

  28. AlexinCT

    If you doubted that bad orange man made the right move telling The WHO to fuck off while we investigate their role in helping the CCP hide the Kung Flu they released on humanity, check the latest WHO shennanigans out. This smacks of the same tactic used by team blue in the Mueller report: Guilty till proven innocent!

    We need to stop this shit where these cuntes are allowed to do this sort of shit. The double standard has to not just be exposed but ridiculed out of existance.

    • Festus

      Blood will be shed before all is said and done. It’s inevitable.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Uh-oh, we better keep everyone locked up for another six months then.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    DUMOCRACY!

    Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s hostility towards democracy has become ordinary.

    Our democracy has been under assault for the past two decades, and the Supreme Court has dealt many of the sharpest blows. Since 2000, the court has ordered the state of Florida to stop counting ballots and handed the presidential election to a Republican who lost the popular vote, gutted the Voting Rights Act, upheld racist voter ID laws in Indiana, allowed a torrent of dark money to flow into our electoral process, and authorized racially biased voter purges in Ohio.

    It is time we do something about the Roberts court’s assault on democracy. Expanding the Supreme Court is our only option.

    Despite substantial evidence that the Roberts Court and democracy cannot coexist, some are hesitant to embrace “court expansion” — increasing the number of seats on the Supreme Court the next time Democrats control the Presidency, House, and Senate — as a solution. They fear it would cause a “death spiral” in which Republicans would simply expand the court again should they retake unified control. (This, of course, ignores that the Republicans have already altered the size of the court before — in 2016, when the Senate reduced the size of the court to eight for an entire year rather than seat Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia. Republicans paid the steep political price of winning the presidency, House, and Senate that fall.)

    But court expansion would not cause a death spiral of democracy. That death spiral is already here. And it will only get worse if we do nothing.

    Democracy means “Democrats get everything they want, all the time, without fail.”

    It’s right there in the name.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s a republic, if you can keep it.

    • AlexinCT

      Democracy means “Democrats get everything they want, all the time, without fail.”

      That’s what team blue used to call bipartisanship….

    • Rhywun

      LOLOLOL oh Salon, you so cute.

    • Agent Cooper

      I’d love to see Salon’s books. They’re probably as profitable as Newsweek.

    • AlexinCT

      I love these indiscriminate torpedo barrages team blue agents released on their enemies, only to have the bulk of those torpedoes circle back on them and sink their own fucking ships…

    • Spartacus

      They forgot to blot “#metoo is going to far”, ’cause that one was called out a long time ago.

  30. Q Continuum

    As I’ve said before, the US does not have magic dirt. We can hold out longer than most because of our tremendous infrastructure and legacy wealth, but if our leaders consistently behave like Third World tinpot dictators, the results will be that of a Third World tinpot dictatorship.

    https://victorygirlsblog.com/lockdown-is-destroying-food-supply-chain/

    The laws of economics are like the laws of physics; one cannot just wish them away and they apply everywhere all the time.

    • wdalasio

      This is the story that should scare the living s**t out of anyone with an iota of sense. And it’s a slow motion car wreck that I feel like Cassandra trying to warn people about and being responded to with a brain-dead “Stay the f**k home!”.

      • Tundra

        Thomas Massie (of course) is trying to get USDA to fuck off with something called the PRIME act. It would give producers a cleaner path to end users.

        So naturally the bureaucracy will crush it.

      • wdalasio

        And all the idiots will look on that as some kind of “victory”.

    • leon

      “The Disease is DEATH, what is worse than DEATH?”

      You better watch your kids starve to death or else you could maybe possibly get the sniffles that kill grandma.

      • wdalasio

        The punchline is that just as many people will get the case of the sniffles and kill grandma, no matter what we do. That isn’t me. It’s the very experts they’ve been screaming we need to shut up and listen to. They never talked about “reducing the curve”, only “flattening” it, so that hospitals don’t get overrun. When people go back out, they virus is still going to be out there. And it will likely come back in the fall. Locking people in their homes, beyond the point of hospitals being at risk, doesn’t save a single life.

    • leon

      I will admit that i still have a sliver of hope that before we get to “Complete collapse of the food supply chain” that some people will say “Fuck this, they can’t kill us all” and go back to work harvesting the food.

      Of course every employer has probably at least 10% of their employees who are snitches looking to screw him over and get “whistleblower” fame from the government.

    • Idle Hands

      Yeah this was obvious. The politicians are starting to wake up to this of course the damage is done. 80’s economy and gdp with a third more people is going to be fun, but we’ll be okay. Hunger will be a thing again and their will be mass starvation worldwide but at this point not probs here.

      • Idle Hands

        yet.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Americans are not going to starve.

        Africans and Chinese might not be so fortunate.

      • Idle Hands

        Yeah I agree but I do think this might curb our obesity problem quite a bit. Also Chinese and Indians it’s going to be bad.

      • Ozymandias

        It’ll be ALL CAPITALIZM’S FAULT, too. Watch. The DNC Media Operation will be right there, Johnny-on-the-Spot telling everyone why, just like with Healthcare, we need government to take it all over.

    • Mojeaux

      I guess it’s time to stock up on flour and yeast. *sigh* I really hate making bread. The only thing worse is pie crust.

  31. Q Continuum

    Oh don’t worry, the Romney and McCain-esque Pachyderms will go along with this out of “the spirit of compromise and bipartisanship”.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/stealing_the_election_in_plain_sight.html

    They’ll get what they want eventually, they’re utterly relentless once they set their mind on something. What I want to know: after pissing away $6 trillion and basically putting the country under de facto martial law, how would 1000 years’ Democrat dynasty really look much different?

    • PieInTheSky

      , how would 1000 years’ Democrat dynasty really look much different? – you would be in jail for posting chive links, for one.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Opposing ballot harvesting is the same as lynching minorities. Stop racisming.

  32. PieInTheSky

    Bloomberg Opinion
    @bopinion
    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has imposed a lockdown unlike anything in the U.S.

    As of Friday, the nation of 4.8 million people had 1,456 confirmed cases and only 17 deaths

    https://twitter.com/bopinion/status/1254426587564593152

    New Zeeland has a lefty Woman PM. There is no other substantial difference between US and NZ. NZ has very few coronavorus deaths. The logical conclusion is that if Hillary had one the election, the US would have no ore than 100 COVID deaths or so. All the others were practically murdered by Trump. QED.

    • Q Continuum

      It couldn’t possibly have anything at all to do with New Zealand being a relatively isolated island nation vs the US being the epicenter of the world’s economic activity with thousands of international flights coming in and out everyday.

      PS: Those infection rates are nothing special and could easily be gamed with differences in testing rates and how they count a Kung Flu death.

      • PieInTheSky

        Eh the NZ ones are unusually low. Then again I think it is much easier and a lot less backlash to close borders for NZ than many a larger country.

        I wonder if on 20th January Trump said close all US borders for non legal residents, all flights etc, what the reaction would have been.

      • leon

        Probably would have been added to the articles of impeachment.

    • leon

      So What? what is the obvious and unquestioning result of this? That during any crisis we should give ultimate power to an executive to dictate our lives, deem our livelyhoods “non-essential”? That that is the optimal way to handle a pandemic?

      I’d thank you to kindly fuck off.

      • PieInTheSky

        That during any crisis we should give ultimate power to an executive to dictate our lives- yes. Especially during the ever present climate crisis, aka forever.

  33. DrOtto

    Where is CNN on Little Kim? It’s safe to say whatever they say, the opposite is true.

    • The Hyperbole

      Amid mounting speculation, South Korea says Kim Jong Un is ‘alive and well’

      What’s the opposite of ‘Maybe?”

      • leon

        He is most assuredly Alive, or Dead?

      • kinnath

        Schrödinger’s dictator.

    • PieInTheSky

      I don’t think the fucker is dead or dying tbh

    • AlmightyJB

      Hawt

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Science?

    An investigation by the Navy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into the outbreak of the novel coronavirus on board the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt could yield data valuable not just to the military but also to the greater scientific community in the race to better understand the virus, the Navy said.

    The Roosevelt has been tied up in Guam for the last month as the virus spread throughout its crew.

    More than 17% of the ship’s approximately 4,845 sailors have tested positive for the coronavirus — 856 sailors. A handful of results are still outstanding, the Navy said Friday.

    ——-

    The goal of the investigation, officials say, is to better understand the behavior of the virus and to apply those lessons to other Navy ships and military units.

    The outbreak on the Roosevelt presents an opportunity to understand how the disease spreads in a relatively controlled environment, said Shane Crotty, a virologist and professor in the Division of Vaccine Discovery at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego.

    “It’s really an outstanding opportunity to learn more,” Crotty said. “That’s the type of scenario — a controlled environment, far fewer variables — it’s the kind of situation epidemiologists love because of the minimization of variables. For my side, we’re very interested in understanding viral immunology — the response [to the virus]. In particular, how that would help vaccine development.”

    ——-

    On the Roosevelt, Applehans said, the rate of asymptomatic sailors testing positive for the virus is on the high end of what the CDC says can be expected in the general population.

    “Approximately 50% of the sailors who tested positive so far on the [Theodore Roosevelt] have not shown symptoms of COVID-19,” Applehans said. “The CDC has said that roughly 25% of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic across all age groups. Given that the sailors are generally younger and healthier than the general population across all age groups, 50% or even slightly above may be appropriate or expected.”

    Applehans said the Navy expects to gain more clarity on asymptomatic carriers and virus transmission through its ongoing outbreak investigations.

    Well, whaddaya know? If they can somehow keep this experiment from being politicized (haha), maybe some useful lessons can be learned.

  35. Rufus the Monocled

    I watched those doctors on the week-end. Then I heard about Californians heading to the beach despite orders from that quack-retard Newsome and was proud for my fellow man. I hope here in Quebec we start to get antsy. Personally, I’m going to the office today. I think we now know more about this virus and quite frankly the shut down is not justified. The longer you keep people home, the longer the Karens hunker down, the more idiotic headlines about how the ‘virus is beating up women’.

    Also saw Boyce read what Youtube was asking of their content creator. Pretty shocking even by their standards. At this point I have to wonder if Youtube can hide ‘muh private company’ anymore. Even private companies have to adhere to laws set by government.

    Youtube is conducting a Reign of Terror.

    And that CEO can go fuck herself.

    • Festus

      Things going back to normal here in Rednecklandia. I saw two kids canoodling at the bus stop yesterday and I didn’t even bother to stop for a minute to masturbate…

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Mass civil disobedience is the way to go.

  36. Idle Hands

    Anyone else find it totally unsurprising the stark difference in coverage from the apocalypticly dumb GA gov reopening and condemning Georgians to mass graves and the reasoned responsible approach that went largely uncovered of Colorado’s opening on the exact same day? It’s quite interesting wonder what the difference there was.

    • PieInTheSky

      To be fair, it is fun to laugh at redneck deplorable dying

      • Idle Hands

        Plus Coloradans are smarter, more socially conscious, and lets face it probably have a more catchy plan name and website. That and a calm reasonable democrat in charge. Georgians are dumb retards that couldn’t even elect a Black woman because of how racist they were.

    • Donation Not Taxation

      Donation Not Taxation on April 27, 2020 at 7:17 am

    • Chipwooder

      Or the stark difference in the coverage of beaches opening in California vs Florida.

    • Q Continuum

      Polis is gay! And he plays video games! *swoon*

      /Reason

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’m just trying to save your ass and save your life. But die, OK. I hope both of you get the coronavirus. I hope you both die a long, painful death.

      It’s difficult to find such a succinct example of cognitive dissonance wrapped up so neatly.

      • AlmightyJB

        I see similar logic with the war on drugs. Drugs must be outlawed because they are bad for you, but if you die from black market drugs, that’s what you get for breaking the law so you deserve it.

      • Idle Hands

        I really don’t have any patience for these gutless cowards anymore. Cut them some slack at the beginning it was understandable. At this point it just empty virtue signaling or cowardice.

    • Idle Hands

      Yeah I’ve been told by plenty of people that they are glad I’m walking around so it cleans out the gene pool. I always respond to them that it’s ironic they think that since I’m banging their mom and wife.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There’s something about a crisis that brings out everyone’s innate need to comment on everyone else.

        I was wearing a mask in the grocery store and some guy asked me “Does that thing actually work?” My response was “I guess you’re going to find out.”

      • Idle Hands

        lol. I mind my own fucking business. Not going to criticize anyone for anything you do or think is best for you. But you come at me or try to insult me or cow me I’ll be sure to give you a piece of my mind never really been shy about that. People trying to shame me or tell me I can’t go out and make a living or bill I don’t have patience for at all.

      • Idle Hands

        I have no resentment at all for people doing what they think is best for them and if they can work from home that’s fine just acknowledge that not everyone’s shit is just like you’re and think everything you can do applies to everyone else.

    • Chipwooder

      Same bitch undoubtedly is baffled as to why her students hate her.

    • wdalasio

      Seems to be a common sentiment.

      Yup. I’ve been shocked by the number of people I’ve considered myself on friendly terms with who I’ve read online wishing sickness and death on people who I realize are pretty much me. Maybe it doesn’t occur to them that it’s someone they know that they’re wishing it on. Imagine if an opponent of the lockdown were to say something like “I hope the bastards cheerleading the national lockdown lose everything, become permanently unemployed, and are reduced to being homeless vagrants!”. The national news would be covering it like it was some sort of war crime. But, people routinely wish for worse and it’s considered some sort of statement of social solidarity.

      • AlmightyJB

        Yeah, not sure how well social distancing is going to work when half the population is living outside.

      • wdalasio

        I’m not applauding the sentiment. I’m citing it as an equivalent wish.

      • Idle Hands

        It’s disgusting and has cost me a few people I thought were my friends. They are legit people wishing and telling people they know that they fantasize about the virus killing them. It all runs along the same line of the media expose’s on the people that thought the Virus was fake who died and they can barely contain their glee in the writeup and the commentators are basically having a parade in the comments and celebrating.

      • Idle Hands

        It’s cutting across party lines as well. This is a class divide thing.

      • wdalasio

        If it is a class divide thing, I think it’s a more complicated class categorization than “haves” and “have nots”. Maybe “cosmo” versus “yokel”?

      • Ozymandias

        “Essential” vs. “Non-essential” which has some of that, but doesn’t match up perfectly.

      • Idle Hands

        I Say more like professional working class vs the white collars office drones, divide. Anyone who works for a living or runs a business mostly understands what’s coming and how untenable this is. The others are burying their heads in the sand and are generally completely ignorant to what taking a big fat 0 or running in the red for two months actually means. They think you can myopically shut down some things and don’t see how the inputs and outputs relate to their jobs.

      • Desk Jockey

        I’d say a lot of middle managers are ignoring this too. Experience with my company is that they are rationalizing as “well this will go back to normal” and assuming business won’t be changed, most likely because they are so insulated from the actual business. The upper and lower levels understand what it means, but everyone in the middle is just wandering around thinking everything will be taken care of.

      • Idle Hands

        That’s also a coping mechanism as well. It really doesn’t help to worry about things you can’t control too much. But they should also be realistic about what is actually happening and the real world consequences of the shutdown. Just be thankful tens of thousands aren’t dropping dead a day here. Shit would be really bad and we would be assuredly doing the wrong thing ontop of it.

      • invisible finger

        It’s just authoritarians/wanna-be-authoritarians versus everyone else. A lot of people didn’t know they were authoritarians until they got a taste of power. The 20-year old douchebag at the home improvement mega-store yesterday took the cake. He was going apeshit over anyone not wearing a mask and insisted that everyone get in line even though he had no idea how many people were leaving the store. Safety theater – completely stupid and most likely counter-productive.

      • Idle Hands

        Give people a taste and you see what they really are.

    • invisible finger

      School teacher who doesn’t understand how immune systems work lectures students about immune systems.

    • Q Continuum

      …aaaaaand nothing else will happen.

      Except for maybe a handful of parents getting woke to government indoctrination factories and homeschooling instead.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    So What? what is the obvious and unquestioning result of this? That during any crisis we should give ultimate power to an executive to dictate our lives, deem our livelyhoods “non-essential”? That that is the optimal way to handle a pandemic?

    You’re almost there, leon.

    We cannot afford to wait for another crisis. We need total dictatorial authority to control the behavior of the peasantry, and we need it now. Now and forever.

    This sort of authority and control can only be entrusted to those who will use it exclusively for good. You know, Democrats.

    • Donation Not Taxation

      Republican President Donald J. Trump: today’s reopenings too soon

      42 of 50 states have/had statewide shutdowns. Governors Democrat and Republican

      1.8-2.3 million million CARES Act 96-0 Senate Democrats and Republicans. Republicans Justin Amash, Thomas Massie and Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opposed.

      484,000,000,000 Son of CARES also Democrat-Republican unity

      • leon

        Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opposed.

        That is absolutely fiction, and i will not believe it. The only person who i will accept having opposed that is Thomas Massie. The idea that Ocasio-Cortez opposed this is unsupported by any facts. The only claim is that she said “She would have voted against it” two weeks after the fact after being heavily criticized by it. It is pure revisionism.

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Agreed AOC’s first public opposed CARES in toto after non-vote. Agreed Massie only elected Member action not words.

        However …

        AOC on record before non-vote rhetoric opposed to CARES not including $ illegals.

        Also …

        Main point above is The Late P Brooks wrote ‘Democrats’ while shutdown, CARES, and Son of CARES all Democrat-Republican-Trump bipartisan or tripartisan (if differentiate ‘deporables’ and ‘establishment’).

      • Ozymandias

        Sorry, DNT, Trump said he disagreed with Kemp reopening… BUT that it was up to Kemp to make that decision. That seems to put a slightly different spin on it. As much as I dislike the Cheeto, it’s been notable that (1) he has resisted calls to be MORE authoritarian, (2) the principle criticism of the Media and Dems (but I repeat myself) has been he didn’t go far enough, nor fast enough, and (3) much of the fed stuff has been couched specifically in “should” and “guidelines” – not in “shall” and “commands.” In fact, go look at the original response when it first came up and Trump tried to downplay the WuFlu. He was absolutely forced into being an authoritarian by the political necessity of the Media run newscycle. I wrote write after he got elected that he was in for a rude awakening because the Media controls the newscycle and he would find himself being the target of a never-ending cycle of news created by the Media and their friends in Congress. Imagine if he had tried to react to this the way Obama did to H1N1 – he would have gotten destroyed. Destroyed. He would have had zero % chance of getting re-elected.
        His impeachment trial in the Senate ended on Feb 5 – but check out WaPo talking about Trump’s “unprecedented” quarantine actions on Jan. 31 – and then he was called a racist for it, while “hero” Cuomo was telling people to go out and celebrate the Chinese New Year. The fucking guy has been under siege from Day 1. No, he isn’t remotely libertarian, but no President has ever had to go up against what he has. None. I think it’s beyond unfair to place this at his feet, not how I watched it unfold. He has always been – politically speaking – a moderate Dem, likely a “Reagan democrat.” (His win of the Repub nomination is partial proof of many people’s point on here of how the window only moves in one direction or that ‘Pubs are just driving toward the cliff more slowly.)

  38. PieInTheSky

    So a law change in brewing in Romania. Until now people over 65 were officially only allowed to go shopping between 11 and 13. Kind of silly if you ask me for all to crowd in those two hours, They want to change that, allowing the elderly to go out of the house 7 to 11 and 19 to 22.

  39. PieInTheSky

    Current nostalgia for capital controls under Bretton Woods is bizarre. It’s thought govts had more freedom in spending because of the CC. Yet Euro governments under BW were FAR MORE fiscally constrained, constantly worried about the run on the £ or bragged about the ‘franc fort’

    https://twitter.com/pseudoerasmus/status/1254096942545670144

  40. Idle Hands

    https://twitter.com/ellencarmichael/status/1254024060406837248

    Va walked this back somewhat but their health director was talking about keeping us under lockdown for however long it took till we got a vaccine. When I read this Saturday I almost broke my phone in rage, than I remembered that this is insane bullshit that could never happen and he’s obviously a crazy person that deserves to be straight jacketed.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      When I read this Saturday I almost broke my phone in rage, than I remembered that this is insane bullshit that could never happen

      My wife became very upset when she heard that. I told her not to worry, it would never happen. This country would erupt well before 2022 in a bloody rebellion that would make the Civil War look like a “kinetic action”. That seemed to reassure her.

      • Chipwooder

        Idle thought – Coonman had his lackey float this bullshit so that whatever he actually proposes looks reasonable in comparison

      • Idle Hands

        I think they mispoke about the phases really. But you’re probs right. I know several people who work for the state they say the tentative plan is phasing back up the agencies may 15. They’ve already sent out the memos.

      • Chipwooder

        This where I must shamefully admit to being a VA state employee. My agency reopens May 11.

      • Idle Hands

        Yeah I think people get caught up thinking an insurrection would look like a traditional war or something in any sense. It would basically just be politicians houses getting firebombed or shot by dissident derelict actors. This isn’t happening either though what you’d see is more irish democracy of people just committing mass disobedience and ignoring the edicts.

    • Mojeaux

      That is the position of the privileged Karens.

      But I repeat myself.

      • Idle Hands

        the worm will turn when the layoffs come for the white collars. This is all rice bowl class divide shit. It’s going to be a hard lesson in which nobody will learn anything from except I doubt we’ll ever do this again in my lifetime. But that will just be an unspoken tacit agreement that noone says out loud or acknowledges how wrong they were. They’ll silently vote in the booths and with their feet and life will go on.

      • Q Continuum

        “I doubt we’ll ever do this again in my lifetime”

        If you’re over 80, I’d say you have a slight chance of being right.

        Otherwise, buckle up because I think this is just the beginning.

      • Idle Hands

        They won’t put up with it. The economic ramifications are going to be so severe and apparent to everyone very shortly here. The states and muni’s are actually going to have to shed workers because of this. There’s real money and wealth being evaporated by real important donors and people that matter. We are going to have a ton of churn this november.

      • Q Continuum

        Not trying to be argumentative or pessimistic because you’re right that white collar people who otherwise would have been protected will begin to feel the pain soon.

        However, the big donors, the capital D Donors have so much money that they’re untouchable by everything except the actual, Biblical Apocalypse. They’re the ones who are the politicians’ handlers, not the voters. Whatever they don’t get on their wishlist this time around, wait a year or two, manufacture another crisis and try to get a little more. Socialized healthcare, mail-in voting, vastly expanded executive powers, suspension (read: elimination) of 1A, 2A, 4A and 5A… the list goes on. They have a road map now of how they can accomplish what they want and the reaction of the genpop has given them no reason to think it won’t work again.

      • Idle Hands

        You don’t seem to get what I’m saying this isn’t going to be a republican/democrat issue. I see it more like I’m voting for whose not in charge currently type of churn. There are real donors who cut both ways who are losing millions of dollars and assets over this. Brick and mortors are going to go belly up that’s commercial real estate. Hotels and airlines are going to be totally cratered. It’s going to be ugly and impact everyone. Everyone is going to be thrown out for the opposite guy.

      • Q Continuum

        I get all that, and I agree 100%, especially that this isn’t a partisan divide. I also think there could be a massacre of incumbents. My point is that tossing incumbents en masse won’t matter; it’s meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

        Even if the new guys are pure as driven snow, they will soon get in the pockets of the capital D Donors and be indistinguishable from the guys that were voted out. The industries you speak of will just get some kind of bailout to shut them up.

      • Idle Hands

        Well of course not. It’s not going to matter largely you are right. But people aren’t going to go for the quarantine again is my overall arching point.

      • wdalasio

        The economic ramifications are going to be so severe and apparent to everyone very shortly here.

        Only if they draw the connection. I have an acquaintance I went to high school with. She’s been cheerleading the lockdown and every statist control this has brought on. Every time I tried to warn her of the disastrous consequences, it was like arguing with a brick wall. Then she puts up a picture of the food lines beating her breast about how terrible she feels for those poor people and how its so unfair that they’re suffering because of human “greed”. The very f**king consequences of the policies she was advocating that I f**king warned her about, and she can’t make the connection.

        Sadly, there’s a lot of people out there like my old schoolmate.

      • Idle Hands

        Nobody is going to admit they were wrong. Because they generally don’t. But they’ll all tacitly see what this did to their checkbooks and jobs and vote accordingly. People don’t want to be perceived as assholes who want to kill grandma. But there are going to be a ton of angry people out there. And their will be only one person to really blame for this the political class. They can bandy about the numbers all they want but statistically this is going to be a nonevent for vast swaths of the country who won’t know anyone who was hospitalized or died because of this but everyone is going to feel the economic consequences.

      • leon

        Then she puts up a picture of the food lines beating her breast about how terrible she feels for those poor people and how its so unfair that they’re suffering because of human “greed”

        I saw this reaction to the Idaho Patatoe farmers dumping potatoes. “WHY AREN’T THEY DONATING TO FOOD BANK?” “BECAUSE THEY NO CAN PROFIT”. When someone pointed out that to do the logistics to move all thos potatoes was prohibitive, they then came back and said “WHAT? PUT THEM IN FORD-F150 AND TAKE THEM, NOT HARD AT ALL”. Then someone told them that farmers had done that, but there was still too much (remember, it’s not like food banks are endless pits that can accept all exceess food, soon the nearby ones will be full, and the farmers will still have too much). “THIS IS WHAT PROFITS OVER PEOPLE MEANS!”.

        Don’t even get into the regulations that are around foodstuffs.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        When the Dow rolls back to 10,000, there’s going to be a lot of ruined retirements with no job prospects. It will be educational to see what they have to say then.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        “THIS IS WHAT PROFITS OVER PEOPLE MEANS!”

        That person can be safely ignored, as long as they don’t get any level of power.

      • Ozymandias

        I said it upthread, but it bears repeating here: the DNC Media complex will be right there to tell everyone how this proves that capitalism is the problem – and why we need complete State control of everything. It’s Maslow’s Law of the Instrument; they could rename it to Maslow’s Law of the Socialist. No matter how obvious the govt intervention fucks up the market, it is ALWAYS the free market’s fault and proof that we need more govt control. You don’t have to look hard to find the articles out there already.

      • leon

        it is ALWAYS the free market’s fault and proof that we need more govt control.

        If the free market can’t handle some government intervention, is it really that good? / prog

      • wdalasio

        But they’ll all tacitly see what this did to their checkbooks and jobs and vote accordingly.

        I used to think people would wise up when it hit their own stomachs. I’m not so sure anymore. The media will give them a plausible reason to believe their idiocy was unconnected to the consequences. They’ll trot out a bunch of second rate celebrities (and they’re almost all second rate) telling them that if that other guy was just willing to make sacrifices, we’d all be in Sugar Candy Mountain. And they’ll demand still more insanity. They’ll be plenty angry, alright. But, that anger won’t be directed at themselves or the people who fed them this line of BS.

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        We are going to have a ton of churn this november.

        No way I’m voting Democrat: this reaming is nothing compared to what Team Hill would do to my caboose.

        MAGA to the fucking end, dewd . . . pound me harder, Most Libertarian President of All Time ™ and good Team Red Governors everywhere!

      • R C Dean

        I doubt we will have much turnover, really. Even if we double the rate of incumbents kicked out, that would mean, what, 85% get re-elected.

        My governor has proven himself to be a weak reed, indeed, but I’m not hearing about any primary challengers, yet. And while he manages to combine casual authoritarianism with a weak spine, I have a hard time imagining a Dem would be better. I probably just won’t vote for governor.

    • leon

      A new poll shows 70 percent of Ohioans prioritize public health over the economy

      “Do you support the health of your neighbors over the stock market?”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Fundamentally shows the disconnect between the average American and reality. This is going to be a major wake up call.

      • Grosspatzer

        I suspect the typical BMI of those folks indicates different priorities. Stated vs. revealed preferences, anyone?

  41. Festus

    They should change that stupid Toronto Raptors slogan from “We da North” to “We da Lemmings!”

  42. Mojeaux

    Mornin’ Banjos.

    The culling of possessions recommences here at Chez Mojeaux. Today’s offering to FB marketplace is a crap-ton of kid DVDs I’ve been keeping for no reason I can fathom.

    • PieInTheSky

      I think I threw away hundreds of kilograms of stuff this pandemic. I can walk both in my attic room and my basement room now.

      • Mojeaux

        I sell what I think I can. One-offs I just take to the thrift store, but right now I can’t. Thrift stores are “non-essential” like my dentist and eye doc. Both kids need to see the dentist and XX can’t see well enough to drive at night. For years we’ve been trying to get her glasses that actually work and she refuses to do contact lenses. So we had a solution and the end was in sight, but then this happened so we’re stuck on daytime-driving only.

      • PieInTheSky

        Oh I live in an old inherited apartment and most of the stuff was not sell able. It was 30 years of accumulated junk which I never got around to throw away. I threw a way a ton of it when I renovated the apartment and a whole lot more now.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  43. OBE #Learn2Essential

    Update on dad. Stable, had his tracheotomy with no complications and oncologists still thinks they can proceed with radiation/chemotherapy rather than removal of larynx.

    That news makes my sister less crazy and anxious than normal.

    • AlmightyJB

      Good news!

      • OBE #Learn2Essential

        It is. His nurse reported he is well and my thought, knowing my dad as a ladies man…has a date lined up once he gets out.

      • AlmightyJB

        Good for him:)

      • Tundra

        Attaboy!

        Good to hear some positive news!

    • Mojeaux

      Excellent!

    • Grosspatzer

      Good to hear. Could use a little less anxiety here at Casa Patzer.

    • PieInTheSky

      Hope for the best

    • OBE #Learn2Essential

      Thats a keeper!

    • leon

      Dad is going back trying to figure out where he went wrong…

    • Q Continuum

      Would. The daughter not the dad.

    • Chipwooder

      Odds on that girl already having a Girls Do Porn scene online somewhere?

  44. The Late P Brooks

    No, You’re the Nazi!

    The mayor of a small town in New Mexico says he will allow local businesses to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic despite the governor’s order to close nonessential businesses.

    “The governor is killing us. She’s totally killing us,” Martin “Modey” Hicks, the mayor of Grants, said Thursday. “So we have no choice. So right now, we are reopening. Let State Police come down here.”

    Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, announced this week that she was putting together a bipartisan group of mayors who will work with her office on plans to reopen businesses across the state, the Times Union reported. The governor also said she would extend social distancing guidelines and social gathering restrictions through May 15.

    Tony Mace, the Cibola County sheriff, told the newspaper he agrees with Hicks’s move to reopen businesses in town.

    “I understand where the mayor is coming from. I get it,” Mace said.

    Hicks compared Grisham to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

    “I’ve told businesses to call 911 if State Police show up to their place. We are going to stop Lujan Grisham and her Gestapo,” he said.

    Go, team, go. Life will find a way.

    • Q Continuum

      I talked to my parents about this yesterday. Hopefully a wave of other small town mayors do the same thing. It could go one of two ways:

      1) The governor says “Oh yeah, I meant for everyone to open now anyway. It was my idea from the beginning!” (more likely)
      2) The National Guard goes in (less likely)

      G-d help us if it were #2.

    • mrfamous

      By New Mexico standards, Grants isn’t all that small. Coming from the West, it’s the last real bit of civilization until you get to Albuquerque. I’ve never been to Alaska, so I wouldn’t know how strange it is, but New Mexico is the strangest state I’ve ever spent significant time in.

    • Q Continuum

      Imma pull a Winston here:

      I thought the free flow of information on the internet would serve as a backstop to State power?

      • leon

        Hmmm. It is still just as annoying. It seems that kind of rhetoric is the issue, not winston himself….

        /bustin balls

    • leon

      A NYT reporter? That is very shocking!

    • Chipwooder

      It appears Davey is a woman, which torpedoes my ” what grown man calls himself Davey?” crack.

      She must be very proud of herself.

      • Ozymandias

        So… Karen, then.

    • LJW

      Side note AYTU (the company that was censored) is trading up 27% today at a whopping $1.78. They’re loving this YouTube ban.

  45. Q Continuum

    In the spirit of North Korea:

    Since history is written by the victors, once the Dems wrest permanent control of the country through electoral fraud and corruption of the courts this episode will go down as BADORANGEMAN tried to establish a dictatorship by faking an emergency from the Kung Flu. Our benevolent, dear leaders saw through his treachery and used their brilliance to save the population from his schemes to corrupt the system of our great Republic (ehrm… excuse me, PEOPLE’S Republic), ushering in an age of 1000 generations of prosperity, freedom and justice.

    They will be the dog that caught the car; it will be interesting to see what they do with it.

    • leon

      “I thought about licking a patient to end it all”

      lol

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      Excellent.

    • Endless Mike

      Bahahahahaha

  46. Certified Public Asshat

    Phone question:

    My personal phone is Pixel 3a, work phone is iPhone XR. The Pixel lets me take a picture and scan it to PDF with ease. I have no idea how to do this with the iPhone, I am guessing I need an app?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      App: TurboScan works well for iPhone.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I was playing around and found the built-in option. If you go to notes, then new note, you can select make a new scan.

    • PieInTheSky

      My personal phone is Pixel 3a – that is a low status phone.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Ok, seems to do the same thing as any other phone.

      • PieInTheSky

        The main function of the phone is to make on look cool.

  47. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Best Buy actually has a sub-$1000 freezer back in stock if anyone is interested.

    • Mojeaux

      I was the one looking for a freezer but found a very large/good one for $200.

    • Agent Cooper

      Why would I want a hybrid submarine-freezer?

    • Endless Mike

      Because it was Awesome

  48. slumbrew - double secret satan

    Grrrr. Mandatory masks in public, starting on Wednesday.

    Moar theater!

    • PieInTheSky

      Masks may help and they don’t hurt. Just wear one.

      • AlmightyJB

        With Fuck the Gov on it.

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        It’s a mayor’s order – it’s not statewide.

        He’s creaming his pants over the added authority, I’ve no doubt.

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        I have no problem with masks in stores and the like, but it’s been extended to _all_ public spaces – i.e., I can’t walk down the street without a mask now, regardless of how empty it is.

        During our nighttime walks there’s usually not a soul to be seen, but now it’s wear a mask or face $300 fine.

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        Amusingly, I live about a block from the city line, so depending on the route I take it’ll be mandatory masks or not.

      • grrizzly

        Fuck no. It’s a great imposition on me. Without any scientific justification.

      • PieInTheSky

        the justification is lower risk of transmission

      • grrizzly

        I don’t care about transmitting this less lethal form of flu. Maybe if it was something serious, maybe, but not for a cold.

    • AlmightyJB

      That’s bull pucky.

    • wdalasio

      Honestly, I’ll take the ridiculous theater if it means opening up civilization. Yes, it’s demeaning. Yes, I shouldn’t have to wear one. But, if the alternative is the sort of catastrophe these lunatics (I won’t even use sociopath here because at least sociopaths have some notion of their own self-preservation) have been inviting, I’ll go along with it.

      • Chipwooder

        Agreed. I won’t wear one except at figurative gunpoint, but if Karen Nation insists on it as a condition of re-opening society, then so it goes.

      • AlmightyJB

        It’s a horrible violation.

      • Chipwooder

        I agree!

        But prolonged, widespread lockdowns that will wreck the economy to an ever-greater degree are even worse.

      • grrizzly

        Nobody is promising to open up. We are forced to comply with the insane orders issued by the government and we get no liberties back.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    Just make sure you say something bad about President Cartoon Villain

    American businessman Barry Diller, chairman of IAC and ExpediaGroup, threw cold water on the possibility that the U.S. economy, which has been brought to a halt by the coronavirus pandemic, would rebound by the summer, saying there was “no chance” that would occur.

    ——-

    Despite the aid to ailing small businesses, Diller predicted there will be “widespread bankruptcies” as an “enormous number of businesses” have no revenue coming in.

    “You’re going to have a massive amount of businesses that can’t return, businesses that go bankrupt. It’s inevitable,” he said. “And hopefully, the government will, so to speak, pick up the tab, because this is an existential crisis and we shouldn’t worry so much about doing it in a neat way. It ought to be sloppy to get that money out to everybody who needs it.”

    As some governors begin looking toward a reopening of their states, industries have also started preparing for a return to normalcy while also ensuring the safety of their employees and consumers. Airlines, for example, have discussed having flight attendants wear masks. Taking out the middle seat has also been floated to maintain social distancing.

    But Diller said the idea of removing middle seats is “absurd” and said any kind of social distancing in entities such as restaurants and theaters is a “myth.” He also said the onus will be on the federal government to inform Americans of what they must do before resuming their normal activities.

    “We’re going to have to be told,” he said. “Now, unfortunately, we have a witch doctor as a president and he ain’t going to tell us. But the science part of it, I think that has to be translated into more practical solutions. So somebody is gonna have to say, ‘Yes, you must wear masks, period, or no, take your chances.'”

    Whaddaya mean “we” white man?

    Go fuck yourself, Diller.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Diller is a long time big supporter of herself. He also put Chelsea on two of his boards and paid her millions, obviously for her wealth of expertise in corporate stewardship. I take anything he says with that in mind.

    • leon

      I wouldn’t be suprised if he’s right. The longer this goes on, the more capital that is being burned up, consumed and trashed. It’s not “Just like” coming back to work after a holliday.

      And hopefully, the government will, so to speak, pick up the tab, because this is an existential crisis and we shouldn’t worry so much about doing it in a neat way. It ought to be sloppy to get that money out to everybody who needs it.

      And if some rich American businessman from Expedia were to end up with some money he shouldn’t have because it was so sloppy, well that’s just the price we pay to save us from this existential threat.

      • Idle Hands

        There’s a real danger of a liquidity trap. Cash reserves are getting lit on fire right now. Real question is how quickly we can fire it back up. I think people are going to go back to normal quicker than most but really really concerned people are going to hold onto their money for several months which will be dire and crippling to many many companies.

      • invisible finger

        I’m not sure he’s right.

        Yeah, some businesses will collapse. Other businesses will be created, if government allows them to exist.

        Capital isn’t being burned up that much. Perishables and some livestock, that’s about it. Mostly capital is being idled by government fiat.

        What’s burning up is liquidity and leverage. Because capital is being idled for no good reason.

      • Idle Hands

        pretty much the danger though is how this impacts a ton of business’s because of the liquidity burnt up. I don’t know if anyone really has the answer. It’s going to be interesting. Probably not going to be as bad as the worst guess’s and not as good as the most optimistic.

    • Q Continuum

      Shutting down the economy shuts down the economy? How could we have known!

    • R C Dean

      the U.S. economy, which has been brought to a halt by the coronavirus pandemic,

      Err, no. Try again:

      the U.S. economy, which has been brought to a halt by the coronavirus pandemic, panicked overreaction by the government to the Wuhan Virus

      The Commie Cough itself would have had little more impact on the economy than the flu, with the additional impact being mostly the shutdown of international travel. Rational, sane precautions (restricting visitation to nursing homes, requiring additional ID precautions in places where high-risk people live) would have had no noticeable impact on the economy.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yes, and focusing on the people who were actually vulnerable would have saved a lot more lives, too.

      • invisible finger

        To some extent we didn’t know the vulnerable population until mid-to-late March because the WHO/CCP didn’t know or wouldn’t say. The only source of useful data was South Korea, and it was still early in the game for them.

        Now that we have more, better data of our own, it’s moronic to do the exact same things we were doing in Mid-March since the data is presenting a much different picture. If you’re old or have health problems, avoid crowds and try to keep a few feet of distance. If you have symptoms, stay home as much as you can until they clear up.

        One might argue that people wouldn’t follow this advice without hammering it home. But making it a panic becomes counter-productive.

  50. Donation Not Taxation

    ‘And what a glorious morning it is as Kim Jong-Un is dead…or Un-dead.’

    ‘Meanwhile, everyone is speculating who his successor will be while wildly talking’

    ‘Here, North Korean expert, Michael Malice, gives a good breakdown for everyone.’

    Paging Dr. Erwin Schrödinger and his hypothetical cat …

    • kinnath

      Paging Dr. Erwin Schrödinger and his hypothetical cat …

      too late.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    And-

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued guidelines for Americans to follow, which are in place until the end of April. It’s unclear whether President Trump will extend the social distancing measures into May.

    So Trump is the big dumb meanie who is responsible for shutting down the country? What a power mad tyrant.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      coronavirus racial inequality task force

      Keep beating that drum.

    • Q Continuum

      Grifters gonna grift.

    • AlexinCT

      Was the last project his wife was working on not only bleeding money but attracting scrutiny from authorities because of possible malfeasance?

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        a-yup:

        ” As of March 2019, nearly $850 million in funding for McCray’s mental health program was unaccounted for; furthermore, the program was on track to spend $1 billion over five years.”

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirlane_McCray#ThriveNYC

  52. The Late P Brooks

    No shit, Shirley?

    Some Americans could be suffering from “quarantine fatigue” and leaving home to go out more frequently, according to a new report.

    A study by the Maryland Transportation Institute at the University of Maryland showed a subtle shift toward people making more outdoor trips — ones expected to rise with some states starting to reopen, according to The Washington Post.

    The study tracks more than 100 million people monthly using “privacy-protected data from mobile devices.”

    The study had noted six weeks of the staying-home percentage increasing or holding steady — until April 17, when the numbers staying home dropped from 33 percent to 31 percent, the report says.

    Although a small change, it is statistically significant because the sample size is so large, lead researcher Lei Zhang told The Washington Post.

    “We saw something we hoped wasn’t happening, but it’s there,” Zhang told the paper. “It seems collectively we’re getting a little tired. It looks like people are loosening up on their own to travel more.”

    Dr. Wilbur Chen, an associate professor at the university’s School of Medicine, told the paper that it is too soon to know whether the findings are the start of an ongoing trend or just a one-week blip.

    Oh, the HORROR.

    • leon

      “We saw something we hoped wasn’t happening, but it’s there,” Zhang told the paper. “It seems collectively we’re getting a little tired. It looks like people are loosening up on their own to travel more.”

      How dare people determine the risks they are willing to accept and accept new information about the virus and change their behavior? They need to only listen to US!

      and yes i know the argument that “It’s not about me, but “Us” and so you are putting everyone at risk.” I think it is entirely inflated, and we can see that borne out in the data. accusing people of killing their fellow man for doing what is incidental to life is just a totalitarian bugaboo to keep you from disobeying.

    • AlexinCT

      The fucking evil people will circle the wagons for the cause!

      • Rufus the Monocled

        She’s evil personified.

    • Donation Not Taxation

      Will = fake news. Already are, unless posted by someone WHO has loud enough voice without YouTube. Those demonetized.

    • Don Escaped Sarcasm

      why even grant cert on such a trifling amount

      I pay zero attention to any amount that doesn’t begin with a T

      • leon

        Ahem…. Twelve Billion does begin with a T.

        /struggles to take off UCS pedant gloves.

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        zing!

        left meself wide open again!

    • leon

      But the justices on Monday ruled 8-1 that Congress was not free from its obligations.

      It is 8-1, but the only justice i know who voted one way or the other is Sotamayor who wrote the opinion.

      • Q Continuum

        My guess is the 1 is Gorsuch. He seems to be the only principled one on the Court.

      • Q Continuum

        I stand corrected.

      • RAHeinlein

        Alito dissented, citing no right of action, but required another article to locate.

    • R C Dean

      But the justices on Monday said that Congress had an obligation to pay.

      “We conclude that [the ACA] established a money-mandating obligation, that Congress did not repeal this obligation, and that petitioners may sue the Government for damages in the Court of Federal Claims,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority.

      Justice Samuel Alito was the only dissenting opinion.

      Alito said the Court provided a “massive bailout” for insurance companies.

      “Under the Court’s decision, billions of taxpayer dollars will be turned over to insurance companies that bet unsuccessfully on the success of the program in question. This money will have to be paid even though Congress has pointedly declined to appropriate money for that purpose,” he wrote.

      In the before times, the government couldn’t spend money unless and until it is appropriated by Congress. I believe the Court’s decision is unenforceable. If the Court orders Congress to appropriate money, and Congress refuses, I don’t think there’s a damn thing the Court can do about it.

      • Shirley Knott

        Why would a Congress, specifically this a Congress, refuse?

  53. KSuellington

    So I finished my second floor of hardware for the new corona wings at the local major hospital yesterday. I didn’t get the latest number of Wuflu patients there yesterday, but as of a week ago they have 19. Fucking 19. Flatten the curve indeed. Today is the start of week 7 of lockdown here. I have likely shortened my lifespan by several years from the amount of anger over the last seven weeks of this bullshit.

  54. Grosspatzer

    Holy shit, people are dumb. I’m having my daily post-standup smoke, walking down the road, and see two of my neighbors approaching from the opposite direction, about 100 feet away. As soon as they see me, the husband shouts out a hello, and dons a face mask. Then walks straight at me, blathering something VERY IMPORTANT, passing within about a foot of me. WTF? You put a fucking mask on to show me how careful you are, then get in my face? And this asshole enthusiastically supports the lockdown. I did use some words I haven’t uttered in quite some time.

  55. PieInTheSky

    Romania will not be reopening schools until September. the shitty part is that usually you get like 4 – 5 grade throughout the term for a subject, and the you get an average for the term. They decided to form the average with whatever grades existed before closing. This is shitty because if you get a bad grade, usually you can attempt to improve your average y getting a few good ones. But this is no longer an option.

    • leon

      Steyer’s failed, self-funded presidential run was full of extreme notions, such as imposing a “state of emergency” to address climate issues, essentially shutting down fossil fuels; and, as a kind of bonus for those who still can find work, promoting a $22 an hour minimum wage while offering alms for the soon-to-be-eliminated legions of miners and energy workers.

      That is a good throwback. Remember what Steyer said he would do. We are living through that with Coronapanic. And Califonia will actually get to see what he was going to do.

    • leon

      Perhaps nowhere will the pain be worse than in Bakersfield, capital of California’s once-vibrant oil industry.

      Quick lookup, Oh yup. Bakersfield is one of the places in california that went for Trump. So is this really that bad?

    • Chipwooder

      Tom Steyer, the American Soros! What a treasure he is.

  56. Don Escaped Sarcasm

    ¡ You gonna do hard time, muchacha !

    Laredo police arrested Ana Isabel Castro-Garcia, 31, after she allegedly agreed to provide an undercover officer with a manicure. She was charged with “Violation of Emergency Management Plan C/B”

    The Freest State in the Union® strikes a blow for all decent Americans everywheres!

    • R C Dean

      Texas is weird. At a state level, it is actually pretty highly regulated. Not CA-level, by any means, but there are a ton more licensing, etc. requirements on Texas businesses than you would expect.

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        than you most folk would expect

        Native Texans John Wayne and George W Bush don’t approve!!!! * racks lever action *

        I kinda heard that in my mind as TEXAS SMITH¹ would say it. Let’s try that again:

        NATIVE TEXANS JOHN WAYNE AND GEORGE W BUSH DON’T APPROVE !!!! STOOPID LEGISLATORS AND LEO MUST BE STOPPED, AND BY STOPPED, MEAN . . . you know the drill.

        ¹Not to be confused with Deaf Smith, a hero of the Republic.

      • prolefeed

        The official story of rugged individualists riding horses and demanding freedom doesn’t withstand an hour’s worth of observation by anyone living here.

    • leon

      If it were Hawaii, the cop would have been able to get the manicure first, and then arrested her.

      • Chipwooder

        God, that whole thing was surreal. “We totally need to let the hookers blow us first! Otherwise, the entire operation will be jeopardized!”

        I still can’t believe they argued that with a straight face.

  57. Pope Jimbo

    The 17th Amendment was a complete disaster for our country. Special K took to the media to condemn Trump for not having a national strategy for states to follow when re-opening.

    I know this is naive, but does she know that the job of a Senator is to represent the interests of the state that they came from? She shouldn’t be begging the Feds to take more rights away from Minnesota.

    Of course, this has nothing to do with federalism, she is just trying to make cheap points. You can tell because she went with the lie that Trump told people to drink bleach.

    The former 2020 presidential candidate said on ABC’s “This Week” that Minnesota “like every state” needs a national strategy for testing to move toward reopening businesses. She said that planning “should have happened months ago.”

    “We can tune out this president’s rants about chugging bleach, but we can’t tune out the fact that we have a lack of protective equipment, that we do not have enough testing, that there is an absence of national leadership,” she told host George Stephanopoulos.

    I really hope that her pandering to national anti-Trumpers comes back to bite her in the ass next time she is up for election.

    • Q Continuum

      …while Stephanopoulos clutches his pathetically tiny erection underneath the table.

    • prolefeed

      To be fair – any given state legislature would likely elect someone at least as statist as whoever the voters would pick. Non-statists don’t generally win elections, or even run for office.

  58. R C Dean

    Nice explainer for why the current “But, muh tests” blather from Our Masters seeking to extend the lockdown is beyond stupid.

    • wdalasio

      On top of that. Let’s say they get their miracle testing regime. Say somebody tests positive. Okay. So what? Hell, these same regimes said people with AIDS couldn’t be required to tell people they had it before having sex with them. You’re going to tell me with a straight face they’re going to implement any response that will do anything more than rely on the goodwill of people who test positive. It’s an excuse. It was from the beginning.

      • prolefeed

        “We will relax the police state only if we can implement non-voluntary daily police state testing.”

  59. The Late P Brooks

    @ Endless Mike-

    I’m not actually IN Bozeman (or Gallatin county).

    [Insert praise to demon/deity of choice]

    I live outside of Livingston.

    • Endless Mike

      Ah, OK – I lived in Bozeman (mostly outside of Bozeman, but in Gallatin County) for 18 years (22 if you count college). There are some awesome places in Livingston.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    I really hope that her pandering to national anti-Trumpers comes back to bite her in the ass next time she is up for election.

    There’s plenty of ass there to bite.

    • Pope Jimbo

      You better not be throwing shade at the Norwegian Bedonkadonk (which are measured in axe handles).

      “Uffda, Sven. Look at Lena! Her ass an axe handle and a half across. I bet she could haul a cord of firewood inside in no time flat”

  61. Pope Jimbo

    You know if I was hiring warehouse workers in Amazon’s Minnesoda distribution center, I might start discriminating against anyone who didn’t have a Scandinavian or German name. Somali activists have organized another walkout at the Amazon distribution center.

    Last summer/fall they were staging walkouts to protest working conditions (too high of a quota). Now it is because they claim Corona Virus danger is not being addressed by Amazon. And they are really peeved that warehouse workers can’t get unlimited paid sick leave during this crisis.

    And like last year, not too many workers are actually walking out. Activists claim 50 people walked this time, Amazon claims 25. This is out of 1000 workers.

    • R C Dean

      Lotta people looking for work. Let’s hope Amazon replaces the activists.

      If they can. I am not a labor lawyer, but I have a feeling that Amazon can’t easily fire them because the walkout may be deemed the kind of collective action that is protected by the NLRA.

      • hayeksplosives

        Looks like we could use people processing poultry and pork!

      • prolefeed

        Is there some reason Amazon can’t just assign the walk out jobs to their 975 other employees and then let the 25 protest, without pay, indefinitely?

    • Chipwooder

      Somali activists, huh? No good deed goes unpunished.

  62. grrizzly

    Where can I order a bandana that says “Fuck you, Karen”?

    • Q Continuum

      And of course:

      “If we can come out of this with a mentality that says a bunch of us can be a little bit less rich so that a ton of us can be a little less poor, it would almost make COVID worth it.”

      NEEDZ MOAR SOSHULIZM

      • R C Dean

        I’m curious as to how a crippled economy can make anyone less poor.

      • leon

        :Laughs in Crony:

      • Fatty Bolger

        Like a Bethesda game: It just works

  63. The Late P Brooks

    “Uffda, Sven. Look at Lena! Her ass an axe handle and a half across. I bet she could haul a cord of firewood inside in no time flat”

    You want a woman who could pull your plow if the mule goes lame.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Well at least we aren’t deviants like Montanans who look for a wife who “could pull your plow” (if you know what I mean) if your favorite sheep gets the clap.

  64. The Late P Brooks

    From Q’s link:

    “You can’t control the rest of the world, but you can control what you do. I have no power over when COVID ends as an individual, but I have a lot of power about how I respond to this.”

    Just as long as you OBEY.

    We wouldn’t want any boat-rockers gumming up the works.

  65. Chipwooder

    Goddamn, does that Samuel Adams quote about licking the hand that feeds you ever apply to this bullshit

    • leon

      Tyler
      ?
      ?
      @Tyler_The_Wise
      ·
      25m
      And that’s why we won’t have health outcomes as good as South Korea.

      Tens of thousands of Americans will die because we refuse to be cooperative in a time of crisis

      Such Wisdom, much understanding.

      • R C Dean

        Tens of thousands of Americans will die because we refuse to be cooperative in a time of crisis

        Cooperative = voluntary.

        The lockdowns and new round of requirements have nothing to do with “cooperation”.

      • prolefeed

        To them, “cooperate” means co-operate, i.e. “operate within the dictates of our Dear Rulers”.

    • leon

      Social Distancing Veteran
      @JustTheFacts37
      ·
      26m
      Replying to
      @yashar
      I’m a notoriously protective of my personal data, and no I don’t trust to the state to be honest, transparent or avoid any profit seeking from such an app …

      … but in this case? I think the benefit to the public outweighs such concerns

      IMO the failure of libertarianism is that it fails to educate people how individuals can meet their feelings of solidarity and need to sacrifice for others without making such dumb calls as “we have to force everyone to do this for the public benefit.

      • prolefeed

        Shorter – ignore everything before the “but”. What they say after is their revealed preference.

    • leon

      #StayHomeSaveLives
      @cindycrum
      Replying to
      @yashar
      Yes. Yes I would.

      #StayHomeSaveLives
      @cindycrum

      ·
      48m
      Replying to
      @cindycrum
      and
      @yashar
      Assuming that my information is used for appropriate purposes.

      This thread is a treasure trove of retardation.

    • leon

      G Fresh (@
      House with garden
      )
      @Tripletap007
      ·
      5m
      what could they possibly “gather” that they don’t already have? This is for sure not the 1984 scenario everyone is trying to make this out to be…you couldn’t just “delete big brother”
      Man shrugging
      Me providing my temperature to them isn’t doomsday for all humans

      I love when they make arguments that are at conflict with what they are saying in the very next argument. 1) If they already have the info, then why do they need me to give it to them. 2) If they already have it, then no i can’t just delete big-brother.

    • leon

      Christopher W Fisher
      @ChristopWFisher
      ·
      53m
      Replying to
      @yashar
      for my state, PA yes but feds no

      PA’s dick doesn’t hurt as bad when it gets shoved up my Ass

  66. The Late P Brooks

    Tens of thousands of Americans will die because we refuse to be cooperative in a time of crisis

    Listen, being ruled by the Japanese won’t be so bad. Think of the lives we’ll save if we just surrender now.

  67. The Late P Brooks

    Shocker- CNN reports round two of PPP will be a clusterfuck.