Friday Morning Links

by | Jul 3, 2020 | Daily Links | 476 comments

Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas!  And what a beautiful morning it is as the FBI announced record-breaking background checks for guns for the month of June.

 

Here we go again.

 

WHO now backtracks and claims China never self-reported the Kung Flu.

 

Texas Governor issues statewide mask order in all counties with 20 or more cases, good luck with that, fuckface, everyone around these parts stopped wearing talismasks.  Few were wearing them at the height of this scare.

 

And California Governor Newson bans singing in Church.

 

While Schumer’s plan for New York is to keep New York in a perpetual welfare state.

 

Texas hospital surge not Covid related.

 

Trump rolls back Obama era housing regulations.

 

Detroit forced to remove thousands of dead registrants from voter rolls after being sued.

 

Feds arrest “ringleader” behind Andrew Jackson statue attack near White House.

 

West Virginia ends year with budget surplus.

 

Zuckerberg not worried about advertiser’s boycott as he believes they will be back soon. Which is a smart play. Anyone who has ever followed lefty harassment campaigns against Fox News and Rush Limbaugh knows that the advertisers leave to avoid harassment and to give lefties their news headlines, then they all come trickling back because that’s where the audience is.

 

As many of you know, my father pass away unexpectedly in May. It was devastating.  My father was an amazing man who was primarily responsible for raising my brothers and I. My father was a history teacher who laid the libertarian foundation in me.  He also greatly influenced my musical tastes.  On car rides together we would play a game where a classic rock song would come on the radio and I had to get the name of the band and the song.  He bought me my first banjo and guitar and pushed me to get lessons even when I thought I was too old.  My father was the type of man who took up hobbies and new interests all throughout his life never believing he was too old.  Near the end of his life, he became quite passionate about classical music.  This was the last piece we discusses before he passed.

About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

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

476 Comments

  1. PieInTheSky

    Here we go again. – Trump is in trouble now. The truth will come out.

    • Cy

      Russia! Russia! Russia!

      Also, Good morning Glibs.

    • Ted S.

      Going down the only road we’ve ever known.

      • Festus' Mustache

        heh

    • Fribblemeister

      Trump is in trouble because he never bought into the Austrian school of economics. A three trillion dollar+ deficit and he’s saying he favors more bailouts/deficit spending to be paid for by borrowing from future generations of taxpayers? Talk about taxation without representation!

  2. Festus' Mustache

    Banjos! Mornin’

    • PieInTheSky

      It is 3 PM. I am not going to encourage you people and your morning fake news.

    • Festus' Mustache

      On topic – How does Newsom square the circle of a ban of singing in church when people at the peaceful protests are literally crowded like sheep in a pen screaming at the sky? Signs and Wonders…

      • Count Potato

        There was singing at the George Floyd funeral.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        My god (the DNC) will protect me from the Corona cough. Your god (the God of Abraham) is imaginary.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  3. PieInTheSky

    WHO now backtracks and claims China never self-reported the Kung Flu. – does anyone take WHO seriously anymore? If so it is interesting, because I wonder what it would actually take for these so called experts to lose confidence. Because WHO was a clusterfuck all year long.

    • Tejicano

      I’ve seen the CCP play fast on loose with history before but until recently I would never have imagined the western media would play along. This will not end well.

    • Hyperion

      “does anyone take WHO seriously anymore?”

      Sure, all the useless bureaucrats that can profit off of their usefulness as a Chicom puppet.

    • Fribblemeister

      Does anybody understand the Washington Free Beacon is talking about or why they don’t provide a link to the timeline in question? Because I check the WHO COVID timeline daily and nothing has changed with regards to what China self-reported and when. Here’s the latest update, which you can read for yourself:

      https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/29-06-2020-covidtimeline

      This timeline is unchanged from the previous Covid timelines. They all say that the WHO’s Country Office in the People’s Republic of China picked up a media statement by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from their website on cases of ‘viral pneumonia’ in Wuhan on Dec 31. This is what WHO said in its previous timelines, the one dated April 27, for example.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  4. PieInTheSky

    Texas Governor issues statewide mask order in all counties with 20 or more cases, good luck with that, fuckface, everyone around these parts stopped wearing talismasks. Few were wearing them at the height of this scare. – I have been wearing and still will wear a mask for the time being… When I am in the subway or in a store that is. It’s not that inconvenient and hell it may help.

    • PieInTheSky

      I am not, off course, saying some of the rules aint silly. Wearing masks in open air where there is no crowd (in Romania you don’t need to wear a mask out doors). Or in the gym I have to wear one in the reception area, but not in the gym. There is a helluva more risk of transmission in the gym sweating and breathing heavy.

      • ruodberht

        But…how on earth could you work out with a mask on?!

        A conspiracy-minded person might wonder what the government’s goals are, wanting people to eat more carbs, less fat, and not go to the gym because of the deadly horrible murdervirus that kills people over 90 and pretty much no one else.

      • PieInTheSky

        how on earth could you work out with a mask on – you can’t really. That is why a mask is not required in the gym. Only in the reception area. You change in the locker room, take the mask off and go to the weight room.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Do they put those paper-thingies on the benches? I mean if I was that paranoid about catching cooties I’d insist that every piece of equipment have a monitor to wipe the thing down after each use. Hire a bunch of them. Unemployment solved!

      • PieInTheSky

        There are spray bottles of disinfectant you can use on the benches. But then again those were there since way before covid in this gym. You can wipe down with disinfectant any piece of equipment before you use it if you are worried. I did that first week but then I couldn’t be arsed.

      • Festus' Mustache

        So you’re the swarthy, sweaty fellow with the hairy back that left a pool of goo on the bench. Knew it! Kidding aside, I haven’t been in a gym since the late 90’s and it was pretty much etiquette then to at least wipe your yuck off the equipment. Can’t imagine how frowned upon that behavior would be now.

      • PieInTheSky

        Well I always have a towel which I place on any equipment I use. Everyone does.

      • Festus' Mustache

        You are a great “Straight-Man”, Pie. Or is it “Dead-Pan” humor? I dunno. I salute you!

      • Ted S.

        You’re not supposed to use the towel you cover up with in the steam room for that.

      • PieInTheSky

        In Romania steam rooms are not nude. People have bathing suits on. I knew Romanians who went to Austria and would have liked to go to the steam room but it was nude and mixed, so they had to skip.

      • Ted S.

        Bathing suit is very bad. You don’t want the chlorine from the pool water getting in the air in such a confined space.

        At least, that’s what my Finnish acquaintances say.

      • Hyperion

        “how on earth could you work out with a mask on”

        How can you eat and drink in a bar with a mask on? Sooner or later, anyone who is cognitively functional, begins to realize that all these rules are complete bullshit.

      • Urthona

        The order doesn’t apply to restaurants and gyms.

      • Hyperion

        Aren’t you more protected in Romania if you wear a clove of garlic on your belt, instead of a mask?

      • pan fried wylie

        If exsanguination doesn’t spread the ‘vid, nothing does.

    • UnCivilServant

      Heated seats are not a service.

      Cooled seats are. If they want to make money, charge for the ability to turn the heater off.

      • Hyperion

        I have those as well, and it is a feature, not a service.

    • Count Potato

      “BMW is planning to move some features of its new cars to a subscription model”

      No.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Just now decided to never buy a Beemer. I’m enough of a cunte without any help from them.

      • C. Anacreon

        Bimmer. Beemer is the BMW motorcycle.

      • blackjack

        My buddy used to be a service writer for an indy Porsche shop. He said the customers would freak out about the pronunciation of the name. ” A porch goes in the front of your house. This is a PORSCH-UH!” So, I would go up to them and ask them how they liked their Porsch-ee. It was fun. Pretty sure that’s what they actually call them in New Zealand, anyway.

      • UnCivilServant

        Sorry, your Shibbolith means nothing to the world at large.

        Anything from BMW is a Beemer.

      • Fribblemeister

        No kidding. My friends already think I’m insufferable as it is, imagine me driving a BMW!

    • DOOMco

      You can buy heated seat kits on Amazon for under 100 bucks.

      I was looking for some to put on the fj. I even found the same company that gets used by some big name cars.

      This is dumb.

    • Rhywun

      Like all “streaming”, follow the dollars. It’s just a way to make more money.

      • DOOMco

        I can’t see how this would be done. There’s wires in the seat. I can splice wire.

    • Don Escaped the Quality Department

      BMW is that kind of client that you just can’t help: you can’t take over, but they don’t (didn’t?) have the resources to learn what you’re trying to teach them.

      True story: Z3 has the E36/7 family dash and HVAC; to my knowledge, it was the last automotive system controlled by bowden cables. The problem with cables is that they stretch: the longer the worse. Good news: E36/7 has a short run, so not much to stretch. The controls and cables were applied to the module, tuned flawlessly, and then shipped to Spartanburg for assembly as one piece so that the cable tuning would not be disturbed. So endeth the post-war era of auto HVAC?

      Z8, an eventual variant, would be a Bond car, and I think the few copies sold for ~USD 100k. But what to do with the old HVAC controls? The original was replaced with a rack of modern potentiometers to step the actuators on the module’s doors. However, because of the layout of the doors and clearances, there really wasn’t room for the actuators to direct-drive the doors in the sensible way you’d expect. SOOOOOOO: the original doors and levers were retained, the actuators were remotely mounted to GET THIS drive bowden cables.

      I compare it to the ACME/WylieCoyotes nuclear navy: reactors boil water to drive generators to power fans that blow air into the sails.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s actually funny. I love a good engineering clusterfuck story.

      • Don Escaped the Quality Department

        I thought so. Even if it’s too abstract for some to follow, the crap that goes on in corporate thinking is always good coffee chat.

        I’m sure that other thinkers have coined better names for the idea before I started preaching in the 1990, but I believe in appropriate technology. Z8 swatted a fly with a fusion bomb. Not only did that project waste money and achieve zero, but great minds were diverted from useful work. The businessman in me respects the goodwill value of keeping an extremely profitable client happy, but some old chiefs should have been made to hear reason at the biergarten.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        A few years back I was invited to the Husqvarna headquarters in the US (Olathe, Kansas) to meet with their engineering team from Sweden and discuss their concrete grinding products.

        Stupid me thought they were looking for my real world feedback. I had several low cost adjustments to the product that would have made it much more sale-able, but wouldn’t necessarily fit in with their marketing scheme.

        So instead of it being feedback from the field, it became engineers looking for validation of their overpriced, over-complicated ideas. They weren’t happy when I poured cold water all over them and I’ve never been invited back since. In fact, a couple of the Swedish engineers downright hate me for that episode because I provided the US engineering team with ammo to shoot down some of their product ideas. Oh well.

      • pan fried wylie

        I love a good engineering clusterfuck story.

        SER-RIES! SER-RIES! SER-RIES!

      • Tres Cool

        I have a good friend who’s son is currently in an automotive design program in Detroit, and due what GM did to Jugsy’s camaro, (located an analog instrument cluster ahead of the shit lever on the console, where the driver (me) can only see 1/2 of them.)

        Ex Mrs Tres Cool and I were friends with a couple that both worked for the auto industry in Detroit. The dude was an engineeer, assigned to do work on interiors. The story told to me was that the company would buy competitors cars, and each department/division would get their chance to take em apart, mess with them, etc. So his group got their hand on an S-Class Benz, and it was either late 90s or early 00s. He made it clear that since the was the ‘rookie’ engineer and GM had a strict hierarchy of “the new guy keeps his mouth shut”, he was in the back of this sedan when they took it out on the test track. The guy at the wheel was (as I was told) the typical old, white, dude, that had been with the company for 35 years. As the guy is looking around, he taps the beryl trim and said “Ya know- I think this may be real wood.”
        The guy I knew said he nearly bit in tongue in 2 trying not to yell “ITS AN $85K GERMAN CAR! OF COURSE ITS WOOD YOU IDIOT!”
        He said thats the kind of think that, at the time, reminded him why Big 3 cars were such pieces of shit in the 70s & 80s.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Nice.

    • Hyperion

      Fuck BMW, I don’t pay an extra fee for heated seats, steering wheel, and mirrors. That’s like playing a MMO where you pay a monthly fee, hell no.

      • pan fried wylie

        That’s like playing a MMO where you pay a monthly fee

        It’s more like an MMO where there’s a microcharge for each fireball you want to toss.

      • UnCivilServant

        Instead of paying a MMO-buck per fireball, consiter buying a hundred pack, only 1,000 MMO-bucks

      • pan fried wylie

        Make it up in volume, hellllyeaaagh!

      • Drake

        I would pay extra for a manual transmission and for them to remove the computer and most of the gadgets from their Teutonic shitboxes.

      • Overt

        Or buying a Tivo and paying a monthly fee for it to work. Or a doorbell and paying a fee for keeping history of videos. etc.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    Schumer’s new bill, co-sponsored by fellow Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, would extend the “supercharged” unemployment benefits provided under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, currently set to expire on July 31, through March 2021 or until state unemployment rates fall below 5.5%.

    A pony in every garage. Wheee!

      • Rhywun

        +1 rent control

      • Festus' Mustache

        I don’t get People. I’d go bat-shit crazy without work even though I have a pretty shit job. I understand the attraction of “I gets mo just stayin’ at home” but really, where’s the pride? Don’t get me wrong. I grew up in a place that used the system to the hilt. We didn’t call it The UI Ski Team for nothing. Then I got older and put aside such childish notions. My job is not great but my clients depend upon me and mostly appreciate my efforts. It’s honest work and I take it pretty seriously. They in turn treat me as a member of the crew and have my back when things go pear-shaped. I wouldn’t have that if I decided to sit at home. Do it but always try to do it right. “Good enough” in most cases is not. Sorry, rambling.

      • Crusty Juggler

        I work in a blue-collar industry and I frequently interview laborers/drivers who have been unemployed for weeks/months and they walk out the door when I can’t meet their salary demands.

      • Mojeaux

        Side hustles #FTW!

      • Festus' Mustache

        Not everybody has the talent or skills to side hustle. Most of us are linear thinkers and don’t see past the blinders even if we could. Side hustling is something that “go-getters” do and many of us are so beat down by life choices that our get up and go done got up and went. Wifey is an exception, she’s always got irons in the fire. Maybe one day it will pay off or not but she never stops trying. I’m more of a meet the problem head on person. We make a pretty good team but I know I drag her back a little. At the same time, someone has to stay grounded in reality.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m more of a meet the problem head on person.

        I’ve known people who are so focused on what’s in front of them that they’ll waste time battering their head against the wall instead of stepping five feet to the left to take the door because that wouldn’t be moving forward.

        Don’t become like that.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Yeah. It’s a personal failing. I wish that I hadn’t become the “Party of No” as I got older. I’d rather be the “Party of Why Not?” I need to work on that. Thanks UCS.

      • Overt

        My boss and I are very similar. He is a very visionary, always looking for what’s next. He and I have been friends for years (I was actually his boss for a short time as well, before we went separate ways). Our relationship works very well. He is always finding new things, and I am always keeping him on target so the entire org doesn’t get whiplash. It is absolutely because of him that I haven’t settled into a rut, and just ground out the days towards retirement. And I hope it is because of me that he hasn’t over-reached and flamed out.

        Anyway, he and I are always talking about side hustles. He will be like “Yeah man we could get this restaurant on this corner and yada yada…” and I am always like, “I am not spending the 40 hours a week I have away from my day job to do this!”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This

        They cannot be that stupid, so it must be intentional. They’re trying to collapse the job market. Reason deserves permanent shame for drooling over Wyden all those times.

      • Hyperion

        The democrats number one platform is to keep as many people dependent on government as possible. If we could keep the unemployment numbers as low as they had been for the last couple of years before the commie flu coup, they would have to change their platform, and they have no new ideas.

  6. Scruffy Nerfherder

    You know who won’t be going back to those advertisers who wanted to shut down others’ speech?

    Me

  7. Scruffy Nerfherder

    I’m seeing a lot of gun control bills being submitted this week. It’s almost like this sort of stuff is coordinated nationally….

    • Sean

      ?

    • Festus' Mustache

      Panicky animals move in herds. Some buy guns and ammo and others just scamper off a cliff.

    • DOOMco

      I can’t imagine why

    • PieInTheSky

      guns are bad mkay.

    • EvilSheldon

      The progressive strategy on gun control continues to mystify me. Progs play the long game so effectively everywhere else, but with gun control they just can’t seem to help trying to shoot the moon. This despite that it bites them in the ass, every single time.

      • Hyperion

        With they way things have been going lately, they’ll need a supermajority in DC to pass any gun control at the federal level. All the polls are saying blue wave and they get it. We’ll see.

      • R C Dean

        A one seat majority in both houses of Congress would do it. The majority in the Senate can ditch the filibuster any time they want.

        When the Dems get control in DC, they will ram through the full package of gun control, possibly stopping short of confiscation. Possibly.

      • Viking1865

        THey don’t even need a Democrat majority. Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski would happily play the Grand Bipartisan Compromise game in return for absolutely fawning coverage by the media.

  8. Rhywun

    Of course, Schumer’s true intentions are unknowable.

    ?

  9. Count Potato

    “As many of you know, my father pass away unexpectedly in May. It was devastating. ”

    Sorry 🙁

    • Tejicano

      Please allow me to add my condolences again.

      • Festus' Mustache

        It is nice to see you back. Onwards and upwards. You’re a strong person and it will be fine.

    • Banjos

      Thank you, all.

      • Ozymandias

        Banjos – As a father of 5 girls and and 1 boy, and given your obvious love for your dad, I hope you are comforted knowing that he went with a glad heart… because he had the love of his daughter. Truly, it is a unique and precious gift.

  10. Festus' Mustache

    Gotta admit, That Trump/Karen image is top-o-the line.

    • Rhywun

      I didn’t even notice – I thought that was actually her. ?

      • Hyperion

        All them deplorables look alike to me.

  11. Count Potato

    I think the no singing in church thing is way worse than the mask thing. Requiring people to wear masks in places like pharmacies and supermarkets isn’t any more stupid than the gazillion other safety laws and regulations.

    • Rhywun

      Churchy people are too stupid to judge the risk for themselves.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      There will be no self-regulation of risk unless you’re performing a politically useful service for the left.

  12. gbob

    Mornin’ Banjos. Great picture of Karen J Trump.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Hysterical handwringing

    What should concern all Americans is that, as more and more states see their outbreaks intensify, the country will lose its ability to understand what is happening. As my colleague Alexis C. Madrigal and I reported this week, some of the country’s major testing providers are backlogged and overwhelmed, and are no longer able to turn around test results as quickly as is epidemiologically useful. Yesterday, Brett Giroir, who coordinates COVID-19 testing in the Trump administration, said: “It is absolutely correct that some labs across the country are reaching or near capacity.”

    ——-

    For months this spring, Americans clawed back ground from the coronavirus. Many of us stayed home, canceled vacations, and avoided friends and family. It was awful, but it worked: The U.S., by one estimate, avoided more than 4 million infections. We are now losing that work, watching weeks of pandemic suppression vanish in days. It took the country acting in concert to subdue the virus in the spring. We may need to do the same, again, to avoid the worst now.

    Somebody needs a juice box and a nap. The whole thing is just a bunch of terrified incoherent shrieking.

    • ruodberht

      I thought we weren’t supposed to avoid infections? We were all supposed to get it and get herd immunity? Wasn’t it 80% of people should get it as long as hospitals are not overwhelmed, which they aren’t?

      Oh, and, simultaneously with needing 80% of people to get it, we were ALSO told that corona causes lasting respiratory damage that will cripple you for life, but we also all need to get it for immunity.

      Didn’t the Inner Party in 1984 at least wait a few days before increasing the chocolate ration?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      avoided more than 4 million infections

      At the cost of 30 million jobs and countless bankruptcies.

    • Count Potato

      “The U.S., by one estimate, avoided more than 4 million infections. We are now losing that work, watching weeks of pandemic suppression vanish in days. ”

      Listen, I’m not a mathematician, epidemiologist, or any of that shit, but I can at least visualize simple shapes. How did you expect the curve flattening to work?

      • UnCivilServant

        I wouldn’t put it past some people to just think it meant lowering the peak, with no increase in the duration.

      • pan fried wylie

        Run the curve through your perpetual motion machine, moron.

    • Cy

      “It took the country acting in concert to subdue the virus in the spring.”

      and then a particular group of assholes decided that expressing their rights and spreading the virus was more important than stopping the virus. But we all know it’s ok for that particular group of assholes. Then the media needed a scapegoat for the new spike and literally went out and blamed everyone who wasn’t on the special list of particular assholes.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Newsletter. Subscribed.

    • Agent Cooper

      HERD IMMUNITY is the only way to deal with a respiratory virus.

      JFC, these control freaks.

  14. PieInTheSky

    As many of you know, my father pass away unexpectedly in May. It was devastating. My father was an amazing man who was primarily responsible for raising my brothers and I. – Said at the time, but sorry for your loss. Based on personal experience, I hope you are okay although I expect it will take a while more. Things like this always make me sad when I see so many people around me estranged from their parents…

  15. Rhywun

    Trump rolls back Obama era housing regulations.

    Sounds like he’s “thinking about it”. And it’s not even clear from that article if it is being enforced now.

    • Ted S.

      “Sources familiar with Trump’s thinking say….”

  16. Yusef drives a Kia

    Sorry about your Dad, Banjos, I know the pain of your loss….

  17. The Late P Brooks

    I haven’t even been following this story, but they’re all het up over at the Atlantic about this Russian(!) bounty hunter story. Trump has failed to Do Something.

    Do they want him to bomb Leningrad?

    • DOOMco

      They want a new surge in Afghanistan. We want to make the hundred years war look the six day war.

      • Ted S.

        Transfer all the military currently working in the Pentagon to Afghanistan, and bring the regular military stationed over there home.

        Don’t fill the vacancies at the Pentagon.

    • Tejicano

      “Do they want him to bomb Leningrad?”

      **checks map – ***

      Woah! they already erased it!

      • UnCivilServant

        Bomb Leningrad? Sure. Just leave St Petersburg out of it.

    • Tejicano

      “Do they want him to bomb Leningrad?”

      **checks map – ***

      Woah! they already erased it!

    • Spartacus

      Obama: “First time I heard about this was when I read it in the paper.”

      Press: “Oh, no problem. If anyone is to blame, it’s his advisors for not keeping him up to date.”

      Trump: “I wasn’t briefed on this.”

      Press: “AAAAGGGHHHH!!!! Ignorant dumbass orangeman doesn’t pay attention!”

    • Ted S.

      For political reasons, I presume.

    • Rhywun

      Hill is then seen behind the car and appears to punch the vehicle’s back window. It is unclear from the video how Hill came to be behind the car.

      Um… she positioned herself there?

      • Viking1865

        The wypipo teleported her there with tricknology.

    • Hyperion

      Anyone who watches the entire video can clearly see that the black woman was the aggressor. She was trying to block her vehicle so she couldn’t leave, and she was threatening them. Bunch of bullshit is what that it.

      • Viking1865

        You can’t get back out of the car and pull a gun on someone though. She was fucking stupid to do that. You’re in the car, you’re already in the best tool for self defense you have. Put in reverse, and just ease back out of the spot, with your own phone recording. Start up a video, and say

        “This woman has followed us out of the restaurant, and is yelling and screaming at us. She is now standing behind the car. I have told her we are leaving, she is standing behind our car, we feel unsafe, she is kidnapping us, and we are now slowly backing out of the spot, while honking the horn.”

      • Rebel Scum

        You can’t get back out of the car and pull a gun on someone though.

        Having seen the video, seemed like she needed to get the people away fro the car in order to be able to retreat. So, yes, she was in the right to draw the weapon.

        Funny thing to me is that I saw her hand on it from the very beginning. The aggressors should have noted that as well, but they are racist morons.

      • Viking1865

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=102&v=iZhdMcrBuDU&feature=emb_logo

        They are in the car. The car is the most dangerous weapon you have. It’s offense, defense, and mobility all in one, at your fingertips. Back out, slowly, with the doors locked, and if she won’t move, that’s on her. Or just sit there with the AC on and the radio blasting, and wait for them to leave.

        Instead she gets out of the car, with her gun in hand. That is not acceptable behavior, and it does not increase her safety. She was already safe. This is a huge pet peeve of mine when it comes to guns. If you are carrying a gun, you should be meek, retiring, absolutely polite to everyone, until its time to defend against being killed or maimed.

        A gun is not a tool for you to show how tough you are, or to win some kind of stupid pissing match. Which this was. It was a stupid pissing match. She was not in imminent danger, she had to cause whatsoever to draw her weapon. Shes with her husband, in broad daylight, and shes being accosted by a middle aged woman and a teenage girl, and at the point she decided to draw her gun she was in a car. She chose to roll the window down and continue an argument instead of deescalating.

        You can stand your ground and draw your gun. But if you retreat to an operating vehicle, and actually begin to leave the area in the car, before stopping, getting out, and drawing your weapon, you’ve lost any kind of benefit of the doubt.

        You don’t have a duty to retreat in most places, but if you do retreat, you do not have the legal right to return to the scene of the confrontation and then claim you acted in self defense.

      • Rebel Scum

        Back out, slowly, with the doors locked

        And wait for the lawsuit resulting from said action when one of the racist black women is “hit” and “injured”. I stand by my assessment of the situation.

      • Viking1865

        I’d rather defend a civil suit than an assault charge. Civil suits won’t cost me my legal ability to carry a firearm. Not to mention, they can file a civil suit anyway.

        Personally, I would have gotten in the car, and if they blocked me I would have just sat there with the AC and the radio on.

      • DEG

        Yep.

        Based on what I see in the video, I wouldn’t vote to convict the woman with the gun.

      • Rebel Scum

        I would have just sat there with the AC and the radio on.

        Until the mob shows up, removes you from the car and, well, use your imagination.

        I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

      • Viking1865

        “Until the mob shows up, removes you from the car and, well, use your imagination.”

        What mob? Like, we are talking about the same video, right? The one I linked above?

        She was not under imminent lethal threat, therefore she should not have drawn her gun.

        Dude, honestly, I don’t carry guns to protect me from chunky middle aged women and their teenage daughters.

        “I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

        I’d rather go home and tell the crazy story of how this woman stood behind our minivan for 10 minutes yelling until she went away.

      • Rebel Scum

        She is pregnant and was being flanked.

        What mob? Are you not paying attention to current events?

        I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. I just hope she does not get convicted.

      • Viking1865

        “What mob? Are you not paying attention to current events?”

        Dude, there has to be an actual mob present to claim that a mob is a threat.

    • Rebel Scum

      charged with assault

      Since we are in clown world you can be an “assaulter” even if you are actually the defender.

    • Agent Cooper

      I really hate everyone in that video.

  18. PieInTheSky

    Two words from the past for people and habits you might recognise:

    monologist (18th century): someone who goes on and on and monopolises a conversation.

    nod-crafty (17th century): prone to nodding vigorously when you actually tuned out an hour ago.

    • Ted S.

      monologist

      One who studies Jamaica, mon.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Or more succinctly: Monologist = Winston, Nod-Crafty = Me

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Just now decided to never buy a Beemer. I’m enough of a cunte without any help from them.

    I’d still buy an M1 or a first generation M6. You couldn’t give me a brand new BMW. I wrote them off when they came out with iDrive.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Heh! Me too. I get wistful when I see ’80s 3-series (E30?) about.

      Remember Ozzy cursing at the dashboard circa ’02?

    • Festus' Mustache

      No worries, Son. I’ll die before I ever get to drive one. Literally.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Rent one? Get a job involving cars (parking, transporting, etc.)? Make rich friends?

    • Rebel Scum

      Not fast by modern standards but I like the original M3. I also like the 1999-2000 Honda Civic Si. So what do I know?

    • Rhywun

      Go fuck yourselves.

    • Crusty Juggler

      Divert attention from the cause!

    • Hyperion

      Those people are incapable of having fun. Misery loves company. There’s the entire story.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think it’s cynically funny that they’re adopting a lot of the same stances as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Everything not completely acceptable is forbidden, except for violence against people we don’t like.

    • Spartacus

      I hope they never stumble across Mel Brooks or Richard Pryor. They’ll probably have a heart attack.

    • Rebel Scum

      so how does YOUR favourite stack up

      *whistles ‘Dixie’ while watching Dukes of Hazzard*

      It holds up.

    • UnCivilServant

      My favorites? Too much proggy leftist nonsense that I was too young to realize was bullshit at the time.

  20. PieInTheSky

    Macron appoints Jean Castex as French prime minister

    https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-appoints-jean-castex-as-french-prime-minister/

    French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Jean Castex — a low-profile, 55-year-old conservative politician — as his new prime minister on Friday, according to the president’s office.

    Castex, who is mayor of the small town of Prades in southern France, had previously been given the delicate task of handling the government’s plan for exiting the coronavirus lockdown.

    • IntraveneousWoodChipper

      So he gave a conservative the role of fall-guy in case something goes wrong?

      Clever Girl, Justin….

      • Hyperion

        No, it seems Macron is going all Trumptard on us.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Delicate?

      What’s so delicate about it? Open. Ta-dah!

  21. PieInTheSky

    I do not feel like working at all.

    My company got more summer internship students than expected and now I have to find something for one to do.

    • Ted S.

      Today’s a holiday, man.

      • Hyperion

        It is for all us normal people.

      • UnCivilServant

        The holiday is tomorrow.

        The office isn’t even closed today.

      • Rebel Scum

        We get the day before or after the weekend depending on which day a paid holiday falls if it falls on the weekend. Local gov’t is closed today as well.

      • UnCivilServant

        Someone has to officially designate an alternate day of observance for us to get a friday or monday off for a weekend holiday.

        No one did, so we’re still open.

      • Hyperion

        “The holiday is tomorrow.”

        Well, here is the way that works. If you’re an employer and you are providing a paid holiday as part of a benefits package and said holiday occurs on a weekend, you either give the Friday before or Monday after as the paid holiday. Glad I could help, it’s what I do!

      • UnCivilServant

        You, sir, are incorrect, so are not only not helpful, but counterproductive.

        Report for reprogramming.

      • PieInTheSky

        well given I work from home and am on my second glass of wine it might be.

        Had a 4 hour meeting with management this morning. Didn’t feel like doing much after.

        If they gonna get interns, they could have least get some women. Diversity and all that jazz.

    • R C Dean

      “now I have to find something for one to do”

      *waggles eyebrows*

      • Rebel Scum

        *waggles eyebrows*

        “Get me coffee.”?

    • egould310

      1-2-3-4
      Now I wanna sniff some glue
      Now I wanna have somethin’ to do
      All the kids wanna sniff some glue
      All the kids want somethin’ to do

      https://youtu.be/_Yr4Wknpq_4

    • PieInTheSky

      sweatshops are still OK – the point of social signaling is that it is best when it does not cost you to much money.

      Than again, in evil libertarian defense of sweatshop, they may be the least bad option for some people.

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        *cough Lebron James *

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Imma let you finish, but Nike was the least racist of all time, ALL TIME!

      • Count Potato

        There is no jazz in Utah, or any lakes in Los Angeles.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      So brave.

      Another reason to never watch sports again.

      And Nike is just about the most hypocritical shitstained company out there because of China.

      Phil Nike: GO FUCK YOURSELF you pussy coward.

      You, Kap and Lebron can all go suck each others dicks through glory holes.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Tell us how you REALLY feel, muppet! :_0

      • Hyperion

        Nike shoes suck as well.

    • Rebel Scum

      Hm. The new coach demonstrated that he did not want me to watch/support the Redskins. Now Nike seems to want me to watch/support the Redskins*. I am so conflicted.

      *If I owned the team I would fire the coach and change the name to the “Savages”.

  22. IntraveneousWoodChipper

    The frenzied hysteria over the statues and the idea that they must be torn down lest the exert a malignant influence is like a very primitive Old World religious mania.

    The Romans practiced something called “damnatio memoriae” in which they destroyed all references (pictorues, books, sculptures, etc.) of a Roman emperor the people deemed “bad” after his death.

    The Byzantines fought a civil war over iconoclasm that lasted for centuries in which one side hunted down and murdered anybody who liked traditional “icons” or images of saints, etc. before destroying any images they could get their hands on.

    The uneducated nitwits engaging in this sort of thing today no doubt feel that they are far superior to the icky slave-owning Romans and Byzantines while behaving exactly like them.

    The more things change…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Just more evidence that we’re in the decline of Rome phase.

      • PieInTheSky

        do you have Germans at your borders?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Worse… Canadians

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Burlington and Plattsburgh are dying for us right about now.

        Miss us yet?

      • Hyperion

        “Worse… Canadians”

        Build the wall!

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        If you count the Romans and Byzantines together (which the Byzantines liked to do), Rome lasted for over 2000 years as a Republic and Empire.

        We may not make it to 300 at this rate.

      • Animal

        A couple of years before he died, the Old Man told me that he (born 1923) and Mom (born 1928) were lucky to have lived in America’s best years. And this was a couple that grew up during the Depression.

        I think he was right.

    • Tejicano

      All this reminds me of the Taliban bombing Buddhist statues because they clashed with their unreasoning religion.

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        Plus ISIS blowing up and demolishing museums full of artifacts during their expansive period.

        Islam in general is very aniconic, meaning they disapprove of any attempt by human beings to depict the divine or, in extreme sects, human beings as well (only God can create) That’s why their houses of worship are big into calligraphy.

        Jewish religion is also aniconic but they, thankfully, aren’t bigoted zealous factions running around destroying people’s stuff like it’s the Middle Ages.

    • JD is in the United Karendom

      You’re listening to The Classicist podcast. I’m your host, Troy Senik, and the classicist, of course, is Victor Davis Hanson IntraveneousWoodChipper.

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        Thank you kindly. I’m just a humble Latin teacher who somehow managed to get through the sea of derp that is an advanced Classics degree without becoming a neo-Marxist. I teach a mythology class in highschool where we get to talk about this stuff all the time. It’s great but I am no Victor Davis Hanson. He’s considered one of the world’s premiere Greek historians for the last several decades. I don’t always agree with his modern politics but the man is a brilliant scholar.

      • JD is in the United Karendom

        I’m disheartened to realise that classics depts have been overrun with marxists. How on earth does one take classics and twist it into “we need to collectively keep making same, most destructive, misanthropic, egregious mistakes of humanity! For equity!”?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Critical theory has overrun almost all of the humanities.

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        The old guard (my professors) were mostly asshat liberals. The real ones who will end Classics as a discipline are the current graduate cadres.

        Every Classics Department and professional organization in the country put out a statement after George Floyd’s murder vowing essentially to dismantle their own subject. I’ve never seen anything like it.

      • Festus' Mustache

        That’s heartbreaking. I had whimsical dreams of a career in History when I was a boy, cheek of tan. I’d like to say that “It happened so fast”! but it didn’t. The worms were there in the 70’s. Nobody saw them for what they were.

      • Hyperion

        “I teach a mythology class in highschool”

        Isn’t all of that stuff racist?

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        It’s everything offensive to the modern prog ear.

        Luckily I teach at a private Catholic school. I’m not Catholic but the diocese at least still value a classical education. I’ve never had a complaint with any of the material, in spite of all the nekked statues and whatnot lol.

    • JD is in the United Karendom

      Am râs.

      • PieInTheSky

        you have a lynx ?

      • JD is in the United Karendom

        Yes.

  23. Mojeaux

    Good morning Banjos! I am so sorry about your dad.

    even when I thought I was too old. My father was the type of man who took up hobbies and new interests all throughout his life never believing he was too old

    What an inspiration!

  24. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “Zuckerberg not worried about advertiser’s boycott”

    Zuck don’t cuck (until he does).

    • Hyperion

      “advertiser’s boycott”

      What, he’s still not woke enough? Or are there still a few Trumptards on derpbook?

      • Rhywun

        Supposedly, he isn’t censoring crimethought. I dunno if that’s accurate or not.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Winning

    Trump might be forgiven for his misreading of the political situation. Some of Biden’s advisers had the same initial view of the politics of the protests. Biden’s campaign is led by an older and whiter group of operatives who came of age during a political era when many Democrats saw large-scale protests for racial equality as inherently alienating to many white voters. In some quarters of the party, street protest brought back the traumas of 1968 and Nixon’s 32-state landslide.

    “The first thought of someone my age is Nixon and law and order,” said an adviser to Biden, who is white and in his late 60s and admitted concern early on that the protests could benefit Trump. The person was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly. “But as long as we don’t have a reversion to looting and lawlessness, as long as it’s peaceful and about the inequality of society and the treatment of African Americans, this has seen a shift in Biden’s direction—and more than we thought it would be.”

    Biden did not endorse the controversial activist slogan, steering clear of Trump’s attacks. On June 10, he wrote an op-ed for USA Today laying out his views on police reform and stated unequivocally, “I do not support defunding police.”

    The spasms of vandalism and theft that marked some of the early protests have diminished, replaced by the targeted toppling of statues memorializing the Confederacy. Mitt Romney marched in Washington and said, “Black Lives Matter.” Polls reflected a seismic shift in the electorate’s attitudes: 76 percent of the public say racism and discrimination is a major problem, up from 68 percent in 2016. Seventy-one percent of white people agree. The Black Lives Matter movement now has majority support.

    The expected revolt of white suburbanites against the protests hasn’t materialized. Instead, they’ve joined them.

    “This is no longer a traditional wedge issue because all of a sudden white Americans, particularly college educated whites, understand that racism is real,” said Cornell Belcher, a veteran Democratic pollster who worked for Barack Obama. “Those white suburban women now understand that they have skin in the racism game as well. And that changes everything.

    REPENT, Karen. Kneel and submit to the mob. Take it. All of it.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’ve successfully turned the racism issue into a virtue signaling opportunity for everyone. Social media made it possible.

      It’s Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” writ large.

      • Gustave Lytton

        No way would people answer that poll a certain way.

        Or that some might think racism is a large problem, because it’s being ginned up and pushed hard.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Get to Karen; win the war.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      The most racist of parties with a deep rooted history of racism is ironically gonna (or at least will try to. I truly hope Americans aren’t this foolish) win back power through….race. All racism leads to power.

      Democrats are pure – PURE – evil.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Pornhub should have clips of Karen in a BBC gangbang taking the knee and repenting for white people everywhere.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t want to see that.

        You muppets are strange.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        /muppet bopping head laugh.

      • Festus' Mustache

        You don’t want to know what I thought when I read that, Rufus!

      • Count Potato

        It already does.

    • Rhywun

      The hive mind has gone from pretending Biden is a “centrist” to calling for him to veer even further left. I wonder how that will work out for them.

      • Hyperion

        He already cannot get much further left. He’s already pushing all their narrative, government run healthcare, free college, green new deal, Gulag Barbie in his cabinet to get that going, Beta as his gun control Czar, reparations, all of that. The hard left are the democrats now. Anyone who is not all in on that will be pushed out of the party.

      • Hyperion

        Bernie is actually more moderate than Biden is now. He’s against open borders and globalism, Biden is for that as well as everything Bernie is for. Biden is also more corrupt than Bernie. So he’s the perfect candidate for them, run him as a centrists pushing a far left agenda. You can’t even make this shit up.

  26. PieInTheSky

    Termometrul spune la umbră 33° Celsius… Subt arșița soarelui, se oprește o birje, în strada Pacienței, la numărul 11 bis, către orele trei după-amiaz’. Un domn se dă jos din trăsură și cu pas moleșit se apropie de ușa marchizei, unde pune degetul pe butonul soneriei. Sună o dată… nimic; de două, de trei… iar nimic; se razimă în buton cu degetul, pe care nu-l mai ridică… În sfârșit, un fecior vine să deschidă.

    În tot ce urmează persoanele toate păstrează un calm imperturbabil, egal și plin de dignitate.

    Domnul: Domnu-i acasă?

    Feciorul: Da; dar mi-a poruncit să spui, dacă l-o căuta cineva, c-a plecat la țară.

    D.: Dumneata spune-i c-am venit eu.

    F.: Nu pot, domnule.

    D.: De ce?

    F.: E încuiată odaia.

    D.: Bate-i, să deschidă.

    F.: Apoi, a luat cheia la dumnealui când a plecat.

    D.: Care va să zică, a plecat?

    F.: Nu, domnule, n-a plecat.

    D.: Amice, ești… idiot!

    F.: Ba nu, domnule.

    D.: Zici că nu-i acasă.

    F.: Ba-i acasă, domnule.

    D.: Apoi, nu ziseși c-a plecat?

    F.: Nu, domnule, n-a plecat.

    D.: Atunci e acasă.

    F.: Ba nu, da’ n-a plecat la țară, a ieșit așa.

    D.: Unde?

    F.: În oraș.

    D.: Unde!?

    F.: În București.

    D.: Atunci să-i spui c-am venit eu.

    F.: Cum vă cheamă pe dv.?

    D.: Ce-ți pasă?

    F.: Ca să-i spui.

    D.: Ce să-i spui? de unde știi ce să-i spui, dacă nu ți-am spus ce să-i spui? Stăi, întâi să-ți spui; nu te repezi… Să-i spui când s-o-ntoarce că l-a căutat…

    F.: Cine?

    D.: Eu.

    F.: Numele dv.?

    D.: Destul atâta! mă cunoaște dumnealui… suntem prieteni…

    • Ted S.

      Hawt.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      So many purty letters and symbols and shit.

      • Hyperion

        Jeebus, more accents than Portuguese, how can you people type that stuff all the time?

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      I can’t believe a college roommate I had took Romanian language classes. At least it’s a Romance language (mostly?).

      • Rufus the Monocled

        At least he didn’t take Moldovan.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        She. 😉 She was fascinated by Transylvania. I am not sure if the classes lasted beyond freshman year.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Hawt.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        You into Goth chicks? 😉

      • UnCivilServant

        Any tattoos or gauging? Those are a deal-breaker

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        The tattoos came later. Only time I’ve been to a parlor was to accompany her.

      • Hyperion

        It is a Romance language.

    • Rhywun

      I was told there would be no linguistics.

      • pan fried wylie

        That’s not Math?

  27. Rufus the Monocled

    Copland’s is so quintessentially American in spirit. These days with the country being beaten down, it brings a tone of optimism; a reminder of when sovereign individuals respected and built a great country.

    Let’s hope the country passes this through this madness and when it does, Copland will play.

    Start by defying orders by sons of bitches Mayors and Governors ‘cancelling the 4th’ by CELEBRATING THE 4th and sending a big fuck you to them.

    In fact, defy all orders. All of them. Something’s not right with this picture that they keep people under lock and key like this. The whole part of the deal was to ‘flatten the curve’ and not ‘overwhelm the system’. Deaths rates are dramatically down. The virus has likely spread more than stated cases driving the IFR still further down and is clearly not as malicious or with a spread rate as high as first thought.

    So. What. Gives?

    Newsom is hands down the absolute worst of the bunch. I know the competition is stiff but I listen to that guy on KTLA when he speaks and he exudes the worst combo of low IQ and totalitarian lefty.

    I totally see a black market forming. People won’t stand for it. Speakeasy culture Part 2 here we come!

    What a bunch of retards rule the continent.

    Ae the CA brigade here aware of the Recall Newsom petition? The group has a board, funding and everything! Sounds like they’re committed:

    https://recallgavin2020.com

    • Mojeaux

      Copland’s is so quintessentially American in spirit.

      My dad loved Fanfare for the Common Man.

      • Don Escaped the Quality Department

        agreed

        agreed

        Shifrin (Argentinian?) achieved something very similar to my sensibilities.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Only the second time that movie has been referenced here that was not the “Lucille” scene. Nice work, Don!

      • Rhywun

        *googles*

        Oh yeah. ?

    • Suthenboy

      “The whole part of the deal was to ‘flatten the curve’ and not ‘overwhelm the system’.”

      Check out this guy’s rose colored glasses.

      This was never about anything besides destroying the economy to get rid of Trump. Fuck you, fuck me, fuck everyone and burn it all down.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Oh, I know. When they said that here I made to tell my wife once the jargon enters the fray it’s not about the jargon they claim.

        How many days later and still talking about this stupidity?

        But it has gone on long enough and the media has done a great job tickling the chords of fear that it will take YEARS for people to realize they’ve been had.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      I signed it! ? The other day at Walmart, (natch). Guy manning the folding table was unmasked, tattooed, and wearing a “Come and Take It” shirt.

      Whitmer might be worse per capita. Someone in the D.Mail comments pointed out that she looks like the Grinch. Can’t unsee it now, can you?

      Foreigners too are willing to destroy the international economy to get rid of Trump? This makes no sense to me. Good thing for him he doesn’t mind being hated; in fact he probably views it as proof of success.

      • Suthenboy

        “This makes no sense to me. ”

        I am going to make everyone start paying their own way – paraphrased Trump
        America has been the economic engine that powered nearly the entire world since WWII. Trump came along and said they have to stop riding on us and pay their own way. Of course they are all having a shit-fit.
        I say fuck ’em, let them starve.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Ah, forgot about that. But still, populaces imploding their local economies? This seems myopic and face-spiting.

        Buncha GD teenagers. “You can’t ground me, I have a driver’s license! Can I have the car keys?”

      • Hyperion

        Europe depends a lot on tourism. It must be really bad for their economies, now that no one is flying there.

      • Hyperion

        Maybe if Trump makes Germany pay for their own military protection, maybe BMW will start making tires a service. Who am I kidding?, Germans all walk around, Americans drive BMWs.

      • Hyperion

        “Foreigners too are willing to destroy the international economy to get rid of Trump?”

        The globalists are, of course.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Fuck it. I never feared Flu-Manchu. My pancreas will blow up or I might stroke out or get emphysema thirty years from now just like Grandpa. We all gotta go one day.

    • DEG

      I guess I should have read the other comments before linking to the Gauleiter Newsom recall page.

  28. JD is in the United Karendom

    My father was the type of man who took up hobbies and new interests all throughout his life never believing he was too old.

    That’s my kind of dude. Mornin’ Banjos 🙂

  29. The Late P Brooks

    I could have sworn racism went away when the Karens elected that Obama guy.

    What do I know?

    • IntraveneousWoodChipper

      No that was when the Earth began to heal!

  30. Suthenboy

    Good morning Banjos.

    This is the first I am hearing about your father’s passing. I am so very sorry.

    • IntraveneousWoodChipper

      Same here. My condolences!

    • TARDIS

      Here too. I miss a lot of the posts.

      Sorry for your loss.

  31. Rufus the Monocled

    What I’d wish Dan Snyder would say.

    “I call upon the faithful of the Washington Redskins to stand by this franchise at this time. We’re being pressured by various entities to change our name, We want to keep the name but to withstand the bullying it will take great effort and I can’t do it alone. It will cost us money but can do this together.”

    And the points to Nike and Fed Ex execs…

    “Go fuck yourselves you cowards”.

    Makes me want to go out and buy a Redskins t-shirt.

    Weird. All this because of George Floyd? It was supposed to be about police brutality/reform but now it’s about systemic racism even though we don’t know if racism was involved in that case? Crazy.

    • IntraveneousWoodChipper

      Eh, it’s always been a convenient opportunity for neo-Marxist revolution! Floyd was just a flashpoint, in retrospect.

  32. Mojeaux

    Kansas has a congressional seat up for grabs. Ads we’ve seen so far: 3 candidates pronouncing themselves staunch conservatives and one who doesn’t say what she is and who might as well just say she’s for baseball, apple pie, and ‘murka,
    for how informative she is about her stances on things. “Affordable housing” is the only clue.

    The conservative most likely to win is a plumber with a huge business and is all over TV constantly.

    I’m actually shocked at how hard they’re all hitting the “conservative”. To me it’s indicative of a lot of things, but it’s early and my brain isn’t working yet.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      When they don’t admit, they’re lefty. Amazing how they don’t admit it but once in, you have to shoot your way out of their leftiness.

      They’re deceitful and conniving little weasels.

      • Mojeaux

        When they don’t admit, they’re lefty.

        Yeup. Perzackly.

    • Raven Nation

      I assume that’s the OP/Lawrence district?

      • Mojeaux

        Yes. Bob Hamilton Plumbing. Remember that?

      • Raven Nation

        I have a vague, residual memory of the ads. Wow, subliminal works!

      • Hyperion

        How do you know who any of them are, don’t they have a black square covering their adds up? Or are they all racists?

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Wow. If that’s what’s gonna get you canceled….we’re doomed for real. EVERYONE is open game now.

      Robespierre’s Revenge.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Resigns or retires?

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Than again, in evil libertarian defense of sweatshop, they may be the least bad option for some people.

    Oddly enough, I tried to watch one of those PBS documentaries propaganda pieces about “The Gilded Age” and the horrific iniquity of late nineteenth America, recently. At one point the narrator was weeping piteously over the fate of the hordes who came to the cities to become wage slaves in the sweatshops. At no time did he acknowledge in any way the possibility that they might still have considered themselves to have improved their lot in life by getting away from the bucolic splendor of scratching in the dirt from sun up to sun down for sustenance.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      JFC. But Obama’s opposition to gay marriage that was much more recent is not an issue,

      • PieInTheSky

        Are you suggesting the shark is gay?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Being the simplest explanation of where I posted that comment, Yes

      • Hyperion

        He evolved on the gay shark issue.

    • PieInTheSky

      CGI

      • Count Potato

        Plenty of birds eat fish. The camera angle probably makes it look bigger than it is.

    • Hyperion

      The birds are going to take over and bomb people with sharks! Hurry, make a movie!

  34. PieInTheSky

    Thesis: the average 18 year old student in, say, York in AD 800 (the middle of the so-called “Dark Ages”) had read more, knew more languages, was better trained in logic, could read more music, knew more mathematics and astronomy than the average student from a university today.

    https://twitter.com/johnpauldickson/status/1278997229068406789

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      But they wouldn’t know how to sync their social media accounts.

    • Rhywun

      Not at all surprising. There were probably no more than a handful of them.

      • LCDR_Fish

        This – even looking at say Waterhouse in Stephenson’s Baroque cycle – even being marginally literate made you the top .00001% of the population – compared to the average – say half-cocked Jack.

      • Suthenboy

        This. The percentage of the population that was educated was much, much smaller.

      • Hyperion

        If you took all the wokeism out of most university degree programs today, what would be left? We have people graduating from Harvard, threatening to stab people if they don’t agree with her, and not even able to write in English.

    • R C Dean

      What’s depressing is how many of the commenters are too dense to get that he is comparing 18 year old students, not 18 year olds generally. No matter how many times he tells them.

  35. leon

    Singing in church? Sounds like a tax.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      That’s a paddlin’.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Now you’re just trying to make me angry because I can imagine that line of reasoning.

  36. UnCivilServant

    They’re making a Fallout TV show.

    If the protagonist isn’t a psychotic murder-cannibal kleptomaniac who slips live grenades into childerns’ pockets to erase the pickpocketting bastards, they’ve done it wrong.

    • Aloysious

      I’m imagining the protagonist being a pink haired non-gendered Hindu Hispanic left handed communist trans gay black woman that identifies as a descendant of slaves five generations removed.

      As much as I want a good show, I don’t expect anything but a steaming pile of… trash.

      • Hyperion

        Oh, and no guns. Xe just speaks wokness and all the bad unwoke people fall over dead.

      • UnCivilServant

        You guys sound like Chinese Sympathizers. You probably think we shouldn’t slaughter the ghouls and supermutants.

        *loads up Experimental MIRV and unleashes mini-nuclear hellfire*

      • Aloysious

        As long as I can have all the garden gnomes.

        My little house in Megaton was surrounded by dozens of garden gnomes.

        They’re all mine, I tell you.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Snyder should change the team logo to a potato in a war bonnet. That should satisfy the whiners.

  38. leon

    Isn’t it funny that the people who love to proclaim their hate of American Slavery, don’t seem to care about communism in Cuba and China? Good job being principled.

    • IntraveneousWoodChipper

      Well it stands to reason that their leftwing high-school education on Communism was swallowing bullshit like:

      Capitalism made children work in factories!

      Russia defeated the Nazis!

      Cuba boosted literacy rates!

      While skimming over the Gulag System, Great Purge and 100,000,000+ dead bodies that just happened to be byproducts.

      • Fatty Bolger

        But the communists meant well!

      • Hyperion

        Cuba had cured cancer and Obama made the mistake of allowing American capitalists to go there and take away the cure and cover it all up.

    • PieInTheSky

      Cuba is better than America and/or Cuba is not real socialism.

    • Suthenboy

      Oh, they do care about it. They cheer it on. That is what they are working for here.

    • Rebel Scum

      They also don’t care about the slavery that still exists in Africa.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    i can’t stand Copland.

    Sue me.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.

    • Gustave Lytton

      *straps Brooks to a chair and puts headphones with Hoedown on loop until he starts threading replies*

    • Count Potato

      He’s a very good drummer.

    • Crusty Juggler

      Freddie blew it!

  40. Not an Economist

    This is good. Plenty of good comments as well.

      • JD is in the United Karendom

        Obviously there’s the horribly reductive woke dogma retort to that present:

        Anna
        @annampez
        ·
        23h
        Replying to
        @IsaacAColes
        and
        @McCormickProf
        Okay, I think the “right side of history” condemns racism but if you think otherwise that’s on you.

        *picardfacepalm*

      • leon

        Yup they get to pretend they are the only ones who care about racism.

      • Not an Economist

        Personally, I condemn racism because it stupid, not to be on the “right side of history”. Anna believes otherwise.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I think the wokesters are mostly moral cowards with a vindictive bent.

      They’re constantly preening for each other and looking for outgroups to scalp without consideration for the repercussions to that individual.

      If their peer group status is threatened , they double down on the principles of the group and seek to affirm their commitment by whatever means possible.

      • Q Continuum

        It’s a cult.

      • Hyperion

        It’s a death cult. Those people hate themselves, therefore, they hate everyone else too.

  41. Festus' Mustache

    Our first stream of consciousness President. He just says whatever comes to mind. Sometimes people like that are very fun to drink with. Other times…

  42. Hyperion

    Good morning, wokesters, a fine morning to you all, especially our resident Bronies.

    • Hyperion

      We’re all of the species Homo Sapien. Because they murdered my Neanderthal ancestors. I demand reparations!

      • JD is in the United Karendom

        Us caucasian mudbloods are tainted with neanderthal DNA. We are not pure.

      • Rhywun

        And who has the most Neanderthal DNA…?

        ?

      • Cy

        I thought it was Homo Sapien Sapien…?

    • pan fried wylie

      I propose switching to the term ‘cultivar’.

    • Rebel Scum

      “It’s the current year!” ///notlogic

      we’re actually all the same ‘race’.

      Well, yes we are. We just come in all shapes, colors and sizes.

  43. Hyperion

    “Prosecutors have filed a memo asking that she be held without bail”

    You have to keep her in witness protection, otherwise she’s a goner before she tells any of this sorted tale.

    • pan fried wylie

      Sorted alphabetically or by nastiest kink?

  44. LCDR_Fish

    Typing this while a dude *finally* hooks up my internet. Just in time for the long weekend (new xbox, stack of games, no need for any more moving boxes – but still plenty to unpack).

    Been wondering about this for a while now – I guess it always feels like this – aging in a cohort vs watching the rest of the world. I’m nearly 40 and I’ve got a few friends (old classmates I stay in touch with)who are already there – single – don’t really expect that to change anytime soon. On the one hand…it seems like I’ve got that “adulting is hard” vibe going on sometimes…(compared to friends who marries right after school/college, had kids, etc)….OTOH I still deployed, contracted, switched services, contracted more, etc – and finally bought my own place.

    I guess by definition theres a tendency to compare ourselves to folks we’re most familiar with like parents, grandparents, friends, etc. I’d like to think I’m more mature than just chilling with the books, movies and games, but it’s weird sometimes.

    • Q Continuum

      As long as you’ve got a life you’re satisfied with then what’s the problem?

      • LCDR_Fish

        I figure that’s what it is. At the same time, I have that thing in the back of my mind telling me that maybe I should be more “mature” – but I guess that really depends on the setting/scenario/etc. Its not as though “maturity” or “sophistication” have any additional inherent benefits.

    • Rhywun

      new xbox, stack of games

      Good to have priorities 🙂

      • UnCivilServant

        *looks at library of unplayed games*

        *realized I’m still playing Skyrim*

      • LCDR_Fish

        Still haven’t beaten it myself, but now that I’ve upgraded, may pick up the GOTY xbone edition on the cheap and get the extra content.

      • Hyperion

        210 hours.

      • Hyperion

        I cleared the entire map and killed everything it was possible to kill, did every single mission.

      • pan fried wylie

        10yrs on steam now, and they still haven’t changed the time played function to deduct being tabbed out. A sampling:

        Pinball FX 2 / 3: 3,027 / 841 hrs
        Skyrim / GOTY: 397 / 11 hrs
        Empyrion: 630 hrs
        Streets of Rogue: 340 hrs
        FFIX: 634 hrs
        BattleTech: 1,045 hrs
        Civ V / VI: 1,152 / 294 hrs
        DoW 2 / 2.5 / 2.75 / 3: 26 / 827 / 822 / 215

        Games with checkpoint-based or no saving hardest hit. DoW can’t be right at only 26 hours, but that’s the game I got on Steam for because it was too much work to pirate, so I guess they hadn’t started counting Played yet or lost count at some update.

      • UnCivilServant

        There is a point in the past where there was no playtime data, or it got lost, because I have games with far short (or zero) official time from steam.

      • pan fried wylie

        WHERES THE FUCKING EXPORT TO EXCEL FUNCTION?!

  45. pan fried wylie

    West Virginia ends year with budget surplus.

    “DIBS!”

    -NY/CA/NJ/etc x46

    • Drake

      My wife and I will be looking at property there next month.

      Compare / contrast with NJ where our retarded Governor is trying to illegally borrow $5 Billion so he can keep wasting money on stupid shit while destroying the state’s economy.

  46. Count Potato

    “The subsequent mainstream-media gaslighting campaign was mind-bending. After all the sacrifices, people had some questions about why one week protesting was killing grandma, but the next it was acceptable for thousands of people to gather. It was a valid question. If you dared to ask it, you were called a racist. ‘The true virus is white supremacy,’ we were told. Protesting is okay if the cause is righteous. Sorry, wanting to provide for your family or hold your mother’s hand while she dies just isn’t righteous enough?

    Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases have continued. States now wrestle with how best to reopen. We have an election in four months. Resentments are festering. Some centuries old. Some decades. Some months. All of this is going to get worse.

    Social media escalates the tensions. It’s a hotbed of anonymous trolls, agents of chaos and bad-faith arguments. It brings out the worst in us because the algorithm rewards us for being tribal, divisive and emotional. It preys on our worst instincts. The algorithm doesn’t want to be fed compassion, nuance and reason. Peace isn’t profitable. Social media demands the scalps of the canceled. It wants nothing less than our souls and war.

    So if you feel insane, I promise you — you are not alone. We live in mad times and in an effort to keep up with the chaos, we end up on social media trying to make sense of it all. But there we find an even crazier virtual battleground, and that only feeds the madness in real life. If we want to save ourselves from the toxic virus of hate, we need to start practicing social media distancing. Before it’s too late.”

    https://spectator.us/need-social-media-distancing-protest-internet/

    • Suthenboy

      The so-called elite, ruling class….whatever you want to call them is decaying with corruption and incredible incompetence. What we are seeing are their dying convulsions. It is long past due. They really need to go.

      • Hyperion

        We are right now facing the biggest challenge this country has faced since the Civil war. And it is not a virus, it’s humans who are pure evil. Evil is real, and if someone cannot see that right now, I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince them.

  47. Crusty Juggler

    Meet the Israeli Intelligence-Linked Firm Using AI to Profile Americans and Guide US Lockdown Policy

    Since March, Diagnostic Robotics’ AI-based “risk profiling” software for coronavirus has been utilized by the Israeli state in the form of the National Israeli COVID-19 Monitoring System, a key component of its increasingly Orwellian national health surveillance system. That system, which also initially partnered with Clalit — Israel’s largest health services provider, now involves the “daily nation-wide monitoring of coronavirus-related symptoms of the population.” Of course, these “coronavirus-related symptoms” include common symptoms such as headaches, coughing, abdominal pain and confusion, which can indicate any number of minor illnesses, allergic reactions or other conditions entirely unrelated to coronavirus.

    The Diagnostic Robotics platform specifically acquires information from individuals via an online questionnaire, but also has access to national and private health databases by virtue of its partnerships with Clalit as well as all four of Israel’s health management organizations (HMOs), all of the country’s domestic healthcare providers and Israel’s Health Ministry. That data is then pooled and analyzed to assess a given individual’s “probability of infection” that is then cross checked with the information of “millions of others,” according to the company’s co-founder and Unit 8200 alumnus Kira Radinsky.

    After that mass of data is pooled and analyzed by the platform’s AI-powered algorithm, the company’s platform, as used in Israel and now elsewhere, creates a “personalized, AI-based risk profile for Covid-19” for individuals and delivers that individual’s information and any “red flags” to health authorities, providing the Health Ministry with a map of corona “hot spots” that the government then uses to identify which communities to target with testing and more restrictive lockdown measures. Forbes noted that Israel’s use of Diagnostic Robotics’ platform has allowed it to “quickly close contaminated areas…as fast as a single day from the identification of symptomatic patients.” An internal study conducted by the company itself claims that the platform has a predictive accuracy of 73%, but their study has not been audited by independent scientists.

    Predictive hotspots = preemptive lock downs. How fun!

    • Hyperion

      These lockdowns will never end until people just say no. Well, maybe if the dems get a supermajority, maybe they will let us go outside sometimes if we have the proper papers.

    • Rhywun

      I see they haven’t hired an editor yet.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Meant to add that I think the staff is a million intern monkeys at a million computers. Obviously they have ridiculously short deadlines anyway.

    • DEG

      It’s going to be hard to get past #1, but I will endeavor to persevere.

      And I did. It was worth it.

      Good gallery.

  48. Crusty Juggler

    Harvard grad who blamed Trump supporters for getting her fired from ‘dream job’ at Deloitte after ‘All Lives Matter’ TikTok stab video did NOT work for accountancy firm

    A Harvard graduate who claims she was fired from her ‘dream job’ at Deloitte after saying she’d ‘stab’ anyone who told her ‘all lives matter’ in a TikTok video was never actually employed by the firm, it has emerged.

    Claira Janover, 22, tearfully claimed on Wednesday that supporters of Donald Trump ‘took my job away from me’ by calling for her firing, in response to the video.

    In the clip, which has sharply divided people online, she threatens to ‘stab’ anyone who says ‘all lives matter’.

    Deloitte, however, have confirmed that she was never an employee of the company.
    Instead she was scheduled to complete an internship with them later this summer, which the company rescinded.

    Jonathan Gandal, a managing director at the firm, said Janover ‘has never been an employee of our organization’.

    He said she was instead ‘formerly scheduled for a two-week internship later this summer.’

    So she was fired!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Bullet ducked.

      • R C Dean

        No kidding. I bet if she had done the internship she would have demanded a management position after her two weeks, and sued if they didn’t give her one.

    • 61North

      Perhaps because I’m not a drooling moron, but what can some K-16 pipeline person tell me about my job that I don’t know?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Welcome to the wide world of consulting

      • 61North

        The best I can tell is that hiring these brain morons allows management to shift responsibility to the consultants when things invariably go sideways.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Usually it already has.

        I’m skeptical of most consultancy work, particularly on outsourcing and operating core functions of the business by the consultant company. If they’re so good at XX industry, why aren’t they directly running it and rolling up incompetent competitors (answer: because they’re really not that good at it).

        Peel back the resumes, the slick suits, and generally smart (but experience poor) people, and there’s some value to having seen multiple companies up close and an outsiders’ perspective. Just not enough to turn over your company wholesale to those jokers.

      • UnCivilServant

        If they’re so good at XX industry, why aren’t they directly running it and rolling up incompetent competitors

        Because by being consultants, they get the money without the risk. Why take on the liability when someone else is willing to do so?

      • UnCivilServant

        Also, anyone who outsources their core business is a moron.

      • Animal

        Some of us (consultants) make a great living because we offer a very focused, very particular expertise that companies may need for a project but won’t need when the specific task is done, so it makes sense to contract the work rather than hire someone they won’t need in 18 months.

      • Don Escaped the Quality Department

        Of course, I’m pretty arrogant about my range and depth of experience.

        But often my biggest lever is the ability to tell someone they have an ugly baby, they’re sub-optimized, distracted, goofed the strategic marketing, failed to implement total quality. Too many people with too much skin in the game play the game, ride it out, instead of taking on management.

      • Hyperion

        I remember back when this entire consultancy thing was just getting big in the early 90s. So the company I was working for had to hire one to come in and tell us all what we were doing wrong. It was just all fluff basically, we all set at a table and listened to what we needed to do, none of it was ever implemented.

        Anyway, this one guy who worked there in middle management went all obsessed about the consultancy thing ‘You know how much they make! I’m going to be a consultant!’ And then he’d walk around the plant all day talking like he was already one of them, telling everyone what they need to change to make the company better, which wasn’t his job. No one could stand the guy and started complaining about him, which wound up with him getting fired. What an asshole.

    • Hyperion

      “did NOT work for accountancy firm”

      But in HER reality, she did! Why are you denying her reality!?

    • Rufus the Monocled

      The way she took to social media to whimper and whine was troubling. The narcissism is strong with that one.

  49. Crusty Juggler

    Nick Cave to Stream Solo Idiot Prayer Piano Concert

    It will take place live on July 23 and there won’t be any pausing, rewinding, or even saving the event to watch at a later date. According to a release, Cave play songs from his extensive back catalog, including rare tracks that most fans will be hearing for the first time. The songs those will in come from early Bad Seeds and Grinderman through his latest effort, Ghosteen.

    Swell!

  50. 61North

    I’m off to the Aleutians today and get to spend the long weekend in isolation before getting tested Monday morning for the ‘rona before I can get to work. I’m bringing enough booze to kill the ‘rona and possibly my liver, so it’s a toss-up.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Ugh. I worked in “dry” camps before. This was before the internet. Gawdawful.

      • 61North

        It’s not dry, thankfully. But a 750mL bottle there costs more than a 1.75L in town. Gotta be cost efficient these days.

    • PieInTheSky

      Reminds me about the video true facts about the fruit bat

    • UnCivilServant

      Can it be infected with White Nose Disease?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Are they from Colombia?

    • Suthenboy

      What is horrifying about a critter that is vey social, tames easily and eats fruit salad?

      • UnCivilServant

        rabies.

        Pretty much the only horrifying thing about any bat.

      • pan fried wylie

        well, and their faces.

    • straffinrun

      Pie’s family album?

  51. Mojeaux

    I plan to spend my weekend finalizing the move to the new computer and cross stitching.

    • Festus' Mustache

      I plan to spend the weekend making grandiose plans that do not come to fruition. Top that, Mojo!

    • PieInTheSky

      I never realized how complicated moving can be

      • Mojeaux

        It has not been a smooth process.

        Also, I didn’t WANT a new computer (old computer insists I retire it), so I’m dragging my feet.

  52. PieInTheSky

    I think for one of the worst about being diagnosed with the plague qould be that in romania you are required to spend at least 10 days in a shitty government hospital even if completly asymptomatic

    • 61North

      That’s a hell of incentive to not get tested even if sick.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Yeah, that’s not good.

      Unless there’s hot Romanian nurses to tend to your every need.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Eastern European nurses though.

      • PieInTheSky

        all the hot nurses emigrated or went private. Few to none left in covid hospitals.

    • Count Potato

      That doesn’t make any sense.

      • UnCivilServant

        Government Hospitals have been known to kill otherwise healthy patients inmates.

    • Tres Cool

      Here in SW Ohio, “testing centers” (sponsored by a handfull of local hospitals and health depts.) are popping up all over the place. When Ive been asked if Im going to submit my considerable schnoz to them to be swabbed, by answer is ‘fuck no- I have no symptoms, nobody I know has symptoms, I havent even managed to get Tres Sr sick yet, and the last thing I want is to be asymptomatically positive and get put on The List.”

  53. Q Continuum

    Recommendations for a tube-fed, semi-auto shotgun?

    Something that isn’t a Benelli as I don’t feel like spending that big a chunk of cash plz.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Remington 1100 is an old standby in that department

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Or Browning, but they’re not cheap either.

    • Drake

      Beretta 1301 – tactical or comp.

      • Drake

        The news ones don’t have the ejection latch.

      • R C Dean

        I’ve got some of those Aridus parts on order. Will be putting a Nordic mag extension on today.

    • R C Dean

      Beretta 1301. A little cheaper than Benelli. Good luck finding one without a markup In These Uncertain Times.

    • Animal

      New or used? Classic or Tacticool? Defense, target shooting or hunting? Scruffy mentions the 1100, with which you can’t really go wrong for any of those usages.

    • Suthenboy

      Remington 870, mossberg 590, Winchester SXP, Browning BPS

      Had all of them, all reliable and make home defense models with long mags and short barrels. It is a toss up with the price being the biggest difference. I recommend shopping around for the lowest price.
      I like pumps because they are not picky about what you feed them.

      Personally the Ithaca 37 is my favorite pump shotgun but I dont know if they make a self-defense model. I have never seen one.

    • EvilSheldon

      I would stay away from the 1100 or the 1187. Or anything from Remington, really. Big Green’s QA problems have become something of an industry joke.

      The Beretta 1301 Tac is probably the best fighting shotgun going, right this minute.

      A Stoeger M3000 is pretty much a cut-rate Benelli, same inertia operating system, some parts interchange, but with an MSRP around $600. I don’t have any personal experience with them, but I know dudes who run them hard in 3gun competition and they seem to hold up pretty well.

      • Animal

        Buy a Remington made before 1993 and you’re in decent shape. DuPont guns were better made.

      • Drake

        How has Remington managed to go bankrupt again during the biggest peace-time gun boom in history? Crazy.

      • Viking1865

        They have not adapted to Gun Culture 2.0. They don’t make an AR, and their pistols suck.

        Fact is, America is not getting more and more into hunting, trap, and skeet. The growth is in practical self defense, and the shooting sports built on that. Gun Culture 2.0 is a bunch of 20, 30, and 40 year olds who grew up playing FPS games. They’re not looking forward to opening day, they’re looking forward to SHOT Show.

      • EvilSheldon

        ^^EXACTLY THIS^^

      • EvilSheldon

        Sporting Clays is still awesome, though.

  54. Count Potato

    This is a lemon:

    “A surprising new study found that the controversial antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine helped Covid-19 patients better survive in the hospital.”

    https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1278964201789194240

    • Drake

      “Surprising” – doctors have been saying that for 6 months.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I thought they had concluded it makes your dick fly off like that old South Park gluten episode. Our steel trap scientific minds knew it at least appears to be effective if used correctly over three months ago.

      • AlmightyJB

        So have patients who got better

      • Not an Economist

        You say like that’s a good thing

        /prog

    • Hyperion

      Trump has already talked the Tater into drinking the fish tank cleaner! Someone do something, save the Tater!

  55. Drake

    Exhibit #1834 – Murphy is a fucking asshole. He did a last minute switch on the restaurants (the ones who haven’t gone out of business yet) on reopening for indoor dining – after they had ordered food.

    ”I ordered $3,500-$4,000 in steaks, $1,000 in salmon, about $2,000 in liquor, $250 in tablecloths,” Di Lollo said. “If the steaks are (in the freezer) over a couple days, we’ll throw them out. We never freeze steaks, it takes away the flavor. We don’t serve s— steaks.” Di Lollo paused a moment. “The guy destroyed us.”

    • Viking1865

      They did that here too, the city government decided with less than 24 hours to go to put off reopening for an extra two weeks. Fucked over a ton of businesses. But of course, none of these hip woke tatted up restaurant people make the connection between voting Democrat and getting socialist government.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Criticizing the local govt only makes them more vindictive. They’re liable to remember come voting time even though it’ll be too late for a lot of them.

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        This.

        It’s like people think icky Republicans (or worse: libertarians!1!1!) are in charge even when they haven’t had a non-prog governor/mayor/legislature in a generation.

      • creech

        How can they make the connection come re-election time when the media will be giving full throat to the preening, chest-beating politician who is claiming his actions saved thousands of lives?

      • Drake

        Murphy is up for reelection in 2021. It will be interesting if the NJ GOP can find a decent candidate.

      • Fribblemeister

        That’s probably because they get socialist government if they vote Republican, too.

    • Suthenboy

      “The guy destroyed us.”

      That wasn’t by accident.

    • AlmightyJB

      They should sue him

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      At this rate only chain restos and stores will be left. All chains were a small business once. All internet juggernauts were start-ups once.

      What will governments do for a host once the private sector has dried up? Maybe they really are that stupid.

      • Suthenboy

        See all other socialist gov’ts.

        They really are that stupid and evil.

      • R C Dean

        Oh, the big corps will fill the void left by the devastation of small business, have no fear.

        And I’m sure there is some awareness of that, and support for it. Who writes the big checks to campaigns, anyway?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Our Taco Bell future

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        I don’t really think we have time for a handjob, Joe. (sorry, wrong chain)

        The capitals must think revenue just comes, like rain and sunlight.

      • Rebel Scum

        Indeed.

        Mmm. Sandra Bullock.

      • Plinker762

        Just need the three sea shells and that future will have come to pass.

    • Rhywun

      Any restaurant that isn’t capable of throwing out its stock of food over and over again doesn’t deserve to be in business.

  56. DEG

    My condolences about your father. He sounds like a good guy.

    Maxwell is expected to appear in New Hampshire federal court via video Thursday afternoon. Prosecutors have filed a memo asking that she be held without bail, noting her wealth, lack of ties to the US and three passports.

    No bail is a smart idea here; however, it won’t stop her from “committing suicide”.

    Contrary to claims from both Chinese officials and the World Health Organization, China did not report the existence of the coronavirus in late 2019, according to a WHO timeline tracking the spread of the virus. Rather, international health officials discovered the virus through information posted to a U.S. website.

    Surprise, surprise.

    However, there are exemptions.

    I rolled my eyes at the list of exceptions in Gauleiter Abbot’s order. Fuck. Why did you even bother? Oh, more excuses to fuck with people.

    Schumer’s new bill, co-sponsored by fellow Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, would extend the “supercharged” unemployment benefits provided under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, currently set to expire on July 31, through March 2021 or until state unemployment rates fall below 5.5%.

    Fuck.

    “Texas officials say that every hospital patient with the coronavirus is being counted in their hospitalization total, even if they are getting treatment for something completely different,” said Fox News host Tucker Carlson as he introduced the segment. “It doesn’t seem honest. What’s going on?”

    There is little honesty about Lil Rona.

    These sources add that Charter has connections to Antifa and was in a leadership role on the night of June 22 when a large group of protesters tried to pull down the statue.

    Huh. Antifa. Surprise Surprise.

    Earlier projects suggested West Virginia would have a deficit of more than a half-billion dollars. Gov. Jim Justice now predicts the state will have a surplus of about $10 million, which means the state will meet its constitutional obligation to balance the budget.

    Countdown until people start point to this as additional evidence that the lockdowns worked.

    RE: Gauleiter Newsom: I think this website is almost as good as PornHub.

    • AlmightyJB

      Nice!

  57. The Late P Brooks

    Random question:

    How much of “voluntary” corporate plague responses, like mandatory masks, or remaining shut down beyond what has been decreed necessary, is driven by the precautionary-principle-worshipping weasels in the legal department?

    I went to Costco yesterday to pick up a prescription, and they are still requiring a mask to get in. The woman got all butthurt when I said, “You’re still doing this idiotic nonsense?”

    • R C Dean

      From a legal department weasel’s perspective, I’m guessing not much. A competent attorney would see that causation is going to be impossible for a plaintiff to prove. If you shut down your business to avoid nuisance suits, you might as well burn it down because there is no way to avoid them. Your weasels may not be competent, though, so there’s that.

      Also, lockdowns would fail the precautionary principle due to the well known adverse public health effects of recessions, unemployment, etc. A mask mandate might survive the precautionary principle.

  58. Count Potato

    “THREAD: As you may have noticed, “cancel culture” has intensified in recent weeks. Everywhere you look online, people are organizing to get people fired or kicked out of college for offensive things they’ve said or done, often in the distant past. 1/33″

    https://twitter.com/glukianoff/status/1276506207352750081

    • straffinrun

      33 tweets. Love Greg, but my brain can’t handle that.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    A competent attorney would see that causation is going to be impossible for a plaintiff to prove. If you shut down your business to avoid nuisance suits, you might as well burn it down because there is no way to avoid them.

    At this point, I don’t really think an enterprising “plaintiff” would have to prove anything more specific than hurt feelings. “I was mortified when I saw what was happening! Those people were being needlessly put in harm’s way.”

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      +1 intentional infliction of emotional distress

  60. creech

    Has anyone heard if the LP is going through with that charade of a live convention in Orlando?

  61. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    I’m really late to the party, but I wanted to offer my condolences, too. Clearly, your coolness was not an accident.

    Honestly, if my daughter could write such nice things about me, I would consider myself a huge success. He will obviously be missed, but I hope the girls are already being subjected to the car trivia game!

    Have a great day and a wonderful weekend!

  62. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Dammit. I want to celebrate July 4th with a gun buy, but gunbroker’s account activation process isn’t working.

    • Rebel Scum

      I’m still in the market for a CZ clone. Should have gotten one before the Commie Cough and statue riots. Can’t seem to find anything now.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Had to call the dealer directly, but I got it.

        Ruger Mini 14 Ranch in stainless, hard to find right now.

        Yay for me, woe is me for my credit card.

      • KSuellington

        I had one of those until the canoe tipped. Really fun gun and you can customize the hell out of it if you want. I’d love to A-team mine, maybe when I move to a free state eventually.

  63. KSuellington

    I’m sorry for your loss Banjos. Since your dad enjoyed classical and guitar music, here is my one of my all favorite time classical pieces by Bach played on the guitar by Segovia. It was written by Bach after the loss of his wife I believe.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGt9AFlIPY

  64. Tres Cool

    My condolences, too, Banjos. I lost Mama Tres 13 years ago, and still miss her daily. Tres Sr. is 80, eats w/e he wants, smokes 2 packs/day, and keeps going strong despite my best efforts.

    *joking- he’s a prick but was a good Dad

  65. prolefeed

    I’m in Texas. Guess I’m gonna unexpectedly acquire a medical condition that keeps me from wearing masks.

    • Rebel Scum

      That’s what I go with (but it’s kinda true). There is only one local business (luckily the gas station where I typically make booze runs) that acknowledges that technicality of the VA mask “mandate”. Other places are going with “no mask, no service”. I guess they don’t want my money.

      • mrfamous

        Your money is worth less than the money they lose when the state starts pulling all of their licenses and threatens to shut off their power and water if they don’t comply.

  66. SP

    I wanted to let you all know that we are doing a “soft opening” of a second little shop for GlibSwag on Redbubble. Here is one of our first products. They have a long lead time on this as they are ramping up mask production, but I bet it will unfortunately still be applicable in a few weeks’ time.

    We even have a scarf for the well-dressed GlibBroad.

    • UnCivilServant

      Scarf? That looks like a child’s bedsheet.

      • Rhywun

        Yeah… I’m not sure how to wear that. I guess fold it into a scarf shape first.

    • Tundra

      Love it!

      Any chance of black? (Some of us don’t do well with white clothing!)

      • SP

        I believe so! I have inverted image files, so I shall investigate.

      • Tundra

        Groovy.

        Either way, I’m in! Great idea!

      • SP

        Yes, black will be available in about 30 minutes, maybe less. I uploaded the design etc, but it takes a little while to appear for sale.

      • Tundra

        They are up already!

        My order is in. Thanks again!

    • Rebel Scum

      The mask should say “This is a mind control device.”

    • Hyperion

      Diamond encrusted monocles made by the finest little orphan fingers?

  67. Rebel Scum

    Well, it’s a word…

    “In light of recent events around our country and feedback from our community, the Washington Redskins are announcing the team will undergo a thorough review of the team’s name,” the team said in a statement. “This review formalizes the initial discussions the team has been having with the league in recent weeks.”

    Team owner Dan Snyder said in statement: “This process allows the team to take into account not only the proud tradition and history of the franchise but also input from our alumni, the organization, sponsors, the National Football League and the local community it is proud to represent on and off the field.”

    If it were me (as stated above) I would troll with a statement like this. Then I would change the name to the “Savages” because fuck the woketards.

    And what about the Chiefs, the Buccaneers, the Browns??? ZOMG

    • Agent Cooper

      The Browns are named after Paul Brown, but egads! What is Paul Brown named after?????

      • UnCivilServant

        His ancestor’s hair color.

      • Hyperion

        That’s racist!

    • Hyperion

      The Chiefs should immediately change their name to The Squaws and proceed to not make it to a Superbowl again for 50 years.

      • Mojeaux

        LOLno

  68. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Nice!

    Ordered 2

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      @SP

  69. Hyperion

    The Mad Cow strikes again!

    Well, there’s the real reason some of the govs are rushing to lock down things again. The jobs report has shaken them up a little. Also, this person is NEVER right about anything. She has a worse record than Politico… OK, I’m exaggerating about that. Has she done the 2020 version episode of ‘No way to 270!’ yet?

    • Agent Cooper

      She’s 100% being truthful. Those job numbers are “absolutely terrible” for her and her ilk at MSNBC and beyond.

      • Hyperion

        11% unemployment is terrible, if you don’t take into consideration that every democrat mayor, governor, and some woke RINOs are doing everything they can do to destroy the economy. But if you consider that those same people were predicting, in glee, 30% unemployment just a few months ago, it’s not too bad.

        I’m helping by getting people employed in delivery services. Although my plasma laser machine gun, cocaine, hookers, and new orphans have not arrived yet, and it’s the weekend! Someones are not wanting a tip!

    • Rebel Scum

      MSNBC’s @maddow made the worst prediction of the week on TV, saying today’s jobs numbers would be “absolutely terrible”

      Not a prediction. It was wishful thinking. After all we need a depression and misery for the masses in order to rid ourselves of Bad Orange Man.

      • Hyperion

        yep

      • Agent Cooper

        So strange to me. Trump will last, at most, 4 more years, but the scars of economic depression can last decades, if not longer.

      • Viking1865

        They hate you, and they want you poor and dependent on the government, and if you won’t bend the knee, they want you dead.

  70. Fribblemeister

    What’s the over/under of days on Ghislaine Maxwell’s impending suicide?