Sunday Morning Relaxed Links

by | Jan 24, 2021 | Daily Links | 174 comments

Other than writing an article that’s overdue, picking up a week’s worth of Wonder Dog shit, mowing the lawn, putting a presentation together for work, cleaning the kitchen from the wreckage that last night’s dinner left behind, and doing a pile of amplifier measurements, I have nothing to do today. It will be totally relaxing.

Birthdays today are a bit wanting… but let’s not ignore a woman who maybe wasn’t so innocent; a guy who was based; Michael Strahan’s spirit animal; a guy who released a record but the spindle hole kept healing up; proof that people have shitty taste in music; Linus Pauling’s nemesis; a woman who kept Roman Polanski from raping young girls and paid the price; a mediocrity who has learned how to play the PBS crowd; a guy who was rather excitable; a complete piece of shit with the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands; a guy who should have played drums for Spinal Tap; and the most brilliant and creative troll of all time.

Next, news.

 

It is now harder to get laid.

 

“We don’t care about the constitution, this is a matter of officer… safety. Or something.”

 

Next time someone tells me, “Team Red isn’t great but at least it’s better than Team Blue,” I’ll remember this. Admittedly they’re all shitheads, but still, what’s the point? Deliberately sinking yourselves?

 

Fake hate crime? I’ll take bets.

 

When you stop giggling at the names “Boncutter”and “Elcock,” perhaps you’ll be amused at this.

 

Hold onto your wallets.

 

Hold onto your wallets.

 

Old Guy Music is a perennial favorite of SP’s and mine. And it has a particular resonance for us now.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

174 Comments

    • limey

      Either that or there isn’t such an entrenched establishment-adjacent propaganda monopoly that labels them white supremacist insurrectionists whenever they question such tyranny.

    • Atanarjuat

      Also just saw on Twitter there are protests in Copenhagen too. I guess they love freedom more than we do.

      Although it says the youths are throwing lit fireworks at the cops and burned down the Covid testing center. It probably helps to know that the police won’t just gun you down in response like they would here (unless it’s temporarily beneficial to the ruling party of course).

    • Chafed

      It looks like the kids want their freedom.

  1. Scruffy Nerfherder

    I think I’m just going to take my wallet out back and give it a mercy killing.

  2. Ted S.

    Hold onto your wallets.

    Money talks, but it don’t sing and dance and it don’t walk.

    • Surly Knott

      Money talks, but mostly it says goodbye.

      • Tres Cool

        Suckers walk
        Money talks
        But it talk touch my Three Lock Box

      • Tres Cool

        damnit….CAN’T touch

        /has another morning-evening beer

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Not clicking. Nope.

  3. The Late P Brooks

    FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the bureau is looking at hate crime as a possible motive but that nothing has been ruled out so early in the investigation.

    Who hates the haters?

  4. Yusef drives a Kia

    3k for kids? I guess we dont fucking count eh?

    • rhywun

      Yeah, fuck that noise. Not that I’m not already paying for everyone else’s kids.

      • Jerms

        Youre paying for my pension, might as well throw in for my 3 kids too. And my wifes student loans. I should be excited about this Biden presidency but ive never been so miserable about the state of our country that i cant even watch 2 minutes of news. I get my news from this place now.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    State detectives visited the gravesite and determined the photo did not depict an actual desecration, according to the bureau.

    It’s the thoughtcrime that counts.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s in poor taste and everyone knows that doesn’t fall under the purview of the 1st amendment which was codified so people can freely talk about the weather.

    • Dr. Chipping Pioneer

      Your rights don’t matter. Politicians, cops, DAs, and judges will interpret them in whatever way suits their preferred outcome.

  6. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Kaku is hilarious when he does his New Age Unitarian Universalist Physics schtick.

    “ But you see, all this is pure mathematics and so the final resolution could be that God is a mathematician. And when you read the mind of God, we actually have a candidate for the mind of God. The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.”

    It’s no wonder he’s popular with the public broadcasting crowd. It’s religion with no strings attached. Pun intended.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      You just, like, blew my fucking mind man.
      *hits bong*

    • Ted S.

      Please can he turn out to be as much of a perv as Jack Horkheimer?

    • KromulentKristen

      But at least he’s not NDT

  7. Stinky Wizzleteats

    My money’s on insurance scam or disgruntled former member.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    I think I’m just going to take my wallet out back and give it a mercy killing.

    Be sure to hang it up so it bleeds out properly.

  9. Cy

    “I have nothing to do today. It will be totally relaxing.”

    Heh. Yeah, I can’t stop being too damn busy. I go to work to get a break.

  10. Cy

    “proof that people have shitty taste in music”

    You cut me deep man.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Cy and OMWC’s love is on the rocks.

      • Ted S.

        You don’t bring them flowers.

      • Cy

        I think he’s just upset because, I’m a believer!

      • KromulentKristen

        Let’s drink some red, red wine & commiserate

      • dbleagle

        OMWC is just making some beautiful noise.

      • KromulentKristen

        Well, if OM can’t give proper respek, he’ll be a solitary man.

  11. rhywun

    Next time someone tells me, “Team Red isn’t great but at least it’s better than Team Blue,” I’ll remember this.

    For those of us who don’t live in Arizona, what’s the sitch with that lot? You have the Team Blue creatures that have a permanent grip on NY if you want.

    • juris imprudent

      Yeah, you don’t exactly see him running back to Bawlmer to show those dirty AZ GOP how rotten they are.

    • rhywun

      ugh – “you CAN have”

    • Atanarjuat

      I find paying close attention to the gaggles of prevaricating swamp creatures exhausting, but I seem to recall TOS writing glowing recommendations for Flake.

    • mrfamous

      The AZ GOP is separated into two equally useless camps: the Joe Arpaio GOP (team Trump) and the Chamber of Commerce GOP (team Ducey, McCain, Flake, McSally, et al). The latter can’t win without the support of the former, but the former can consolidate the opposition like few in the country can. Arpaio is a bigger shithead than any Democrat I can think of. You want a Republican legitimately of a Hitlerian bent, well there he is. I’m guessing he’s gonna live to about 115.

      The Goldwater GOP is long gone.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ?

      • Viking1865

        Well also the CoC/ Establishment/Cuck wing also breaks the rules of coalition politics, both in AZ and nationwide: they refuse to back the GOP candidate when the icky unwashed deplorables choice wins the primary.

        “See, we pulled our funding, wrote opeds about how extreme the candidate was, and publicly endorsed the Democrat and now look what happened, your icky unwashed deplorable candidate lost.”

        The worthless traitor Rockefeller wing of the GOP actually thinks “See when we team up with the Democrats to defeat the bases’s candidates, it proves we should always get to pick the candidates.” is a winning argument.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    If you are a “member” of an organization which you are actively working to undermine, don’t bother to act surprised when you get kicked out.

    Apply as needed.

    • Brawndo

      Or, if you refuse to become a member of an organization, don’t be surprised when they don’t let you play with them. Bernie.

  13. Cy

    “Mexico’s president said Saturday that Biden told him the U.S. would send $4 billion to help development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — nations whose hardships have spawned tides of migration through Mexico toward the United States.”

    Are you trying to get more illegal aliens? Because this is how you get more illegal aliens.

    • Sean

      Incentives, how do they work?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That’s a lot of moolah, you just know the local officials in charge of disbursement are licking their lips.

    • rhywun

      I thought the idea was to pay them there instead of paying them here, until I remembered that all the dough is just going to go into the pockets of grifters and the hordes will be coming here anyway.

  14. Cy

    “Biden has previously said he wants to expand the child tax credit and last week he unveiled a $1.9 trillion proposal that would do so for one year.”

    $1,900,000,000,000 / 330,000,000 = $5757.57 per citizen

    So….. where’s the other $4357.57 going?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      *Hunter grabs his coke spoon *

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Sounds like Hunter has a David Lee Roth circa early ‘80s coke problem.

      • Cy

        Ahem… Problem?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I saw an interview with Van Damme where he admitted to putting about $10k up his nose on a weekly basis in the 90’s.

        That’s fairly impressive.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Ugh, being around a coked up high strung egomaniacal martial arts expert must have been mighty unpleasant.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        According to Stallone, Seagal kept shit-talking about Van Damme and how he could kick his ass until a party where both of them were there. Van Damme wanted to settle it in the backyard, but Seagal snuck out beforehand.

        I would have paid good money to watch a coked out JCVD kick Seagal’s ass.

      • EvilSheldon

        JCVD might not have been in the right place at the right time, but supposedly “Judo” Gene LeBell choked Seagal until he shit himself, on the set of Out For Justice.

        Hmm, do I feel like wasting the day with a Steven Seagal movie retrospective? I kinda do…

      • limey

        Surely you get to a point where you are so worn down that all the coke is doing is keeping you awake/out of a coma.

      • rhywun

        I would have found a way to make it work.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s the spirit!

      • EvilSheldon

        I suspect that a lot of celebrity coke fiends were getting badly ripped off by their dealers, or else were just bragging.

      • Viking1865

        Might also be paying a premium for convenience and discretion. You don’t just want good coke, you want good coke delivered discreetly wherever you need it, without your coke dealer bragging to his buddies how hes Coke Dealer To The Stars.

      • DrOtto

        So you’re saying this is the guy cops use to determine “street value”.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Keep fear alive

    Scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are speaking with UK health officials to learn more about British data that suggests a new coronavirus variant could be more deadly.

    “The CDC has reached out to UK officials and is reviewing their new mortality data associated with variant B.1.1.7,” a CDC official told CNN Saturday, using the scientific name for the variant first spotted in the UK in November.

    A UK report released Friday states there is “a realistic possibility” that the new variant has a higher death rate than other variants.
    While the data is not conclusive, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “there is some evidence that the new variant … may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.”

    CDC modeling shows this new variant, which has been shown to spread especially quickly, could become the predominant variant in the United States by March.

    Imagine my surprise. The model says we’re all gonna die, and as you know, models are never wrong.

    • creech

      What happened to skepticism like what happened to Trump’s claims of voter fraud? “Baseless” “Unproven” “Unsubstantiated” “False”

  16. rhywun

    This one caught my eye this morning.

    NYC man chooses to go to jail rather than give dog back to his employer

    I guess when you want to break your contract, run to the media with a cute dog pic.

    Any bets on how long before the company runs media damage control and gives him the dog?

    • Cy

      ““I committed to her long ago, and nothing’s going to come between me and her.”

      Phrasing?

  17. juris imprudent

    That home invasion – Gang-dumb style.

    • Cy

      “Jedediah Boncutter”

      I wonder if he grew up quick and grew up mean.

      • Hyperion

        The Amish Mafia strikes again?

      • EvilSheldon

        +1 Banshee.

        The most realistic and true-to-life portrayal of small-town rural Pennsylvania ever done by Skinemax…

      • Cy

        Lili Simmons – my god what a performance.

      • DEG

        I watched a few clips on youtube.

        The most realistic and true-to-life portrayal of small-town rural Pennsylvania

        I hope this is sarcasm.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    So far, studies suggest that the current vaccines will protect against the new variant, and that wearing masks, social distancing and hand hygiene are key to controlling spread of the virus.

    Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and member of President Joe Biden’s coronavirus transition team, said he has reviewed the UK report, as well as other data that has not been publicly released, and he is “convinced” that the new variant is deadlier.

    Are you supposed to get down on your knees to recite your catechism, or can you do it sitting down?

    I, for one, would not shed a tear if Osterholm were to be found hanging from a lamppost.

    • Cy

      “I, for one, would not shed a tear if Osterholm were to be found hanging from a lamppost.”

      Like an insurrection? I thought that was just breaking some windows and shouting.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It must be nice to get a paycheck for being a public health expert now: Just assume the worst, get it wrong, have no accountability, and half the soccer moms in the country still think you’re a rock star. I bet Osterholm is just swimming in poon.
      *googles pic*
      OK maybe not but he still makes a good living peddling dreck.

      • Atanarjuat

        To your point, I saw a middle aged woman at the gym (working out with a mask on, which is not required) wearing a Fauci shirt in the style of the Shepherd Fairy Obama Hope poster.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Sounds like trolling.

        Last I was in CA I decided to troll hard by wearing my “Got Guns?” shirt from Bud’s Gun Shop.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      We’ve always been at war with Antifa.

    • limey

      Didn’t Ted Wheeler say something similar than immediately renege on it? Methinks Seattle will follow Portland and do the same. Talk tough for the press, but do nothing.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        He did and then some nutjob leftist punched him at a restaurant and he folded like a lawn chair. I think his picture’s next to “wimp” on the Webster’s website.

      • The Last American Hero

        This just in – Websters Online has now changed the definition of wimp to mean mayor boldly folding like lawn chair.

      • Mad Scientist

        When danger reared its ugly head,
        He bravely turned his tail and fled.

      • limey

        Still, will any charges or convictions come out of that?

      • Atanarjuat

        No idea but ICE is making arrests according to other videos he’s posted.

        Antifa is connected to very powerful lawyers who have gotten some of the crazies off scot free, but they are protesting the political establishment now, not the orange man the establishment hates.

    • zwak

      The tax base.

  19. Tres Cool

    If you don’t like Holly Holy, you’re dead inside.

    • Cy

      One of the best scenes from pulp Fiction had “Girl you’ll be a woman soon” playing in the background! I feel like there needs to be a retraction here.

      • Agent Cooper

        The Pulp Fiction version was recorded by the band Urge Overkill.

    • KromulentKristen

      If Morningside doesn’t make you weep, you’re dead inside.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    I KEEEEEL YOU!

    A Dallas-area man who joined a violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this month has been charged with making a death threat in a social media post against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

    Garret Miller, 34, of Richardson, Texas was arrested earlier this week on multiple charges related to the Capitol riot, according to a federal complaint.

    Miller’s attorney, Clinton Broden, told CNBC that the charges against his client were upgraded to include a threat charge on Tuesday, a day before he was arrested in Richardson. The upgraded charge came relatively soon after the initial complaint was filed in Washington, D.C. federal court, Broden said.

    The other charges include entering or remaining in any restricted buildings or grounds without lawful authority; violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds; obstructing or impeding any official proceeding and certain acts during civil disorder.

    The threat charge against Miller is based on the claim by prosecutors that he threatened Rep. Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., across state lines on social media. It carries a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison.

    Conspiracy to commit murder, littering, and creating a nuisance.

    • limey

      Flowerbed son of a flowerbed. Don’t play into it. She thrives on that kind of attention.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I would say that threatening to kill public officials on the interwebs is an unwise life choice in this environment.

    • rhywun

      -1 juvenile bluster

    • Animal

      Conspiracy to commit murder, littering, and creating a nuisance.

      Sentenced herewith to the Group W bench.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    I saw a middle aged woman at the gym (working out with a mask on, which is not required) wearing a Fauci shirt in the style of the Shepherd Fairy Obama Hope poster.

    How precious

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I miss Brass in Pocket era Chrissie Hynde.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Polishing the optics

    Gov. Kate Brown went on the defense Friday over her controversial decision to vaccinate daycare, preschool and K-12 employees against COVID-19 before Oregonians ages 65 and older — despite federal recommendations urging all states to immediately start inoculating the elderly.

    Cutting to the chase, Brown opened her live-streamed news conference by saying children “are being deeply impacted by the pandemic” and reiterating that she is “using every single tool we have to get our kids back in the classroom this school year”

    As Brown doubled down on her decision, she scrapped previously announced plans to talk about her legislative agenda outlined in her state-of-the-state address a day earlier. Instead, she spent almost the entire hour-long news conference explaining her decision or inviting others who supported her decision to speak on her behalf. She took questions from just three of 13 reporters who’d virtually raised their hands before putting an end to questions after 15 minutes.

    You just don’t understand. We want our children teachers to feel safe.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yeah, why not just vaccinate the teachers and the kids with relevant health issues along with the elderly then? What a bunch of bullshit.

    • Cy

      I’d wager it’s more about tax revenue. Getting taxpayers back to work by allowing their kids to be dumped off at the government education camps everyday is a lot more money for the state than some old people kicking the bucket, that are not only not bringing any money in, they’re a net negative to the state at that point in their lives. Also, federal assistance to states is a lot higher for COVID hospitalizations, which is far more common in elderly. Hospitalizations is what’s being used to justify government edicts.

      Win – Win for the Governor.

      • Don escaped Qanon

        Let’s kick that around. This past year looks a lot more like marginal types not working, the sort who don’t really pay taxes. The rest of us have kept working and kept paying. Maybe CA is different somehow? I can see that getting people to work disqualifies them from whatever programs the state was paying for.

      • Viking1865

        “This past year looks a lot more like marginal types not working, the sort who don’t really pay taxes. ”

        I’m definitely a marginal type in terms of my salary, and I am a net taxpayer. There’s a lot of wiggle room in “don’t really”.

      • Don escaped Qanon

        I’m not gunning for anyone, sir, but you can’t argue who carries the load. As I always laughingly told my rich neighbors in Texas who were scheming to get their legislature to save them, there’s one thing for sure: it will be those of us with money who do the paying.

        So, per the original suppostion: what huge demographic which has recently been significantly under-employed will actually be giving any significant boost to the state coffers once they are back to earning? If you think that question is too soft and nebulous, by all means graph it out for us; show us how the cow at the cabbage.

      • Cy

        https://www.oregon.gov/transparency/pages/revenue.aspx

        looking like roughly 15% is from income tax.

        roughly 70% is “Other Funds”

        “Other Funds are the largest single category of revenues the state receives for the state budget. They include money from some taxes — chiefly those related to highway use, employment, and forests. They also include revenues from state licensing fees and the state’s “business-like” incomes, such as tuition, hunting/fishing permits and other fees for services, and many funds related to loans or bonds.

        State law (either the state constitution or statutes) dedicates most Other Funds to pay for specific state services or programs. Other Funds do not include money from property taxes. In fact, all property tax revenues remain under the control of local governments.”

        Which makes me shudder a little.

      • Gustave Lytton

        The General Fund is what the state has discretionary use of and is almost entirely income tax driven. $95B of $135B in other funds is the state retirement system, which would be contributions from non-state government bodies and from investment returns.

  23. Timeloose

    Dan Shechtman is proof that science by consensus is not how it is supposed to work.

    We still have to wait for the old guard to die to move forward sometimes.

  24. limey

    I’m a big fan of Ron Paul. When he started to attack cultural Marxism, a lot of people screamed “racist” and peeled away, and I encountered a lot of anti-Ron Paul stuff in libertarian-ish circles from people who were so terrified of being called a bigot. I think it was the disillusioned D voters and independents that had loosely coalesced around the Tea Party and #RonPaulRevolution that were easily scared off by the accusations. I dunno. Anyway the Tea Party died a long time ago as anything more than a front for grifters, no? That’s beside the point. I just wanted to say something in support of Ron Paul because he’s a cool dude.

    • Viking1865

      There’s a reason the educational and cultural establishment has beaten racism into the collective psyche of the West for 50 years. By making racism the ultimate evil, you can umbrella socialism under anti-racism, and you can attack anti-socialism as racism.

      • zwak

        This is why they have moved on to systemic nonsense. Racism, real, knockdown screw people over because of skin color has largely, although not altogether been eliminated. And that puts those who gain from it in a place without any influence.

        And people are starting to push back on that now. Hence the freakout on both sides about CRT and that bullshit.

    • KSuellington

      When I was a kid I absolutely loved the Morton Downey Jr show (I was an unusual kid). There was nothing else like it at the time and it presaged a whole lotta terrible television, but at the time my pre teen self found it utterly fascinating. I think it may have been the beginnings of my libertarianism as the Ron Paul episode was pretty awesome and I loved that this old reasonable fellow was sticking to his guns among a rabid audience and an unhinged Downey Jr. that seemed to want to tear him apart. That and the Dukes of Hazzard set me up to where I’m drinking my coffee this Sunday morning and reading Glibs.

      • KromulentKristen

        We watched MD, Jr. as a family.

        Hashtag dysfunctional.

      • KSuellington

        Heheh, definitely family television at its finest. I clearly remember my dad coming in the room at least a couple times when it was on, watching it for a few minutes, and then saying, “jaysus, what is this shite you’re watching here?” and then turning it off or walking back out.

      • KSuellington

        Here is a clip of the insanity that was MD Jr.

      • l0b0t

        Downey’s show was created by the TV genius Bob Pittman. Prior to that Pittman built MTV, turning it into the very first profitable cable network ever.

      • KromulentKristen

        He was married to Sandy Pittman in 1996 when she was involved in the mass casualty event on Everest. She didn’t come off too well in Krakauer’s book.

      • l0b0t

        WOW! I had no idea; that’s crazy.

      • KromulentKristen

        Would definitely recommend Into Thin Air by Krakauer. He’s a typical arrogant climber that loves to humblebrag, but he spills lots of tea and tells a good story. He wrote it soon after the events, so a lot of it is emotional & hazy. It’s a quick read.

      • The Gunslinger

        Wholeheartedly agree. First time I read it I think I read it straight through on a Sunday.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    The floggings will continue until morale improves

    The Washington Monument will remain close indefinitely to the public to protect staff and visitors from COVID-19, the National Park Service (NPS) said Saturday.

    The monument closed on Jan. 11 as part of security measures around President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

    NPS said they would be keeping an eye on the public health conditions in the D.C. area and other indoor attractions’ operating status to determine when it would be safe to reopen.

    Along with the Washington Monument, all indoor attractions managed as part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks — such as the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site and tours of the Old Post Office Tower — have also been closed.

    Daddy loves you very very much. He only beats you because you are bad little boys and girls. You’re a terrible disappointment to him.

    • juris imprudent

      Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument

      Women, children and minorities hit hardest.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Thank Baby Jeeziss! Joe Biden is busily erasing Trump’s legacy.

    Praise him.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Good news, everyone!

    Big Government is back!

    • JR Robble Dobbs

      Lela, “How is that good news Professor?”

      Professor, “Whaatt? Oh, I sent in some bogus data about climate change and all my grants were awarded.”

    • Q Continuum

      Did it ever leave?

      • juris imprudent

        This is real cognitive dissonance for the Trumpster’s devoted following – the man had no fiscal chops whatsoever. Didn’t even really pretend to, like most “small govt” Republicans.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Agreed.

        He trimmed some baby fat with regulatory changes, but piled on whale blubber via tariffs and other fiscal fuckery.

      • kbolino

        He didn’t really need to, either. Only about half of Trump’s supporters were/are fiscal conservatives (or identify as such, anyway). I’d say for every vote he “lost” to a third party (specifically, Gary Johnson and the LP who did better than they ever have in the past, and probably ever will again), he gained one (or two) from the types who don’t give a flying fuck about deficits and care more about immigration or sticking it to the elite.

      • Raven Nation

        My sense is that, somewhere between 2008 & 2016, a bunch of GOP rank and file decided their party’s fiscal restraint line was BS. At that point they decided the smart play was to put their guy in charge of the gravy train.

      • Viking1865

        Gosh what could have happened in 2008 that made a lot of GOP voters realize they were suckers and chumps for paying their loans off on time and only buying the house they could afford? Oh, and then in the ensuing administration seeing all the cronies like Solyandra get paid while they were stuck in a recovery that wasn’t.

        The doctrinaire libertarian line is “This violation of liberty and markets is bad, we ought to not do it, and we ought to stop doing the other things that violate liberty and markets. ” But that never happens. What happens is when the big shots, the politically connected, the big government unions, the defense contractors, all the myriad arms and bogs of the swamp, need a billion here or a billion there, they get it. While the unorganized working guy is shit out of luck.

        If we’re going to have a government that spends 3.7 trillion fucking dollars a year, it should be handing that cash out to average working stiffs, not to politically connnected Wall Street tycoons and defense contractors, and the doctrinaire libertarian line of “Well we ought to not have a 3.7 trillion dollar government at all.” is interesting but completely irrelevant in the current political reality.

        If you taxed the 18.6 trillion dollars earned in the US every year at 20% flat you’d get 3.72 trillion. You do a negative income tax: 1 Trillion is divided between the 50 million poorest people, thats 20k a piece. 1 Trillion divided among the next 125 million, that’s 8k a piece. That leaves 700 billion a year. Spend 500 billion on defense, federal LEO, and the court system. Anything over 3.5 trillion goes to pay down the national debt.

        Take a flamethrower to the regs and the rules and the red tape, especially on things like healthcare, on IP. Erasing the tax code and replacing it with the kind of math that everyone uses to tip a waitress frees up millions of highly educated business savvy people to actually do productive work and not fill out paperwork for the government. Ditto with all the other myriad forms of compliance.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        The problem is that this is just as much a non-starter as cutting the government spending by 2T, and for the same exact reason.

      • Viking1865

        “The problem is that this is just as much a non-starter as cutting the government spending by 2T, and for the same exact reason.”

        Eh, I don’t know. The Boomers are aging, and with that the affection for Boomer/Cold War consensus liberalism in the electorate. The Republicans talk of Reagan, the Democrats talk of Kennedy. I’ll be old enough to run for POTUS in 2024, and I took not a single breath while the USSR was in existence.

        I think there’s a market for personal freedom, a lighter touch abroad, and yes populist flat tax/negative income tax politics. We don’t need millions of federal employees doling out a pittance in welfare via 3 dozen redundant programs when a simple computer system can just credit SSNs on Tax Day. I think I could wage a straight up class warfare campaign just by showing the malls, car dealerships, and houses of Loudon and Fairfax Counties. That’s where America’s wealth went. It went right there. That’s years of stagnant middle class wages, thats the eroding value of the dollar, that’s the crumbling infrastructure.

        I’d prefer not to have federal taxes at all, but ala Uncle Milty, if we’re going to have them they should be straight cash to the people who actually need it.

      • kbolino

        For what you propose to happen, the U.S. government would have to be taken over by the reincarnation of Lee Kwan Yew.

        Not impossible, but structurally all the incentives are stacked against it.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Not getting vaccinated is murder.

    Are you a murderer?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Well…. yeah, I guess so. Since you put it that way.

    • rhywun

      The only reason vaccines aren’t already mandatory is because they haven’t made enough of them yet.

      But yeah, I see it coming.

      • Hyperion

        It’s not like they’re going to come hold you down and jab you, until they do. They aren’t taking your guns, until they do. Muh democracy!

  29. Jerms

    Democrats working on legislation to provide $3,000 payments per child amid pandemic

    As if people needed more incentive to pop out kids for financial reasons.

    • Hyperion

      Apparently, the most lucrative career in America today is popping out multiple babies by multiple fathers and then getting child support and $3000 checks for each one.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Durbin: The American people want us to take action.

    Correction, Dicko: SOME of the American people want you to take action. Others don’t.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Define unity.

    Those fuckers knuckle under and do what we want.

    • rhywun

      Step away from the Sunday morning talk shows. For your sanity.

    • KromulentKristen

      Incorrect. It’s Dick Slashballs.

      Long live Dick Slashballs!

  32. The Late P Brooks

    I watched an old movie last night called “On the Spot”, which featured this black actor.

    Mantan Moreland was excellent. His timing and delivery were just about perfect. At one point, the dopey white kid says, “Hey, I’ve thinking.”

    Moreland’s reply: “Uh-oh.”

    Yes, he was not the “star”. Yes, he probably got paid significantly less than the white actors. Yes, he played a caricature. But it was 1940, and I suspect a lot of black people paid for the specific entertainment value of watching him make sly and not-so-sly fun of white people on the big screen.

    • Ted S.

      Moreland also provided the comic relief in “Two-Gun Man from Harlem”, one of the all-black “race films” made specifically for black audiences.

    • l0b0t

      Moreland was bloody brilliant! If you haven’t seen them, his turn in the Charlie Chan films is fantastic. He reprises one of his old Vaudeville routines with Ben Carter.

      https://youtu.be/6bIyMBSx5Qo

      • l0b0t

        I’ve often wondered if Jerry Seinfeld is a closet Amos & Andy fan. The Seinfeld/Costanza pitch was for a show where a guy gets into a car accident and since he can’t pay for the damages, the judge sentences him to be the butler for the victim. There is an Amos & Andy radio episode wherein they introduce Rochester to Jack Benny and talk Benny into taking him on as his valet in recompense for crashing his cab into Benny’s car.

      • Agent Cooper

        Probably Larry David.

  33. Cy

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/romney-trump-impeachment-trial-fox-news-sunday

    “Well, we’re certainly going to have a trial. I wish that weren’t necessary, but the president’s conduct with regards to the call to Secretary of State Raffensperger in Georgia as well as the incitation towards the insurrection that led to the attack on the Capitol call for a trial,” Romney said.

    Fuck off wonderbread. Go back to boxing with retirees and losing any election outside of Utah.

    • Nephilium

      Punishment first! Trial after!`

  34. The Late P Brooks

    “BEEN thinking.”

    Stupid brain skip.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    OMG what a racist shithole Amerikkka is!

  36. The Late P Brooks

    David Brooks wants us all to just embrace the new America. Joe Biden’s America!

    Come into the light, you racists.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Holy shit. Today, in Total Lack of Self-Awareness:

    They’re gushing about how wonderful Tom Brokaw is. What’s-her-name just made some slobbery reference about how bold he was, that time he rose up and told us all we shouldn’t allow paranoia to triumph over reason. Maybe they should let Brokaw interview Foochy and Osterholm vefore he rides off into the sunset.

    • kbolino

      They’re trotting out all of the old frauds hoping people will forget or excuse them. Brokaw, Couric, Wiliams, Rather; they haven’t got an ethical bone in their bodies.

    • creech

      “Greatest Generation;” we won WWII and then us and our parents inflicted LBJ on you ungrateful Boomers.

  38. KromulentKristen

    My Pa & Neil Diamond were born within a month of each other within 5 miles of each other. I wish I had a Six Degrees story, but I don’t. My Pa hung out with the Math Dorks Gang, and I think Neil hung with the Theater Dorks Gang.

  39. KSuellington

    Zevon! Excitable Boy is an awesome album and it is getting put on right now. Well, looks like another 9 grand coming into the household, my kids (and their kids) will be paying this year off for the rest of their lives anyway, may as well kick the printing presses up to 11.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Last I was in CA I decided to troll hard by wearing my “Got Guns?” shirt from Bud’s Gun Shop.

    Reasonable Suspicion, it is.

  41. KromulentKristen

    So I’m going to have to root for Tom Brady, eh?

    • rhywun

      You can’t possibly find the other one even more objectionable.

      • KromulentKristen

        My dislike of the Packers seemingly knows no bounds

  42. DEG

    Godiva said it saw a drop in demand for in-person shopping at its brick-and-mortar stores, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the company said it has seen growth in online sales and sales through grocery, club and other retail partners.

    It’s the governors’ fault.

    “The First Amendment clearly and unmistakably protects this man’s right to post an offensive photo about a police officer,” he said. “The only people who broke the law here were the police officers and TBI agents who participated in this flagrantly unconstitutional arrest.”

    The King’s Men will not be held to account.

    The party censured Ducey over his decision to impose emergency rules during the pandemic that the GOP said “restrict personal liberties and force compliance to unconstitutional edicts.”

    Good.

    The NH Republican Party is also holding its convention/meeting/what-ever-the-fuck-it-is-called. Over Zoom. Not in person like the AZ folks did. Some NH Republicans were pissed about the meeting be held over Zoom, and contrasted with AZ.

    Voting was such a shit-show that the Party decided to switch to mail-in voting. I expect the Clown Prince and his family, since they own the party leadership, will engage in shenanigans.

    The First Works Baptist Church in El Monte, California, was the site of an explosion and fire about 1:10 a.m., and the FBI believes an improvised explosive device was involved, authorities said.

    The violence comes from the Left, but since the FBI is involved, I am now skeptical.

    The victim was able to grab a knife and started stabbing one of the attackers. One of the suspects fired the shotgun in the air, and the gun then jammed. The victim then grabbed the shotgun, fled the home and was able to call police from a neighbor’s home.

    Good that he fought back.

    I looked at the GoFundMe. Is that really the crook? Fuck.

    Mexico’s president said Saturday that Biden told him the U.S. would send $4 billion to help development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — nations whose hardships have spawned tides of migration through Mexico toward the United States.

    What could possibly go wrong?

    In one draft of the proposal, the IRS would deposit checks worth $300 every month per child younger than 6 and $250 every month per child age 6 to 17. This would give parents $3,000 per year for each child between the ages of 6 to 17, and $3,600 per child under age 6.

    What could possibly go wrong?

    Old Guy music is good.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      What could possibly go wrong?

      It’s like they want to flood the system with children from broken homes because they know that’s the best way to build dependence and a cause in the current generation while building an unthinking voting base in the next generation.

      • kbolino

        It builds dependence right up until it turns into a horde of barbarians instead. The gods of the copybook headings have been kept at bay for a long time, but they always eventually return.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    So I’m going to have to root for Tom Brady, eh?

    Has Brady donated to the Barstool Fund, or uttered a single word about lockdowns?

    • KromulentKristen

      My dislike of the Packers seemingly knows no bounds

      • dbleagle

        If the Packers ever leave Green Bay any proceeds of the sale must go to specified VFW Post in the city.

        Green Bay is the last small city team in the NFL. One of the major employers in the city is a pickle plant. Does Tampa Bay have a pickle plant?

        Hunter orange was the unofficial team fan game day color for decades. It is now the various commercial cammo patterns. TB fans wearing cammo? I think not.

        Vince Lombardi.

  44. hayeksplosives

    With all this promised spending, whether for COVID lockdown relief, bribing Central Americans, forgiving college debt, etc. we know the Fed Gov doesn’t actually have the money at hand to pay for it all.

    So they can borrow, print, and raise taxes to get the money.

    But there must be recognition on some level that we can’t just borrow or print with impunity, so they raise some taxes and cap some spending (why $3000 per child? Why not $5000? $8000?)

    How do the bureaucrats and legislators make the decisions on the appropriate ratio of taxing to borrowing to printing? They know in some vague sense in the back of their minds that there must be a limit. How do they “know” what the limit should be?