Monday Morning Links

by | Oct 26, 2020 | Daily Links | 405 comments

Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas!  And what an absolutely wonderful morning it always is!

 

Barrett to most likely be confirmed by tonight.

 

DOJ source claims FBI dropped Biden laptop investigation.

 

Hunter sought to avoid registering as a foreign agent.

 

The New York Post endorses Trump.

 

Trump supporters crashing Biden’s Saturday rally.

 

Netflix subscription cancellations went up 800%.

 

10% of Twitter users create 92% of the Tweets 69% of which lean left.  This is known as the Twitter bubble and what is partially responsible for turning so many journalists and Democrat politicians extreme left.

 

Influenza cases plummeted.

 

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.

405 Comments

  1. PieInTheSky

    Barrett to most likely be confirmed by tonight. – how very undemocratic…

  2. Tres Cool

    mornin’

  3. PieInTheSky

    Netflix subscription cancellations went up 800%. – I pay for 3 services which I watch a couple of times a week all together I think it is inefficient…

    • Certified Public Asshat

      You can rotate them, pay for one month at a time and then next month switch to another.

      • Festus' Mustache

        *sniffs own fart* I have a flat-screen that I never watch!

  4. AlexinCT

    DOJ source claims FBI dropped Biden laptop investigation.

    I am sure they did it for the same reason the dropped the Hillary Clinton one: they feel Biden, like Clinton, didn’t really mean to break the law, so despite the fact that the law says this is immaterial, they decided to give em a pass…

    Trump needs to fire all top management at every three letter agency in D.C.

    • juris imprudent

      And sought to avoid registering as a foreign agent – just like Flynn. Hmmm.

    • Festus' Mustache

      He’ll need to win again plus the Senate. I dunno.

    • Overt

      For the record, I think this laptop story is shady as hell. It is precisely the happy coincidence that I would expect from some bad actor (not necessarily Russia- there are tons of people this helps). Nevertheless, the FBI’s story does not seem like a compelling point. If they are trying to prove the authenticity of the laptop- or more specifically emails that seem illegal- then they had enough probable cause to seek warrants with online service providers.

      I think it is highly unlikely that Hunter was downloading his emails from the cloud to this one laptop- so it is most likely that they were still up on the various online sites- and if not his account, then others on these 5 – 10 person email chains.

      The FBI secured SURVEILANCE warrants for Trump’s campaign based on a conversation with a diplomat in a bar and a Russian-sourced Dossier, for crying out loud! That they couldn’t be bothered to conclusively prove the authenticity of the laptop is bullshit.

      • Overt

        And to be clear- what if the laptop was some sort of plant? That doesn’t matter. Let’s say a cop finds a stolen laptop, and he finds CP on it that belonged to the original owner. That is still enough evidence to *begin an investigation*. That doesn’t mean the laptop will hold up in court. But it is enough to begin gathering OTHER evidence.

        In this case, the question is not where the laptop came from, but whether the emails are authentic. That is easy to confirm. But the Government deliberately held off, and now- a year later- these emails cannot be verified independently because they are a known entity and others could have fabricated/deleted them now that they are being discussed.

      • WTF

        Of course the Bidens have not denied the authenticity of the emails and at least several of the emails have been confirmed by the recipients. So the evidence so far indicates the emails are in fact authentic.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        I’ve been OOTL because of life this week. Can you point to reports of these confirmations? Thanks!

      • Count Potato

        “But the Government deliberately held off, and now- a year later- these emails cannot be verified independently because they are a known entity and others could have fabricated/deleted them now that they are being discussed.”

        That isn’t true. There is all sorts of metadata, DKIM, etc.

      • AlexinCT

        So that Navy officer partner that came forward to corroborate the story? Is he also a sleeper agent?

        People keep thinking that these leftists are smart and would do hard work to cover up their corruption. The facts bear out exactly the opposite. Fuck, Biden got recorded talking about blackmailing a government with tax payer money to get his way. And these leftists are used to the media and big tech covering for them so they really are not compelled to try too hard. We spent 4 years with the dnc operatives with bylines peddling a false collusion story and running an entrapment investigation that only imploded when we finally got a AG that would no longer let the deep staters keep doing the shit that had been going on for some reason. And I remind you that, yes, fucking Hunter is a crack head. These people tend to not be very good at thinking straight.

        The only reason we know about this shit is because these credentialed elitist criminal class members really are truly this mendacious and they spent the last 4 years showing it to anyone willing to look. The fact that the FBI investigated and yet again buried the story tells you all you really need to know.

      • Fatty Bolger

        “Crack head drops off laptop containing incriminating evidence for repair and then forgets about it” is not the shocking part of any of this to me.

      • R C Dean

        Indeed. There’s a few things that are odd about the story:

        Apparently the laptop wasn’t encrypted/didn’t need any kind of password to get into?

        Its not at all unusual for an Apple to have email, regardless of the service provider, or texts from any device on your Apple account. That’s standard stuff. Generally, though, it doesn’t have pictures unless you specifically download from your cloud account. You can see them all, but they have to be downloaded to actually reside on the computer. But, if you have access to someone’s account, then its very seamless. And access to the account for purposes of looking at/downloading pix is automatic once you have logged into the device.

        Maybe Hunter actually never put any kind of authentication on his computer? Maybe he did, but gave it to the repair guy?

        Regardless, the pictures are definitely Hunter’s. At least some of the email, and I believe texts, has been authenticated. Nobody has denied that its not all really his email. And its quite easy to authenticate email even if you don’t have subpoena/search warrant power, because email by definition has multiple copies. If you have subpoena/search warrant power, like the FBI/DOJ, then you can authenticate or falsify the entire account pretty quickly and easily.

        Chain of custody has nothing to do with it, and its a bullshit excuse. In any event, Hunter’s laptop has a solid chain of custody – signed receipt, and hand-to-hand to the FBI. If anyone monkeyed with it while the computer guy had it, I’m sure it would be pretty easy to determine.

    • Social Justice is Neither

      Unless it is literal firing is far less than they deserve but probably far more than we will get.

  5. Atanarjuat

    If it turns out masks helped reduce flu cases, (and maybe even if they didn’t) we’ll be wearing the awful things forever.

    • WTF

      It’s shocking how readily Americans just give up their freedom. I guess decades of leftist indoctrination in education and the media have an effect.

      • Festus' Mustache

        We all bent over enthusiastically for the Patriot Act.

  6. WTF

    Influenza cases plummeted.

    Probably because they are now presumed to be COVID cases.

    • AlexinCT

      More likely it is because we are less likely to see the usual transition vectors with mass transportation travel basically shut down.

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t ignore the financial incentive to misclassify people’s ailments in the official record.

  7. Atanarjuat

    I’m predicting a Trump win, based on those rallies and Biden’s failing to campaign. The polls aren’t showing it due to a Bradley effect. The upshot for libertarians is a faster collapse and some hilarious tantrums from the establishment media.

    • WTF

      I agree that Trump will win the legitimate election, but the Dems will come in hard with plenty of fraud to overturn the result after the fact, with tons of mail-in ballots coming in late and being “found” and harvested.

      • Atanarjuat

        Probably. I heard somewhere that the Biden campaign has retained brigades of lawyers to tie things up.

        If we get 4 years of Biden bringing back DC business as usual, the populist who comes after him will make them wish they had Trump back.

      • WTF

        If the Dems get control they will rig things to make sure they never have to relinquish it again.

    • Sean

      The tantrums will be epic.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        This is the biggest reason why I want BOM to win. My prog tears reserves are still well stocked, but election tears are the best vintage, and I’m running low.

      • Festus' Mustache

        ^^^ This guy fucks!

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        My hard-left colleagues have already announced that they will be too upset to work for the week following the election. It’s a little bizarre to me that even they don’t believe the polls the MSM are pushing. These are Dem’s loyal foot soldiers.

        I’m still not making any predictions… the magnitude of voter fraud is too much of an unknown… but that the hard left supporters are already forecasting a Biden defeat just a week before the election doesn’t bode well for Biden/Harris.

      • Tejicano

        What? They don’t believe that a middle-of-the-road, plain-vanilla, clearly demented DNC-picked package (picked to deliver a far, far left VP-cum-CinC) is electable? Have they no faith?

      • Festus' Mustache

        I’m reminded of Winston’s famous “V for Victory!” sign. Fuck off ya silly gits!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        too upset to work for the week following the election

        Overgrown, immature children

        I’d love to be given the opportunity to fire somebody for not showing up to work because they’re upset over an election.

      • Festus' Mustache

        There are six people taking extended paid leave at my plant because the work is too hard.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Yep. For the record though, they are not employed where I work. My coworkers are very far to the left, but most are extremely professional about it. I enjoy talking/working with them despite us being miles apart politically. It feels all too rare these days.

        These other colleagues work at places where presumably their jobs are safe and such behavior is indulged.

  8. leon

    I’ve long suspected that Twitter in particular has been a part of the reason why the Democrats have failed to reach the “man on the street and regular American. They see Twitter and they journalists see it and then they think it’s what the popular sentiment is.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      what is partially responsible for turning so many journalists and Democrat politicians extreme left

      It didn’t turn them that way, it just provided them with a shit-ton of confirmation bias, which they are apparently too retarded to recognize.

      • Atanarjuat

        Agreed, they wouldn’t have gotten where they were if they needed much turning.

      • straffinrun

        The right will do some piling on, but nothing like the left does. The left thinks it isn’t bullying when they are simply trying to point out all the Nazis they see.

      • Not Adahn

        I doubt that. I’m sure in right-dominated places that they behave like journalismists on tweeter. I just don’t have that kind of exposure to those places.

        Hell, we regularly get called out for being too groupthinky.

      • straffinrun

        Let me be more specific then. How many people have been fired for saying something online that a conservative, but not a progressive, would find offensive? Piling on as in posting a comment critical of the original tweet, for example, and actively trying to ruin people’s source of income.

      • Not Adahn

        That guy wo got canned for being a shithead to a Chick-Fil-A employee to own the cons?

      • straffinrun

        I’m thinking about at the Sara Jeong types that keep their jobs despite saying blatantly racist shit. Joy Reid. Challenge the orthodoxy in the media and you get ostracized quickly.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Ugh, Jeong is loathsome. Her hiring verified everything we already believed about the NYT.

      • Not Adahn

        Sara Jeong, Gov. Coonman, Lt. Gov Rapeface…

        I don’t know that it’s evidence that the right doesn’t dogpile rather than the left protects its own.

      • straffinrun

        Who cares if you get dog piled if it doesn’t cost you anything in meatspace? You’re right that there are groups of righties that will swarm comment sections. My brevity left it open to interpretation, but hopefully you get the point.

      • Not Adahn

        Just speculation, but it would not surprise me at all if there is a dogpile circuit-breaker built in to lefty-controlled spaces.

        I don’t twit, but was there a Eugene Gu for Obama? Or would anyone being aggressively stalkerish on the tweets @demprez get their account revoked? It was claimed that “Obama never blocked anybody,” but the only way that his replies weren’t a constant stream of edgelords with racial epithets is if twitter was doing the blocking for BO.

      • straffinrun

        That’s the fun part of if Biden wins. At least we can test the limits of that.

      • Charlie Suet

        I think there’s a fair amount of self-selection here that can sometimes result in something like groupthink. It’s striking how calmly people react to heterodoxy when it does come along though. Might be an age thing rather than to do with politics.

    • Overt

      It is not just the Democrats. Back around 2010, companies started hiring “Social Media Experts”. These people were not just there to generate Social Media buzz, they were there to interpret it for their corporate employers. It’s been about a decade of companies misinterpreting Twitter sentiment as customer sentiment, and the damage is very real. Look at how many companies immediately jumped to donate to BLM- that doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because they aren’t taking the time to survey their customers- just feeding what ever hunger Twitter shows them.

      • Charlie Suet

        I’m fascinated by the companies doing it because it strikes me as such very bad business. It’s like they don’t realise that (for example) by referring to women as “people who bleed” they can drive customers away from Tampax forever.

        It won’t ever show up in a hashtag or in a survey, but the amount of people they’re at risk of quietly alienating vastly outweighs the people they might possibly appease (if they didn’t hate capitalism and multinationals).

  9. leon

    “FBI dropped the investigation due to supposed concerns over the story from the repair shop owner. Concerns were raised over the chain of custody in the case”

    IANAL but such things don’t seem to stop the FBI when they use noon recorded interviews to jail people.

    • WTF

      The rules change depending on who they’re going after.

    • juris imprudent

      That is due to the unimpeachable integrity of every agent of the Federal Bureau, oh, oh, oh hell, hahahahahahahha – just couldn’t say it with a straight face.

  10. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    I hope you had a nice weekend.

    Judging from your lynx, the shitshow is already in full swing this week! The soccer mom judge lady confirmation should be interesting. More riots?

    I’m not sure how the FBI can just say “nope, nothing to see here”. Time to shut those motherfuckers down.

    Influenza cases plummeted because they were called ‘vid. Simple. The Branch Covidians in my state are desperately trying to keep us locked down. The useless shithead repubs have promised to end the lockdowns if they take the house. Fingers crossed.

    As is to be expected, you chose a wonderful song. Thank you. This one rolled up next.

    Have a great Monday, people. They won’t know what hit ’em!

    • Tejicano

      “the shitshow is already in full swing this week! ”

      Just foreplay for the election.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Nah. It’s much toned down from the last time. Instead of people rheeeeing and breaking fingernails on the front doors of the Supreme Court, some asshoe is gonna chuck a Molotov.

  11. Certified Public Asshat

    I don't think I've met anyone who is more fundamentally, deeply, profoundly libertarian–no modifiers needed or allowed–to her core than my colleague @ENBrown. https://t.co/R6alRmzrxo— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) October 24, 2020

    Who wants to go back to Reason?

    • UnCivilServant

      I’ve got no reason to do that.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      maybe as a coup after we buy it and skinsuit it so that it represents actual libertarianism..

      • Tejicano

        Maybe we should do a gofundme?

      • leon

        We want to purchase reason so that we can fire:

        Shika, ENB, 2Chille, ….

      • Tejicano

        Nah, just give them their performance objectives to meet if they want to remain employed. Firing gets too sticky nd expensive.

      • WTF

        Performance objectives, like write an article expressing and promoting libertarian philosophy?

      • PieInTheSky

        performance objectives – how many lefties unfollow them on twitter?

      • Tejicano

        Works for me

      • PieInTheSky

        actual libertarianism – what is the purity test?

      • Atanarjuat

        “Do you enjoy Washington DC cocktail parties?”

      • Tejicano

        What is your favorite caliber and why. Even hypothetical.

      • Animal

        .338 Win Mag. Because you can shoot little stuff with a big gun, but you can’t shoot big stuff with a little gun.

      • Tejicano

        Most of them would have to spend a week studying what a caliber is and what the differences are. Even then it would take weeks for them to understand enough to make a credible argument.

      • EvilSheldon

        Sure you can. You just need to shoot them more often.

      • db

        Are we talking small arms or artillery? Because caliber has different meanings depending on context.

        /gun pedant

      • Tejicano

        If they started with an artillery argument I would be impressed.

      • Animal

        Drugs falling out of your ass?

      • straffinrun

        Simple for me: Don’t slander people for ideas they haven’t put forth themselves. Oh, and of course, don’t initiate violence against people who are violating other’s rights.

      • straffinrun

        *aren’t violating. Dub negs are messy.

      • PieInTheSky

        don’t initiate violence against people who are violating other’s rights. – this is nos as clear a definition as you might think.

      • straffinrun

        Patience comes to those that wait.

      • Tejicano

        You saying he was a little premature?

      • PieInTheSky

        I meant with the correction included but did not copy paste that as well

      • straffinrun

        Don’t initiate violence against peaceful people. Is that better?

      • PieInTheSky

        Don’t initiate violence against peaceful people. Is that better? – it is not. what is violence and what are peaceful people? Just because these things make sense to you does not mean they have the same meaning for leftists.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Just because these things make sense to you does not mean they have the same meaning for leftists.

        and this is why moral relativism never works. So long as we have no set measuring stick, good will be defined as anything that provides the left power and bad will be defined as anything that takes power away from the left. To the extent that people see natural law seeping through the cracks, the left paints it as indoctrination and silly religiosity.

      • PieInTheSky

        I mean we saw this summer how words I violence and looting and burning businesses is not

      • straffinrun

        Do I really need to give Pie a libertarian primer lesson? I’m talking the NAP and there are many books out there that explain all the questions you may have. I know I’m narrowing down the “libertarian” label by insisting on that. There are people that I’d happily call fellow travelers. But to me, it’s what it is.

      • PieInTheSky

        I am perfectly aware of libertarian thought and I had many posts on it. But those so called basic libertaraian definitions are too open to interpretation

      • straffinrun

        Sorry if I’m getting snippy. You’re right that it becomes messy the further from the core you get, but that doesn’t make it wrong. It just makes it like all things in life. Complicated.

      • Tejicano

        I am perfectly happy – for instructional purposes – to visit violence on people who equivocate on the meaning of violence. If the example I present doesn’t convince them I can take it up a notch until it does.

      • Festus' Mustache

        The ability to make a decent sammitch.

      • juris imprudent

        Bring back Postrel?

    • leon

      I’m actually really pissed at ENB for obvious reasons but also because lots of people, like Michael Malice, had worked hard to bring the Reason libertarians and the Ron Paul:Mises libertarians into at least a ceasefire and normalized relations. And then ENB like the SJW fanatic she is, goes and shatters it because, Best not to work with the heretics.

      • PieInTheSky

        Honestly if that shatters it, it was not much in the first place…

      • Cancelled

        Combined we make up about 3% of the populace, and are largely defined by our disinterest in running things so we don’t campaign. What does it matter that we splinter into 100 groups?

    • Atanarjuat

      Probably damage control after she took to Twitter to badmouth Ron Paul supporters.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        And that’s fine, he probably needed to say something, but don’t tell us she is the mostest libertarian ever.

      • Ted S.

        Yeah; everyone knows Ted S. is the most libertarian ever.

    • PieInTheSky

      that is the Nick Gillespie of endorsements…

      • Annoyed Nomad

        lol

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Oh, just give up and align yourself with Niskanen already.

      • Not Adahn

        ^THIS!

    • Tundra

      Dave Smith has some thoughts.

      Lots of fun in the comments.

      • PieInTheSky

        I did not see ENBs tweet saying all Ron Paul supporters are racist but that some racists attached themselves. Then again it could have been phrased a lot better if that was the case… Off course the inclusive crap is thrown around quite excessively.

      • leon

        Is that… Mary in the comments?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Where?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Unless she’s become far more sane, I’m not seeing it.

      • Not Adahn

        Yeah, that’s not even vaguely Kizone Kapow.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There are clearly some people threatened by a more inclusive liberty movement, because they’ve built their brands on the politics of resentment. Unlike them, I believe libertarian ideas are strong enough to stand on their own

        Based on her previous writing, she’s saying that social conservatives cannot be libertarian. And she indulges the identitarian movements instead of individualism, because that’s icky.

        ENB is the almost perfect distillation of cosmo-libertarianism, which is little more than cultural libertinism.

      • leon

        Yup. I despise the “Collectivist Libertarians” who fall all in on the SJW, Racial groups are true collectives thinking. They rightly call out racists for being collectivists, but then do the exact same thing on the flip side, and pander to the SJW’s who will never fuck them.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think it’s primarily a failure to distinguish between legal and moral.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        How exactly is that inclusive?

        INCLSUSIVE DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHITLORDS GET THE FUCK OUT ALL ARE WELCOME!

    • mrfamous

      The problem isn’t that she’s not libertarian. The problem is that she often behaves poorly, gets called out for it and then proceeds to play the ‘blameless’ victim. “Don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit” is a concept she doesn’t seem to get.

    • Gdragon

      I wish this were like a sports team owner or GM’s “vote of confidence” for the coach who is leading the team to a .300 record.

  12. leon

    Thing is things will never go back to a pre-trump normal. If Biden wins, many prominent leftist, thinkers and journalists, have put civil war and unrest on the table as options for losing an election. You can’t put that back in the can.

    • PieInTheSky

      pre-trump normal – what dat?

    • Tejicano

      So if OMB does win the election by a big enough margin that it can’t logically be contested, and the blue mayors allow the Marxists to riot in their cities, I wonder how many election cycles will roll over without most of those blue mayors being voted out of office. I can only imagine than, on the average, there are only so many (D)-votes who will continue to believe it’s raining as their “betters” piss all over them.

      • straffinrun

        There are many people in those cities whose entire identities are based on “resist!”. I don’t see them ever giving up precisely because the fascists that they fear aren’t actually in power. Now if they were…

      • Tejicano

        ..while the fascists they don’t fear are burning they city down around them.

      • straffinrun

        “You hit women!”

        *She kicks cop in the balls*

        “See! I saw you react like you were gonna hit me! Fascist!”

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      I said something similar in a dead thread. It feels like a civil war (or at least unrest) is where we’re heading these days. All that hatred towards Trump is really hatred towards tens of millions of people who don’t support marching lockstep towards Marxism. Trump is the lightning rod for the left’s hate (their Emmanuel Goldstein), but he’s really irrelevant and we’re already starting to see the hatred past to their fellow countrymen.

      I think a peaceful split is the best possible outcome at this point… especially if remaining unified entails living under Marxism.

      • juris imprudent

        Marxism was actually more coherent than the jumble of nonsense these assholes believe in. It boggles my mind that on top of it all, they still have room for contempt for religious believers – because they are in even deeper in pure belief.

      • Tejicano

        They mock and poke fun at people who swallow a dogma as they simultaneously swallow a larger dogma whole.

      • Chipwooder

        Yes. I’ve said this before – Marx’s prescriptions were horrendous, but he was right about class being the fundamental source of conflict within a society.

        The woke identitarians have taken Marxism and mutated it far beyond class to encompass an unholy fusion of class, race, religion, and sexuality. Instead of one major conflict between rich and poor that suffuses everything, we have an interminable number of conflict between ever more atomized identity groups. For example, have you noticed that, now that Trump has made some inroads with black voters, there’s a lot of lefty media harrumphing about how problematic black men are as compared to black women, who tend to be much further left politically?

      • Charlie Suet

        My (at the moment slightly half-hearted) experiences on dating apps suggest a massive uptick in dopey twenty something women who want to “smash capitalism”. They don’t actually say what they want in its place. I assume lawless anarchy and violent revolution would actually be pretty bad for eight stone women without access to firearms, but whatever.

        Say what you like about the tenets of Marxist-Leninism; at least it’s an ethos. Modern anti-capitalism is just flabby nihilism. Marx at least valued human progress and industrialisation, even if he also wanted the dictatorship of the proletariat or whatever.

        The modern left has no idea what they want in the positive sense. They think global warming is a function of capitalist excess, even though ten percent of global carbon emissions comes from the production of Portland cement. Marxism is utopian in ways that never come to fruition in practice; post-Marxists actively want a dystopia.

      • Tundra

        I listened to this episode of the Death to Tyrants podcast yesterday. Buck’s guest did a nice job of explaining the gibberish and where it originated.

        Truly some fucked up philosophies.

      • Tejicano

        It’s almost as if we have this abscess of Tories 240+ years after the revolution – people who still long for a king/Top Man to make the decisions. Maybe this time we should force them to choose and go to whatever place they prefer to America. Assimilate or leave. We live here for freedom. If that doesn’t work for you make your choice.

      • EvilSheldon

        Nobody else wants them.

      • Apples and Knives

        Last time we sent them to the Atlantic Provinces. I don’t think there will be enough room there for the new ones. Maybe they can settle in Nunavut? (JK, Canadian Glibs)

      • Not Adahn

        The local weather report always lists Nunavut. I guess to make us feel better?

      • db

        All that hatred towards Trump is really hatred towards tens of millions of people who don’t support marching lockstep towards Marxism.

        If it’s ownly “tens of millions” of people in the US who don’t support marching towards Marxism, we are well and truly fucked.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I suspect most of the population are clueless as to what’s going on. They may not support Marxism if its spelled out but are currently content to just go along for whatever ride is presented without getting involved.

      • Rebel Scum

        I think a peaceful split is the best possible outcome at this point

        It wasn’t peaceful in 1776 or 1861…

    • Atanarjuat

      Prior to the pandemic, I was working in the entertainment industry (RIP). Females were treated such that they didn’t need the broom.

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      When I worked at a big box store, it wasn’t the ladies where where able to get away with not working. It was anyone willing to draw a paycheck and sit around and not do work. This was back when a few people would still have compunctions about that, so enough got done.

      My local Valvoline drive-through thingy is staffed exclusively by young men and women between 18 and 28, including the store manager who is 26. I love talking to him. Smart kid. Not book smart, but great horse-trader, with his head on right. Said there’s few young people out there that want to work and get rewarded for it, and he has a secret interview technique to find them. He says “I’m going to hire you, and I’m going to fire you for insubordination the first time you get too lazy to do your job. You won’t be able to collect unemployment. But the upside is you won’t have to pick up the slack from your coworkers, because I have the same rule for them. Deal?”

      I want to just hug him forever.

      • leon

        Nice. I don’t think they were focused too much on the gender, as much as the Manager, who is the perennial bugbear of their skits.

  13. PieInTheSky

    What I wonder about Reason is this… the comments are a shitshow, of trolls and bad arguments, and most people who read online also check pout the comments. So if they want to attract people to libertarianism, do the Reason staff not realize that a shit comment section works massively against them?

    • Tundra

      They don’t have to recruit. They are funded anyway. If they had to earn their daily bread they would be a much different organization.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        “We don’t care because we don’t have to”
        -SNL, Back when SNL was both funny and on point.

        Honestly, its one of the best lessons in public choice theory you could hope for.

      • Surly Knott

        That was a Lily Tomlin line by her character Ernestine — “We’re the phone company. We don’t care because we don’t have to.”

    • Drake

      The Koch family bailed them out a few years ago after the Glibbening. As long as they tow the lion on free trade with China and open borders (so the Koch’s can sell cheap Chinese stuff and import cheap labor), they can be as absurd and left-wing libertarian as they want.

      • Tejicano

        Ho.Lee.Fcuk – I didn’t realize that our departure sparked such a gesture. So the big “L” party was bought and sold once us die hards walked away from the site. Cool.

      • Drake

        Sure. But the regular guys (and some women) I talk to at the gym were just your average gun-owning middle of the road conservatives a few years ago. Now they are seriously talking about the deep state, election fraud, and what comes next. They weren’t hanging around here or Gab, but somehow the scales still fell from their eyes.

      • Cancelled

        Ok, this is just stupid. I left Reason because they caught TDS and the comment section became unreadable, but when Glibs start attacking the Kochs using almost exactly the same arguments that the left uses to attack the Kochs we have elevated “Team uber alles” to a ridiculous level. The Kochs are not libertarian as a business strategy. They are just libertarian. ENB is a cosmo. Cosmos are annoying to me, and I believe they are mistaken about many things, but they are still, in many cases, libertarian.

        ENB is a libertarian who shares some beliefs with progs about equality. I believe those beliefs are ultimately inconsistent with liberty, but that does not mean that she is not libertarian; it just means that she is mistaken about what a libertarian world would end up looking like. She does not stop being libertarian until she says, “Oh if liberty won’t produce perfect equality then screw liberty”

      • Drake

        The point is that thanks to their funding source (and TDS), topics that deserve discussion are off-limits. They sold their freedom.

      • Cancelled

        The Kochs were supporting Reason long before your timeline describes. I am pretty sure you are mistaking agreement on Trump for some sort of imposed position. I agree that TDS has them focused on Trump’s flaws to the exclusion of attacking the left’s much worse tyranny. And in terms of substantive policies I think we need and the relative value of various liberties I am actually way out on the right with you and Suthen and Alex, and RCDean etc. Where you guys lose me is when you decide that all the cosmo types are no different from the progs. (and where they lose me is when they decide all the yokel types are no different than the socons)

        Cosmo and yokel describe desires about the choices people will make, or possibly markers about which libertarian State (or nonState) you would choose to join if you had the option. The ‘tarian part describes the basic recognition that you do not get to force, and ultimately kill those who disagree with you, to make them change their minds. If the ‘tarian part is not more important than the cosmo/yokel part then we might as well split up and all the Yokels join the Conservatives and all the Cosmos join the Progressives. HM is far more cosmo than me, but he is my brother in liberty. Tulip is way more feminist than me, but she is my sister in liberty. Q is way more focussed on overlarge breasts than me, but he is my brother in liberty.

        When we play this damn no true libertarian game we are being both stupid, and authoritarian. We do not get to tell other libertarians what to believe.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        You’re being a bit harsh here. An off-the-cuff working definition of libertarianism is a belief in negative rights and not positive rights. The main arguments I see among libertarians are exactly what are negative rights and how should infringes on negative rights be punished.

        If someone acknowledges X is a positive right and, despite that, they believe X should still be forced on others or taken at gunpoint, I don’t see how they could possibly a libertarian. Words have no meaning if ENB could be considered a libertarian.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Here’s where I disagree. I can’t point to a single person here who I’d consider to be a leftytarian/cosmo/progtarian. Plenty here have different priorities and worldviews than I do, but as far as I can tell, none of them hold worldviews or principles that are hostile to liberty.

        To me, the hallmark of a leftytarian is a belief in some slice of pomo progressivism that is authoritarian at its core. Whether it’s the whole UBI thing or the collectivist identitarian thing or the bake the cake thing or environmentalism or whatever else, they build their principles over a rotten foundation, and it compromises their entire worldview.

        It’s a completely different dynamic than the internecine squabbles here between the trumpalos, the Jo-alos, and the no-alos.

      • Cancelled

        To me, the hallmark of a leftytarian is a belief in some slice of pomo progressivism that is authoritarian at its core. Whether it’s the whole UBI thing or the collectivist identitarian thing or the bake the cake thing or environmentalism or whatever else, they build their principles over a rotten foundation, and it compromises their entire worldview.

        I largely agree, but still think they belong in our tent right up till the point where “I am not going to fight for your right not to bake the cake because I think it is wrong” turns into “I support a law forcing you to bake the cake” which I don’t think ENB and the Jacket quite did. I recall a lot of “This is a stupid purity test you yokels want to apply to Gary, yes of course in a perfect world we don’t have forced association, but really this is such a fringe issue we would be fools to support some bigot and piss off the world” I do not recall overt support for the law. Maybe it is a fine line, but I don’t see how libertarians can avoid riding those fine lines, because they are the core of the whole matter.

        There is NEVER going to be a big group that agrees with me on all the Xs and Ys in my “You should do X; you should not do Y, but I have no right to make you do X or stop you from doing Y” philosophy. There might someday be a significant group that agrees with the part following the but.

      • Chipwooder

        Who needs overt support for the law when they can just not defend freedom of association when they find it inconvenient?

      • Cancelled

        Let me try one last time to explain what I am saying in a way that maybe won’t immediately drum up opposition. ENB was doing something despicable when she expressed her desire that the Ron Paul supporters get out of libertarianism. What she was doing was excluding liberty loving people from the liberty movement because she found some of them icky. Maybe, we should not do the same thing she just did?

      • leon

        Maybe, we should not do the same thing she just did?

        Jarflax doesn’t want infighting. He must not be a real libertarian.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        What she was doing was excluding liberty loving people from the liberty movement because she found some of them icky.

        Here’s the difference. I’m not excluding her because I find her icky. I’m excluding her because I find her “liberty loving” bona fides questionable, at best.

        We’re never going to avoid the mess that is drawing a line, and I think you’re right about the humility required when drawing such a line.

        That said, just because the line is fuzzy doesn’t mean that we can’t exclude people way on the wrong side of the line. IMO, ENB isnt particularly close to the line.

      • PieInTheSky

        To many libertarians on all sides are holier than though and more interested to perform their libertarianism than in actual liberty.

      • Not Adahn

        She does not stop being libertarian until she says, “Oh if liberty won’t produce perfect equality then screw liberty”

        But… isn’t that what she’s said multiple times? Maybe not in blanket form, but has she EVER sided with liberty over SJ orthodoxy?

        Honestly, the thing that made me lose respect for her is her chickening out on being a whore.

      • PieInTheSky

        Honestly, the thing that made me lose respect for her is her chickening out on being a whore. – well she did at least try…

      • Chipwooder

        Gonna have to go ahead and disagree with ya there – ENB is a prog who shares a few beliefs with libertarians, not vice-versa.

      • Cancelled

        As long as the few beliefs includes believing in the NAP, or the concept of negative rights, or the concept of self ownership, she is still in the tent. I am not standing up for ENB telling Paul supporters to go away here guys. I am saying we should not do what she just did! We have a political philosophy whose sole tenet is “We want people to run their own lives” and yet we are hated by half the population and viewed as a complete joke by 90% of the other half. Why is that? Could it be that we excommunicate each other over every disagreement more significant than pizza toppings?

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        “We want people to run their own lives” and yet we are hated by half the population and viewed as a complete joke by 90% of the other half. Why is that?

        For the same reason that the Silver/Golden Rule/NAP is written down in almost every religious tradition. People, by nature, are ego driven, self-centered to a fault, and craven. Without the authority of the supernatural behind it, almost nobody is going to follow such an edict. The fact that a small group of (mostly atheist) people happened to apply the edict in a political sense is a minor miracle and is largely driven by the last gasp of a dying philosophy and a general incapability to conquer a modern community/society without pre-established connections to power.

    • creech

      Pie, I used to recommend TOS to budding libertarians. Then they got an look at Agile Cyborg, and some of the crazed commie-sucking trolls, and backpedaled from libertarianism. As you say, the comment section “works massively against them.”

  14. Brawndo

    My wife was curious why I plan to vote for Trump (I normally vote for the LP candidate) and I had to think about it for a bit. There’s a really deep dysfunction in our government and institutions and Trump’s overtly hostility to the forces that have taken them over is refreshing to see and I’m hopeful that he can roll back a lot of the power, at least in DC, and make the media realize that being as biased as they are isn’t good for business. As far as supporting Trump over Jo, I mentioned that my standards for the LP candidate is higher than a mainstream candidate, and she doesn’t measure up.

    • robc

      Jo didnt destroy the USFL.

    • PieInTheSky

      I’m hopeful that he can roll back a lot of the power, at least in DC, – that is a lotta hope

      • Brawndo

        We just had our first kid. I have to be optimistic

      • juris imprudent

        I was wondering what spurred that delusion.

        I tend to agree with you that 4 more years of Trump disrupting the status quo is highly preferable to the snap-back sure to follow a Biden victory. But I’m not at all optimistic that even an additional term will turn that tide, particularly given where the Republican party stands today. If I really want to hope for something it is that 4 more years of Trump would cause the death of both current parties and the emergence of new ones – but that’s more a delusion than a reality.

    • straffinrun

      My 11 year old daughter loves Trump for some reason. We never talk politics per se and she says out of the blue the other day, “I hope Trump Kun (Kun is friendly ending you put at the end of boy’s name) wins. I don’t like that Baiden man.”

      • Tejicano

        Kids have a rather effective BS meter. Trump my bloviate but he’s gonna back up what he says is he can. Biden is a pure, canned puppet.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Now I’m picturing Trump as dressed in a schoolboy uniform. With an aide carrying the nuclear randoresu.

      • straffinrun

        That is unexpectedly easy to imagine.

      • l0b0t

        Sigh… my 11 year old daughter is blissfully apolitical, but has my love of musical theater. She has been watching that damnable Hamilton every day for weeks and serenades us with its numbers at every opportunity.

      • R C Dean

        I don’t like that Baiden man.

        I think its her pervdar going off, myself. Good for her.

    • Drake

      His magic power so far has been exposing the corruption. The deep state and now the Biden crime family have been exposed. Red-pills are being swallowed in record numbers. I don’t know if it is possible to roll it back without Pinochet style helicopter rides.

  15. Count Potato

    Good morning, Banjos

    • leon

      Ok.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sure, whatever you say man.

    • juris imprudent

      Sure, I can see Muslims not believing in an all-powerful state, because they still believe in an all-powerful God.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        I mean, couldn’t you say the same thing about the West? We also have no True Libertarian State (other than a few seasteds that no one knows about)? We have a long history of theocracy that ebs and flows, but has at high water-marks, you know, burned people at the stake, organized pan-national empires multiple times, etc. And yet, we have anarchist thinkers, some who are devout and some who are not.

        I think you are confusing the average stereotype of that culture to the average anarchists from that culture. Doesn’t matter what civilization you are looking at, those people are going to be very different.

      • juris imprudent

        Culture/civilization is very much the point. Sure the West had it’s religious barbarism, and then it had the Enlightenment (and may be in the process of an Endarkenment). Both politics and economics are very much dependent on the foundation of culture.

        A portion of our Right today sees the secularization as a problem, and it is hard to not agree. Except of course that if religion was the answer, then why did it fail in the first place? Liberty, she can be a bitch. Same with capitalism – creative destruction is an unforgiving mistress, and if you worship at the altar of the free market, you may just be missing the forest for the trees.

      • UnCivilServant

        Clearly if you let heretics take over, things stop working correctly.

        /The answer to every failure, change noun as needed.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Clearly if you let heretics take over, iPhones stop working correctly.

        *scratches head*

      • UnCivilServant

        They do not offer the correct deferrence to appease the machine spirit.

      • PieInTheSky

        theocracy was weaker in the west though… especially in the last 1000 years or so

      • Cancelled

        The renaissance and enlightenment followed the reformation and counter reformation. This is not a coincidence.

  16. Old Man With Candy

    Something is going to happen.

    Something wonderful.

    • leon

      AZ is going to seize all tin cans?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Jupiter exploding would be just about par for the course this year.

      • Tundra

        No, this year it would definitely be Uranus.

      • leon

        Just finally kicks off fusion in the core and we all burn up in the light of two suns?

    • straffinrun

      It’s about time for some Ying cuz people been yanking my Yang all year.

      • leon

        Andrew dropped off a laptop at your repair shop?

      • Tejicano

        I’m not even sure what “ying” is but I’d order a pallet of that delivered to my door just based o this comment.

      • straffinrun

        Black or white, but I’m not sure which is which. It’s like the difference between a Panda’s front hole and it’s back hole.

      • Tejicano

        *HM signal lit

    • Chipwooder

      McRib is coming back?

      • straffinrun

        God is gonna make a female Ronald McDonald? Bet it still tastes like ass.

    • Cancelled

      Biden is going to implement a nationwide 6 year old age of consent?

      • db

        As if politicians like Biden even understand that other people consenting is even a concern.

    • PieInTheSky

      SO I was right in the previous post comments? Hunter Biden guest post for Glibertarians?

    • bacon-magic

      You’ve obtained the map to Wonderland and you’re gonna rodger Peter Pan and the Lost Boys and pound Tinkerbell?

  17. Mojeaux the Melancholy

    Good morning Banjos, everybody.

    Who knew there was an 8 o’clock in the MORNING?! I’m blown away by this fact.

    It snowed last night and I find myself in the opthalmology dept for XY because I’m a bad mommy and haven’t brought him to get glasses in 2 years, most of which I have been obsessed with trying to get XX to be able to see with glasses since she refuses to use contact lenses. Totally forgot about XY till he got mad. Oops.

    I have snoozed numerous friends and family members on FB over their political rantings. I jave no family members vocally supporting Trump on FB even though I KNOW they are going to vote for him.

    I don’t say anything because I’m whoring books but further, because I just don’t want any drama. My style is to give bullet-point lists of pros and cons, but I can’t say a positive word about Trump or a negative word about Biden without being beset by all these political hornets.

    Went to Lowes yesterday sans mask. Nobody said a word, but I notice I didn’t look a single person in the eye. It’s the only way to communicate silently since we can’t see each other’s noses and mouths. What a fascinating phenomenon, taking away people’s mouths.

      • UnCivilServant

        Is an S-mile related to the Canadian K-mile?

        I don’t understand.

    • Tejicano

      Don’t even feel anything negative about the boy’s eyeglasses. A hundred years ago – a blink of the eye – he would have been one of eight and lucky to have shoes in the most advanced societies of the age. You should know this better than most. I can name a list of countries where that still applies. Material shyte is shyte. Love and food is real.

      • Tejicano

        Food…

        It has become tradition in our house that I always bake a cake for our kids’ birthdays. Saturday was the oldest’s birthday so, of course, I baked a cake. Yesterday he came home from baseball practice and before I saw it he had 1/4 of the cake on a plate and was wolfing it down. I felt like I’d covered both bases (love and food).

      • Mojeaux the Meandering

        When I can be arsed to cook, I do so for XY. He loves my cooking and he has favorite dishes. I don’t very often because he can suck down a stock pot of spaghetti sauce in about 24 hours. XX doesn’t like anything I make unless I’m baking. My husband likes my choco chip cookies, but I do not care for them, especially the way he likes them. XX and I like lemon sugar cookies. No such thing as too much lemon.

      • l0b0t

        When I was wee, we would take the Greyhound bus up to Sebring to visit my great-grandparents. Nanny Karnes would always make chicken and dumplings (from a chicken in the backyard) and Papa Karnes would sit for hours out on the front porch, churning lemon ice cream from their lemon trees. You are correct; there is no such thing as too much lemon.

        Now I want a Limoncello and cranberry juice.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      I have snoozed numerous friends and family members on FB over their political rantings. I jave no family members vocally supporting Trump on FB even though I KNOW they are going to vote for him.

      Wife has noticed this, too. A lot of suburban women (supposed boon for Biden) are shutting the hell up and letting their ballots do the talking. Why? Because they watch decent people getting shit on all across social media for daring to be right of Lenin.

      • The Other Kevin

        That’s exactly how Mrs. TOK knew Trump was going to win last time. The anti-Trumpers were all over FB, but a lot of people were very quiet, and she assumed (correctly) that those were Trump voters. I can’t imagine it being much different this time.

  18. db

    Barrett to most likely be confirmed by tonight.

    If I knew who was the current host of The Tonight Show, or even if it was still on the air (is “the air” still a thing?), I’d make some sort of joke about it.

    • leon

      It went down hill after Jay left the first time.

      Anyway. I’m sure that Feinstein will announce that she has a letter from a high school friend of Barretts that purports that Barrett actually pimped her out in High School.

  19. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    I was looking through the archives and came across this gem from January. I’m like a nostrildomus or something.

    Jenine Slater-Bouffant, epidemiologist at the CDC, fears that a full blown pandemic may sweep through the libertarian population

    Still, the CDC is taking this seriously. They have lent their expertise to the FDA to craft a regulation banning reusable e-cigarette cartridges. If all goes as planned, the regulation will be enforced starting in July. Slater-Bouffant confidently predicts that this regulation will reduce libertarian shadenfreude deaths by 50% by 2028.

    • leon

      Heh. It seems like 50% wasn’t enough, and so they urged the Governors to assume dictatorial powers in order to stop all shadenfreude related libertarian deaths.

  20. Scruffy Nerfherder

    We all saw that. I could feel the panic brewing amongst the commentariat.

    • straffinrun

      As usual, I’m clueless.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        STEVE SMITH made a special morning post for just a moment and created an existential decision for those who saw it. Do I comment on the new post when the morning links are still going strong? This is highly irregular!

    • leon

      Damnit i blinked!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Their need to be loved is palpable.

      • straffinrun

        Some of the state govts are going hog wild stripping people of basic human rights and they are focused on Trump not pantshitting. Very libertarian of Reason.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Like I said upthread, they should just give up the pretense and jointly collaborate with Niskanen. They have a strong predilection for libertine technocracy.

    • The Other Kevin

      “businesses don’t fear Biden presidency”
      Probably because the only ones left are in bed with Big Brother.

    • leon

      “Nonchalance AKA laissez-faire”

      Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

    • WTF

      And to think I actually used to donate to those assholes.

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      The Libertarian Case for Putting Boots on the Necks of Yucky People.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Q!

      I was afraid you had been smothered to death by a pair of giant bazoongas at the strip joint.

    • Cancelled

      hey Q!

    • The Other Kevin

      Welcome back! I hope your time away was well spent, maybe learning some Dr. Strange powers in Tibet.

    • leon

      When is “q” due?

      • Cancelled

        I am still voting for “u”, because in English it is an absolute rule that u must always follow Q!

      • UnCivilServant

        that gets too confusing.

      • Q Continuum

        q is officially q-ette and will be arriving on the scene sometime in February.

      • straffinrun

        My daughter is entering training bra time. It’s kind of a weird time for geezers like us to be papas. Enjoy.

      • Tejicano

        I believe this is why, at least as far as empirical evidence can show, I am incapable of producing Y-chromosomes.

      • Tundra

        Awesome. Congrats to you and mama.

        Oh, and it’s not nearly as scary as it appears.

    • WTF

      Hey Q, welcome back!

    • straffinrun

      The continuum continues after this brief message. The Q lives.

    • Tundra

      All is right with the world.

      Welcome back, Q.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Good to see your ugly mug Q!

  21. limey

    My father, sometimes, gives the appearance of being an intelligent and reasonable man, but increasingly, on any vaguely political topic, he is just a smug, dishonest, spittle-flecked mouthpiece for Guardian talking points on any topic. What’s worse than that, is that upon any pushback,he reflexively assumes I’m arguing for whatever he’s railing against, for instance, he argues against some private sector hire to oversee some new govt bureaucracy by rehashing the curated narrative built from a carefully selected representation of their career. If I poke any holes in the argument or suggest it’s dishonest, then I’m treated as some sort of brain-dead champion of cronyism, instead of someone who might well agree. Anyway, the latest absolutely shameful episode of his reduction to elitist, intransigent lefty, is his wholesale acceptance and defense of the narrative about the ACB confirmation, and how the Democrats have never rushed through a confirmation before an impending election, or apparently ever done anything beyond reproach in their pursuit of an activist judiciary at the highest court in the land. That’s something else which I find utterly mendacious and intolerably stupid; the fact that, all the MSM/Guardian reporting on SCOTUS picks (with which he largely concurs) has absolutely no principled position for or against an activist judiciary. When the nazgul are legislating from the bench in their favor, it’s all very wise and solemn and respectable and anyone who disagrees must be too stupid to understand the profound legal wisdom of the opinion, but whenever a decision isn’t helpful to their egregious agenda, it’s all a big tantrum and the quivering voices, in their carefully practised tone of fanatical urgency, decrying the politicization of the courts and how the VRWC/evil Republicans are conspiring to take every blessed right under the sun.

    I suppose this is something that may have been relevant in SPs post about parents, but I really am absolutely the black sheep of the family. I really do need to try keeping things in perspective and think about all the positive things about my dad. He’s a good person, just another victim of the particular, more general derangement that runs somewhat parallel in symptoms to TDS.

    • limey

      Ps – mornin’ Banjos
      Pps – I think I need some more covfefe

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      False choices reign supreme.

    • straffinrun

      When someone is so chock full o left wing nuts, you really can’t try to unravel the Gordian knot their brain is wrapped in. Maybe try solely focusing on principle? For example, “I know you don’t think we should eliminate the min wage at this time and place, but in theory would you agree that there shouldn’t be one?”

      • Tejicano

        I never even tried with my dad. He was probably top 1% in terms of intellectual capacity but had spent too many years living in the leftist hive mind.

        I loved him for the man and father he had been for me.

        Everybody lives in the age they were born in. There’s no shame in that

      • limey

        I think that’s what I’m trying to come to terms with. I do, to some extent, understand him as a product of his generation, the post-war “consensus” politics, and “municipal socialism” he grew up in, and the public service to which he dedicated his entire working life to, in good faith, even when politics was making it very difficult.

        The mechanisms through which “news” is disseminated, and through which facts are “verified” has changed at an unprecedented rate, and this seems to have left certain people unwilling to accept that they know much less about the effects of this than they claim (2016 anyone?). I think he’s very much in that camp. He was, and is, absolutely adamant about the Russian “collusion” in 2016, yet when I pressed him on the evidence he’d never even heard of Christopher Steele. It’s a bizarre absurdity that the established narrative is still one of Putin working to install Trump, rather than Putin working generally to foment discord and rancor in the US electorate, but one in which there has begun a gradual shift, and a moving of the goalposts, with certain things predictably memory holed. Hey, at least he’s not as outright awful as my sister.

      • Tejicano

        So basically, if/when my father talked politics I would smile and nod. Let him make his point and change the subject. I wasn’t going to change his opinion so there was no reason to try.

        There’s a lot more to life than politics.

      • limey

        You are very wise.

      • Apples and Knives

        That’s my method for discussing politics with my mother, although she makes it difficult sometimes by INSISTING on knowing what I think about something. My dad on the other hand, while still a liberal, only likes to talk about sports, food and family history. You can guess whose calls I look forward to more.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I do, to some extent, understand him as a product of his generation

        A while back, I was talking with my grandparents (b. early 1940s) about the media and I had to stop at one point and say “you have to see it from my eyes for a second. I have a vague recollection of the night vision shots from Desert Storm, but my first fully formed political memory is of Bill Clinton’s impeachment. My formative years involved watching the media using W as a punching bag and turning a 180 when Obama took office. I can’t conceive of a trustworthy, unbiased media. I can’t conceive of politics as anything other than deeply cynical.”

      • leon

        ^^^ This, except i’d say my first really formed political memory would be the election of Bush and the “Recount”-paloza.

  22. The Other Kevin

    Looks like 2020 is the year of the red pill. The media was already highly untrusted, but they just keep throwing away any credibility they had, and making themselves into more of a joke. The same thing with the FBI. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and if someone is already skeptical, things like this laptop business just pushes them over the edge. Some of my friends who have switched to Trump name the biased media as a big reason.

    In COVID news, my youngest starts online learning today, for the next 2 weeks. There has been an increase in cases at her high school, so they’re taking a pause. I am happy that they made it 10 weeks, and she was able to finish her entire volleyball season (though some games were cancelled due to other schools not having sports).

    Does the NY Post usually endorse Republicans, or is this something noteworthy?

    • WTF

      The NY Post usually endorses Republicans, so not really a shocker.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Somebody should ask her to define libertarian feminism. Are we talking first, second, third, or whatever the hell wave it is now feminism?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And how specifically does libertarian feminism distinguish itself from libertarianism?

      • juris imprudent

        Utterly abandoning the concept of being an individual with agency?

    • leon

      “But she calls herself the “Red-Headed” libertarian. Clearly she is too stupid to see that that is Identity Politics.”_

      Literally almost half of the responses. “Serious Libertarians”TM are some of the most obtuse, stupidest, motherfuckers out there. No wonder everyone constantly laughs at the LP.

    • AlexinCT

      Liberterians for marxism kinda doesn’t come across as anything liberterian to me..

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yet, believable that such a grouping now exists.

      • Tejicano

        How do you make a container to hold a quantity of anti-matter?

      • UnCivilServant

        You use a magnetic bottle.

    • straffinrun

      I want proof, an exhaustive list that weighs all relevant factors, that women indeed have a rougher time of it in the US in 2020.

      • leon

        That’s impossible, but what i can do is present a list of cherypicked facts that may or may not be accurate and use those and exclude any others as “crypto-sexisim”.

        Mentioning Family law is misogyny.

      • AlexinCT

        They don’t but there is a large percentage of them that like the victimhood thing because it allows them to have it both ways. and that is what they really want.

      • PieInTheSky

        they really don’t I would say

    • Chipwooder

      Good lord she is fucking repulsive

  23. straffinrun

    I’m finally digging into Michael Malice’s The New Right and I’m loving it. Just finished Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds and it’s written in a similar manner to Malice’s book, but Malice has his filled with a lot more historical background whereas Murray’s is filled with stuff that we’ve covered here already over the years. Murray section on the LGBT+ movement was fantastic, though. Maybe do a write up and compare them together?

    • leon

      That would be a really good write up. I loved “The New Right”, and look forward to Malices next book.

      • straffinrun

        I’d love to hear more about how it resonated with you and then work that in a write up. Have you read “Madness”?

      • leon

        I haven’t but now its on my list.

        As for what i liked about the New Right i found it very interesting to see the different levels and groups. It also gave me a lot of optimisim against the Left, who had been used to winning all the time and “being the cool” guys. I’m not sure i follow all of his argument, but i think Michael has a point that when you push someone into the fringes of society, you eventually cause them to become cultural trend setters, everyone else is just the square doing what they were always told.

        It’s hard not to catch some of the optimism from Malice.

      • straffinrun

        Interesting because Murray comes to a somewhat similar conclusion. He says that the left has embraced nonsense and gibberish to such a degree that nobody is going to continue listening to them. You can only listen to pure nonsense for so long. Eventually, people will start building things again instead of deconstructing everything.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Peak Derp is unattainable, no matter how hard the Atlantic might try

    The Third Amendment might actually breathe new, constitutional life into what Ibram X. Kendi has labeled “freedom from infection.”

    ——-

    Yet if the Third Amendment may have something to do with a right to be free from infection, what exactly is that right? Construed most narrowly, the amendment might merely imply a right to be free from having a specific category of people who might carry diseases forcibly pushed into one’s house without consent. But broader interpretations are possible. The amendment could be interpreted to include other governmental actors, and house could be understood expansively. The broadest interpretation might recognize a general right to be free from being forced to come into close contact with diseases. Since the Founders’ world looked tremendously different from our world today, the question is where to draw the line: how much to limit the amendment to a narrow interpretation of its text and how much to prioritize the broader rationales at its foundation.

    Freedom from infection. You just have to squint a little.

    It’s not a suicide pact, you know.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ugh, I had almost forgotten about that postmodern intellectual monstrosity of an article.

    • leon

      But broader interpretations are possible.

      Progressivism, where you pick an choose lenses to get as broad or narrow interpretations as you need.

      That being said, there is no lense that can get “You have a right to not get sick” from “Troops shall not be quartered in your house against your will during peacetime”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Ginsburg would have tried to find it.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Keeping other govt actors out, sure, but I don’t think viruses and bacteria are going to pay much attention to Supreme Court rulings or Byzantine interpretations of law.

      • leon

        You’re Negative view of human rights is oppresive. You deny that people have rights to Life (in whatever kind of house they want?), Liberty (from being oppressed by having to work) and Property ( of other people)?

      • Plinker762

        The 3rd requires the government to weld everyone into their housing to keep the bad bugs away.

      • Gustave Lytton

        You can’t quarter troops if they can’t get in. It’s for the protection of your rights.

    • Count Potato

      OFFS!!

    • R C Dean

      if the Third Amendment may have something to do with a right to be free from infection

      It doesn’t, so everything that follows is fallacious.

      There, I “engaged” with this proposal.

  25. Count Potato

    “Exclusive: I interviewed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on school reopenings, Title IX reform, and why her Cabinet department probably shouldn’t exist at all.”

    https://twitter.com/robbysoave/status/1320367925757399046

    At least something good at TOS

    • leon

      Robby gets/got a lot of shit, but i always kinda liked him.

      • kinnath

        Robby writes stories that are going the right way only to be totally derailed by a single “to be sure” at the end.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That puts his stuff ahead of 90% of the articles on that site these days.

      • kinnath

        Tallest midget.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Robby at some point realized They weren’t going to Love Him no matter how many equivocations he wrote. Its nice to see little boys grow a bit.

      • Chipwooder

        Yes. He’s definitely come a long way.

      • straffinrun

        A long way on flat tire. Gonna ruin his rims. 😉

    • Raven Nation

      FWIW: I still subscribe to the magazine (although I don’t give extra during the annual fund-raiser) and their iTunes/podcast feeds.

      The mag still has some really good articles every issue. The video feed is mostly good and The Jacket has some great interviews on the Reason Interview feed. I don’t visit the website much because I don’t have time to both Glib & Reason.

      Point being…well, not sure I have a point, but I do think Reason still puts out some really good stuff (as does CATO when they get away from their TDS moments).

  26. Rebel Scum

    Barrett to most likely be confirmed by tonight.

    Excellent.

  27. Rebel Scum

    The New York Post endorses President Donald J. Trump for re-election

    They are clearly carrying water for the campaign. There is no equivalent on the left. – Brian Stelter

    • Tejicano

      “They are clearly carrying water for the campaign. There is no equivalent on the left. – Brian Stelter”

      That is spectacular. I have no other word for that. Ostriches must be jealous.

  28. Rebel Scum

    Trump supporters crashing Biden’s Saturday rally.

    If the Trumpsters didn’t show up no one would.

    • db

      Trump ought to tweet out that he’s happy to lend out his supporters to show up at Biden’s rallies as a cross-aisle gesture of bipartisanship.

      • Sean

        LOL. That would trigger some folks.

  29. Rebel Scum

    Confirmed influenza cases hit rock-bottom, puzzling infectious disease experts

    The flu has been everywhere. We just call it covid-19 this year.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The reimbursement rate for influenza is negligible compared to a CLI (COVID Like Infection). That’s all the explanation you need,

      • juris imprudent

        Incentives – how do they fuckin’ work?

  30. Count Potato

    “Donald Trump has mocked ‘Sleepy’ Joe Biden for forgetting who was president after the Democrat candidate said ‘we need to stop four more years of George.’

    Biden was last night addressing a virtual concert when he said: ‘Four more years of George, er, George, er, he – we’re going to find ourselves in a position where, if Trump gets elected, we’re going to be in a different world.’

    The 77-year-old appeared to receive a prompt from his wife Jill who was sitting beside him, muttering ‘Trump’ under her breath.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8878991/Joe-Biden-appears-confuse-Trump-Bush-calls-president-George-virtual-rally.html

    • leon

      Its pretty bad when you cant remember who you are running against

      • Chipwooder

        Or the office you’re running for, since he has repeatedly said that he’s running for Senator.

        I don’t know what drugs they’re shooting him up with for the debates because, while he’s still kinda meandering, he’s far more coherent there than in virtually any of his other speaking appearances. He constantly gets lost in his own words, makes incredibly obvious mistakes, forgets what he’s talking about, etc.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Especially since your opponent is an existential threat to the Republic. And their names aren’t even close. I could forgive him fucking up Saruman and Sauron. But Trump and Bush?

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Murray comes to a somewhat similar conclusion. He says that the left has embraced nonsense and gibberish to such a degree that nobody is going to continue listening to them. You can only listen to pure nonsense for so long. Eventually, people will start building things again instead of deconstructing everything.

    I WANT TO BELIEVE

    …but the evidence points in the other direction.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Unfortunately, yes. Our institutions of higher education have fully embraced and intellectualized the nonsense.

    • straffinrun

      The tower of Babel never reached heaven. Fucking Muslim highjackers.

    • leon

      Well we’ll air the FULLEST INTERVIEW EVER!

      Also, exhibit 1038294829103857392, that journalists are the most entitled people in our culture.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Demi Rose’s “eye popping assets”

    Partially true: Looking at her mammoth ass makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

    • PieInTheSky

      Ms Hansen, who moved to the Gold Coast as a “sweet innocent” 18-year-old, worked as a safety officer for a mining company before moving into the adult industry. – weird trajectory

    • Count Potato

      “She was charged with two counts of possessing dangerous drugs after being allegedly caught taking narcotics in bugged footage at the party at The Star penthouse on July 27.”

      Story doesn’t match headline.

      “”It has been a targeted witch-hunt and a lot of it has been unnecessary … the way they have worded it and released it to the media as an alleged drug trafficking ring is completely false,” she told The Courier-Mail.”

  33. Rebel Scum

    I was late this morning because, as usual, there is another ‘thing’ that I have to deal with on a Monday. I noticed a bad spot in the ceiling in my bedroom and poked it. Finger went straight through. So that’s going to be fun to deal with. Get to the office and everyone is listening to the cfo. Apparently someone else “tested positive*” for the commie-cough and the company is being super serial about masks now. I still don’t wear one and I have a perfectly legit reason not to (can’t breathe, sinus issues) but I do hope they do not force the issue.

    *which doesn’t mean much to me because I am not a moron.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    When the overall death rate plummets next year, due to all the deaths pulled forward by the Trumputinous Plague, will Joe Biden be hailed as the greatest boon to mankind since penicillin?

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      The waters deaths will recede and the planet infirm will begin healing.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    I’m about ready to declare myself a victim of PTSD who is unable to wear a mask, due to a potentially violent reaction. Prove I’m not.

    • Rebel Scum

      “Does this mask smell like chloroform?”

    • Pope Jimbo

      This weekend I was in the local super market looking for some pub buns for dinner. They weren’t out in the normal spot so I walked over to the bakery to ask if they still had some in the back.

      The three old lady bakers were at least 20 feet away and couldn’t hear my question, so I pulled my mask down and asked them. None of those three ladies had any issues with me. While they were telling me no that they didn’t have any buns in the back, some 30 something manager type ran over and started yelling at me to put my mask up.

      I told her that with the masks the other bakers and I couldn’t hear each other. Manager Gal got really hot and said I had to pull up the mask. So I did and then asked her about the buns. When she tried telling me that there weren’t any, I kept telling her that I couldn’t hear her and could she speak up. I asked her about three times to repeat herself but more loudly. The other bakers were all laughing, so I think they weren’t big fans of Manager Gal either.

      Manager Gal finally huffed that I had heard her and stormed off. I shared an eye roll with the rest of the bakers and went on with my day. I was really tempted though to take my mask off and claim the medical exemption when Manager Gal was going into her act.

    • Mojeaux the Meandering

      Just went into Walmart sans mask. I feel weird doing this, but I think I’m going to continue. Damn near suffocated at the doc office.

      • UnCivilServant

        I have a doctor’s note that says I shouldn’t wear a mask.

        Of course, that means nothing, as I don’t believe there are any exceptions in the illegal order for NY.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Its pretty bad when you cant remember who you are running against

    If you’ve run against one Nazi, you’ve run against them all.”

  37. straffinrun

    Here’s a pointless, off politics topic. Khabib won his UFC match against Gaethje this weekend and many people in the sport are calling him the greatest fighter to ever live. Now, I don’t mind calling him the pound for pound greatest, but, sorry, if there are guys in heavier weight classes that would mop the floor with you if you were to fight, you aren’t the GOAT. I’d say the same for boxing: the GOAT has to be the heavyweight. Saying otherwise is like saying Iverson was the greatest NBA player of all time. Nope.

    • The Hyperbole

      Huh, I didn’t know they had weight classes in UFC, I remember way back when Royce Gracie was dominating he fought guys twice his size.

      • straffinrun

        Thank you. Exactly. Once people started really working BJJ into their arsenals, you couldn’t have 250 pounders fighting 170 pounders. Those days are over. The heavy weights would destroy them.

      • The Hyperbole

        I haven’t followed it in years, but when they changed the rules and would separate the fighters if they were on the ground too long it kind of ended it for the pure grapplers, sure it was boring at times but that was their edge – tire the big guy out and slowly work one of his limbs into position so you can force a submission.

      • straffinrun

        It’s evolved since then. For example, Adesanya at 185 is basically a pure kick boxer and is dominating his division. Khabib is grappler. The HW champ, Miocic, is a basically a boxer that can wrestle, but usually just boxes and low kicks. It’s really entertaining now because there are many ways to win your division, but you have to have the basics at least in all disciplines.

  38. Rebel Scum

    Venezuelan missile crisis.

    The United States is warning it will destroy potential Iranian long-range missile shipments delivered to the Maduro regime in Venezuela, a senior administration official tells Fox News.

    “The transfer of long-range missiles from Iran to Venezuela is not acceptable to the United States and will not be tolerated or permitted,” said Elliott Abrams, the State Department Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela.

    “We will make every effort to stop shipments of long-range missiles, and if somehow they get to Venezuela they will be eliminated there,” added a senior administration official.

    • PieInTheSky

      US should just completly ignore Venezuela it is better for all that way

  39. The Late P Brooks

    “The transfer of long-range missiles from Iran to Venezuela is not acceptable to the United States and will not be tolerated or permitted,” said Elliott Abrams, the State Department Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela.

    “We will make every effort to stop shipments of long-range missiles, and if somehow they get to Venezuela they will be eliminated there,” added a senior administration official.

    President Biden and Secty of State Clinton will offer to buy them from the Venezuelans, at a handsome profit. Less commissions and consulting fees., of course.

  40. Pope Jimbo

    Read something interesting this weekend. Can’t remember where exactly, but the person asked how you would view the race if you hadn’t been bombarded with polls telling you that Biden was way ahead.

    Throw out those stories and what would you think? Based on stories of rallies and talking to other people in your life.

    The story I can’t get over is the “rally” that Biden and Harris had in AZ that no one showed up for except a couple reporters. Not one person? That is stunning to me. Any other race and that would have gotten the power brokers to start scrambling to find a way to replace the candidate.

    • creech

      Well, Goldwater had loud and enthusiastic rallies, too, but a lot of good it did him. Driving through the more affluent neighborhoods in my neck of the woods, I’ve never seen so many lawn signs for the Democrats.

      • Pope Jimbo

        There are more Biden signs than there were Hillary signs. There are also a lot more Trump signs than there were last time.

        Like I said, I’m having a hard time believing that Biden is really that far ahead. My tinfoil hat is picking up messages that tell me that the poll stories are fake news to keep Biden supporters somewhat enthused so there is a chance they will show up at the polls.

        If this was a normal year and you had to go to the polls to vote I think Biden would be complete toast. The ability to mail in a ballot might be enough to get his apathetic base to carry the day for him.

      • creech

        Agreed – normal year, no ChiComVirus, Trump coasts. Nor would the Dems have put up sleepy non-entity Joe. They would have gone with some firebrands like Warren and O’Rorke, knowing they had no chance but preparing for 2024. Covid and a “moderate” like Biden gave them hope to fool the voters and sneak Harris in there in a couple years.

      • RAHeinlein

        What part of the country?

        Ironically, I live in a particularly proggie area of Iowa and signs are way down. Hillary signs dotted the yards/major roads for 2-years before and a year after the 2016 election.

      • creech

        Philly suburbs, Main Line McMansion territory.

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      Here is my presidential prediction heuristic ruleset. Its been accurate at least since WWI.

      Rule 1: Nothing is a better predictor of incumbent reelection than the state of the economy, and mitigating circumstances other than war don’t matter.
      Rule 2: There is no rule 2.

      • Pope Jimbo

        That is way too complicated. The only rule I know of that is accurate is:

        1) Who did I vote for? They won’t win.

      • leon

        ^^^ Confirmed Hillary Voter.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    According to multiple headlines, Trump is running a “smear campaign” against the Biden family.

    All those articles about Trump and his kids are strictly on the up and up, though. Nothing but the (regrettable) facts.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I saw something this weekend where Biden was outraged that anyone would bring kids into this campaign. OUTRAGED!

      I didn’t get by the lede of that story, but I’m sure Joe finished up with “My son Beau who died of brain cancer and was a decorated veteran would have been totally disgusted by the use of a kid as a campaign prop”

      • leon

        Biden seems to have skated much of his political career off of the death of his loved ones.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He absolutely has.

        He notoriously slandered the truck driver who was in the accident with his wife as being drunk when there was no evidence of such and IIRC the truck driver was not found at fault for the accident. All so he could have a good anecdote at a MADD gathering.

        He’s a foul human being.

      • Chipwooder

        “Kids”….Hunter Biden is like 50 years old.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Granted, he has the maturity of a thirteen year old boy.

        The infantilization of grown children is a very modern thing.

      • Rebel Scum

        Biden was outraged that anyone would bring kids into this campaign

        His adult child…

        But anything said about Baron Trump is totally fine.

    • leon

      Whycome people don’t trust us? Must be Trump spreading Fascist hate!

  42. The Late P Brooks

    The story I can’t get over is the “rally” that Biden and Harris had in AZ that no one showed up for except a couple reporters.

    [insert Pee Wee Herman “I meant to do that” clip]

  43. Rebel Scum

    Hope for our English cousins?

    Thousands of protesters descended on the British capital on Saturday to call for an end to coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions on businesses in the UK, which they described as a form of “tyranny”.

    In a Breitbart London exclusive video, protesters were seen singing: “I would rather be a human than a slave”, “We are the 99 per cent”, and “You can shove your New World Order up your ass”.

    The ‘Stop the New Normal’ march was organised by the anti-lockdown activist group Stand Up X and was one of the largest rallies against the government’s coronavirus restrictions since the beginning of the lockdowns in March.

    • leon

      Crazy Q-Annon Conspiracy Theorists!

      Also did you hear that Russia is once again meddling in US elections by releasing those laptops?

      • limey

        RRRUUUUSSSSSIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!1!1!1!11¹@@@@@@@@@###1$$$¢¥¢{

    • limey

      As a demoralised person I am sceptical that this will ever achieve anything more than giving Channel 4 news a few carefully selected vox pops to run as evidence that these people are all crazy/q anon/racist/whatever. It’s like with the protests in MI, where whichever MSM report on it I saw went straight to the ultra weird basement-dweller with the Pepe flag for an interview. To be fair, even he was perfectly reasonable in what he said, so excuse my snobbery when it comes to internet kooks.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Instead of getting depressed, you could work on improving yourself.

        For example, you could work on your spelling. Skeptical? No, learn how to use the letter ‘k’ properly (and remove unneeded ‘u’s ) and you will feel much better about yourself!

  44. Pope Jimbo

    I saw yesterday that TTyrant’s gal was going to make an honest man of him. I was disappointed in Tundra and the rest of you for not telling him that the perfect wedding venue for them would be Honey Harvest 2021.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Also cool would be some Glibette birthing a Glibaby at the Honey Harvest. Instead of one of those trendy water births, the tiny Glib could be dropped right into the tub of honey.

      • Tundra

        You have odd kinks, Holiness.

        Besides, I’m not sure placenta-essenced honey is gonna sell.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I think it is gonna sell for even more than before. Fourscore’s old clients were rubes who bought it because it was high quality and good.

        Bloody Bee’s Moon Honey will sell to an entirely different demographic. They could care less about quality. They simply want something they can put on their shelf that affirms all their life choices. That sort of reassurance means that he can charge whatever he wants.

  45. Ownbestenemy

    The two teens setup an impromptu ‘homecoming’ get together with their closest friends. They are absolutely done with all this nonsense.

    • straffinrun

      That is one silver lining of all this heavy handed govt: it’s making a bunch of unaware Agorists.

      • UnCivilServant

        stop othering the agoraphobics

      • straffinrun

        Same root word.

      • Cancelled

        So you are saying you are in the market for a laugh?

      • leon

        Would you buy it if he said he only does it for the kicks and giggles?

      • UnCivilServant

        Doesn’t look like this is the Forum for it.

  46. kinnath

    A facebook friend (an acquaintance in real life) posted an meme noting that Theresa Greenfield’s (Dem Senate candidate) advertisements where the most annoying sound in Iowa.

    This friend is a very open Lesbian. So it is weird to see her openly mocking the Dem candidate. She is also, however, a blue collar worker that likes to hunt, fish, and drink beer. She would be a stereotypical 80’s Reagan Democrat if she was a guy.

    Fit that into the election narrative however you see fit.

    • RAHeinlein

      How insensitive to mock a candidate whose husband died – she still drives his Nova once a year!

    • Pope Jimbo

      Glad to hear it!

      It frustrates me to no end that laptops haven’t standardized on a common AC Adapter. I get that batteries may need to differ because of form factors and other requirements, but no reason all AC adapters can’t be the same.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m guessing it’s because they’re balancing cost and charging time for their different batteries.

        Given the voltage and amperage differences of all these bricks…

      • Tundra

        I’m guessing there is awesome markup in replacements.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Is it snowing at your house, Q?

  48. KSuellington

    “Barrett most likely to be confirmed tonight”

    And on Hillary Clinton’s birthday as well. Heh,heh.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Was she birthed? Or hatched?

      • Tundra

        Vomited.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    Like I said, I’m having a hard time believing that Biden is really that far ahead. My tinfoil hat is picking up messages that tell me that the poll stories are fake news to keep Biden supporters somewhat enthused so there is a chance they will show up at the polls.

    That’s pretty much where I am. Biden’s support is highly visible, because his cheerleaders in the media give it plenty of play.

    I think it’s a mile wide, and an inch deep. We’ll know soon enough.

    • R C Dean

      I think the Dem candidates are completely irrelevant in the Presidential election, and that Harris and Biden’s campaigns were smart to understand this and keep their candidates under wraps. This election is solely about Trump. Nobody is really voting for Biden or Harris, they are voting against Big Orange. That’s it.

      If the Hunter story has any value, its that it may upend some people’s naive trust of the DemOp Media and cause them to question all the Trump hate stories they have been bombarded with for 5 years. If they do, then they are less likely to vote against him.

      • leon

        I think the Dem candidates are completely irrelevant in the Presidential election, and that Harris and Biden’s campaigns were smart to understand this and keep their candidates under wraps.

        Exactly. They know that by staying in the basement, the election is just a referendum on Trump, which is their strongest take.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        If the Hunter story has any value, its that it may upend some people’s naive trust of the DemOp Media

        IMO, the bigger value is tearing apart the decent person v. asshole dichotomy that the media has been grooming for months. Biden very much needs to be portrayed as the anti-Trump to capture those voters who care about the superficial aspects of the candidates. Corrupt, power-hungry Biden v. BOM is too close to Corrupt, power-hungry Clinton v. BOM.

      • R C Dean

        True, but the DemOp Media is running interference, and if you don’t leave that bubble, this is Big Orange smearing his opponent’s family.

      • SugarFree

        BOM’s best song is “If You Leave.” Fight me.

  50. PieInTheSky

    My dutchland friend who was covid panicked it starting to look through the stats and noticed for healthy7 people under 50 the risk is basically non existent

  51. cyto

    On the Twitter front, those 10% of users creating 90% of the tweets are not entirely human. in 2016 the press was absolutely giddy about the advantage that Hillary and the dems had in technology. There were several articles in the NYT and elsewhere detailing how they were using sophisticated social media “engagement” companies to push their message out across the internet. They specifically talked about their advantage in the size and scope of messages that they could promote.

    Then they pivoted to blame Russia for a “fake news” meme campaign that managed to engage with 250k people.

    The reason twitter leans so hard left is not just the bubble, it is also the fairly large number of leftist bot armies that are allowed to run free, while real conservative voices are actively suppressed.

    Oh, and the New York Post is still suspended.

  52. cyto

    Yeah, that is a super-weird response. It might be a concern that the investigating team raises, but as you point out, it is trivial to deal with.

    As for the underage girls – how hard is it to contact them and simply ask?

    Cogitate for a moment on the case of Papadopoulos , Look at the great lengths the FBI/CIA went to in order to set him up. Now look at this case…

    Huh, you are handing me a laptop full of incriminating information? Nope, not gonna touch that. I can’t verify the chain of custody.

    #OnlyNutterConspiracyTheoristsBeleiveInTheDeepState