Wednesday Morning Links

by | Dec 28, 2022 | Daily Links | 331 comments

Greetings from the road! Bowl season is really getting going now and there was really not a single good game yesterday. A couple close ones, but no good ones. Anyway, that’s it for sports.

I don’t get it. Why don’t they just tell the executive branch to enforce laws as written and admonish them for trying to take over legislative roles? And at the same time, admonish the legislature for deferring to much legislative power to the administrative state?

They’re sentencing the FBI agents? ::reads story:: Oh, the headline was a lie.

Welcome to Supply and Demand World. Hope you enjoy your stay.

“This isn’t as bad as Ted Cruz though.” At least that’s what we’re gonna hear from the bigger outlets.

Why is he mad? That sounds like a pretty decent retirement.

That’s nice. I hope you enjoyed your use of the First Amendment. Now kindly fuck off and I’ll enjoy my use of the Second.

Hate crime? What’s a hate crime? The guy could be charged with menacing and trespassing, but that should be it.  See: Amendment, First. Also, the guy is an asshole and should be publicly shamed. But this “hate crime” shit shouldn’t exist.

This is legitimately hilarious. And yes, it sounds like that guy sucks at his job. But it still made me laugh and the other guy isn’t dead. So I guess it worked.

Getting back into the 80s. And doing so with the best of the 80s. And a little newer song as well. Enjoy them both.

And enjoy this chilly day. I will as we continue our trek east.

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

331 Comments

  1. Hyperion

    Someone is 2nd. had the FBI noticed yet?

    • AlexinCT

      The IRS did…

      They called me and an Indian sounding guy told me to go get some gift cards to mail to them to pay the fine they told me I now had to avoid getting arrested before the new year….

  2. SDF-7

    I don’t get it. Why don’t they just tell the executive branch to enforce laws as written and admonish them for trying to take over legislative roles? And at the same time, admonish the legislature for deferring to much legislative power to the administrative state?

    At a guess? Starts with R and ends with oberts. Have the Court take a stand? Gives him the vapors.

  3. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Crisis negotiation experts say treating an individual with respect is critical, as is keeping them calm, according to Harvard Law School.

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAaaaaa

    • SDF-7

      I’m not going to judge, not being there or knowing much about the guy — there’s a definite argument to be made that “Man up, you’re letting down your family and being a pansy” has worked for generations to convince men to set themselves aside (I mean, isn’t a lot of that the very foundation of espirit de corps – not letting your family see you as a coward, not letting your buddies down?). If the guy thought that was the only approach that would work over the touchy-feely “let’s hug it out” stuff, he may have had good reason.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m laughing at the thought of Harvard Law telling others that they should treat people with respect.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And advocating for remaining calm, since what they seem to focus on lately is emotive performance and outrage.

      • Pat

        I know they were reaching for the Harvard label in that appeal to authority, but it’s also funny you’d go to a law school for advice on how to handle hostage negotiations. Lot of lawyers handling those these days?

      • SDF-7

        When their clients see the bills maybe?

      • AlexinCT

        More like when they are blocking the ambulance they chased from dropping off the patient until they got them to sign on?

      • Pat

        The guy didn’t jump, so I guess it worked on two levels: the negotiator gets to pat himself on the back for saving a life, and the jumper got sympathy and attention, which is obviously what he wanted in the first place.

    • Sean

      “We’re talking to you about your son and you’d rather smoke a cigarette under a bridge like a New York rat. That’s pathetic, you’re pathetic,” the negotiator is heard saying in video shared to social media.

      Should have told him he had a tiny penis too.

      • AlexinCT

        And that he couldn’t get it up..

  4. SDF-7

    “This isn’t as bad as Ted Cruz though.” At least that’s what we’re gonna hear from the bigger outlets.

    Since we don’t think Cruz is a puppet and frankly, every time the puppet masters trot that dessicated almost corpse of a weasel out they make things worse… I’d have to agree with them. Let him stay on vacation permanently and deny us President Harris, please.

  5. Scruffy Nerfherder

    “Courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency,” Gorsuch wrote.

    99% of the federal government waves hi.

    • Rat on a train

      DACA says hi.

    • rhywun

      I like that dissent. He is absolutely right. Apparently the new gal wasn’t having this either – good for her.

      Do your fucking job, Congress.

    • R C Dean

      Haven’t read it yet, but I do find it a bit odd that, on the one hand, the government says we are still in a state of emergency due to the pandemic, but on the other hand, that emergency border controls for pandemics aren’t necessary.

      Yeah, they are right that we don’t need “emergency” border controls for the pandemic, but pick a team already, fedgov. Is it an emergency or not?

      • Rat on a train

        It’s an emergency when it gives the government more authority but not an emergency when it restricts government authority, like the Constitution.

      • Pat

        It’s a penal-mergency.

  6. Hyperion

    “Why don’t they just tell the executive branch to enforce laws as written”

    Hahhahahha. The ‘executive branch’ is not quite capable of understanding what their own name is at this point. Perhaps when Kammie takes over with the Lump as her VP.

  7. Atanarjuat

    In January, her rate increased again to $105 as part of a new agreement. She thought that the high pay — and a generous living stipend of nearly $1,300 per month — meant she and her fiancé could finally make plans to buy a house.

    But two months later, when her assignment was renewed, Aya slashed her hourly pay back down to $56, and then cut it still more to $43.80 — less than her initial rate.

    Has she considered making a TikTok dance video about her plight?

    • RBS

      “Jordyn”

      Of course that’s her name.

    • R C Dean

      Any nurse who thought the doubled (and more) rates were permanent is a dolt. And lots of nurses left their regular jobs to take traveler nurse jobs at the much higher rates, so now it’s the supply of travel nurses that’s bloated.

      With utterly predictable results on their rates.

  8. Hyperion

    Do y’all think that a level 7 civ on the Kardashev scale is God?

    Perhaps we can ask our leaders. I think it is a good question at the next press conference with our esteemed dear leader. If he can’t quite handle it, I think that really smart press sec he has might be able to. I know what you all are thinking, but that’s only because you are all racist.

    • SDF-7

      I’m racist to wonder where the hell this line of questioning came from?

      I hadn’t heard of a Type VII pitched — but using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale (for what that’s worth) — ok so at Type V you’re in the “harnessing collections of universes”, Type VI gives “able to fundamentally engineer / control space/time and all matter and energy within it” — so Type VII would have to be what, multiversal complete control of space time and presumably the awareness/control of all probability waves within the quantum foam?

      I’d certainly come down on the side of “Near enough that we’d never know the difference” personally.

      • Hyperion

        Our government employees already think they are Gods while being the dumbest individuals in a .65 at best. At the rate we are going, we’ll be back down to a .4 in no time at all. So just a level 1 is looking beyond the scope of humans at this point. Makes me finally understand that Fermi Paradox. They saw us already and will make sure we never see them.

      • cyto

        This dovetails nicely with the “computer simulation” theory of the universe… That we are all in a digital simulation of a universe being run in an analog universe.

        I would say that the grad student who is running the simulation would indeed qualify as God in every relevant sense of the word, despite being nothing like what we imagine God to be.

  9. SDF-7

    Those are both fine — but when it comes to New Order, there’s the obvious True Faith, but this is a personal favorite.

    • rhywun

      That is my favorite on that album. 👍🏻

      New Order is so goddamn good that even some of their late-stage stuff is good with some moments of greatness.

      Have an early favorite.

  10. Pat

    Hate crime? What’s a hate crime? The guy could be charged with menacing and trespassing, but that should be it. See: Amendment, First. Also, the guy is an asshole and should be publicly shamed. But this “hate crime” shit shouldn’t exist.

    I’m impressed they were able to identify, track, and arrest an out of towner in a city as large as San Francisco for the non-crime of saying “faggot” when they couldn’t put their finger on a single member of Antifa during their numerous violent altercations with Proud Boys and other conservative activists during the 2020 summer of terror.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      You gotta know what the real threats are.

      • Hyperion

        Like being white?

      • SDF-7

        Yup… some crimes are just important, man!

    • rhywun

      It’s like you don’t even intersectional protected categories, bruh.

  11. Atanarjuat

    ‘When Seb Gorka and Raheem Kassam and Kash Patel and Devin Nunes are your stars, that’s the D-list. It was D-list MAGA. When Brick Man — that freak, Brick Man — is in the VIP seating, we’ve got a problem.’

    The adviser was referencing a man who wears a suit with a brick wall pattern to every Trump rally as a throw-back to the former president’s 2016 campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico to stop illegal immigration.

    Everyone else is afraid of getting the Roger Stone treatment.

  12. Hyperion

    “A suspect who was heard on video making racist and homophobic comments and using a homophobic slur to two Asian customers at In-N-Out has been arrested, officials said Monday.”

    What country was that in? Was that somewhere in Europe? Things are getting really crazy over there, you can’t arrest people for saying stuff, I mean unless you are in China, right?

    • SDF-7

      It’s Chinatown, Jake.

    • Drake

      When “hate crimes” (thought crimes) were first invented, wasn’t an underlying real crime required? Like assault or vandalism? Now just saying mean words is the crime.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Which was always the goal.

      • R C Dean

        Slippery slopes are slippery. And slopey.

  13. rhywun

    Biden heads to St. Croix as winter blast kills dozens, cancels 10,000 flights

    The local version was something like “Adams celebrates Midnight Mass as winter blast kills dozens, cancels 10,000 flights”.

    It’s so tedious. What are they supposed to be doing, manning the snowplows?

    • Hyperion

      It’s almost like they think Biden is capable of doing something besides slurping up the morning gruel without getting too much on his drool bib.

      Why isn’t Kammie handling all of this? It is because she is so hurt that the media will not recognize her strong leadership?

      • SDF-7

        Her tongue froze to the snowman.

      • DEG

        Heh.

    • Pat

      I get your point, but it’s still not a good look from a purely PR standpoint to jump on your taxpayer-supplied jumbo jet with 200 security personnel so you can skip on down to the tropics when there’s people in your country dying due to inclement weather and trapped in airports for days waiting for flights.

      • rhywun

        No, it is not a good look. But it happens every. Single. Time.

      • sloopyinca

        Sure it does. The only difference is how it’s covered based on who is doing it. Which is worth pointing out.

      • cyto

        Yeah, this is where I have been for a couple of decades. The propaganda aspect of the press is not only off-putting, it is dangerous.

      • Hyperion

        Dood, when you can get 80 million votes with zero campaigning or going out of your basement.

      • juris imprudent

        Really, I’m just curious, but how many of those would you say were just from people with TDS? Wouldn’t matter who the Dems ran, they were voting against Trump.

      • cyto

        Interesting related issue… I am really worried about what has been revealed about the malleability of the human mind.

        There are tons of videos of “interviews” with protestors where they are asked simple questions about the foundation of the views that they hold so passionately and advocate with such intense anger. And very often they have no idea what they believe or why.

        One popped up today on YouTube… A kid interviewing an anti-trump protester holding a sign to impeach trump because he lies.

        So the kid asks him “what lies did trump tell”.

        He had no idea. Not one single idea.

        But he was spitting mad that Trump was a liar.

        This is the issue… Not this one kid, but that a major chunk of the population can easily be persuaded to passionately believe just about anything.

        Look at the response in the press to the Twitter files. It is proven that the FBI was working to rig the election. That is a big deal. And nobody cares. They all deny that it has any significance. The same people that said that $250k worth of memes on Facebook ads that nobody saw rigged the election now believe that the federal government coordinating a lie with every major news and social media platform is a giant nothing- burger.

        It is astonishing. Watching people argue “they don’t shadow ban people… You are crazy” and then go instantly to “of course they do that, but that is their right and it doesn’t involve government” to “of course the government was doing that… That is their job… But nobody got arrested if they didn’t follow orders, so it is fine” has been terrifying.

        It isn’t *like* Orwell, it is astonishingly spot on, word for word taken from 1984.

        And learning that so many of my fellow Americans truly love big brother has Ben disheartening.

      • Zwak, who has his own double cross to bear.

        And how many on the other side were voting out of joy for a country that was working again?

        Seriously, when we know that there was illegal drop boxes in several states, that voting laws were illegally changed on the fly and at the last minute, that the FBI was working to suppress info relevant to the election, etc. etc., I am just curious, what it will take you to even admit that there was mucho funny business that election, and it needs to be looked into? And that until it is, there is going to be widespread disbelief in the outcome.

      • juris imprudent

        I’m furious about the 2020 election bullshit in PA; what the state SC did was unconscionable – you cannot just undo a non-severability clause, but they did. They should all have been impeached – every vote for that. Did that enable – at the least – exceedingly sloppy vote collection? Absolutely. Did it enable people to vote that otherwise just wouldn’t? Yes, and I have a problem with that. Were there worse problems? Yes (Zuckerbucks most prominently).

        Does that automatically establish that every vote is illegit? I don’t think so. So now we’re talking the margins and I have no idea how you actually figure that out.

        Should we fix all that? Yes. Can we? Maybe. Because there are a LOT of people in this country that don’t care like we do, they care about getting their way without being concerned with the means. That means we’re all fucked that care about the means over the ends.

      • Zwak, who has his own double cross to bear.

        OK, now we are getting somewhere. You admit there were serious vote issues, and that they need to be fixed, but you insist on poo-pooing any conversation about the results of a clearly illegal election. Why?

        We know that not every vote was illegitimate, but what we don’t know is if there were enough to push Biden over the top. And yet you immediately jump to defending this election. And to be clear, I don’t really care about Trump, vis-à-vis Trump. Sure, he was better that the predecessor, but lets face it, a zebra would have been better than that jackass.

        My final question for you, why do you insist on doing the admins dirty work, the work of legitimizing that election?

    • Not Adahn

      If they can’t figure out how to adequately perform “concern” then they’re not qualified to hold major office, it’s that simple.

  14. Atanarjuat

    Dieudonne-Hill’s 19-year-old daughter was away at North Carolina A&T working toward earning a degree in computer science when a gunman opened fire at a house party near campus, killing her daughter. Since that day in 2016, Dieudonne-Hill has been on a mission to keep her daughter’s memory alive through advocacy.

    Something tells me banning >10 round magazines in Illinois won’t have a huge affect on gun violence in North Carolina. Also… black guys who open fire at social events (here it happens at the mall occasionally) and kill innocent bystanders is a big problem. Let’s quit beating around the bush. But I doubt the young men who do such things are concerned with keeping everything legal.

    • Hyperion

      But I’m sure the shooter was a good rapper and this only happened because of all the racism coming from whitey causing him to write lyrics like ‘I’m a shoot up all them muthafuckas at dat mall’. Sorry, that was racist, I tried to suppress my nature but I’m white. I just need more classes on this stuff. If only the government could get people to pay more taxes so I could get more white privilege classes. And it’s a jobs program, shovel ready.

    • juris imprudent

      Dieudonne and Campbell’s families spoke in front of a judge during Lawrence Baird’s final sentencing. He pleaded guilty to crimes of accessory after the fact of first degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Baird was sentenced up to 11 years in jail.

      This was 6 years after the killing, the perp wasn’t arrested until 2 years after. I can find no mention of what type of gun was used – but the stupid grieving parent insists on talking about scary guns. But does she talk about scary black men?

      • Drake

        The beef was real.

  15. juris imprudent

    A couple close ones, but no good ones.

    That’s cause there are too many bowls. You’ve got teams playing that didn’t even win 2 out of every 3 of their regular season games. They’re not good teams. And the double irony is, those bowls are money-sinks for those programs.

    • Hyperion

      Congress just needs to select the winner. Give them something more useful to do, finally.

      • juris imprudent

        Dateline Jan. 11, 2029 – Today Congress has finally announced the winner of the 2022 college football championship. The 2023-28 champions are still under continuing resolution.

      • Hyperion

        We can’t just leave this stuff up to chance, too important. White privilege was taking over the football at all levels.

  16. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Out of their ever-freakin’ minds…

    https://news.antiwar.com/2022/12/26/report-cia-is-directing-sabotage-attacks-inside-russia/

    The CIA has been using a European NATO country’s intelligence services to conduct sabotage attacks inside Russia since the February invasion of Ukraine, investigative journalist Jack Murphy reported on Saturday, citing unnamed former US intelligence and military officials.

    The report said that no US personnel are on the ground in Russia but that the operations are being directed by the CIA. The US is using an ally’s intelligence services to add an extra layer of plausible deniability, and a former US special operations official told Murphy that layer was a major factor in President Biden signing off on the attacks.

    • Atanarjuat

      For the good of humanity, the CIA must be dissolved completely.

    • Pat

      I’m shocked! And here I thought Daria Dugina died in a traffic accident…

      • Hyperion

        That’s correct. And Seth Rich and Epstein killed themselves.

      • AlexinCT

        So will that guy Sam Bankman-Fried!

    • Hyperion

      Pipeline sabotage just not cutting it any longer? This is by far the dumbest and most dangerous administration in US history and it’s not even close. We’re not going to survive this. But at least no mean tweets.

      Somewhere on earth, there will be a stone column found by an alien civilization who just happens to wonder upon Earth. It will read ‘No More Mean Tweets’.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Who is stupid enough to think that using a NATO country’s intelligence services is any kind of prevention against direct escalation?

        If Russia were to respond against NATO, we’re involved by default. Russia knows this, we know this, NATO knows this.

        I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that DC has collectively gone insane. The neocons are so desperate to retain their power and credibility that they’re willing to burn everything down in an utterly vain attempt to stave off yet another failure.

      • Hyperion

        “I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that DC has collectively gone insane.”

        So, you saw this? GAH!

      • hayeksplosives

        At least the bald freak finally got fired after being charged with a second felony luggage theft.

        Also, aqua blue shoes with a navy blue dress? That’s a fashion crime!!

      • rhywun

        But the walls are closing in on Putin. Any day now.

      • Hyperion

        Unlike Trump, Putin has a planet destroying nuclear arsenal. But our twats in command are not intelligent enough to comprehend that level of nuance.

      • Drake

        The guys at The Duran keep saying “neo-cons have no reverse gear”. They just keep instigating and escalating everywhere with no regard to the damage or the body count.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They’re global vandals.

      • Hyperion

        They truly believe they will not die like the rest of we mere mortals. They are wrong, but they really do not have that reverse gear.

      • WTF

        The legislature could put a stop to it by cutting off the cash spigot, but we know that will never happen.

      • juris imprudent

        Omnibus rumbles by.

    • Drake

      Would anyone shed a tear is a bunch of CIA Agents turned up dead?

      • Hyperion

        By tears you must mean a massive celebration?

    • R C Dean

      unnamed former US intelligence and military officials

      Whether or not the CIA is doing this, I have no idea (although I suspect they are). But I’m certainly not taking anything sourced like this without a massive grain o’ salt, and awaiting actual corroboration.

      For the good of humanity, the CIA must be dissolved completely.

      Concur.

      • cyto

        Yeah, after we have seen the active disinformation campaign being run on us by those same people, they could claim the sun is up at noon and I would double check it.

    • Pat

      If an utterly corrupt kleptocrat installed in a color revolution isn’t able to outlaw opposition political parties, persecute religious minorities, and appoint his side piece to a diplomatic post, western democracy dies!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m hoping that a sane Ukrainian military commander offs that stooge and heads to the negotiating table. For all our sakes.

      • Hyperion

        No shit

      • Ted S.

        Yeah, i hope a Ukrainian military commander kills Putin, too, and forces them to the negotiating table.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I highly doubt that’s how Russia would respond.

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, assassinating Putin is not a brilliant plan. The next guy in line will realize they are next and it will be too late at that point. I’m sure even now, those in the know in Russia already realize that trying to negotiate with the Biden admin and their cronies in Ukraine is nothing more than a dangerous folly.

      • Ted S.

        But assassinating Zelensky is, somehow.

      • Pat

        Ukraine doesn’t have ICBMs with nuclear warheads pointed at American targets, so if you wanted to bump off a head of state to bring their country to the negotiating table, that’d probably be the more sensible of the two.

    • Not Adahn

      Considering the etymological link between “Bulgars” and “buggers,” this makes perfect sense.

    • DEG

      She has serious crazy eyes.

      • Atanarjuat

        Yeah. Maybe the gold medal 2022 champ in Crazy Eyes.

    • R C Dean

      Yikes. Those eyes have “Stab you in the heart with the scissors she used to cut your dick off” written all over them.

  17. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles — tolerable first round, pretty happy with the second, though I know it is just a typical score for some of y’all bloody good people out there. 😉

    Daily Duotrigordle #301
    Guesses: 36/37
    Time: 05:41.70
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 338
    3️⃣7️⃣
    6️⃣4️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Sean

      Daily Quordle 338
      6️⃣7️⃣
      4️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Pat

      Daily Quordle 338
      7️⃣5️⃣
      8️⃣4️⃣

      Excuse me while I go take out a full page ad in I’m A Retard magazine.

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 338
      5️⃣6️⃣
      3️⃣4️⃣

      Fell into place today.

    • kinnath

      Daily Quordle 338
      4️⃣5️⃣
      7️⃣8️⃣

      blah

  18. The Late P Brooks

    The US is using an ally’s intelligence services to add an extra layer of plausible deniability, and a former US special operations official told Murphy that layer was a major factor in President Biden signing off on the attacks.

    That’s okay, then.

    • robodruid

      No chance of blowback.

      It would explain all of the falling accidents amongst Russian businessmen.
      I’ve always assumed that it was the KGB

  19. slumbrew

    Pat, if I can pick your brain – do you have a preferred password manager?

    I’m annoyed 1Password has gone cloud-only and stopped supporting local vaults in newer releases.

    • AlexinCT

      I would stay away from LastPass until they sort out that major hack they had…

      • Rat on a train

        They’ve had repeated problems securing their system.

    • Pat

      I use KeePassXC and no cloud functionality (I keep a separate KeePass database on my phone with a much smaller subset of my passwords that I would need when mobile). If you need cloud functionality you can use syncthing to keep your local password database synced with a version on your computer or your own hosting.

    • Rat on a train

      I am using bitwarden with the cloud store. I am working on getting a private store running in k8s. I wish every system supported local file store.

    • PutridMeat

      I use KeePassXC. No cloud, local encrypted database storage, integrates will with the browser. Just have to remember to occasionally sync the database between machines I use; I could automate the sync, but frankly I’m lazy and I store passwords rarely enough, things don’t really get out of sync.

      I explicitly looked for a password manager that used local storage. I haven’t even looked if KeePassXC supports ‘cloud’ storage – if you are storing passwords ‘in’ the cloud, you’ve removed on link in the secure chain. And local storage is, to me, really just more convenient – your use case may favor network accessible storage – in addition to being more secure. If you really want network storage of your database, host it yourself on a locked down home server and sync that way.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Yesterday I went to get some stuff out of my storage unit. There is a massive slab of ice holding the door shut.

    Great. I guess I’ll have to go back with an ice axe.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Giving it the old Trotsky, huh?

    • Sean

      Flamethrower.

      • Rebel Scum

        ^

  21. Pat

    Joe Biden and the rise of respectable authoritarianism

    […] The Democrats claim to hate Trump, and many of them hope to see him thrown in jail. But the reality is they desperately need him. Biden continually resurrects the Trump bogeyman as a foil to define himself against. You could say that this is a ploy of political expediency. In the Midterms, Biden’s warnings about Trumpism were a useful distraction from inflation, urban crime and the other failings of his administration. You could say it worked, as the Democrats hung on to Senate seats and avoided a ‘red wave’.

    But there is more to the Democrats’ anti-Trumpism than partisan politics. It provides a moral basis to their rule (‘We’re saving democracy, we’re fighting fascists’). It also offers a rationale for exerting greater state control over political life and society. Biden and the Democrats use the spectre of Trump to assert their own brand of authoritarianism – a version less obvious and more sophisticated than Trump’s, but authoritarianism all the same.

    The debate over ‘election denialism’ reveals how the Democrats’ criticisms of Trump do not mean they are principled defenders of democracy. In a speech at Union Station in Washington, DC in November, Biden warned that ‘extreme MAGA Republicans aim to question not only the legitimacy of past elections, but elections being held now and into the future’. Yes, casting doubt on elections does damage democracy. But Democrats are just as guilty of this as ‘MAGA Republicans’. Democrats claimed Trump’s election in 2016 was illegitimate due to Russian influence (and many still believe that). Leading party figures backed Stacey Abrams’ claims that the Georgia governor race was stolen from her in 2018. And Biden himself showed doubts about democracy when he described Georgia’s changes to its election laws as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’, adding that those laws could make the Midterm elections in Georgia ‘illegitimate’.

    When it comes to elections, Democrats are just as conspiratorial and anti-democratic as the wackiest Trumpists. In October, Hillary Clinton popped up to pre-emptively question the legitimacy of the 2024 election. ‘Right-wing extremists already have a plan’, she says in a video, ‘to literally steal the next presidential election. And they’re not making a secret of it.’ Hillary and her friends call their campaign ‘Crush the Coup’, which sounds awfully similar to Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’. But not to worry – the Democrats’ election denialism is the good kind.

    If Biden and the Democrats simply criticised Trump for his attacks on democracy, it would be hard to disagree. But they don’t stop there. The Democrats’ denunciations of Trump and his followers are always a prelude to the censorship or repression of those who disagree with them. It’s a classic authoritarian move – ‘my enemies are so evil and dangerous that every illiberal action we take is justified and moral’.

    The Democrats’ authoritarianism is more pervasive and censorious than anything Trump ever tried. In the Biden era, it is the Democrats who increasingly favour government and corporate control of political discourse, especially on social media. A Pew poll in 2021 found that 65 per cent of Democrats agreed that the US government should take steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information. Only 28 per cent of Republicans shared that view.

    […]

    Attempts by Biden and the Democrats to limit speech go well beyond the clumsy and ill-fated Disinformation Governance Board. As the ‘Twitter Files’ have revealed, internal Twitter documents show the Biden 2020 campaign pressed Twitter and other social-media organisations to ban critics or remove damaging stories. Most notoriously, the Biden team sought to suppress the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, joining former intelligence officials in calling it ‘Russian disinformation’. The Democrats then joined with the US security state in calling for Trump to be deplatformed from social media after the Capitol riot.

    […]

    At that ‘blood red’ speech in Philadelphia, Biden’s words were just as ominous as the setting, delivered with a menacing tone. He cast a wide net, effectively declaring all Trump voters (some 70million Americans) as a threat to the country. He then served an effective warning to them – if you express views that we associate with Trump and Republicans, we can deploy the powers of the state against you.

    As it happens, such powers have already been used against parents protesting against school boards, who Democrats have attempted to treat like domestic terrorists. Last year, Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, directed the FBI and US attorneys to investigate ‘threats of violence’ against school administrators and teachers. The order was an outrageous attempt to intimidate parents protesting against racially divisive and gender-identity content in school lessons. It sent a chilling message to parents – ‘if you protest, don’t be surprised if the FBI comes knocking on your door’.

    In his Philadelphia speech, Biden said: ‘There is no place for political violence in America. Period.’ But, again, from his one-sided perspective, only Trump-related aggression counts as political. Meanwhile, Biden pointedly refused to criticise the mobs that gathered outside Supreme Court justices’ homes, after the conservative court overturned Roe v Wade. Even after an assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh, Biden remained silent. This silence sends a message – political intimidation is acceptable, so long as it is aimed at Biden’s opponents. We’re starting to get into dangerous territory here.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’re riding on that and Ukraine.

      If the 538 poll on the Ukraine/Russia War is even close to accurate, the pols will continue to support escalation.

      We should all be scared shitless by both of those trends.

      • Hyperion

        I get it that the dem voter base support the shit, they are collective retards. But the amount of people on so called ‘conservative’ sites that slobber all over this shit proves that they are every bit just as retarded. Not that I ever really doubted that. There is just not enough Rand Pauls to install any common sense in DC, we are totally fucked at this point. All it takes is them pushing Russia just a bit too far and they launch one nuke warhead and that is the end of this period of history and whoever survives will be back in something close to the bronze age, at best. On a planet with lots of radiation exclusion zones, for centuries to come. Some real dystopian shit. We won’t be needing any of those films any longer.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They desperately want a common cause to support. They still believe that we’re a power for good and we just need to kick some bad guy ass. Malice would call them Boomer-Cons, the Republicans who will look completely confused when they get loaded onto the cattle cars.

      • juris imprudent

        Just like the SJWs when they get loaded up, having outlived the useful idiot status.

      • Pat

        But the amount of people on so called ‘conservative’ sites that slobber all over this shit proves that they are every bit just as retarded.

        The conservative media was shitting a brick about finally ending the Afghanistan war after 20 years, and it was Mittens Romney who got excoriated by the media 10 years ago for declaring Russia our chief geopolitical foe. No surprise whatsoever the conservative movement loves the Ukraine war, they’ve been itching for an entanglement with Russia ever since the Cold War ended. The surprising thing is how rapidly the entire Democratic Party base switched from “OMG! Can you believe this fucking out of touch Boomer thinking Russia is a threat?” to “Global nuclear war is a small price to pay to stop those commie Russians from LITERALLY KILLING DEMOCRACY!!!!”

      • Hyperion

        The virus was sort of a dud. How can they take a chance like that again? A few nuke blasts will get the sheeples in line for good.

      • Hyperion

        If Russia were still commies, the dems would love them. Well, not really, there haven’t been any real commies since it was proven it’s a failure after the Cold War. Even China wised up and went capitalist and figured out that corny capitalism with a totalitarian government is the way to go. The US followed suit, and here we are.

        Then the neocons and the military industrial complex figured out that this small scale shit of killing 3rd world sheepherders and their families was not going to cut it any longer. Which is why they cut and ran in Afghanistan and headed straight to set up shop in Ukraine. Going to need to sell some serious weaponry to hold off a nuclear power Cha-ching!

      • Drake

        I would be pleasantly surprised if this all turned out to be nothing more than restarting the Cold War for profit. I’d take that over a hot war.

        Heard Macgregor and Ritter talking about the expansion of the Russian military just announced. Something like 10 brigades being expanded to divisions and a new airborne corps. Hard to see how we match that with the recruiting problems our woke military is having but they’ll try.

      • Pat

        Hard to see how we match that with the recruiting problems our woke military is having

        The Selective Service System is still alive and well.

      • Hyperion

        All that Russia has to do is wait it out. The US and Europe are going to collapse into serious recession soon enough and China and Russia will fill the void. That is what happens IF these morons don’t get us into a nuke exchange.

        I’m really starting to think that Snowden was the smartest among us. Probably has hot Russian pussy all over him.

      • Hyperion

        “The Selective Service System is still alive and well.”

        Yeah, most of our current crop of young men have less testosterone in them than a 12 year old girl.

      • Drake

        I fought in one of their stupid wars, my son isn’t going to.

      • juris imprudent

        Hard to see how the Russians are going to raise that amount of manpower – from where? It’s pretty likely that the Kremlin is as much reality-based as DC.

      • juris imprudent

        Snowden’s then-girlfriend-now-wife emigrated from the U.S. to be with him.

      • R C Dean

        Hard to see how the Russians are going to raise that amount of manpower

        Putin’s private army, the Wagner Group, has already gone the route of using criminals with the promise of release from prison. And they are better paid and equipped than the regular army.

        Can they stuff enough bodies into those units to call them fully mobilized? Probably. I have serious doubts about quality, training, motivation, and equipment, though.

      • Drake

        Russian manpower – the propaganda has reached the point where it’s unknowable except in hindsight. A quick search will yield a mainstream western media story about Russia running out of men – and Russian story about their recruiters being overwhelmed with volunteers.
        I’ll guess the truth is somewhere in the middle.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I seriously doubt Russia will have any trouble expanding their military. From Lancaster’s “on the street” interviews with regular Russian citizens, the overwhelming majority feel Russia is facing an existential threat from NATO and led by the US. They generally support the war while feeling sorry for the Ukrainians being used as proxies by the West. The interviews seem legit to me. Interviews aren’t generalizable across the populace, but at least give a non-biased viewpoint that the MSM doesn’t provide.

        Same would apply to the US in a similar circumstance. The US military has difficulty expanding now because the citizens don’t see need. Without the that need components, the benefits don’t outweigh cons. However if China started pouring the equivalent of America’s yearly military budget into Mexico and America invaded to prevent Chinese nukes being placed in Tijuana, then America’s military would have no problem finding troops to sign up.

        I’d say that absent an existential threat, the shine of overseas adventurism/invasion/regime change won’t be as big of an incentive for recruitment in the US any longer. Certainly not when combined with disadvantages of today’s military. The response to Covid restrictions has me less confident, but I still retain hope that implementing conscription in the US to die for foreign interests would lead to armed resistance.

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, I’m going more the demographic angle here – there aren’t that many young Russian men. This isn’t Stalin’s Soviet Union anymore. Even if they did all want to volunteer – somewhat doubtful – there just isn’t that large of a cohort.

      • Gustave Lytton

        implementing conscription in the US to die for foreign interests would lead to armed resistance

        It didn’t every time in the past, at least in any meaningful way. And if it did, it would be crushed quick enough.

      • Pat

        Armed resistance isn’t even necessary. Just passively refuse to show up and let them fill up every prison, public and private, with the able bodied young men keeping the real economy going. We’ll quickly find out just how much the pajama class is willing to give up for their affected principles.

      • Drake

        Just cut loose a racist sexist homophobic rant and you’ll be deemed unfit.

      • rhywun

        The Dems are pissed that Putin stole the crown from its rightful position on top of Hillary’s head and yes they are willing to go to nuclear war over that.

      • juris imprudent

        You mean they really ate their own puppy-chow? I thought they all laughed behind closed doors at how they sold that lie.

      • Hyperion

        You gotta know the code words. Putin == Them Rednecks, Kulaks, Wreckers, and Baskets of Deplorables

      • Hyperion

        I mean how dare people just vote for whoever they want. Am I the only one who remembers certain former spooks ranting about how they have to select the candidates we are allowed to vote for? They often say the silent parts out loud and no one is sposed to notice. And then that newest of enemy of democracy, Musk, posts evidence of it on Twitter and that is FAKE NOOS! Musk now an enemy of the people! Him and Tulsi and that other guy.

    • Rebel Scum

      Yes, casting doubt on elections does damage democracy.

      So does not allowing the possibility for quality control and ensuring integrity in elections.

  22. DEG

    The FBI, which was secretly embedded in the group, broke things up a month before the 2020 presidential election and arrested 14 people.

    It’s easy to break up something you created.

    Austin Moore, the lead attorney, said the suits allege the companies pulled a “bait-and-switch,” offering nurses agreements at high rates and then slashing their pay after they’ve signed.

    If it is at-will employment, I don’t see what grounds the nurses have.

    President Biden left the White House Tuesday night for a tropical vacation in St. Croix to ring in the New Year — as much of the country deals with extreme cold and snowfall that has killed at least 65 people and canceled 10,000 flights since Christmas Eve.

    Yeah, Ted Cruz is the first thing I thought of.

    • R C Dean

      offering nurses agreements at high rates and then slashing their pay after they’ve signed

      Possible. I’d like to see the actual contracts, of course. How long, and at what level, were rates guaranteed?

  23. The Late P Brooks

    That In n Out story…

    We’re done.

    It’s retards, all the way down.

    • juris imprudent

      What? Social media sharing eating at In-n-Out?

      Yep, all the way down.

  24. Pat

    Modest Mouse’s Jeremiah Green battling Stage 4 cancer

    Dec. 28 (UPI) — Modest Mouse has confirmed that its drummer Jeremiah Green is battling cancer.

    “Some of you may have already heard, but I figured it would be good to hear the news directly from our camp. Jeremiah was diagnosed with cancer a short while ago, and he’s currently in treatment,” lead singer/guitarist Isaac Brock wrote on the band’s Instagram page Wednesday.

    […]

    “Despite having a stage 4 diagnosis, his prognosis is good!” Collins added. “Also his oncologist is a big MM fan (so he’s got that in his corner!) Sending him nothing but love & healing energy! Get well buddy. We’re all pulling for you!”

    The type of cancer that the 45-year-old founding member of Modest Mouse is fighting has not been disclosed.

    • R C Dean

      I don’t think there’s a good prognosis for Stage 4. That’s the worst level, and means the cancer is metastasizing through the body.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The doctors just told me I was cancer free!

        /deadwithinaweek

      • Pat

        Basically what happened with my mom. A month after her last PET scan showed no new metastasis or tumor growth and her oncologist told her she was “basically in remission” and could start having followups every 12 weeks instead of every 6 weeks, she died from post-obstructive pneumonia with new metastasis.

      • Pat

        The level of metastasis can vary pretty widely at stage IV, from relatively localized to bones and lymph system, but absent a miracle, you’re in the “treatable, not curable” category. Sad.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Biden and the Democrats use the spectre of Trump to assert their own brand of authoritarianism – a version less obvious and more sophisticated than Trump’s, but authoritarianism all the same.

    I would really appreciate it if somebody could provide me with some concrete examples of Trump’s “authoritarianism”. When people say “authoritarianism” all I hear is “did stuff within the purview of his office we hate”.Start by naming the journalists he had thrown in jail.

    • Rebel Scum

      Mean tweets > hundreds of political prisoners

    • Pat

      I snipped the beginning of the article because it was a lengthy “Yes, Trump is also an evil authoritarian, but…” preface. Here’s what it pretty much came down to:

      Yes, the former president exhibits authoritarian tendencies. But what is striking is how lousy he is at putting them into action. His ‘Stop the Steal’ nonsense after the 2020 election was anti-democratic, but he never came close to overturning the election result. His recent call to ‘terminate’ the US Constitution evinced disdain for the supreme law of the country, but there was zero chance that anything would come from it.

      As ever, Trump is a dangerous totalitarian lunatic because he shoots off at the mouth and does nothing.

      • juris imprudent

        +1 “My god, that man has got to go” [Biden speaking of Putin]

      • Pat

        You can call it special pleading, but I do think there’s a meaningful difference, in that while Biden has (thus far) refrained from fulfilling his threat to depose or assassinate Putin, he’s helped direct 91 billion dollars and counting of US money to Ukraine, in addition to using his power ac CIC to provide intelligence – now including boots-on-the-ground CIA spooks inside Russia – logistics, and “advisors” in the conflict. There was never even any possibility that Trump saying he got robbed in the election just like every Democrat since Gore has done was going to change the outcome of the election.

      • juris imprudent

        I kinda thought we were talking about the danger of shooting off mouth, inserting foot and handing bill for damages to the country as a whole?

      • rhywun

        His ‘Stop the Steal’ nonsense after the 2020 election was anti-democratic,

        Now do Gore and Hillary.

        And then explain how Biden “won” from his basement.

    • Rat on a train

      The examples you would get would actually be stuff they imagined Trump would do. What would Literally Hitler do?

    • juris imprudent

      Handmaid’s Tale – didn’t you know he commanded it?

    • Atanarjuat

      Easy to criticize Trump, hard to criticize Trump where he is uniquely worse than anyone else in DC.

  26. Rebel Scum

    Why don’t they just tell the executive branch to enforce laws as written and admonish them for trying to take over legislative roles? And at the same time, admonish the legislature for deferring to much legislative power to the administrative state?

    Because fytw?

    • juris imprudent

      It is a very versatile clause.

  27. Rebel Scum

    Architect of plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer to face sentence
    Prosecutors are recommending a life prison sentence for a co-leader of the conspiracy to kidnap Michigan’s governor

    He got 16 years for being entrapped by the FBI. And the judge commended the FBI for its work.

    Welcome to America, where the laws are made up and the enforcement is arbitrary.

    • Pat

      They could have murderdroned him and his teenage son and gotten away with it, so I guess he was lucky.

  28. Rebel Scum

    At least that’s what we’re gonna hear from the bigger outlets.

    The president has no role here, anyway.

  29. Rebel Scum

    “When sworn into office, legislators swear an oath to uphold and defend the United States and Illinois Constitutions. This proposed gun ban is unconstitutional, restricts the law-abiding who wish to protect their families, hurts Illinois manufacturers, and does nothing to address the root causes of homicidal violence. I oppose the bill on those grounds,” said House Republican Leader-Elect Tony McCombie.

    “I don’t know why you care about hardware more than children.” – some dishonest cunte in the VA legislature when they were pushing this shit.

    • juris imprudent

      I’d like to have that hardware around to protect my children from people like “some dishonest cunte”. Love to say that to their face.

  30. hayeksplosives

    Thanks for the well wishes from the too-early comments at the end of the dead thread.

    The short version is that after coughing productively for a couple of days, then sneezing my brains out all yesterday, it occurred to me that I might as well put one of the “free” COVID test kits to use. Sure enough, the little purple stripe appeared almost immediately under the “T” mark well before that allotted 15 minutes wait time were up. It was darker than the “C” (control) stripe.

    I don’t feel terrible–no fever, some aches. However, I just checked my Sp02 and it’s hanging out at a feeble 89% so I am going to go do a couple of nebulizer sessions.

    See you fine people later.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Feel better soon.

      • hayeksplosives

        Thanks. I’m heading back to bed now.

    • Pat

      Sorry, ‘splosives, hope you get to feeling better. If things take a turn and you’re not feeling well, just head straight into Vegas – the ER out here will just waste valuable hours triaging you before loading you onto an ambulance to Vegas anyway.

      • hayeksplosives

        I am back to SpO2 of 95% to I think I’ll be able to handle it with my nebulizer at home.

        I went to the Pahrump ER once when I had a cold/flu that then had a secondary bacterial infection in my respiratory tract—I know the symptoms.

        I told them I needed a nebulizer treatment, some prednisone, and a Z-pack (antibiotics), and they did all three. I was out of there in 3 hours. It helped that I was one of only 3 patients that day. Didn’t even have to wait in the lobby. But yeah, if shit gets scary, I’ll be heading over the mountains to Vegas.

      • Pat

        Glad to hear it.

        The ER out here isn’t bad for simple stuff like your respiratory infection, but it’s very small and not particularly well equipped, so if you run into anything serious it’s onto the ambulance or chopper with ye. Fun memories…

    • juris imprudent

      I had the same reaction on my test back in Sept. Worst of it lasted 2 or 3 days, but was followed by mild, lingering shit for a week.

  31. Rebel Scum

    Hate crime? What’s a hate crime?

    Thought/speech crime, I guess.

    • Hyperion

      Hate crime is the thing that will allow the feds or local government to arrest you for any reason whatsoever, at any time, with no recourse at all for you. See you in the camps!

    • hayeksplosives

      I commit all my crimes from a place of love and caring.

  32. Rebel Scum

    “You’re going to let him down like you did before,” the officer said. “I don’t see why he cares about you.”

    “I bet you are too much of a pussy to do it.”

    • Pat

      I am suitably impressed you managed to work an SAT vocab word like pulchritudinous into the daily smut links.

      • juris imprudent

        That is what keeps our family friendly rating!

      • Not Adahn

        That and the rating service going out of business before they could get around to revoking anything.

      • cyto

        If you are above a certain age, this is common joke vocabulary inherited form vaudeville humor disciples, particularly W.C. Fields.

  33. Q Continuum

    “Hate crime? What’s a hate crime?”

    wOrDz R vIoLeNsS!

    • Rat on a train

      He violated their freedom from offense which only favored groups have.

  34. Rebel Scum

    Your fucked up agenda is a threat to “public health”.

    Rachel Levine advocates for information censorship, asking healthcare professionals to stop “health misinformation” and “collectively advocate for our tech companies to create a healthier, cleaner, information environment.”

  35. The Late P Brooks

    For educational purposes only

    The House Ways and Means Committee plans to release Donald Trump’s tax returns Friday, a spokesperson for the committee said Tuesday.

    The committee voted to make the returns public in a party-line vote last week, and it initially planned to release the documents as early as last Wednesday, but the disclosure has been delayed as staffers are still redacting sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers from the documents.

    The assortment of six years of Trump’s personal returns and some of his business returns are expected to be placed into the Congressional Record on Friday as part of the House’s pro forma session. The latest delay was first reported by CNN.

    The clock is ticking for the committee, which will turn over control to Republicans when the new Congress is sworn in next week.

    Justice is served.

    • rhywun

      We have got him now. Beep boop.

      • Hyperion

        Wagons. Circling.

      • Atanarjuat

        The wagons are closing in, and the walls are circling.

    • Rat on a train

      Previous presidents have voluntarily released their tax returns. Congress must violate the privacy of tax returns to force another previous president’s returns to be public. You have nothing to fear. Trust us, we will only abuse this power for good.

      • Spartacus

        Previous presidents also used to release their college transcripts, until that Irish guy O’Bama came along and declined to do so.

    • R C Dean

      And a big FU to SCOTUS.

      I’d be less concerned about this if I thought the Repubs had anything close to the juevos to do the same to Democrat bigshots. Starting with Pelosi.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Ha! And risk the same scrutiny?

        They feel safe going after Trump because he’s an outsider. Mitch wouldn’t want anyone looking at his returns. Nor would Lindsey.

  36. Hyperion

    I think that Zelensky most be running a massive pedophilia ring to have gotten that much US taxpayer money just handed to him. He probably is sending Biden bags full of 9 year old Ukranian girl hair.

    • juris imprudent

      Thankfully, your storyline idea is probably just a little too late for today’s SF.

      • Swiss Servator

        A very dangerous assumption.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Trump’s refusal to release his returns led to a swirl of suspicions about what he was trying to hide — foreign business dealings, a smaller fortune than he’d claimed publicly or whether he was paying less in taxes than the average American.

    Or, you know, petty vindictiveness and envy.

    • Rat on a train

      He was trying to hide legal activity. The fiend.

  38. Sean
  39. Rebel Scum

    I think he just has gas.

    When men say they have “period cramps”, I’m always interested to know precisely what they think is “cramping” – given they lack all reproductive female anatomy.

    • Hyperion

      “When men say they have “period cramps”

      Wait… men say that?

      • Atanarjuat

        There are depraved men in this day and age who dress up like chicks and go to the gynecologist and demand they get examined as a woman, or be sued. So, yes.

      • Hyperion

        Huh. I wonder if they have also been caught stealing women’s luggage at an airport.

      • juris imprudent

        If they want a speculum jammed into their genitals, unless you are the unfortunate doctor, who are you to disagree?

      • cyto

        “Or were they a direct result of the physiological effects of HRT, an awakening of latent femininity in AMAB bodies? After all, there’s only one gene separating testicles from ovaries in adult humans, and all human embryos are primed to develop ovaries until a chain of genes on the Y chromosome get involved. Plus, animals of all kinds (like frogs and hawkfish) change sex frequently in response to environmental stimuli.”

        She kinda had me going for a minute.. that maybe they were not all hysterical psychosomatics acting out a fantasy of menses… Then she invoked frogs changing sex as a precedent.

      • Pat

        I couldn’t decide between a “turning the frogs gay” joke or a “people aren’t lobsters” joke.

      • Hyperion

        Reminds me of my fond days of watching Bastard Squad.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Give that tar baby another whack

    In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Goldberg appeared to repeat her past controversial view that the Holocaust “wasn’t originally” about race, immediately garnering backlash from Jewish leaders who quickly denounced the star’s “ignorant” words.

    “My best friend said, ‘Not for nothing is there no box on the census for the Jewish race. So that leads me to believe that we’re probably not a race,’ ” Goldberg said in the Dec. 24 interview, sharing her previous belief that Nazis had targeted Jewish people for “physical attributes” as opposed to racial ones.

    “Nazis saw Jews as a race,” the reporter told Goldberg, to which The View host responded, “Yes, but that’s the killer, isn’t it? The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They’re Nazis. Why believe what they’re saying?”

    In a new statement sent to Rolling Stone, Goldberg clarified that she was simply trying to “recount” what she had said earlier this year on The View — which led to a two-week suspension from the show at the time — and not doubling down in her beliefs.

    You can’t win. The ADL has exclusive proprietorship and use of “the holocaust” and all related intellectual property.

    • rhywun

      You can’t win.

      True. Safer to just keep her piehole shut but she won’t do that.

      • juris imprudent

        That would mean that someone has a victim status that trumps hers. Unacceptable!

    • Pat

      Being murdered because of your ethnicity and/or religion doesn’t make you any less dead than if you’d been murdered because of your “race” or any other constructed category of classification, so it’s a particularly stupid hill to die on. Those of us whose entire personal identity doesn’t depend on being at the top of some intersectional hierarchy of suffering can acknowledge that slavery and genocide are both bad, but also that they’re different.

      • cyto

        I like this take

    • Rat on a train

      Next she will say the Civil War wasn’t about slavery.

    • Hyperion

      Am I the only one who doesn’t really get the hatred I see coming from libertarians towards Tucker?

      I mean I’m not saying there is nothing there, just maybe my attention span is too short these days to notice it.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Tucker makes it more difficult for them to get along with their liberal friends. They can’t agree with a prominent wrong-thinker like that on anything without suffering repercussions.

      • rhywun

        He’s working the illegal alien angle pretty hard – maybe that’s where it stems from.

      • juris imprudent

        There’s just something about Tucker that grates on me, even when I agree with what he is saying.

      • Pat

        Same, and it goes all the way back to when I used to watch him on Crossfire every night with my parents, long before he became a left wing bogeyman.

      • cyto

        The fake laugh gimmick he uses is off-putting.

      • Hyperion

        I thought maybe it was the the fake ‘totally serial’ furrowed brow thing. Sort of like the conservative version of Anderson Cooper, just more furrowed brow instead of the hipster glasses.

      • Hyperion

        I think it’s sort of like people do not like Ben Shapiro because of the voice. Not that I am comparing the two, Shapiro seems to be sort of OK with the whole war mongering thing, which Tucker is definitely not. Tucker sometimes gets that high cracking voice that makes him sound like he’s still in puberty.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The autistic prog crowdsourcing machine has already identified her as a 1/6 trespasser since she went public.

      That was impressively quick.

    • Q Continuum

      Yowza! Definitely would.

  41. Shpip

    Every time you think that we’ve reached Peak Florida Man, someone else comes along and ups the ante.

    State troopers arrested a Doral man Monday morning they say was seen on social media firing gunshots from a moving Lamborghini on the Palmetto Expressway this past week.

    In the video, a man is seen sticking a gun out of the supercar’s window, screaming loudly and firing off several shots as he recorded himself.

    I’m wondering how a 23-year old with neck tats gets his mitts on a Lambo, but I’m pretty sure the answer is “square grouper.”

    • Hyperion

      He’s probably wondering that too. No wonder he’s doing that, he must think he’s some sort of omnipotent being at this point.

    • Atanarjuat

      He was just the passenger. Also, I think you can rent one for the day for like $400.

      • R.J.

        Yes. God knows who rented it. If I ran an exotic car rental and saw that guy coming, I’d just close for the afternoon. No way I’d rent to that guy.

      • Hyperion

        You’d only think he is a gangbanger because racism.

    • Hyperion

      The talking heads look so incredulous. Can you imagine the Glibs version of that news report, lol.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Let’s go to Plenty O’Toole for the Hero of the Day report…

      • Hyperion

        You know, I mean we know how dumb our laws are and our law enforcement. But am I the only one who thinks the guy driving a metal death machine down the road at 105mph is a little more of a threat to public safety than a guy shooting a gun… into the air?

      • KSuellington

        Named after her father I suppose.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Strange

    Missing Michigan physician found dead in frozen pond

    ——-

    Payan’s specialty was psychiatry, according to his bio on Henry Ford Health’s website. He graduated from Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine in Illinois in 2017, according to Henry Ford Health.

    The county’s medical examiner is expected to conduct an autopsy and toxicology test on Payan.

    Was he wearing skates?

    • Hyperion

      He wasn’t spreading Covid misinformation, was he?

    • hayeksplosives

      Was it normal for him to drop his dogs off with his neighbor? If not, then he knew he wasn’t coming back.

      • Hyperion

        After getting caught spreading Covid misinformation, Gretchen mercifully let him know he wasn’t coming back. Who says that MI does not have the best governor? No one really needs any lawn furniture or garden seeds any way.

    • juris imprudent

      What dirt did he have on Hillary?

  43. The Late P Brooks

    This just occurred to me:

    What are the chances those two “hate crime victims” sue In n Out for eleventeen billion dollars?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Near 100%

    • Hyperion

      Look, they need to sue that place until it shuts down, before it becomes another chick filet! They have been caught not supporting woke causes and even letting conservatives and Christians eat there! Hate crimes indeed!

      • Ownbestenemy

        In-n-Out has long held its Christian beliefs but unlike Chick-fil-a’s CEO, they were pretty low-key about it, except for the scripture reference on the bottom of their cups.

    • rhywun

      Eleventy billion percent.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      A senior Labour MP is alleged to have shown a liking for ‘Russian girls’, while a former Tory MP is said to have hired a sex worker on a visit to China.

      Isn’t that like a predilection for Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS?

    • Drake

      These people must be idiots. They have to know they’ll be filmed and blackmailed for doing that shit in China.

      Robert Kraft couldn’t get a handy in Florida, they think they’re getting the girlfriend experience in China?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Heh, they’re allowed to be elected officials precisely because they’re blackmailable.

  44. Hyperion

    Today is my bday. I am too old to even post my age now.

    This is the first bday I have not had a beer in fuck I don’t even know. It will be 7 months the last day of this month since I have tasted alcohol. I have committed to not having a single drink until one year. But I have a 6 of Heineken Zero, I love that stuff, it really tastes like the real thing! I know I am silly, but this is your brain on sober, it’s so weird, all this neuroplasticity and neuron regen shit going on, I hope…

    • Sean

      Happy birthday!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Happy Birthday you old coot.

    • Pat

      Happy birthday! Don’t worry, I’ll drink enough for both of us today in your honor.

    • Drake

      🍺 Happy sober birthday!

    • Ownbestenemy

      Happy B-Day! Sagittarius unite!

    • Rat on a train

      С днем рожденья from all us Russian bots.

      • Hyperion

        Can you guys do me a fake Russian ID? Asking for a friend…

      • Hyperion

        Speaking of Russian, has anyone seen the Netflix series ‘Better than us’? It’s a fave of wife and I, not sure if there will be another season though.

    • juris imprudent

      Happy Birthday even if you don’t know how to celebrate.

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, now not only am I old, I am old and boring.

      • juris imprudent

        Supposedly you live longer that way.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Boring is underrated.

    • R.J.

      Happy birthday whippersnapper!

      • Hyperion

        Get off my lawn!

      • R.J.

        I’ll spray you with a garden hose!

      • Hyperion

        So long as you shout ‘Anarchy!, anarchy!, I totally don’t know what the means, but I love it!’, I’m Ok with that.

      • cyto

        Happy Birthday!

        I took the kids to the park yesterday and ran into a lady with her son.

        Or so I thought.

        Grandson.

        I was quite obviously significantly older. And there with my 10 year old daughter.

        It was kinda surreal.

        Same event I played pickleball doubles with my 15 year old son and his friends. My health and fitness have been subpar of late, and this underlined that. Still, we smoked them in 3 straight games. And it was my first time ever trying pickleball. So take that youngsters!

      • cyto

        Oh, and you are officially old if you still initially, however briefly, think dates start with “19” when you go to write a check.

        Or if you still feel like 2001 should be way in the future, not 20 years in the past.

      • Hyperion

        I just still cannot visualize how you play ball with a pickle for the ball.

      • cyto

        Difficult. Someone kept hiding it.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        No he hits the ball with his pickle

  45. The Late P Brooks

    If only the government had full control of the economy, everything would be perfect

    The Inflation Reduction Act established a tax credit to kickstart hydrogen production in the U.S. But without careful implementation, the credit could backfire by inadvertently increasing nationwide carbon pollution.

    Since hydrogen does not release carbon when burned, it is an attractive option for such uses as powering fuel cells and transporting carbon-free energy over long distances.

    But while hydrogen itself does not release carbon, the processes used to produce it are often carbon-intensive. For example, today’s most common production method uses natural gas to make hydrogen through a process known as steam methane reforming.

    We cannot abide this opportunistic harum scarum kkkapitalism.

    The Ministry of Plenty will confine itself strictly to appropriate energy sources.

    • Pat

      There’s another effective way to make steam, but the watermelons don’t seem too keen on that one either.

    • Hyperion

      If we are real good and don’t spread misinformation, they will temporarily increase the chocolate rations not cut off our bio-chip ATM cards.

  46. Ownbestenemy

    California penal code Title 11.6 Civil Rights

    442.6 reads in part:

    No person, whether or not acting under color of law, shall by force or threat of force, willfully injure, intimidate, interfere with, oppress, or threaten any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him or her by the Constitution or laws of this state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States in whole or in part because of one or more of the actual or perceived characteristics of the victim listed in subdivision (a) of Section 422.55

    You know, if this law stopped right after “the Constitution or laws of this state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States”, it would be okay.

    The second part of that code also states:

    However, no person may be convicted of violating subdivision (a) based upon speech alone, except upon a showing that the speech itself threatened violence against a specific person or group of persons and that the defendant had the apparent ability to carry out the threat.

    Seems the police arrested on bullshit pretenses and the city if they move forward in trying to prosecute him, seems he has a case against the city and state.

    • juris imprudent

      [insert Drinker’s Jonah Jameson clip]

      • Ownbestenemy

        “No person, whether or not acting under color of law, shall by force or threat of force…”

        I also bet this has never been applied to an officer of the law, politician, or council member. Ever.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    “This tax credit makes it economically attractive to expand electrolysis-based hydrogen production across the U.S.,” said Jenkins. “But we need to be mindful that it’s implemented in a way that actually accomplishes its goal of promoting low-carbon hydrogen production.”

    Consequently, by modeling the grid-scale impact of electrolysis, the ZERO Lab identified three key implementation guidelines for the tax credit that would require grid-based hydrogen producers using electrolysis to procure clean energy in a way that moves the nation toward, rather than away from, its emissions targets. With these procurement guidelines in place, the researchers found a way to enable grid-based electrolysis with minimal carbon pollution.

    It’s the thought that counts.

  48. The Late P Brooks

    That would mean that someone has a victim status that trumps hers. Unacceptable!

    It’s nigglers, all the way down.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    Wink wink, nudge nudge

    To fend off the disastrous effects of global warming, many people have been willing to trade in their gas-guzzling cars, install solar panels on their roofs or dial down their energy use.

    But on any given day, more than a third of Americans find themselves eating fast food, which serves up a significant portion of climate-burdensome red meat. What customers decide to order may be a matter of personal preference, but experts say it has tremendous implications for the amount of planet-warming gases emitted from farms.

    ——-

    “If, at a population level, we made even just some minor shifts to the way we make our food choices, substituting some beef items for less impactful choices, there can be a really measurable effect on climate change,” said Julia Wolfson, lead author of the study and associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “So the question is, how do we nudge those choices in that direction?”

    Don’t you get it? That hamburger is killing the planet!

    • Ownbestenemy

      We can thank Roberts for the inevitable law that forces what foods we can and cannot eat.

      • Rat on a train

        There’s a penaltax option for everything.

      • Hyperion

        It’s not a law and it’s not a tax. It’s health equity! Everyone gets to eat bugs! Glorious future is at hand!

      • Pope Jimbo

        I broke out into a massive glob of hives when I ate grilled silk work larvae in Korea. I’m sure I’ll get a waiver from having to eat bugs, right? Because of my medical condition, I’ll still get to eat meat.

    • Pat

      But on any given day, more than a third of Americans find themselves eating fast food, which serves up a significant portion of climate-burdensome red meat.

      At least Taco Bell is in the clear.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I wonder what they will do with all that scrub land when the ranchers can no longer graze cattle on it?

      I’m sure the Top Men will tell them to grow wheat or corn there. I mean why not do that? Land is land, right?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Cricket and mealworm farms?

      • Pope Jimbo

        The amount of grasshoppers available to the sharp tailed grouse this year was insane. I would hate to see a repeat. Cleaning the birds this year was gross because they were stuffed with grasshoppers.

        There were so many crickets (combined with high grass) meant that there was no need for the grice* to congregate anywhere special. They were all over, but you had to walk miles through the Badlands to kick them up.

        Too much work.

        * If the plural of mouse, is mice, the plural of grouse is grice.

      • Rat on a train

        The hice are full of mice.

      • juris imprudent

        Designate it as wilderness so mankind will no longer despoil it.

      • Hyperion

        There’s this rare endangered scrub frog… OK, I admit, we made that up. But it was to save the planet!

    • EvilSheldon

      I don’t care.

    • Sean

      substituting some beef items for less impactful choice

      Fuck off.

      • R C Dean

        And, because they are stupid, they got that backwards. When you substitute X for Y, you are using X, not Y. These morons are calling for more beef consumption in their idiotic screed against beef.

    • Rebel Scum

      substituting some beef items for less impactful choices

      Go fuck yourself.

    • Hyperion

      “If, at a population level”

      I mean, not at our level. At YOUR level, you ‘population’ peons.

    • cyto

      Wow.

      That is a must watch.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Good lord I must have kicked up some dust or something.

    • Fourscore

      Thanks Jimbo, sometimes we need something extra in the morning

  50. Rebel Scum

    Under what authority – oh, never mind.

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule Tuesday that will impose stricter nitrogen dioxide emissions standards on new heavy-duty trucks, a move that will substantially hike operating costs for truckers, experts and industry representatives told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

    The EPA’s rule, which is more than 80% stricter than the previous regulation, will require large trucks, delivery vans and buses manufactured after 2027 to cut nitrogen dioxide emissions by nearly 50% by 2045, according to an agency press release. The agency’s rule is intended to push truckers to phase out diesel-powered vehicles and use electric vehicles (EV) instead; however, the compliance costs associated with such rules could suffocate an industry that is not ready to transition to EVs, experts told the DCNF.

    “It’s an overreach that is indicative of this administration’s tendency to set aside balance to achieve the goals of activists that they are politically aligned with,” Mandy Gunasekara, a senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum and former EPA Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, told the DCNF. “It’s going to squeeze out the mid-sized and smaller trucking companies because they’re not going to be able to afford to purchase the new, extremely expensive equipment required to continue to do what they do.”

    The new rules are intended to phase out older trucks that emit more nitrogen dioxide and will push drivers to purchase electric trucks or newer models of diesel trucks that do not produce as much nitrogen dioxide when they burn fuel, according to the EPA.

  51. Pine_Tree

    The negotiator thing makes total sense to me. Dude’s all self-pitying and wanting everybody else to feel bad, too. So hit him with something that’s a mix of provocation and “time to man up”. Maybe he’ll switch his thinking and grow a set, or maybe he’ll be all C@MB, but either way he’s out of petty-kill-myself mode.

    • cyto

      I understood it that way as well… Plus… 18 hours in, you gotta switch things up.

      • KSuellington

        18 frigging hours!! Jesus, send in Riggs at that point.

      • cyto

        Excellent reference

  52. cyto

    Be prepared for a flood of new blood.*

    Someone over at TOS issued the “if you don’t like it why don’t you go make your own magazine” challenge.

    I told them that this had already been done for precisely that reason… And it is better in every way you would imagine it to be better.

    So a few people are trundling over here. I specifically and emphatically do not vouch for or endorse any of those Tulpas. But give them a nice welcome. I told them you were smarter and better in every way. Probably better looking too.

    • cyto

      *by flood I mean 2 or 3. TOS ain’t what it used to be.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Excellent day for them to uh…experience what this place is about.

  53. Hyperion

    Ukraine War Bad

    It’s a rare thing, but at least something, finally. I’m sure those guys are now target number one for the FBI goon squad.

    • creech

      If one was around in the 60s, this stuff mirrors the propaganda fed the American people about propping up Diem and successor corrupt South Vietnam regime.

    • Hyperion

      “🟊🟊🟊 Josey 🟊🟊🟊 Quartermaster
      a day ago
      Yes, I’m sure Hunter is making sure the money goes directly to Burisma and his crack dealer. Right where it’s supposed to go.”

      I am not Josey, I swear. The Bee are no longer the only ones spying on us.

    • Sean

      Gah!

      • Ownbestenemy

        You know how to get the blood flowing in anticipation to what you might be facing is to smack yourself? Consider this that for SF

      • Hyperion

        Sean, that is payback for Hispanic Hillary Mini Hulk. It’s about time! LOL!

      • Sean

        🙂

    • Hyperion

      Holy Bejeebus, I clicked that! I think Tres could make 2 futons out of those.