627 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    1 in 10 Democrats regret their 2020 vote.

    7 in 10 are surprised to find they had voted. 2 in 10 were unable to be exumed for comment.

    Morning, Banjos

    • Lackadaisical

      10/10 Democrats are moral, philosophical, political and historical illiterates, only 1/10 acknowledge it.

      • AlexinCT

        Great breakdown of the stats by both of you.

      • Lackadaisical

        In some ways I’m shocked it’s only 1/10, but most people (myself included) have a hard time admitting mistakes.

      • AlexinCT

        I would surmise one of the biggest and most difficult things to admit is that your politics are destructive and based on marxist delusionary thinking, because in reality the only consistently delivered results are misery, deprivation, and death & destruction.

      • rhywun

        the only consistently delivered results are misery, deprivation, and death & destruction

        You left out “smugness”.

      • AlexinCT

        Well duh! How are you going to seriously put your boot hard on the plebe’s neck if you are not doing it smugly?

      • Not Adahn

        I’d like to think that I would openly admit my mistakes, if I ever made any.

      • blackjack

        Once, I thought I did, but it turned out I was wrong.

      • blackjack

        9 out of 5 have multiple personality disorders.

    • Not Adahn

      To be fair, at least some fraction of Trump voters had buyer’s remorse too.

      • UnCivilServant

        Every election leave voters in the lurch, so we could probably run the same statistic every time and not be wrong beyond a small margin of error most of the time.

      • blackjack

        I’m sorry, but any media outlet reporting a poll showing Trump winning against Biden right now is stunning. It’s a massive reversal of the narrative. I don’t remember there even being any saying Hillary would win over Trump after he was elected. Even with the google algorithm. They are trying to tell us something.

      • UnCivilServant

        I was referring to the statistic 1/10 voters have regrets.

        I did not look into the link because I’m commenting while at work.

        The fact that they’re even rerunning the election when their party is in power says something’s afoot.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Never heard anyone who voted for Trump regret that decision.

        Trump turned out to be the best president in us history. Two impeachments by commies in govt show how good he was doing. The people in govt that are the problem, hated Trump so he must have done something right.

    • Lackadaisical

      “14 percent of Black Americans expressing regret. ”

      They ain’t black, Jack.

      • blackjack

        Can attest to this.

    • Count Potato

      Orange Man 10% Bad?

  2. Festus

    Blinken is a clown and haha to Bro-Tard!

    • Festus

      Dammit! I just wanted him to make cogent comments but the gloved one beat me to it.

  3. UnCivilServant

    Google whistleblower claims Google rewrote algorithm to hurt Trump.

    You mean they didn’t just have an unperson list built-in already?

    • Festus

      “Fortifying”. Same as they are doing up here. We won’t learn the results for 4-5 days after all of the mail in ballots are counted. The fix is in.

      • AlexinCT

        They will keep the pandemic panic going for as long as it takes for them to keep stealing elections and the people to finally stop resisting their rule..

      • UnCivilServant

        5-packs and 10-packs? How many customers buy that many?

      • UnCivilServant

        *We cannot ship this item to the following states: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Washington</blockquote?

      • Not Adahn

        Well, damn.

        I have bought from them before, though nothing that would be considered a firearm.

      • UnCivilServant

        As an aside, what is a cheap and readily available practice stock for milling operations? It’s a skill that needs to be worked on outside of a ‘production’ piece.

      • blackjack

        Tooling suppliers sell various forms of polymers for prototyping. I know some stuff is way too soft to cut easily, it just melts. Some decent hard-ish wood will machine well enough to prove your cutting plan. I always just used aluminum. It’s not crazy expensive and I feel like I learn more using the actual material I am going to need in the end.

      • UnCivilServant

        The production piece I have is polymer, but my skill level is “Fifteen years since I touched an end mill, never milled with a drill press before”

        That reminds me, I gotta find my $10,000 hammer*. I hope it didn’t get lost in the house fire.

        *The hammer was the lab project for the material science class where we learned to use the machine shop. Since it was one of the few physical items I was getting to keep from my university experience, I marked it with a $10,000 price tag.

      • UnCivilServant

        Now there’s something I didn’t even know existed.

        Thank you.

      • EvilSheldon

        You’re welcome!

        Even though I have more AR lowers than I know what to do with, I’ve been tempted lately to buy an 80% lower, or even a raw forging, and finish it. Just for the practice, and to have the GCode tested…

      • Grummun

        $159? Is that typical for 80% lowers these days? I remember them being $50, less for “blemished”.

      • UnCivilServant

        It was $80 not that long ago.

        But with talk of bans, deman goes up and thus prices rise.

      • DEG

        Speaking of the ban, I think today is the last day of the public comment period on the new proposed 80% lower rules.

      • UnCivilServant

        over 161k comments. I went through a few pages. Only one in favor, the rest against.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        All gun control laws are unconstitutional as per the 2nd amendment. Any law to ban guns, gun parts, explosives, knives, ammo, etc is null and void.

      • Mad Scientist

        Here are some cheaper ones.

      • Not Adahn

        Eh, I got a notification about these from Matador, and they made the adapter that lets me use CZ75 mags in my PCC.

      • EvilSheldon

        Those are also billet 9mm lowers, which are more complicated even in 80% form.

    • Not Adahn

      Zach Vorhies, who previously worked for Google,

      Any relation to Jason?

      • Nephilium

        Missed it by THAT (Voorhees) much.

      • Nephilium

        The movies get… weird… when you try to figure out where they are set. Crystal Lake (Jason Voorhees home) is supposed to be in New Jersey, and Springwood (Nightmare on Elm Street series) is supposed to be in Ohio. The first Elm Street movie showed the lush palm trees of central Ohio, and the crossover movie showed Crystal Lake to be a short drive from Springwood. Just more proof that TV/Movie writers/directors don’t know much about the center of the country (points at Titans having a scene set in the corn fields of Middleburg Heights, OH).

      • Agent Cooper

        Don’t even get me started on Haddonfield, Illinois!

      • robc

        The movie Elizabethtown turned me off early when the guy go lost between SDF and Elizabethtown. He crossed the Ohio River and went thru the I-64 tunnel.

        Leave airport, take first exit, drive until E-town exit. It is brutally simple. E-town isn’t some small rural town in KY. It is, at this point, effectively a suburb of Louisville. Technically Hardin County is its own MSA, but it is in the Louisville CSA.

        Now if they made a movie called Burkesville, I would allow it.

      • robc

        The E-town MSA is now (as of 2013) the Elizabethtown-Fort Knox MSA and included Hardin and LaRue (birthplace of Lincoln) counties. It is over 155k people as of 2020. Like I said, not a small rural town.

  4. hayeksplosives

    Joe Biden’s State Dept Halted A Trump-Era ‘Crisis Response’ Plan Aimed At Avoiding Benghazi-Style Evacuations Just MONTHS Before Taliban Takeover.

    That’s gonna look bad on their report!!

    • Festus

      I can see making your political enemy look bad but this is harming American citizens. Why?

      • Surly Knott

        Because the American citizens are their enemy.

      • Brawndo

        I’m not sure I buy the malice angle to this. I assume most of the people left behind and trapped in Afghanistan are CIA/contractor types.

      • Surly Knott

        I probably agree. It’s not malice per se, but malicious indifference. They have no care for the American people as individual entities or enumerable subsets. They only care about the phantasmagorical “American People”, the talisman they nod to as source of their power and “beneficiary (as determined by them) of all their acts.

      • db

        To paraphrase: One citizen is a curiosity, a million citizens are a voting bloc.

      • waffles

        I can’t wait to depose the professional managers!

      • blackjack

        Biden is a no-shit idiot. None of his incompetence is even remotely surprising. What’s shocking is that it’s being reported. I’m sure Biden’s policy is, if Trump created it, I want to destroy it and that’s what happened to this bureau. prior to now, the media would calling this a genius move even while we all watched it go to shit.

      • Tonio

        Two possibilities come to mind: Incompetence on the part of the Harris/Biden administration where nobody thought this through, where they didn’t consult the experts, etc. Deliberate sabotage on the part of the brass to discredit the administration; this is not incompatible with the other possibility, and is scarier of the two.

      • AlexinCT

        You are dealing with academics that think they are know it alls but have not realized they really have never had to do anything in the real world which is not like academia. More importantly, you can’t engage in doing the right things, when you have spent all your time trying to convince the plebes that they should worry about the idiotic dreck you want to focus on as part of your march to a new totalitarian one party state. Think about it. How seriously are people going to take you when you keep carping about AGW and CRAP (Critical Race Applied Principles), that members of the opposition party unwilling to bend the knee are domestic terrorists, Kung Flu is an existential threat, and that the adults are now in charge (SNARK!), but then do things that make it look like this shit is all bullshit you are pushing so you can both rob the productive blind through the tax system and remove the rights of people that know government causes problems and never fixes anything contrary to what politicians and bureaucrats keep lying about.

      • Pine_Tree

        I think the second one (brass) is more likely to be “the brass never actually had a plan to begin with, after lying about everything for 20 years, and so in the end every one of them just did a hands-off-it-wasn’t-me thing so as to not be left holding the bag”.

        The brass we have now are deep-state politicians. They were never interested in victory, or the Constitution, or anything except their own power, position, and pocketbooks. They’re bugging out just like the Afghan president.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        State was opposed to the program because it undercut their traditional operations and made them look incompetent.

      • Agent Cooper

        You, Biden Administrator Person, must be anti-all-things-Trump. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense. Hopefully, this won’t affect the Abraham Accords.

      • Surly Knott

        Well, a test is probably coming with Iran publicly shipping oil to Lebanon. What happens to that tanker will be … interesting …

    • WTF

      But, but, the lefties keep telling us Biden had no choice but to just evacuate troops in a sudden chaotic move because he was stuck with “Trump’s plan”!!!

      • Lackadaisical

        That’s my favorite lie of the week.

        We had to follow the plan we didn’t follow… Okay.

      • Ownbestenemy

        “I was tied to it, nothing I could do” doesn’t jive with every other action he took to the previous administrations policies and immediately dumping them.

      • AlexinCT

        Funny how these fuckers can flip-flop, on a dime, and expect to be taken seriously, huh? Think that has anything to do with the media being just propagandists?

        Which reminds me: the fact many in the media have now decided to attack the Biden team is not a coincidence or them suddenly realizing they backed a glue horse. There is something here they are planning to get away with (like getting rid of Sleepy Joe and giving us Queen Commie-Loh?).

      • Lackadaisical

        This may be the right way of thinking.

        Saw a video posted by After Skool that posited that the lies are almost purposefully easy to refute. They want you to were your time and mental energy on their last lie, meanwhile they’re cooking up the next experiment.

        I think the communists did something similar, though I’ve heard that was more about demoralization.

      • AlexinCT

        In every communist system part of keeping the people down and demoralized was forcing them to defend ludicrously stupid and obvious lies as if they were truths. You know you own someone when they know you are full of shit but MUST pretend you are right because they fear the consequences.

        It’s called making them your bitch.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Commies want make it so only the state is believed.

        That and science is turned into junk science where all results are politically advantageous to the state.

      • Lord Humungus

        That’s the talking points I’ve been seeing.

        See changing every other plan like the border, etc is easy-peasy. But plans/treaties with other countries are unbreakable!

      • Swiss Servator

        Yeah, those damned furriners can go hang – who cares if they helped us and will get killed. We don’t want any more dirty Central Asians in our country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      • Drake

        More a comment on our priorities, our brilliant invade the world/ invite the world strategy. But yes – who wouldn’t want a few hundred fighting-aged Afghan men settled in their town?

      • Rebel Scum

        We should at least try to help anyone that assisted the US, but we can’t accept a bunch of refugees economic migrants just because.

      • Drake

        I would suggest we settle as many as possible on the Bush ranch.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      There is supposed to be a Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation plan for every embassy. The embassy is responsible for keeping track of how many US nationals are in the country and roughly where they are and there is supposed to be a SOCOM element that is tasked with every American Embassy (in Army SF it is normally Charlie Company, First Battalion of whichever SF Group is responsible for that geographic Area (5th Group – CENTCOM, 1st Group – PACOM, etc). The SEALs, Ranger Regiment, Force Recon, etc. are up against these requirements too.

      These plans predate the Biden administration by decades, I am not sure if this is the sort of thing that they are talking about, but I could see a State Department apparatchik waving off SOCOM, because reasons.

      What a shit show.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I understood it to be a special program initiated in 2012 that was results driven. Because it was a competitor to the old standing programs at State, a lot of people wanted it gone.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        The decision to trigger NEO plans is usually on the Ambassador. Although there is a bunch of blame to go around. Why there were no contingency plans for a quick collapse of the ANA and Government is staggering and can only be the result of wishfully believing their own press and overestimating the ANA and their will to actually fight.

      • Gustave Lytton

        And not fucking paying attention to what happened in Saigon, including an Ambassador that wanted to pretend everything was hunky dory.

      • Agent Cooper

        Giving up Bagram was idiotic.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        I couldn’t agree more, only the Pentagon could create a clusterfuck on this scale.

        At least they are all caught up on their equal opportunity training though.

      • Gustave Lytton

        30SEP is just around the corner! Don’t make me buttonhole you again!

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        “Yes, First Sergeant,” he dejectedly replied.

  5. waffles

    Biden’s State Department canceled a program aimed at evacuating Americans in crisis zones.

    I have seen many comments saying something to the effect of “why is Biden getting thrown under bus now?” Welp, this is unspinnably damning. Afghanistan is the nightmare this regime won’t be able to wake up from.

    • Festus

      “We’ve always woken up from before except for the times where there were bars on the door or blood-soaked carpets!”

    • Ownbestenemy

      His only hope is COVID. I expect some heavy handed measure because of that.

      • Tonio

        Ima go with CAGW ramp-up. Supposed existential crisis that they can keep fighting indefinitely and for which they don’t have to show any results.

      • Festus

        That’s Justy’s play. Turns out that his most fervent supporters are the ones most against mandates. If he gets tossed next month I’ll be dancing in the street with the MILFy soccer moms!

    • Breet Pharara

      Rats fleeing the sinking ship. Biden was meant to come in and be a massive success. Covid restrictions raised —> economy booms. Neocons back in full control of foreign policy working under the tagline “America is back” and reestablish America as the big dog in geopolitics. Lots of free stuff with progressive policy. Americans would love the Biden administration and never question the ruling class again.

      Flash forward 8 months. Economy has been extremely weak and fragile and its a game of hiding the inflation bomb and avoiding actually fighting it since that would crush whatever strength it has. Foreign policy has been one disaster after another, Afghanistan is just the most visible. Standoff in Ukraine with Russia, using that “America is back” tagline when they sent people to Vietnam (seriously), Blinken getting schooled by Putin at a conference.

      They had to pivot back to Covid will kill us all if you don’t follow the experts because that’s the only thing Biden is above water approval rating wise. Of course, he was approved because things were returning to normal. This is going backwards so you would expect that rating to collapse as well. Not to mention it causing havoc on the aforementioned weak economy.

      Everything is going wrong and there is an obvious figure who can’t fight back to pin it on. Can’t be the expert class failing, its just that senile old man.

  6. Lackadaisical

    I’m commenting on the links, just a previous one.

    “SugarFree’s Garbage Person of the Day

    Actually, Wearing a Mask Can Help Your Child Learn”

    Jesus, what a black pill. This is some Harrison Bergeron shot.

    • UnCivilServant

      I applied for a post with a title of “Assistant Handicapper-General.”

      No job duties listed, but a pay increase.

      • Lackadaisical

        That’s with the diversity and inclusion office, right?

      • UnCivilServant

        “Department of Equity”

      • blackjack

        “Department of Equine-ity”

      • Not Adahn

        “The most important bureau in my empire.”

        -Catherine

      • Lackadaisical

        Right. Forgot we’ve completely gone into a dystopia.

      • waffles

        Just realized diversity inclusion equity is DIE. For some reason they always acronymize it dei though, weird.

      • Not Adahn

        Because they art God.

  7. Rebel Scum

    And what a beautiful morning it always is!

    Meh. The sun is out. And I have a deadline today.

    • Nephilium

      Today it’s finally not supposed to rain all day. And I’ve got to work late because someone couldn’t be bothered to show up to a deployment for shit he wrote yesterday (also after my shift).

      • Not Adahn

        It IS supposed to rain all day today. On the plus side, it took less than 15 minutes for the pup to complete her morning business. I’m uncertain why there’s a warm north wind today.

      • Nephilium

        It’s been raining every day since the 9th here. Every. Single. Day.

      • Not Adahn

        True story: when I moved up here from TX, I quickly realized that the reason it’s so lush and green here is because of all the rain. During the first two months, it never went more than three days without raining. I mentioned this to my native coworkers and the following occurred:

        “What are you talking about? It doesn’t rain all the time here.”
        “It rained today
        “Well, yeah, but not all day.”

      • UnCivilServant

        Well, yeah, if I missed the rain, it really didn’t impact me much.

      • The coolest vaccine-free BEAM in the world™

        That is the same discussion I’d have every winter with people in the Lower Rainland™; even if we’d gone for 30 days+ with rain every day, the locals would try to convince me that it wasn’t that bad because it hadn’t rained all day, every day.

        Meanwhile, I was dealing with mould and mildew all over my damn property and inside my house, and got a fungal infection for the first time in my life. I’m so glad I’m out of that shithole.

      • Rat on a train

        No need to brag to Californians.

      • UnCivilServant

        Gee, before the really smelly prog rot, all I heard from californians was how it never rained or snowed out there, as if that were a good thing.

        I like the rain.

      • blackjack

        Hah. It rained yesterday.

      • SDF-7

        “Abashed the Devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is…”

      • rhywun

        Hazy hot humid for the next I dunno seems like forever here.

        And my LR AC died last night. It’s going to be a miserable next few days.

      • AlexinCT

        Nothing sucks as much as a busted AC man. Did that earlier this year. There is hope if you can find a replacement.

      • rhywun

        It’s a portable unit. I just discovered that water is leaking out of the bottom and not just out of the valve. I guess it should not be doing that.

        Oh well, replacement is on the way. Next week. ?

    • waffles

      It’s cloudy. And I have a deadline today. Good morning glibs. Thanks for improving my post-commute, pre-work routine.

    • Rat on a train

      Sprint day was yesterday, so today is the low-pressure first day of the cycle. Today is also the second time I changed companies without taking any action. Time to learn new HR systems and start acquiring new swag.

  8. Tres Cool

    whaddup, pimp-juice

    Christ, its already Thursday? I just woke up on the floor, coated in dog hair and White Castle boxes. They need to not give me days/nights off.

    • Festus

      I’ll be smelling you about 4 Pacific.

      • Festus

        I seriously don’t know how I can manage to down 14-15 Canadian beers everyday. Stalin, I suppose. Half of my diet is fast food since Judi went vegan. I do work really hard so at least I got that going for me.

      • Swiss Servator

        Might want to cut that number of beers down, just a wee bit.

      • AlexinCT

        Nah, switch to hard liquor and you will have a harder time tracking your drinking.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I had maybe one or two…oh the bottle is empty, so one!

      • Festus

        DON’T JUDGE! I get it. I get you. Thanks for your concern, Friend.

      • Festus

        Still 172 lbs. Still just a potato.

      • PutridMeat

        weight is not necessarily a fool-proof metric of metabolic health. Too much alcohol, too much fast food (with the associated sugar and very bad oils) is not a recipe for health no matter the weight. Not a judgement, just an observation, you are free to do you and make your own value judgements. But we also like to keep good, decent people around and healthy and happy as long as possible!

      • Festus

        It needs to be pared back, this I know. I’m nearly 57 years old.

      • AlexinCT

        He is saying you need to eat more pussy to balance out your diet…

      • Agent Cooper

        I can’t even drink more than 2 beers anymore. My gut won’t allow it. I have to go mixed drinks without a ton of carbonation.

    • Not Adahn

      How could Snuffelluffagus betray a fellow Clintonian like that!?!?

      • Festus

        Sharks in the water and the USS Indianapolis just got torpedoed. He delivered what they wanted and now he’s on his own.

      • AlexinCT

        I suspect this is exactly what we are seeing. Getting rid of the senile guy because he is in his own world would make them all look bad. Getting rid of him because of policy crisis though, allows them to not admit they dragged that dead horse over the finish line knowing he was in late stage dementia.

      • Drake

        I believe Harris represents the Clintonista wing of the party and Biden the Obama wing. Not sure there is a difference, just hunger for power and money that comes with it.

      • Rat on a train

        The Obama wing is your activist grifter faction. The Clinton wing is your union corruption faction.

    • Ownbestenemy

      He got out his message that the press needs to move on…hey look, Im going to bring the full force of the Federal Government down on local states and school boards!

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Only1 in 10?

    Fucking stupid soccer moms.

    • AlexinCT

      Politics has become quasi-religious, and team blue allegiance is akin to cultism.

      • Agent Cooper

        There’s a helluva Trump cult, too.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Yea. Those that wanted a Washington outsider to promote deregulation, america first foreign policy, limit illegal immigration, and fight the Commies in government.

        Same-Same as the jonestown bunch.

    • Rebel Scum

      But they each “voted” ten times a la running the ballots ten times.

      And now the admin considers me a “terrorist” because I questioned the election.

  10. Rebel Scum

    Joe Biden’s State Dept Halted A Trump-Era ‘Crisis Response’ Plan Aimed At Avoiding Benghazi-Style Evacuations Just MONTHS Before Taliban Takeover.

    Something something malice something something stupidity. But seriously I can’t imagine I would be doing anything other than this farce of an administration if I was not intentionally trying to torpedo the country on every level.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It was bureaucratic infighting that killed it. As per usual State is vehemently opposed to any program that requires results.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Zach Vorhies, who previously worked for Google, said in an interview with The Epoch Times that the tech titan specifically tailored its news algorithm to harm the former president.

    Inconceivable.

    • Not Adahn

      The Epoch Times is one of Putin’s Chinese Alt-Right propaganda rags for Proud Boys!

      • Swiss Servator

        You left out the Falun Gong!

      • Not Adahn

        There was a different… religious group? Protesting the CCP downtown two weekends back. No idea if they’re just Falun Gong rebranded or not.

    • Lackadaisical

      Not sure why this is news. This is well established fact and they’ve admitted, or rather, bragged about it.

      • rhywun

        Yes, I seem to remember it was leaked that the big guy vowed to “take down OMB” in an all-hands meeting.

    • juris imprudent

      Or is this about as meaningful as Russian meddling?

  12. juris imprudent

    You hired a lot of losers and never took responsibility for any of them outside of bitching/insulting them after the fact.

    Ain’t that the truth.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      That was one of his biggest failings.

      He really sucked at the palace politics side of governing, IMO. You can’t just hire and fire people the way you can at the executive levels of the private sector and have there be no fallout.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Sure you can. There are consequences in the corporate world too.

        Btw, remember the Lefties control the bureaucracy in DC and many states. Trump had difficulty getting people to work in his administration. Some of the first volunteers hid their lack of fitness or recommended unfit people.

        Lefties and RINOs have to be skilled liars to destroy america from the inside out, so trying to sabotage the trump administration was right in their wheelhouse.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        I was going to volunteer to be the director of veterans affairs. Not that I would get the job. My wife said nope.

        I had a surefire plan. Day 1: fire ~50% of VA staff and give their pay in the form of bonuses to the remaining staff who make the VA more efficient and fulfill its mission.

        Im a veteran in the health system, so Im aware of the glaring problems that are obvious and ignored.

  13. Surly Knott

    Farewell to the managerial class.
    I highly recommend reading this essay.

    • waffles

      This is a good read, thank you. Pairs well with my coffee and sweet roll.

      • Not Adahn

        Be careful that no one steals it.

      • UnCivilServant

        Or at least don’t go whining to the guards if they do.

      • Surly Knott

        You’re welcome. I thought it was a pretty impressive analysis.

    • juris imprudent

      That is really good stuff – thanks!

      • Surly Knott

        You’re welcome. It was a link in a Samizdata post. They’re always worth reading, part of my daily routine.

    • waffles

      The leader of the war effort, one Colonel-General Gromov, symbolically rode in the very last BTR, and then proclaimed to the gathered journalists that there wasn’t a single russian soldier behind his back.

      Wow. For us, it’s actual no-shit incompetence. Up and down the chain.

      • Drake

        We were wondering when the all the social justice programs and officer promotions based on fealty to the craziness would degrade our military effectiveness – and here we are. I don’t know if combat effectiveness at the platoon level has deteriorated yet, but clearly the senior leadership is incompetent.

      • waffles

        That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. And in 2001 it wasn’t an issue. In 2021 it is THE ISSUE.

      • Rat on a train

        Back in the 90s the Army started the “Consideration Of Others Program”. Get soldiers together to talk about feelings. They probably intended it to be a time when the oppressed can rail against the oppressors. At least in my units, it turned into who could create the most absurd hypothetical situation.

      • Atanarjuat

        Brings to mind how many generals were fired a few months into the first world war when it became apparent they were no good when the rubber hit the road.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This

        And this dynamic exists all across corporate America. We’re one currency failure away from all of it imploding.

      • Swiss Servator

        Yeah, the Engineer BN they abandoned at Bagram AF had all been killed or captured by that point. Clumsy lie.

      • Swiss Servator

        We used to come across their bones once in a while – and the ones that were let live (they had to convert to Islam on the spot) ended up Ahmad Shah Masood’s bodyguard.

      • Not Adahn

        Well, that’s creepy AF. Did you package/ship the remains to someone?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yeah. His argument wasn’t helped by that exaggeration and it was unnecessary.

    • juris imprudent

      The managerial imperative and Climate Change – he didn’t say that but it clicked in my head. We must manage the global economy (and energy consumption) is the demand of these idiots (both the asinine managerial class and the sycophantic followers).

      • Lackadaisical

        I hope the essay is correct.

        I realize that would mean tough times, but the direction the status quo is going may be worse.

    • Fourscore

      Very interesting read, hard to grasp the idea that “they” are no more competent than “we”. We have been taught since little kids that we are the lesser class and should be happy with our lot.

      We complain about welfare for those others but cannot recognize that we too are the recipients of the roads, the building codes, the schools. Paraphrasing Pogo, “We has met the enemy and we be him”

      • juris imprudent

        See, this goes with the need to believe that someone is in charge. God must ultimately be in charge, and from that all other manner of people in charge is derived – even when you end up cutting God out. When you can’t find who is in charge overtly, there is someone in charge covertly – thus conspiracy theories. All based on the fundamental and utterly primitive need to believe that some one/thing has control.

      • Plisade

        Good point. And I’ve been trying to think of what the next system / ruling class will look like. Are we approaching a time when we (society in general, clearly Glibs are already there) will stop thinking they need a ruler? Decentralization has been a trend…

        Gig Economy
        Social Media / Internet News Sources
        Crypto Currency (no central bank)
        3D Printing at Home (no regulatory control over production)
        Micro Breweries

      • juris imprudent

        The ruler is just an overt figure of control. If you don’t see the ruler, you assume he exists out of sight. No one wants to accept that there isn’t a ruler. That would mean shit happens without someone to blame. This is very fucking primitive, and no, I don’t think we’re evolving away from it.

        The problem is, as the world gets more complex it is impossible to control it, and since we can’t give up our desire/delusion about control, we sublimate it by assigning control to things/people we don’t see.

      • Plisade

        So you wouldn’t see that move of countries toward democratic forms of government as at least some sign of evolving away from a ruler or ruling class, however horribly we fuck it up? The Constitution clearly set out to limit the power of the ruling class as a goal.

        I see the covid reaction as more evidence of it, a battle between the rule(r) followers and those who want individual freedom.

    • Q Continuum

      “The bell has well and truly tolled for mankind’s belief in their ability to do anything else than enrich themselves and ruin things for everyone else.”

      If only I could believe this. There seem to be a lot of peasants that still think “experts” are the final word on everything. Besides, Big Tech has become so powerful that people don’t need to believe or not, they’ll still be enslaved by it.

  14. Rebel Scum

    Biden is slammed for claiming Kabul ‘chaos’ was inevitable after months of saying it was NOT. Irritable President snaps in car-crash interview over questions on Afghans falling from planes

    C’mon, man! My butt’s been wiped!

    It seems that someone has lost favor with the party.

    • AlexinCT

      I suspect the party needs a fall guy considering all they have been doing is showing people how to fail spectacularly despite rigging the system in your favor…

  15. The Late P Brooks

    This would never happen in Europe

    Mississippi health officials said nearly a thousand hospital beds that could be used to treat patients are empty due to staff shortages.

    “We’re still nowhere near the staff we need for the beds we need,” senior deputy for the Mississippi Department of Health Jim Craig said on Wednesday according to The Associated Press.

    According to Craig, 73 Mississippi hospitals have requested 1,451 staff members to treat patients. Over 250 people were waiting in emergency rooms for hospital beds as of Wednesday morning the AP reported.

    If all these positions were to be filled, then Mississippi would be able to staff 771 medical-surgical beds and 235 intensive care unit beds, Craig said.

    The Ministry of Plenty will know the proper staffing levels.

    • blackjack

      That is traditionally the best time to try and forcibly vaccinate hospital staff.

    • Tonio

      Apparently there is a nurse shortage and some hospitals are offering significant incentives to temporary nurses, causing some nurses to quit their regular jobs and follow the money.

      • Nephilium

        There’s staffing shortages everywhere. Went out and grabbed dinner last night, and the bartender was complaining about the lack of help. She said people would show up for their first day, and walk off halfway through or never show up again. A company I work with just had the discussion on a high-level call that to help alleviate staffing issues, they’ve decided they really don’t need to test for marijuana use. I’m seeing offers for entry level help desk work at up to $25/hour (just two years ago these would be $15/hour positions here).

      • Drake

        I have meeting in half an hour about the urgent need for staff.

      • AlexinCT

        Pay them more!

        /morons

      • Drake

        We stupidly laid people off 2 months ago.

      • AlexinCT

        You are not alone there….

        A lot of businesses did this because they gambled there would be another big slowdown. Some even saw it as a way to get rid of driftwood and replacing them with new bodies. Then the new bodies are nowhere to be found…

        One of the big things is that a lot of people now only want remote work. Driving into an office to sit at a computer to do your job simply makes no sense, but big companies are still stuck in that old way of doing work and can’t get past the belief you have managers watching the rats in cubes cause otherwise the rats will all start licking their own privates and napping.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        We’re having a hard time recruiting out of law school because big law put their entry salary at $205k and we haven’t moved our entry salary since big law was at $160k. We aren’t expected to match, but we’re expected to be in the ballpark. Can’t afford it since we’d have to bump the pay of 1/3 of the legal department to prevent a pay inversion.

      • rhywun

        Hearing the same complaints at my work.

        Us devs seem constant but the frequent rotating of business analyst staff among the different teams I work with is starting to get ridiculous.

      • Fourscore

        Try finding someone to do some rather mundane handyman work. Lucky to find them, then luckier to get them to show up and actually perform.

      • Lackadaisical

        Yup, never been happier that I’m handy.

      • C. Anacreon

        On top of this nurses are currently allowed a huge amount of “sick days” due to covid policies, and are allowed to “call off” just minutes before their shifts without repercussions. It only takes a few call offs to close significant bed capacity.

      • Animal

        Our oldest kid is doing precisely this. She’s working for a couple of different contract agencies, still doing the work she wants to do and cashing the fuck in. I’m advising her and her hubby to put the money in ammo and agricultural land.

  16. Rebel Scum

    Google whistleblower claims Google rewrote algorithm to hurt Trump.

    Old news.

    • Rat on a train

      News would be “Google stops using biased algorithms.”

    • blackjack

      Like almost 5 years old.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    It’s chilly and rainy. Where has my global warming gone? The weather girl on teevee was practically tittering about the likelihood of “snow at the higher elevations” in Wyoming.

    • Fourscore

      Still waiting, the drought continues but looks like tomorrow Brooksie will turn loose of some of that wet stuff but not very much. Whatever happened to those 3 day rains we used to have? Wet dreams? Screwed up? Biden can do everything…

  18. Count Potato

    “Vorhies said he left Google in 2019 with 950 pages of internal documents and gave them to the Justice Department.

    It is unclear what, if anything, the DOJ did with those documents.”

    Seems pretty clear they didn’t do shit. Also, I don’t think there is a law against biased search algorithms.

    • Atanarjuat

      Should have given them to WikiLeaks.

    • WTF

      It could however be a campaign finance violation. Also possibly fraud, since they were presenting their search results as unbiased.

      • Count Potato

        If it’s a campaign finance violation then almost all of TV and Hollywood is guilty.

      • juris imprudent

        Preet is that you?

    • Agent Cooper

      “and gave them to the Justice Department.”

      Smart, and then suddenly stupid.

  19. Rebel Scum

    You hired a lot of losers and never took responsibility for any of them outside of bitching/insulting them after the fact.

    He had misplaced faith in the system and people within it. Hopefully he learned his lesson.

    • Drake

      Still pretty poor performance from a guy who’s catch-phrase was “You’re Fired!”

      • Chipwooder

        Yep. His entire persona was built around the notion that he’s this ruthless boss who demands performance. That proved to be a total myth.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Whether or not Trump was actually that person is largely irrelevant. The lesson of the Trump presidency is that the DC bureaucracy has its own agenda and it doesn’t really matter who’s in the office. They will fight tooth and nail to get what they want and the Constitution is just a piece of paper to them.

      • AlexinCT

        Damn, you beat me to it. I also want to point out that the big problem facing our nation with these fucking credentialed idiots in charge, is the schism between those of us that understand that our biggest problem today IS our government (they create or exacerbate all our big problems) and those that have sucked Marx’s cock and think government is the way to Utopia on earth. As long as so many people want and believe a bunch of inept and corrupt fucks hiding behind the façade of government can solve problems, we will be screwed.

      • juris imprudent

        The original American progressives never sucked Marx’s cock and they were just as convinced that utopia could be achieved by experts in govt properly ordering human affairs. Surly‘s linked article is on point.

      • db

        I’d love to see Dems make the argument that entrenched interests (they won’t say “Deep State”) are working against the President and are to blame for the foul-up in Afghanistan.

      • juris imprudent

        The Deep State really just is the bureaucracy doing what bureaucracies do. Sinister conspiracy theories are for those with the minds of children.

      • db

        Well, duh.

      • db

        To be more clear, yes, of course that’s what bureaucracies do. That is precisely why they are incompatible with representative government.

      • juris imprudent

        Bureaucracies are an unavoidable result of organized human social behavior. I work in DoD and I participate in the infamous “experiment in community” called Burning Man. I have watched BM bureaucratize over the last dozen or so years. This year the big experiment is – going to the desert without all of that bureaucracy.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        DC bureaucracy is not in charge as you might think.

        1. Trump beat their pick- Hillary
        2. The bureaucracy had to implement the largest election cheat scheme in US history to get rid of Trump and barely pulled it off.
        3. The bureaucracy and political elites thought that two impeachments will stop Trump and those who want to destroy the establishment traitors.
        4. Trump got these commies in govt to expose themselves, so we know who they are now. They used to do their dirty work from the shadows.

      • Agent Cooper

        “he’s this ruthless boss who demands performance.”

        I never thought that was his persona. To me, he was the blue-collar billionaire egomaniac goofball.

      • AlexinCT

        The problem with this statement is that there are no good options for an outsider when you are dealing with the entrenched government bureaucracy. It is rare that you find someone that actually isn’t beholden to the machine (Grenell) and Trump didn’t realize that was the case until way too late. He was being given bad advice constantly, and when he finally told them to fuck off and do what he wanted, they slow-walked him or outright defied and ignored his orders (Afghanistan for example). As an outsider he was always going to be fighting an uphill battle against the machine, and hiring outside the machine isn’t a real solution as the bureaucracy is rife with corruption as we all now are obvious to. You forget how the media treated him firing inept/slow-waling asshats? And don’t forget how they actually tried to set him up hoping he would shitcan his AG so they could impeach him on obstruction charges.

        Not making excuses for the guy, but that fight is far, far more difficult than we admit it is. I honestly believe it would be a blessing to this country if D.C. was nuked and we got rid of that den of thieves, but IMO the next best thing – to send all government three letter bureaucracy to small towns in the middle of the country and break up the D.C. crowd – is not very likely to happen either. The country’s current biggest problem IS the bureaucracy. It is corrupt, self serving, manned by credentialed idiots with delusions of grandeur, obsessed with its own existence & power, and staffed by people that think they should become the new hereditary aristocratic class. They see the rest of us as an impediment to their goals and have been working hard to elect a new people that will let them do what they want. No single person will unwind that fucking nest of vipers.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ???

      • waffles

        Now I know why so many here enjoyed fallout 3 more than I thought was warranted.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        *chuckle*

        It’s true.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Trump couldnt even fire 50% of the executive branch bureaucrats eventhough the constitution gives the president power over the executive branch.

        His plan to move many bureaucrats out of DC and NoVa was genius. Just like federalism, decentralizing the federal bureaucracy around the USA would dilute Lefty power. Lefties in the bureaucracy were crying about having to move and threatening to quit. Which was an endrun around federal laws that limit termination of federal employees based on political winds.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Trump. Best president in US history. Washington was the greatest but never had to deal with so many bureaucrats who wanted to destroy america. To be fair, early america had very few federal bureaucrats.

        Trump being impeached twice just shows how well he did with what he had. The commies in govt hated him that much.

    • Fourscore

      Murphy’s Law at work. If someone is good at their job, don’t promote them.

    • Ownbestenemy

      They should just run this

    • Rat on a train

      I will trade you some McAwful campaign ads.

    • Drake

      Being in the NY media market, this has really helped curb my TV watching.

  20. Nephilium

    Well… to further my foul mood, local news is reporting that the independent concert venues are going to start requiring vax cards or negative Covid tests to gain admittance to shows. They’re starting this policy on 9/6, I’ve got tickets to a concert for 11/10. I figure I’ve got three options at this point:

    1) Hope the policy is removed by 11/10.
    2) Show up on 11/10 (assuming I receive no notice about the change in terms, which I haven’t yet), and try to get in. If barred from admittance, start complaining and asking what would have happened if they had decided to start asking for HIV test results before allowing admittance to a show.
    3) Start the process of asking for a refund, and or contesting the charge with the credit card company now.

    I’m acquainted with the owner of the venue for the show I’ve got tickets to from going to the venue for almost 30 fucking years now. It also means that some of the other shows that I was thinking about buying tickets for are now not going to be purchased.

    • Tonio

      I would say that #2 is the least likely to yield any results. There is option 2b where you show up with a fake vax card, but knowing you I suspect you would not take this path.

      #1 if you priority is seeing the show, #3 if your priority is trying to influence them. All the refunding processing has to cost them something and if enough people do it they may start rethinking their decision.

      • Nephilium

        2 is least likely to get results, but may be the most likely to influence the public. This is a counter culture place, and pointing out that everyone there would have been up in arms about any venue demanding a negative test for something else may cause something to click in their heads.

        The official refund policy is “No refunds”. However, pointing out that these same venues held to self limiting attendance after the restrictions were lifted, since they sold the tickets with the implied statement that the restrictions would be kept gives me some hope they’ll see the similarity.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        This is a counter culture place, and pointing out that everyone there would have been up in arms about any venue demanding a negative test for something else may cause something to click in their heads.

        Look at the optimist over here!

    • The Other Kevin

      Go with #3. I’m in that process now for a concert this weekend, but they’re giving me a hard time because it’s outside the allotted time for a refund, but they just sprang the vaccination requirements on my a week ago. We are prepared to eat those tickets just on principle.

      Sunday I went to a concert in Chicago. Not even mask requirements, and it was sold out.

      I think if they start playing to 50% capacity and lose out on ticket sales, that’s going to make the strongest statement.

    • DEG

      Go with #3.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    It also means that some of the other shows that I was thinking about buying tickets for are now not going to be purchased.

    Destruction of independent business enterprises continues according to plan.

    • Nephilium

      This is the venues doing it to themselves. Based on the article, they’re saying the bands and acts are the ones pushing for it.

  22. Not Adahn

    Whelp, it’s official. Work is requiring an attestation of vackstatus. However, they are NOT requiring vaccination or that you be tested if you attest no.

    However, a major misstep by management is to allow comments on this announcement. Now I have coworkers that I hate and cannot trust. Especially goddamn wafer techs in East Fishkill that contribute less than the Janitronics employees to the success of the company and should have been replaced by a carrier vehicle 20 years ago if IBM wasn’t such a stupid hidebound corporation and yet he thinks he gets to pronounce judgement on people who disagree with him.

    • Not Adahn

      However, one of my direct coworkers in the solid-state chemistry department posted:

      As of 8/16/21, Albany County has 25 county residents that are hospitalized with Covid-19: 13 unvaccinated, 12 vaccinated, 0 partially vaccinated. Saratoga County doesn’t publish such statistics.

      It looks like there is at least some sort of minor rebellion happening. And the deadline isn’t for two weeks, so mgmt gave themselves time to withdraw the policy.

      • UnCivilServant

        That many?

        Are we sure it’s actually Wuhan?

      • Not Adahn

        Hoo boy.

        I do not feel safe working alongside people who have not (and in some cases, sadly will not) get vaccinated.

        The amount of vaccine dissention in this thread is making me question our hiring practices

        Even with a third vaccine shot and double-masking, I don’t feel safe because of how quickly the virus can mutate and move through the unvaccinated population.

        And yes, there are names attached.

      • Not Adahn

        And apparently Essex Junction still employs operator level personnel.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Even with a third vaccine shot and double-masking, I don’t feel safe because of how quickly the virus can mutate and move through the unvaccinated population.

        However did that person survive in the world prior to 2020…

      • Agent Cooper

        “Even with a third vaccine shot and double-masking, I don’t feel safe because of how quickly the virus can mutate and move through the unvaccinated population.”

        This person should kill themself, just to be safe.

    • waffles

      That’s a nightmare. I am so glad I know absolutely nothing about my coworkers politics. Funny enough, if you don’t know their politics you can bet they lean right and at the very least aren’t authoritarian. Lefty authoritarians always announce themselves.

      • Sean

        Coworker showed of his new LTCF yesterday.

        *points to avatar*

      • R.J.

        You ain’t kidding. I got stuck on a text group, originally to cheer up work people who got moved to a different unit. Fast forward not even six weeks, it is a non-stop shit post fest about Trump. I will never join a big text group again.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      However, they are NOT requiring vaccination or that you be tested if you attest no.

      Yet.

      • blackjack

        Un huh. They just gave me my deadlines and decided against offering a testing option. I have until Sept.7 to either get a shot or an exemption.

      • Not Adahn

        Yeah, Imma wait and see what happens in the next week or so.

    • DEG

      Sorry.

  23. Count Potato

    “Trevor Bauer accuser ‘Ms. Hill’ appeared to suggest she was seeking tens of millions of dollars from the Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher in a text message conversation after her first rough sexual encounter with him, the defense claimed.

    Dressed in a green jacket, black blouse, and black pants, the 27-year-old took the witness stand again at LA Superior Court Wednesday as a court hearing to extend a temporary restraining order against the athlete to five years entered its third day.

    Bauer’s attorney Shawn Holley quizzed Hill, a recovering alcoholic, about her texts with her AA sponsor, Lisa Decker, that apparently gave the impression she was after Bauer for money.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9906321/Trevor-Bauer-hearing-day-3.html

    Shocking.

  24. Rebel Scum

    A judge more useful than ACB.

    A federal judge struck down the vaccine mandate at a Louisiana medical school, holding that it violates religious liberty rights under the Louisiana Constitution, and issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the school

    U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, issued the order after Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) students Lynn Magliulo, Matthew Shea Willis, and Kirsten Willis Hall alleged the school’s policy infringed on their freedom of religion.

    Though I would like to see a position based on simple bodily autonomy and medical freedom.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    People abusing the legal system

    A group of restaurant owners and five small businesses are suing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city over its vaccine mandate in the hopes of blocking the new requirement.

    Earlier this month, the city announced a new rule requiring people to show proof of vaccination against Covid-19 before dining indoors, visiting a fitness center or going to an indoor entertainment venue. Anyone who works in the impacted businesses must also be vaccinated. The rule went into effect this week, and the city plans to start enforcing it on September 13.
    “This vaccine mandate is arbitrary and capricious due to the fact that it targets certain establishments but not others,” wrote the plaintiffs, led by a group called the Independent Restaurant Owners Association Rescue, in a suit filed Tuesday. They said that the rule prevents people who choose not to be vaccinated from doing their jobs, and that it infringes on their religious freedom. They are seeking a permanent injunction against the order.

    It’s for your own good. Stop resisting.

    Or else.

  26. Atanarjuat

    So there are already claims that the iconic (and horrible) video of Afghans clinging to the outside of the cargo plane is fake. This guy, who seems to tweet a lot of bizarre numerology nonsense, has found another video of the plane, with the doomed outside passengers, but with no crowds around it. I’m not convinced, although the whole thing is very strange, and I suppose there could be a motive on the part of the Deep State/MIC to prove that leaving wars is a bad thing.

    Why did they cling to the plane? Would dying at the hands of the Taliban be that much worse?

    https://twitter.com/TeethLiberty/status/1427505572937707523?s=20

    • juris imprudent

      Shocking that you have found some shit in humanity’s virtual sewer.

    • Swiss Servator

      Ferdinand and Isabella?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Well that’s depressing. Israel knows full well that the variant is skipping past the vaccine.

      I was hoping they’d break their resolve on this but it appears they’re going to ride that car right off the cliff.

    • Rebel Scum

      Ramses II?

  27. The Late P Brooks

    This whole “religious exception” argument pisses me off. It’s bullshit.

    Fuck that.

    “Because I am an American” should be more than reason enough for anything.

    • Not Adahn

      Religion is an explicit part of the constitution for good reason. Almost everyone is religious, though what they worship varies wildly over time.

      • PieInTheSky

        If you worship the god of tits and wine it means strip clubs and wine bars are essential businesses

      • Nephilium

        Bacchus/Dionysus churches see an increase in membership?

      • PieInTheSky

        a good bacchanalia would not hurt

      • Swiss Servator

        Say five Hail Faucis and repent!

    • Festus

      Yup!

    • Nephilium

      If my work starts mandates, I’m going to grab on and use the religious exception as an Apathetic Agnostic, my beliefs all start from the point that I own myself. Ordained and recognized as such by the state of Ohio.

      I’m more then willing to allow any who want to join my church.

      • waffles

        But then I would have to live in Ohio.

      • Nephilium

        I don’t see why, you can be a member of a religion that doesn’t have a local church. Especially in the day of remote everything. You’d just have to come to Ohio if you want me to perform a marriage ceremony. PA’s laws about that are much stricter.

    • Rebel Scum

      It’s bullshit.

      Personal, medical freedom / bodily autonomy should be the standard.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Lack of govt authority to force injections should be the standard. Medical autonomy too.

        As scalia said, forcing americans to buy health insurance can lead to government forcing americans to buy broccoli or get injections.

  28. Q Continuum

    There’s a strong argument to be made that the only options we have to stop the chaos rampant in the world are big tits.

    https://archive.li/kXzCH

    Mammary Monday.

    • PieInTheSky

      It’s only Monday? Goddamnit.

      • Swiss Servator

        I know…was I abducted by aliens? I seem to be experiencing “missing time.”

      • Sean

        Been inside any police telephone boxes recently?

        *offers some jelly babies*

      • db

        Honestly, I bet a lot of people would like to press the reset button on this week.

      • Lord Humungus

        STEVE SMITH SILENT ON THIS MATTER

      • db

        HIM DEFER QUESTION TO TIME SMITH

      • SDF-7

        Q exists outside of normal space-time and came back in the wrong door this time.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Ive tried to use that excuse, still got me slapped.

    • PieInTheSky

      I bought some pilsner not bad really….

      • Chipwooder

        I’m a pilsner guy. The style got a bad rap in this country because it’s associated with mass-market watery beers like Budweiser, but a real pilsner is a crisp, refreshing treat.

      • Nephilium

        The mass market beers have their own category: American Light Lager (although they market it as whatever they want). Penn Brewing has a beer they started selling as a Pilsner, which is anything but. One of the brewery reps admitted as much at a tasting, “It’s a Vienna Lager, but when we first released it, no one knew what that was. So we sold it as a Pilsner.”

      • Rat on a train

        I wonder if the Czechs considered getting a geographic indication for pilsners like the French got for champagne? I think the indications are stupid, but at least it would stop people calling mass market swill pilsner.

      • DrOtto

        They sued Miller Lite on this very premise and lost. IIRC, it was because they let Miller use the pilsner term for too long and relinquished their rights.

      • Nephilium

        I know there was a lawsuit between Budvar (original Budweiser) and AB InBev over the trademark Budweiser. The geographic indication wouldn’t matter, as the US did not sign onto that treaty, hence why you can by Californian Champagne here.

      • robc

        Fun fact: Lager yeast is a hybrid yeast that was first used in beer in early 1800s, right about 200 years ago (would need to look up year). It is a hybrid of ale yeast and … something else. The source of the other half was unknown until about 15 or so years ago when it was discovered on some fruit in South America.

        Apparently it hitched a ride on a galleon back to Europe and hybridized with ale yeast somewhere before being discovered in Germany and put to use.

      • db

        Also, as I’m sure you know, brewing a proper Pilsner depends on the water chemistry being close to that of Plzn, which has particularly soft water. At our old house we had a very deep well that yielded some very naturally soft water (like less than 5 ppm CaCO3). It made some excellent beers. I still go back there and draw water when I want to brew.

      • robc

        Yes, Plzn is almost freaking distilled water.

        I can’t remember the water for a German Pils though. Not as soft as Czech for sure.

      • robc

        German Pilsners greatly benefit from relatively high sulfate content in their water.

  29. Rebel Scum

    I, for one, find it astonishing that some states are pushing back against medical tyranny.

    Cardona said he finds it “astonishing” that some states — such as Florida and Texas — are defying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) mask guidance and that those states could be violating some students’ right to education by creating unsafe learning conditions, according to the New York Times.

    “The fact that they’re not adjusting based on the illness, and the outcry from medical experts, is astonishing,” Cardona told the Times. “But we cannot sit around. We have to do everything in our power, including civil rights investigations and even referring matters to the Department of Justice for enforcement if necessary.”

    • Ownbestenemy

      Seriously going to enjoy the Federal Government going after, once again, a select few states to impose its will. It worked out last time just fine.

      • Cy Esquire

        Go after who? With what? They can’t even withdraw from a 3rd world country, on an unlimited budget, utilizing the most advanced weapons in history, without completely fucking it up.

      • Rebel Scum

        I am sure we could have fun playing with an MRAP when it is deployed and not recovered.

      • Cy Esquire

        Being a fairly budget minded person, I cringe when I see an M2 pumping freedom. I can’t imagine how much more expensive BMG will be when the time comes. Hell, by then maybe I won’t give a shit. I’m definitely a lot closer than I was a year ago.

  30. waffles

    Apparently my word of the day is nightmare. Which is ironic because I had a really pleasant dream last night.

  31. Festus

    Mornin’ Banjos! Awesome tune! Tiny Hillary Klug can dance on my back anytime, sans footwear. It’s been hurtin’.

  32. Chipwooder

    Chris Rufo is exposing yet another woke corporate indoctrination program, this time at Bank of America. While looking over the documents he provides, something caught my eye at the bottom of this. The source material for this, this garbage which a multibillion corporation is undoubtedly paying an obscene sum for, is a website cited in blue.

    I want off this ride.

    • rhywun

      Oh, that’s perfect.

      • Chipwooder

        Ain’t it though?

        This is where we are today – a gigantic bank is forcing employees to undergo “training” based on an article written by a lunatic for a website that’s been a running joke here for years.

    • Festus

      Right? It used to be the “Tilt-A Whirl” but now it’s become “DEATH MACHINE 9000!”

    • PieInTheSky

      I want off this ride. – I am beginning to want a job grifting payed quadruple what I make. The expensive wine and whiskey would help with the self hatred.

    • Not Adahn

      Lol, are they paying everydayfeminism for that? How will their unpaid writing staff react when they see their work being used by a gigabuck corporation?

    • Tres Cool

      Looking @ the right column, how can you have privilege in “modern utilities”?

      Go fuck yourself.

    • Rat on a train

      I can easily check all the boxes on the left and none on the right.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAAAA!

      This goes perfectly with the essay on the death of the managerial class linked above.

  33. Count Potato

    “San Diego County board meeting is hijacked by anti-vaxxers who accuse members of ‘crimes against humanity’ and being Nazis for debating mask and vaccine mandates

    Matt Baker called the supervisors Nazis saying ‘You are about to open a pit of hell’ claiming they broke the Nuremburg Code for human rights

    He said: ‘That’s the wind. That’s the wind of time. That’s the wind of history. That’s the wind blowing through your ancestors’ bones begging you to do the right thing. That is the wind that Matt Baker is calling upon from Ocean Beach.

    ‘The wind that is blowing through the Black people, through the white people, through the Chinese people, through the Mexican Americans to the people that built this building with their bare hands to raise up this nation.’

    His intensity increased as he raised his voice, ‘You are about to open a pit of hell. You do not get a vaccine passport put on us. You know as the population who’s in control, you know as politicians—once you get a power, you never relinquish it.’

    Accusing the local government authorities of being Nazis he continued to shout, ‘Your children and your children’s children will be subjugated! They will be asked, ‘How many vaccines have you had? Have you been a good little Nazi? Heil Fauci! Heil Fauci! Heil Fauci!'”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9904889/San-Diego-County-board-meeting-hijacked-anti-vaxxers-accuse-crimes-against-humanity.html

    These people do not look like Republicans.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Unhinged but not that wrong.

      • Tres Cool

        Right? He’s a bit too enthusiastic, but I cant find fault in his argument.

      • Not Adahn

        If it were possible to weaponize street preachers…

      • Swiss Servator

        Weaponized Street Preachers – awesome band name!

      • Surly Knott

        With a nod back to an earlier suggestion, their first album title: Prophylactic Genocid.

      • Rebel Scum
    • Rebel Scum

      When did Alex Jones get dreads?

      claiming they broke the Nuremburg Code

      Any attempt to force the vax issue will be a violation of the NC.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Experts have warned that in the United States, cases will continue to grow as long as large segments of the country remain unvaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and recommends that eligible people get vaccinated.

    CNN loves them some “experts”. Just as long as those experts are reciting the catechism properly.

    • WTF

      If the vaccines are effective, and tens of millions of people have already been infected and recovered, why would cases continue to grow?
      Unless of course the vaccines really aren’t all that effective.

  35. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “Google whistleblower claims Google rewrote algorithm to hurt Trump.”

    Interesting, Imma put this in the No Shit! file.

    • juris imprudent

      I stashed it under so what!

      Really, was it like you couldn’t go direct to enough MSM sites for negative coverage – it took Google sending you there?

  36. db

    Pentagon won’t help Americans and Afghans get past the Taliban ‘gauntlet’ outside Kabul’s airport

    The Pentagon has a message to American citizens and Afghans who worked with the Americans: It’s up to you to get past the Taliban’s many checkpoints outside of Kabul’s airport.

    That’s because the U.S. military, which has an annual budget in excess of $700 billion, is not prepared to send any of the roughly 4,500 soldiers and Marines now at Kabul’s airport to safely transport Americans and Afghan refugees from their hiding places to the tarmac.

    “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a Pentagon news conference on Wednesday.

    • db

      Edit Fairy! HALP!!

      *EDIT FAIRY BLESSES YOU*

      • db

        Oh heck yes! Thanks Edit Fairy!

        p.s. How *you* doin’?

      • Count Potato

        Princess Leia was a fairy?

      • Not Adahn

        She did wear boots.

      • Rebel Scum

        You stole my fairy!

    • db

      P.S. If I were President, I would be demanding Austin’s resignation, and a whole bunch of others.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I still think it is scary as hell no one has been canned yet. That is either some hubris or tipping their hand to show it doesn’t matter what we do because you can’t do anything about it.

      • juris imprudent

        Oh trust me, the lack of accountability is a foundation of the bureaucracy (or deep state if you prefer).

      • juris imprudent

        “Church of England problem” – just beautiful.

      • R C Dean

        As I have always said: “Bureaucracies are machines for avoiding accountability.”

        Sometimes its “committees”, not “bureaucracies”.

      • AlexinCT

        Then resign because I put these idiots in charge..

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      To be fair, if the Taliban takes exception they’re in a strong enough position to take the airport completely out of commission and then no one can get out.

    • Agent Cooper

      Trigger warning: Glenn Beck

      Beck is raising money to get around 5,000 people out of Afghanistan. The goal is $20m by Friday for the charter planes and the people and the security. As of this morning, they had raised $9.3m.

  37. Rebel Scum

    Seems to me that this is still a violation of the prohibition.

    A school district in Texas amended its dress code to include face coverings as a way to skirt Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates.

    The Paris Independent School District, which serves about 4,000 students in northeast Texas, announced Tuesday that masks will be required when schools reopen Thursday. …

    “The Board of Trustees is concerned about the health and safety of its students,” district officials said in a statement. “The board believes the dress code can be used to mitigate communicable health issues, and therefore has amended the PISD dress code to protect our students and employees.”

    Abbott “does not have the authority” to take over the board of trustees’ duty to govern public schools, according to the district officials who cited state education code. …

    “For health reasons, masks are required for all employees and students to mitigate flu, cold, pandemic, and any other communicable diseases,” the district’s new dress code reads.

    Curious justification…

    • Ownbestenemy

      “The board believes the dress code can be used to mitigate communicable health issues…” Give the kids all MOPP gear and have them in MOPP-4 all day long then.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        +1 Typing with a pencil.

      • Rat on a train

        +1 charcoal coated kids

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Uh oh… that might be considered blackface, better preventatively cancel all school children.

    • Chipwooder

      So it shall remain in perpetuity, huh?

      These people really don’t know what they’re stoking, do they?

      • WTF

        They aren’t stoking anything much. The majority of the public continues to roll over and take it.

      • Chipwooder

        Depends on where you are.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a Pentagon news conference on Wednesday.

    Formerly the most powerful nation on the face of the earth.

    • Festus

      “We used to be able to land a man on the moon. Usedta.”

    • Sean

      This admin reeks of weakness.

      • juris imprudent

        Weakness is their secret strength!

    • Rebel Scum

      All of the large transport helicopters/airplanes, attack helicopters, general air superiority, weapons and specialized armed personnel notwithstanding.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    To be fair, if the Taliban takes exception they’re in a strong enough position to take the airport completely out of commission and then no one can get out.

    It’s not as if they don’t have the firepower.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Why they abandoned the more easily defensible Bagram airbase is beyond me. Seems insanely stupid in retrospect.

      • Ownbestenemy

        In the middle of the night…without telling our ‘allies’…and leaving it in disarray. Yep, nothing we could have done to make it less chaotic (it was always going to be chaotic, but you can control some of that)

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I watched this yesterday and these guys give a very good breakdown of what’s occurring and the likely aftermath:

        https://youtu.be/kSp5uMvdfoM

        I was unaware of the circumstances around the Bagram abandonment until I watched this. Very long though…

    • Festus

      As much as my first instinct is to point and laugh, I just can’t do it. What a colossal fuck-up. Those poor people. I can’t.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Some former SEAL was on Fox this morning ranting about how he and his buddies could go in and get everyone out, just give them the call.

      All I could think was Blackhawk Down. They’d be eaten alive. The Taliban is in charge now.

      • Chipwooder

        If they had constant AC-130 coverage, they might pull it off. The Taliban may be tough fighters but only the suicidal stay visible when there are 20 and 40 mm cannon firing on you

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        All the Taliban has to do at this point is hold the rest of the tens of thousands of evacuees hostage. You’d be saving a few and sacrificing the rest. It simply won’t work.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        ^This plus they don’t have to take the airport, just bring planes under fire as they approach an airfield in the middle of a city while they pepper the place itself with mortar fire. We’re there at their pleasure now, like it or not.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yep, the brass saying they couldn’t go into the city because they’re holding the airport seemed pretty ignorant of what exactly their position at the airport itself was. Or they hoped their audience was fooled.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        /Pedantry on

        Akshulaly, they ditched the 40mm Bofors awhile ago, it’s the 105mm Howitzer, a 30mm Autocannon, and an array of guided missiles.

        /Pedantry off

      • Lord Humungus

        American Special Ops – and Marines – are some of the best combat troops around. But they are buoyed by the ability to call in major air support assets.

      • juris imprudent

        Hard to be stealthy when you’re herding a gaggle of civilians.

      • WTF

        Yeah, going out and pounding a bunch of Taliban fighters is one thing. Safely herding thousands of civilians to the airport is something else entirely.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        The sneaky pete side special ops units will often cancel missions if air support is not available. (it is nearly always available for them)

  40. Rebel Scum

    What difference, at this point, does it make?

    Joe Biden dismisses concerns over images and videos of Afghans falling thousands of feet to their deaths trying to escape Taliban rule in Afghanistan:

    “That was four days ago, five days ago.”

    Looks like Joe got in touch with Donald’s spray tan person.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Mr. Snuffleupagus just let that one go right on by too. “Uh Mr. President, it was two days ago while you were still hiding from the American People, our allies that supported us there and the Afghani people” should have been said.

    • Chipwooder

      Seriously, we now have Orange Man Bad, the Sequel.

      • db

        You don’t suppose they’re coloring him that way in post to trigger OMB flashback syndrome in TDS sufferers and evoke the conditioned response? They really do want him gone, eh?

      • waffles

        I absolutely believe this is happening and think anyone who would deny it to be a fool.

    • limey

      I think Michael Malice posted some jibe about how he thinks “The Cathedral” is color-correcting Biden to look Trump orange now.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        He is looking very orange.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      “That was four days ago, five days ago.”

      Ah, an adherent of the Hillary Clinton school of WDATPDIM

    • Lord Humungus

      Ancient history, I tell you. We’ve moved on since then. As TTT said, this is a Hilary Clinton move.

    • waffles

      ALL ORANGE MEN ARE BAD

      • rhywun

        ORANGE LIVES MATTER

    • Ownbestenemy

      The media will do its best to continue the fear. It sells ads and generates clicks.

    • LJW

      Especially since the tweet is coming from someone who clearly has an agenda.

    • blackjack

      It’d be hard to find a more obvious liar. “those MAGA creeps slashed my tires! People are dying like flies! Of the five kids who have died from covid 2 of them were right in front of my eyes!” That story is only printed to start conversations about what a liar this broad is. The headline ought to be, “Look we found a drama queen lair who doesn’t care how crazy she sounds!” Trust me, if one hospital had four deaths in one shift anywhere in America, that would be the leading story at every media outlet. This is a lie.

    • Lord Humungus

      CDC – last time I checked – is showing the cases going down. But I’ve been seeing more signs at stores for Unvaxxed need to mask up. Which I just ignore like the rest of us disease-carrying vermin.

    • Rebel Scum

      That nurse seems sooper serial and credible.

    • Agent Cooper

      These stories are anomalous. And they only go in one direction.

  41. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Biden is being prepped for departure. No way they would have documented his lies like that a month ago. The powers can read polls and some might actually be outside of the bubble. Absent cheating, 2022 will be a bloodbath. So it’s time to shuffle the deck,.

    Something Trump should have done many times. Bolton, FFS?!? Trump was funny, but holy shit was he bad at the job.

    Great song choice! If that doesn’t get your foot tapping, nothing will.

    Have a wonderful day, peeps!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer only works in the movies.

    • Count Potato

      “Trump was funny, but holy shit was he bad at the job.”

      Who was good at the job? Obama? Bush? Clinton?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        They aren’t all bad. I think Washington did a fine job.

      • Tundra

        Coolidge. Went fishing in the Black Hills for months at a time.

      • Count Potato

        Wasn’t that because South Dakota kept re-stocking fish so he would build Mt. Rushmore?

        Anyway, I meant recently.

      • Pine_Tree

        William Henry Harrison

      • juris imprudent

        No one can be good at the job, as in essence the American people expect the President to be God.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        We need someone who will destroy DC, but that person can’t get elected.

        So we must settle for one who causes so much disruption that the American people want to destroy DC,

      • juris imprudent

        I’m already willing to stand aside and let anyone destroy DC, then concern myself with picking up the pieces and making something useful.

      • R C Dean

        Yup. In no way will I defend or support our current rulers. The only question is, how I actively will I seek to bring them down?

      • Agent Cooper

        I would favor one who did as little as possible (like Coolidge) , but the American people wouldn’t stand for it.

    • Loveconstitution1789

      Trump got two impeachments from the commies in govt. if that not being good at your job, I dont know what is.

      Notice, Lefties were so scared at how Trump was setting back the commie agenda they instituted the largest election fraud scheme in US history to get rid of him and barely pulled that off.

  42. The Other Kevin

    I see the Biden strategy of “Just do the opposite of Trump and cancel everything he did” is going as well as expected.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    This is where we are today – a gigantic bank is forcing employees to undergo “training” based on an article written by a lunatic for a website that’s been a running joke here for years.

    Taking business advice from the equivalent of a street preacher with shit running down his leg, standing on a street corner screaming, “REPENT, the end is nigh!” isn’t a winning strategy?

  44. Festus

    Deep State abounds. They want rid of Joe and his Camel-Toe. I’ve never seen the like.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Jesus Christ

      The evidence in support of that essay above is simply overwhelming.

  45. AlexinCT

    If you needed another example of why most business entities peddle collectivism only to make money from it, but don’t really believe they should be held to the policies they espouse all others must accept, check out this story:

    Nathan Robinson, founder of the leftist magazine Current Affairs and a self-described socialist, “effectively fired” almost his entire staff last week after they tried to organize a worker’s co-op, the laid-off workers wrote in a letter Wednesday.

    The letter, addressed to “comrades,” said that Robinson “became agitated” during a meeting on Aug. 7 about creating “a democratic workplace where all voices were equally valued.”

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I love socialism but I didn’t think I’d get MY hair mussed.

    • Lord Humungus

      Socialism (or Unions in general) just isn’t affordable

    • juris imprudent

      Once again, The Bee weeps.

  46. Lord Humungus

    A small scare yesterday: EF had to go in for further testing after a mammogram found something out-of-the-ordinary.

    They did a new set of pics; saying if these look good we’ll let you go.

    And then, after those pics, they said: and now we want to do an ultrasound.

    She’s texting me during her waits and my anxiety level is going up. I’m thinking they’ve zeroed in on something malignant.

    20 minutes later she texts back: all clear! The sense of relief… man I don’t think of myself being an emotional guy but phew.

    It was just “dense” tissue. All that working out I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • Not Adahn

      That fact that the mammogram noticed and you didn’t means you aren’t doing enough or thorough enough exams.

      • Lord Humungus

        I’ll try harder next time!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Keep those things well massaged, for safety.

    • limey

      Shit can roll up you quickly like that. The sense of relief is proportional to the dread. I’m glad she’s okay ?

    • Count Potato

      Glad she alright.

    • db

      Glad it worked out! We’ve had a couple of similar scares–it appears some women have particularly dense or fibrous tissue in their breasts that makes mammograms difficult to get/interpret.

      • Ownbestenemy

        More research is definitely needed to be conducted. I think Q should act as our intake screener for this

      • db

        One problem with it is when you know this and feel a “lump” you might be conditioned to think it’s “crying wolf” but you have to take it seriously. It also makes the mammograms more painful, apparently, too, so that’s bad.

    • Tundra

      Good news!

      Perfect quote for the occasion:

      “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.”

      You’re welcome.

      • Lord Humungus

        What I said: “I didn’t want to see those works of art damaged!”

    • Festus

      Goddammit! Judi turns 60 next month. Don’t do that to me. Super cool that EF is well! Subscribed to you channel, by-the-by.

      • Lord Humungus

        Thank you!

        The channel is on hiatus until the summer ends. More mysteries coming soon.

    • DEG

      I’m glad she’s OK.

  47. Brawndo

    Anyone else notice how *orange* Biden looked in that photo? It’s like the media is priming us to hate him so that they can make way for Horizontal Harris.

    • db

      See above!

    • Tundra

      Nope. She polls (poles?) even worse than Slow Joe.

      The shitheads have a real problem on their hands.

      • Ownbestenemy

        And has sulked into the background for about a week now, distancing herself from the whole administration.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yep, and promoting her means deadlock in the Senate.

      • Rebel Scum

        Wouldn’t she appoint a VP? I assume the Senate has to confirm the appointment?

      • db

        Both Houses of Congress must confirm the appointment. And at that point the VP is now the President, and doesn’t get a vote.

      • kinnath

        The new VP must be approved by a majority of both the House and the Senate.

        The Senate is 50/50. And there is no VP to break and tie until the Senate approves the VP.

      • robc

        Someone would flip stating it is her prerogative to appoint. And that is probably right. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t use influence to make sure the choice isn’t awful.

        VP Gabbard?

      • robc

        I could see the GOP supporting Manchin as Veep. The governor is an R, so his appointment would flip the Senate.

      • robc

        Actually, any Dem Senator in a state with an R governor would work for them.

      • db

        Manchin was actually the first name that popped to mind for me. It makes sense.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Potential. I can see opposing a specific candidate, but leaving the position completely open to try and deadlock the Senate until 2022 (or 2024)? That would be right up there with trying to eliminate the filibuster. Short term gain at the expense of burning down the whole system in the long term.

      • UnCivilServant

        At this point, normal debate would overrun the 2022 election regardless

      • The Other Kevin

        She polls badly, but nothing in her resume says that she’d be good in an executive position. I cannot imagine her being good at this job.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Might be why they are pressing on with the Vietnam trip…to get some good footage to roll out the carpet for her

    • Lord Humungus

      I, for one, don’t believe they will replace Joe. Instead they will limp along with him, and take a beating with the 2022 elections.

      Meanwhile they will pass what they can – more, more, more trillions of dollars of spending; more than what we spent (inflation adjusted) in WW-fucking-2.

      • robc

        I don’t either, do to my reasoning above in the Veep replacement scenarios.

  48. The Late P Brooks

    ALL ORANGE MEN ARE BAD

    Why do you hate Oompa Loompas? They make candy. Candy makes people happy.

    • pistoffnick

      Oompa loompa doompety doo
      I’ve got another puzzle for you
      Oompa loompa doompety dee
      If you are wise you’ll listen to me

      Who do you blame when your kid is a brat
      Pampered and spoiled like a siamese cat
      Blaming the kids is a lie and a shame
      You know exactly who’s to blame

      • The Other Kevin

        The mother and the fa-a-ther.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    And has sulked into the background for about a week now, distancing herself from the whole administration.

    She’s sharpening her knife knitting needles.

    • db

      The British Daily Telegraph reports that America’s closest ally is roundly condemning Biden and questioning its relationship with the United States.

      But..but…America’s Back! Adults back in charge!

      • Nephilium

        Well… if nothing else, you can’t deny that Biden is above the physical age of childhood. Now mental and emotional ages…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Airstrip One is getting a little uppity.

      *grabs popcorn*

      • limey

        Can I still post here if our respective countries are at war?

      • Tundra

        Countries are arbitrary lines on a map.

        We’re Glibs.

      • Count Potato

        “Countries are a jobs program for politicians.”

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        This isn’t going to start with the Royal Navy impressing American sailors and end with a flaming Whitehouse again, is it?

      • db

        No, no, no, a “Flaming Whitehouse” is when you put hot sauce on the chick’s [REDACTED] and then [REDACTED]”

      • limey

        SF please confirm/deny

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Is that one where you put the bottle on {CENSORED} and then summersault with your {CENSORED} on your head?

      • WTF

        end with a flaming Whitehouse again

        We can only hope.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        If DC were to be burnt to the ground I vote to move the capital to Four Corners.

      • robc

        Kansas. And not the eastern part.

      • Rebel Scum

        I don’t think the Royal Navy is very impressive anymore.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        That is why they need to press American merchantmen into service.

      • AlexinCT

        Not enough rum & buggery?

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        That goes without saying.

    • Not Adahn

      Is Contempt of Parliament impeachable?

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        I think that in the UK it is required.

  50. Festus

    VP Harris is treating her position the same way that I treated my last few months of high school. We didn’t have the credits to graduate but we went through the motions, anyway. Just to keep up appearances. I don’t think there is a remedial Vice-President class, though.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    From Surly Knott’s link:

    It is not just that the elite class is incompetent – even kings could be incompetent without undermining belief in monarchy as a system – it is that they are so grossly, spectacularly incompetent that they walk around among us as living rebuttals of meritocracy itself. It is that their application of managerial logic to whatever field they get their grubby mitts on – from homelessness in California to industrial policy to running a war – makes that thing ten times more expensive and a hundred times more dysfunctional. To make the situation worse, the current elites seem almost serene in their willful destruction of the very fields they rely on for legitimacy.

    WHAM!

    • Agent Cooper

      “living rebuttals of meritocracy itself.”

      If government were an actual meritocracy, we might have capable leadership.

      • juris imprudent

        See how easily we forget that “meritocracy” was coined as a term of derision – that it was accurately calling out the credentialism and cronyism of what we see now as meritocracy.

        Jefferson’s term was the natural aristrocracy. Not something hereditary or credentialed.

      • Agent Cooper

        Well, at some point the meaning changed.

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, and the guy who coined it as a derogatory was really cheesed that people used it otherwise.

      • Agent Cooper

        Oh well. Sucks for him.

      • juris imprudent

        Sucks for all of us – because he was right and we were the ones that screwed it up.

      • Agent Cooper

        There is no ‘we’ here.

        Also, you understood my point when I used the term incorrectly, so it’s all moot.

  52. Q Continuum

    I’m calling it now: Biden is gone by October, end of the year at the absolute latest. To see the Establishment flip on a dime from dissembling, ignoring and playing defense for the guy to throwing him not just under the bus but on the train tracks is a sight to see.

    My only question is who comes after him? Harris is terrible at everything and ridiculously unappealing. Maybe they figure they can just shriek “RACIST! SEXIST!” loud enough and relentlessly enough to shield her? In any case, I think it’s clear that it’ll be new people on the 2024 ballot, most likely far left commies.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They have a real problem now.

      The kleptocrats that run the party are too old. The youngsters are too bonkers. So you’re left with those who have zero appeal like Warren.

      • EvilSheldon

        If Harris gets the top slot, things could get real interesting. She’s every bit the figurehead as Slow Joe, but I can see her throwing some major tantrums when she finds out that Rice and Company are running the show…

        If Puddinhead holds on, I predict a major economic depression ramping up around 01/2022.

        If Harris takes over, I predict a shooting war with someone we’ll regret starting shit with.

    • Cy Esquire

      We’re going to start seeing some “leaked” footage of him from “anonymous sources.” Get ready for Mumbles Joe and the dementia train to the post apocalypse! The media is going to have a field day eating their own. The last 6 years is going to disappear into the memory hole. The monkey farts are warming up, duck and cover for the slinging.

    • Tundra

      I think he’s gone, too, but the aftermath is a big unknown. Things seem to be falling apart across the board and there is no unifying rallying cry. I remember when the Soviet Union broke apart – it seemed to happen so quickly.

      Are we already post-empire?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The petrodollar is the only thing that holds it together now.

        The Saudis own us.

      • Ownbestenemy

        If China makes a move on Taiwan, then that will put that answer to bed Tundra.

      • Count Potato

        They seem to be getting ready.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        They’re just making opportunistic noise most likely. As a second rate naval power they’d get beaten up in a naval war, Taiwan’s an island and whatnot, if Japan alone jumped in which they most likely would, nevermind us.

    • juris imprudent

      And I thought China post-Xi was going to be interesting.

  53. Ownbestenemy

    That interview, even with a friendly face, was absolutely horrendous. I am with most here, he is being strung up and the DNC and other power brokers know they can’t make it beyond this year.

    Joe doesn’t know we have troops in Syria, thinks the airport in Kabul is secure, no one is being killed, and claimed ‘everything was in place’ as planned (the 6000 troops he had to hastily send to reinforce).

  54. The Late P Brooks

    Ummm, okay

    It’s the third week of school in Cobb County, Georgia, and many parents are livid with what they perceive to be the district’s lax Covid-19 protocols and dangerous misinformation being disseminated by a school board member via his official email account.

    Some parents, including those with children suffering from asthma and one whose 13-year-old has a flagging immune system after fending off a rare leukemia as a younger child, are taking their kids out of school, they told CNN.

    “Every day, there’s a chaotic event — entire grades sent home,” said Jessica Zeigler, who has taken her three kids, including two with health issues, out of county schools. “Every day seems like a series of terrible decisions that we have to make.”

    Added Sara Cavorley, who took five of her kids, including the aforementioned 13-year-old, out of school this week: “I shouldn’t have to choose between my children’s life and school. That’s a no-brainer. I choose my kids.”

    Take your kids out of school if you think that’s what’s best for them.

    Oh, I get it. The entire planet should indulge in superstitious idiocy to appease your feebleminded fearful hypochondria.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I shouldn’t have to choose between my children’s life and school.

      OFFS

      • Certified Public Asshat

        It really is maddening. If you feel your kid is at significant risk, why send them at all?

      • Ownbestenemy

        No shit. If my kid(s) were that immuno-compromised I would be homeschooling or in a school/program designed for such children. The “the world must conform to me” nonsense really needs to go away.

  55. Count Potato

    “So is there a unifying theory of why Biden is so consistently wrong on major foreign-policy matters? Does he misunderstand something about the world, or possess some set of instincts that don’t serve him well?

    Perhaps the place to begin is by recognizing that Biden has never been an impressive strategic thinker. When talking about his strengths, those close to Biden stress his people skills: his ability to read foreign leaders, to know when to push and when to yield, when to socialize and when to turn to business. But that’s very different from having a strategic vision and a sophisticated understanding of historical events and forces.

    What the Biden foreign-policy record shows, I think, is a man who behaves as if he knows much more than he does, who has far too much confidence in his own judgment in the face of contrary advice from experts. (My hunch is he’s overcompensating for an intellectual inferiority complex, which has manifested itself in his history of plagiarism, lying about his academic achievements, and other embellishments.)

    On national-security matters, President Biden lacks some of the most important qualities needed in those who govern—discernment, wisdom, and prudence; the ability to anticipate unfolding events; the capacity to make the right decision based on incomplete information; and the willingness to adjust one’s analysis in light of changing circumstances.

    To put it in simple terms, Joe Biden has bad judgment”

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/biden-afghanistan-record/619799/

    • Ownbestenemy

      So glad they decided now to print what they knew for decades.

      • juris imprudent

        It must be timely for some reason.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      This is exactly what I don’t want to hear.

      The expert class in DC needs to be held to account. The DOD/CIA/NSA/etc… all need to be heavily weeded or totally pulled up y their roots. It is a huge mistake to allow all of the blame to be pinned on Biden.

      • db

        Hell, if this isn’t strong evidence in favor of the existence of a Deep State, I’m not sure what could be.

      • AlexinCT

        The expert class in DC needs to be held to account. The DOD/CIA/NSA/etc… all need to be heavily weeded or totally pulled up y their roots.

        These people ran a 4 year soft coup and ignored the orders of a siting prez cause he threatened their racket, then fortified an election to select the candidate that would let them run hog wild and not be held responsible, and you think somehow this time, they will finally be held accountable? Never done drugs, but I think this time I might want a hit of whatever you are doing…

      • juris imprudent

        It is exactly in bureaucratic self interest to let the one accountable person be held accountable, and replaced by someone else that still won’t hold THEM accountable.

      • Ownbestenemy

        That was my point above that no one is being held accountable. Not even pulling some faceless, nameless staffer out and saying they forgot to forward an email. They are betting on a compliant media to change its focus (which looking around the internet, has) and…..its gone.

    • R C Dean

      The factional infighting in DC must be beyond epic.

      Executive v Military v Intelligence is just the tip of the iceberg. At the moment it looks like the Executive is on the back foot.

      But, its the factions within the factions that will decide this, I think. Everybody is sharpening their knives for their rivals within the factions. What looks like the Executive taking it in the shorts is likely the Biden faction taking it in the shorts from other Executive factions. And there is no way there aren’t similar going on in the Military and Intelligence factions.

      Ladies and gentlemen, “democracy” in action.

      • waffles

        I specifically recall not voting for this. I don’t think anyone did.

      • juris imprudent

        Well, you did sign the social contract.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Would you say that the knives in question were long?

  56. Cy Esquire

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/gen-milley-claims-nobody-expected-taliban-take-afghanistan-just-11-days

    Gen. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted on Wednesday that “there was nothing, that I or anybody else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,” Milley said at a press briefing Wednesday.

    This is maddening! Everyone saw this coming but apparently anyone in a decision making post. It’s Afghanistan you fucking idiot! This your first day on the planet earth?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Wonder how his battlefield commanders feel about that statement.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Hopeful that having punched their ticket, his head in a basket means openings and opportunities ahead of schedule.

      • juris imprudent

        Woo-hoo, unexpected open billets!!!

      • AlexinCT

        The closer you are to a general rank, the more political you are, and the less likely you are to admitting what sort of giant clusterfuck this adventure was. SOme people made a ton of money of this shitshow. Others died or were hurt (physically and/or mentally) needlessly as they were forced to not really fight back so the people making money wouldn’t have to deal with events that would make them look bad.

        Ask the captains & lieutenants as well as the NCOs and troops what they think about this whole 20 year thing. Every single person that was there that I have talked to pointed out we were wasting our time, had ROEs that basically made it impossible to win, and were really there for the people getting rich as our government pissed away tax payer lucre.

        America needs to hold the nation building assholes accountable. If we go to war our objective must be to kill and destroy, as indiscriminately as needed, to make sure the enemy’s will is broken. If we are not going to do that, lets just not do any of this shit again.

      • juris imprudent

        So the start of the modern career system is described in About Face (Hackworth’s auto-biography). You can see the trajectory forming from there to what we have today.

        General (from 1 star to 10) is a political position. Don’t ever delude yourself that it has jackshit to do with merit.

    • Lord Humungus

      We’re in the best of hands. ::eye roll::

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Milley just told everyone exactly what he is, a political creature totally devoid of character and dignity.

      • Gustave Lytton

        He did that last summer and again in January.

      • juris imprudent

        It bears repeating.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    Gen. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted on Wednesday that “there was nothing, that I or anybody else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,” Milley said at a press briefing Wednesday.

    If he had said that as preface to committing ritual suicide on the steps of the Capitol I might muster some infinitesimal amount of respect for him.

    As it is, he should go in the ditch with the rest of the traitors and incompetents, to be fed upon by wild dogs and carrion eating birds.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      I would settle for him being properly and publicly cashiered from service, broken sword and all.

      • juris imprudent

        He’d take the pieces and have them mounted as an art piece for his office at a defense contractor.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Thanks, Captain Buzzkill, for giving me the truth.

        *heavy sigh*

      • juris imprudent

        You can’t shame the shameless. I know, it’s hard for us to imagine that.

    • R C Dean

      That’s the Military faction trying to hang this on the Intelligence faction. Nothing more.

    • Grumbletarian

      “We’re the best of the best, and we were completely fooled by a bunch of goatherders with IEDs.”

  58. Gustave Lytton

    You hired a lot of losers and never took responsibility for any of them outside of bitching/insulting them after the fact.

    Well, the process for nominating military leadership is more like this, as opposed to just hiring off the street.

    https://youtu.be/QDY2Sy4SUm0

    Also relevant, replace CoE with DoD and so on

    https://youtu.be/qUSTKisEgTo

  59. Lord Humungus

    This is what ultimately sucks about having a huge, bloated government.

    We’re – to quote Ludendorff of WW1 – shackled to a corpse; well more like a hungry zombie. One that reduces productivity, quality-of-life, freedom, liberty, and has all the morals of an Amsterdam prostitute.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      I’d update it with Bangkok hooker, but it still checks out.

      • Lord Humungus

        My friend Billy, may he rest in peace, warned to lockup your valuables in the safe when you had Thai or Cambodian hookers over to the hotel room. One of them will rob you blind while the other is keeping you, ahem, distracted.

        Billy always had some uh interesting pictures from his vacations.

      • UnCivilServant

        They didn’t steal his camera?

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        I guy I used to know kept on trying to get everyone to watch his sex tape featuring himself and two Thai … working girls. Everyone declined to view his masterwork.

      • Agent Cooper

        Why are you two besmirching the names of honest working women?

    • Raven Nation

      “has all the morals of an Amsterdam prostitute.”

      An Amsterdam prostitute provides services agreed to by both parties at the price agreed to.

      • Lord Humungus

        I know – unfair to hookers, who at least provide a valuable service.

  60. Ownbestenemy

    HuffPost, cause I am bored and it diversifies my internet history, has this blaring across their page:

    DOUBLE JEOPARDY: ‘NEW TREBEK’ IN TROUBLE — PUTRID PODCAST EXPOSED

    DIVE! DIVE!

    • Agent Cooper

      It’s akin to Clay Travis and Buck Sexton taking over for Rush Limbaugh. I mean, even four feet can’t fill those gigantic shoes.

  61. The Late P Brooks

    This should help

    A federal judge on Wednesday threw out Trump administration approvals for a large planned oil project on Alaska’s North Slope, saying the federal review was flawed and didn’t include mitigation measures for polar bears.

    U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage vacated permits for ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in a 110-page ruling.

    The Trump administration approved the project in late 2020, and the Biden administration defended the project in court.

    Rebecca Boys, a ConocoPhillips’ spokesperson, said the company would review Gleason’s decision “and evaluate the options available regarding this project.”

    Spokespersons for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Department said their agencies had no comment. The Bureau of Land Management conducted the environmental review of the project that Gleason found flawed.

    Conservation groups and Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, described as a grassroots organization, had challenged the adequacy of the review process.

    Karlin Itchoak, Alaska director for The Wilderness Society, in a statement called the ruling “a step toward protecting public lands and the people who would be most negatively impacted by the BLM’s haphazard greenlighting of the Willow project.”

    Keep it in the ground. That’s all they ask.

    Insufficient “mitigation measures for polar bears” you say/

    Just shoot the ones who come too close. That’s what they meant, right?

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      Better bring something bigger than a 9mm, I’d say .308 or .30/06. Polar bears, as I understand it, will actively hunt humans. Unlike most North American bears where they are not as likely to attack unless they see you as a threat or a threat to their offspring.

      • juris imprudent

        .300 WM at a minimum, you really should be upping bore (and case) for those bears.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Ten gauge slug maybe.

    • rhywun

      So spend another ten years on another “review” and the activists will shoot it down on some other BS technicality.

      No problem, we can always buy more oil from our friends in the eastern hemisphere.

    • Agent Cooper

      How about buildng a wall?

  62. The Late P Brooks

    I’m beginning to think the world is being run by the equivalent of clowns riding tiny bicycles on a high wire.

    It’s all happy laugh time until the bodies start hitting the floor of the arena.

    • db

      Oh, the humanity!

    • juris imprudent

      Are you kidding – that would be the highlight of the show!

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        The thing is, it is rarely the primary actors’ bodies that end up falling.

    • R C Dean

      I thought happy laugh time started when our rulers fall off the high wire.

    • AlexinCT

      The problem isn’t the grunts – although the brass is hard at work making them as inept as they are – but the politically appointed top men. Obama’s appointees are just horrible fucking jokes. Their priority was political reliability and service to the left’s agenda, not fighting, and let alone winning, wars. Politics corrupts everything, and Obama fundamentally changed this country for the worse…

      • juris imprudent

        You are underestimating the rot that exists in the system that Obama was merely a patina on top of.

      • AlexinCT

        Sure there is rot, but I don’t think anyone in the military would have gone along with those claiming the greatest threat to the nation was not a hostile country that had bought of our academic, political, money lending, and propaganda slinging class, had them ship off all manufacturing – but especially the essential stuff, which includes military supporting stuff – to that enemy state, then held them all by the balls by making it impossible for them to take their money out of the enemy state, making them beholden, but idiotic shit like Global Warming, Race relations, or purging the military of people not beholden to a marxist political ideology instead of what they should be (the nation and it’s constitution), because those that oppose the agenda are all terrorists, before Obama changed things to allow that shit to fly.

      • juris imprudent

        The system has been decades in the making and all Obama did was put a fairly thin layer on. ODS is really no better than TDS.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Orange was the new Black?

    • db

      Look at us now. Look at the generals, in their stupid throwback uniforms from the Forties that are supposed to make the gender studies seminar we call the US Army think it’s the same force that broke Hitler.

      That’s winning.

    • EvilSheldon

      …it’s culture and society.

      If I ever get a hold of a time machine, I’m gonna go back to pre-war Italy and buy Antonio Gramsci a drink. And then break the glass with his skull.

      • juris imprudent

        And then you’ll come back and find out he wasn’t to blame after all. Cosmic joke on you!

      • EvilSheldon

        I wouldn’t come back. I’ve always wanted to see the Belle Epoque first hand.

  63. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Clowns that think they have the moral high ground though. Oh, and they don’t realize they’re clowns or that they’re on a highwire.

  64. ignoreLander

    The corporate media is finally confronting Biden and he’s responding as well as you can imagine.

    Go to your nearest nursing home and talk to a few dementia patients and you’ll be surprised (or not) at the similarities.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Except looking over the corporate press today, they received the message loud and clear…move on.

    • ignoreLander

      Hey, at least those tweets aren’t mean! They’re back to the empty platitudes I’ve come to expect from the 19 year old intern running the POTUS twitter feed! Thank God the adults are finally running the show again!

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      The Senate hearings are going to be a must-see.

      • R C Dean

        “So tell us, General Milley, how Trump sabotaged the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Take your time, we have all day.”

      • juris imprudent

        Start with his actions and orders on Jan 21st, and continue from there.

      • db

        Please explain your response to Trump’s actions and orders, and why you did not perform your duties to this Oversight Committee.

      • R C Dean

        Nobody on the committee will be asking anything like that.

        Its a Senate hearing. Its for show, to push a narrative. I think right now Our Masters are, you might say, between narratives. The winning faction(s) will set the narrative, and the factional infighting has likely barely begun.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Rand v. Pudding Cup would be amazing.

  65. The Late P Brooks

    NYT headline:

    “Many Survivors of Haiti Earthquake Expect No Help From Government”

    Who says people never learn?

    • Rebel Scum

      They rely on the Clintons.

  66. OBJ FRANKELSON

    At least some of the blame for Siagon II: Afghan Boogaloo ™ falls on the press. If they had spent less time fawning over the ‘Not OMB’ in the Whitehouse and more time holding our government to account (you know, their job), the fear of the press backlash may have made the Admin pay a bit more attention to what the hell they were doing rather than huffing their own farts.

    • db

      Blame resides with everyone from the President down to the voting citizenry who were uncritical and didn’t hold their representatives accountable for results over the last 20 years.

      That said, the higher up you go in the ranks, the more blame accrues. The people who had the real control over this share the blame with those who lied and whitewashed the real information. The higher-ups could have insisted on a skeptical review of twenty years’ worth of failed promises, but were content to let their subordinates lie to them.

      When the top brass (and here I include all the way up through the Presidents) are content to not dig too deeply, it means they are looking for plausible deniability.

      • juris imprudent

        ^^^ THIS!

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        I can’t argue with that, but it was supposed to be the press that informed said citizenry what the government was up to.

      • db

        And here I include myself. The least–absolutely least–thing I could have done would have been to write a letter or call my US Representative’s office to express my concern and request that they initiate a serious review/audit/whatever of the real situation. I didn’t do that. I’m not sure very many people at all did that. It’s literally the least we could have done–to express our concern directly to our elected representatives. Bitching online doesn’t count.

      • Agent Cooper

        “didn’t hold their representatives accountable for results over the last 20 years.”

        This is true, but we also now know that the brass and company were lying about the stability and capability of the ANA and the Afghan government.

      • juris imprudent

        Congress has a solution for that – not that anyone in Congress has the balls to use it.

  67. Tundra

    “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

    “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Shades of the USSR

  68. The Late P Brooks

    Kamala Harris: best woman of color for the job!

    haha, just kidding.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      You forgot, “blow,” somewhere in there.

  69. Ownbestenemy

    Solid rhetorical point

    “biden’s “chaos was unavoidable” line is terrible not because it means he lied when he promised the exact opposite. it’s terrible because it means he went on vacation fully expecting all hell to break loose in a country containing some 10,000-40,000 U.S. nationals.”

    • db

      That’d be a great followup question to ask him.

      • Ownbestenemy

        If only he took questions and if only reporters had the fortitude to even ask those questions. Gotta get to the cocktail parties you know.

  70. DEG

    Furthermore, asked how people would vote if a presidential election were held today, just 37 percent said they would vote for Joe Biden, down from 45 percent who said they did. Forty-three percent said they would vote for Donald Trump.

    I hope Trump doesn’t run again. He should stick to the kingmaker role.

    Vorhies’ new book is called “Google Leaks: A Whistleblower’s Exposé of Big Tech Censorship.” The book dropped earlier this month.

    Project Veritas pushed this book in one of their mass e-mails. And I see later in the article mentions of Project Veritas.

    A Republican candidate for state senate in Connecticut flipped a seat where then-candidate Joe Biden won by just over 25% during the 2020 presidential election.

    Ryan Fazio, a member of Greenwich, Connecticut’s Representative Town Meeting, defeated Alexis Gevanter, a gun control advocate who had never before held public office on Tuesday by less than three percentage points in the wealthy, suburban 36th State Senate District.

    Connecticut used to have a bit of a Republican machine, which I think is dead now. A win like this in Greenwich is a big deal.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      He is going to run, IMO. I don’t think he has the ability to not.

    • PutridMeat

      “I hope Trump doesn’t run again.”

      MeToo(tm). Need someone with as much willingness to not play the in-crowd game and be un-apologetic about it, but also with the ‘seriousness’ and executive chops to back it up. I’m warming to DeSantis, but there’s always something skivvy about any politician.

      • Agent Cooper

        All politicians are sociopaths.

  71. The Late P Brooks

    I believe it is innate in human nature to want to superimpose a veneer of order onto a chaotic and incomprehensible reality. I want to look behind the curtains to see who’s pulling the strings in this muddled-metaphor Punchy and Judy show. But I can’t. The thought of a shadowy cabal of puppetmasters dumb enough to intentionally put the Biden/Harris administration in place is just too depressing.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      I do not think the ‘Deep State’ is a smoky room full of Bond villains but it is definitely a thing. It is a group of self-interested high-level bureaucrats acting independently or collaborating (if it suits their tactical needs) to keep ahold of their respective fiefdoms.

      • db

        See, that’s what it means to most careful, intelligent people who think about it. But it’s easier for the opponents of an unaccountable bureaucracy to cast anyone who thinks a “Deep State” exists as crazy believers in a nutty conspiracy theory. See also: lumping COVID vaccine avoiders with “Anti-Vaxxers.”

      • juris imprudent

        Most people throwing around Deep State are not careful, intelligent people. Mostly, they’re barely a step above pizza-pedophile beliefs.

      • R C Dean

        I will say this:

        There is more meat on the bones of the pizza-pedophile narrative than there is on most of the narratives peddled by Our Masters.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Alex Jones is turning out to be the Nostradamus of our age.

      • juris imprudent

        They don’t collaborate. Not even when they are supposed to. The thing that all bureaucrats do best is – nothing. Just sit on whatever it is and don’t DO anything about it. As villains, they are the epitome of banality.

    • KSuellington

      I think the term “entrenched state” or “entrenched bureaucracy” is better to use with low info types. I understand that “deep” refers to deeply embedded and not that it is some secret cabal in our government, but most people don’t really get that and figure it means the latter and is thus conspiracy theory adjacent.

      • juris imprudent

        ^^^ THIS

      • kinnath

        “entrenched bureaucracy”

        “permanent bureaucracy”

      • R C Dean

        I guess “enemies of the people” is too wordy.

      • KSuellington

        Thanks. Probably even better kinnath.

  72. Homple

    Given that anyone associated with Trump was targeted on day one by the spy and law enforcement apparatchiki, how did anyone expect him to attract The Best People?

    I sometimes wonder what it is people carry around inside their skulls.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      Good point, if you were looking to make a career in politics, associating with OMB was a death sentence.

    • R C Dean

      Mush?

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        and their assigned opinions.

    • Loveconstitution1789

      +1000000000

      Trumps greatest achievements were through policy that was not controlled by commie bureaucrats or commie military brass.

      Trump offered free trade with our trading partners and all refused.
      Trump tried to withdraw from afghanistan and congress denied funding.

      Also getting commies in govt to expose themselves was a great achievement too.

  73. The Late P Brooks

    I do not think the ‘Deep State’ is a smoky room full of Bond villains but it is definitely a thing. It is a group of self-interested high-level bureaucrats acting independently or collaborating (if it suits their tactical needs) to keep ahold of their respective fiefdoms.

    I agree.

    • EvilSheldon

      The NRx types call that a prospiracy – a bunch of people who seem to act in coordination due to shared belief structures and class association. One of the few times the neoreactionaries come close to being useful thinkers…

  74. KSuellington

    I wonder if and when SloJoe and the buffoons with lots of chest medals are going to get asked the most obvious question in the world in regards to the pullout debacle. Why in the ever loving fuck were the guys with guns pulled out and Baghram deserted before the civilians and the piles of military hardware? It’s so shockingly bad it boggles me, and I am not one to put much faith in the competence of our military or civilian so called leaders. It’s so inept it makes me wonder if it wasn’t done purposely.

    In Greaseball Guv recall news both the wife and I voted yesterday and dropped off the ballots in the mail. Somehow my political musings have convinced at least one of my friends that the one party state here has got to go and he was almost as fired up as I am to get rid of the clown. This guy was a hardcore centrist Dem a few years back. I think it’s about 60/40 that he survives the attempt, which is a lot closer than most anyone would’ve predicted six months ago.

    • R C Dean

      Why in the ever loving fuck were the guys with guns pulled out and Baghram deserted before the civilians and the piles of military hardware?

      Because doing otherwise would have shown a “lack of faith” in the puppet government. Optics, as ever, over reality.

      • KSuellington

        I supposed you are right, but that is so unbelievably naive as to be laughable. Seriously, they could replace the top military brass with a few assistant night managers from the local Burger Kings and get better results.

    • AlexinCT

      They left the hardware to help the Taliban do bad things. They need that so they have an excuse to go back….

      • R C Dean

        Also, so they could place some 10 figure orders for replacements. That cushy board seat at Raytheon isn’t going to deliver itself.

      • KSuellington

        I have considered that possibility, it may be spot on. That ain’t going to exactly help the Dems if that happens in the next year or so though.

      • R C Dean

        I doubt the Military faction really cares which fundraising arm of TEAM BE RULED is on top.

    • Mustang

      I just received a ballot for the CA recall election today. It is addressed to the previous tenant and I’m not a CA resident. Most secure elections ever.

      • UnCivilServant

        In that case, you’re supposed to turn it over to the Designated Democrat Party Ballot Harvester for them to fill out.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I need to check my mail. I guarantee I got a ballot and I will guarantee I will inform the registrar/clerk and they will tell me that I need to come in person to remove myself from the rolls…like they have over the past 16 years.