Friday Morning Links

by | Sep 18, 2020 | Daily Links | 509 comments

Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas!  And what a beautiful morning it always is!

 

Money printer goes brrrrrrr.

 

5 Covid vaccines in advanced trials by October.

 

Dershowitz suing CNN for defamation that occurred during their impeachment coverage.

 

NY restaurants given permission to piss people off.

 

Italian pronoun lady pretends to be black.  Someone needs to tell these kids that there are ways outside of race and gender to feel special.

 

Billionaire pisses fortune away.

 

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

About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

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

509 Comments

  1. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Italians pretending to be black.

    That’s a new one.

    • UnCivilServant

      Well, they were pretending to be white until it stopped being advantageous.

    • WTF

      Around the late 1800s to early 1900s Italians were not considered white.

      • PieInTheSky

        are they now?

      • AlexinCT

        By what the women say when I show them my Johnson I think they still think us goombas are not white….

      • bacon-magic

        They think you’re Asian?

      • AlexinCT

        That’s your problem tasty treat…

        Me, I get told they didn’t think that came that big in white…

      • Fourscore

        It’s after Labor Day… You know what they say…

      • Mojeaux

        Just so long as it doesn’t come too soon.

      • AlexinCT

        Actually I get told I can take too long… And when I tell them that’s cause I need to be loved long time, they gets mad and tell me they are not from Vietnam….

      • juris imprudent

        The promotion to whiteness is only the last 50-60 years.

      • Tundra

        This. My people came over in the early 20th century and they sure as shit weren’t white.

      • Not Adahn

        Well, Catholics aren’t really white.

      • Apples and Knives

        I’m half Irish, half white, but I’ve been told I can pass for either one.

      • dontreadonme

        My Irish wife is going to love when tell her she has to like okra and greens now.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Aren’t you from the North?

        It’s practically another country.

        Also.

        Here name is Vittolo-Haddad. Why are you racist against Arabs?

      • l0b0t

        The Liga Nord has always pretty adamant that Africa begins at Rome.

    • Nephilium

      Italians or Sicilians?

      • invisible finger

        The broadcast television version of that scene is almost as funny for its bowdlerization.

      • Rhywun

        I knew I would be too late to lob that one over home plate.

      • Not Adahn

        Yup.

    • Trials and Trippelations

      I got mistaken as mexican, but that was as dark as it went.

      • Count Potato

        In NYC you can go from being Puerto Rican to Dominican just by driving over bridge between the Bronx and Washington Heights.

      • AlexinCT

        So you latinx?

      • C. Anacreon

        Someone needs to tell all these people pretending to be black that it’s a terrible idea to do in this country. Blacks are “literally being hunted” in the streets by racist police, according to CNN. Blacks in Chicago were reported today to have significantly shorter life spans than whites, and the only possible reason is a racist health care system.

        Wise up professors! There can’t possibly be any advantages to pretending to be black, only certain early death awaits.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’ UnCiv

  2. PieInTheSky

    Billionaire pisses fortune away. – he could have thrown a few bucks my way. Or a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle or something

    • AlexinCT

      You didn’t play the victim hard enough?

  3. WTF

    NY restaurants given permission to piss people off.

    And this type of bullshit is why I will be avoiding restaurants until this idiocy is over.

    • Nephilium

      As I mentioned last night, I’ve been tipping heavy (30%+) when I’m going out now. Start adding surcharges and fees to my bill, and that’ll dry up.

      • Tulip

        Not the waitresses’ fault.

      • invisible finger

        Not my problem.

      • WTF

        True, it’s not. My wife and I and our friends love restaurants; going out to nice restaurants was one of our bigger entertainment expenses every month. But with all of the idiotic rules in place, we’re just not willing to pay good money for a shitty experience, even though I feel bad for the restaurants being screwed by our idiot governor.

      • UnCivilServant

        But Mister Ilium isn’t made of money either.

      • Nephilium

        The tips would go back to a standard 18%, and I’d avoid that place in the future. I’ve got no issue with raising prices, or the suspension of specials during the reduced occupancy restrictions. I do have issues with additional fees.

      • Tulip

        My choice would be to not go to a restaurant or go less often, not to lower the tip.

      • Nephilium

        I’d shift to preferring locations that aren’t charging the fees. I was already preferring those who were working to do what they could to technically comply with the rules while giving themselves an advantage while pushing for the removal of the rules. As an example, when patio only dining was allowed here, several restaurants/bars had been built with garage doors at the front and back of the building. They opened both up, and claimed that their entire establishment was now a patio with outdoor dining.

    • Count Potato

      “Under a new bill passed Wednesday by the City Council, New York restaurants will be allowed to add up to a 10% charge onto customers’ tab. The bill passed on a 46-2 vote.

      “The fee won’t be mandatory, and it can be any amount up to 10% of a food and drink bill. Restaurants’ permission to charge the fee will expire 90 days after the state allows full occupancy of eateries,” the New York Daily News reported. “Restaurant bills will have to be explicit about the amount of the charge and its purpose. Food trucks and restaurants that are part of national chains with 15 or more outlets will not be allowed to charge the fee.””

      Couldn’t they just raise their prices by 10%?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That would be gouging.

      • Tulip

        Why do they need permission? Just put it on the menu, point it out to people and let them decide. The salon I go to added a fee for PPE that probably also goes toward the Plexiglas dividers. It’s small, I understand and I’m willing to pay it. It’s the only way they can be open.

      • invisible finger

        They don’t. It’s just politicians grandstanding, dog-bites-man shit. The press can’t help themselves, they love the taste of politician genitals.

      • AlexinCT

        This sets the precedent that government can control their prices, and thus help government do a better job at picking winners & losers in the name of justice….

      • WTF

        Not just justice, SOCIAL JUSTICE!!

      • AlexinCT

        That’s the only type of justice these types believe in. Was that not obvious?

      • WTF

        Well yeah, because social justice is pretty much the exact opposite of justice.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s exactly the point of peddling it WTF…

      • AlexinCT

        It’s government and other unaccountable entities picking winners & losers…

    • Count Potato

      “Restaurants in the city remain closed, but can reopen for indoor dining at 25% capacity on Sept. 30. If things go well, that would move to 50% capacity a month later.”

      Because NY hospitals are flooded with covid patients?

      • Rhywun

        I’m thinking the fee should be about 300% if restaurants are going to have any chance of surviving the winter.

        move to 50% capacity a month later

        I don’t buy this for a second.

      • Count Potato

        I can’t think of a single good reason why anything in NYC should still be closed at this point.

      • UnCivilServant

        Close the subway, open everything else back up.

  4. UnCivilServant

    Billionaire pisses fortune away.

    While I’d rather he gave it to me instead of those grifters, it’s his money to throw away.

    • Fourscore

      He should have bought lottery tickets, may be could have won.

  5. WTF

    Mornin’ Banjos!

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  6. Count Potato

    Good morning, Banjos

    • Banjos

      Mornin’ tuber

  7. Fourscore

    Mornin’ , Miss Banjos

    “Money printer goes brrrrrrr”

    What could possibly go wrong? Sounds like a good idea. I only wish some other trials had been made before we tried this solution. What? What Oh, how did that turn out? No, I can’t pronounce or even spell Zim.., Zimb…, whatever.

    Besides, what would that tightwad, Von Mises know, guy wasn’t even an American, to start with.

    • Nephilium

      Weimar is probably easier to say.

      • invisible finger

        But it’s racist.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  8. Tulip

    They continue the war on small businesses. Food trucks and restaurants part chains of 15 or more can’t charge the fee. And, why the fuck would a restaurant need permission to add that fee anyway?

    • Sean

      Or just change their prices?

      • UnCivilServant

        Even absent some restaurant commission on pricing, a change to the menu list price is scarier to customers.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        My competitors all rely on bullshit fees (environmental surcharges, track/tire wear charges, etc…)

        I refuse to do it. It just pisses off the customers. They get mad enough when I charge them for fuel.

      • Pine_Tree

        Because this way, NY can say that that extra cost is OMB’s fault.

      • juris imprudent

        What, you want anarchy?

      • Tulip

        But why do they need permission to add a fee?

      • WTF

        Because everything not required is prohibited! Don’t you even government?!

      • invisible finger

        I wanted to link to an old SNL sketch about a Scottish Restaurant, but web search came up empty.

      • l0b0t

        They don’t need permission, they need an excuse. A price hike on menu items will send some customers away. A price hike necessitated by City fiat allows they restaurateur to shrug and say “tell it to the City Council”.

        I had to stop hanging out at the porch of our local brewery because the State mandated, a few weeks ago, that patrons were required to order food to sit and have a drink. I love the food there, but it’s NYC so it’s on the pricey side to be dining there every day. I can only eat so many $10 tacos before I feel like I’ve fallen for some rookery. Add a 10% surcharge on top, I’ll be making tortillas at home.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I read in a different article that restaurants in NYC are not allowed to add fees. This is a temporary exemption.

        Adding on fees is banned because it forces restaurants to hide the price of government decrees in the menu prices.

      • AlexinCT

        Letting people know that government is fucking their dining experience over and that without the asshats that view businesses just as places to plunder doing what they do, their experience could cost a lot less, could cause people to hold the wrong opinions about the vulture class and their claim to do these things to “help” people…

  9. Tulip

    Good morning Banjos

    • Banjos

      Mornin’ Tulip

  10. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    And good morning to all of the rest of you little islands of sanity.

    From the vaccine article:

    Uncertainty remains high regarding vaccine efficacy, while Department of Defense officials tried to assure reporters briefed Wednesday morning that logistics will be in place for the manufacturing and distribution of hundreds of millions of doses.

    You think? Oh, and having the DoD involved fills me with warm fuzzies. Or maybe I’m bleeding out from a thousand cuts. So hard to tell…

    The billionaire story is interesting.

    His stark generosity and gutsy investments influenced Bill Gates and Warren Buffett when they launched the Giving Pledge in 2010—an aggressive campaign to convince the world’s wealthiest to give away at least half their fortunes before their deaths. “Chuck was a cornerstone in terms of inspiration for the Giving Pledge,” says Warren Buffett. “He’s a model for us all. It’s going to take me 12 years after my death to get done what he’s doing within his lifetime.” 

    The attention whores, however, appear to have missed a central premise of Chuck’s plan.

    Oh well, at least we can share a fantastic song together. So much awesome there. Especially Jane.

    I hope all of you have a wonderful day and an inspired weekend. Headed up to Fourscore’s for Honey Harvest on Sunday. I will report back.

    Hopefully…

    • Tonio

      DOD, vaccines… sounds totes legit.

    • WTF

      Department of Defense officials tried to assure reporters briefed Wednesday morning that logistics will be in place for the manufacturing and distribution of hundreds of millions of doses.

      After reading Ozy’s account of the DoD and vaccines, this really raises a red flag.

      • AlexinCT

        Think of the chilruns!

      • Ozymandias

        “Now you see what I’m on about!”

      • Grummun

        We’re about halfway through this list, the rest is my prediction:

        – Public health “experts” create panic over poorly-understood virus
        – Public health “experts” ignore growing body of evidence regarding mortality rate, and instead set expectation that a only a vaccine will save us
        – Politically connected pharma labs, in which public health “experts” are invested, rush vaccines through trials
        – FDA grants emergency approval to vaccines, and at the same time gives blanket liability waiver to pharma labs for vaccine side effects
        – Public health “experts” make vaccine mandatory, if not literally, at least effectively mandatory for people to engage in day-to-day life
        – A raft of vaccine side effects become apparent
        – Public health “experts” stand on piles of bodies, shaking their heads and blaming Trump for poor handling of the virus, while they count through the Hefty bags of cash they got from their pharma investments
        – Nobody is ever held accountable for damage done, to public health, the economy, or the tattered remnants of rule of law or constitutional government

      • AlexinCT

        One of the key reasons the credentialed elite aristocratic class is fighting the Trump phenom so hard is the fact that they are genuinely scared the public will realize not just how inept they are, but no longer just take it lying down. Especially when Trump, despite massive opposition and outright sabotage from them, keeps making things they told us were impossible happen.

        Unaccountability is one of the most important perks this new aristocracy feels it is due, and they mean to burn everything down rather than be forced to actually show competency and results over credentials and fluff social bullshit talk…

      • Mad Scientist

        The public may not take it lying down, but they’ve shown very little resistance to taking it by bending over.

      • AlexinCT

        Do not confuse the fact that most people remain silent with lack of resistance. When the enemy has made it a point of destroying the livelihood of those that resist them, what you end up with is a silent underground movement.

        I will not be surprised orange man wins in a landslide, the dems lose the house, and these fucks decide they will rather burn it all down or lose their aristocratic perks, but the more they show their true colors, the more people will decide fighting back is no longer optional…

    • Banjos

      Mornin’ Tundra!

  11. The Late P Brooks

    I’m back.

    I read Webdom’s thing from last night, and now this stupid NYC restaurant thing. You can accuse me of blaming the victim if you want, but I will shed not a single tear when restaurants go tits up because the owners just bent over and spread their cheeks instead of telling the Chicken Little Brigade to fuck off. It makes my blood boil.

    Looks like I won’t be moving to Rockland, Idaho (pop 290), after all. I buzzed down there on Wednesday (gone for less than 36 hrs) to look at a place. I looked at it from the outside, and made an appointment to go look at it at ! on Thursday. At noon, the realtor called me to tell me somebody made an offer, and the owners accepted it. It’s okay. It was really close to what I’m looking for, but not perfect.

    I will say I am really going to focus on landing somewhere in a 25-30 mile radius from Pocatello.

    Not many masks in sight, while I was there. Kids are apparently back in school.

  12. Not Adahn

    For WebD/SP/OMWC:

    Just got a chance to read WebD’s article.

    I’ve got a guest room and a guest bathroom. If the two of you need to take a break and chill out, there is wonderful Adirondack hiking nearby, a good Indian place, a bland Indian place, and a hippy restaurant which might fit your dietary needs (as well as farmers markets and assorted frou frou groceries).

    Foliage is typically best last week in September/First week in October.

    • Sensei

      I unplugged last night and just did the same.

      Hang in there WebD!

    • Festus' Mustache

      Reading WebDom’s article near broke my heart. This manufactured crisis should have some intense blow-back but I fear that it won’t. We’re doing okay but we don’t get out much. I see at least one person in my life doing incredibly stupid things to earn a buck.

      • PieInTheSky

        I even abstained from making the standard joke I would make in such situations

      • invisible finger

        The whole thing reads like the Milgram experiments.

        And like the experiments, 75% of the subjects behave like Adolf Eichmann.

    • AlexinCT

      Working at a food establishment, even in non Kung Flu times, is at best painful. During these times it must be hell.

    • Tejicano

      And the twist of the blade in WebDom’s tale here is the fact that she DID learn to code.

      • Sensei

        Way to mess with the narrative.

  13. Yusef drives a Kia

    Happy Friday everybody! A bit frosty this morning, but the sun is shining, and golf abounds!

    • UnCivilServant

      What corner of the country are you in today?

      • Festus' Mustache

        It’s a secret. Somewhere where they sell you egg noodles covered in ketchup and call it marinara. Now he’s just a putz.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        More Polish

      • Not Adahn

        “polishing the marinara” is a new euphemism to me.

      • Chipwooder

        He gets to live the rest of his life as a schnook, yeah

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        44 north, by a big lake

      • Festus' Mustache

        Ten degrees further and you’d be at my latitude.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        ToG and I were discussing that last night

      • Festus' Mustache

        You are not going to like winter, Desert Boy! Layers. The answer to shitty cold is layers.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I lived in Colorado for many years, I got this cold thing down, layers

      • Not Adahn

        Or fight?

      • UnCivilServant

        That lattitude goes through several of the great lakes. Explains why you got our comfortable weather.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Its pretty nice, a shock to my lizardy temps, so very green

      • Festus' Mustache

        It’s actually colder where you are. We have the ocean currents. Mind you, it did get down to – 50 here last winter but that’s been an outlier for forty years.

      • PieInTheSky

        – 50 – I would ask C or F but at that number it no longer fucking matters. I knew some Romanians who moved to someplace called Winnipeg. Sounded dismal.

      • UnCivilServant

        -40 is the point where metric temperature is finally accurate as it read the same as degrees F.

      • Festus' Mustache

        It is dismal. Flat, floods in the spring, skeeters all summer long and windy all winter. We’re in the Rocky Mountain trench so we get a little of both. Arctic blasts and warm currents from Hawaii.

      • Rhywun

        I like 41 north myself

      • Not Adahn
    • Sean

      Happy Friday Yusef.

  14. Count Potato

    ” CNN turned my statement on its head, wrenched a few words out of context while omitting other crucial words, and lied to its viewers.”

    What did he expect was going to happen?

    • Festus' Mustache

      If he would keep his fool mouth shut for one hot minute he would cruise to victory. That’s our Donny! (canned studio laughter)

    • AlexinCT

      The advice I have seen that you should consider all media hostile (and record everything going on so you can then expose the fraudsters when they manipulate your content to peddle the left’s lies) is one everyone should take at heart. Dershowitz is no conservative, but because he was not willing to abandon some principles and give these dnc operatives with bylines the sound bites they wanted, they fucked him over. I am glad to see he is going after CNN and hitting them where it hurts. Until we make lying to support the left’s evil lies cost them more than they gain from it, they will have no incentive to stop.

      • Fourscore

        He needs a good lawyer…

      • AlexinCT

        Lawyer on lawyer….

      • Not Adahn

        least popular Pornhub category

      • AlexinCT

        Is that cause these are also considered snuff films?

      • juris imprudent

        Even Germans don’t sink to that.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Hawt.

  15. Rebel Scum

    The Fed announced last month that it would temporarily allow inflation to run above its target to make up for periods of below-target inflation.

    A Keynesian says “what”?

    • invisible finger

      So the Fed understands compound interest about as well as a toddler.

      • AlexinCT

        A savings based economy would destroy their ability to tax, borrow, print, and spend, so I am sure even if they understood it, they would ignore it… and

      • invisible finger

        Incompetence is its own job security.

      • BakedPenguin

        In government, maybe. In the private sector, it’s quite possible the person judging may well know just how incompetent someone is.

      • AlexinCT

        I have worked for plenty of companies where incompetence was promoted upwards in the hope it would keep the individual from causing too much damage. Unfortunately, way too many of these people ended up at the upper levels, and that then had destructive results. My prime example is GE. That company went from a top contender and one people envied to dead weight in a decade because of this shit (practically every one of these promotions involved some woke ass dipshit that was technically incompetent and more concerned with their own promotion to the next level at all costs), and Immelt managed to completely destroy it once he got his hands on it by basically coupling the company to government graft in the green space.

  16. Festus' Mustache

    Yay! Banjos brings the morning Jane granny panties! All is forgiven forever.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Pardon me. Mornin’ Banjos!

  17. The Late P Brooks

    The fee won’t be mandatory

    Have you ever noticed how a “ceiling” becomes a “floor” when the government gets involved?

    I have.

  18. Rebel Scum

    Five COVID-19 vaccines in advanced trials by October. Doses to be shipped within 24 hours of FDA approval

    Pass.

    • mrfamous

      What has transpired in the last six months that suggests we’re gonna have a choice?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If you’re under 60 that’s probably a good move, if over probably not so much.

      • Breet Pharara

        You mean that there is one very specific and easily identifiable population that is susceptible to the Wuhan virus and individuals in that population should take extra precautions while everyone else goes about their normal life?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Nonsense

      • Festus' Mustache

        Sure, stroke your beard DENIER!

      • Apples and Knives

        That’s ageist, racist and… fatist? weightist? sizeist? I can never remember what that last one’s called.

      • Tejicano

        Realist?

    • Idle Hands

      yeah I’m just going to wear a mask it’s been proven more effective according to the experts.

  19. Rebel Scum

    Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz is suing CNN for $300 million for misreporting the substance of his defense of President Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial earlier this year.

    He thinks you can be vaccinated at gunpoint. He can eat shit.

    • PieInTheSky

      $300 million buys a lot of 15 year olds

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Quality over quantity

      • PieInTheSky

        If you source them from Siberia you can get both. Not unlike wild salmon.

    • Festus' Mustache

      New Alan Dershowitz defense – “I said only the tip! What they did with the shaft is grounds for dismissal.”

  20. PieInTheSky

    The Bishop Burchard of Worms (c.950/65-1025) wrote a law book, Decretum, explicitly to educate priests on the kind of sins (& the required penance) they would hear during confession – such as this sin.

    https://twitter.com/WhoresofYore/status/1306204922862600193

    • Not Adahn

      He also published a shitty Diet book.

      • AlexinCT

        Meaning how to eat you own shit?

      • UnCivilServant

        No, it’s about german legislative assemblies.

      • AlexinCT

        Sheisse porn then?

    • Festus' Mustache

      Damn, Pie. I love Whores of Yore. You are a good egg.

  21. Not Adahn

    Re: service fees,

    My barber shop raised its haircut prices from $40 to $30 post-covid.

    My mind boggles at NY cheapskates. When I was waiting tables in Houston in the mid 1990s, the tipped wage was $2.13/hr… but my tips were about $17.50/hr after tipout.

    • PieInTheSky

      you may need to rephrase that first part

      • PieInTheSky

        coincidentally, my barber raised prices from 35 to 45 lei

      • PieInTheSky

        But they did include a mandatory hair wash which was 10 lei before but optional, so they did not really raise the package price

      • invisible finger

        That’s a lot of flowers.

      • Not Adahn

        $20 -> $30.

        They also shut down the kegerator.

      • Festus' Mustache

        How much extra for the mandatory cough in the face?

  22. Count Potato

    I’m no immunologist, but rushing a vaccine as fast as possible seems a bit reckless.

    • Festus' Mustache

      I think that I’ve read that book before…

      • UnCivilServant

        You looked upon that work and despaired?

  23. Rebel Scum

    Italian pronoun lady pretends to be black.

    I mean, they are kind of the blacks of Europe.

    • Hyperion

      According to the progderpdom, everyone who does not come from an English speaking country (UK, Aussieland, USA) is white and everyone else is a person of color. I think you can become a good person of color by voting democrat.

    • WTF

      That’s just it, they don’t want people noticing that all these large gatherings aren’t leading to disaster, revealing the scam they’ve been running for the past several months.

    • PieInTheSky

      Browns game – apparently they won.

    • Idle Hands

      I think by the beginning to middle of October will be around the time most people don’t even put up pretenses anymore. It seems like more and more people are deciding this was overblown.

      • Nephilium

        I’ve stopped guessing when this ends after I was wrong with it ending before Memorial Day.

      • Idle Hands

        It’s a prediction I also keep getting wrong.

      • Mad Scientist

        I’m seeing more people who have decided this with overblown, alongside more people who have decided we’re not taking it seriously enough. The polarization worries me.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Feeney went to great lengths to keep his gifts secret.

    What’s the point of doing good works, if no one knows about them? You need to get yourself on the MSNBC Business Channel once a week to beat your breast and show off your luxurious hand crafted hair shirt.

    • UnCivilServant

      A good work is only good if you do it secretly.

      Bragging about it only saps the virtue from the act.

      • Festus' Mustache

        ^^^

      • Festus' Mustache

        “virtue”

      • Fourscore

        “A gentleman never brags about his conquests”

  25. Trials and Trippelations

    I am very worried that if a covid vax becomes a reality as a hospital worker not only will I have to get it, but get tue first batch. I will definitely be looking into how to get out of it but I am skeptical there are options for optout outside of religious.

    On the plus side, I overheard a couple leftist young millenial and Gen Z nurses having the same reservations about the vax that I do.

    • invisible finger

      The CDC director just said a mask is more effective than a vaccine.

      I mean, he’s an abject moron, but you might as well use government stupidity to your advantage when you can.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        And now goggles and face shields are back in vogue.

        Panic. All they do is panic.

        Living a life trying to avoid infection is not a life.

        It’s irrational and depressed hysteria.

      • Festus' Mustache

        I don’t see it winding down. The true believers are doubling up but the rest of us are all too ready to get along to get along. I thought that the May long weekend would be the breaking point but now I’m looking at Xmas.

    • Idle Hands

      I think most reasonable people should have concern for a mandatory vax for a disease that largely doesn’t impact on anyone under the age of 55

  26. Rebel Scum

    NY City Eateries Will Be Allowed To Charge 10% COVID-19 Fee Under Bill Passed By Council

    DeBolshevik and his comrades are determined to destroy private business. No way in hell would I go out to eat, especially combined with the nonsense in WD’s article last night.

    • Rhywun

      DeBolshevik

      *snort*

      • Rhywun

        Also, I forget if it was him or Cuomo… one of them explicitly said that dining out is a “luxury”, which tells you everything you need to know about what they think of that industry.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Well, it does technically go under ‘discretionary income’ when preparing a budget.

        This doesn’t mean it’s bad. This is the part where we’d tell clients they had to decide for themselves what to prioritize. You still have to enjoy life. Cutting out all expenses that brings happiness is not good either.

        So DeLenin and Cuomsky are basically saying be miserable.

      • Rhywun

        It may not be “essential” but I wouldn’t call it a “luxury” either. Also, there is the context and tone – the dripping contempt they are so practiced at.

      • Festus' Mustache

        “Dripping contempt” That’s a keeper!

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        As somebody who has called eating out a ‘luxury’ more than once, I think the tone is what rubs me the wrong way on this one.

        Luxury may not be a synonym for non-essential, but I think they’re closer in definition than they look at first glance. Luxury isn’t just yachts and diamond studded bow ties.

      • Festus' Mustache

        His “wife” pissed away 500 million dollars. The fact that both of them are not hanging upside down in the market square leaves me somewhat nonplussed.

    • Idle Hands

      how long before that becomes an actual tax?

      • Tejicano

        A few hours ago.

  27. Tundra

    There is a local dude who has been doing the heavy lifting of analyzing all the bullshit coming out of St.Paul in regard to the ‘vid.

    He’s getting a little frustrated.

    I Have Completely Had It With the State’s Bullshit

    Good rant.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      A side note, a very good friend then from NYC had a son who went to Wisconsin, but only lasted a year or so. He called me about two months after the son’s freshman year started to ask me what the hell was wrong with that school, all his son did was party and drink. I explained that that was the only degree available at the University.

      LOL

      • dontreadonme

        Can vouch. State Street and the 5th quarter is the graduation procession and reception.

    • Count Potato

      “If the state wants to be transparent, require double testing of any positive from a cycle number above 30, really above 25. Do your own study of cycle number versus culture positivity. Release the contact tracing data that shows any, any at all, asymptomatic spread or that shows spread from younger persons to the old and vulnerable. Do an independent audit of hospitalizations and deaths to verify that the cause really was CV-19. They won’t do any of this because it doesn’t support the message and the game plan and because the data to support the lies isn’t there.”

      This, for every state.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      I enjoy that site. Discovered him last month. Quebec is acting like Minnesota. Only in French.

    • Idle Hands

      Is there a word in english that where a politician or bureaucrat is knowingly lieing to the public, everyone listening knows they are lieing to the public and everyone just accepts the lies as what we are pretending today? If not I propose covid.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        “politics”

      • Idle Hands

        true.

      • AlexinCT

        BAZINGA!

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Know how bad it is? /stretches arms out with interlocking hands cracking fingers.

        There’s a scientist here I’ve been listening to for years on the radio. He fights the good fight against junk science and quackery. And he holds no punches on stuff like, for example, homeopathy. He drilled into people’s minds how important EMPIRICAL scientific evidence is and to make sure you follow the literature. Or else you get bad practices in community settings and bad policies as a result. 100% correct.

        So I reached out to him (as I’ve always done for years. He’s always gracious with his time) in July to ask his opinion on masks when it was mandated here He said it was worth a shot even thought the evidence was against and that we’d know soon enough if it worked. Red flag.

        I followed up yesterday asking if he felt it worked. Cases have TRIPLED.

        His response?

        “The evidence grows ‘stronger everyday.” He cited the example of a Syrian study on hamsters in May. Which I knew about and incidentally Dr. Atlas ridiculed on the radio when it came out. The other was some exercise between cruise ships where one wore masks and the other didn’t and results were apparently ‘stunning’. I’ve yet to locate the study.

        It was like getting kicked in the gut to see him fall like this.

      • invisible finger

        “make sure you follow the literature”

        If those were his exact words, he’s a moron. You follow the evidence, not someone’s interpretation.

      • Idle Hands

        the most comprehensive study on it was that navy ship they experimented on the soldiers and it was one study. USS theodore.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Tasty, but who the fuck other than us will ever read it? We’re the lone voice in the wilderness. Fuck these asshoes! They actively want to break normal people’s lives. If that isn’t evil then I don’t know what to say anymore except “Great run, here’s the keys and please don’t scratch the paint when you park it. “

    • UnCivilServant

      Well, for most users, you simply put the boot to Google and Apple to have it removed from the app store. Both will happily oblige and divert users to their own products.

      The bulk of the populace won’t go to the trouble of sideloading an app on android, or go to the trouble of jailbreaking an iPhone.

      • Nephilium

        Nope, but they will be willing to pay outrageous prices if history is any indication.

    • Rhywun

      But… where do we go now for grainy videos of dancing morons?

      • Florida Man

        Glibs zoom?

  28. Rebel Scum

    That wouldn’t be the only thing she got via the back door.

    “If a woman is going to become the first president of the United States, it can’t be her,” Trump said. “That would rip our country apart. This is not what people want. And she comes in through the back door.”

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Is that what Willie Brown’s into?

      • AlexinCT

        Nothing wrong with earning promotions letting old skeezers ridding you’re backdoor man!

  29. PieInTheSky

    Post-pandemic debt sustainability in the EU/euro area: This time may (and should) be different

    https://voxeu.org/article/post-pandemic-debt-sustainability-eueuro-area

    Many years ago, Samuelson criticised “pump-priming […] acting as a catalyst to speed the upward movement of investment … or form the spark to ignite business activity …” This warning is still very much valid.

    However, today’s environment is somewhat special:

    Nominal interest rates are at zero, or below zero, for AAA sovereign issuers and for the EU.
    The multipliers can be expected to be higher than usual, due to a substantial shock to public investment in Italy.
    The low-inflation environment is unlikely to suddenly turn, thus requiring only a lagged and moderate reaction once inflation starts moving higher as a result of the stimulus.
    All EU/euro area countries are introducing a broadly similar fiscal stimulus through investment at the same time―spillovers will hence reinforce the effect on GDP growth at national level.
    The duration and maturities of public debt have been lengthened over the years, allowing a long period of very low debt servicing costs.
    For many EU countries, the fiscal stimulus (the grant component) does not deteriorate the debt-to-GDP ratio (leaving aside what will be paid at some point through EU taxation).

    By contrast, if investment activity is not efficient and multipliers prove to be much lower, or the monetary policy reaction is more substantial and quicker, then sustainability issues will emerge. But the possibility of financing potentially growth-enhancing and tax revenue-enhancing investments at zero nominal (and low real) rates for an extended period makes DSA today look quite different then in the past.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Where did $8 billion go? Feeney gave $3.7 billion to education, including nearly $1 billion to his alma mater, Cornell, which he attended on the G.I. Bill. More than $870 million went to human rights and social change, like $62 million in grants to abolish the death penalty in the U.S. and $76 million for grassroots campaigns supporting the passage of Obamacare. He gave more than $700 million in gifts to health ranging from a $270 million grant to improve public healthcare in Vietnam to a $176 million gift to the Global Brain Health Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.

    Mostly wasted, then.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ken Fisher has the correct approach. Don’t give the money away, invest it with an expectation of return. Only then do you have the proper incentives for positive results.

    • WTF

      $76 million for grassroots campaigns supporting the passage of Obamacare

      More proof that you can be an idiot and still have a chance to become a billionaire.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Yep.

      • AlexinCT

        He would have produced better value just fucking ridding around in his limo throwing $100 dollar bills out the window at random…

      • Chipwooder

        And then using giant parade balloons to gas everyone, right?

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Yeah I mean, I’m glad he was able to give it all away before the government got their hands on it. But damn, his picks really suck.

    • Idle Hands

      that’s nauseating. I’m not joking the best thing he could have done with that money is created a trust that did nothing but went to impoverished neighborhoods and offered micro loans for business startups and trade school.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Nothing says grassroots like $76 million.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      A terrible thing to say on her part but it’s easy to find the rare lunatic if you interview enough people.

      • WTF

        Except that sort of thinking doesn’t seem all that rare on the left.

    • Idle Hands

      In fairness how is this really any different from us talking about wood chippers or helicopters for some people?

      • UnCivilServant

        The people we’re threatening deserve it.

        😛

      • WTF

        Because we don’t use that talk to refer to anyone who peacefully disagrees with us, and use it only for egregious exercisers of power who seek to trample upon our rights?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Not really.

        However, I would be reluctant to voice things on television with the same level of “vigor” I do here. The anonymity here allows for some juvenile bluster.

        Speaking of, think JB will come back?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I doubt it, he sort of took a dump on the living room coffee table on the way out.

      • Idle Hands

        not that anyone cared. It was like the friend who freaks out about shoes in their apartment when it clearly hasn’t been cleaned in years and theres a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I liked JB don’t quite understand why he got so butthurt it’s the internet.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yeah, I wish him the best but I doubt he’ll be back. Why come back to a place where you obviously don’t like being?

      • AlexinCT

        Seems I missed some event again. And a lot of people like self inflicted misery…

      • Mojeaux

        not that anyone cared

        I cared. I liked his posts.

      • Idle Hands

        I meant noone took what he said personally. I don’t think anyone had a problem with him.

      • Mojeaux

        Right, okay. Yes, agreed.

      • AlexinCT

        Maybe that’s what got him even more irked? Nobody got bothered enough….

      • Sean

        Those “some people” are guilty of violating the NAP.

        Not due to a political affiliation. Not just some dude walking down the street.

      • Rhywun

        I don’t think I’d talk about woodchippers to some rando on the street.

      • Pine_Tree

        Because there’s not acksually a history of libertarians doing mass-murder of political “others”, like there is for her kind.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The BB is going to fail if things don’t get normaler. If reality is as unreal as satire then what’s the point?

    • WTF

      I’m trying to think of what CNN would do differently if they were trying to make themselves into a sick joke.

      • Idle Hands

        Give Stelter the weekday 8pm slot.

    • Count Potato

      It only took 15 minutes to from satire to reality.

  31. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Freaky Friday: Looks Legit

    • AlexinCT

      Yowza!

  32. Rebel Scum

    Curious…

    Host Anderson Cooper asked, “Do you believe Russia is an enemy?”

    Biden responded, “I believe Russia is an opponent, I really do.”

    After Biden discussed Russia’s actions and objectives, Cooper asked, “Do you view China as an opponent? Because the president says you’ve been too cozy with China, too accepting of them in the international community.”

    Biden criticized Trump’s record on China compared to the Obama administration’s, and Cooper followed up on whether Biden sees China as “an opponent?”

    Biden responded, “I view China as a competitor, a serious competitor. That’s why I think we have to strengthen our relationships and our alliances in Asia. … We’re going to abide by international norms. That’s what we’re going to do and insist that they do.”

    You can insist all you want but that is not what China is about. And being on bad terms with the Ruskies seems like a bad idea.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “abide by international norms”

      Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, India, and The Philippines has a sad.

      • UnCivilServant

        To be fair, might makes right is an international norm. As is oppressing those who try to defy you.

    • AlexinCT

      That’s called a dodge…

      The fucking guy is owned by the CCP. For real, and unlike evil orange man whom they accuse wants to give America away to Putin, Biden has been part of the cabal that have been selling the country away to China for some 3 decades for real. But that doesn’t bother the marxists…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Trump Orders Schools To Replace Anti-American Curriculum With Daily Viewings Of ‘Top Gun’

      See? I knew he wasn’t homophobic.

      • Idle Hands

        That is legitimately the one Trump critique I have the most problems with. It’s such total bullshit it defies comprehension that anyone could remotely lap it up as truth.

      • AlexinCT

        Ask Hershel Walker what he thinks about people that say they know Trump is a racist as well….

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Freaky Friday: Looks Legit

    Wasn’t there some sort of “Why women live longer than men” website devoted to stuff like that?

    • Sean
      • l0b0t

        Thanks Sean. Now I’m lured into that account’s twitters. The iceberg climbing and the ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Duck’ still have me chortling.

      • Sean

        The internet was made for cat videos.

      • UnCivilServant

        Do you have any? I’ve not seen one in a while.

      • UnCivilServant

        Twitter is blocked from the office.

        I did find some on youtube, so the counter has reset.

    • AlexinCT

      I thought the question was why married women live longer than married men, and the answer was cause guys were ready to get out of being married…

  34. Rebel Scum

    Um…wut?

    “You lost your freedom because he didn’t act. The freedom to go to that ball game, the freedom of your kid to go to school, the freedom to see your mom or dad in the hospital, the freedom just to walk around your neighborhood, because of failure to act responsibly,” Biden charged.

    He condemned Trump for running “such a thoroughly, totally irresponsible administration,” citing a Pew Foundation poll to claim that “Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi Jinping are trusted by more of the people in the world than the president of the United States of America, and one of the reasons they cite is COVID.”

    “This is not only causing us lives lost here, it’s causing us to lose our influence in ways that are profound,” Biden claimed.

    • Count Potato

      OFFS!!!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “We have to oppress you because Trump!”

    • PieInTheSky

      I am really not sure what trump could have done in a large and vaguely decentralized country like the US. Most EU countries are now having resurgent waves and still have plenty of restrictions. New Zealand and Australia lost plenty of freedom themselves.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This

        They’re blaming Trump for the oppressive measures while extolling places like Australia that have gone full gulag.

      • invisible finger

        It looks like the only EU country that has a chart that could be interpreted as a “second wave” is Romania. And again if you go by metro (as a virus does), there hasn’t been a second wave in any of Romania’s metros.

      • PieInTheSky

        It looks like the only EU country that has a chart that could be interpreted as a “second wave” is Romania- France has been having record daily numbers. And Austria. And a few more. Not sure where you get your data

      • invisible finger

        You are making the mistake of looking at (bullshit) cases. Look at deaths and hospitalizations – they tell a different story.

      • PieInTheSky

        well governments in Europe panicking look at cases. So that is what matters

      • UnCivilServant

        Look, governments lose in a thinking contest against a low grade moron. Don’t base your conclusions on what they’re looking at.

      • invisible finger

        It matters politically, but not scientifically.

      • PieInTheSky

        well politically is all that matters.

    • Rhywun

      Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi Jinping are trusted by more of the people in the world than the president of the United States of America

      Just… wow.

      • WTF

        Yet they have a freak out when Trump says he’ll remove American troops from their countries. Why would that be if they have more confidence in Putin and Xi?

      • AlexinCT

        Because what they want and like are American presidents that fuck over American tax payers and productive citizens in favor of the assclowns in other countries. That is why asking people that have a vested interest in seeing you do bad if they like you is an exercise in futility. Those profiting from you losing only will like presidents that fuck Americans over – like Obama constantly did – to their advantage, and will dislike or even hate one that tells them to fuck off because he is looking out for Americans. Have no doubt that most people that dislike Trump – whether they be foreign globalists, never Trumpers, or your usual leftist authoritarian – do so because he is not putting their personal interests above the promises he made to his electorate.

  35. db

    …and, once again, I was at work all day and missed a flying thread!

    • UnCivilServant

      It stayed pretty grounded.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I found it uplifting.

      • UnCivilServant

        some parts did tend to drag though.

      • Rebel Scum

        It really stalled at the end.

      • db

        That’s just you spinning it.

      • Tejicano

        You can still review it and give props to the author here.

      • banginglc1

        That comment is right on the nose.

  36. Sean

    Doom.

    Not only are Michigan health officials dealing with the coronavirus, but they’re also trying to contain the spread of a rare mosquito-borne disease.
    Authorities are urging people to stay indoors after dark and protect themselves from mosquito bites after a resident in Barry County was suspected of having Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), a potentially deadly illness caused by the EEE virus.

    • UnCivilServant

      EEE has been around the great lakes region since.. well, forever. You’ll have a case or two every year.

    • Rebel Scum

      Mosquitoes only bite after dark. It is known.

    • Nephilium

      Ready for the next panic?

    • Rhywun

      The parents added, “Who needs to fake racist toddlers when we have a racist mayor and a racist schools chancellor?!”

    • Rebel Scum

      “Doctored”…

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        It’s called editing when the media do it. Doctoring when Trump does it.

      • AlexinCT

        Fake news!

  37. robc

    Ancestry.com updated their estimates, my 1% sub-saharan is gone. New estimate:

    53% England
    27% Scotland
    9% German
    5% Wales
    3% Ireland
    2% France
    1% Finland

    I think I am officially white.

    • UnCivilServant

      You’re part Welsh?

      *spits on ground*

    • Idle Hands

      keep using that FBI curated and monitored dna site and see where it gets you.

      • Idle Hands

        brother did a family tree and poured a ton of research into it a couple of years ago, I’m an embarrassing amount of french Canadian.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Dude, you’re whiter than white

      • invisible finger

        He’s not Romanian though.

      • l0b0t

        So, I was hoping to crack wise and share a commercial for Rinso, it was advertised as getting clothes “Whiter than white, brighter than bright, and newer than new™” I couldn’t find it (it was a staple of The Amos & Andy Show – “New 1950 Rinso, with SOLIUM the scientific sunlight ingredient”). But I did find a lovely British Rinso spot from 1940 that claims “Housewives help Hitler”. https://youtu.be/ccRgZ37UxEk

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        That’s very American for a British ad.

    • Pine_Tree

      France? And you show your face here?

    • Chipwooder

      My update:

      46% Ireland
      20% Scotland
      19% England and NW Europe
      4% Northern Italy
      4% Wales
      3% European Jewish
      2% Norway
      1% Sweden
      1% France

      Not that much different from before. Main change is they used to lump England and Scotland together, and now they’ve separated them.

      • UnCivilServant

        So, when are they going to show the % sheep in the scottish number?

      • Chipwooder

        That’s coming in the next update.

    • Pine_Tree

      I’ll play too:
      – 56% standard Cracker
      – 25% gentleman farmers
      – 12.5% Yankees* (hangs head)
      – 6.25% German who came over in 1859 to avoid getting drafted into a European war

      * not just regular-old Yankees, but a strain that had been breeding with itself on Nantucket since the Massachussett’s Bay Colony, and who evidently had a son that got in enough hot water that he had to move to central FL after the War and sell swampland

    • Tundra

      Mine:

      33% Scotland
      30% England & NW Europe
      23% Germanic Europe
      8% Sweden (!)
      3% Ireland
      2% Wales
      1% Baltics

      Actually quite a swing away from Europe to Scotland/England.

      Still, looks pretty caucasionny to me…

      • UnCivilServant

        Why the exclaimation mark on Sweden? The vikings deposited a lot of genetic material in the gene pool of the britihs isles.

      • Pine_Tree

        It means he’s 8% impervious to Covidianism.

      • Tundra

        Bingo!

  38. Semi-Spartan Dad

    To some of the various restaurant threads, I sympathize with restaurants, but I also don’t owe them anything. They need to compete for my limited resources with good value just like any other product/service. I can prepare a strip steak dinner at home for less than takeout at a cheap restaurant. They should be looking for ways to reduce costs and barriers to my dining there rather than adding both.

    There are two restaurants we patronize and both have gone out of their way to actually lower prices with better specials and do everything possible to remove Covid-related barriers (example: will bring takeout directly out to your car like an old-fashioned carhop). Business has been booming at both places, and the full parking lots look no different than pre-Covid. I don’t understand the mentality of some restaurants that the way to weather Covid is to increase prices and make it more difficult for your customers to enjoy their experience.

    • invisible finger

      To be fair, it is the state/counties adding the costs.

      • Nephilium

        And cutting out some of their most profitable hours by changing last call.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Yes, there are unfair restrictions forced on them. As others do, we tip extra to waitstaff because of that to try and help them out. The doesn’t change the fact that patrons have limited resources themselves. It’s more important for restaurants than ever to be competitive and provide value.

      • Nephilium

        True. But I don’t blame the restaurants for getting rid of some marginally profitable/loss leader specials during these times. As an example, my Sunday place to go watch the games previously had $.50 wings (minimum order of 10). They’ve gotten rid of that special and replaced it with a $6 for wings (~6) and fries combo. Still a decent deal, and they’ve kept their beer prices mostly the same (although they’ve upped the special clearance cans/bottles from $2 to $3).

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I don’t blame them for doing anything they need to try and stay afloat. I think increasing prices on a customer base that is dwindling and has less disposable income is generally not a favorable strategy for any business regardless of the reason.

        Adding a 10% fee to their restaurant prices will probably hasten the decline of many of these NYC restaurants. But they are probably doomed either way. It sounds like your local bar is doing a good job of providing value to their customers so can handle the removal of loss leaders.

      • invisible finger

        I hear what you’re saying in general, but during the moment when government simultaneously forces a pile of fixed costs onto your business AND constrains your volume, you are stuck having to guess at which specific operational and product/service strategies are going to keep you afloat. The theory is fine, but the execution got way more difficult.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      But you’re not in NYC.

      Those restaurants are so tightly bound by regulators and inspectors that their options are next to nil.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        There’s been plenty of stories about how Target and other companies are now considering the risk of placing stores in certain areas do the risk of the local politicians doing nothing to protect them. Perhaps small business owners should similarly consider the risk of having a business in these bureaucratic nightmare spots.

        I’m not in NYC because the risk of having your life upended by these assholes is very obvious and I choose not to subject myself or my family to it. When I was looking for my last job, I was very clear with recruiters to not even mention any positions in CA, NY, or IL.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    I am really not sure what trump could have done in a large and vaguely decentralized country like the US. Most EU countries are now having resurgent waves and still have plenty of restrictions. New Zealand and Australia lost plenty of freedom themselves.

    I don’t understand how the public health expert cult can pretend quarantines will be effective, over the long term. By intentionally preventing any progress toward herd immunity, they guarantee recurring waves of infection.

    Unless that’s their real goal…

    • PieInTheSky

      The vaccine will solve everything

      • juris imprudent

        For a virus which they claim you lose your natural immunity to in a short time. Is this the new social justice biology?

    • Rhywun

      ??‍♂️

      • Apples and Knives

        “If Ripdorf had not played, they would have faced a €200 (£182) fine.
        They had asked for the match – in the 11th tier of German football – to be postponed but the local association refused.”

        There are rules and fines in the 11th tier? I had no idea there even was an 11th tier. I just figured anything below the 5th was just a couple of guys kicking the ball around after work.

  40. PieInTheSky

    Humans are social animals.

    We live in a society.

    Why do we allow our economy to be owned by an elite who produce things only for their own benefit?

    Surely “our” economy should be collectively owned and run democratically?

    https://twitter.com/tappylappy/status/1306857553108840448

    • UnCivilServant

      If it were for their own benefit they’d keep what they made.

      When people buy things, they do so with the expectation of benefiting from the purchase.

      Since you don’t understand that, I don’t want your voice interfering with the transactions. No mob-rule economy!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      No, it shouldn’t

    • Rebel Scum

      I don’t understand this obsession with democracy*. Democracy is not a moral good in and of itself.

      *Of course, leftist only preach the virtues of democracy when they get their way.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      “our economy” is an abstraction for a bunch of people making decisions about what they will buy and sell. Commie here wants to take away our freedom to buy only what we want and sell only what we want. Commie here is an authoritarian freeloader.

    • Fatty Bolger

      We should definitely hand it over to the people who produce nothing.

    • Tejicano

      “Surely “our” economy should be collectively owned and run democratically?”

      And this is exactly how our economy is run.

      You get to own the parts of it that you purchase. And your participation is “democratic” because you vote with your money.

      Feel better now?

    • UnCivilServant

      Why is DeWine attending Trump rallies?

      • Nephilium

        He’s ostensibly a Republican.

    • Idle Hands

      awesome. Fuck that piece of shit. There are only like 2-3 gov not worthy of getting eggs and tomatos thrown at them, and their are only like 10 not worthy of being put into a stockade for 6 months and he’s not one.

    • Fatty Bolger

      That’s music to my ears.

    • Hyperion

      ‘Look, we’re making tough decisions’

      And that’s my excuse for acting like a dictator, forever, now sit down and shut up, peasants!

  41. Rebel Scum

    So do something about it.

    As for the “wiping” of the Special Counsel phones, it seems likely that the task has been assigned to US Attorney Jensen — and it may have been assigned to him some time ago. The public only learned about it within the last week based on documents released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. But it is certainly information that AG Barr has known about for some time, and the kind of information that would be material to Jensen’s review of the decision-making and motivation of the partisans who made up the SCO staff of prosecutors.

    This information about the phones and the fact that it is being reviewed by DOJ — likely by Jensen — also helps to explain the zealous and vehement antipathy expressed by former SCO member Andrew Weissmann with regard to AG Barr and Pres. Trump. If Jensen has been looking into this question since around the time that the motion to dismiss the Flynn case was filed, then Weissman has likely been aware of the inquiry for a substantial portion of that time as well. It’s possible that Jensen has already made an effort to interview Weissmann on the question.

    Since the moment he left DOJ and went into private life, Weissmann has engaged in a continuous effort online and in the media to discredit AG Barr and the Durham investigation.

    AG Barr’s confirmation that the “wiping” of the phones — twice by Weissmann — is under review is a pretty solid indicator of what has motivated Weissman’s actions.

    • WTF

      If Trump wins, then something will be done about it. If Trump loses, then it will be buried and forgotten.

    • UnCivilServant

      Someone drew all over the picture. I can’t see the road.

      • PieInTheSky

        what road can you not see?

      • UnCivilServant

        Anything under the big red arrows or the two circular symbols.

      • PieInTheSky

        what is there to see under the circular symbols?

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t know, I can’t see it!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Missing an off ramp blend area?

      • PieInTheSky

        that too

    • Pine_Tree

      Yikes.

      – Don’t know if it’s what you mean, but it’s super-duper easy (2 nearest ramps as main example) to get on the highway going the wrong way as fast as you can.
      – And even if they’d done that right, I despise this design where the main highway has traffic trying to slow down and get off in the same piece of road as traffic that just got on trying to speed up. It’s common, but it’s bad design.

      • PieInTheSky

        there are no highways there. Just urban boulevards

      • Pine_Tree

        I refuse to use the word “boulevard” in any except its original sense. If the road goes where the old town’s encircling fortifications used to be (or is on top of them even), then it’s a boulevard. Otherwise it’s something else.

      • PieInTheSky

        fine larger thoroughfares

      • Rhywun

        Yeah, even Paris let that ship sail.

      • UnCivilServant

        They’re rue the day they made that choice!

      • Mojeaux

        “‘Rue the day’? Who talks like that?”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        People who like Jello.

      • PieInTheSky

        punning is nasty work UCS

      • AlexinCT

        I got it Mojo… especially after your Val Kilmer revelation the other day…

      • Mojeaux

        ?

      • Agent Cooper

        Avenue made this terrible joke before?

    • Rhywun

      Crangasi is actually UP and Lujerului is DOWN?

    • PieInTheSky

      The issue is that before the bridge there was a traffic light for people coming along the river. they would take a left on the road, which took them through half a dozen major intersections and more than an hour of gridlocked traffic to outside Bucharest.

      The bridge was part of a larger project and it should have continued with an express road out of the city. The road was not build. the bridge ends literally in a dead end. It can be used to just “take a left” without the light, but that gets you in gridlocked traffic. The bridge was about 70 million US.

      • UnCivilServant

        Those words were more useful than the picture. There’s virtually no traffic and no sign there’s anything off the right hand side worth driving to.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        oh, I just thought it was still under construction. That’s the finished product??

      • PieInTheSky

        yup. No plan as of now to continue.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I was going to say that it looked like a bridge to nowhere, but then I figured that just meant they hadn’t completed that portion yet.

      • PieInTheSky

        To be fair, the bridge took 14 years. Maybe in another 20 there will be a road.

      • Pine_Tree

        The bridge, like most such projects, was not built for any traffic-related reasons, so the dead-endedness of it is irrelevant.

        It was built as an instrument of graft, so that politicians could funnel money from the public purse to the right contractors, who will then hand it over to the politician’s personal purse. Probably works fine for that purpose.

    • Not Adahn

      Why is waving forbidden?

      • PieInTheSky

        because it is gay / unnamed glib

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      The first problem is that it’s in Romania.

    • Rebel Scum

      You see, Biden is just a nice boy from Scranton who made it through hard work and determination. Whereas Drumpfler was born with a silver spoon and never worked or produced anything of value.

    • Drake

      Does Joe know he represents Park Ave in that analogy?

      • Count Potato

        No, but he was born in Scranton.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yeah, the Dems are totally the party of the little guy…unless you’re a small business owner, a coal miner, an oil worker, a waiter or waitress, a hairdresser, a blue collar person, or a person who doesn’t want to see his shit get burned down. He’s fucking delusional or, rather, the people running his Twitter are.

    • Fatty Bolger

      More like parasite vs. producer. 44 years in federal government. 44 years at the public teat.

    • Idle Hands

      The democratic party is sometimes factual but it’s never truthful.

    • Rhywun

      If you make under $400,000, you will not pay a penny more in taxes when I’m president.

      ???

      • Rebel Scum

        “Read my lips…”

      • invisible finger

        So, larger, faster inflation then. AKA the stealth tax.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        No, he’ll let the Trump tax cuts expire and claim that’s not an increase. It’s semantic bullshit.

      • Rhywun

        Pretty sure I read somewhere he wants to increase the capital gains tax.

        So in addition he is flat-out lying.

  42. Drake

    Last night Tucker was interviewing Ryan Cleckner (who’s shooting videos I really like). Cleckner brought up the subject of George Soros being behind the crazy DAs who won’t prosecute rioters. Tucker jumped in and agreed – maybe a big fuck you to his bosses that he can get away with having the highest rated show on cable.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That Gingrich clip was bizarre.

      • Drake

        I like the Mystery to Me avatar. Good album.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I’m not familiar with it, I just like the Easter Island head looking monkey. Maybe I’ll give it a listen after I get drunk tonight.

      • Drake

        The song Hypnotized was big with the stoners back in the day.

      • Rebel Scum

        True. And he is a swamp creature so I am surprised he even brought it up.

    • Idle Hands

      I think the FBI, CDC, FDA and NSA have more than proven they need to be burnt to the ground as organizations.

      • Idle Hands

        I’ll keep the CIA and Department of Education as a compromise.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’d say they have to go first. The CIA for fucking around in American politics and spying on Congress and the DOEd for being blatantly unconstitutional and unnecessary.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Even Antifa acknowledges their own existence as an organization.

      Wray is obviously still vested in the “right-wing militia is the major threat” canard. Probably trying to shore up support among Dems in case Biden wins.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Jesus Tapdancing Christ, he’s either a fool or a liar and neither’s good.

      • AlexinCT

        Why not both?

    • Hyperion

      Mmkay. Now spin the BLM leader saying ‘We’re trained Marxists’. Go ahead, I got all day.

      • UnCivilServant

        “These fearless students of film have extensively studied the cinemetography of the Marx Brothers.”

    • AlexinCT

      Without watching, I bet he sniffed some kids hair?

  43. The Late P Brooks

    I don’t understand this obsession with democracy*. Democracy is not a moral good in and of itself.

    “Democracy” is a polite euphemism for mob rule. And those who most ardently espouse it never stop to consider whether they truly represent the majority, or if they will wind up ground under the heel of the mob.

    • PieInTheSky

      For lefties democracy is some sugar to help the poison go down. To pretend they are not as authoritarian as those lefties who failed.

      • Mad Scientist

        It can’t be bad if it’s popular!

      • juris imprudent

        Unless it is religion, in which case no matter how popular it is, it is bad.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I see it as more of a brake on mob rule, with built in cooling off periods, and a way to filter out the worst sociopaths from leadership. We get a milder class of psychopaths running things, and in exchange they don’t have to spend most of their time waiting for the literal knife in the back, and can actually retire and die peacefully in their beds.

      • AlexinCT

        Democracy is 1000 wolves and 999 sheep deciding what’s for dinner….

        That is why we should be glad we have a Republic. And learn to love the electoral college amongst other things…

      • Fatty Bolger

        What modern democracy isn’t a republic? Who is ardently espousing a return to Athenian democracy?

      • UnCivilServant

        When you look at who got to vote and who was impacted by the decisions, Athenian “democracy” was actually a oligarchy.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I’m starting to like what the libertarian monarchists are pushing. They make some good points from what I’ve heard.

      • l0b0t

        I am a HUGE fan of Mencius Moldbug’s writings on the topic. Even when I vehemently disagree with his positions, I find his points worth considering.

        https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/

  44. Count Potato

    “Biden claims Trump is responsible for every single person who has died from COVID-19:

    “If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive. All the people — I’m not making this up. Just look at the data. Look at the data.””

    https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1306763697772085250

    What data, Joe?

    • Ownbestenemy

      All of them? Lol okay Joe. Go back to bed.

    • Ownbestenemy

      In my head, Joe’s response to your question is “Data, from the show, given what we know its truth and and and people alive.”

      He talks as if a bot crawled the internet and wrote his speeches.

    • Rebel Scum

      Now do H1N1 and MERS. Or just any average flu season.

    • Hyperion

      The data loosely floating around in what’s left of his demented mind.

  45. Ownbestenemy

    Vegas can reopen their bars on Sunday at midnight…never understand why they put a date like that. If you are saying its safe, then they should open up once you vote or decree or whatever it is that you do.

    • UnCivilServant

      Because “Immediately” is not a timetable!

      /bureaucrat.

      • Ownbestenemy

        This comes after all the gaming bars put in new machines in various locations to get around the closed bartops. Now they have to reconfigure once again.

    • Idle Hands

      Because we are ruled by fucking assholes.

    • B.P.

      Something, something safer by autumn.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I think the enterprising journalist in Nashville did everyone a favor by actually doing you know…journalism. I doubt our reopen orders were because of it, but localities and governments might think…”shit there still are some reporters that might go digging for information.”

      • Nephilium

        Two weeks to flatten the curve…

      • Ownbestenemy

        To my point about the reporter…none, absolutely none, have ever called out any official on that line at the local level here in Vegas.

        They are taking government press releases, adding a bit of editorial flare, and reprinting as news stories.

        To me, that is so damn egregious for a profession that likes to claim they are the bulwark of “democracy”

      • invisible finger

        But they stand outside somewhere while they read a press release that came out 12 hours earlier.

      • Nephilium

        Yeah. Not a single person has asked DeWine in any of the briefings when these restrictions are going to go away. FFS, they breathlessly report the topic that may be answered in the next briefing (today he may give guidance on Halloween).

      • Idle Hands

        that’s been every press conference throughout the land and it is infuriating.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Because it’s theater designed to make it look like they are in control.

  46. Desk Jockey

    OT: After reading the post from last night and hearing the plight of WebDom I feel lucky to be able to escape NY. Not through anything I did myself, but rather to some lucky circumstances that aligned during the past 6 months.

    To add to the mounting pile of destroyed businesses I put forth my brothers lost construction job and my old man who has run gyms in this state for 28 years only to watch them arbitrarily be shut down by the King, then have their head held under water with 33% capacity and mask restrictions when they were finally allowed to reopen.

    The worst part is they lose a third of their members because of the mask mandate and another third because they feel unsafe even with the mask mandate. The remaining third is not enough.

    Anyway, rant off. I skipped out on a couple months here (was mostly a lurker anyways) but the insane news reaches my ears even when I’m unplugged. Better to hear it from you comical miscreants than on tv.

    Any glibs in southwest Wisconsin who have tips on how to seem local, please let me know.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      I skipped out on a couple months here (was mostly a lurker anyways) but the insane news reaches my ears even when I’m unplugged. Better to hear it from you comical miscreants than on tv.

      It’s funny how that happens… Even if you go unplugged from social media and completely avoid live TV, you still hear about the news cycle from a dozen different sources. Gossip, writ large. Most people can’t help themselves.

      • Desk Jockey

        Basically. Between angry scared family members and pissed off family members I figured it’s much better to at least have some sarcasm mixed in with soul crushing news.

    • Nephilium

      Not in southwest Wisconsin, but I would recommend drinking more beer, and adding more cheese to your diet.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Paint thinner is the preferred drink of a True Sconnie.

        Also learn to reflexively yell GO PACK GO every 10 minutes or so.

      • Desk Jockey

        If there is a way to drink more beer than I do I look forward to learning it

    • invisible finger

      Start your sentences with “ya hey”

    • dontreadonme

      say, “Heck, yah” a lot. I grew up there. Lots of good people. Check out Taliesin when you have a chance if you are in to that kind of thing.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If only he could have given out hydroxychloroquine and zinc but that’s water under the bridge.

    • Ownbestenemy

      So thats the byline for the weekend they are gonna run with eh.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Wait, Gupta said that? He’s a physician and he has got to know thats horseshit. Fucking hell…

      • Tulip

        Yes. They don’t understand statistics at all.

      • Fatty Bolger

        “The experimenters created a meaningless lecture and coached the actor to deliver it ‘with an excessive use of double talk, neologisms, non sequiturs, and contradictory statements.’ At the same time, the researchers encouraged the actor to adopt a lively demeanor, convey warmth toward his audience, and intersperse his nonsensical comments with humor.”

        In other words, a typical TED Talk.

    • Chipwooder

      WE FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE

    • Apples and Knives

      His source is Andrew Cuomo.

  47. juris imprudent

    Election shenanigans already being put in place.

    What happened to having an actual tort to establish standing? M*&^%f*&^ing Democrats in this commonwealth.

    • Rhywun

      Yeah, that’s pretty fucking outrageous. And they’re not even hiding it!

    • Hyperion

      Yep. It’s not like we didn’t predict this months ago.

  48. The Late P Brooks

    Who?

    In an ad released on Thursday, a former senior adviser on the White House coronavirus task force lambasted President Donald Trump as a stonewalling, capricious leader with more concern for his reelection than the pandemic, and said she would be voting for his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in November.

    Olivia Troye, who worked as an adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security to Vice President Mike Pence before leaving the administration in August, appeared in an ad in which she shared damning anecdotes that portrayed Trump as a debilitating actor in the administration’s efforts to contain the virus. She said Trump was dismissive toward the task force’s efforts to prepare for the outbreak from early in the year, before the virus had made heavy inroads into the U.S.

    “It was shocking to see the president saying that the virus was a hoax, saying that everything’s OK when we know that it’s not,” Troye said. “He doesn’t actually care about anyone else but himself.”

    ——-

    Troye is an avowed Republican, and the ad was run by the group Republican Voters Against Trump. The Washington Post first reported Troye’s frustrations with her previous role.

    The White House promptly rebuffed the allegations, using its frequent defense against personnel-turned-critics by saying that Troye was a disgruntled and vindictive ex-staffer. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted Thursday night a letter by Troye after her departure from the White House. It praised the task force’s work combating the disease.

    ——-

    Speaking with reporters on Thursday evening before departing for a campaign rally in Wisconsin, Trump said that “I have no idea who she is.” He then said Troye was dismissed from her post and “then she wrote a beautiful letter.”

    The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, later told reporters aboard Air Force One: “It’s the swamp fighting back. It’s, generally speaking, disgruntled employees.”

    Maybe she just wanted Trump to grab her pussy.

    • Chipwooder

      Yeah, about that…..

      In an interview with the Washington Post published on Thursday, Olivia Troye became the first official who worked extensively on the pandemic response to speak out against Trump, saying that his actions cost lives.

      “The president’s rhetoric and his own attacks against people in his administration trying to do the work, as well as the promulgation of false narratives and incorrect information of the virus, have made this ongoing response a failure,” she said.

      However, White House officials familiar with her work say she did not raise concerns during her time as an adviser and delivered glowing praise when she left.

      “For the past six months, it has been an absolute honor working closely with all of you and your staffs, as part of the brain trust that has valiantly faced the challenges of fighting what has been one of the worst pandemics of our generation,” she wrote on July 23, according to the text of her letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.

      “Having been on several conference calls into the late night hours starting in January, to supporting you day and night in every possible way to help you succeed in this mission, I have witnessed first hand how dedicated and committed all of you have been to doing the right thing.”

      So it turns out to be yet another desperate flail by Team NeverTrump. Not the actions of a confident bunch.

    • juris imprudent

      Dammit – us people in national security used to be able to do anything we wanted, and now it’s those fuckers in the CDC. You can’t expect me to serve in a government with those kind of priorities can you?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’re intent on getting more shooting incidents.

      If you blow out my tires with a mob around my car, I’m going to assume you mean me harm and react accordingly.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yep, I’d *redacted* if they did that to me. Besides, a car can go a fair piece at a fair clip on the rims.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s what they want..

        And the dnc operatives with bylines will edit the video to make you the bad guy attacking mostly peaceful protesters…

    • Pope Jimbo

      You will need:
      rebar (free in most construction sites)

      I bet a lot of site managers will be happy to “donate” that rebar to the cause.

    • Grummun

      “Rebar – free in most construction sites”

      WTeverlovingF he means “can be stolen from most construction sites.”

  49. Rebel Scum

    This. Lie. Will. Not. Die.

    Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered a message for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, on Thursday in which he lied about President Donald Trump’s reaction to neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

    Together, we can stamp out bigotry and antisemitism. One of the things that got me involved in this race — we, I had not planned on running — was when those folks came out of the fields down in Charlottesville, chanting the same anti- — carrying torches, their veins bulging, close your eyes, remember the picture on television, chanting the same antisemitic bile that was heard in the streets of Germany in the thirties, Nazi flags, accompanied by white supremacists, and then when the president was asked, when a young woman was killed, what did he think, he said, quote there are very fine people on both sides. That’s not who we are.

    • Drake

      Progs want Nazis around in the worst way.

      • juris imprudent

        Straight out of The True Believer – you must have an enemy for your followers to rally against.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It died long ago, they’re just parading it around Weekend at Bernie’s style.

    • Hyperion

      If Trump where smart he’d have a campaign ad with Biden and Heelsup Camela saying they support BLM, alone with that link I posted below showing BLM aligning themselves with the CCP. I think a whole lot of Americans will not be happy about that if they only knew, which they will never know with the MSM as their only source of the news.

      This is one thing Trump is tying to do right, brining up issues like mandatory diversity training and the 1619 project, which mot people will never learn about until it affects them personally, or they see the new version of totally sciency history on the History Channel. Trump bumbles around with stuff like this, but at least he’s trying. He needs a Glib adviser.

      • Tulip

        I volunteer Swiss

      • Hyperion

        Call the vote!

    • Pope Jimbo

      I’m sure the next presser Biden holds will have numerous journalos badgering him about this lie. They will ask him to square his statement with the hundreds of fact checkers who declared his statement false.

      Also sure is strange that such a notorious jew hater would be doing so much to help Israel and the Arabs make peace.

    • Mojeaux

      I keep one in my purse at all times and several in my car.

    • Hyperion

      My wife put a plastic baggie in the car console with some of them in it for when we eventually forget to take some along.

    • Hyperion

      But just think of the Glibfit benefit there.

  50. AlexinCT

    Remember when the dnc operatives with bylines edited what Trump said during one of his daily briefing session on the Kung Flu to make it look like he had told people to drink or inject disinfectant and how stupid he was for that shit? Well…..

    https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020/09/17/Nasal-solution-may-stop-spread-of-COVID-19-study-finds/1881600350075/

    They also laughed at him for suggesting someone should look at using UV light internally to kill the Kung Flu, only to have Google scrub it’s search capability and delete a web reference to an Israeli company researching exactly that solution?

    Fucking sciencing!

    • Fatty Bolger

      Not surprising, it’s not like he just made this stuff up himself. He obviously heard or saw it mentioned somewhere.

      • AlexinCT

        That was the point I made. The guy was rambling about this and didn’t do a good job (a problem he seems to have) of explaining things well, but everyone pretending he had actually been stupid enough to recommend drinking or injecting kitchen disinfectants or made fun of the UV treatment without checking, did so because they actually got their bull from deceptively edited shit that had no bearing on reality.

        And when I called several libs that had been peddling this lie as a means to show their intelligence and how stupid orange man was out on this, they all got mad that I had not only just torpedoed their fantasy, but left them looking like the idiot here.

      • Rebel Scum

        TMITE

    • Hyperion

      Wait… what? You mean I’ve been drinking the fish tank water all this time and it’s a lie!?

    • Mojeaux

      I’ve noticed an upswing in the number of rental houses available in my ZIP code (that allow pets, which may be a spanner in the calculus) and the prices are edging upward. I’m not sure what to think of this. Within the last year, the supply has been low and the prices within our budget. Now more (that allow pets) are coming on, but prices go up?

      However, I also suspect that summer has limited supply and winter has a better supply. I’m not sure what, if any, effect the time of year has on it.

    • Hyperion

      I wish. But I think that’s only going to happen in cities, which people are going to be fleeing in droves. Unfortunately, I see the opposite occurring for more rural housing where we will see prices skyrocketing and rare pickings, because all those fleeing city dwellers need a place to live. This totally sucks, for me.

  51. Hyperion
    • Count Potato

      Not surprising at all.

      • Hyperion

        I think we’re still going to have Glibsplain this to a lot of people.

    • BakedPenguin

      Good choice there, Ms. BLM. If there’s one thing Chi-Coms are known for, it’s racial tolerance.

      Idiot.

      • Hyperion

        They don’t call them useful idiots for no reason.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Fucking. Commies. The fight never ends, does it?

    • Tundra

      Oooh. That’s gonna get shared far and wide today.

      Thanks!

      • Hyperion

        Thank you, this should be plastered all over the metaverse.

    • db

      All those idiots who would use a single-use time machine to kill Hitler are missing the better option. It’s arguable Hitler never would have attained any kind of power if Karl Marx had been one of his four siblings that didn’t survive childhood.