Thursday Morning Links

by | Apr 30, 2020 | Daily Links | 522 comments

Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas and what a glorious morning it is as newly unsealed DOJ documents reveal the FBI’s goal was to get General Flynn fired.

 

Here is an interesting breakdown of the case written back in January explaining a major conflict of interest with Flynn’s previous attorneys that was never revealed to him.

 

Flynn should have watched this classic video.

 

I guess it’s time to start buying gold again.

 

Democrats remind us why we can’t vote for them.

 

California reminds everyone why it needs to be walled off.

 

Damn right, Elon.

 

You can’t reopen the economy, you want people to die?!

 

First quarter GDP -4.8%.

 

Wear pants and close your damn porn tabs people.

 

That’s all I got for the day.  I’ll leave you with a song that is stuck in my head 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.

522 Comments

  1. Pat

    newly unsealed DOJ documents reveal the FBI’s goal was to get General Flynn fired.

    Government is just the name for the people we lynch together.

    • Festus

      The secret ingredient is Love…

      • AlexinCT

        That’s how the Obama administration’s weaponized bureaucracy showed it’s pimp love. See, the love of a pimp is not like the love of a square….

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’m going to celebrate mightily if someone actually does FPMITA prison time over this.

      In other words, I probably won’t be celebrating.

      Instead, I expect that processes and procedures will be updated and training will be offered to the culprits so it doesn’t happen again.

      • WTF

        Bingo. Nobody significant will face any serious consequences for this.

      • Festus

        Unless real violence occurs. If that happens we might see some pay-back.

      • Animal

        Surely you don’t still think equal treatment under the law is still a thing, do you?

      • Chipwooder

        I agree that it’s unlikely to happen, but dear Lord do I want to see James Comey and John Brennan in the graybar hotel.

    • bacon-magic

      I love the bland headlines the media is puking up for this. *sweeps under rug

      • AlexinCT

        Shit, Steele admired in court, under oath, that he was sure Susan Rice, Obama’s WH Security Advisor KNEW that he was not just pulling that fable together, but that the fable was being paid for by the Clinton campaign, which means there is absolutely now fucking way Obama was not aware of all that too. If these fucking dnc operatives with bylines really cared about preventing government entities from abusing the people, this stroy would make the whole Nixon affair look like a joke. That’s why you know these people are not there to inform the people of this country, but to cover for the most corrupt people in our history, because having Obama (the first black president) and Clinton (the first woman president to lose the rigged election they had to guarantee her win) tarnished, would hurt the cause.

      • Count Potato

        Just like Obama, with 17 intelligence agencies, didn’t know his own Secretary of State had a private email server.

      • Tejicano

        “…didn’t know his own Secretary of State was running the State Department on a private email server.”

      • AlexinCT

        “…didn’t know his own Secretary of State was running the State Department Clinton Foundation Crime Syndicate on a private email server.”

        Fixed that for you…

      • bacon-magic

        The media is the greatest enemy to liberty and truth now.

  2. UnCivilServant

    Wear pants and close your damn porn tabs people.

    I do.

    And I don’t share the screen of the computer with NSFW material.

    And I don’t have a camera.

    Who are these nude rubes?

    • Pat

      Say what you want about that professor, but he seems to have picked a career closely aligned with his interests.

      • UnCivilServant

        Or his career influenced his taste in… adult materials

      • AlmightyJB

        That could have been a lot worse really.

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s pretty tame as far as inadvertantly revealed porn preferences go.

      • DrOtto

        +8 tentacles

      • straffinrun

        In response to Zhang’s resignation, students launched a Change.org petition calling for his reinstatement.

        Those in glass houses.

      • leon

        it’s all the busty girls signing the petition. They all were getting A’s

      • Nephilium

        Are you sure none of them were getting the D?

      • Pat

        A’s for D’s and B’s for C’s?

      • Bobarian LMD

        That is an A+.

      • Spartacus

        You guys have this all wrong. The complete tab is “Busty college girls fund” and it’s a mistranslation from Mandarin. It should say “Busted college girls fund”, it’s a gofundme page for scholarships for poverty-stricken Chinese women.

        Don’t you feel awful now? This guy should sue.

      • Festus

        ^

    • Nephilium

      I’ll throw on a pair of shorts, but no pants. I also only share applications, not screens, and the share will nearly never include a web browser with any personal content (I don’t need people trying to figure out what a Glibertarian is…). You’d think the first time someone shared a display, and got an e-mail/chat notification complaining about the person they were presenting to they would learn why it’s a bad idea.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t own shorts, only full-length trousers.

      • Festus

        I actually own cut-off jorts and if this shit goes on, by God I’ll start wearing them again! It’ll be my own semblance of the Stars and Bars….

      • UnCivilServant

        Somehow I don’t picture you as having the figure of Daisy Dukes.

      • Bobarian LMD

        With matching gloves?

      • leon

        Yup. I only share applicationS, though I have to share my browser often. So I make sure to close glibs.

        Chrome lets you share just one tab, but then I’d have to use chrome

      • Mojeaux

        Are you ashamed of us?!

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t know about leon, but I have leftist managers.

        I don’t want to endanger my career.

      • Jarflax

        I have leftist managers too, although many of them were lost while boating. What caliber of management do you prefer?

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        . I also only share applications, not screens

        I’ve had my computer crash enough times while sharing apps that I only share screens now.

        That said, I usually go over to a different virtual desktop when I’m presenting. I also don’t do anything remotely compromising on my work computer. Worst case is an Amazon tab open. *shrug*

      • Lackadaisical

        Until they see that 55 gallon barrel of lube on your recommended purchases.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Time for a refill?

      • pan fried wylie

        “It’s datacenter lube, for servers.”

        Nobody’ll question it.

    • Fourscore

      Good thing I don’t have security cameras. My schtick would truly be exposed. Living in the woods has some (a lot) of advantages

    • UnCivilServant

      Oh, yeah,

      Mornin’ Banjos.

      • Banjos

        Mornin’

    • bacon-magic

      I still wear pants every day mostly…now shoes are a different story. I don’t miss shoes…do need a pair of moccasins for outside though.

  3. leon

    ” newly unsealed DOJ documents reveal the FBI’s goal was to get General Flynn fired.”

    Then he went to jail anyway and all the FBI boys and girls went home.

    We live in a country where some have more rights than others because of government privilege. Like being called “essential”. And no one bats an eye.

    • hayeksplosives

      What used to separate us from bring a banana republic is that we were a nation of laws.

      Now it’s all about power and robbing the taxpayers. So the would-be good citizen start to notice how arbitrary “justice” has become, gives up on the mutual respect and turn to “every man for himself.”

      • Festus

        I knew it was pretty bad before but now I just feel like drowning in a beer can.

  4. Pat

    Damn right, Elon.

    This from a guy whose businesses depend entirely on government contracting or consumer subsidies…

    Not that he’s wrong in this case.

    • straffinrun

      Gotta like his profile pic.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I’m guessing that he sees down the line, even that business model doesn’t work if you don’t have anyone to make the final purchase.

    • DrOtto

      I don’t agree, I think he would have tried building these without the subsidies, but his profitability definitely has come from either the subsidies or selling of carbon credits. Without those, his company (I know he didn’t found it, but he came in with the $ when Tesla needed it most) would have tanked a long time ago.

  5. Atanarjuat

    Random question, had anyone heard from old-time TOS commenters Vines & Cattle, The Gobbler, killazontherun, Smilin’ Joe Fission, brotherben, etc.?

    • Atanarjuat

      Fluffy! Always looked forward to his take on things.

    • Fourscore

      The only one I remember is Smilin Joe, he was a Canadian as I remember. He wasn’t a frequent poster, only when nuke stuff was involved

      • Suthenboy

        I miss that guy

      • bacon-magic

        I miss Sarc, Agile and … Hihn. Yes, I said it. *giggle-shits

      • leon

        Re-contemplates position against Capital Punishment….

      • AlexinCT

        At least he didn’t say that he missed John talking about his penchant for big ladies….

      • bacon-magic

        Oh and John too!

        You know why!

      • AlexinCT

        SWISS!

        Can I get a narrowed gaze here please?

      • bacon-magic

        Ya’ll are a bunch of hatersss. He kept the conversations/fights going. It’s better to be a sizzle in the pan then fizzle out on the plate.

      • C. Anacreon

        Because rust never sleeps.

      • Bob Boberson

        I’ve long wished we could have a weekly Gliberdome post in which the old TOS trolls (Hihn being the principal) were invited in for that post only. I miss reading them declaring themselves winner of all things libertarian despite having thoroughly exposed and humiliated by the Glibertariat.

  6. leon

    “California reminds everyone why it needs to be walled off.”

    The most spiteful part is that summer camps are closed for kids, unless you are an essential worker. Then you get to have summer camps.

    • Lackadaisical

      Yup. I recently found out that there are day cares open here in NY, but only for essential people. Strangely, my employer considers my work essential. . .

      • Lackadaisical

        oh,also, they get free childcare. ..

      • leon

        Yeah For so called egalitarians to be pushing this bulshit is amazing. All principles are to be abandoned in an emergency.

      • Lackadaisical

        Were they ever really egalitarian?

        They’ve always been looking for special carve outs for special people.

      • Nephilium

        Of course they were… it’s just that some animals are more equal than others.

      • Ted S.

        Yeah, where are the meals for people whose jobs were essential until the governors put a gun to employers’ heads and said no, that’s not essential?

        Instead, we get virtue signaling about meals for so-called heroes on the so-called front lines, people who can still pay to put food on the table.

      • pan fried wylie

        Solar panel subsidies for people with $10-15k sitting in the bank to put down, electric car subsidies for people who can afford a car that’s still 50k+, the mortgage interest deduction…

        I became a homeowner back in 2017. I done fucked up though by getting a mortgage I can actually afford, so even though they extended the mortgage interest deduction, I filed both ways for 2018 and the std deduction worked out better than itemizing to deduct the mortgage. Just wasn’t enough interest to matter for my income bracket.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The USA penalizes a lack of debt. We are a debtor nation.

        It will be our downfall.

      • Chipwooder

        Same thing here. My daughter does the YMCA afterschool program, and both my kids go to Y day camps during the summer. The Y has suspended all of their childcare programs indefinitely…..unless, of course, you’re a “first responder”. They still get their kids taken care of.

    • hayeksplosives

      Just when I was holdIng onto hope of sanity returning and jobs restarting, Newsom gets another power boner.

      This, I hops, backfires on him. He is going out if his way to bd spiteful.

      • Overt

        It is my son’s birthday today, but I have to work. We were planning on hitting the beach this weekend. As soon as Newsom’s order to shut the beaches on Friday was made public, I canceled my afternoon meetings and pulled my kid out of school. We can’t have a birthday party. We can’t go to the park. He can’t go out for a birthday dinner, but he can sure as hell go to the beach.

        Orange County supervisor, Wagner, has gone on record insisting that Newsom is making a mistake if he does this.

      • WTF

        I’m just waiting to see if my idiot governor Murphy is stupid enough to fuck over the summer tourist season for the Jersey Shore.

  7. Lackadaisical

    Nice links, the greatest.

    • Sensei

      I know this is likely a Spanish translation, but I love the apology.

      “If you think that my attitude has not been correct or that there are things that I have not done well, I have no problem asking for forgiveness, although my goal was not to harm someone else,” he said.

  8. PieInTheSky

    First quarter GDP -4.8%. – those are rookie numbers. I am sure -10% is possible with enough effort.

    • Lackadaisical

      when you consider that the Rona only started really hitting the economy in March, we could see -20%+ for quarter 2, depending on how quickly things are allowed to recover.

      • robc

        Down 30% at bottom is most of projections I am seeing, so could possibly see -25% this quarter, but I think -20% for Q2 is most likely.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        If anybody is still locked down when that news drops, there will be blood in the streets.

      • WTF

        I doubt it. The general population has been neutered by decades of good times, indoctrination, and ratcheting away from freedom. We are doomed.

  9. PieInTheSky

    In a big conference call and it is the first time I saw in a major presentation the chapter shit happens. It is usually more neutral language.

    • Brett L

      You need to find a new job when the title of the quarterly financials presentation is “We’re Fucked”

  10. Pat

    AI can’t be legally credited as an inventor, says USPTO

    Artificial intelligence has myriad use cases, but it turns out inventing devices isn’t one of them — at least in the eyes of the US Patent and Trademark Office. The agency issued a decision on two patent applications for devices created by an AI system, determining that only humans can legally be credited as inventors.

    The items in question — an emergency flashlight and a shape-shifting drink container — were the brainchildren of a system called DABUS. The Artificial Inventor Project filed the applications last year on behalf of the AI’s creator, Stephen Thaler. AIP lawyers argued that, since Thaler didn’t have any expertise in either of those types of products and couldn’t have come up with them by himself, DABUS should be the credited inventor.

    • Pat
    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Yep, that’s the right decision, IMO. I actually hate this whole controversy. The AI isn’t even close to working in a way that makes this controversy ripe yet.

      • Shirley Knott

        AI is twenty years away, and has been since the 50’s.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        There are two types of patent attorneys right now. The ones who find this controversy mind-blowingly important (I’ve attended God knows how many CLEs on this topic, and have been asked to be on a panel discussing it), and those who understand how AI works.

  11. Certified Public Asshat

    Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown. As of today, 2462 people have died there, a much higher number than the neighboring countries of Norway (207), Finland (206) or Denmark (443). The United States made the correct decision!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020

    In case you weren’t sure where he stood.

    • PieInTheSky

      Not even the hat knows fully where trumpy strands.

    • Pat

      Controlled for population size the difference is statistically insignificant.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Since he’s not controlling for that, we’re left to assume the United States made the correct decision to kill the most people.

      • straffinrun

        Sweden is 10 million and Norway and Denmark about 5 million.

      • WTF

        And doing the lockdown, absent an effective vaccine, only delays the deaths, it doesn’t eliminate them. Everyone seems to forget that the original justification for the lockdown was to be for only a couple of weeks to “flatten the curve” to spread out the hospital cases over a longer time period so the hospitals didn’t get overwhelmed. Nobody said it would prevent deaths from ever occurring. Now of course, with the curve thoroughly flattened and the hospitals losing money due to lack of patients, the totalitarians have got their authority boners on and the goalpoasts are moving faster than Speedy Gonzales on crack.

    • R C Dean

      Christ on a cracker.

      There for a few weeks he was less disappointing, but now he’s reverted. I can’t believe he got,turned around and is now pro lockdown and anti economy. It’s probably the only way he can lose in November, and he’s all for it.

      • Q Continuum

        We’ve all been saying that the Establishment would rather burn it all to the ground and rule the ashes than see power wielded by a Deplorable. It appears we were right. One possible reason to vote for Trump, regardless of how stupid he is, is to prove that it didn’t work. Because if it does, you might as well cancel every election in perpetuity.

      • hayeksplosives

        Other reason: judicial appointments.
        We can’t afford lefty judges everywhere.

      • hayeksplosives

        “It’s the economy, stupid.”

      • Overt

        The problem was that Trump tried urging people not to panic. And then the Media roasted him for not taking shit seriously. If he didn’t lock down the world, he was going to be accused of personally murdering every COVID death in the country.

        Now he knows this. We know this. The Media knows this. But the entire group of people need to do this kabuki theater to justify the whole thing. If the media admits that Trump shouldn’t have over reacted, then they are culpable as the cheerleaders before hand. If Trump admits that he over reacted, then he looks like he was duped by the media.

      • Fourscore

        Call me a conspirator but I believe this was a pure politically motivated stunt that got out of hand.

        “We gotta get Trump”

        “Hey, there’s few cases of a new flu thing”

        “Trump is killing Americans, we gotta do something”

        Trump/advisors “We gotta get ahead of this thing. Let’s spend some money”

        Here we are, what Overt said. Its kabuki all the way down

      • Urthona

        He’s not a smart guy, but he does have great political instincts.

        I’ve already noticed the press tack to “he’s destroyed the economy”. Two articles this week on it. Which is actually a fairly absurd claim.

        He needs to justify his shutdown while reopening the economy as quickly as possible. I’ve actually never seen his approval and polling against blue drop this much. 30 million jobs is too much for almost any incumbent to handle and be reelected. Regardless of whether he’s truly at fault.

    • Lackadaisical

      would love to see all cause mortality over the next year for Sweden and it’s neighbors.

      • Drake

        This – the lockdown shit was only supposed to delay the spread, not stop it.

    • LJW

      Let’s look at those numbers in 6 months.

    • Count Potato

      How does that fake Elon Musk scammer have a blue checkmark?

    • grrizzly

      There are other factors than lockdowns that are important.

      See Figure 2 here.

      And from Wikipedia:

      Finland: The BCG was routinely given for all newborn until 2006. After 2006 the BCG was offered only for selected high risk group children under the age of 7.
      Norway: In Norway the BCG vaccine was mandatory from 1947 to 1995. It is still available and recommended for high-risk groups.
      Sweden: The BCG vaccine was routinely administered to children from 1940[41] until 1975.[62] After 1975 the BCG vaccination policy in Sweden changed from routine vaccination of all newborn infants to selective vaccination of groups at higher risk.

      • Overt

        BCG? They better be careful or they’ll get fired like that professor in Miami.

  12. Q Continuum

    “Busty college girl fu…”

    Sounds like the guy has good taste.

    But was it really necessary for him to resign? I mean: everyone watches porn, except for freaks and losers.

    Besides, how do we know it wasn’t “Busty college girl fumigates a house”? Or “Busty college girl fulfills lifelong dream of summiting Mt. Fuji”? Or “Busty college girl funds her education by selling homemade crafts”?

    • Lackadaisical

      Mt. Fuji was my nickname in college.

      • bacon-magic

        After Taco night?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Busty college girl fudge recipes

      Busty college girl fusion research

      Busty college girl furniture refinishing

      • pan fried wylie

        Would, would, and wood.

    • Tonio

      I think it was the “college girl” tag since he works in education. But I’d suspect that “college girl” is more of a generic porn term indicating the supposed ages of the model, much like porn MILFs are not required to be actual mothers, etc.

      • Pat

        porn MILFs are not required to be actual mothers

        Whoa, wait just a goddamn minute here, how long has this been going on?

      • Lackadaisical

        yeah, I feel lied to.

        next you’ll tell new you don’t even have to be related for the title to say ‘step sister convinces mom to be in threesome’

    • Brett L

      He was probably just supporting one of his students by increasing her PornHub rankings.

    • Incentives Matter

      “Busty college girl fu . . . riously blows Professor Zhang for full credit.”

      C’mon. You know that’s what you’re all thinking.

    • Pat

      3 is the only one that intrigues me. This whole mega-ass trend needs to stop.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m with Pat.

      • UnCivilServant

        Fat asses and tats need to go.

      • PieInTheSky

        agree.

        17 could be interesting but not enough visible.

        36 and 56 maybe…

      • Q Continuum

        My personal preferences are well-known. However, I have gotten occasional requests from the Glibertariat to include more asses, so I try to keep my ass posts in the 25% range. I’m here to serve.

      • UnCivilServant

        But they don’t need to be the size of the moon. That’s the bigger issue.

      • Chipwooder

        There’s definitely a line that gets crossed there between a nice round shape and just plain huge.

      • Lackadaisical

        Go check ass Wednesday from yesterday, lots of skinny white girls with no butt for you reprobates.

      • Incentives Matter

        This whole mega-ass trend needs to stop.

        Since everyone’s afraid of the ‘Rona and having a fatal co-morbidity, all we have to do is spread the rumour that thiccness is a co-morbidity.

        Problem, solved.

        You’re welcome.

      • WTF

        Obesity actually is a co-morbidity, and a lot of those thicc girls look to be well on their way.

  13. PieInTheSky

    Personally I am not even sure what I believe anymore with covid, but given my general health maybe I would have proffered to get the thing in march get immunity and move the fuck on.

    I have no idea how many of the people who were gonna get it got it anyway. With 0 precaution I doubt more than 50% of the population would have gotten it, if that many. If, as some studies show, up to over 20% got it, maybe it is as much as it would have been.

    Romania has 12000 cases out of 180k tests. I have no idea what the real number is but I suspect that a country with low testing capacity tested people who were likely to have it.

    Other countries are all over the place. Total mortality over usual is limited imo because no idea what caused it. In Romania doctor visits for cardiovascular disease are down 70%. Maybe some of that is hypochondriacs, but some are clearly people who maybe should have gone.

    I dunno.

    • leon

      “proffered to get the thing in march get immunity and move the fuck on”

      There’s no proof of immunity!!!!! And see! This is why we have to lock people down. They don’t know what is best for them!

      • PieInTheSky

        There’s no proof of immunity!!- true but the few people who were reinfected generally had mild versions and were not really contagious themselves, according to info form Korea.

      • Rhywun

        There was a study saying the “reinfections” were just virus lingering from the original infection.

    • Q Continuum

      As with any topic that’s highly politicized, lack of clarity is a feature, not a bug. The “experts” want to make sure the water is so muddy that the genpop can’t easily draw their own conclusions and therefore have to rely on them. All indication I’ve seen is that fatality rates were drastically inflated early on and as time and antibody testing has advanced, it’s showing that this disease is similar to a bad flu strain. It’s also higher risk for a very well-defined set of people with specific comorbidities.

      All of that is irrelevant to the point that the lockdowns are/were unethical to begin with.

      • PieInTheSky

        All of that is irrelevant to the point that the lockdowns are/were unethical to begin with. – yes but either way, one would want to get as much good info as possible. Even without any lock down I would want to know the truth about the ChiCom Cold.

  14. Nephilium

    So who wants to win Halloween this year? Props/Costumes from the Tick are going up for auction.

    (Sorry for linking a competitor Sloopy).

    • PieInTheSky

      Shit NSFW obviously. Do not share in zoom meetings.

      • Nephilium

        Your not my supervisor!

      • Count Potato

        “The strippers at his club began bringing meals to area homes in mid-March after Gov. Kate Brown’s order addressing the pandemic by closing restaurants and bars across the state forced Lucky Devil to temporarily shut down. The pop-up business has allowed the dancers to keep working and accepting tips from customers—who can take photos from a safe distance—as well as the bouncers who drive and provide security at each stop.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Those are some substandard strippers.

      • PieInTheSky

        true but in these trying times …

      • Pat

        Day shift in Oregon, yo.

      • Chipwooder

        Go to one of the lower end clubs in a military town. It can be a real horror show.

      • Count Potato

        Way too much ink.

    • Festus

      Good God! I’ve seen some low-grade strippers before but those girls bake the cake.

      • OBE #Learn2Essential

        They have colleges to fund Festus!

  15. WTF

    So I was watching my fuckstick governor Murphy on Fox talking about how, at maybe some point in the future, he may “allow” people to return to living their lives. Fuck you asshole. If only the majority of people in this fucked-up state weren’t so willing to go along with this unconstitutional, authoritarian bullshit.

    • PieInTheSky

      Murphy on Fox is a strange name.

      • Chipwooder

        Sounds like the name of a quaint English village.

      • UnCivilServant

        I think it’s in South Mercia.

    • straffinrun

      People should even be upset with a governor that says he’ll allow people to go back to work. If I’m not mistaken, the only governor that is saying they don’t have the authority to do these lockdowns is the lady from SDak.

      • Idle Hands

        I’m writing her in for President.

      • banginglc1

        -1 Veto party

  16. Certified Public Asshat

    What if? Lockdown Critics May Have Some Valid Points

    No, not the MAGA types foolishly protesting they have a constitutional right to endanger themselves and others by ignoring social-distancing rules. And not the “it’s-just-the-flu” crowd, either.

    I’m referring to people like John Ioannidis, the Stanford University School of Medicine scientist who argued early on that the coronavirus was far less deadly than the models were predicting. Or the Swedish epidemiologist John Giesecke, who says that protecting the elderly and frail — and allowing the rest of society to go about its business — makes far more sense than lockdowns, whose efficacy, he believes, remains unproved. And yes, I’m even referring to Alex Berenson, the pugnacious former journalist who has become a national villain (except at Fox News) for poking holes in the conventional wisdom about how to mitigate the virus and pointing out the various harms that have resulted from measures like lockdowns.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I uh, could use a fairy.

      • Tonio

        There you go, toots.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        *blows kiss*

    • leon

      “No, not the MAGA types foolishly protesting they have a constitutional right to endanger themselves and others by ignoring social-distancing rules.”

      I’ll keep that in mind when you start acting like you care about the Constitution again. Fuck you.

      • Rhywun

        The 2nd paragraph proves their point. What a moron.

    • Pat

      No, not the MAGA types foolishly protesting they have a constitutional right to endanger themselves and others by ignoring social-distancing rules. And not the “it’s-just-the-flu” crowd, either.

      To be sure. Even though they are saying the exact same things based on the exact same reasoning. It’s just so much more dreamy when a qualified member of the credentialed class says it.

      • leon

        Exactly this. “I’m not a crazy MAGA person” but maybe that smaht guy there in the suit has a point.

        It also read like “I don’t have any reason to disagree with them, but they are icky Trump voters”.

    • OBE #Learn2Essential

      Love the lockdown critics have a point when they are on my team and are sciency and stuff. Screw those rubes who are the unwashed.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Those foolish MAGA types, with their common sense and so-called “rights.”

  17. Scruffy Nerfherder

    How do you know the panic is subsiding over COVID?

    Because the media is tacking to the failing (failed) economy this week.

    • LJW

      Now we have to deal with the roaming packs of Karens demanding we wear masks in public.

    • banginglc1

      I feel like I did my part. At the park yesterday I undid the swing that was wrapped around the bar so my girlfriends kid could swing. I undid the others so all the kids could actually. And while walking last night, I cut off the caution tape on the playground . . .shhhh . . don’t tell Karen!

      • Tonio

        Good on you. Seriously.

      • pan fried wylie

        Way to cut those kids bootstraps. They shoulda been out there, standing on each others shoulders to get the swings down themselves.

      • Jarflax

        Is the girlfriend’s kid old enough to swing or are you in the OMWC camp now?

  18. Suthenboy

    ‘Zoom class’

    That is the fireable offense

  19. PieInTheSky

    Georgia teens will no longer need to pass a formal driving test to get a driver’s license due to the pandemic.

    They will only need parents approval

    https://twitter.com/Complex/status/1255634158916907009

    the comments do not agree

    • UnCivilServant

      Look, they need to be forced to parallel park, just like veryone else.

      Funnily enough I passed in six inches of slush and snow, having failed on dry pavement more than once.

      Maybe it’s because the tester couldn’t see the curb.

      • robc

        Wit backup cameras, parallel parking is super easy.

        Or just get a car that will do it for you.

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t have a backup camera.

        Not many cars did when I took the test (maybe the ultra high end luxury models if any)

      • Pat

        I couldn’t get close enough to the curb in the family Mercury Mountaineer on either the parallel parking or backing around a curb tests. The turning radius of the vehicle is such that a professional driver probably couldn’t have done it either. I don’t think any cop in America would give me a ticket for being 15 inches from the curb in stead of 12 anyway. I passed with an 80%.

      • UnCivilServant

        I didn’t actually manage it until I moved into this house and had to parallel park on nearly a daily basis because there’s no off-street parking.

      • banginglc1

        Got better gloves?

    • OBE #Learn2Essential

      Middle son is soon to be 15.5 and is itching to get his permit. He is a good driver. Youngest can do without because his attention span stops just right before the windshield.

    • PieInTheSky

      Question: is it the case that in more rural regions of the US some youngsters drive various vehicles before actually getting a license?

      • OBE #Learn2Essential

        Yes

      • Lackadaisical

        actually everyone drives before they get their license, first you need your learner permit.

      • PieInTheSky

        oh you know that is not what I meant.

      • UnCivilServant

        What you meant and what you said are two different things.

        We will take whatever opportunities present themselves.

      • Nephilium

        As an honest answer. You don’t need a license to drive on private land, and it’s not uncommon for children under the driver’s license age to be driving tractors around the farms in the more rural areas.

      • banginglc1

        I don’t know if it’s changed . . .but in Indiana kids as young as 14 could drive farm trucks by themselves as long as it had a”farm” license plate and it was on farm business.

      • PieInTheSky

        What I meant to say is rural kids probably know how to drive so the issue may be urban kids so complaining about might be racist.

      • Urthona

        You can also get a “hardship” license which is not uncommon here which means you can drive before your 16 if both parents work or something and you need to drive to school.

      • Pat

        We lived in a mid sized city and my mom started taking me out to parking lots to let me get the hang of being behind the wheel starting when I was about 14, so a year or so before I got my permit and 2 years before I got my license.

      • AlexinCT

        I was driving (without parental permission, I admit) by the time I was 13. And I was driving sitck. Kids today have no clue what driving is.

      • Urthona

        My 13 year old daughter already drives around on our “farm” out in the country. It’s a gentleman’s farm and not really functioning. Just for fun. We’ve been there a lot during lockdown though.

      • Incentives Matter

        . . . is it the case that in more rural regions of the US some youngsters drive various vehicles before actually getting a license?

        Also true in Canada. My niece (who lived on a rural acreage where her parents ran their greenhouse business) was driving her Dad’s 2500 (diesel engine Chevy truck with “dualies” [four tires on the rear axle]) and backing a trailer full of plants into a loading area when she was ten years old.  By the time she got her driver’s license at 16, the test was a mere formality.

  20. Mojeaux

    I’m not convinced that fewer people going to the doctor/hospital is bad.

    • Festus

      You are correct, Madam!

    • Pat

      Depends. Fewer people taking their kid with a runny nose to the clinic and causing unnecessary delays for people who need actual treatment? Good. Heart and cancer surgeries being postponed indefinitely while the patients worsen and the risk of surgery increases? Not good.

      • Mojeaux

        Well, when I say “going to the doctor/hospital,” I mean, picking oneself up and heading there because Reasons. I don’t mean not going because you have a scheduled procedure. Kids need the dentist (that can wait) and eye doctor (bad) and I’m gnashing my teeth.

        I go to the cardiologist once a year because of my family history and every time I have a flutter (not often) I panic. I have a physical once a year. But maybe I should head to the doctor every time I have a flutter and I get spooked. I already KNOW my heart is right and tight.

        The last time I took a kid to the doctor, she’d already been sick for a week and it didn’t show any signs of letting up (gee, I wonder what it was ?). She tested positive for flu B, but what could they really do about it except symptomatic measures?

    • Q Continuum

      iT jUsT pRoVeS wE nEeD sOsHuLiZd mEdIcInE!!!

      • PieInTheSky

        glad you are finally coming around to that Q

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Eh, not everyone is a hypochondriac.

    • Drake

      Last visit the ER was like a Tijuana bus station. Most of the people there clearly weren’t citizens, clearly weren’t there for emergencies, and I doubt most them had any intention of paying for the visit. All got reflected in the bill we received.

    • banginglc1

      On the plus side, I do like the phone appointments. I don’t have to waste an hour in the waiting room for a 5 minute visit.

      • Mojeaux

        Same!

        Had our bankruptcy hearing this morning over the phone on a conference call.

        I’m actually shocked how much can be done by phone and internet, and I’ve been working by internet since 2003.

  21. Festus

    Anybody else here dealing with a spouse that can’t handle being cooped up? I’m used to this. She’s a social butterfly. Haaaaaaaalp!

      • AlexinCT

        WTF???

    • OBE #Learn2Essential

      So you’re saying we need to form a club for husbands, maybe call it something like “National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood” or NO MA’AM for short?

      Al Bundy was a god among ants

      • Mojeaux

        d00d.

        My husband is the social butterfly. He needs people almost as much as he needs to breathe.

        Me, I hate people and I’m used to being at home all day (usually alone) (I miss that), so no change for me.

        That said, we both have work, so this is not as bad as it could be. He can’t be my officemate though, because he wants to talk while he’s working and I don’t.

    • Tonio

      Encourage her to do video visits with friends and family. Socially distant walks where you can wave at neighbors from a safe distance, if allowed where you are.

      • Festus

        Already done. The Pom is exhausted.

      • Lackadaisical

        ^this

        It has really helped my wife to meet her friend at the park and chat while our kids are napping.

    • Gender Traitor

      You married an extrovert? Bad move, bro! Deepest sympathy.

      • Festus

        I was an extrovert at the time. I was a quasi-politician, labor leader. Things have changed since then.

  22. robc

    South Carolina peaked at 16 deaths per day a week ago. And yesterday there were 40. I don’t know what happened, I am guessing they weren’t all really yesterday, but added in some that hadnt been counted as covid deaths.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Not knowing what the typical delay in reporting is like I’d probably stick to a moving average on a 7-day window.

      • robc

        But that 40 is so out of whack that it would mess up even that. The previous 7 days was 68 total.

      • Brett L

        Depends on how they are counting. FL is having a low scale fight between state DOH (who want a COVID positive test) and county morticians who assert it is within their power to determine cause of death. DOH is reporting much smaller numbers. Some of this is just mission difference. DOH is trying to aggregate data in a way to form actionable policies, county health departments may be trying to help local hospitals and businesses maximize impact for federal funding.

    • Pine_Tree

      I’d guess reporting lag. GA’s numbers tend to dip a lot Fri-Sun and then peak Mon-Wed.

      And sometimes to have a big “here’s a big stack to enter” day.

      No telling how much of that is normal admin stuff and how much is somebody messing with the decision-making criteria.

    • Tonio

      Oh, the vitriol towards the ReOpen movement is incredible, and not just from the media. My social media is flooded with deranged attacks: kooks, deniers, selfish people who want to force others back to work.

      But let someone so much as honk at a traffic-blocking fake nurse and it’s a literal attack.

    • R C Dean

      Not even fattractive.

    • Q Continuum

      She must routinely break chairs with that thing.

      • Count Potato

        It’s for the economy.

  23. PieInTheSky

    Speaking of licenses

    Data Point: The Bar Exam Does Not Protect the Public
    If the bar exam protected the public from misconduct, we should expect to see a substantially higher rate of misconduct in states that do not require the exam or whose bar exam is substantially easier

    https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/04/27/the-bar-exam-debate/?slreturn=20200330060014#

    We have detailed information from the State Bar of Wisconsin, currently the only American state to permit licensure via a standing diploma privilege. The Wisconsin Court System maintains a Compendium of Attorney Discipline, a comprehensive database of all attorney discipline within the state. A searching inquiry of the database finds very little to suggest that Wisconsin’s liberal diploma privilege results in widespread attorney misconduct. The State Bar of Wisconsin has a membership of 23,400 attorneys. In 2019, only 19 were suspended or disbarred for misconduct, even fewer due to incompetence. Nineteen attorneys out of over twenty-thousand were suspended or disbarred, and even fewer for incompetence, in the state with the lowest barriers to entry to the practice of law. That should suggest that it is not the barriers that protect the public.

    • R C Dean

      Why would anyone think a test of legal knowledge was somehow a protection against misconduct?

      Is the low number of disciplinary actions a good reflection in Wisconsin lawyers, or an indictment of the Wisconsin State Bar?

      I think bar exams have pretty much zero benefit, but this a argument is just stupid.

    • bacon-magic

      He’s such a fuckstick. They need to bring back Celebrity Deathmatch and make it Gates vs. Musk.

      • Tejicano

        Flamethrowers at 20 paces.

    • Pat

      Imagine how much money you would have lost in the 1990s betting that Bill Gates would become an even bigger cunt after leaving Microsoft.

      • Pat

        Made, not lost, you get the point.

  24. PieInTheSky

    Change a film by swapping out one word for “moist” in the title.

    MOIST IN THE SHELL

    https://twitter.com/MillisBrent/status/1255673457984987136

    From the replies

    Apocalypse Moist / Moist Now!

    Moist Metal Jacket.

    John Moist at the End

    and so on and so forth

    • leon

      The Girl with the Moist Tattoo

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I prefer The Girl With The Dragon Moist

      • PieInTheSky

        The Girl moist the Dragon Tattoo

    • Q Continuum

      Some Like it Moist

    • leon

      You’ve got Moist

      Lord of Moist Rings

      Batman: The Moist Knight

    • The Hyperbole

      Moist

      either for Jaws or Zardoz, your choice.

      • Nephilium

        Alternatively:

        Marvel’s Moist

    • Pat

      2001: A Moist Odyssey
      Moist Hard: With A Vengeance
      A Few Moist Men
      The Moist Connection

      • PieInTheSky

        A Few Moist Men – lol

    • leon

      Tora, Tora, Mosit

    • WTF

      Would “Moistfellas” count?

    • leon

      Moist Dogs

      A Fistful of Moist

      The Good the Bad and the Moist

      Hang’em Moist

    • Translucent Chum

      Moist and loathing in Las Vegas.

    • WTF

      Snow White and the Moist Dwarves

      • Agent Cooper

        Moyzt in the Hood

    • WTF

      The Moist Connection

    • Chipwooder

      Moist Drunk Love
      Moist Fiction
      Driving Moist Daisy
      Moist in Seattle
      Things to Do in Denver When You’re Moist
      Rosenkrantz and Gilderstern Are Moist
      There Will Be Moist

    • Trigger Hippie

      It’s a Moist Moist Moist Moist World

    • Count Potato

      Gorillas in the Moist
      Dial M for Moist
      Moist Dangerous Game
      Moist in Translation

    • Fatty Bolger

      That’s a game we’ve played for years in MMO chats, though instead of “moist” we use “muffin.” It’s a great way to bring out the chat lurkers because everybody jumps in.

      • Not Adahn

        “murlock” in /2

    • Gdragon

      They moistly come at night… moistly

    • PieInTheSky

      Moist Peaks

      The quick and the moist

      Moist with the wind

    • Pine_Tree

      I can’t make myself type it, but as a gun guy I always liked Quigley Down Under…

      • Chipwooder

        It’s a lever-action breach-loader. Usual barrel length’s thirty inches. This one has an extra four. It’s converted to use a special forty-five caliber, hundred-and-ten-grain metal cartridge, with a five-hundred-forty-grain paper patch bullet. It’s fitted with double-set triggers, and a Vernier sight, marked up to twelve-hundred yards. This one shoots a mite further.

    • Chipwooder

      There are so many ways to go with this….

      The Good, the Bad, and the Moist
      The Moist Bunch
      Butch Cassidy and the Moist Kid
      My Own Moist Idaho
      Austin Powers: International Man of Moist
      Moist of Iwo Jima
      Twelve O’Clock Moist
      Rosemary’s Moist
      Some Like It Moist
      The Moist Couple
      Days of Moist and Roses
      The Moist Falcon

      • Q Continuum

        Damn you are crusin’ it.

      • R C Dean

        I guess Moist Women was just too easy?

    • PieInTheSky

      Did anyone say moist in 60 seconds?

      • PieInTheSky

        12 moist men

        no moist for old men

        of men and moist

      • PieInTheSky

        no I fucked that up of moist and men

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Moistfellas.

      Moist Hard.

      The Moist Father.

      Magnificent Moist.

      Citizen Moist.

      Casamoist.

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      The Moist and the Furious.

  25. Brawndo

    Update from the frontlines: heard from the meat VP of our grocery store that costs are going way up across the board. Expect prices on meat product to jump soon.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yup

        I’ve been stocking up. Freezer being delivered today.

    • PieInTheSky

      Buy soy futures

      • UnCivilServant

        I’d prefer we not have a Soy Future.

    • WTF

      Which is why I have two freezers full of meat.

      • PieInTheSky

        HOARDER!!! Get Him!

    • Nephilium

      Looks like I should move up my next hoarding run to the grocery store. Vacuum sealer + chest freezer + 18% off = Happy Nephilium.

      • UnCivilServant

        Will a cooler with ice be sufficient for transporting meat products over a two hour drive?

      • Nephilium

        As long as the temperature stays below 40F, you should be fine. It’ll really depend on the cooler, the external temperature, and other factors. If it gets above 40F, then it’s a matter of how long and what temp it was held at.

        If you trust the government, then two hours at room temperature is the limit for safety anyways.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t trust the government, but I figured we had enough of a knowledge base here someone would have a decent answer.

    • Gender Traitor

      Dang. We may have to sacrifice our stash of Thin Mints to make room in the freezer. : (

      • UnCivilServant

        wait… I still have two corned beef rounds in the freezer. How did I not remember those when doing my meat inventory?

    • Mojeaux

      Yeup. Planned for that last week. Got a new (to us) freezer and stocked it. So we have 2 freezers and the fridge-freezer packed to their gills and I’d get more meat if I had a place to put it, but another freezer is just too much.

    • Trigger Hippie

      Just bought about twenty pounds of meat yesterday. That should hold me over for about a month… or two if food shortages get real.

    • Stillhunter

      We picked up a half of beef last week from a local farmer. 285 lbs @ $4.49/lb. We wanted to get a half a pig too, but there’s a list. Curious to see if his prices go up.

    • leon

      Damn son. When the editor has to write a 4 paragraph note giving the context around what a fucking hypocrite you are…

    • Certified Public Asshat

      How do progressive women choose between the pussy grabber in chief who has done so much damage to our country and a man who has allegations made against him?

      Wow.

  26. Festus

    Feeling really low. Hope you guys and gals have a better one than me today! So damn tired.

    • PieInTheSky

      I am not feeling that bad but then again I drink to much so who knows.

      Can’t say I have any good advice to share for though so… keep a stiff upper lip? concentrate on things you can change not on those you cannot? everything happens for a reason?

      • Q Continuum

        Excellent platitudes Pie. You’d fit in perfectly in the USA.

      • PieInTheSky

        I was also going to add “in 1 billion years the milky way will merge with Andromeda and nothing really matters” but did the responsible thing and did not

      • AlexinCT

        Actually your advice should be taken a lot more serious by a lot of people. I have never been one to worry too much about things I can not change/affect. Maybe it was the training, but you dealt with the problem at hand, worked it until solved, then moved to the next. Problems you couldn’t affect, you made contingencies for and moved on from until you could deal with them. I understand most people are not wired like that, but sometimes I feel their stress is really self inflicted. Why would you waste processing time on things you really can’t change when there are so many that you should work on? Not busting on anyone that gets affected by issues they can’t control: just pointing out the futility of letting those things impede your ability to deal.

      • Festus

        I know you are just being a shit-head but you know what, Pie? It means a lot to me. Thanks, Gypsy!

      • PieInTheSky

        I was actually not trying to be a shithead but I doubt anything I say improves things so I kept it humorous

  27. LJW

    KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas unveils ‘soft-opening’ plan

    “As of May 15, businesses will be able to open with a capacity of 10 percent of people. Smaller businesses will be allowed to have only 10 people.

    Any establishment where a customer will stay for more 10 minutes must keep track of everyone who has been there. For example, barber shops, churches and restaurants should have people sign a sheet with all of their contact information to allow contact tracing if there were an outbreak.”

    Pretty sure that’s not legal, but when has that ever stopped the left? Meanwhile the rest of us in the suburbs are opening up. Enjoy chasing off business mayor.

    • UnCivilServant

      So, the Mayor has mysteriously been found floating in the river?

      • pan fried wylie

        He’s right here on the river’s sign-in sheet, but nobody can seem to locate him directly…

  28. Q Continuum

    Get out your weed whacker.

    • Pat

      Salons have closed during the coronavirus pandemic.

      And for many, it means grooming regimes have slipped.

      Call me provincial, but do a lot of women actually have that done at a salon instead of just doing themselves? All of the materials you need to shave your crotch can be easily obtained and used in the comfort and safety of your doom bunker.

      • Q Continuum

        Shaving leads to ingrown hairs so many (most?) ladies get waxes. That would be difficult during a lockdown. If they really wanted to, they could use Nair, just be careful not to leave it on too long or it’ll cause chemical burns.

      • Pat

        I mean you can wax at home too though if you aren’t into shaving or just trimming. It ain’t rocket surgery.

      • pan fried wylie

        I’d assumed people who go to get waxed can’t pull the shit off themselves.

      • invisible finger

        “Salons have closed ”

        What bullshit. “Salons were forced to cease operations” may be hyperbolic, but still more accurate.

      • WTF

        Yeah, that’s right up there with “Coronavirus has shut down many businesses”. No, it hasn’t shut down a single fucking business, the government shut down all those businesses.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Stupid is as stupid does

      • AlexinCT

        Is it wrong to ask if she procreated? Just want to know if the tax payers will be straddled with her offspring’s shennaingans.

    • leon

      More evidence that it is too early to open back up.

    • AlmightyJB

      I never trust a “fell off the cliff” story.

      • R C Dean

        Based on what I’ve seen at the Grand Canyon, I do.

    • Gender Traitor

      Local health official: “Yup, that one counts.” ::adds hash mark to tally::

  29. Count Potato

    “New York health officials allowed nurses with coronavirus to keep working at a virus-stricken care home where 15 people have now died, according to staff memos.

    Staff who had tested positive for COVID-19 were sent back to work at the Hornell Gardens nursing home in Hornell, Steuben County – even after three residents had died and a third of all residents and staff were infected with the deadly virus.

    Questions were leveled at the state’s health commissioner Howard Zucker this week over the matter, as the county claimed the Health Department ignored protests from local officials and approved the move to keep sending infected staff into the home.

    This marks the latest scandal over the state’s response to protecting elderly and sick people in care homes amid the pandemic, after it emerged last week officials had turned down pleas from another facility to move sick residents to the USNS Comfort away from the healthy residents.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8272135/New-York-health-officials-allowed-nurses-coronavirus-working-care-home.html

    • Social Justice is Neither

      If you were trying to jack up the death toll from CV is there any MY policy that could be changed for better results?

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Update from the frontlines: heard from the meat VP of our grocery store that costs are going way up across the board. Expect prices on meat product to jump soon.

    No kidding.

    Stagflation: not just a funny word from the history books.

  31. Count Potato

    “Meat workers are threatening that they won’t return to work despite President Donald Trump’s demand that plants stay open amid fears over the nation’s food supply.

    Their refusal comes in response to Trump using the Defense Production Act to classify meat processing plants as critical infrastructure.

    He issued the order in a bid to prevent the shortage of chicken, pork and other meat amid widespread plant closure across the country as stores nationwide grapple with empty shelves amid a huge plunge in production.

    However, many employees claim the order puts their lives at stake due to unsafe conditions, a lack of protective equipment and outbreaks that led the nation’s three largest facilities shut down.

    The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union estimated on Tuesday that 20 meatpacking and food processing workers have died from the virus and some 6,500 are sick or have been exposed through the workplace.

    The union, which represents 1.3million food and retail workers, says at least 13 processing plants have been closed over the past two months.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8270375/Meat-plant-workers-voice-outrage-Trumps-executive-order-facilities-open.html

    • ruodberht

      What are they getting, 1200 applications for every open position? 1500?

      Bye Felicia.

      • Rhywun

        Sorry, unionized.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      This has less to do with risk and everything to do with the exorbitant unemployment insurance they’re collecting.

      If the producers want to get past this roadblock, they’ll have to add hazard pay until the epidemic has passed.

      • Idle Hands

        funny that it’s come to this, paying taxes that are being used to artificially create a labor shortage. Essentially you’re funding you’re own financial woes.

    • WTF

      Please explain how virus that is proving to be no more deadly than a bad seasonal flu puts all of your lives at risk.

    • Pat

      Smithfield shut down most, if not all, of their plants. Smithfield is a wholly owned subsidiary of WH Group, China’s largest meat producer. I’m certain there were no political considerations in the decision.

      • invisible finger

        Politics or not, if they aren’t selling product I’m not sure how long they can survive as a going concern. The one ting that helps them is that government puts up so many roadblocks to new entrants who would take up the slack.

      • Count Potato

        China owns too much shit here.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Smithfield wouldn’t shut down unless they felt they had to. Management is wholly American and the WH Group bought Smithfield with Goldman Sachs’ backing.

      • Pat

        Management is wholly American and the WH Group bought Smithfield with Goldman Sachs’ backing.

        Well that makes me feel better, it’s not like Goldman has any kind of cozy relationship with the CCP…

        Not saying you’re wrong, just saying it’s not necessarily a great look. I think this entire lockdown has uncovered some of the risks inherent to making the supply chain for substantially all consumer and industrial products dependent on the good will of the CCP

      • Gustave Lytton

        has uncovered some of the risks inherent to making the supply chain for substantially all consumer and industrial products dependent on the good will of the CCP JIT inventory and eliminating all inefficiencies.

  32. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Speaking of retarded Facebook posts

    And if employees can’t file for unemployment, that means less money spent by the state. It’s cold, cruel budgetary calculation. Even worse, it increases infection risks for the workers and the public. But at least it allows them to not raise taxes, which may be what is really important to them.

    Posted by a federal employee who has no concept of the relationship between production, capital, and inflation.

    • leon

      Just remember all of this when the next government shutdown happens. When that happens it can last 18 months for all i care. That’s what these fucks say we have to live with, then they should get it hard up the ass. Fuck them all.

      • creech

        This! Remember all the sob stories on tv news about a park ranger or another poor government worker who wasn’t going to get a paycheck and didn’t know where their kids’ next meal was coming from? I’m sure we’ll all be extra sympathetic the next time the local teachers union wants to go on strike over more money (after getting 100% pay for doing next to nothing during this shutdown).

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Show of hands- how many of you will be participating in the May Day comsymp walkout?

    Justice for all.

  34. Drake

    Remember the Hong Kong flu?

    I was 2, so no. But it killed 100,000 Americans, and we didn’t revoke civil liberties and destroy the economy for it.

    • Q Continuum

      BADORANGEMAN wasn’t President.

    • PieInTheSky

      Hong Kong fluey, the number one super die
      Hong Kong fluey, quicker than the human eye
      Oh, it’s got style, a groovy smile, a R0 that just won’t stop
      When the going gets rough, it’s super tough
      With the Hong Kong phooey cough

      lalala

      • robc

        Did that make it is Romania? And what year, 2004?

        It was one of my favorites growing up.

      • PieInTheSky

        I have no idea when. It was on cartoon network when i was still watching cartoon network so I think before 2004

      • Gustave Lytton

        That deserves the opera applause gif.

    • leon

      In 2020, it will all be on the line.

      As it is every 4 years. Fuck off.

    • Stillhunter

      The response to that sort of thinking will be: if we would’ve shut down, we could have saved lives!

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Maybe Trump is tired of being President. It’s just not that much fun anymore.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Natsoc Propaganda Radio takes a swing

    Documents unsealed by a federal judge on Wednesday appear to show an internal FBI debate about how to handle the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, including how to proceed if he lied to them about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

    Flynn’s lawyers say the materials—three FBI emails and one handwritten note—show the bureau trying to entrap Flynn, and strengthen his legal argument for the case to be dismissed.

    ——-

    “What is our goal? Truth/admission or to … get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

    “If we’re seen as playing games, WH will be furious,” the author of the notes writes, concluding, “Protect our institution by not playing games.”

    While most parts of the emails are unredacted, significant chunks of the notes are blacked out.

    “Appear to show”

    But not really, because FBI is the good guys.

    • Chipwooder

      James Comey’s shithead buddy Benjamin Wittes had a fabulous take, which was along the lines of “shows what you dumb rubes know – the FBI does this all time!”

      I don’t think that’s going to have the effect he thinks it will.

  37. Festus

    I’ll see you guys tomorrow. I might wear the pillow-hat and then again I might not.

    • Gender Traitor

      Sleep well, dude.

    • leon

      Biden taps Chris Dodd?

      Is there no end to his sexual depravity?

    • Gender Traitor

      And the reason(s) Biden can’t be trusted to make the choice himself would be…?

      • AlexinCT

        He likes sloppy seconds?

      • pan fried wylie

        referred to as “Sloppy Joes”

    • The Other Kevin

      Yes. I have come to the conclusion there are many people who are Trump’s puppets. Sure there are the Trump supporters who will back him on anything, but just as bad are the ones who reflexively oppose anything he does. In that case, they’re still depending on Trump to make up their minds for them. They can’t decide on anything until they check with Trump.

    • Pat

      Less work also means fewer workplace injuries and more leisure time, which possibly leads to more exercise, more home cooking, and less money for booze and cigarettes.

      We’ll just ignore the scaremongering headlines we’ve been publishing for the last solid month about increased drinking and drug use, rampant domestic violence, and sexual molestation. And of course you’ll be getting plenty of vigorous exercise with all public spaces shut down on pain of jail and 5,000 dollar fines…

      • Q Continuum

        …aaaaaand the fact that when your money runs out and the food supply chain fails that you’ll be starving to death and/or killing your neighbors to try and steal their scraps instead of “exercise, home cooking and leisure”. The Ukrainians during the Holodomor must have been so healthy and happy!

      • leon

        Less work also means fewer workplace injuries and more leisure time,

        Trotting this out again huh? Unemployed people should be greatful for all the leisure time they have! This betrays a level of disconnect from reality so grave, that i think it is more forgiving to attribute maliciousness rather than to insinuate the speaker is that incompetent. Leisure is what you choose to spend your time on. Being out of work when you want to work is not leisure. And it is not relaxing. The Mental health problems of being unemployed are well known. Pooh poohing it as “vacation time” is utterly hardhearted.

      • pan fried wylie

        #NothingFunCostsLessThanTwentyBucks

    • Rhywun

      Trump’s desire to open the economy seems muddled at best.

      • Count Potato

        Then again, he’s never spoken clearly about anything.

    • Urthona

      Here’s the the thing people to need to realize, though.

      Recessions aren’t that big a deal. They are natural and result in a small spike in unemployment. It sucks. It’s enough to influence elections. But it’s not something that human beings don’t handle many times over the course of their lifetimes.

      30 million jobs deliberately destroyed by the government though? That’s actually not the same thing.

      • robc

        Yeah, I didnt click on the article, but it looks to be confusing the short term effects of a recession, with the long term effects of a depression.

      • robc

        Or even the long term effects of slower growth.

    • R C Dean

      Is the only reason Lefties oppose opening the economy because Trump supports it?

      Does he, though? From what I’ve seen in the last week, he is opposing opening up the economy.

    • Gender Traitor

      Do it!

      (And yes, I AM telling you what to do.)

    • Rhywun

      ? love bagpipes

  38. leon

    https://twitter.com/provablyfalse/status/1255312074474958849

    I love this exchange:

    Third party voters didn’t cost Clinton the election.

    Yes they did. Look it up.

    Ahhh. That’s right. it says so right there on wikipedia. Jill Stein and Garry Johnson made Hillary the completely unpalatable candidate that she was. that she couldn’t beat Trump.

    • LJW

      The entitlement to your vote is strong with the Democrats.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Personally, I enjoyed the five minutes of being blamed for Trump’s election by voting for Johnson.

    • hayeksplosives

      We need a new word instead of Anti-Semitism. HelenThomas wiggles out of an accusation of anti-semitism by pointing out that she herself is a Semite. Like all Arabs.

      So let’s just call it Anti-Jewish or Anti-Israel (depending on the case).

      Let’s use plain language.

      • Not Adahn

        I prefer the original judenhaas.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Heeb Hater?

    • leon

      Someone should start a list of positions that make you verboten to the Democratic Party:

      – Pro Life
      – Pro Israel
      What else?

      • UnCivilServant

        Pro Gun
        Pro-vote integrety
        Pro-controlled borders
        Pro-merit

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Pro-responsibility

      • Q Continuum

        Pro-work
        Pro-prosperity
        Pro-faith

      • hayeksplosives

        – Anti-Science

      • Drake

        – Pro-logic

      • Gustave Lytton

        Pro-civil rights

    • hayeksplosives

      “Those are actually integral parts of our campaign, ending military aid to not just Israel and Egypt but also Saudi Arabia, UAE, [and] the Philippines.”

      I notice Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah aren’t in her prohibited list for aid and armaments.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Ending military aid is a good thing. Advocating for the end of Israel is not.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      But while Engel’s district is reliably blue, it remains unclear whether it will support an anti-Israel agenda. Nearly 12 percent of the district is Jewish, according to the Berman Jewish Databank, making it one of the most Jewish districts in the United States

      If they successfully primary him with that anti-Semitic POS, then (((they))) might need to reconsider their decades long unwavering loyalty to the DNC.

      • leon

        decades long unwavering loyalty to the DNC.

        I really don’t know what can cause demographics that are so locked in one way or the other to switch.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I don’t know either.

        The Jewish commitment to progressive politics seems to outweigh their survival instincts.

      • Q Continuum

        Reform Jews will never leave the plantation. They’ve chucked Judaism and Progressivism is their religion now. They like to call themselves Jewish and trot it out when it’s necessary, but when Jewish doctrine and Progressive orthodoxy come into conflict, Progressivism will always win out.

      • hayeksplosives

        The schism Is cracking wider between orthodox (((then))) who embrace the traditional faith piece and the modern (((them))) who’ve been voting Dem for a hundred years out of a misguided notion that Dems really were “progressive” in good way.

        It will be interesting to see that cultural tension play out. My guess: orthodox, religious Jews go right, while modern Jews and Jews that accept only the ethnicity but no religion will give up even more ties to tradition and veer hard left permanently.

      • Q Continuum

        I’ve told this story before: but I no longer identify with a movement (if I were, I would go with the obscure Karaites). I have no interest in going Ortho and altering my lifestyle that drastically and I dumped the more “liberal” strains when the rabbi at the place I was attending obliquely compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

        It was surreal.

      • R C Dean

        But while Engel’s district is reliably blue, it remains unclear whether it will support an anti-Israel agenda.

        It certainly increases the odds, though.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    I scanned the Atlantic article list, a few minutes ago. Boy, this country is in a pickle. That Trump guy ruins everything. It’s like nonstop “if Trump, then DOOOOOM”.

    Nuanced analysis is not their strong point.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Just wait till liquidity freezes up and we’ll find a lot more to cut.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of the Atlantic:

    We’ll pretend to let you keep your “freedoms”, but only if you promise not to exercise them

    As surprising as it may sound, digital surveillance and speech control in the United States already show many similarities to what one finds in authoritarian states such as China. Constitutional and cultural differences mean that the private sector, rather than the federal and state governments, currently takes the lead in these practices, which further values and address threats different from those in China. But the trend toward greater surveillance and speech control here, and toward the growing involvement of government, is undeniable and likely inexorable.

    In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong. Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.

    ——-

    The second wake-up call was Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. As Barack Obama noted, the most consequential misinformation campaign in modern history was “not particularly sophisticated—this was not some elaborate, complicated espionage scheme.” Russia used a simple phishing attack and a blunt and relatively limited social-media strategy to disrupt the legitimacy of the 2016 election and wreak still-ongoing havoc on the American political system. The episode showed how easily a foreign adversary could exploit the United States’ deep reliance on relatively unregulated digital networks. It also highlighted how legal limitations grounded in the First Amendment (freedom of speech and press) and the Fourth Amendment (privacy) make it hard for the U.S. government to identify, prevent, and respond to malicious cyber operations from abroad.

    These constitutional limits help explain why, since the Russian electoral interference, digital platforms have taken the lead in combatting all manner of unwanted speech on their networks—and, if anything, have increased their surveillance of our lives. But the government has been in the shadows of these developments, nudging them along and exploiting them when it can.

    tl;dr- It’s for your own good.

    Learn to love Big Brother.

    • Chipwooder

      That is one of the most repugnant articles I’ve ever read in my life.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The second wake-up call was Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

      They’re going to beat that phony drum until it’s nothing more than slivers.

      Clinton spent a billion dollars, but a couple of million (if even that) from the Russians completely upended the American electoral system.

      They can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that Trump was a protest vote against DC corruptocrats.

      • Chipwooder

        Bloomberg spent a billion in a maybe two month period and all he got out of it was a handful of delegates from American Samoa.

    • Urthona

      I even saw leftists sharing this article on being pissed about it.

      It is that fucking ridiculous.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      JACK GOLDSMITH is a professor at Harvard Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was an assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration.

      If there were any doubt of the Bush administrations antipathy to liberty and freedom, that should dispel it.

    • leon

      The second wake-up call was Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. As Barack Obama noted, the most consequential misinformation campaign in modern history was “not particularly sophisticated—this was not some elaborate, complicated espionage scheme.” Russia used a simple phishing attack and a blunt and relatively limited social-media strategy to disrupt the legitimacy of the 2016 election and wreak still-ongoing havoc on the American political system.

      Pretty sure then it was the DNC and Hillary that disrupted the legitimacy of the 2016 election. But they will be damned if they don’t pound that Russiagate whore for every dime they paid.

      • Bob Boberson

        And long after she’s dead apparently.

      • pan fried wylie

        The vodka keeps her preserved well enough.

    • Bob Boberson

      Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.

      Fuck. Off. Slaver. Do you want Sula’s proscriptions? Because this is how you get Sula’s proscriptions.

  41. robc

    My new grill arrives tomorrow, I have been grillless since the move. Have an 8 lb pork butt that will be the test on Saturday. Its a pellet grill.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Nice. Which one?

      • Urthona

        I’m considering upgrading my traegor. Quarantine I’ve actually spent more money. Because I’m drinking beer and surfing the web getting big ideas.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I have a Yoder. It’s built like a tank and holds temperature well. Not certain that it’s the most efficient of the options though.

      • robc

        Traeegor 34″

      • robc

        The extra e is due to being a Chinese ripoff or something.

        Or my inability to type.

  42. Bob Boberson

    In regard to the rising meat prices conversation upthread…….bug or feature? I’m sure the militant vegans and watermelons will be ecstatic about this. I eagerly await the articles declaring that diminished meat supply is ‘good for us and good for gaia!!’

    Give me red meat or give me death.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It won’t play well with the mid-West blue collar workers at all.

      • Bob Boberson

        Those stupid hicks? The Left shed that dead weight a while ago.

  43. hayeksplosives

    My COVID19 test came back negative. Still have low lung capacity with infection so I’m at home again instead of out or in office.

    I wonder what would have happened if it were positive? Compulsory hospital stay? Arrest?

    • Translucent Chum

      If you were in NY, they would slap a nurse uniform on you and send you to an old folks home.

      • pan fried wylie

        Can NY afford not to bring in all the infected pressed-into-service Nurse Deputies possible?

      • Trigger Hippie

        Well at least the sight of hs in a nurse’s uniform would make few old men from NY happy before they kick the bucket.

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        Go on…

    • Count Potato

      Hope you are feeling better soon.

    • R C Dean

      I wonder what would have happened if it were positive?

      Bullet to the back of the head, and into the mass grave to be doused with diesel and set on fire. You’re dead anyway, comrade, and we can’t have you infecting anyone else.

    • bacon-magic

      One way train ticket to the Chicough camps.

  44. Scruffy Nerfherder

    It’s done. UNCSA came thru with the scholarship and the eldest will be spending senior year of high school away from home. One down, two to go.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Huzzah!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      And the PPP loan just got approved.

      It’s a good Thursday so far.

      • RAHeinlein

        Great news – congratulations to you and the offspring!

  45. The Late P Brooks

    I wonder what would have happened if it were positive? Compulsory hospital stay? Arrest?

    Euthanasia. Another soul, tragically lost to the Great Hobgoblin Plague.

    This is why we cannot relax our quarantine. If we do, millions more will perish.

    • pan fried wylie

      millions more will perish…without filing the appropriate cause of death paperwork.

  46. Urthona

    “Personally I am not even sure what I believe anymore with covid, but given my general health maybe I would have proffered to get the thing in march get immunity and move the fuck on.”

    — Pie

    I feel the same. I scrolled by this and think this is an underrated point.

    I read a Spectator article a couple of weeks ago essentially making this point: “Tens of millions of people would surely much rather get the disease — which represents a very low risk to them and their families — then lose their livelihood. Shouldn’t they be allowed to?”

    I think this one is glossed over too much. I keep the seeing the point that people are ignorant or stupid because they want to reopen. I think they understand the risks fully, actually. Everyone has their own trade-offs to consider.

    • leon

      You shouldn’t be allowed to leave your house because you may unknowingly carry a potentially deadly virus and get someone else sick. This seems like a good argument, until we see the data showing that the “potentially deadly virus” is about as potentially deadly as the flu.

      • Urthona

        Yes. This is actually a much stronger argument, really. It just amazes me no one realizes the above.

      • pan fried wylie

        “potentially deadly virus” = ushers people on death’s doorstep over the threshold.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        the scratch on my arm is Potentially deadly,
        Idiots…..

      • invisible finger

        “This seems like a good argument”

        No, it doesn’t.

  47. Count Potato

    “Technically lava can kill coronavirus, but there’s a good reason why no-one is using it in the fight against the ongoing pandemic: nothing else would survive the encounter with molten rock either.”

    https://twitter.com/ForbesScience/status/1255292848762687490

    Science.

    • Urthona

      Please don’t tell the government though. I’m still waiting for approval of my grant to study this.

    • Q Continuum

      Not the Bee.

      • UnCivilServant

        Not the Bee! Not the… oh wait,

    • wdalasio

      Good thing Donald Trump hasn’t read this. If he mentioned it, the press (Forbes included) would contend that he was demanding people drink lava.

  48. KSuellington

    So I am waiting for Newsom to give his diktat about beaches. The beach that we are a few blocks from, Ocean Beach, is several miles long and has a series of dunes on it. It is a vast expanse of sand and while many people have been going there, it is incredibly easy to maintain a distance. This is Federal land, so I believe it wouldn’t be included in the diktat. I have three young boys with lots of energy, so this beach has been a savior during this panic. We usually go there a lot anyway, but now we go everyday to play on the dunes and run around. I don’t want to get arrested, but I am planning on fishing that beach this weekend. I’m considering getting arrested if need to protest this tyranny. I have a family to support so it’s really the last thing I want to do, but this is a bridge too far if Gov Greaseball actually does this. How long can they hold me for anyway?

    • Urthona

      You won’t get arrested. You’ll get like $1000 fine. And it will suck balls.

      • EvilSheldon

        They’ll save the arresting part for when you don’t pay the fine, or fail to appear in court.

      • KSuellington

        What if you refuse to leave and make them arrest you? If I got a grand fine that would indeed suck, but I would fight it to the bitter end. I’m not the protestor type, but at what point do you say enough?

      • Fatty Bolger

        It’s not usually a good idea to try that by yourself instead of as part of a larger protest. The cops can make up any bullshit story they want about how you violently resisted arrest, and make things pretty hard on you.

      • KSuellington

        Yes, you are probably right. I’m trying to find info on this, but I think Newscum’s potential order would be limited to state land. I’m not much of a joiner, but I am going to have to get a larger group to try for a group arrest if this shit actually goes down here. Ocean Beach is my Rubicon.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        The beach is so crowded they had to open the Restrooms back up,
        and with everyone laid off, it’s not weekends anymore, all locals,

  49. The Late P Brooks

    I AM THE LAW

    The Michigan Court of Claims has said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order does not infringe on the constitutional rights of residents.

    The lawsuit, brought by plaintiff Steve Martinko and others, claimed that Whitmer’s initial “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order, as well as the recently adjusted version of the order, violated the rights of Michigan residents.

    The orders were introduced to curb the spread of COVID-19 in Michigan, where there are 40,399 confirmed cases and the death toll has reached 3,670, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

    The plaintiffs in the case claimed that the “mandatory quarantine,” along with interstate travel restrictions listed in an earlier version of the order, violated their rights to both procedural due process and substantive due process.

    “But those liberty interests are, and always have been, subject to society’s interests—society being our fellow residents,” said Court of Claims Judge Christopher M. Murray.

    “They—our fellow residents—have an interest to remain unharmed by a highly communicable and deadly virus, and since the state entered the Union in 1837, it has had the broad power to act for the public health of the entire state when faced with a public crisis.”

    Alrighty, then.

    Something something liberty, security.

    Would somebody throw some dirt on the Rule of Law, before it gets any riper?

    • leon

      “But those liberty interests are, and always have been, subject to society’s interests—society being our fellow residents,”

      Inalienable rights are totally legit, it’s just that sometimes society needs to alienate you from them.

      • Bob Boberson

        That there is Freedom’s Epitaph.

        Stick a fork in us, we’re done.

      • Gustave Lytton

        ^^^ Judges that would have upheld Korematsu or Schenck.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Stupid dumbfuck Roperites in black robes. These dumbasses are going to be surprised when they reap the whirlwind of cutting down every last law and protection against tyranny and mob rule. Thanks a lot assholes.

  50. R C Dean

    Today in “WTF, Arizona”:

    We have century plants here, basically big agave-type plants that bloom once and die. In the wild, they can get pretty old before this happens (hence the name). Water them as a landscape plant, and it happens faster. The Indians, and now Mexicans, cut off the flower stalk once it starts and collect the sap, which dries into basically candy – it has a high sugar content. You can see how there is enough sugar in agaves to ferment alcohol and distill liquor.

    Did I say big? The flower stalks, which grow over the course of a few weeks or so, can get more than 20 feet high. This one is from the Casa Dean the year after we moved in. We’ve had a couple more do this since.

    • UnCivilServant

      When you only get one shot at pollination – go big or go home.

      • AlexinCT

        You mean go big or go extinct.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    You’re not gonna believe this

    Forty-six percent of U.S. adults say that the coronavirus briefings held by President Donald Trump are not an important source of information, according to a new poll.

    The poll was conducted by Gallup and the Knight Foundation and surveyed 1,693 U.S. adults from April 14 to April 20. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

    According to the poll, U.S. adults were asked how important the frequent presidential coronavirus briefings were as an important source of information and found that 46 percent said it was not a source, 27 percent said it was a major source and 26 percent said it was a minor source.

    No shit, Shirley?

    • RAHeinlein

      Thank goodness for the MSM, that means they don’t need to cover.

    • invisible finger

      “surveyed 1,693 U.S. adults”

      These would be the same idiots hollering WE NEED MOAR TESTING!!!!”

  52. leon

    So…. I feel kinda shitty. I work for a Gov Contractor, and today we had a “Town hall” and the guy started bragging about how they specifically worked with congress to ensure that the language of the CARES act ensured that our work wouldn’t be cut.

  53. Fourscore

    Probably got rid of the first wave at the Old Folks’ Home, need to step up to Covid-19-2. Get that 60-70 group that are still working but ready for retirement. Its not too late, they will be a drag soon enough.

    If the herd immunity breaks out then the old timers will still be a problem.

    Sarc-maybe/ We have to do something

    • Trigger Hippie

      Obviously the humane thing to do is to quarantine the working elderly into WuFlu infected nursing homes to kill them quicker then confiscate their remaining wealth and distribute it to our brave and essential government workers and healthcare professionals on the front lines in this time of crisis.

  54. Chipwooder

    Leftists are getting increasingly frantic now that their constant predictions for a month that “Oh, you just wait until all those states with dummy GOP governors start stacking up the bodies!” are not coming true at all.

    Amy Siskind Rainbow flag
    @Amy_Siskind
    Mark my words: you are going to find out that DeSantis is hiding the number of cases and deaths in this pandemic.

    There has been a fair amount of reporting by Florida media on various ways he is doing so. The state’s reported numbers make little sense.
    1:46 PM · Apr 24, 2020·

    WHYCOME STUPID REDNECKS NOT DYING LIKE SOPHISTICATED NEW YORKERS?????

    • Bob Boberson

      In a larger sense, the unveiled longing for stacked bodies really does expose progressivism being a death-cult, doesn’t it?

      • Fatty Bolger

        There seems to be something going on besides just politics, so maybe that’s it. We must be punished for our sins. The virus is here to teach of the error of our ways.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      It’s scary. The news is for the most part good about Covid not being fatal.

      Yet they seem legitimately disappointed.

      I saw on Tucker what Mills is doing in Maine. What in the fuck? How are people not engaging in peaceful civil disobedience? Take your fines but hold the line.

      Ironic that all these measures these tyrants love (masks, social distancing) aren’t mandatory in Korea which I think is seen as invasion of privacy. But they’re a naturally a society deferent o authority so it’s easier to get people to follow some suggestions and rules.

      Us? We have a a fetish for mandates. Land of the free my fucken ass.

  55. Rufus the Monocled

    Interesting you linked to The Epoch Times.

    They’re public enemy #1. The CBC is doing all kinds of hit pieces on them while Wiki basically characterizes them as Alex Jones. Youtube, in addition, is going full blown purging now as we saw with those two California doctors getting their video pulled down.

    The new line I’m seeing? ‘We’re not out of the woods’. Well, how convenient? Covid is here to stay so I guess we’re never getting out of these woods.

    Very very troubling what’s going on.

    • wdalasio

      It’s funny. Snopes and consequently DerpBook characterized one of the “claims” made by a documentary they put out as false. The problem was the piece was written before the documentary was released and the documentary didn’t make the claim Snopes claimed they made.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Washington Times breathes a sign of relief.

  56. PieInTheSky

    I accidentally pulled a Gordon Ramsey cooking dinner. By that I mean I literally thought to myself just a touch of olive oil and accidentally poured like 3-4 tablespoons worth.

    • Count Potato

      BREAKING: U.S. Invades Romania

      • PieInTheSky

        why? oil is worthless these days

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Thats pulling a Gordon Ramsey? I thought that would be cursing out some rando in your kitchen while waving a German chef knife inches from the rando’s face?

      “I can’t fucking trust you to make ice!”

  57. The Late P Brooks

    Probably got rid of the first wave at the Old Folks’ Home, need to step up to Covid-19-2. Get that 60-70 group that are still working but ready for retirement. Its not too late, they will be a drag soon enough.

    The next wave needs to be those rat bastards clinging doggedly to life as they live in their own homes. Get rid of them, and bring some inventory into the housing market, so the boomers can have a turn.

  58. The Late P Brooks

    What if you refuse to leave and make them arrest you? If I got a grand fine that would indeed suck, but I would fight it to the bitter end. I’m not the protestor type, but at what point do you say enough?

    Don’t worry, the ACLU will stand with you to defend your rights.

    I crack myself up.

    • KSuellington

      Maybe the IJ would be interested? If not, there has to be some 1st lawyers out there that would. If I got a 1k fine from the government I would be willing to spend 5k to fight it. I doubt that would be enough, but maybe some actual civil liberties lawyers might be interested in such a case.

  59. kinnath

    American Airlines loses $2.2 billion in first quarter

    U.S. airline travel volumes dropped by about 95% in recent weeks from a year earlier as travelers stay home because of concerns about the virus and shelter-in-place orders.

    Learn to code.

    Am I doing that right?

    • Gustave Lytton

      American was a basket case before this started, thanks to Parker and his idiocy.

    • Trigger Hippie

      Learn to Farm might be more practical advice soon enough…

      • kinnath

        I know How to Brew. So I have something to barter.

      • Idle Hands

        If they allow us to even buy seed…

      • Fatty Bolger

        No problem. Bloomberg says any idiot can do it.

    • invisible finger

      How are they going to learn something harder than their already-simple job that they can’t do?

  60. CPRM

    Eggs are still running low at stores around here. I visited my sister yesterday and she gave me 3 dozen fresh eggs. Now do I eat them, or sell them on the black market?

    • UnCivilServant

      Three dozen?

      I’d never be able to eat them nefore they go rotten.

      • Count Potato

        You could boil them.

      • UnCivilServant

        But then I’d be tempted to devil them…

        And then I’d end up with six dozen deviled eggs… which is more than even I can eat!

      • Count Potato

        Wait, that’s only 3 eggs a day for 12 days.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s still way more than I eat.

      • The Hyperbole

        If you don’t wash them they will last three months if refrigerated. So 1egg every 2.5 days.

      • Count Potato

        I was told there would be no math.

    • Drake

      No shortage around here. I buy some at the grocery occasionally. My wife generally picks them up from a farm. I eat them every day for breakfast.

  61. The Late P Brooks

    RAVAGED

    Nearly 20 percent of FDNY/EMS members and over 10 percent of NYPD cops screened for coronavirus antibodies tested positive, Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed Wednesday, as the state death toll crept towards 18,000.

    The results came in days after Cuomo announced that 1,000 members from each department would be tested for antibodies, which would indicate that their immune systems battled the bug at some point.

    How many of those people never even knew they were “sick”?

    • R C Dean

      How many members of the FDNY/EMS have died from the ‘Rona?

      • Drake

        A few older fat ones were in the news. I don’t remember if they were NJ or NY.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Not many, or we’d be hearing all about it. I remember seeing one, but the way the article was worded made me suspect he might have been sick with something else and then picked up COVID.

        I’m guessing there have been more suicides than death from COVID in that group.

  62. The Late P Brooks

    Goddammit. I read these articles bout the RECKLESSNESS of re-opening the economy, and all the crap about EXPERTS SAY DON”T DO IT!!!!!, and all I can think of is a bunch of witch doctors running around shrieking, “Baal very ANGRY! Repent! Make sacrifice now, before too late! Baal ANGRY. Kill everyone. Me talk to Baal, beg forgiveness. You bring me offerings.”

    • Bob Boberson

      Scientism is the new dominant religion. Its got everything people want; they revel in their own intellectual sloth while looking down in disgust and loathing at those who dare question the orthodoxy de jour.

    • Fatty Bolger

      The sacrifices must continue until the virus is appeased.

  63. Suthenboy

    Catching up….

    Re: Pie and RC’s comments on the Bar
    I had this conversation yesterday as someone I know is going to attempt to get a lawyer’s license yanked.
    My impression is that the Bar’s sole purpose is to protect the credibility of the courts and the profession of law generally. Credibility is really all they have. Unless some practitioner threatens that credibility they can basically get away with murder.
    Off of the top of my head I can think of a few cases where judges got their asses tossed: Long time judge got caught pissing in the street and consequently got into a gun fight with local resident – Judge was stoned out of her mind 24/7 for years – Judge was taking court transcripts home and editing them – Judge got caught giving handies to underage boys at the bus station in Natchez, Ms…..mind you those were all last straws. You can imagine the other shit they did before that.

  64. Rufus the Monocled

    Re Ilhan. That’s the grin of a person who knows she’s gonna cut and fuck you up good.

  65. The Late P Brooks

    Learn to Farm might be more practical advice soon enough…

    No kidding.

    We’d be better off if that moron Foochy was weeding an onion patch somewhere.

  66. Rufus the Monocled

    A 4.8% drop is staggering. We average – very rough average – in the West, what, 1.6%-2.5% growth?

    I just realized something. The doctor friend I mentioned who is big on the shut down – or doesn’t think it’s a big deal – told me he moved his money to cash and relishing buying up stock.

    So he’s looking to score off the backs of people hurled into misery because of people like him who think the shut down is justified.

    Folks. People are broken inside.

    • R C Dean

      A 4.8% drop is staggering.

      No kidding. That’s basically one month, too, and only a few weeks of lockdown orders. That’s a big fraction of the entire Great Recession in one month.

      Another quarter of full lockdown most places, and I think we’ll be looking at a contraction of over 15%. I wouldn’t rule out over 20%.

      There’s no quick recovery from that. That’s not a “V” shaped recession. That’s a fucking catastrophe that could easily take a decade or more to recover from. Fishing around doesn’t easily deliver a number for the contraction during the Great Depression, but I suspect we’re looking at something in that range, in a very compressed time frame (if we’re lucky and we hit the bottom sooner rather than later).

      • R C Dean

        And yes, I blame Repubs and Dems in equal measure for this. There was no leadership, no resistance to the panic in any meaningful way. I think 2 out of 26 Repub governors didn’t issue lockdown orders. Trump’s administration has supported the lockdown and resisted lifting the orders.

        Sure, the Dems have proposed even more stupidity, and are likely marginally worse on the lockdowns, but that’s fussing over who threw more gasoline on the fire. Who cares, really?

  67. The Late P Brooks

    Property is theft

    Cea Weaver, the communications coordinator for Housing Justice for All, a coalition of 70 groups from across New York state representing tenants, homeless people and housing advocates, estimated that 10,000 people have pledged to strike.

    But, Weaver said, it’s not just about sticking it to landlords. They are also advocating for a relief fund for apartment owners, too. What Weaver hopes to see, she said, is “unprecedented government intervention” in the housing market because of the economic effects of the pandemic, and she wants this to be the chance to make the market more equitable.

    “We’re in a moment where politically impossible things are possible, and a rent strike is not just about canceling rent for the crisis,” she said, citing the pace at which Congress moved to pass the massive $2 trillion relief package and other pandemic-related aid. “It’s about, like, opening up a whole new world of social housing.”

    Nationalize the housing stock. Your local Justice Cadre will assign you a home. Utopia is at hand.

    • R C Dean

      The commie feeding frenzy is really on now, isn’t it.

      Who can blame them, though? Economic catastrophe is always fertile ground for commies.

    • B.P.

      Everyone gets a bailout until money is worthless. I’m going long on wheelbarrows.

    • B.P.

      My governor has instructed me not to recreate more than 10 miles away from my house.