305 Comments

  1. AlexinCT

    Hunter Biden’s real estate company received $40 million from Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina

    Peanuts from the billions I understand they got from the CCP.

    • waffles

      Good morning! Our unwillingness to speak truth and confront lies will be our undoing on all fronts.

      • waffles

        Aye, we should have known.

      • Lackadaisical

        Amen, both of you.

    • SDF-7

      Yeah, but as these reports (finally) pile up and are investigated… forgive me for allowing myself a small glimmer of hope that the racket of insider trading and influence peddling that would make Michael Corleone blush with shame and run to confession might be pared back for a generation or two. Until whatever guardrails and watchdogs are set are corrupted again, of course.

      • AlexinCT

        I have already seen team blue people say this doesn’t matter, cause everyone does it…. Or because it is the past. Or just because!

      • SDF-7

        So they’re really trotting out “What difference, at this point, would it make?”

        I guess they love the classics.

      • AlexinCT

        Why would they do anything other than that? It keeps working because the drib-drab of information and the media propagandizing for them have left plenty of room for the lemmings to just keep cheering team and acting like the republic is being turned into a banana one.

      • juris imprudent

        It ain’t just the media to blame, it is very much the consumers of that media.

      • Lackadaisical

        ^this

        At some point Democrats have to be held to account for being wilfully deceived.

      • AlexinCT

        You want to hold homeless people, psychopaths, or drug abusers accountable? Cause that’s what you are saying should happen here when you say team blue drones should be held accountable for their mental disorders…

      • Lackadaisical

        Yes?

      • B.P.

        The average American can go through his/her day without a hint that this corruption is taking place. That is a massive failure in news reporting. Those who are aware are rewarded for their curiosity by being branded wackos and conspiracy theorists, so many of them just keep their mouths shut.

      • waffles

        The current investigative powers that government has have shown no interest in pursuing this. Forgive me if I have little hope. Nailing hunter on his drug-addled form 4473 and nothing else would be the biggest slap in the face.

      • AlexinCT

        You ain’t gonna go after your own, man….. Doing that will make it open season, and then someone might come after you.

      • waffles

        The criminality is breathtaking. We are in dangerous territory.

      • AlexinCT

        Yeah, recovering from things going this far never happens peacefully unfortunately. and I am not sure if there is any recovering, cause history usually is one bunch of criminals replacing another.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      This is the establishment warning Biden not to seek re-election.

  2. AlexinCT

    Biden’s family got ‘interest-free,’ ‘forgivable’ loan from China, new evidence reveals

    Look up that investment company they set up that got $1 billion from the CCP.

  3. AlexinCT

    Walmart CTO: ‘Crypto will become an important part of how customers transact’

    Especially when government makes it the only currency allowed and issued by them?

  4. AlexinCT

    Companies Are Increasingly Charging Former Employees for Job Training After Quitting

    If you signed a contract where the company can do this, then it is on you. Buyer beware is still a thing, right?

    • Pat

      Unconscionability is still a thing, too. At-will employment is supposed to work both ways.

      • AlexinCT

        One of the reasons I have not left the People’s Republic of Connecticut for greener pastures is that my employer until recently has been that asking all employees opting to work remote full time to sign an agreement they can terminate you at will and not have to pay you the required severance or any other such obligations. with the Kung Flue shift, they has been pushback against this stance the employer has had since forever, and the employer is looking at changing that. Once they do, if it is not as dumb of a move, I will take it and bail on this shit state.

      • Pat

        Well don’t be so coy, tell us how you really feel about Connecticut government.

      • AlexinCT

        Come see my reaction every time when I have to do my taxes, pay my property taxes, or buy things and pay high prices and taxes…

      • Lackadaisical

        Just don’t own an expensive car, fucking property taxes there. They were charging me an arm and a leg for my beater. Stupid place

      • R C Dean

        We have these for some kinds of training – generally around RNs, because we have to make a pretty significant investment to turn somebody into an RN, or a new RN into a bedside nurse in an acute care facility. And, of course, once they are qualified, they can walk out and work for anyone.

        You want us to invest in you, don’t be surprised if we want a return on our investment.

      • Lackadaisical

        ^this

        So long as it’s all voluntary I think it’s on the up and up for the employer to expect repayment if you don’t stick around for a determined timeframe.

      • AlexinCT

        Yeah, the problem is that this was not necessary because there was an agreement between employer & employee that loyalty would go both ways. Employers broke that agreement first when they decided employees could and should be treated like fungible assets. Employees adapted and learned that they had to look out for themselves. Employers can’t now get pissed if employees have just as much loyalty towards them as they have towards their employees.

        I guess now that many professions require extra training because high school, but especially college, are just a waste of time an money and teach most people nothing of value anymore, the employers will all have to adopt this practice of holding employees they spend extra money training, liable. But it is a consequence of the system degenerating on all ends.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yeah. I had a boss who was pissed that a coworker transferred to another location after he sent her to a course. He “expected” her to do the role for a year even though say HR announced a layoff, he’d shrug and say oh well nothing I can do. Nor did he do the logical thing of having the gaining manager pay for a replacement course or similar out of their budget.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Yep. I agreed to stay with my company for a certain duration in return for tuition reimbursement. The duration scales with the amount the company invested in my schooling. If I leave early, then I owe back everything. I don’t see this fundamentally different from the employer providing the training directly themselves.

        There is a risk to me accepting those terms. But there is risk for the company without that. Seems like a fair and reasonable compromise.

      • Pat

        There are edge cases like that where it makes more sense, but I can picture this being used much more often punitively against employees fired for political bullshit.

      • Lackadaisical

        If you get fired I don’t think you should owe anything. That may not be in your control…

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        As long as it is up front, I don’t see any problem with it. During the last shit economy (Hola, Obama!) I ended up working for ATT as a field tech, and while it paid damn good for the time, they put you through six weeks of in class training, to make sure you did things the way they wanted you to. And, considering the number of people going through that, it wasn’t cheap. And there were a few people who bailed a week or two afterwards when they see the real job in the field and what it is like. Hell yeah, I would make them pay that back.

      • Spartacus

        As long as this is stated explicitly somewhere, not a problem. At my university, faculty going on sabbatical or professional development leave have to sign a promissory note stating that they agree to return for at least one year after completing it, and if they don’t, the pay (including benefits) given during the sabbatical has to be returned.

      • Brawndo

        Speaking of at-will employment, it cracks me up that the standard (I know it’s not legal, just a cultural thing) is that employees need to give 2 weeks notice before quitting, ie firing their employer. But when an employee is let go, the vast majority of the time it’s out of the blue.

    • Brawndo

      It’s not clear that it was in the contract that you could be charged for it. I see both sides to this, but I would rather government not get involved (spicy take around here I know), and let the market force employers to be more transparent and up front. I think a fair solution would be for the company to “own” the certification, at least for a set period of time. If the employee walks, they can buy out the cert at the cost of the test (not the cost of the training though).

      I can definitely see companies treating employees like shit if they knew there would be a several thousand dollar quitting fee.

      • Lackadaisical

        ‘It’s not clear that it was in the contract that you could be charged for it. ‘

        It’s either in it or not, if it’s not, the employer can go sod off.

      • Brawndo

        I meant in regards to the article. It’s entirely possible it was in the contract but not mentioned in the article.

    • Social Justice is Neither

      Really depends on the expense, portability and redundancy of the training and the amortization of the payback through use.

  5. Fourscore

    Morning Banjos,

    The Bidens are crooked? And politicians? Say it isn’t so, Joe.

    • AlexinCT

      They are exceptionally crooked. The thing is I bet the Bidens were always jealous of the other crime families and trying to be just as big and bad. You know, the Obamas, Clintons, Cheneys, or Bushes made them feel like small potatoes in a great crime syndicate ocean.

    • waffles

      Not just crooked, fucking bent. I expect corruption, but this foreign power dealing is far more dangerous than a run of the mill racket.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s a cosmo thing, why grift off of just one govt (set of taxpayers).

      • Lackadaisical

        Didn’t the Clintons do the same thing?

        Selling tech to China and good knows what else. But yes, far more dangerous then your run of the mill corruption.

      • AlexinCT

        So did the Bushes, Cheneys, and Obamas. Also the Pelosis, McConnells, Schumers, and so on…

      • DrOtto

        It seems a certain secretary of state cleared a controversial uranium deal with Russia a few years back after receiving a large donation to her “charity”. I haven’t heard if that’s come back to bite us yet.

      • Lackadaisical

        I hope for your sake you don’t have any proof of that.

        ‘Dr Otto found with two bullet holes in the back of his head, the coroner has ruled it a suicide ‘

  6. SDF-7

    Morning, Banjos — I haven’t been to the doctor for a while.. so I’m really wondering how I got in that front page picture and where you got a hold of it… (yeah, yeah… I need to Glibfit a lot more..)

  7. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’
    whats goody

  8. AlexinCT

    Why? Dear Lord, Why?

    They might need to fortify an election again?

    • SDF-7

      Eh… I can see a rationale for this given both virus strains are extant in the wild. A hybridization of them could conceptually occur naturally, preparing for it makes sense.

      But yes, it does reek of “This time we’ll get that depopulation we wanted!”.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        It’s just irresponsible and completely reckless.

  9. Pat

    Biden has spent more than one-fourth of his time in office in Delaware

    It’s not like anything would change if he were in Washington D.C. He can scribble an X on the signature line of the executive orders his staff drafts from just about anywhere.

    • AlexinCT

      If you don’t get that this is just Obama’s 3rd term – it’s his people making all the calls and finally taking off the gloves and doing all the evil shit they wanted, consequences on the stupid people be damned, but couldn’t without suffering direct consequences – and you think Joe is anything but a front man played like a marionette, you have fallen for the propaganda. The globalists know time is running short, and that cry they make about how long they have to save Gaia from AGW happens to be the window of time they have to fuck us all over and make us serfs living at their mercy.

      • waffles

        Obama pushed back against the radical interests of his party. The guardrails are gone, vanished. It’s too far too fast and too corrupt. Maybe this was the plan all along.

      • AlexinCT

        Remember that while Obama pushed when he was in charge, he never went as far as he wanted, because he wanted a good legacy. Hillary was supposed to do all the real dirty shit, cause nobody would fuck with that. Then that evil orange guy happened and ruined everything. But then they fortified an election, and now the cabal can destroy the country – change it fundamentally – and let Joe take the blame.

      • waffles

        I still can’t wrap my head around the evil required to make this happen.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s usually why evil people get away with shit: moral people just can’t believe anyone would do something that evil…

      • invisible finger

        “Obama pushed back against the radical interests of his party”

        When (and how) was this?

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        👆 Obama provided rhetorical cover while his administration turned DC into Chicago.

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        Ayup.

      • invisible finger

        In fact I’d bet it was the other way around – enough moderate Dems told him they would lose their seats if he pushed too hard too fast. Easier to do it through the bureaucracy – as the old-timers retire encourage/reward the directors to replace them with people that “share his vision”. That’s probably not much different than any other administration, but the resulting woke mess the agencies are in reflect Obama more than his predecessor or successor.

      • R C Dean

        A lot of moderate Dems did lose their seats under Obama. At all levels. He effectively traded an electoral team for a weaponized bureaucracy. From a certain perspective, it was a good trade.

      • Shpip

        After the 2010 bloodbath in the House, I wondered what would happen to the defeated Democratic reps. I kinda figured that there was a revolving door between the House, colleges, NGOs, etc. that would encourage Democrat pols to fall on their swords, so to speak, while they would land on their feet. Maybe some enterprising reporter can do a “where are they now?” piece about them sometime.

        And a weaponized bureaucracy is a pretty good trade-off for the relatively ephemeral political power of a House majority. That’s probably one of the reasons why the donks are screaming so loudly about the federal courts giving the three letter agencies more scrutiny. As much as the cat ladies and college fat chicks with aposematic hair are bitching about Dobbs, West Virginia v EPA will be the more momentous decision in the long run.

        Of course, progressives run to daylight wherever there’s a path to power and their preferred policies. If something passes legislatively (a la the PPACA), then it’s The Will Of The People and shall never be looked at again. And if the courts exnihiliate a right (Obergfell waves “hi”) then it’s The Law Of The Land and must not be re-examined. And if neither of those work, then the bureaucracy in the hands of the True Believers can extend via fiat what the legislature cannot / will not. CAFE standards come to mind, here, but there are probably literally hundreds of examples.

    • Drake

      In Delaware, there are no official logs of visitors. It’s much more convenient for the folks operating the corpse-puppet.

    • The Last American Hero

      The point is that in DC, he is more visible, as is the state of his decline.

      Reporters being lazy shills, they won’t camp out in Delaware to get the incriminating footage and photos.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Reporters are expecting the visitors to post Tik Toks of their visit.

  10. AlexinCT

    Planned Parenthood Appears to Be Evolving Into Planned Genderhood

    Meh, PP has always been a political shell company for criminal leftist activity first, and a baby killing entity just to put the icing on the cake.

    • LJW

      Governnent: I’m gonna give you this money but you better not go and spend it on abortions

      PP: Sure thing pops! *Walks away smirking*

      • AlexinCT

        I suspect the largest part of that tax payer money was “spent” on larding team blue campaign coffers or doing propaganda for team blue…

      • SDF-7

        What? “Non-profits” being used to funnel money from the government back into political campaigns so they can send more money through the funnel and take a cut?

        In America?

        Why, I never! Now I have the vapors!

  11. Grumbletarian

    FBI director uses federal jet to the point of ’embezzlement’

    Just think of it as temporary asset forfeiture.

    • AlexinCT

      They are the aristocracy. Soon they will make sure the serfs know their place and won’t give them anymore of this sort of attitude.

  12. Fourscore

    Amazingly, a lot of Europe went through 50 years of this stupidity and survived, only to fall back into the same trap, dressed up in nicer clothes.

    Here we go again, all politics are local, all politicians are loco.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of vampire titsploitation movies-

    I watched The Vampire Happening last night. It’s as good as it sounds.

    • SDF-7

      Is that Ron Paul’s Halloween party?

  14. AlexinCT

    Are they finally admitting they got played – something they realized was the case in 1989 after Tiananmen – and kept playing dumb cause money?

    This is not the first time analysts have issued dire warnings against investing in Chinese stocks. From our standpoint as advocates of long-term investing, we too share the view that what qualifies as a high-quality investment, necessarily requires some level of visibility into future cash flows or prospects of the asset in question. When it comes to investing in China, though, the future is wildly unpredictable given the lack of transparency, weak accounting standards, and poor regulatory oversight. Worse, the fate of the Chinese economy is almost entirely dependent on the political aspirations of a single man, Chinese President Xi Jinping.

    The sad thing is people pointed this out 20 years ago, and these fucks, knowing they would lose huge amounts of money personally, kept pretending there was no problem with this arrangement. So China got to steal any and all IP they wanted, and especially military tech (the Clintons sold them but ICBM and miniaturized MIRV tech for $2 million, and that trend continued with the Bushes & Obamas, with Wallstreet taking its directive from the top men), and now faces an insurmountable economic and demographic future with a leader that will have to engage in some sort of brinkmanship to keep the angry serfs from rebelling and demanding his head.

    See Argentina in the early 1980s.

    • Shpip

      the future is wildly unpredictable given the lack of transparency, weak accounting standards, and poor regulatory oversight.

      Libertarian moment achieved?

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Those Bidens sure have a nose for business.

  16. AlexinCT

    If you still have not realized that what we got today is a neo-fascist style government that feels its primary function is to pick winners & losers, for its and it’s powerful member’s personal benefit, and always under the guise of some noble cause, check this out….

    • AlexinCT

      This was not gain of function. It is just part of the next fortification effort….

    • invisible finger

      The new strain dropped right out of their ass.

    • Fatty Bolger

      So they can develop a new, more lethal vaccine?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      It’s time to invade BU. First they unleash AOC on us, now this.

      • UnCivilServant

        Nuke the site from orbit.

  17. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles: Preliminary round lulled me into a false sense of competency, but at least I didn’t chump (this time):

    Daily Duotrigordle #230
    Guesses: 36/37
    Time: 04:59.06
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 267
    9️⃣4️⃣
    6️⃣7️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 267
      3️⃣6️⃣
      8️⃣9️⃣

      Just passing by Chumptown today.

    • Pat

      Daily Quordle 267
      8️⃣5️⃣
      6️⃣7️⃣

    • Sean

      Daily Quordle 267
      5️⃣8️⃣
      7️⃣9️⃣
      quordle.com

      Meh.

    • Grummun

      4 7
      6 5

      BL and TR were complete WAGs that paid off.

    • Cowboy

      Daily Quordle 267
      3️⃣7️⃣
      5️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 267
      5️⃣9️⃣
      8️⃣7️⃣

      Not as bad as yesterday, but ugly.

    • whiz

      Daily Quordle 267
      3️⃣9️⃣
      7️⃣6️⃣
      quordle.com

      Good lord, that was awful.

    • Grosspatzer

      Daily Quordle 267
      4️⃣9️⃣
      6️⃣7️⃣
      quordle.com

  18. The Late P Brooks

    NFTs are increasingly being used to create unique digital experiences, allowing brands to engage with customers who prefer to spend more time in virtual worlds or the metaverse, instead of physical stores, according to research by CB Insights.

    That’s nice.

    • AlexinCT

      Buying a picture of a picture as an investment, seems like a fools game to me…

    • SDF-7

      Wait, NFTs are still supposedly a thing? I thought that collapsed after everyone realized how incredibly dumb the whole thing was….

    • LJW

      Sureeeee no one cares about the “metaverse” it was just a sad attempt by Facebook.

    • SDF-7

      Nah, nobody trained by the British has ever led a successful military campaign against them or anything. This would be completely virginia *cough* virgin territory for them…

    • AlexinCT

      China might be trying real hard to upgrade its capabilities, but their conscription model will always remain an albatross around their neck regardless of any modernization attempts. Now the thing to worry about is that the government knows this and is making improvements in just the spaces they feel will allow them to do a quick move that will then just leave thing settled. that’s why the CCP top men have been following the happenings in Ukraine with dread. If they fail to do it quick enough that others are just forced to accept it, and at this point there are no guarantees they can capture the chip manufacturing infrastructure (why they want Taiwan) intact, it will be a game killer. Literally.

    • WTF

      Damn! Dropping some truth bombs all over the place!

  19. The Late P Brooks

    DOOOOOOM awaits

    But it gets worse from there.

    Should Trump and the GOP take power again in 2024, they are promising to capture and corrupt every other institutional guardrail they can by gutting them of institutionalists and replacing them with Trump loyalists and partisan hacks. This includes the military, the Justice Department, Homeland Security, the intelligence community, and the FBI. The potential for abuse is staggering. Imagine an FBI and a DOJ that are used extensively as weapons to investigate, harass, and jail political enemies. Or a Defense Department willing to use troops to put down anti-Trump protests with overwhelming violence. Or an intelligence community that produces an unending stream of pro-Russian pronouncements? The potential for abuse is endless.

    And unfortunately, we are almost at a point of no return to prevent this. After the 2022 election, this future could be baked in. Once the United States falls down the same gravity well into competitive authoritarianism that Hungary and Russia have gone down, there’s almost certainly no coming back from it in my lifetime. Whatever institutions might save us from this are crumbling fast, being deliberately undermined, and won’t survive another four years under Trump.

    If the Republikkkinz win, it won’t be pretty. Madness, chaos, blood in the streets. Slavery. Genocide. Your worst nightmare.

    • Sean

      That’s some grade A derp.

      • AlexinCT

        When all you have is failure and absolutely horrible and destructive decision making and results, you need something to distract the people getting fucked over….

        Bread & circuses…

        Queue the J6 and other trump shit shows…

        That guy ends up living rent free in so many weak and dumb minds…

    • SDF-7

      Imagine an FBI and a DOJ that are used extensively as weapons to investigate, harass, and jail political enemies.

      Yeah, just imagine. Political protests that turn into riots and get out of hand might cause 2 year witch hunts, solitary confinement without trial and stupidly biased kangaroo court prosecutions.

      CNN might be called to film early morning SWAT-style raids on 70+ year old political enemies of the regime.

      People protesting at abortion clinics might be dragged out of their homes when they’ve already offered to meet with the authorities while fire bombings, harassment campaigns and assassination attempts intended to influence the Supreme Court are swept under the rug.

      The Intelligence Community might leak things to the press in order to gin up their own investigations using made up “evidence”.

      What a banana republic that would be.

      • Ownbestenemy

        You see SDF-7…there lies your problem. It’s Republican Authoritarianism vs. Democratic Democracy++

      • rhywun

        That’s a vivid imagination you have there.

      • The Other Kevin

        This. Ignore what we’re actually doing, and instead worry about this fantastic tale of what I say will happen in the future.

    • Lackadaisical

      This person is writing from bizarro world.

      Aka, lying so big and hard they hope no one notices.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Somewhere mentioned that was one of the goals, to get it added to the childhood VA vaccine scheme

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        That was me.

        That was always the end goal. That’s their permanent get-out-of-guillotine-free card.

      • The Other Kevin

        Once this happens, there’s going to be a big party of pharma executives, with top shelf champagne and the finest cigars lit with $500 bills.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        OBE, I saw your heading out this way looking at property. Bristol is a bit far west, but if you swing further east towards Mt Airy, Greensboro, Martinsville, Danville, let me know if you want to meet up. I think JI has a place near Mt Airy. But near is a relative term out here.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Sounds good. It’s a whirlwind trip but will let you know

      • juris imprudent

        Fancy Gap, up on top of the Blue Ridge. Only there part time.

        Hit me up at ratbastard at rangers dot org. I looked at a lot of property there abouts before we bought.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      This is the big prize for a vaccine manufacturer.

      If you get put on the CDC childhood vaccine schedule, it means:

      Liability protection forever for not just the vaccine for kids, but for the adult vaccine as well

      All states require vaccination in order to attend public school. Many tie their list to the CDC list or a subset thereof. So getting on the list is a key step to being mandated in many states.

      It’s worse than this. Most states require all private school and homeschooled students to be current on the CDC list as well. A major reason we picked religious exemption homeschooling in VA is because the typical homeschool route allows the local public school to demand proof of vaccination from your kids at any time.

      • Count Potato

        There is no good reason for it to be on the CDC childhood vaccine schedule. Giving the vaccine to children doesn’t accomplish anything.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        There’s a very good reason. It provides a permanent liability shield.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Neither do many/most childhood scheduled vaccines, yet here we are anyways.

      • Count Potato

        “Neither do many/most childhood scheduled vaccines, yet here we are anyways.”

        Maybe not the new additions, but many childhood diseases were eradicated by herd immunity.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I posted it before, but several of vaccine available diseases had very low incidences before vaccines. Even for the rest, incidence and/or mortality are generally overstated in popular memory. Rubella for example is basically harmless to children and most adults, to the point where many do not even have noticeable symptoms. It sucks to be an unborn baby of a woman who gets it though.

      • Count Potato

        “There’s a very good reason. It provides a permanent liability shield.”

        That’s a reason, not a good reason.

      • rhywun

        the typical homeschool route allows the local public school to demand proof of vaccination from your kids at any time

        Say what now? That’s absurd.

      • Lackadaisical

        New York’s rules makes it nearly impossible to homeschool, even disregarding the vaccination bull shit.

      • Lackadaisical

        Exactly. It is insane and I don’t see how it isn’t trampling all over your liberties, medical and otherwise. Demand that kids attend ‘school’ if some sort, then take vaccination to go to school. They’re all evil.

  20. Sensei

    Jill Biden booed at Philadelphia Eagles game

    No batteries? No big deal.

    • AlexinCT

      I heard Joe got really fucking pissed at the mistreatment of his beau and told the DOJ & FBI to go have one of those a serious baseball bat and dog chain poolboy style Corn Pop chats with Don Henley and Glenn Frey.

    • straffinrun

      They should’ve chucked a solar panel at her.

  21. Shiny Nerfherder

    Tard Tuesday: I Thought We Owned All the Judges, This Isn’t Fair!

    According to a report from the Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery, more and more legal experts and observers are questioning the sequence of unusual events that led to Donald Trump’s legal battle with the Department of Justice over the search and seizure of government documents he took with him to his Mar-a-Lago resort ended up under the watchful eye of one his hand-picked federal judges.

    Since the day U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida was handed the case filed by the former president’s lawyers, she has issued a series of pro-Trump rulings that have baffled — and enraged — legal scholars.

    The DOJ, for its part, has been busy running to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atalanta, which has consistently either overruled her or issued stays favorable to the government as investigators ponder Espionage Act or obstruction charges.

    According to Pagleiry, recent information on how the suit was filed, far from Palm Beach where Trump lives, has led to more scrutiny of how Trump’s people gamed the system.

    “When Donald Trump’s legal team filed their court paperwork protesting the Mar-a-Lago raid, a lawyer took the rare step of actually filing the paperwork in person. At a courthouse 44 miles from Mar-a-Lago. And they got a judge to oversee the case that was outside both West Palm Beach—where the raid took place—and the district where they filed,” the Daily Beast reporter wrote. “Those incredible coincidences have led lawyers and legal experts to suggest that something may not be above board with how Trump’s team filed their lawsuit.”

    • AlexinCT

      When we use & abuse the power of the legal court districts we have corrupted and control to abuse the law, it is for a good cause. When anyone tries to avoid the way we have rigged the game in our favor though, then there is a existential crisis, and we can be sure the people denying us our day in rigged court are the bad guys!

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Ultimately, the corruption and capture of our institutions by people who are acting out of partisanship and ideology will be the end not only of our democracy but of competent nonpartisan governance.

    Stop it. You’re killing me.

  23. Count Potato

    “Gavin Newsom’s wife Jennifer wrote to Harvey Weinstein asking for his help in dealing with a sex scandal involving her husband, two years after she says the movie mogul raped her.

    The email will be presented to the jury at Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial as apparent proof that their encounter was consensual. It was first raised last night in a filing from Weinstein’s legal team.

    Jennifer Siebel Newsom says Weinstein raped her in 2005 after ‘luring’ her to a hotel room. At the time, she was an actress and had not yet started dating Newsom. In 2007, a year after she met Newsom and started dating him, he became embroiled in an embarrassing sex scandal.

    He was Mayor of San Francisco and had had an affair with Ruby Rippey Tourk, the wife of one of his senior advisers.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11325605/Gavin-Newsoms-wife-emailed-Harvey-Weinstein-help-dealing-California-Govs-cheating-scandaltic-tweet-suggesting-Malia-Obama-assault.html

    Everyone in this story is despicable.

    • Q Continuum

      Newsom is such a fucking slimeball; he was born to be a politician.

    • Lackadaisical

      How can they all lose? I guess that would take widespread reporting of their discussing behavior and the populace to care about it. Seems too many have done about the same and will probably pull the lever even harder for Newsom when he runs for president.

    • The Last American Hero

      And they laugh at the congressman who talks about the orgies.

      • Lackadaisical

        I am convinced he was telling the truth. Why else oust him so quickly?

  24. Grummun

    Ultimately, this research will provide a public benefit by leading to better, targeted therapeutic interventions to help fight against future pandemics.

    Has gain-of-function ever delivered on this? What’s the ratio of lives saved by vaccines or therapeutics developed as a result of GoF, versus lives lost due to lab leaks of GoF viruses?

    • R C Dean

      Don’t forget lives lost due to vaccines developed from GoF viruses.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Has gain-of-function ever delivered on this?

      No

      It is demonstrably, undeniably, incredibly dangerous research that they continue in spite of everything that has happened over the past three years. We got lucky that C19 had the kill rate it did. If it had been like MERS, we would have really been in deep shit. All of the people involved in this program should be taken out back and shot.

      • WTF

        It’s never delivered because that’s not the goal. It’s really bio-weapons research, but we don’t call it that.

      • R C Dean

        Ding ding ding.

        At an absolute minimum, it is dual-purpose.

      • Lackadaisical

        ‘All of the people involved in this program should be taken out back and shot.’

        That is too kind.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    I think they should test that new strain of batpox at the State of the Union address. Seal all the doors and windows, and pump it into the ventilation system.

    • R.J.

      Wow. Biden is so self-important he thinks that Putin is going to come up to him to talk about Brittany at G20? That girl is screwed. Nothing short of Biden ending support of Ukraine and begging Putin be or forgiveness will get her out.

      • The Other Kevin

        Yep. She is truly fucked at this point.

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        Ackshuley, technically correct is the best kind of correct.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Wow. Biden is so self-important he thinks that Putin is going to come up to him to talk about Brittany at G20? That girl is screwed. Nothing short of Biden ending support of Ukraine and begging Putin be or forgiveness will get her out.

    I’d like to see Putin lecturing Biden about the J6 political prisoners in front of the G20 press corps.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      The idea that Biden and Putin could have a discussion about a low-rent political prisoner who did violate Russian laws while there’s a war raging in Ukraine is absurd beyond belief. These people are completely unhinged.

    • R.J.

      There is that too. It is all too easy to troll Biden.

  27. AlexinCT

    I say this is an prescient and accurate prediction, but it is a blatantly obvious one.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Well yeah, duh…

      There’s a reason they’ve been altering the definition of a recession for the past few months. It will return to normal shortly.

      • whiz

        I posted this yesterday, but it bears repeating. They haven’t been altering anything. From a Forbes article:

        In 1974, economist Julius Shiskin came up with a few rules of thumb to define a recession: The most popular was two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. A healthy economy expands over time, so two quarters in a row of contracting output suggests there are serious underlying problems, according to Shiskin. This definition of a recession became a common standard over the years.

        The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is generally recognized as the authority that defines the starting and ending dates of U.S. recessions. NBER has its own definition of what constitutes a recession, namely “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”

        So the two quarters of down GDP is not really the official definition, just a crude approximation. This page shows a history of NBER-determined recessions.

      • B.P.

        Sure, but the NBER declares recessions well after the fact, and since 1948 all episodes of two quarters of negative growth have eventually been declared recessions by the NBER. In the mean time, the two-quarters crude approximation has usually been accepted with a shrug. I think a lot of people are taking umbrage with the flood of “well akshually” commentary pieces about the definition of a recession that dropped when news of a second quarter of negative growth came out this time around.

    • Gustave Lytton

      3. GOP plans to repeal IRA

      Yep, right after Obamacare.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        LOL. They might seize them and issue treasury notes in recompense.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Inflation Reduction Act. But I wouldn’t put that other past them either

    • Fourscore

      Thanks Jimbo

  28. Lackadaisical

    ‘Did Danchenko Lie To The FBI? As Jury Decides His Fate, Here’s What You Need To Know’

    Is it really lying if they pay you a million dollars to pretty please, make something up?

    • PieInTheSky

      I say get a second chick pregnant simultaneously

  29. Pope Jimbo

    Did Q get a chance to direct own Marvel movie? (NSFW)

    • Q Continuum

      Guaranteed box office smash.

  30. Pat

    Florida: Come for the hurricanes, stay for the flesh eating bacteria

    Florida residents dealing with the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Ian now need to be concerned about a spike in flesh-eating bacteria cases, health officials warned.

    “The Florida Department of Health in Lee County is observing an abnormal increase in cases of Vibrio vulnificus infections as a result of exposure to the flood waters and standing waters following Hurricane Ian,” the county health department said in a statement. Residents should “always be aware of the potential risks associated when exposing open wounds, cuts or scratches on the skin to warm, brackish or salt water.

    “Sewage spills, like those caused from Hurricane Ian, may increase bacteria levels,” the statement continued. “As the post-storm situation evolves, individuals should take precautions against an infection and illness caused by Vibrio vulnificus.”

    Lee County health officials know of at least 29 cases and four deaths in the county, according to data updated Friday. All but two were reported since Ian barreled through the state.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Vibrio is always a risk. We get cases in Virginia every year.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Grandstanding

    Australia has reversed a previous government’s recognition of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the foreign minister said Tuesday, prompting consternation from Israel.

    The center-left Labor Party government agreed to again recognize Tel Aviv as the capital. The Cabinet also reaffirmed that Jerusalem’s status must be resolved in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

    Australia remained committed to a two-party solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and “we will not support an approach that undermines this prospect,” Wong said.

    Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid expressed disappointment in Australia’s changed position.

    What constituency are they appealing To, here?

    Never mind, I don’t really give a shit one way or another.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I’m sure Penny Wong will detail how she and other non aboriginal Aussies are going to leave shortly. The Israelis need to up their troll game.

    • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

      If a country says X is their capital, than X is the capital, no matter if a bunch of ijits whose toilets flush the wrong way say “no, Y is your capital.”

      Or, I am going to start calling Waparanga the new capital of Wrong Toilet Flush, ’cause I am the decider!

  32. Pat

    Graham Norton gets a taste of ‘accountability culture’

    So Graham Norton has been held to account. That’s what he’d call it, right? He’s left Twitter, apparently after getting a load of flak for comments on the trans issue that he made last week. His allies are outraged. He’s been ‘hounded off Twitter’, they say. He was subjected to a ‘barrage of abuse’, says Pink News. He’s been ‘forced off Twitter’ and that’s ‘desperately sad’, says India Willoughby. What are these people talking about? Didn’t they listen to Graham? Don’t they know that this is just accountability culture and that it’s a very good thing? Live by accountability, die by accountability, right Mr Norton?

    Even though I’m opposed to every act of cancel culture, and even though I agree that it’s sad if Norton really feels he can no longer express himself freely online, I can also glimpse the twisted, delicious irony in what has happened here. It was at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last week that Norton made his comments on cancel culture. He told Mariella Frostrup that ‘cancel’ is the wrong word – ‘the word should be accountability’, he said. Those men ‘of a certain age’ who’ve been able to say whatever they want for years – they’re not being cancelled, they’re just being held to account. ‘Now, suddenly, there’s some accountability’, said Norton, approvingly. ‘It’s free speech’, he said, ‘but not consequence free’.

    […]

    I think the main issue with people like Norton is that they never think they themselves will be cancelled. Like the woke left more broadly, certain celebs are fine with cancel culture because they know it is primarily aimed at people with supposedly ‘unfashionable’ views – like, erm, that people with penises are men – whereas they hold ‘fashionable’ views only, all the correct-think, and thus they’re safe. Usually that’s true. But in this case it has backfired. People angered by Norton’s reluctance to call out the hounding of Rowling have gone looking for his ‘speechcrimes’, and they’ve found stuff.

    […]

    Let’s be honest – accountability culture is a euphemism for sidelining and silencing people with supposedly unacceptable views. Enough. Let everyone speak. Let a thousand opinions bloom. Come back to social media, Mr Norton. Meghan Murphy, Graham Linehan, Donald Trump too – let them all back on. Cancelling people is for tyrannies.

  33. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Companies Are Increasingly Charging Former Employees for Job Training After Quitting

    Hasn’t this been around for awhile? A buddy got his MBA financed by his company with some clawback provision if he bailed early/ It doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me.

    Lots of dirt on the Bidens today. Prediction: nothing else will happen.

    • R.J.

      Yep. This is a correct assumption.

  34. Hyperion

    “Chuck Grassley: FBI Has ‘Voluminous Evidence’ from Whistleblowers Against Biden Family”

    There’s a reason why he was installed as puppet, a title formerly known as ‘President’.

    • Fourscore

      Voluminous but not voluptuous. I am disappointed.

      Meth is a helluva drug

  35. PieInTheSky

    because I linked this amouranth chick yesterday here is a video from her youtube

    🔥HOT🔥 NEW BIKINIS TRY ON

  36. Hyperion

    “Why? Dear Lord, Why?”

    Because Klaus is going to pay a pretty penny for that one. Last one was a dud.

    • Hyperion

      In our great enlightened woke state, you will go to prison for an amount of weed that is over the state possession allowance, or having sex for cash, but it’s totes OK to make civilization ending viruses or provoke Russia into a nuclear Armageddon. We are totally doomed at this point. I guess some people were right about that Fermi Paradox thing even when ‘they are too fucking far away’ makes that a moot point.

  37. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Just saw this as breaking news over at the WSJ. Looks like energy crisis in the EU has been solved for the winter. Whew. Also free unicorns to be given out to every child.
    Check out that bolded bit below.

    EU Proposes Emergency Cap on Gas Prices
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-proposes-emergency-cap-on-gas-prices-11666100334

    BRUSSELS—European Union officials are seeking the power to impose an emergency cap on the price of natural gas on the bloc’s main trading exchange, part of a package of proposals to cushion consumers from high prices and fill storage tanks next year ahead of winter.

    Italy, France and more than a dozen other countries have been calling for a cap on wholesale gas prices to ease the burden for businesses and households. Germany and the Netherlands have both opposed such a move, saying any limit on prices could lead to higher demand and divert gas to buyers who are willing to pay more.

    The commission’s proposal appears to be aimed at finding a compromise between those two positions. Officials said it took inspiration from gas-cap proponents, but also includes safeguards meant to ensure imports keep flowing and demand doesn’t tick up.

    Another element of the EU proposal seeks to pool EU countries’ demand for natural gas in an effort to negotiate better prices with suppliers. The commission said that purchasing gas together should allow smaller countries to access supply more easily and stop member countries bidding against each other and driving up prices.

    The commission’s proposals also set out new rules for how gas would be allocated between countries and among consumers in case of a severe shortage. While it says vulnerable households would continue to be protected from an interruption in gas flows, governments could have the option of curbing gas supplies from households that might be using more gas than they need.

    • Hyperion

      Oh damn. I was going to go to Germany this Christmas and I got up my hopes that you meant they would actually be able to heat indoor spaces this winter. Maybe a few more attacks on pipelines and sending Ukraine a few more trillion will do the trick. Better get on it, Brandon, the economy is doing great!

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m not going anywhere near Europe again until they’ve burned the greenies as fuel and gone sane.

      • Hyperion

        So, only after the Apocalypse?

      • UnCivilServant

        You say apocalypse. I say market correction.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Another element of the EU proposal seeks to pool EU countries’ demand for natural gas in an effort to negotiate better prices with suppliers

      allow the EU to decide which countries get gas and how much.

      • Hyperion

        The decision must be made by Ukraine, most totally not most corrupt country in Europe. I mean unless you don’t stand with Ukraine. And who doesn’t stand with Ukraine? People who won’t wear their mask, that’s who!

    • Gender Traitor

      Curious to know their definition of “vulnerable households” to be protected. Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with how they vote, would it?

      • Hyperion

        ““vulnerable households”:

        Are they wearing their yellow I stand with Ukraine jackets? Do they have their mask on? Have they denounced right wing extremists threatening our democracy? Do they think Angela Merkel is leader of the free world?

      • Gender Traitor

        I thought yellow was for French protestors. I need a “cause color code” decoder! 😕

      • Pope Jimbo

        Technically the 1% are vulnerable. If the 99% ever figured out what was going on, they’d surely do bad things to the 1%.

      • Hyperion

        ‘E-x-t-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-i-o-n’ is a word thing that comes to mind.

    • PieInTheSky

      No one needs more than 18 degrees

    • Fourscore

      “households that might be using more gas than they need.”

      New definition of GasHog

  38. Pope Jimbo

    That’s some fine meteorology work Lou.

    If The Weather Channel is right about its long range winter outlook, it’s going to get colder and colder in each as winter goes on in Minnesota.

    • PieInTheSky

      I wish we have a winter just like last winter only maybe more rain.

    • Fourscore

      Hahahaha. They forgot March, April and May.

      We have had a nice fall though.

  39. Hyperion

    “Biden has spent more than one-fourth of his time in office in Delaware”

    No better way to hide someone a way so that they don’t get exposed to any outside information or opinions. No one’s ever been there.

    “Kanye West plans to purchase social media app Parler”

    Kanye+Tulsi+Elon == The New Axis of Evul?

    • Lackadaisical

      Two African Americans and a Samoan? White supremacy strikes again.

      • Hyperion

        this

    • PieInTheSky

      I mean if Elon banged Amber Heard he can bang Tulsi as well.

    • Count Potato

      Doesn’t Candice Owen’s husband run Parler?

      • R.J.

        There is nothing recent (and reliable) on that. Mostly news from 2021.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    “Election denialism”: welcome to the Humpty Dumpty School of Political Journalism

    There’s only one outcome Lake said she would accept in November.

    “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” she said.

    That’s probably part campaign bravado, but also part the bizarre new reality in which we live, where candidates in the Donald Trump mold will never accept defeat.

    Lake is one of many Republican candidates for key election-related positions who have pushed or embraced election denialism. CNN’s Daniel Dale has kept a list of candidates for secretary of state and governor. They espouse varying degrees of denialism, and some have even retreated to now accept President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

    “Denialism” apparently means wanting assurances that all votes counted are legitimate.

    • PieInTheSky

      I hope my vote counts

    • Lackadaisical

      If there’s one thing the last 8 years has taught me? We can trust our institutions to treat us all fairly and truthfully.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I LEARNED IT FROM YOU STACEY ABRAMS!

    • B.P.

      Reminder to CNN: Hillary Clinton still claims that the 2016 election was illegitimate. I’m sure that’s different somehow.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    The commission’s proposal appears to be aimed at finding a compromise between those two positions. Officials said it took inspiration from gas-cap proponents, but also includes safeguards meant to ensure imports keep flowing and demand doesn’t tick up.

    Price controls plus rationing. It will work this time!

    • Fourscore

      Always has. Just look at Cuba, Venezuela and NYCity rent controls.

  42. Hyperion

    Squad Could go down in Elections

    Oh Lord, if you are really there, please make it happen. Wait, what ever shall we do without the Twat Squad? Never mind, there is a never ending pile of dung derp to keep us entertained.

    • Hyperion

      Did they get to the part about this all being intentional? The book of Revelations covers it all pretty well, a few thousand years before Time.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      I’m surprised they let Dr. Doom (Roubini) get print space.

    • Drake

      Seems weird to remember that only 2 years ago gas was $2 a gallon and inflation was 1.4%.

  43. PieInTheSky

    I say we invade Brazil and steal their heat this winter. Put it in bags and bring it to Europe.

    • Hyperion

      If Lula wins, there will be a shortage of heat in Brazil.

      • Lackadaisical

        I laughed pretty hard at this.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Me too.

    • R.J.

      I love that idea. Have fleeing Venezuelans bring the heat with them.

      • Hyperion

        Too late, they are all in Brazil now, it’s a much shorter trip for them.

      • PieInTheSky

        But Brazil has plenty latin american women. Europe has a shortage. What happened to sharing is caring?

      • Hyperion

        All the Brazilian women is belong to me.

      • juris imprudent

        You got one and I’ll bet she isn’t allowing you another.

      • Cowboy

        Mine has threatened to stab me for less

      • Hyperion

        But I can keep trying! There’s still hope!

      • R C Dean

        Narrator: There is no hope.

      • Lackadaisical

        Kulak! Wrecker!

        I demand equitable redistribution of booty.

    • Hyperion

      “I wonder if it will be the debacle that the Obamacare website was.

      No doubt it will.

    • R C Dean

      We were looking at that yesterday. Absolutely no backup documentation required. Just pinky-swear you are eligible.

      • Lackadaisical

        Uh…. So could I ask for some cash for my student loans?

  44. Hyperion

    Russia totally done, war is over

    We’ve got this, Russia is done, we totally won already! /Brandon, our fearless leader as he has checkmated the Putin

    I mean, don’t you even CNN?

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Russian stooges

    Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has joined industrialist Elon Musk in openly saying that Ukraine should surrender any claims over Crimea in exchange for an end to hostilities with Russia.

    The Pershing Square hedge fund manager is the latest wealthy businessman to favor a cease-fire, urging U.S. military support continue only so long as Ukraine needs to return its borders to what they were prior to the invasion in February—but after Russia’s annexation of Crimea eight years ago.

    “If we return to the status quo ex ante [sic] 2/24, Russia is not rewarded for its aggression and Ukraine can immediately begin to rebuild with support from the West,” he posted late on Sunday. “Thousands of lives will be saved and resources can be invested to rebuild Ukraine rather than in a war that will only lead to more destruction and death.”

    You can’t end the war. There’s too much money in it.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Musk and venture capitalist David Sacks, a former PayPal senior executive, have recently been arguing in favor of an end to hostilities involving Ukraine concessions to major Russian demands.

    Sacks argued in a series of tweets on Sunday that the U.S. should propose an armistice based on the territory that existed before the Ukraine invasion, and Ukraine should promise not to join NATO.

    Late on Sunday night, Ackman supported Sacks’ call that the military alliance guarantees Ukraine would not be allowed to join.

    “Ukraine has proven it can defend itself without NATO membership. Properly armed it will deter future aggression,” he wrote.

    “If there is a viable path to peace, we should pursue it,” he added.

    Musk’s initial “peace” plan was immediately met with backlash when he posted it on Twitter in early October.

    “Which @elonmusk do you like more?” Ukraine’s President Zelensky asked in a Twitter poll similar to the one that Musk posted. “The two choices? One who supports Ukraine, and one who supports Russia.”

    Ukraine’s former ambassador to Germany was even more blunt.

    “F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you,” Andrij Melnyk wrote on Twitter.

    “We’ve got a good thing going here, and we don’t need any rich do-gooders wrecking it.”

    • Fatty Bolger

      Ignore the bluster and posturing. The hard part is getting Russia to the point of agreeing to this. And I really don’t see that happening without further gains by Ukraine on the battlefield.

    • R C Dean

      “F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you,” Andrij Melnyk wrote on Twitter.

      *Elon reaches for Starlink Ukraine killswitch*

  47. The Other Kevin

    Tulsi has officially endorsed Kari Lake, and will appear at a campaign event today.

    Sure we need more women in politics, but this doesn’t count, right?

    • Count Potato

      Where’s muh sex tape?

  48. The Late P Brooks

    I love that idea. Have fleeing Venezuelans bring the heat with them.

    I’m probably a racist for saying this, but I’d rather have a hot Ukrainian than a hot Brazilian to keep me warm at night.

    • Lackadaisical

      I don’t think there’s a wrong choice there.

    • Hyperion

      Ukraine women are a different race than Brazil women?

      With all the money we’ve sent Ukraine, you’d think we could spot you a couple Ukraine women.

  49. Sensei

    Walter Russell Mead – the WSJ’s editorial page global “Top Man” worshipper. He’s reliably institutionalist an what would have been a moderate Democrat of the Clinton era.

    I have no idea what reality he currently is living.

    Germans See Affluence Ahead

    Yet on my journey, I found that Germany’s mood is anything but despairing. One might almost call it smug. From solar entrepreneurs and civil-society activists in Bavaria to bureaucrats and politicians in Berlin, a lot of influential Germans think the country is entering a new era of affluence at home and influence abroad.

    • R C Dean

      From solar entrepreneurs and civil-society activists in Bavaria to bureaucrats and politicians in Berlin

      Ah, a segment of the managerial/ruling class. Optimistic, they are, what with all these crises not going to waste.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Sure we need more women in politics, but this doesn’t count, right?

    We need the right kind of women in politics, not these cryptofascist patriarchalists in drag.

    • The Other Kevin

      Kind of how old white men are what’s wrong with the world, but then we get President Biden.

  51. Count Potato

    “These folks are trapped, perhaps hopelessly, in a bubble in which the only explanation for concerns about youth gender medicine is transphobia. Like, it’s *impossible* there are good-faith questions. I’d feel bad for them but they are spreading a huge amount of misinformation.

    2/A large number of pioneers in youth gender medicine have come forward with concerns — Steensma, de Vries, Olson-Kennedy, Bowers, among others. You are completely conspiracy-addled if you think some evil puppet masters are controlling the discourse on this subject. Aggravating.

    3/ Parker Molloy, in particular, has *actually* worked behind the scenes (and openly!) to attempt to rather viciously punish and denounce journalists who question her preferred narrative on this subject. It’s rich for her to claim shadowy influence here.

    4/ Not new. It’s a deeply conspiratorial belief system in which nothing happens in the medical community without TERFs pulling the strings secretly. If it were “multiculturalists” or “Jews” instead of TERFs it would be recognized as a deranged viewpoint.

    5/ What’s so frustrating about Parker’s conspiracy theory is that #actually, a major factor in the Swedish government’s U-turn was a coverup scandal involving kids who got blockers at Karolinska and then suffered awful side effects. No empathy.

    6/ Someone tweet at Parker and ask her politely how many times she has DMed or texted journalists angrily to demand they cover this issue differently. I’m curious what estimate she provides. I know of multiple such cases.”

    https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1582208710700830720

    • Count Potato

      Also, Parker Molloy is a crazy person.

      “But they don’t, and they won’t, because the people who make decisions at CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT, etc., don’t think trans people have a right to exist in the world. It’s that simple.”

      https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1582381570740350984

      • Hyperion

        Look, the democrats are running out of voters. The ungrateful Latinos have turned on them. The black support has diminished. Even teh gays and some women are turning against them. So what are they supposed to do? They have to genetically engineer new voter classes, to save our democracy!

      • R C Dean

        Their appeal is getting more selective.

        As will happen when you prioritize the interests of 0.02%* of the population over everyone else.

        *This percentage people suffering from gender dysphoria is totally made up.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT, etc., don’t think trans people have a right to exist in the world

        Wut.

      • Hyperion

        All of those are now right wing extremist sites. Only way left to get real news is Vox or Salon. It all started when the libertarians took over.

      • juris imprudent

        /that’s what they really believe!

    • Hyperion

      Look, our elite ruling class gotta get on their inner pedophile, nothing to see here.

  52. The Late P Brooks

    a lot of influential Germans think the country is entering a new era of affluence at home and influence abroad.

    They could be right, after the EU collapses.

    • Sensei

      So, like a 4th Reich?

      • Hyperion

        Umm huh…. 4th Industrial Revolution. There is nothing to link us to those Nazis. /Klaus

    • Tundra

      I think I’ve already seen this movie.

    • Fourscore

      That’s a lot of…flu…. Needs more flat(ulence) to power the economy

    • UnCivilServant

      Maybe I’ve watched too many engineering disasters, but that seems like a small gap to be missing.

      • Drake

        Half a football field of pipe and concrete that weighed 24 tons?

      • UnCivilServant

        The forces involved in these things are hard to intuit. That’s pretty light all things considered.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        24 tons per section of pipe. A quick search is showing each section is 12 meters. So I’m guessing closer to 100 tons.

      • Count Potato

        That would be a huge bomb.

    • Lackadaisical

      Is the concrete thickness correct? 6 cm of concrete is really thin to be steel reinforced. It’s really thin period but extra thin if you’re trying to reinforce that. Also, that’s a massively thick pipe wall.

      If what others were saying about hydrates is correct no reason it couldn’t explode.

    • R C Dean

      I have no idea what size hydrate plug could have built up over the time the pipe was not being used (except for high-pressure storage) would be, or what kind of force it would exert when it moved. My impression is that, once a structure starts failing, it doesn’t fail “just enough”, but in more of an accumulating way, so I’m not sure the length of destroyed pipe really tells us that much. I am certainly not an engineer, but I would sure like to hear from one.

      I’m still officially in the “don’t know” camp, and not because I think Our Masters aren’t stupid enough to order it blown up.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Some drunken asshole announces he’s going to beat the shit out of his wife. Next day she’s got bruises all over. Husband denies saying that he’d beat her and that she must have just fell down the stairs because she’s a klutz.

        Sure, it’s in the realm of possibility that she fell down the stairs. Probably enough uncertainty that you’ll never get a conviction without her cooperation. But it’s clear as daylight what happened to her.

  53. Count Potato

    “After a string of sexual assaults at the University of Pittsburgh, an online petition surfaced last week calling for increased security on campus. Within 24 hours, it accumulated 6,000 signatures and drew more than 100 students to a protest that disrupted a university homecoming performance. University officials responded with a series of new security measures.

    Just as quickly, student backlash ensued, the petition was deleted, and a lengthy apology about the petition’s apparent support for more policing appeared anonymously on Reddit.”

    https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1581971082428325888

    https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-petition-on-sexual-assault-called-for-more-security-then-came-the-backlash

    • blighted_non_millenial

      Lay back and think of your alma mater…

  54. The Late P Brooks

    The “bad Russian maintenance” theory has been put to bed.

    This reminds me of that Alaska Airways(?) incident where the plane landed with a big hole in the fuselage.

    The initial “terrorbomb” hypothesis faded pretty quickly; bombs do not leave holes with straight edges and square corners.

  55. Count Potato

    “Biden Doesn’t Care If You Die, But Ideally Your Friends Would

    The refusal to wear a mask in shared spaces is a deliberate political act…

    Politicians and public health officials have successfully established a ghoulish consensus that mass death—particularly among people who are elderly, immunocompromised, or disabled—is a price that must be paid so that our society can persist in its current form. The name of that form is capitalism. Capitalist society’s fundamental imperatives—that accumulation must always take place, and that our lives must be subordinated to such ceaseless and expanding accumulation—have ensured that virtually all of us have been exposed to COVID-19….

    The earliest mitigation measures were not early enough. But when the eviction moratoriums, extended unemployment benefits, and remote work regimes (for a favored minority) finally arrived, there was a faintly utopian aura to them. It was plain to see that things could be other than they are; our lives could be lived in very different ways, and we could have different and richer relationships than the ones we have. But no sustained social transformation occurred. Instead, we have witnessed the de-prioritization of care for entire populations and the resurgence of eugenicist sentiments. Our society remains implacably hostile to the people who are most vulnerable to illness and premature death. They have been cast aside as inconvenient.

    Capitalism is a peculiar and historically-specific form of society. Each of us can go on living only if we plan our lives in ways that are compatible with capital accumulation. For most of us, this means trying to find waged work so that we can acquire money. We need money if we are to gain access to life’s necessities, virtually all of which are produced for exchange rather than for direct consumption, and so can only be obtained through the market (an historically novel state of affairs). A lucky few are on the other side the wage relation, purchasing labor-power as a commodity in their pursuit of profit. But they must do so perpetually, and always with an eye to doing it more cheaply, if they are to successfully compete with other capitalists.”

    https://www.pestemag.com/featured-posts/tktk-g8pk6

    • R.J.

      What is this thing? It smells of verbal diarrhea.

    • juris imprudent

      You got a permit to be mining derp?

    • R C Dean

      The refusal to wear a mask in shared spaces is a deliberate political act…

      As was wearing a mask. Polarization works both ways. In fact, it pretty much has to, by definition.

    • B.P.

      This is the view of someone who was born into a wealthy, advanced society and who thinks that the wealthy, advanced society just sprang up out of the Earth without any effort. Many people are on the verge of receiving a big lesson on where things come from.

  56. Tundra

    Pillaging by Proxy

    Good essay from Martyr Made. Nothing new to us, but could be useful for some of the normies in your life who still don’t think we are the baddies.

    • PieInTheSky

      Everyone is the baddies.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    I’m going to name my horse “Festering Geopolitical Resentments” and enter it in the Kentucky Derby.

    • R.J.

      Good band name too. Or a song name for a death metal band.

    • R C Dean

      I’d go with “Passable Tranny”, myself.

      Especially if I’m racing a stallion.

    • PieInTheSky

      When i come to watch the derby can i have my mint julep without mint water ice or sugar

      • Mojeaux

        Not relevant. I thought the G was “geopolitical.” Oopsie.

  58. Mojeaux

    It is so QUIET in my house right now. Husband at work. XX asleep in her dungeon. XY elsewhere. So completely fabulous!

    • PieInTheSky

      Sounds like a good time for some loud music

      • Mojeaux

        I have a long(ish) drive to make today. (In terms of the fact I haven’t commuted anywhere for 20 years, 60 miles one way is long[ish].) It will be a hard rock festival in my car.

      • Mojeaux

        I larfed.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    As was wearing a mask. Polarization works both ways. In fact, it pretty much has to, by definition.

    Your refusal to obey my commands is polarizing an otherwise reasonable political atmosphere.

  60. Sensei

    EU weighs paying for Musk’s donated Starlink internet service in Ukraine

    Musk on Monday tweeted: “To be precise, 25,300 terminals were sent to Ukraine, but, at present, only 10,630 are paying for service.”

    While the entrepreneur on Saturday said he had changed his mind and would cover the cost of running the terminals “indefinitely”, EU officials say they are concerned over his reliability. Some member states used a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday to pledge cash to fund the service.

    “For the time being, let’s be happy that he is paying for it. But we need to be on the safe side,” said one of the officials. “The Ukrainians are very worried that he will still cut it off.”

    Perhaps if you disagree with somebody who is generously letting you use his service for free you should avoid publicly using expletives with him on Twitter even if you strenuously disagree.