Thursday Afternoon Links

by | Sep 26, 2024 | Daily Links | 150 comments

BIDEN SAYS HE DELEGATED EVERYTHING TO HARRIS: Break out the popcorn, people, and buckle down for the greatest contortionism show ever as the “you can’t hold her responsible because it wasn’t her job” crowd tries to explain this away. My prediction: it will either be ignored, they’ll claim that Biden is senile and misremembering, or that he can’t really delegate any part of his authority. The middle option begs the question of why nobody invoked Amendment XXV on Biden.

TOTALLY NO DOUBLE STANDARD HERE: Ohio will not count votes for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein because the party nominated their VP candidate after the state deadline. Yet, the Democrats swapping Biden for Harris was totes okay.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY INFIGHTING: And speaking of popcorn time, along come Nadia Ahmad, Liano Sharon, and Esam Boraey over at Al Jazeera: We represent a significant and growing portion of the Democratic base – one that is increasingly disillusioned with a party leadership that refuses to listen to voices demanding justice. […] Gaza will stand between Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House in November.

DIDDY MAY HAVE HAD VIDEO INCRIMINATING POLITICIANS: Former bodyguard claims.

MILEI UNLOADS ON UN: Argentina’s Milei blasts UN over support for COVID lockdowns, appeasing ‘bloody dictatorships.’ I love this guy more each day.

CHINA NOT DONE STIMULATING, YET: ZeroHedge has the scoop.

FTC LEANS ON COMPANY PROVIDING AI LEGAL ADVICE: DoNotPay has agreed to a proposed settlement that would see it face fines of $193,000. There is some irony here, given the company’s name, but fuck the FTC, yo. DoNotPay seems to have had a better win rate (described in the middle of the article) than manually disputing the process. Also.

ELON MUSK CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OF FAA CHIEF: Read all about it here. The Biden/Harris regime hates Musk, of course. And a lot of their base, the “rocket dicks in space” whiners, hate human spaceflight. But the government needs SpaceX, specifically Starship, for their Artemis program which will resume human exploration of the Moon after a far-too-long hiatus.

NASA LUNAR NAVIGATION CHALLENGE: NASA is crowdsourcing Lunar navigation systems for the planned Artemis mission where humans will explore the Shackleton crater at the Moon’s South Pole. Click through to the Guidelines tab in the link for the details. This is a nontrivial problem, and I’m assuming that NASA is crowdsourcing this because neither they, nor the contracting community, could come up with anything. But I have confidence that you people can come up with something. Let’s put the Glibs name or logo somewhere on the Moon.

About The Author

Tonio

Tonio

Tonio is a Glibs shitposter, linkstar (Thursday PM, yo), author, and editor. He is also a GlibZoom personality and prankster. Tonio is a big fan of pic-a-nic baskets. His hobbies include salmon fishing, territorial displays, dumpster diving, and posing for wildlife photographers.

150 Comments

  1. Shpip

    Elon Musk on Wednesday called for the resignation of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief Mike Whitaker as the tension between the federal agency and the billionaire’s rocket manufacturing company SpaceX mounts.

    About that guy who is in charge of everything flight (including space flight) related, from the FAA itself:

    Whitaker began his more than three-decade aviation career as a litigator, then as Assistant General Counsel of international and regulatory affairs at Trans World Airlines (TWA).

    Whitaker is a private pilot, holds bachelor’s degrees in political science and French from the University of Louisville and a juris doctorate degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

    Sounds like a guy with the engineering chops to get people to Mars.

    • bacon-magic

      Punch him in the dick Elon.

    • Suthenboy

      Isn’t SpaceX resting the NASAnaughts? Will the FAA approve of that launch?

      • Tonio

        Yes, the NASA astronauts who flew to ISS on the Boeing Starliner are scheduled to return on a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Maybe Musk should offer to make Whitaker the first man on Mars.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Only if it is one of those missions where we see what happens when we throw something into Mars at realativistic speeds.

  2. Drake

    Obama spent a lot of time with Diddy there are lots of those pictures on the internet. Kamala moved in those social circles about the same time… wonder if she got extra drunk or high and was filmed at one of those parties. Would explain the sudden interest by the FBI.

    • Suthenboy

      As I recall the twinks Obama used to pal around with ended up committing suicide, execution style.

      • Drake

        That kind of thing might start happening to Diddy’s crew.

      • R.J.

        Diddy will have prepared for this and secreted taped evidence everywhere. If he is suicided the bad news for dems will begin from all corners.

      • Compelled Speechless

        My first thought when I read he got arrested was “I wonder what he did for a dead man’s switch.” He’s been running around free for months. He’s had plenty of time to make arrangements that could reek complete havoc.

        My most tin-foil hat explanation is that a deal has already been reached and the entire arrest if performative and he’ll be exiled to a private island with Bieber look alikes and drums of baby oil being brought to him bi-weekly in exchange for his silence.

      • Mojeaux

        I always figured Snowden has a dead man’s switch, but I was surprised Epstein didn’t.

      • Compelled Speechless

        That’s always bugged me too. I really can’t come up with a reasonable explanation as to why Epstein didn’t have a switch….

      • Tundra

        His switch is sitting in chick prison.

      • Compelled Speechless

        And what’s her reasonable explanation for not having a switch?

      • Tundra

        Excellent question. Possibly not automated? The feds nabbed her too fast?

        Or maybe everything was in that safe that the fbi grabbed and they simply fucked up.

  3. Shpip

    Milei accused the U.N. of turning into “one of the main proponents of systemic violations of freedom,” citing the organization’s support for the COVID pandemic lockdowns and allowing “bloody dictatorships” such as Venezuela to sit on the Human Rights Council “without reproach.”

    Damn, can we clone this guy a few thousand times and seed him around the western world?

    • Tonio

      “The Boys from Argentina”

      • Shpip

        I’d chip in to buy a Peck of them.

  4. Suthenboy

    Is this Joe’s revenge? It sure looks like it. I had a feeling all along he would pull some shit like this.

    Gaza huh? It would be fitting if that did cost them the election.

    Diddy….most shocking news of the day, that is.

    How does Milei poll here? I think that would go a long way to explaining why we are here.

    A fiscal stimulus to the private economy huh? How did that work out the last time? They still have desert without ghost towns? Boy, those stimulus’ certainly dont last very long.

    Tort law is a mess. I have no comment.

    Biden chose the absolute worst person to appoint to every position. I dont know how one could be more obvious about the intent to destroy everything.

    Yes, navigating on an extraterrestrial body is a non-trivial problem.

    • bacon-magic

      I think Joe is on the revenge tour…if he had real balls and no blackmail material on him he would endorse the Orange Man. Heads would explode.

      • Suthenboy

        I would pay good money to see that.

      • Suthenboy

        Wait…I think that is the story. He just did.

      • The Other Kevin

        Wouldn’t be surprising if he died in office. Poor guy, by the end he was so far gone he didn’t know what he was saying.

      • B.P.

        On this forum a few weeks ago, someone noted that, with the likes of RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard endorsing Trump, folks who were screwed over by the Dem Party were drifting over to the other side. I jokingly offered up Biden as a candidate for that. Although I don’t think Biden is bright or cognizant enough to deviously “compliment” Harris in such a manner.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Won’t happen. If he did, they’d 25th him and then DR. Jill would miss out on a few months of being empress. She sure as shit isn’t going to let that happen.

    • Drake

      …worst person – Mayorkas was literally a director in an open borders immigration NGO.

      • Gustave Lytton

        And Schumer killed impeachment without the required trial and vote. Unlike coke turtle.

  5. Shpip

    We are not fringe radicals. We are the voices of a new generation of Democrats who are tired of seeing our values compromised. Our demands are simple: we want a Democratic Party that prioritises human rights, stands up for the oppressed, and does not shy away from challenging unjust power structures, whether foreign or domestic.

    Yeah, the Weather Underground was telling everybody the same thing more than fifty years ago. There is nothing new under the sun.

    And your little faction calling for a Judenfrei middle east won’t get any traction in a party where the Juden write a fair amount of the big checks.

    • Tonio

      The hope is that these little commie pukes stay home, or vote for Jill Stein, or something.

      • Nephilium

        vote for Jill Stein

        *

        *Void in Ohio

        On the serious side, how long will the money keep flowing to the Democrat party if they keep up on blaming (((them))) for all the ills of the world?

      • R C Dean

        A vote for Jill Stein has the same impact on the outcome whether it’s counted or not.

    • R C Dean

      “a party where the Juden write a fair amount of the big checks”

      Would that be the same party that is pushing Israel to do a deal with Hamas, which exists primarily to kill every Jew they can?

      • Suthenboy

        Yep, one and the same.
        A puzzle to me my whole life.

    • The Other Kevin

      “They told me I couldn’t do it, but I did it anyway.”

  6. R.J.

    “The Downfall of Diddy” is already on Tubi. I don’t think I hate myself enough to post it. Close, but not quite.

    • Compelled Speechless

      I noticed this phenomenon with Epstein. There were numerous “documentaries” about it that received attention and mainstream releases. Of course they’re all complete lies of omission, containing a small fraction of the information. Only what the official narrative allows. No curiosity towards obvious questions. No pulling on threads. Just enough to satisfy normies.

      There really is an army of useful idiot “journalists” that will put this crap out with a complete sense of self satisfaction and they sleep just fine at night.

      It really makes me wonder how many stories from the past we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg for before social media allowed more information than our rulers allowed. It’s really incredible how many things turn out to just be facade. ***Takes another swig from the bottle of red pills***

  7. Shpip

    Florida Man Storm Update:

    Here’s a radar image of Helene from around 4:15 EDT.

    Brett L (southwest of Tampa) is about to get a thumping amount of rain. Derpy (the red dot in the image) and I (in Gainesville) can expect our max wind and rain starting around 8 PM. Things could get a little sporty if the storm makes a Charley-style turn to the northeast.

    For now, it looks like the Big Bend is going to get it in the shorts again. That area got walloped seven weeks ago by Debby, and still hasn’t completely recovered from getting a direct hit by Category 4 Idalia thirteen months ago. The one bright spot in all this is that there are no beaches up there, so there’s little development and it’s relatively sparsely populated.

    • Sean

      Put on yer water wings!

      (and be safe)

    • slumbrew

      Be safe, FL Glibs!

      Looks like my friends in Naples are gonna get a bit of it, but not so bad as Ian.

    • Mojeaux

      My brother is in Apopka, near Orlando. One year they had to evacuate to my aunt’s in Charlotte, but even Charlotte had its troubles with power outages. I don’t remember what year/storm.

      Be safe!

    • The Other Kevin

      Stay safe Glibs! We’re all counting on you.

      • Tundra

        Ditto. Good luck!

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      Florida Man – Women and children hardest hit.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    “My approach is about new ideas, new policies that are directed at the current moment. And also, to be very honest with you, my focus is very much in what we need to do over the next ten, twenty years to catch up to the twenty first century,” Harris told Brian Taff of Philadelphia’s Action News 6 ABC on September 13.

    ——-

    “I’m obviously not Joe Biden, and you know, I offer a new generation of leadership,” she said, providing examples of what the Biden-Harris administration failed to achieve.

    That clears everything up.

    • The Other Kevin

      So she’s admitting Biden is too old and not doing a good job?

      • Drake

        But she’s the co-President?

    • Tonio

      “to catch up to the twenty first century”

      Yes, like there is a timeline, and we’re behind schedule. You know who else loved five-year plans?

      • juris imprudent

        You’re going to need 200 of those to properly match the promised length of the regime.

    • Suthenboy

      Behold: The self-polishing turd!

  9. The Late P Brooks

    We are not fringe radicals.

    Of course not. Your ideas are mainstream, with a long history of proven success.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Are you sitting down, Shirley?

    A New York appeals court grilled attorneys for both Donald Trump and the New York attorney general’s office Thursday over the $454 million civil fraud judgment against the former president, raising questions about the size of the penalty and the scope of the attorney general’s authority to bring case itself.

    I heard that case was air tight.

    • R C Dean

      I think “air tight” is a good description of what happened to Trump in that courtroom, yes.

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        “Air tight” has a certain meaning in the porn world ;^)

      • Nephilium

        Help me step-vice president! I’m stuck in a courtroom!

  11. The Late P Brooks

    So she’s admitting Biden is too old and not doing a good job?

    Hyper-partisan saboteurs are to blame!

    • Suthenboy

      On the other side of the room Creepy Joe is pointing his finger at her saying “Hey, it was all her! Every bit of it. Afghanistan, the economy, the foreign invasion, all Kammy!”

  12. The Late P Brooks

    “The immense penalty in this case is troubling,” said Justice Peter Moulton. “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by the Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here where the parties left these transactions happy?”

    Vale responded that while it was a large number, the process of disgorgement, or the return of “ill-gotten gains” looks to take away the gain from the wrongdoer.

    “Although this is a large number, it’s a large number for a couple reasons. One, because there was a lot of fraud and illegality,” she said.

    “That is an enormous benefit they got from this conduct” of falsifying financial statements to obtain better loan rates, Vale said.

    We hate him, and want to humiliate and destroy him, Your Honor.

    • R C Dean

      What benefit? Didn’t the banks testify they did their own valuations, and gave him the deal he got based on those?

      • The Other Kevin

        Supposedly the banks just took him for his word and didn’t check his numbers? If that’s the case I’m going to call my bank and see if I can get a line of credit on my home, valued at $6.3billion.

      • creech

        If the banks didn’t do their due diligence, then their shareholders should have a great class action suit for failure to exercise their fiduciary duty. Any huge penalty that Trump ultimately pays should flow through to the stockholders who were allegedly screwed and not to the State of New York.

      • R C Dean

        I seem to recall the bankers testifying that they did what they always do – get their own valuations.

    • Compelled Speechless

      So they’re going to start up similar cases on every person and business that has ever done the same thing and get rid of all the “ill-gotten gains” across the entire system? No? There’s too many to go after? So, just Orange Man? Message received.

      • juris imprudent

        The entire Clinton edifice just trembled in horror.

      • Suthenboy

        I remember Hochul saying this was only for Trump. If you aren’t Donald Trump you have nothing to worry about. She said it out loud, outright and on the teevee.

      • juris imprudent

        Yep Suthen, and the majority of the people of New York were totally good with that.

        We’ll never be rid of the cancer of politics when the host body is so happy to nourish it.

    • Gustave Lytton

      because there was a lot of fraud and illegality<

      Isn’t she supposed to be arguing against Trump, not her own side?

    • Tundra

      Not wrong.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      That article was just as festooned with narrative friendly, “baseless claims” and “officials say everything is great” as I expected. Narrative Uber Alles.

      • Compelled Speechless

        The credited author on this is their lead anchor on the local nightly news. When I lived in Denver and his face would come on the TV my blood pressure would boil. If you were to create a smug, self satisfied, uncurious, establishment propaganda spewing, midwit journalist in a lab, Kyle Clark is exactly what you’d create. I’m happy to see that all his years of ruling class ball chortling still hasn’t landed him a gig on the national news.

      • B.P.

        That particular news network is fighting an unsuccessful rearguard action to convince people they don’t see what they see with their own eyes. “Gaslighting” I think the kids call it. They started out with, “No dummy, a Venezuelan gang has not taken over apartment complexes in Aurora. Stop reading right-wing fake news.” A couple of weeks later they ran a story loosely explaining that, by any reasonable definition, a Venezuelan street gang had take over two apartment complexes (charging rent, extorting, etc.), but it’s not as bad as it sounds. Since Trump characteristically went all hyperbole on the issue, the new line is “No dummy, a Venezuelan street gang has not taken over the entire city of Aurora.”

      • Compelled Speechless

        Politifact will call it “False” until the gangs have literally taken every single home, apartment complex, government building and business in the city under their operation. Until then, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

      • B.P.

        Compelled Speechless knows of what he speaks.

      • creech

        “Since Trump characteristically went all hyperbole on the issue, ”
        This is Trump’s problem. Instead of sticking to the facts, he goes hyperbolic and makes it easy for the media to call him a liar. The truth is bad enough! Stick to it! Make the other side debate the truth instead of deflecting to “he lies.”

      • Tundra

        Creech, he can’t. It’s simply not in there. Bombast and hyperbole is unfortunately what made him successful.

      • Compelled Speechless

        The hyperbole is exactly what makes Trump Trump. There are plenty of people that stick to the facts and discuss the massive clusterfuck that is every aspect of our current age and they’re completely unable to gain traction. See Massie’s recent rant about refusing to let Congress be nothing but theater.

        Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anywhere near enough votes to allow him near a real seat of power for it? Did he jump to the front of the contenders for 2028?

        Bloviating, hyperbolizing, promising the moon with no ability to deliver are the stock and trade of every household name politician. “Democracy” as we practice it, pretty much guarantees that will always be the case. Trump’s brand of it stands out just enough to give him an edge.

        If you want reasonable truth telling to be an important criteria in selecting leaders, you’ll need to upend almost every single incentive that exists in politics. Good luck.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    “There has to be some limitation in what the attorney general can do in interfering in these private transactions … where people don’t claim harm. So what is the limiting principle?” he asked.

    Stop it. You’re killing me.

  14. R C Dean

    “Interfering” is an interesting choice of words by the appellate judge.

  15. R C Dean

    “For Challenge 1, NASA is seeking an orienteering aid that will help the astronauts navigate on traverses away from the lunar lander and return back.”

    Wouldn’t inertial navigation work for this? Is there some reason it wouldn’t work in the moon?

    • R C Dean

      Or a radio beacon on the lander and an RDF-based gizmo?

      • Chipping Pioneer

        Big bag of bread crumbs.

      • Nephilium

        Chipping Pioneer:

        Send them all up with Segways, and have the Segways track the path they took. What could possibly go wrong?

      • Timeloose

        Neph, I saw a Merc SUV on the interstate with OH vanity plates “NEPH2”. I had to drive next to him for a few to see if you were in the area, but I realized quickly that you would not DOX on that scale or be that vain.

      • Nephilium

        Timeloose:

        I was unaware I had imitators and pretenders to my name out and about. Good… it will confuse those who want to target me. 🙂

        The girlfriend has vanity plates. In her words, it’s “so I can remember my license plate”.

      • Gustave Lytton

        There’s a smoke chain here of Neph’s Vapors.

    • kinnath

      Inertial navigation is challenging.

      • kinnath

        Inertial navigation is fancy dead-reckoning.

        You start at a known location; measure acceleration and rotational rate; integrate to get velocity and new position.

        Any error in the initial location or measurements grow over time.

  16. Tundra

    Xi also warned against inertia among cadres in striving for economic growth. “The vast number of party members and cadres must have the courage to take responsibility and dare to innovate,” the readout said.

    Innovation and creativity are enhanced at gunpoint. It is known.

    • Chafed

      Lol. He has been huffing his own farts too long.

    • Suthenboy

      Everything, without exception, that the Chinese do is a scam. Everything.
      That includes their International image as a big scary monster.

      This morning I watched a guy with a hydraulic press compare an American Sledge hammer to a hammer made of chinesium. The american hammer had no deformation at 100 tons. The chinesium hammer started squishing like a fresh marshmallow starting at 30 tons.
      The two guys on motorcycles in china did a video on the scam culture there showing where all of the amazing construction there is a complete fake. Street drains are dressed up screens laid on the ground with no drain pipes. Most of the ordinary things not normally seen like plumbing and wiring simply dont exist. Remember, this country spray paints empty fields with green paint to make it appear they have a successful agriculture sector in satellite photos.

      • Compelled Speechless

        China is aspirational for our ruling class. This is just giving them ideas. Just like them, we’re no longer concerned with whether or not anything actually works. All their time, effort and money is put into convincing you that everything is working instead. It’s late stage Soviet Union.

      • Tundra

        It’s late stage Soviet Union.

        I feel like we’re drifting in that direction as well.

  17. Tundra

    Mark Zuckerberg offers ‘glimpse of the future’ with live-translation smart glasses

    The Meta chief executive did not demonstrate Orion’s capabilities directly during his announcement, instead playing a video showing how people reacted to the device when they tried it. The video showed a few glimpses of text messages and images displayed through the glasses, with Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, one of the testers.

    We used to call this shit “vaporware.” Nice try, Fed.

    • B.P.

      Didn’t another tech giant already try to market birth-control smart glasses a few years ago, only to have the early adopters laughed out of the public square?

  18. juris imprudent

    Gaza will stand between Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House in November

    Well if you insist. [Was really torn about going with the “can only get so erect” clip instead]

    • R C Dean

      “Well, waddayaknow. I could get more erect!”

      • Chafed

        I passed out.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    We used to call this shit “vaporware.”

    Unlimited potential, it has.

  20. Shpip

    The town of Live Oak, Florida has a charming little downtown district with one serious problem — it floods every time there’s a heavy rainstorm.

    Since the town is directly in the path of Helene, the city fire department has deployed Tiger Dams all throughout downtown in an attempt to keep merchants from having to scoop out cubic yards of muck once the storm has passed.

    Interesting-looking concept. I guess it’s about to get a real-world test at scale.

  21. Chafed

    Can a man love Milei and still be straight? Asking for a friend.

    • slumbrew

      An AnCap’s love is very different than that of a square.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    According to my model…

    However, a new analysis finds that the Republican presidential nominee’s plans for tariffs, deportations and the Federal Reserve would not only fail to solve inflation – they would make it much worse.

    The Trump agenda would cause weaker economic growth, higher inflation and lower employment, according to a working paper released Thursday by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In some cases, the damage could continue through 2040.

    “We find that ironically, despite his ‘make the foreigners pay’ rhetoric, this package of policies does more damage to the US economy than to any other in the world,” the Peterson Institute working paper from researchers Warwick McKibbin, Megan Hogan and Marcus Noland concluded.

    Assume a can opener.

    • Ted S.

      Paging Winston’s Mom….

      • juris imprudent

        Assume a can opener.

        Paging Winston’s Mom….

        Sheesh, that’s too kinky for me to contemplate.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        How else are you going to get the barrel of lube open?

    • LCDR_Fish

      Most of the tariffs he’s proposed will make things worse (along with his other stupid spending plans). Doesn’t mean Kamala’s isn’t worse, but it’s not necessarily an improvement.

      • slumbrew

        This is true. His hard-on for tariffs is stupid.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        If the tariffs replaced other taxes it might not be so bad, but as far as I know, that’s not what he’s proposing.

  23. UnCivilServant

    My review of Echos of Wisdom – If you like pre-Breath of the Wild entries in the Legend of Zelda Series, you’ll like this one.

    You could take the bare facts of the game and describe it to sound like a woke disasterpiece, but it hits zero of the hallmarks in implementation. Yes, the main player character is Zelda for the first time, but the story fits entirely in the setting and series without anyone acting out of character. Dark Link has been a boss twice now, but he’s been a boss in previous entries of the series. Finding the real Link is not the main game objective, but is on the list. The main quest is closing the rifts that are swallowing all of the kingdom and spitting out monsters.

    It is more akin to a string of puzzles rather than combat encounters because Zelda doesn’t handle being in close combat very well.

    I’m not raving, but it’s at least solid, and I’ve not had any bugs or crashes.

    • Compelled Speechless

      Zelda is probably my favorite series, but for some reason I have almost no excitement for this one. The remake of Link’s Awakening was kind of meh for me despite loving the original as a kid (I bought it twice, the original and the Gameboy Color version). I watched a couple of reviews of it on Youtube yesterday and nothing really changed my mind.

    • R.J.

      Sounds good. I think I am getting the new Mario Party first though.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    This is true. His hard-on for tariffs is stupid.

    We must defend our infant industries. It was good enough for Alexander Hamilton. It’s good enough for us.

    • creech

      How else to pay for 30% union raises except by destroying foreign competition?

    • Pope Jimbo

      On paper free markets are hands down the best option.

      In practice, maybe not? I’m thinking about how Covid taught us that we’d completely outsourced things like drug manufacturing to China. Taiwan makes all the chips.

      I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m not as reflexively free market as I used to be. Maybe you could make the argument that if everyone’s economies are hopelessly entangled it makes it harder to go to war. But then you have to account for natural disasters like Covid (ok, that wasn’t natural). If you don’t have a choice in shutting down trade, you are super fucked if you can’t produce locally.

      The one thing I do know is that Trump isn’t the guy to bring a lot of heavy thinking to this problem. He thinks tariffs are the best, the very best. And don’t make me laugh by telling me Kamala has any clue.

      • Ted S.

        Covid lockdowns were, of course, not a free market.

      • Tundra

        I’m with you. Finding out that almost all of the generic drugs are produced in China and India did not inspire confidence. Particularly when a lot of them are not even close to spec.

        I have no answers either, but we have a big-ass country with a lot of resources. Chips, drugs and energy seem like no-brainers to keep here.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Nothing is free market. We have the largest federal government that has ever existed. It’s bigger than the Chinese “communist” government that has nearly 4 times as many people living under it. We have the most pages regulations of any government. We have the most corporate welfare. The most “industrial complexes” i.e. military, pharmaceutical, prison…..all existing outside of market demand and can only be sustained with trillions in money taken at gunpoint.

        I agree, I’ve been less reflexive to believe that the free market just solves everything as I get older, but asking government to get involved in anyway is all but a guarantee that it will be turned in to an insatiable, money, time and freedom destroying monster that only benefits grifters and thugs.

        Trump, being a moron, hasn’t learned any lessons about the damage taxes and it’s other names (tariffs, money printing) any more than the people he’s supposedly against.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I’m kind of like that when it comes to outsourcing. I do believe that trade makes war less likely happening but at the same time it’s kind of scary how we outsourced a lot of our chip and drug manufacturing outside of the US.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        Free trade, with all nations competing and trading for and against each other is essentially the same argument that treaties will keep everyone from going to war, IE the lead up to WWI.

        And it will work just as well as that scheme did.

        No, the nation state is here to stay, although the borders will move around just as they always did. Which does make it incumbent to keep some industries local. What and how many is a better question, and should they allow outside competition being another issue to factor in. Mainly as far too many people don’t like the idea of being reliant on other, possibly belligerent, nations having control of vital aspect of the economy, and that doesn’t matter if you explain the economic benefits. We are not Homo economicus, just as we aren’t Homo sovieticus.

      • R C Dean

        The argument was made before WWI that there was too much trade between nations for war to break out.

        Once you posit that there are certain industries that are strategically vital to national survival, you’re pretty much locked in to ensuring that you have those industries within your borders. Even if you believe that having them located in “friendly” foreign nations will never bite you in the ass, you have a vulnerable logistics chain.

        Of course, this all goes away once New Anarchist Man does away with the nation-state.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    If the tariffs replaced other taxes it might not be so bad, but as far as I know, that’s not what he’s proposing.

    As usual, his “plan” is short on detail, but I think he has at least paid lip service to tax offsets.

    • LCDR_Fish

      If we’re lucky…he’ll “defer” to congress vice trying to do anything by EO this time. Some healthy debate on these policies wouldn’t hurt.

      I am pissed off that both major parties are opposed to the Nippon steel merger – so little common sense on display.

      • Tundra

        Isn’t all of this really just arranging deck chairs? Without drastic spending changes we’re gonna implode.

      • Compelled Speechless

        There won’t be any debate even it goes to Congress. There’s maybe seven people with actual brains left in that chamber. The rest have no understanding of anything beyond how to drum up controversy on social media. Those people are all explicitly there to vote as their told or be replaced. Decisions on anything of consequence are debated away from the prying eyes of the hoi pilloi.

      • LCDR_Fish

        to an extent, it’s just more of the same yes, but also…there’s a chance once he gets roped into something else that he’ll get distracted and forget about them completely – especially if he’s able to go back and focus on immigration and the border now that he’s got public backing in that regard.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        I would expect it to go through Congress, but I’m old fashioned that way. If they were to implement tariffs, they should a) replace other taxes, 2) be the same across the board to keep it simple, and iii) not subject to change by the mere whims of the Executive to make them predictable. The odds of all that happening are close to zero.

      • R C Dean

        “focus on immigration and the border now that he’s got public backing in that regard”

        He did last time, too. Probably more public backing now, but he got submarined last time, I’m not sure why it won’t happen again. Still, better than Kammie.

        And, yeah, spending is the real problem. And nobody at all, definitely not Trump, is willing to take that on.

  26. DEG

    Gene Deal, a former insider who protected Diddy through the 1990s, told The Art of Dialogue podcast that the producer’s indictment could expose high-profile officials and celebrities in the Big Apple.

    So he’s next. Unless he has a good deadman’s switch.

    • Compelled Speechless

      After today, I’ve decided my next band’s name will be Deadman’s Switch. We will be an Oingo Boingo cover band that only knows one song.

      • Tundra

        *hits subscribe*

    • rhywun

      FWIW, Eric Adams is a notorious partier.

      • Evan from Evansville

        His taped admissions of the MDMA+ sex orgies he went to during COVID lockdowns… uh. Should/would make it difficult for him to walk ’round without someone beating the shit out of him.

        And…natch, certainly (Big) media silence. Uh huh. I’m not baffled it occurred, cuz duh it did, but I feel demoralization is the only answer I can muster for Why people (seemingly) don’t give a shit. And sadly, that’s a pretty damn good explanation for Why. That, fucking sucks.

      • rhywun

        That wasn’t Adams (the mayor), that was his ‘vid advisor. But yeah, asshole.

      • Evan from Evansville

        Ah, I got ’em switched. Being a part of the NYC Executive reveals how awry the entire city/state/++ is. I doubt he was left to run amok on his own.

  27. Ed Wuncler

    There’s referendum on “banning” gerrymandering in Ohio. I think it’s vote Yes on 1 but after the seeing the people who support this like the teacher’s unions and the progressives, I might abstain from this one and leave it blank. On one hand, I hate gerrymandering especially after seeing the effects it had in Illinois, but a part of me want to punish the Democrats for all of the fuckery. And while the Left in Ohio argues that they are doing this for the sake of fairness, in reality they are doing this simply due to the fact they aren’t the ones doing the gerrymandering.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      It’s only gerrymandering if the Republicans are doing it.

    • LCDR_Fish

      Ed, you might want to check out Illinois Policy Institute.

      I didn’t know it, but Cal Policy Center (the guys who do Radio Free California – https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/national-reviews-radio-free-california-podcast/prop-o-rama/) are only one of a set of state organizations. The podcast ep I just linked has a great breakdown of all the ballot initiatives on the California state ballot. I’d suggest contacting the Illinois guys and see if they have something similar for your state ballot.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I love the Illinois Policy Institute and donated money to that organization when I lived in Chicago. Two years ago though, I moved to Neph’s neck of the woods, so now I’m trying to learn how to navigate the local and state issues in Ohio.

      • LCDR_Fish

        doh!. Not sure how I missed that phraseology in your post.

  28. Evan from Evansville

    It’s only reasonable to assume the P-Diddy arrest is all about/ extensively includes dirt on numerous Folk of Importance. Too much to surmount, particularly with Team Blue DiCaprio (and many more) involved in all the White Parties. Funny how that wasn’t racist back then, eh?

    Clinton to Epstein Island 47(?) times? Duh, this shit is happening, and all those Best Parties… Uh. I’m quite certain the consensual nature came raining down in blow and cash, but I would love to be invited. (Ya get paid to work. Uh. It’s work.) Caligula didn’t start overnight. The constant influx of ‘Edgier’ stimuli, combined with ‘One-Upsmanship,’ the craziness of it all is amplified in speed and availability