Monday Morning Links… Did You Think I was Done?

by | Feb 1, 2021 | Daily Links | 397 comments

Happy Monday, Glibs. The great partying of 2020, along with Sloopy and Banjos wheelin’ and dealin’ has left you guys with me. Yesterday, I found out how much crap can fit in 1000 cu. ft. storage space. I was moving my mother-in-law into her new place. I guess the good news is, I’ll get to pack when we move her next time. Every box, ‘Fragile”. You know what they say, when everything is fragile, nothing is fragile. But its all good. She lives close enough for the kids to walk over there when they get bored at our house.

Birthdays today include: Rhonda Rousey, Director John Ford, and some dude they named a hockey trophy after, poet and playwright Langston Hughes, Clark Gable, and tank-enthusiast Boris Yeltsin.

Dear US media, this is what a coup attempt looks like. It involves the military “detaining” civilian leadership at gunpoint.

The lulz on the impeachment trial should be epic.

Wow, how bad has the Chicago Teachers’ Union behaved that the mayor ordered them to be in school today? No more Zoom classes from your hotel room.

I thought this was a story about inbreeding in New Jersey, when I first linked it.

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

Brett set out to find America, the real America, the America of strip malls and serial killers, of butthole waxing and kelp smoothies, of cocaine and maggots. He sought it in the most American part of America—Florida: swamp gas and fever dreams, where love arrives on a rickety boat and leaves when it doesn't have the money for its fourth abortion. Oh, where has Brett gone? He’s drinking at the neck of America’s wang, chewing its foreskin and working its shaft. Brett is becoming legend. Brett can never die. Brett can never die. Brett is America, facedown in his own patriotic puke: the red his blood, the white his stomach lining, and the cold, cold blue his gas station slushie, spiked with coconut rum and tetracycline.

397 Comments

  1. PieInTheSky

    Dear US media, this is what a coup attempt looks like. It involves the military “detaining” civilian leadership at gunpoint. – the military are just properly responding to election fraud

    • AlexinCT

      Well, to their credit they could also look at the whole Russia collusion lies and see another example of a weaponless coup attempt…

    • pistoffnick

      Eleven years ago*, I remember having an internet argument with someone regarding Aung San Suu Kyi. They were gaga for her. She was going to do great things for Burma. Democracy is awesome, etc.

      I don’t think the Rohingya Muslim minorities think she was the greatest. She was nearly stripped of her Nobel Peace prize. And now she has failed to stop a military coup.

      *Is it weird that I remember arguments with internet strangers from 11 years ago?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Now you know what you’ll be talking about when you inevitably develop dementia.

        “Did I ever tell you about this internet argument I had? Those guys were stupid assholes and I showed them!”

      • db

        They were Bad Dudes, but I whupped ’em with my rhetorical pool chain. Come on!

  2. PieInTheSky

    Wow, how bad has the Chicago Teachers’ Union behaved that the mayor ordered them to be in school today? No more Zoom classes from your hotel room.

    Insert Michael Jordan fuck them kids meme here

  3. PieInTheSky

    I thought this was a story about inbreeding in New Jersey, when I first linked it.

    Damn neanderthals were there evading taxes

  4. UnCivilServant

    I thought this was a story about inbreeding in New Jersey, when I first linked it.

    And you expected inbred jerseyites to have teeth?

  5. Atanarjuat

    Will the impeachment trial be successful?

    • blackjack

      They already had 45 republicans vote to skip the trial. It’s all just political theater. Trump is right to use it to showcase the corrupt election and delegitimize the dems. It ain’t no good for nothing else.

      • Atanarjuat

        showcase the corrupt election and delegitimize the dems

        Those are both good things. I don’t want Trump to run in 2024, though the lolz might be worth it.

      • AlexinCT

        This isn’t about either legitimacy or proper behavior, but about revenge (mostly against the people for daring to stand up to the deep state) and about hopefully making it impossible for Trump to stay politically relevant. That’s why they will fuck it up. Thy are good at criminal shit. real good. But their ability to set up theatrics seem to be piss poor (which explains why they always need criminal shit done to get their way).

      • juris imprudent

        Streisand effect. They have no idea how badly this can boomerang on them. Oh sure, the hardcore Dems will be splooging all over Twitter – but that does not represent the country as a whole.

      • AlexinCT

        They are not very worried. After all, they have already set the stage and plan to make sure the fucking unwashed rabble only hears what they want it to. Not saying they will succeed. After all, these are some of the most stupid credentialed asshats ever to have lived that are now running the freak show, but they make up for how dumb they are with real criminal cunning and ruthlessness.

    • PieInTheSky

      define successful

      • Atanarjuat

        From the perspective of those doing it, I think their primary goal is to prevent Trump from running again in 4 years.

      • Fourscore

        The surgery was successful, the outcome was not.

  6. The Late P Brooks

    Dear US media, this is what a coup attempt looks like. It involves the military “detaining” civilian leadership at gunpoint.

    What about disappearing the opposition media? Can we have some of that?

  7. PieInTheSky

    Regulation chills minor (but not radical) technological innovations

    Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud, John Van Reenen 01 February 2021

    While there is suggestive evidence that regulations may have a stifling effect on innovation, there is as yet no rigorous economic framework to quantify the magnitude of such regulatory effects on innovation and the aggregate economy. This column proposes such a framework tests its implications on data from France. As the framework predicts, regulations do indeed hamper innovation, but the negative effects concern only incremental innovations and are absent for radical innovations. Overall, regulations are estimated to reduce aggregate innovations by 5%.

    https://voxeu.org/article/regulation-chills-minor-not-radical-technological-innovations

    Policy conclusions

    Our analysis should not be taken to mean that regulations are all bad. We have ‘priced out’ the costs, but there could still be net benefits if society values job security extremely highly, for example. However, our findings do suggest the usual estimates of regulatory costs are understated when we ignore innovation. They also suggest that reforms to current regulations may have greater benefits than was previously thought.

    • PieInTheSky

      society values job security extremely highly, for example – in Europe at least those with good jobs and seniority value security at the cost of more temporary contracts and unemployment. Society does not value shit.

      • AlexinCT

        You mean the top men value their grip on power regardless of how it fucks the serfs over. The serfs know their place and remain content with crumbs from the table because that’s what they are thought to do, right? That’s what the top men in the US want as well.

      • Fourscore

        “Leave Medicare Alone” or expand it to what Joe Namath is getting

      • juris imprudent

        You know there are people that aren’t unhappy being serfs. It doesn’t suit us (this here community) but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people content with it.

      • AlexinCT

        I have met too many people that would not only be quite content doing whatever they are told as long as someone tells them they will take care of them and they don’t have to worry their pretty little heads. And no matter how often they see that these promises are not just empty, they refuse to learn. Government is the ultimate sugar daddy.

    • R C Dean

      I would think the drag on innovation compounds over time, so 5% may not sound like that much, but adds up.

      Although I have to wonder how you quantify “innovation”.

      • PieInTheSky

        how you quantify “innovation”. – models, usually

      • Tulip

        Ooh, I know this one. The EU uses “brought to market” as opposed to invented. This is sensible, but then they define “market” as as small a geographical area as they can get away with. Thus a new product in Berlin is counted as an innovation and the same new product in Munich is also an innovation (counted separately). That way they can say “look how innovative we are”.

      • AlexinCT

        So their real innovation is an the scale of the racket they run?

  8. PieInTheSky

    Access to vocational education can boost income over the long term

    Mikko Silliman, Hanna Virtanen 30 January 2021

    Policymakers are growing increasingly interested in the effects of vocational training on labour-market outcomes. This column uses a quasi-experimental design based on admissions cut-offs to secondary education in Finland to study the long-term effects of access to vocational education. Applicants near the admissions margin experience an average 6% increase in earnings in their mid-thirties if admitted to the vocational track. For students with a preference for the vocational track, failing to be admitted to the vocational track reduces employment in their mid-thirties by nearly 20%.

    https://voxeu.org/article/access-vocational-education-can-boost-income-over-long-term

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Death before compromise

    Several economists and Washington strategists including Paul Krugman blasted the 10 Republicans’ watered down proposal and sudden calls for bipartisanship. “That’s not a compromise, it would be abject surrender. Not even worth discussing,” the New York Times columnist remarked Sunday.

    ——-

    Some progressives suggested Sunday that Biden should respond to the 10 Republicans by making them publicly declare that his election win was valid. Others simply characterized the GOP as clinging to some hope they can slow down Democrat-led legislation in the name of budget cuts.

    That would be awesome. Ten Republican senators, with shaved heads, in dunce caps, on the steps of the Capitol begging forgiveness for their sins.

    Then the Democrats can take their Panicdemic Relief Bill Omnibus Government Reorganization and Fiscal Doomsday Machine to reconciliation, and “compromise” on five trillion dollars’ worth of Democratic Socialist wish list giveaways.

    Utopia, dead ahead!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “Budget cuts”

      LOL

    • AlexinCT

      Never let a crisis go to waste!

    • juris imprudent

      Hahahahaha – like Krugman would ever abjectly surrender himself.

    • db

      They could make it work. Stage a group confession evoking images from past forced confessions by American prisoners in various far away places.

    • Rebel Scum

      publicly declare that his election win was valid

      Truth > facts.

    • mindyourbusiness

      “Utopia, dead ahead!”

      Reminds me of a stanza from a Harry Chapin song…

      Dance Band on the Titanic
      Sing “Nearer My God to Thee…
      The iceberg’s off the starboard bow,
      Won’t you dance with me?

  10. PieInTheSky

    How financial markets shape social values and political views

    Yotam Margalit, Moses Shayo 31 January 2021

    The impact of markets on participants’ values and political preferences has long been a contested issue. This column uses a large field experiment to evaluate the effects of engagement in financial markets. Participants from a national sample in England were randomly assigned substantial sums they could invest in stocks or non-financial assets over a six-week period. Results show that investment in stocks led to a more right-leaning outlook on society and economics, including issues like personal responsibility, merit, and the role of luck in economic success. It also increased support for market-friendly policies and less regulation.

    https://voxeu.org/article/how-financial-markets-shape-social-values-and-political-views

    I still doubt the validity of such experiments but they seem to keep these people busy

  11. The Late P Brooks

    how you quantify “innovation”. – models, usually

    Random variables are the best variables.

  12. db

    You moved your mother-in-law into a 1,000 ft^3 storage unit? Balla.

    • UnCivilServant

      At least she had three dimensions. I only have square footage.

      • db

        You were caught in the short squeeze?

      • Fourscore

        UCS is a lucky guy…

  13. robc

    I complained about January baseball bithdays a lot, lets see if Feb is doing any better.

    Top is Paul Blair, ask one of our Orioles fans about him. 5th is Kent Mercker.

    Ummm….marginally better? Blair had a pretty good career. Austin Jackson is 2nd with a decent WAR total in only 9 seasons. He played for 7 clubs in 9 seasons, All his value was in the first 4 seasons, after age 26 he was done.

    3rd is Carl Reynolds who had a great season out of nowhere in 1930, but was mostly mediocre other than that. 6.3 WAR in 1930, his next best was 2.7.

    • Necron 99

      Did Nolan Ryan get missed yesterday? Not a baseball fan, don’t know what WAR means, but I enjoyed watching him beat the snot out of Robin Ventura.

      • robc

        I generally don’t do weekends, so yes. Next year his birthday should be on a Monday, so he will get mentioned then.

        WAR is Wins Above Replacement. Replacement level is a theoretical level of player you can get at any time for the major league minimum salary and fill the spot. Every year, a number of players score below that level, but anyone from -1 to 1 WAR in a season is basically replacement level.

      • Agent Cooper

        Also, there are 2 differing ways WAR is calculated. Baseball Reference, or bWAR is slightly different than FanGraphs, or fWAR:

        fWAR – Fangraphs WAR

        bWAR – Baseball-reference WAR, also called rWAR

        Both metrics are similar for hitters (though fWAR values defensive metrics more which can be flawed for small sample sizes) though for pitchers, fWAR uses FIP (fielding independent pitching) while bWAR uses runs allowed per nine. FIP gives you a sense of how well a pitcher actually performed if you control for fielding, which can be useful in making projections, while RA/9 is useful for understanding how well a pitcher succeeded at run prevention, kind of like ERA.

        Each is useful in its own right, though from my own experience I’ve simply found bWAR more reliable.

      • Swiss Servator

        “beat the snot out of”?

        He barely brushed his hand on the guys head. You think a pitcher would smash his knuckles, hard, into something?

      • Necron 99

        True enough – but he had a game to finish.

    • DEG

      Face diapers. Blech.

      Well, at least #1 is #1 and has no face diaper.

    • Tonio

      OMG, that is awesome. Yeah, she’s going to take some shit for that.

      I believe that the derogatory name for female black race traitors is “Aunt Jemima.”

      • Rebel Scum

        Not “Mammy”?

    • Ted S.

      Aunt Jemima?

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Somebody doesn’t give a shit, but I don’t think it’s the American People

    Jared Bernstein, a member of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, claimed that passing the next round of coronavirus relief legislation is so important that Americans are not concerned with how it happens.

    Biden, who supports a $1.9 trillion package, is facing opposition from Republicans, who prefer a leaner, more targeted approach. While the president has pushed a message of unity in the early days of his administration, some Democratic lawmakers are looking to keep Republicans out of the process if they do not get on board.

    “Look, the American people really couldn’t care less about budget process, whether it’s regular order, bipartisanship, whether it’s filibuster, whether it’s reconciliation,” Bernstein told “Fox News Sunday,” stressing that people “need relief and they need it now.”

    tl;dr- FUCK THOSE GUYS. WE’RE IN CHARGE NOW.

    It’s like they want to see how much damage they can do, and how quickly.

    • AlexinCT

      It’s about repeating the first 2 years of Obama, but on steroids, before the people catch on and shut them down hard. Well, try to shut them down. I suspect this time they plan to simply not give a flying fuck about the people and accuse anyone standing in their way of being a Kulak or wrecker, and punish them. The revolution will not be derailed.

      • PieInTheSky

        Obama was perfect so this is perfect plus… Kamala be even better when here time comes. And her time will come. Dem right winger won;t be allowed to deny her majesty this time.

    • juris imprudent

      He might actually be right – that most people don’t care. That’s the problem all of us around here have to deal with. My wife is an example, she just cashes that stimulus check – doesn’t really worry herself about how or why.

    • Rebel Scum

      Democratic lawmakers are looking to keep Republicans out of the process if they do not get on board

      Unity/healing/etc.

      As I have said before, Democrats rule with an iron fist even with a razor thin majority and Republicans are afraid or unwilling to govern with any majority.

    • Agent Cooper

      He’s not wrong — people want relief. But the relief that makes sense removes government control. It’s not about a check, it’s about the entire economy.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Summers is one of several people who purchased a chastity cage device called Cellmate and produced by Qiui, a China-based manufacturer. Some of the device’s owners got their accounts—and thus their devices as well—hacked at the end of last year, after security researchers warned that the manufacturer left an exposed and vulnerable API, which could allow hackers to take control of the devices.

      Because of the cut, Summers and his partner were not able to have sex for over a month, according to him. This incident also made Summers reconsider using internet-connected devices, especially those that go around his most private parts.

      Dude’s a rocket scientist.

      • AlexinCT

        Pocket rocket?

      • juris imprudent

        *golf claps*

    • The Other Kevin

      That hacker jumped the gun. He should have waited until he could simultaneously hack hundreds or thousands of those and create his own army of celebots.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They walk so slowly though.

  15. PieInTheSky

    Warning: Mr. Matzko works for the Cato Institute, a Libertarian/Communist/Antifa Koch Brothers “organization”. What he wrote in the article confirms that he’s a False Equivalency Parrot/BothSidesIsm Idiot, as all Libertarians are.

    https://twitter.com/AndrewRei15/status/1355575737802084353

    discuss

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      *checks profile pic*

      That 55 year old dude should really get out of his mom’s basement.

    • juris imprudent

      No, the ranting of someone who would otherwise be on a streetcorner is of no merit.

  16. Tundra

    Good morning, Brett!

    The Conn Smythe bio is amazing! What an insane life.

    US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation, said the White House in a statement. The statement added that the US “opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar’s democratic transition, and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed.”

    Weren’t we already fucking around there? I lose track of all of our fuckery in other countries.

    • Plinker762

      We haven’t had a land war in Asia un awhile. Time for a reset.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Bomb Back Better

      • Tundra

        *applause*

        I thought we’d be bombing Syria and Iran first, but Myanmar is shooting up in the rankings.

  17. Pope Jimbo

    Kirk Cousins is now the second worse audibler in Minnesoda. Our own Mike Osterholm is the new champ.

    Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told “Meet the Press” that he expects to see a new surge of infections “in the next six to 14 weeks,” thanks to the spread of new variants like the one first discovered in the United Kingdom.

    “We still want to get two doses in everyone, but I think right now, in advance of this surge, we need to get as many one-doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can, to reduce serious illness and death that is going to occur over the weeks ahead,” Osterholm said.

    Olsterholm compared the current situation to tracking a hurricane.

    “The hurricane is coming. Because of this surge, we have to call an audible,” he said.

    Mike’s inability to choose a decent analogy and stick with it is why we exiled him to U of Mn-Duluth. But he has to be so happy to finally get his chance to go on national TV and talk doom and gloom. I know it was killing him to have to sit on the sidelines as Fauci was grandstanding and locking shit down.

    • db

      “We still want to get two doses in everyone, but I think right now, in advance of this surge, we need to get as many one-doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can, to reduce serious illness and death that is going to occur over the weeks ahead,”

      Are we not doing “phrasing” anymore?

    • Fourscore

      Why can’t we be like Chicago?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I don’t want to have to run guns from Wisconsin

      • pistoffnick

        Black market vapes are where the real money is.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Will be even more lucrative if King Walz gets his bonus tax on cigs and vapes through as part of his “Tax the Rich” plan.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of the short squeeze, I was thinking about this, the other day.

    Old cowboy movies are the best analytical tool for understanding human behavior. It’s an imperfect analogy, but I started thinking of the hedge fund shorts as the sharpie gambler at the poker table with more money than anybody else, trying to buy the pot (just keep raising until nobody left at the table can afford to stay in the game). The redditors sent that snot nosed kid who always hangs around the saloon out to raise money from the townsfolk to keep that from happening.

    Not Fair, says the dude.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      I read yesterday that Melvin lost 52% of their value, over 6 billion dollars, mostly from their GME shorts. I don’t know what proportion of that six billion went to the WSBers to cover shorts, but I think they needed something like a 2.5 billion cash injection from Citadel to remain solvent.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Awwwww….. poor babies.

      • Atanarjuat

        *Nelson Muntz laugh*

      • juris imprudent

        I read that their shorts covered 140% of the outstanding stock.

        Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

      • AlexinCT

        You can bet that the political class will do its best to help them punish the unwashed rubes that dared give them some of the same ass rape they have been meting out. And you better believe this is coming. It will be out of sight dso the masses won’t know about the injustice until the time comes to punish someone to make an example of them.

      • AlexinCT

        Funny how the elite feel they should have the freedom and right to destroy other entities at a whim, while anyone reversing the tables on them should be guillotined, huh?

        When Wall Street is free to gamble money and gobble up their “earnings’, no matter how they go about that, but demands to be protected from the negative consequences of speculation, you know you are not dealing with a class of decent fucking people. It’s more of the same problem that permeates our leadership class: a disdain for any kind of accountability. They want to pocket the earnings of their wins and have others pay for when they fail. No wonder these crooks are so tied to the politicians that share the same vision of how government should work.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The reality is that they are selling a bill of goods to their customers. Melvin Capital is a shitty steward of their clients’ money and made a very risky bet that they lost their asses on.

        They’re trying to save face by blaming a bunch of “crazy internet retail investors.”

      • AlexinCT

        I would not be surprised to find out that their “clients” now taking it in the ass to the tune of $70 billion in losses are the virtual “Who-is-who” of the top men political machine and their buddies. That’s why they are so pissed and actually tried to stop the masses. The fucking rubes are on thin ice for causing the globalist masters a big investment losses….

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Even as cynical as I am, I was still amazed at how fast Warren went from her trademark populist Wall Street bashing position to screaming that the markets were manipulated and Melvin must be protected.

        Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the politicians are all essentially just prostitutes while acting different roles. Then something like this happens and the acting becomes obvious again.

      • leon

        I don’t ironically say that Warren is perhaps the quinessential Fascist in US politics today. Every single proposal she has would be inline in Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy.

  19. AlexinCT

    I am certain the dnc propagandists will all come out to tell us things like this is why they have to control all media and news…

    Knowing the facts would just confuse the fucking unwashed serfs, and their new daddy government doesn’t want any of that… Pass the fucking Somma!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Nick Clegg, Facebook Head of Global Affairs: “There has been quite a lot of disquiet expressed by many leaders around the world…ideally we wouldn’t be making these [censorship] decisions on our own, we would be making these decisions in line with our own conformity, with democratically agreed rules and principles. At the moment, those democratically agreed rules don’t exist. We still have to make decisions in real-time.”

      And there it is. Please Mr. Government, please make a law telling us what to censor so we don’t have to make that decision ourselves and face repercussions.

      There’s an honest to goodness, no-shit appeal for fascism.

      • db

        I think it’s more like:

        “Please Mr. Government, please make a law telling us what to censor so we don’t have to make that decision ourselves and face repercussions have official cover for actions we were going to take anyway to hobble (y)our political opponents.

      • AlexinCT

        Fascism is basically big government and big corporations colluding to create monopolies that then favor the political class picking winners & losers…

        Straight out of every dystopian novel you can name…

  20. Rebel Scum

    Dear US media, this is what a coup attempt looks like.

    I have been assured that a coup/insurrection looks like some guys meandering through the capitol building being sure to stay within the velvet roped pathway.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      … and blowing a beefy Taco Bell fart into Nancy’s office chair.

      • AlexinCT

        That lack of respek for her office is why this country needs firing squads again!

      • UnCivilServant

        So, the people who got into the capitol should have shot more congresscritters?

      • AlexinCT

        At this point I suspect that the claim that some guard was beat to death also is a massive piece of disinformation and that the person like the other 4 victims, was a casualty of being an older demographic member with a preexisting condition (heart problems). But they needed drama to step on our throats. And remember those pipe bombs they blamed on Trump’s speech? Turns out that they had been placed the night before (by some Bernie bro from what I read). That Trump guy is a super freaking villain with time bending powers.

        That’s why details remain sparse, but demands to put jackboots on people’s throats are abundant…

  21. Pope Jimbo

    What will depress me the most is that King Walz will get away his lock downs, his crushing of small business and his refusal to end One Man Rule. What he won’t be forgiven is for fucking up the vaccine rollout.

    I talked with my proggie aunt yesterday and she has turned on Walz for this very reason. She and her husband both are older and have compromised health, but were told to get in line behind the Teachers (because they are heroes)

    • Pope Jimbo

      And unless you are Big Health in Minnesoda you are also told to go to the back of the line

      While Minnesota’s large health care systems are wrapping up COVID-19 vaccinations for their employees, some independent providers say they are still waiting for the shots despite being in the state’s high priority group.

      Six weeks after the first COVID-19 vaccine was administered in Minnesota, clinics that are not part of the large health systems are getting their first notification about where they stand in line, although some have not been contacted.

      “We’ve had 10 months knowing the vaccine was coming. To think that there was no plan for distribution for that last mile to get the vaccine into arms is a bit frustrating,” said Carmelo Cinqueonce, executive director of the Minnesota Dental Association.

    • PieInTheSky

      his crushing of small business – wasn’t there some lefty journo talking against glorifying small business cause many of them cannot give a proper living wage and benefits? So it would stand to reason they need to be crushed and replaced by evil corporations, which will then be nationalized to stop being evil, and we will have living wages for all

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        How can a group of people that have mostly never worked an honest day in their life for honest pay know the first damned thing about small business?

        These asshats graduated from college, went straight into non-profits, universities, and bureaucracies and stayed there. They’ve never experienced what it means to participate in voluntary transactions.

      • PieInTheSky

        How can a group of people that have mostly never worked an honest day in their life for honest pay know the first damned thing about small business? – well they know everything about running the every aspect of the entire economy, so I assume that includes small businesses

      • juris imprudent

        That you understand what their delusions are does not make those delusions into any kind of reality.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I remember an argument I had with a teacher where she was griping about the funding. She kept saying she had to buy materials for her classroom out of her own pocket.

        I told her that I bought lots of books about various programming subjects, paid for more training and bought my own keyboard and mouse. And that tradesman I knew bought their own tools.

        If she still thought that as a professional, there shouldn’t be any out of pocket costs to her, then there was this thing called a budget. If she thought that the materials she bought were super important, what was paid for that she would be willing to cut.

        I don’t think I convinced her that she was wrong to whine.

      • AlexinCT

        Other people’s money, damn it! That’s how you pay for this shit.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s a red herring anyway.

        They pull that crap every time there’s a salary negotiation. “I have to buy supplies!” Yet somehow that increased salary never goes to supplies and in the next round it’s “I have to buy supplies!” again.

        Of course the politicians could allocate a supplies budget and neuter that argument, but they don’t want to.

      • db

        How about giving them the ability to have an HSA-like account to which they can direct a part of their salary, tax free, to spend solely on supplies? Bet they’d welcome that for sure.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I think teachers can already deduct a few hundred in school supplies, even if taking the standard deduction. I see the option every year on TurboTax/H&R Block.

        For some reason, homeschooling families are not allowed to use this deduction. Same for any other professions that purchase supplies for children (e.g., pediatric therapists).

        I’ve developed quite a bit of disdain for public school teachers.

      • Pope Jimbo

        That was what I was trying to explain to her about a budget. There is so much to run your operations. You can’t just increase it to some infinite amount.

        I also had my suspicions about whether she really did buy any supplies out of her own pocket. Like you said, that claim is made by every single teacher when they are trying to explain to you how noble they are and why that costs you money.

      • AlexinCT

        That was what I was trying to explain to her about a budget. There is so much to run your operations. You can’t just increase it to some infinite amount.

        Why not? Our government can just print money, can’t they? Why can’t they just print a whole lot of it more for the teachers (or any other entities that think they deserve more cash) to buy supplies?

        My retort would be that when they stop fucking over so many young minds and actually go back to educating them so they can actually find real life work, then we can discuss paying them more money.

      • Viking1865

        Teachers lie more than cops do about their jobs. The cops lies are obviously worse because they lie to put people in prison, assault, or kill them. But teachers routinely lie their asses off about their workload.

        Got to school 15 minutes after dismissal and count the cars in the parking lot, and all those teachers will swear they work till 7 PM grading papers. They swear their summer vacations aren’t actually vacations.

      • Atanarjuat

        As a high steel rigger, I paid thousands out of pocket for training and personal safety equipment. There is no sanctimonious whiner like a government employee.

      • AlexinCT

        My kid is a mechanic. He paid out of pocket for tools to do European, American, Japanese, and Korean, cars. I had to show him that he should buy some insurance for this stuff considering he was sitting on over $50K in tools to do his job and get paid less than that annually if he wasn’t doing overtime….

      • pistoffnick

        Back in my day, we bought our own supplies. I showed up to 3rd grade with my box of 16 crayons. Nearly everybody else had the box of 64 with the cool sharpener. I felt like a poor schmuck – because we WERE poor schmucks.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Our kids in the mid ’00s had a sheet of supplies they were supposed to show up with.

        I feel your 16 crayon box pain Nick. In my case, it wasn’t poverty. My parents had already seen my artistic efforts and decided that the 64 crayon box was the very definition of throwing good money after bad.

      • Tundra

        Yeah, no rich-kid 64-packs for me either. I also wore plain pocket jeans.

        WTF, mom and dad?!?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I wore JC Penny Plain Pockets until a girl friend in high school took me shopping and made me buy some Levi 501’s.

        Personally, I still think the plain pockets were fine.

      • Ed Wuncler

        https://jacobinmag.com/2018/01/small-businesses-workers-wages

        This might be the article in which you are referring to.

        Think about though, which is easier to control? A bunch of small businesses competing with each other to make a profit or 5-6 big conglomerates that are most likely already in bed with politicians and can handle the dictaks from them when they get a populist itch?

      • AlexinCT

        The left sees businesses as a way for slackers to be paid for what often amounts to useless toil (see government). All that stuff people that actually understand business and commerce talk about, especially the profit motive and actually providing a service or product for a customer, is distraction from what they believe a business should do.

        Rule of the morons. basically.

    • Pope Jimbo

      And even if you are in line, some vendor the Minnesoda Dept of Health uses, might prank call you with a cancellation

      Some Minnesotans expressed confusion on social media Saturday after receiving a message from the state health department saying their vaccine appointment had been canceled.

      Nearly a quarter of Minnesota residents 65 or older signed up for a chance to get one of 9,425 doses of coronavirus vaccine available to seniors this week.

      The Minnesota Department of Health issued a swift response saying the message was an error that had been corrected.

      “This morning a text/email erroneously went out from Primary Bio to some Minnesotans saying their appointment was unauthorized and invalid,” MDH said. “For the vast majority of Minnesotans, this message was in error. The original message was intended for around 20 Minnesotans who, through an error in the Primary Bio system, had been able to register for an appointment despite being ineligible to do so.”

      The error message was as follows: “It has come to our attention that you were able to make a vaccine appointment even though you were not randomly selected for the COVID-19 Vaccine Pilot Program this week. As a result, we regret to inform you that your appointment is unauthorized and no longer valid.”

      The message goes on to say that they are now on the waitlist for the next lottery.

      MDH said the vendor has fixed the error.

      “Our vendor, Primary Bio, has taken full responsibility and has apologized to the State of Minnesota and all Minnesotans impacted,” the MDH statement said. “Those Minnesotans who received the message in error this morning have been notified that their appointments are confirmed and they should show up to their appointment as previously scheduled.”

      • R C Dean

        “9,425 doses of coronavirus vaccine available to seniors”

        In the whole state.

        We’ll do more than that at my hospital alone this week. A lot more.

      • Pope Jimbo

        With 100% Equity?

        Or will you just give The Cure to people who show up without reviewing their racial profile, social media posts and their willingness to date trans people?

      • Tundra
      • Pope Jimbo
      • Agent Cooper

        Robert should’ve stopped after Disintegration. If he still wanted to make music, make it as The Glove or another entity.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Twenty people and they crafted a text/email message through an automated system rather than just calling them up? Or just giving them the shot? That’s a rounding error on the number of shots being given. Besides, if the goal is everyone gets vaccinated (or close to it), a handful out of order is meaningless.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What if they were 20 white men? Do you really want to oppress the shit out of Minnesoda’s BIPOC community by accidently letting 20 white men get the vaccine early?

    • Pope Jimbo

      And reading between the lines here, but it seems Minnesoda’s original vaccination plan sucked. I’m basing that on the fact that they have already decided to change it. The flacks down at the MDH have put a nice spin on it, but if the media wasn’t a bought and paid for arm of the DFL, they might put a different spin on the story.

      Mass state COVID-19 vaccination events will be scaled back in Minnesota this week in order to give more doses to medical providers who can reach out to more of their patients.

      Exact details will be announced Monday, but Minnesota will be scaling back, at least temporarily, from the nine vaccine pilot sites it offered in each of the last two weeks. Two permanent community vaccination sites will open instead in Minneapolis and Duluth this week, and a third will open in southern Minnesota next week with more to follow.

      The distribution plan this week will result in “significantly more vaccine specifically allocated for Minnesotans age 65+ than any previous week,” a state health official said in an e-mail Sunday. The new strategy will include an online locator map to help people find local providers administering the vaccine.

      • Fourscore

        Do I need to take a ticket to get on the plan to make an appointment to visit the website that’s scheduling the lists of vaccine sites drawn at random?

    • Pope Jimbo

      You’d think that at some point, Minnesodans would expect that we get some sort of decent return on the high taxes we pay. Any time people complain about high taxes, we get told that we also have “high services”. That is supposed to be the trade off.

      Sure you pay a lot of taxes, but you get great schools. And if your car breaks down on the freeway, we have a program that pays for a repair truck to come help you.

      But for the last 20 years, it has been one disaster after another. MN Sure (our Obama care) was a disaster. We spent hundreds of millions on a failed licensing program before we scrapped it and bought on off the shelf for $50M. Our vaccination program is fucked.

      • Tundra

        The lasting power of propaganda. When big companies flee the state, it doesn’t even make the news. And, outside of the cities, it really is a nice goddamn state.

        I want to leave, but I fucking hate losing to the piece of shit proggies.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The next wave of propaganda is our budget. The stories about the GOP being big meanies for refusing to go along with raising taxes on millionaires are starting.

        Here’s an idea. How about we link lockdowns to the govt? For every person locked out of their job a corresponding govt drone is put on unemployment. If you shut down bars and restaurants why do you need to employ health inspectors?

        I’m more and more convinced that the only way to end this lockdown shit is to have everyone get some skin in the game.

      • Tundra

        I’m starting to worry about the coming property tax apocalypse.

      • Pope Jimbo

        You ain’t the only one fleeing the Metro Area

        It took just two days for a split-level house near Stacy to sell this month. Put on the market on a Friday for $284,900, it was shown 18 times and drew five offers by that Sunday, all above asking price.

        Realtor Hyounsoo Lathrop wasn’t surprised.

        “With COVID, people want to be away from the cities and have some space,” she said. “Out here you get top dollar.”

        The modest 1970s-era house some 40 miles northeast of downtown Minneapolis had taken much longer to sell and for a much lower price just a few years ago. But the COVID-19 pandemic is turning the housing market in the Twin Cities inside out.

      • Pope Jimbo

        With rising crime in Minneapolis and St. Paul and many of the amenities that once drew buyers and renters to those downtowns still shuttered, a new level of uncertainty has emerged about what urban life will look like.

        Jeremy Jacobs, chairman of the Urban Land Institute and managing director/market leader for Colliers International, said while the Twin Cities metro is clearly seeing changes in buying patterns, there’s no evidence yet to suggest that the recent shift in the market will dampen the future of the city.

        The bottom of that story is full of guys like Jeremy Jacobs who have been lecturing us all about the glories of urban density assuring us all that this is just a blip.

        Jacobs assures us all that the Twin Cities are very affordable and all the bad thinkers moving away will be replaced by urbanites from the coasts looking for more affordable housing.

        Yeah, if I’m looking for a new place to move to, I really want to go somewhere with riots and no police.

      • Tundra

        Yeah, prices are blowing up everywhere. SD is getting crazy.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Fourscore is sitting on a gold mine out there in his compound.

      • Not Adahn

        t took just two days for a split-level house near Stacy to sell this month.

        Well, her mom does have it going on.

      • Ted S.

        I’ve said the same thing, albeit with locking down the media.

  22. UnCivilServant

    I had an idea for a creature in my fantasy world, worked out backstory, appearance, details, and gave it a working name from the in-universe residents of a ‘Dread Alicorn’. But I’ve run into a real world dilemma. Prior to the very late 20th century, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence for the term alicorn being used for anything other than the horn of a unicorn. Anyone know where it was first applied to a winged unicorn?

    • creech

      “winged unicorn”
      I’ve always referred to that as a “flying fuck.”

    • UnCivilServant

      The creature itself looks like some sort of predatory mockery of a winged unicorn that might even be undead. There’s no evidence that they reproduce naturally, but one will appear when a bastard son of a warrior-caste worshipper of a paricular diety gets denounced by his biological father. The creature will seek out the denounced bastard to be its rider, and is rather persistant and insistant. The king of the area has ordered all of these riders into his service because of the beast’s utility, but there are those in this group unhappy about being bonded to a nightmare creature.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Kimmell is a moron.

    • Pope Jimbo

      What if China or Russia had noticed the shorted 140% of GameStop shares and bought up the same amount of stock?

      Act of War?

      Sure seems like a much easier way to fuck with the US than running a bunch of bot farms or having to hang out with Hunter Biden.

    • Count Potato

      RUSSIA!!!!

    • Rebel Scum

      ‘Muh Russia’ is another lie that will not die.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Apparently, the Biden administration is very concerned about “market integrity”, as is Elizabeth Warren.

    I eagerly await their proposed remedies.

    • Tres Cool

      I think I read somewhere that the 1st step is to seize the means of production. When everything is gov’t owned or operated, we dont need a pesky stock market.

      Can’t remember where that was, though…

      • invisible finger

        Think about how many shares of companies on the stock exchange are significantly owned by public employee pension funds.

      • db

        You only need a market for shares among the elites who are allowed to own property (subject to common sense regulation by a watchdog group). Things get icky and unpredictable when the peasants are allowed to play. They don’t know better than to piss in the pool.

    • Ed Wuncler

      Proposed Remedy: Creating regulations that are barriers for the smaller players to disrupt the big players.

      • AlexinCT

        Fascists love monopolies and big corporate entities. These big entities fit right in with the belief economies need to be centrally planned. Like the marxists, they believe that the top men are the ones that know best. They just know that the optics when government owns the means of production directly like the marxist do makes it far harder than the fascists model where the business can be blamed for failures.

    • Rebel Scum

      their proposed remedies

      Arrest the plebs that got uppity?

  24. Rebel Scum

    The lulz on the impeachment trial should be epic.

    We are using the terms “trial” and “impeachment” a little loosely these days, but yes it will be. It would be great if the Trump team showed a montage of Dems rhetoric that literally supported violence.

    • AlexinCT

      I see where you may be making an erroneous leap in judgement: the belief that the propagandists will just let that happen instead of carefully controlling what the unwashed masses hear and what opinion they should have about it. They have already told us that they MUST control what we hear. The usual suspects will give them a thumbs up. The rest of us will be singled out for daring to question the narrative. Dystopian systems don’t happen in a vacuum.

      • juris imprudent

        Too bad Trump can’t hire Al Pacino to play the part of his attorney. Al should be willing to do it, he already played the devil (as a lawyer). The lulz would be truly epic –“YOU’RE OUT OF ORDER”!!!

      • Mojeaux

        You mixed movies.

      • juris imprudent

        Sue me.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh, I’m just getting warmed up!

      • juris imprudent

        I could’ve thrown in “but don’t lie to me, it insults my intelligence”.

      • Agent Cooper

        ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!

  25. Rebel Scum

    Analysis of 48,000-year-old Neanderthal teeth discovered in Jersey suggest interbreeding with modern humans was common

    The origins of STEVE SMITH?

    • Tres Cool

      Pretty sure I met her on Craigslist before.

      • Fourscore

        Well, my late ex was from Jersey, near Asbury Park. Maybe her family?

    • db

      NEANDERTHAL DEAD BRANCH EVOLUTIONARY CHAIN. STEVE SMITH HAVE GREAT SUCCESS. AND BY SUCCESS, MEAN…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Whoa…

    • robc

      I am in the the camp that the Nephilim in the bible were Neanderthal…or higher Neanderthal percentage anyway.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      It is known that Neanderthal ladies were thiccc and easy.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    I have been assured that a coup/insurrection looks like some guys meandering through the capitol building being sure to stay within the velvet roped pathway.

    But- but- Confederate Flags!

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      I heard a report that one of Nancy’s hard drives wandered off during the insurection(TM). If so, I would be quite curious to see how long it takes to resurface.

      • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

        It won’t matter. It will be dismissed as Russian disinformation.

  27. Pope Jimbo

    From the You Can’t Win Dept.

    St. Paul and Ramsey County have given away more than $12.7 million in emergency grants to about 1,300 small businesses hit hard by the pandemic, with leaders emphasizing the need for both speed and equity in distributing those funds.

    Despite efforts to be fair — St. Paul used a blind lottery system, Ramsey County funded every qualified applicant in the first two rounds and both promoted their programs in multiple languages — some historically underserved areas of the capital city still came out behind.

    The fact that a city run by an uber-progressive in a very progressive state cannot throw money out the window at people without being accused of racism and oppression should tell you all you need to know about the demands from the crazies.

    They will never be satisfied.

    • Pope Jimbo

      City and county officials, who ran their programs independently of each other, say they worked hard to distribute aid throughout the city. They also acknowledge the challenge of overcoming entrenched inequities.

      “Unfortunately, due to generations of racist policies and disinvestment, some of our neighborhoods have more small businesses and more successful commercial districts than others,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Trista MatasCastillo, who represents the North End.

      • invisible finger

        A non-sequitur as an argument. This is the kind of shit journalists used to laugh at and not print to save the person from embarrassment.

      • Pope Jimbo

        You mean those racist piece of shit journalists.

        I think we can all agree that the MSM is so much better now that they have been run out of the newsroom.

      • R C Dean

        due to generations of racist policies and disinvestment

        Not shown: Her work for this claim.

      • db

        To be fair, the generations of disinvestment precluded her from having the electron microscope necessary to create an image of her work.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Advocates in the East Side business community said resource gaps between neighborhoods affected who knew about the programs and who applied.

      “We tried desperately to get the word out. We discovered this huge digital divide,” said Anne DeJoy, executive director of the East Side Neighborhood Development Co., which was contracted by the county and its partners to promote the program and help businesses apply. “If I have a nice little restaurant in St. Anthony Park, I could probably pay my tax accountant a couple hundred bucks to fill out applications for me.”

      That wasn’t an option for many East Side small-business owners, DeJoy said, some of whom run their entire operations through their smartphones and didn’t have computer access or the documents required to apply for the county program.

      Making people apply for free money is just Tricknology!

  28. Not Adahn

    Why I will never shoot in Open division:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8dUlbAao8Q

    I am considering getting my multi-gun endorsement to have a shot at working the 2-gun Nationals. Technically I could even shoot that match although I haven’t fired the PCC iover a year.

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      Have any recs for a full size (4.5”) optics ready 9mm?

      I’m looking hard at the CZ, a FN 509 Tactical or 509 LS Edge.

  29. Rebel Scum

    Unity/healing/etc.

    Go to Greene’s Twitter account and you’ll find her liking tweets that called for shooting Nancy Pelosi and executing FBI agents for their “deep state” persecutions of Donald Trump. I suppose the equivalent of that would have been Democratic members of Congress applauding the shooting of House Republican Whip Steve Scalise—except, no Democratic members of Congress did that; rather, they all expressed horror and condemnation.

    But the Republicans’ indulgence of the Greenes in their ranks—and there are many such—is of a piece with their overwhelming refusal to hold Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol, much less their own current colleagues, such as Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, who also encouraged the January 6 rioters. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution says that no government official can hold office “who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” That surely applies to Trump, but it increasingly appears that it should apply to most Republican members of Congress as well.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I wonder if Harold Meyerson threw down a like on the Kathy Griffin beheaded Trump meme. The world wonders (or they would if they gave a damn what that guy has to say which they don’t).

    • Count Potato

      LOL

      Democrats pretending to care about the Constitution.

    • kbolino

      Did they bother to tell the Democrats to scrub their social media first, or do they just assume if they say it’s so, nobody will bother to check?

  30. The Other Kevin

    Good morning Brett! Hope the software development world is being nice to you.

    “Dear US media, this is what a coup attempt looks like.”
    That can’t be right. I saw nobody with a buffalo hat, and nobody walking in an orderly fashion into the capital.

    “The lulz on the impeachment trial should be epic.”
    They keep going on about “the big lie”. But if he really believes it, he’s not lying. He may be mistaken (or not), but he’s not lying.

    “the mayor ordered them to be in school today”
    We may be back at our normal rink by the end of the month. Biden really has turned this COVID thing around.

    “Analysis of 48,000-year-old Neanderthal teeth discovered in Jersey suggest interbreeding with modern humans was common”
    Kinky. Maybe they should reboot Clan of the Cave Bear.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If you enjoy depictions of semibestiality I heartily recommend Quest for Fire in which a homootherthanerectus pounds a quite attractive Rae Dawn Chong. Disgusting…or is it?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Scruffy’s Mom: “I think it’s time to have the talk with Scruffy.”

        Scruffy’s Dad: “I got this.”

        *Scruffy’s Dad takes young Scruffy to a screening of Quest for Fire*

  31. Not Adahn

    I heard about this on the radio, but am unsure why it hasn’t blow’d the fuck up on anti-Biden media.

    “We’re asking countries, once you’ve got those [high-risk and healthcare worker] groups, please ensure that the supply you’ve got access to is provided for others.

    “While that is morally clearly the right thing to do, it’s also economically the right thing to do.

    “There have been a number of very interesting analyses showing that just vaccinating your own country and then sitting there and saying ‘we’re fine’ will not work economically.”

    WHO directors have previously said that vaccine nationalism could cost high-income countries $4.5tn (£3.3tn), while a report commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation found that the world economy could lose $9.2tn if developing countries did not get access to vaccines.

    Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), has also warned that vaccinating “a lot of people in a few countries, leaving the virus unchecked in large parts of the world, will lead to more variants emerging”.

    He has argued that countries with existing vaccine supply deals could donate a percentage of doses to the WHO’s Covax global vaccine-sharing fund “without taking away from the national effort to protect the most vulnerable in society and healthcare workers”.

    Legitimately Elected President Biden, you rejoined the WHO to prove that you follow the Science. Will you be following The Science(tm) and the WHO’s directive, or will you be reverting to Trump’s “America First” attitude when it comes to vaccine distribution?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They can have my and my kids’ vaccines. I don’t want that experimental crap.

      • Akira

        Most Lefties I know are really on a tangent about how “anti-vaxxers” are going to ruin the whole thing by not taking it.

        I’ve always said that you should be allowed to take experimental drugs as long as the pharma company is up front about what is know/unknown about side effects. And Leftists have always retorted that we can’t roll back any of the FDA approval process – in fact, we probably need to make it more stringent because those pharma companies are sociopathically greedy and they will sell you pure poison to put a quick buck in their pockets.

        But now, I’m being told that it’s just an absurd conspiracy theory that there might be any negative side effects at all from this vaccine. I’m being lumped in with the anti-vaxxers, as though there’s no reason at all to be suspicious of a vaccine that was rolled out in a matter of months under intense political pressure.

    • db

      Because vaccines paid for by the US government are usually very well received in developing nations and the source of funding doesn’t cause any sort of suspicion or backlash at all.

      Maybe they can turn the normal paradigm around: free/reduced cost vaccines for Americans, while the bulk of the world pays to receive the benefits of our innovation.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        That’s just crazy talk.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        God do I hate the WHO. Not that I’m a big fan of the vaccine drive but they can get fucked and they make their pronouncements while being newly vaccinated because they’re indispensable I’d assume.

      • creech

        Yep, heard this concern from the church last week. “We need to give our vaccines to Somalia and Honduras so the whole world is vaccinated on a proportional basis. It’s the Christian thing to do.” How many foreigners can we help if we destroy the economy of the U.S.?

  32. Rebel Scum

    Good luck, I guess.

    Beto O’Rourke is thinking about challenging Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2022 election. Abbott is already responding, the way candidates do. …

    O’Rourke, the state’s best-known Democrat, launched this trial balloon when asked on El Paso radio station KLAQ whether he would run for governor.

    “It is something I’m going to think about,” he said. He expanded on that in a string of tweets Thursday night.

    Abbott had his opening shot ready to go, recalling the Democrat’s support for an assault weapon buyback program during the 2020 presidential race.

    “You’re talking about a person who says they want to run for governor who said, ‘Heck yes,’ he’s gonna come and take your guns,” Abbott said Thursday at a news conference in Odessa. “Heck yes, he’s for open borders. Heck yes, he’s for killing the energy sector and fossil fuels in the state of Texas. I don’t think that’s gonna sell real well.”

  33. juris imprudent

    Great point, and why aren’t the Dems starting the impeachment proceedings on Tuesday?

  34. Rufus the Monocled

    Fauci now says no evidence for two masks.

    This man is a dangerous clown.

    • AlexinCT

      What really worries me is that the lemmings just do what he says. None of them thinks “WTF??” and decides this is either a sign of such incompetence that no “expert” should be taken seriously without evidence, or that they are being fucking played around with, in which case the right reaction is to not take these asshats seriously.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        My aunt and uncle, both retired GPs, took to wearing two masks when he made that statement and neither of them are unintelligent people. The urge to unquestionably follow the experts is strong in some no doubt.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        We have always been at war with East Asia.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What is sad is that our nation won’t be rich enough to entirely replace the statue of Abe in the Lincoln Memorial with a new statue of Fauci. Instead we will be limited to simply replacing the head.

        The man deserves better than that.

    • Not Adahn

      Duh. It’s at least four masks now. Don’t you even fucking love SCIENCE! brah?

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Trump should bring an actual live kangaroo on a leash with him to the Senate “trial”.

    • db

      The Democratic leadership will roo the day.

      • juris imprudent

        Tie it down, sport.

      • bacon-magic

        Wallaby laughing.

    • The Other Kevin

      It will bring some of us much joey.

      • db

        That was bad enough, it made me say “pouch” out loud.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Fauci now says no evidence for two masks.

    This man is a dangerous clown.

    Senile quack. He should be tried for Crimes Against Humanity.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      To be fair, it seemed to be a throw away statement that he made based on sort of a hypothetical and the press on both sides took that ball and ran with it to a ridiculous degree.

      • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

        It’s also possible that in the same conversation he said there’s no data to back it up, but that got edited out.

  37. Scruffy Nerfherder

    I really don’t understand why some people feel the need to make a Facederp post every time they go to Costco or gas up their car at a Wawa,

    • Chipwooder

      Or post a picture of their dinner.

      • db

        I’ve been waiting for dinner-posters to be start being canceled because they are showcasing their privilege and showing lack of concern for the nutritionally challenged.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Pay attention to MEEEEEEEE!

    • The Other Kevin

      I love those insurance commercials where they guy trains people how not to be like their parents. This reminds me of the one where a woman is in the store on speaker phone. “I’m going to have a big lunch and just a snack for dinner.”

    • Rebel Scum

      I don’t understand the desire to have everyone know where you are all the time.

    • Rat on a train

      Microblogging is the reason I dumped Facebook years ago, although I was tempted to start microblogging things like boiling water, taking out the trash, toilet breaks, …

  38. Chipwooder

    I was busy and thus not online this weekend, so if this is a repeat, I apologize. The Donks are truly going for the gusto with gun control.

    Federal registration of all firearms.

    A national gun registry.

    Limitations on types of firearms.

    Federally mandated insurance, expensive, and managed by the FedGov (some $800 per year).

    Psychological evaluations by state-approved psychologists for approval to purchase firearms.

    Those evaluations are extended to family members (including former spouses).

    Prohibition of person-to-person transfers.

    Prohibition of standard capacity magazines.

    The psych evals are a nice touch. I can’t possibly see how that would be abused!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “Establishes a nationwide gun registry that is searchable by the general public”

      Computer literate burglars rejoice!

      • Drake

        Government is so good at quickly building databases that work.

      • Viking1865

        This one will work, guaranteed. They didn’t want the health insurance ones to work, because every single fuckup with healthcare gets the sheep to vote for more control.

        They’ll farm this one out to their Big Tech buddies and every gun owner a target for peaceful protesters inside of six weeks.

      • Viking1865

        Between Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Google I bet you could collect ~80% of the gun owners in the country.

        Facebook: gun pictures, gun posts, gun events attended.

        Twitter: gun pictures, tweets about guns.

        Amazon: gun accessories, 2A friendly media

        Google: search history and bookmarks, emailed receipts if you ever bought anything online.

      • R C Dean

        This here.

        The only way to keep a gun off a registry put together by the State’s best buds, the Tech Lords, will be to lie about it.

        “Oh, I sold those guns years ago. I checked, and I don’t have any records. Not guy I knew, can’t recall his name.”

      • pistoffnick

        What guns? I don’t have any.

      • Rat on a train

        I have a glue gun and a grease gun.

      • Viking1865

        That’s something that will legit get people murdered. Which is of course intentional.

        They hate you, and they want you dead.

    • WTF

      If the Stupid Party had any balls they would propose the equivalent for abortions. Especially the national registries and psych evals.

      • Viking1865

        “We don’t sink to their level. We will pursue moderate, sensible, market based anti gun violence measures. Perhaps we can compromise, we will issue another 100,000 H-1B visas and you will cut the coporate tax rate by 2.5 %, and in return we will allow a national gun registry which is only searchable by government employees, who are all noble and apolitical and would never abuse the authority. ” -The Establishment GOP.

      • WTF

        Unfortunately too accurate, which is why the GOP are worthless shits.

    • Rebel Scum

      *considers*

      Yeah, that is all horseshit that I will be ignoring. (not that I own any boomsticks in the first place…)

    • Necron 99

      Psychological evaluations by state-approved psychologists for approval to purchase firearms.

      I know 22 reasons this won’t work.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Psychological evaluations by state-approved psychologists for approval to purchase firearms.

    Those evaluations are extended to family members (including former spouses).

    I don’t think the ex-spouse matters all that much. They’ll use that to (effectively) ban gun possession in homes with children present.

    • AlexinCT

      They need the masses unarmed, their protectors and friends armed, and the criminals with weapons so they can always justify more draconian measures…

  40. juris imprudent

    Unpossible! Courts are only supposed to rubber-stamp Democrat victories!!!

    • Not Adahn

      Speaking of NY’s breathtaking competence…

      I tried to do my taxes over the weekend. NY requires you to file electronically, but provides no method for doing so, you’ll need a 3rd party for that. My attempt was thwarted by my software saying they had not received the needed information to file electronically from NY yet. I should please try again later.

    • AlexinCT

      They will find a way… Or maybe this is just so they can use this one example as a way to refute the claim the legal system is a two tiered system with rules for us and excuses for them. After they put that FBI lawyer Cleinsmith on house arrests for falsifying FISA documents, there is no doubt that evil fuckers helping the deep state will never be held accountable. You and I however better watch it, cause they could send us to pound-me-in-the-ass-prison for jaywalking.

  41. Drake

    Overlooked Biden executive order could have greatest harmful impact

    Applying common sense through a cost-benefit analysis – including consideration of long-term costs such as environmental impact – the Trump administration rule was to eliminate two regulations for every new regulation that was implemented.
    Now, in an executive order that has been largely overlooked, President Biden not only is reversing the Trump policy, he’s taking regulatory power a step further

    • westernsloper

      Well, there were over thirty of the damn things so who can keep track. That one is particularly unconstitutional but who cares about that any more.

      • juris imprudent

        I’m sure some federal judge will find it is a violation of the APA! [I would bet money that AEI/IJ/some-such have the chops, and the venue-shopping to at least get the preliminary injunction.]

  42. The Late P Brooks

    I once was lost, but now am found

    Lyle Darrah was on a conference call at work in rural Weld County, north of Denver, when the riot at the U.S. Capitol started on Jan. 6. When his boss mentioned what was happening, he turned on news coverage — and immediately felt his last allegiance to the Republican Party slipping away.

    “I was completely shocked and ashamed. That’s not how I think of the Republicans — who we were, and who we are,” he said. “It’s something I felt I could no longer be in support of.”

    That night, he talked with his wife over dinner at their home. Darrah had been a lifelong Republican, while his spouse and children are Democrats — the kind of family that joked about canceling out each other’s votes.

    Later, Darrah, age 49, sat in his living room and pulled up the state’s voter registration website. And then, like thousands of other Coloradans in the wake of the insurrection, he left the Republican Party.

    “I think it should be a signal,” said Darrah, a software company director who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.

    Whatever helps you sleep at night, pal.

    BUT WAIT- THERE’S MORE:

    His strongest political priorities are fiscal restraint and national defense, he said

    Dupe, or sucker? Whatever. Maybe the wife will let you sleep in the bedroom again, after your public conversion to the True Faith.

    • Tundra

      Since when is killing the shit out of brown people halfway across the world ‘national defense’?

      What a cunte.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Dupe, or sucker?

      Neither…liar

      • Viking1865

        Yep. The “Trump>Biden voter” thing was pushed hard by the media to cover up the mail in fraud. Actual data shows that Trump went from 90% to 95% support among Republicans between elections. There were far more Trump Democrats then there were Biden Republicans. Somehow a group that is 5% of the GOP is the only voice you hear in the mainstream media.

      • juris imprudent

        So what if Trump’s support was 100% of Republicans – they are a quarter to a third of registered voters. It is a matter of pulling in independents (who do usually lean one way or the other, even if not registered with either party).

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      Confess your heresy and be forgiven!

    • Drake

      Funny that they think the “riot” and not the reaction to it by GOPe is why the GOP is dying.

      The Death of Civic Nationalism

    • Chipwooder

      Uh huh. And how, pray tell, did a reporter know about this?

      Oh, right, because this simp went triumphantly announcing his Bold New Independence to a reporter. These stories never fail to crack me up.

    • WTF

      So, a few dozen knuckleheads wandering around the Capitol turns him against the Republican party, but months of riots, looting, and murder doesn’t turn him against the Democrats.
      What a load of ridiculous bullshit.

      • Rebel Scum

        “Mostly peaceful” protests.

    • Rebel Scum

      in the wake of the insurrection

      What insurrection?

      His strongest political priorities are fiscal restraint and national defense

      Apparently not.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    All told, the Colorado GOP lost about a half a percent of its registered voters in the week after the riot.

    The thousands of newly unaffiliated voters can still support Republican candidates and participate in the party’s primaries. And both parties have seen registered members switch to unaffiliated in large numbers for years.

    But interviews and data analysis show how the tumultuous postelection period has created a new split within the Republican Party.

    For some right-of-center voters, like Lyle Darrah, the violence at the Capitol was simply the final straw. They described an increasingly strained relationship with the GOP, with some citing the rise of Sarah Palin more than a decade ago as the first sign that the party was focusing on culture wars instead of fiscal conservatism.

    “As my husband said, it’s just become the party of mean people,” said Jo Swanson, 73, a retired school psychologist in Denver. She voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but didn’t register as a Democrat until this month. She had always considered herself more socially liberal, but her anti-abortion rights beliefs had held her back.

    That’s it. The Republikkkin Party is doomed.

    Finally, the nation has come to its senses.

    • Viking1865

      A retired school psychologist who voted for HIllary Clinton is painted as a swing voter. Uh huh sure.

      My mother is 65 this year. She voted for Gerald Ford because Jimmy Carter is a Bible thumper. She has never voted for a Republican at any other time in her life. She worked for the media for the first half of her working life, and then switched to academia. But she will tell anyone who listens that she is an independent and a moderate.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      A lot of people bailed on the Republicans because they are feckless gonadless pussies who fold at the first sign of trouble, that emasculated sack of goo the article’s about notwithstanding.

      • juris imprudent

        But, but… they promise to get rid of abortion and make govt smaller (while growing defense)!!!!

    • Agent Cooper

      “but her anti-abortion rights beliefs had held her back.”

      What’s a few more fetii?

      I am pro-choice, but if you truly are pro-life, why would you ever vote for the D candidate?

    • Gustave Lytton

      And how many of those switched/dropped registrations because they fear a cultural revolution style purge by the left against anyone who publicly identifies as a Republican?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Shocking, if you can’t trust the Antichrist Superstar who dresses in S&M corsets and pretends to self-mutilate on stage then who can you trust?

    • Viking1865

      She’s changed her story.

      It was speculated by multiple media organizations that her abuser was Marilyn Manson, with whom she was in a relationship between 2006 and 2010. Manson refused to comment on the rumors,[81] although Wood has on several occasions “categorically denied” that Manson was her abuser, describing their relationship as “loving and healthy”

    • R C Dean

      Evan, 33, and singer Manson, real name Brian Warner, 52, met when she was aged 18

      Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood, 33, claims rocker ex-fiancé, 52, ‘groomed and brainwashed her as a teenager an adult

      Loses some of its punch, no?

      I am perfectly willing to believe Manson is an asshole, but let’s not overegg the pudding.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        She was a mere babe in the woods with pigtails and still hanging onto mama’s apron strings.

      • cyto

        Groomed and brainwashed….

        Hot 18 year old hooks up with 37 year old rock star… This required brainwashing and grooming? I have seen that dynamic play out, and the scenarios that I have seen involved rock star being a rock star and 18 year old hottie throwing it at the rock star because he is a rock star. I don’t see where we need to over complicate things.

    • UnCivilServant

      The company lost money but it didn’t lose His money

  44. DEG

    The mayor said all pre-K to eighth grade teachers are to return to the classroom on Monday, unless they have received a special accommodation. If they don’t comply, “we’re going to have to take action,” Lightfoot said, but didn’t elaborate.

    Please fire them. Please.

    • juris imprudent

      Ha, she’s going to offer them bonuses to return to their jobs.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    The company lost money but it didn’t lose His money

    Exactly. The fees are owed whether you (the customer) win or lose.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    But she will tell anyone who listens that she is an independent and a moderate.

    I know a bunch of those people. They are independent, rational people, who decide their votes strictly on the issues and merits of a candidate’s proposals. It’s just a weird coincidence that they always end up voting for the Democrat.

    • Mad Scientist

      They think they’re thoughtful and independent because they actually read the voter guide before voting a straight ticket, as opposed to the hopeless partisans who vote straight ticket without doing any research.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Getting gun owners to voluntarily supply information on what they own is the only way to build that database. The gun stores’ records are giant handwritten piles of paper in warehouses.

    We’ll transcribe those files, and enter them into a database. JOBS! Good, well paid unionized government jobs.

    Build Back BIGGER!

    • cyto

      I think this insurrection language and relabeling everyone to the right of Nancy pelosi as a terrorist is all pointed towards banning guns.

      Brennan talked about how the racist, misogynistic, libertarian terrorists have so many weapons.

      I think they have a plan. They will talk up plots of violence and push their counterinsurgency narrative with the hope that they will jin up enough anger that some group of idiots will take the bait. At some point, if some nut job doesn’t take action they will have the FBI find some guy with about an 80 IQ to set up as a terrorist who was talking to an informant. Either way, they will have their incident, their proof. And then they will move forward with confiscating guns.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        That’s one reason 5.56 is currently over $1/round, if you can even find it, and body armor is on a 2 month backorder.

      • Sean

        A lot of armor has been on back order since March/April 2020.

      • cyto

        Well, if you live in town in a progressive controlled city, body armor would seem to be less optional than it is elsewhere in the country.

  48. cyto

    I have not been closely following the political news for the last couple of weeks, so that WaPo article was quite jarring.

    They have upped the death toll athe the capital riot, now officially termed an insurrection, apparently. And they are counting two officers who died by suicide at another time, in another place.

    That article really does read like a piece about the politburo in Pravda from 40 years ago. Nearly every sentence used some very loaded term. I have seen opinion pieces that use less inflammatory rhetoric.

    • cyto

      So the official death toll now appears to include one lady who was shot by the police, one lady who got caught in the stampede and trampled, one police officer who blew an aneurysm many hours later while he was back at his desk, and two police officers who later committed suicide.

      Does that seem insane to anyone else?

      • Ownbestenemy

        It is you that is insane cyto. You must report immediately to your local political officer for deprogramming.

      • cyto

        Worse…. These people have been so blatant about the manipulations they are doing over the course of the last year and a half with antifa and BLM and everything else, They have me wondering if the two guys who died by suicide didn’t get suicided by virtue of having identified a couple of people who were ringleaders among the rioters that certain people in the government did not want identified.

        Yes, that is how crazy these people have made me. That actually sounds reasonable based on everything I’ve seen this past year.

        So I will be signing into the Rachel Maddow home for the criminally insane for my reeducation.

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s Coronacounting deaths, Cyto.

      • Rebel Scum

        Does that seem insane to anyone else?

        “We are treating any death with covid as a death of covid.”

        It is as insane as other things these days.

      • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

        The two suicides seem really weird. Were there police suicides over the summer due to the intense peaceful protests? Assuming that the answer is no, what would make the riot at the Capitol so horrible that police would be committing suicide?

      • Agent Cooper

        How often do Capitol police normally commit suicide? That would be a good thing to know.

      • Mad Scientist

        Depends on how much contact they’ve had with Hillary.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    That article really does read like a piece about the politburo in Pravda from 40 years ago. Nearly every sentence used some very loaded term. I have seen opinion pieces that use less inflammatory rhetoric.

    Needz moar Kremlinologists.

  50. Ownbestenemy

    Well nucking futs I still have to go to OKC. At least found a place with a kitchenette. Maybe Ill try one of those food prep delivery services for the week.

    • westernsloper

      Condolences.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Aw, it won’t be so bad. Maybe chilly and windy. Have a Braum’s shake and burger while there, or Whataburger. And BBQ!

    • Not Adahn

      Get a chicken fried steak sandwich at Del Rancho.

      • PieInTheSky

        Just call it a schnitzel like a normal people

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        They do have a fair amount of German food / heritage there, plus Vietnamese more recently.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Yes they do. I doubt the day-time bartender at my home-away-from-home dive is still working, but she is old school German and I usually get a home cooked German meal from her in exchange for the food that I don’t use up in the hotel.

      • westernsloper

        It’s been over 20 years but I have had a great meal there. Holy shit I am old.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I had one 10 years ago, but I wasn’t overly impressed. Wasn’t bad though.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I have my places that I make sure to go to for food: Whataburger, Pappy’s BBQ or the Dale’s BBQ, Tacos Don Nachos and Dan’s Ol’ Time Diner for those awesome onion burgers.

  51. Rebel Scum

    ELIJAH SCHAFFER
    @ElijahSchaffer

    Crazy, every single video on the White House YouTube has been massively ratioed with down votes

    The administration responded by turning all comments off on every single video

    I present to you the most popular and transparent president in the history of the United States

    Eighty. Three. Million. “Votes”.

    • cyto

      I wonder if that story will ever get told?

      I mean, I get how Trump could lose. He turned a lot of people off very hard, and the negative campaigning against him was at unprecedented levels for a 5-year. Pretty easy to lose under those circumstances.

      But nobody likes Biden. The Democrats don’t like him. The progressives don’t like him. Trump supporters don’t like him. Establishment Republicans don’t really like him. I mean, a couple of those groups don’t actively hate him, but they don’t like him at all. I’d say the progressives hate him more than any of the rest of those groups.

      Yet somehow they were able to garner so much more support than in 2016? Even more than in 2012? It seems odd.

      A full accounting would include a ground game that I did not see reported anywhere but must have happened. Based on all of their machinations with mail ballots, I would have to assume that they had armies of paid volunteers going from house to house and Democrat strongholds collecting votes, one way or another. It had to have been millions of people. I wonder why we didn’t see that covered on the news?

      Anyway, it would be really interesting to hear the inside story. Even if the inside story does not include harvesting and filling out 5 million ballots across five states.

      • Sean

        They just bulk printed ballots. Made up names & addresses.

      • Viking1865

        A legit Trump loss would have been Trump losing total votes, and Trump losing the bellwether counties as a result. But that’s not what happened. Trump gained votes, and won the bellwethers, but the absolutely massive number of votes coming out of deep blue cities managed to swing the states.

      • juris imprudent

        I can’t speak to every other state, but that clearly is not what happened in PA.

      • kbolino

        the absolutely massive number of votes coming out of deep blue cities managed to swing the states

        This is false. The cities did not swing the states (more than they usually do, anyway).

        The absolutely massive number of votes coming in by mail swung the states. Those votes came from many different places. I did the analysis on PA and Biden improved over Clinton by a larger margin than Trump improved over himself from 2016 in more than two-thirds of PA’s counties.

        The game changer is not “massive fraud in the cities”. It is “mail-in ballots [from whatever source]”.

      • kbolino

        Here’s what I found, from a previous morning links:

        kbolino on December 17, 2020 at 10:31 am
        I was looking at PA’s results yesterday or the day before, and on their face they’re not suspicious. Joe Biden gained over Clinton more than Trump gained over 2016 in 48 of 67 counties; that definitely explains how he won the state and largely leaves out the possibility that a handful of counties flipped the whole thing.

        But then when you break out the votes by in-person vs mail-in things go beyond pear-shaped. Trump almost wins a lockout (66 of 67 counties) in in-person voting. Biden, on the other hand, gets a crushing landslide in mail-in voting (I didn’t run the full numbers, but it looked like about 80% of the mail-in ballots for the state as a whole). No political statistician worth his salt should look past such an anomalous result. It doesn’t prove fraud, indeed it doesn’t prove or disprove anything at all in its own right, but it raises way too many questions that shouldn’t be ignored. There’s no reason a prior to expect such a massive swing, and whatever the reason may be it should be teased out not filled in solely by narrative (“smarter/caring voted by mail” vs. “fraud and low-effort”).

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s that and targeted old school fraud in certain cities that have a sympathetic or even complicit oversight apparatus, large scale and widespread fraud aren’t needed.

      • mrfamous

        Mail in balloting. Expect it to continue. Trump picked up a lot of votes that way too. It’s an absolute disaster for all third parties though.

      • Chipwooder

        I think I read that Zuckerberg spent $350 million on voting programs in 2020.

      • Count Potato

        That’s like one of us spending five bucks on a sandwich.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      My wife said Instagram forces you to follow the White House account. If you later unfollow, it won’t let you do anything until following the White House again. Don’t know if that’s still the case since she has since deleted the app and scrubbed all of her social media accounts.

      I’ve also been repeatedly told that Big Tech firms are just private companies operating in a free market and are not acting as agents of the state. Just ignore the revolving door between the executive positions in these companies and high-level fedgov jobs.

      • juris imprudent

        Snowden’s book makes a good case that the Feds simply wanted to copy what the Tech companies were already doing.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        What?

        I have an Instagram account (it’s the only social media account I have left, and it’s strictly for my photography). I’m certainly not being “forced” to follow the White House account. Is this something that ‘Grammers from the States are being targeted for?

      • Mojeaux

        I have checked.

        I am not following the White House.

      • Count Potato

        Then they are following you.

      • Mojeaux

        Not according to my profile page.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        Nor mine.

      • Count Potato

        *whooosh*

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        *whooosh*

        Nah. I’m just not important enough to follow. (I’m also not an American, so there’s no upside to tracking me, really.)

      • Mojeaux

        I was just ignoring the sarc because I really wanted to check.

        Of course I know I’m on a list somewhere. My first 3 books are sufficiently political to get me on one.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        Just checked. Nada.

      • Agent Cooper

        I don’t think Instagram does that. I have an account and I don’t follow the White House and never have.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Those downvotes were wither Russian bots or Boogaloo Boys traitors. I for one give a hearty well done to the White House PR team.

    • PieInTheSky

      meh. This does not say much in the grand scheme of things

    • Agent Cooper

      Comments are now turned off for many, many videos.

      Like even Kanye West audio-only videos of Jesus is King.

  52. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “ The United States military has condemned a provocative low flyby of the USS Donald Cook by a Russian fighter jet as the American warship traversed the Black Sea on Sunday.”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russian-fighter-jet-buzzes-us-warship-black-sea-american-presence-builds

    Maybe it was uncalled for but why are our statements regarding these things along the line of the schoolyard bully complaining to the teacher when he gets punched? It just looks so wussified.

    • PieInTheSky

      I’d say bring more ships

    • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

      When they say “provocative low” do they mean the pilot was a hot Russian chick who sounds like Natasha from the Rocky & Bullwinkle show and was scantily clad in a dress cut down to there?

      “No life like it,” indeed. I’ll be in my bunk.

  53. Count Potato

    “lol

    1. Wa Po Calls for a boycott of Fox citing “misinformation”

    2. Wa Po realizes it’s not exactly a great look for a news org to essentially be calling for a blacklist of a competitor, so when asked about it, they lie, aka actually spread misinformation. You can’t make it up!”

    https://twitter.com/Surabees/status/1356233726917832704

    No one who subscribes to WaPo cares. In fact, they want them to lie to them. That’s the NYT & WaPo business model — feed people the lies they want to hear.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies
      (Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies)

      • westernsloper

        *Swigs cranberry juice*

      • westernsloper

        Wait, wrong song. *spits out cranberry juice*

    • PieInTheSky

      I would say boycott all corporate media.

      • Count Potato

        I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

  54. PieInTheSky

    High-stress occupations such as first responders, police, and firefighters have a high incidence of heart disease and may benefit from frequent sauna use (4-7x/week) which has been shown to be linked to a 50% reduction in death from heart disease.

    https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/3/1105/htm

    • Agent Cooper

      I can’t look at my own face let alone my own face if I were a woman.

  55. The Late P Brooks

    Emergency powers

    The Department of Homeland Security said Sunday that Transportation Security Administration workers now have the authority to enforce President Joe Biden’s transportation mask mandate “at TSA screening checkpoints and throughout the commercial and public transportation system.”
    Acting Secretary David Pekoske on Sunday signed a Determination of National Emergency, which said the TSA can “take actions consistent with the authorities” of its federal jurisdiction so it can enforce the mask mandate order laid out by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Friday.
    “This includes supporting the CDC in the enforcement of any orders or other requirements necessary to protect the transportation system, including passengers and employees, from Covid-19 and to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 through the transportation system, to the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law,” Pekoske wrote.
    The CDC order issued last week requires people to wear a mask while using any form of public transportation, including on board planes, trains, buses, boats, subways, taxis and ride-shares, as well as inside airports and other transportation hubs. The order goes into effect Monday at 11:59 p.m.

    The TSA said in a news release Sunday that passengers without a mask “may be denied entry, boarding, or continued transport” and that failure to comply with the mask requirement can result in civil penalties.

    Also beatings, chokings and tasings. Stop resisting.

    We’re gonna need more (and stronger) lampposts.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “I have a medical condition. Wait, what’s that? Sorry man, HIPAA.”
      *calls lawyer*

    • Ownbestenemy

      Which opens the door for what TSA has been wanting – to metastasize and be everywhere. They have been chomping at that bit for a decade or longer and now they have their justification to grope you at all transportation hubs.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Wait, I thought pretextual national emergency declarations were invalid? So confused.

    • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

      “We have no idea what to do. So we’re going to do it harder.”

      We are led by witlings.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      BoJo’s brains are as scrambled as his hair. What a cuck loser that fucking guy is.

    • Agent Cooper

      Looks like Nigel Farage may have a new mission.

    • PieInTheSky

      surrender strategically

    • cyto

      This is where we are. People like Bari Weiss and Glen Greenwald are the only voices speaking out about this wh are not in the “conservative treehouse” camp.

      It should be a pretty easy call for anyone who is not a CWPA member, but here we are.

  56. The Late P Brooks

    “TSA will fully comply with the President’s Executive Orders, CDC guidance and the DHS National Emergency determination to ensure healthy and secure travel across all transportation sectors,” Senior Official Performing the Duties of the TSA Administrator Darby LaJoye said in a statement Sunday evening.
    “This will help prevent further spread of COVID-19 and encourage a unified government response. As we continue to experience impacts from this pandemic, we are committed to this measure as the right thing to do for the TSA workforce, for our industry stakeholders and for passengers.”

    Useless counterproductive government agency gets more power to do additional useless counterproductive things.

    Land of the Free, they said. Home of the Brave, they said.

    • Mojeaux

      Land of the Free, they said. Home of the Brave, they said.

      It’ll be fun, they said.

    • kbolino

      The wording implies that they have an opinion on the matter, which doesn’t make any sense, because they’re honor-bound civil servants who just do what the people want.

  57. PieInTheSky

    Today in youtube recommends

    Women’s Beach Handball 2018 | World Championship Highlights | ᴴᴰ

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPuy4LiwsFs

    beach handball silly. You can’t dribble the ball

    • cyto

      Espn is outdoing themselves. They had the college spikeball national championships the other day.

      Spikeball?

      A kids game for family picnics. A small round ring with a bouncy net in it and a rubber ball about the size of a tennis ball. 2 on 2, played kind of like handball or four square.

      National TV.

      They are hurting for content.

      I would prefer Ausie rules football, rugby and even field hockey to be honest.

      They also had the cornhole championships the other day. No word on the beer pong championships.

      • Ownbestenemy

        So they have migrated their ESPN Ocho content? We have merged with Hollywood fiction in the weirdest ways

      • Chipwooder

        I saw that.

        I’m waiting for the jet ski competitions and badminton tournaments you used to see on ESPN late at night in the ’80s to make a return.

      • Raven Nation

        Aussie Rules is broadcast by Fox Australia (+ one of the broadcast networks) so it probably won’t show up on ESPN. Same with the National Rugby League. English Premiership Rugby is on NBC Sports. ESPN dumped a lot of sports when they went all in on NBA and other stuff. Now they can’t get them back.

  58. Ownbestenemy

    Egads! News is on and they are lamenting that over half of vaccine data doesn’t have race attributed to it! Quick! Form a committee!

    Or maybe people are sick of giving that information when it is clear the government is using it in nefarious and stupid ways?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The fact that it’s important enough for the media to break out the fainting couch over it is all the answer they need.

  59. DEG

    Feds want Florida shut down. DeSantis says no.

    The White House Coronavirus Task Force is calling for the closure of bars, restaurants, and gyms in the state of Florida due to the rise in hospitalizations from COVID-19.

    During a state budgetary overview on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reiterated his stand against locking down the economy in the state.

    “We believe every job is essential,” said the governor. “You work in a restaurant, we have your back. If you are a hair stylist, we protect your right to earn a living and if you are a parent we ensure your kids have the right to in-person learning. Lockdowns do not work.”

    • Ownbestenemy

      Oh that can have the potential to get interesting.

      • cyto

        Just for context. Florida is up to 26,500 deaths. New York is at 43,178, and we know they have been manipulating their numbers.

        Yup. DeSantis has really done a horrible job.

    • Rebel Scum

      Sounds like another insurrection. Send in the troops.

      • leon

        Governor not listening to the President? That has Inssurection written all over it. How can we have Unity with these people who clearly don’t want it.

    • Urthona

      lol.

      Cases and deaths are both going down in Florida.

      Hospitalizations are going up because the cherry picked stat is referring to people in hospitals and not being hospitalized. In other words, it will drop in a few weeks.

      • cyto

        They really have made discrediting DeSantis a priority. I wonder what they see in him that I don’t see?

      • leon

        When the left cites a statistic _always_ assume that the reason they didn’t cite a more specific or relevant statistic is because it goes against them.

    • Chipwooder

      Florida says “lol go fuck yourself”

    • creech

      Pharoah Joe says “assemble the armored divisions, call in the missile troops, gather the mobile infantry; we march on Tallahassee at dawn.”

  60. Rebel Scum

    One way to get yourself keeled.

    “MAYDAY MAYDAY – MY VESSEL BROKE”
    This terrifying video recorded by the crew of the ship shows the breaking of the vessel in two which eventually sank. The ship was built in 1975 and plying in Turkish water during the time of the incident which happened on 17th Jan 2021.

    • cyto

      Sooooooo….. The front fell off?

    • Chipwooder

      Wow….that’s nuts. Wreck of Edmund Fitzgeraldski.

  61. Festus

    Mornin’ and Goodnight, Glibs! That Conn Smythe story led me to the tale of Billy Barker who should be a part of Animal’s series.

  62. Pope Jimbo

    Good Deal Alert!!!! (For our Wisconsin Glibs)

    Pretty funny episode of the Manitowac Minute.

  63. cyto

    On the front of a making the lockdown permanent, I heard some news that pushes in that direction yesterday. Apparently some of the new variants are sufficiently different from the original strain that people who have already had covid-19 can catch it. And those new strains are all circulating here in Florida. Great! we went through the pain of dealing with that stupid illness and we’re not even immune? That would really be obnoxious.

    • cyto

      It would also strongly imply that the vaccines are not protective against the new strains either.

    • Urthona

      I doubt it though.

  64. Pope Jimbo

    SCIENCE: Wisconsin drinks more than half the world’s brandy

    According to the California brandy maker, 275,000 cases of Korbel Brandy were sold around the world in 2019. Over 150,000 of those cases were sold in Wisconsin.

    Ok, so maybe it would be more accurate to say Wisconsinites drink half the supply of a low rent brandy distiller. But I’m not going to rule out that they also drink up half the supply of other brandy makers.

    • Not Adahn

      Sacre Bleu!

    • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

      I didn’t realize Wisconsinites were so refined in their tastes.

      Yeah, yeah, it’s Korbel, but still . . .

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      That’s an awful lot of old fashioneds to sell to the Illinois tourists.