348 Comments

  1. AlexinCT

    Tucker Carlson dropped his J6 bombs as promised.

    Propaganda! He is not sticking to the narrative…

      • SDF-7

        Tucker Carlson used the footage on Monday night to portray those who broke into the U.S. Capitol as mostly peaceful patriots who simply felt wronged by the system.

        Given that this is appearing on cnn.com, the author has to be trolling everyone with that line.

      • AlexinCT

        I saw the clips. There was no shit burning down in the background, and the damage caused was not close to or over $2 billion like it was during the summer of love, so this was not mostly peaceful!

        IN-SUH-REK-SHION!

      • Ownbestenemy

        Curiously CBS has near identical headline and copy

      • cyto

        They turned full propaganda instantly.

        But I also noticed that they burried the article. Their only coverage is a talking points debunk that you have to look for.

        So the machine has a strategy. Ignore. Ridicule. Preempt with counternarrative.

      • SDF-7

        So, the usual.

      • AlexinCT

        So the machine has a strategy. Ignore. Ridicule. Preempt with counternarrative.

        Worked quite well to minimize the impact of the Twitter file revelations, didn’t it?

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        This is the frustrating part.

        You get hard evidence, which is summarily ignored, except when it’s ridiculed and labeled propaganda, and then nothing else happens.

        We have evidence of some serious malfeasance, and nada, because it’s buried under condescension and counter narrative, and not a single person will be held responsible for real harm.

  2. AlexinCT

    SPLC lawyer arrested, charged with domestic terrorism amid Atlanta ‘Cop City’ attack

    Over and under that the SPLC finally gets labeled as an anti-American terror entity like the FBI, DOJ, CIA, NSA, DHS, ATF, and the churches Biden, Pelosi, and so on supposedly attend?

    • PieInTheSky

      ACAB

      • AlexinCT

        Is that some sort of hooker union?

      • Penguin

        No, it’s a an badly spelled Genesis song.

  3. AlexinCT

    Jeff Zucker called Covid lab leak theory ‘Trump talking point’, demanded CNN not report on it

    I am not buying this attempt to redirect opinions. This is clever way they can get people off the reality that these supposed news agencies actively told lies for the deep state by implying it was just stupidity.

    Think about that. We live in a time where our ruling cabal’s go-to to cover its ass is to claim ineptitude & stupidity so you do not see they are evil.

    • cyto

      That was my immediate reaction to that quote as well.

      Who told Zucker what to tell them?

      The press is pretending that the Twitter files never happened. It makes for some pretty bizarre disconnects.

  4. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

  5. Rat on a train

    Cut Deficit in Half and Debt Will ‘Stabilize’ in 10 Years: CBO Chief
    Roll back federal spending to Before COVID an the deficit would disappear.

    • SDF-7

      I’d rather roll back to 2007, but I’ll take 2019 in a pinch, yeah.

    • Count Potato

      Texas leaving the union seems more likely. So does an alien invasion. Although, monkeys flying out of my butt sounds anatomically impossible, unless scientist invent some sort of Ass Nanomonkeys.

      • Rat on a train

        Nanomonkeys is a technology man is not ready for.

      • SDF-7

        Rule 34 implies Planet of the Ass Nanomonkeys is already out there somewhere….

      • Mason

        This made my morning.

      • pistoffnick

        But did it make your hole weak?

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        What was done was seen.

      • juris imprudent

        Are you out of your mind, it’s Tuesday. You feed this to SF today, you know what will be in tomorrow’s Joemala.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Great the Vikings will win the Super Bowl when we are all dying in the streets because of the Fed’s “austerity” program.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I haven’t followed Dan Mitchell in awhile because Cato, but he was one of the good ones. He was constantly jumping up and down saying all we have to do is limit spending increases to x% a year and we’ll be good.

  6. AlexinCT

    Cut Deficit in Half and Debt Will ‘Stabilize’ in 10 Years: CBO Chief

    These people must think we are fucking idiots. Their solution to overspending causing economic havoc is to halve the overspending?

    How about you stop spending more than you get and we shrink that government monstrosity?

    • PieInTheSky

      And then we all get on a unicorn and fly over the rainbow like one big happy family

      • robc

        sounds good to me.

      • SDF-7

        Better pick your unicorn damn carefully.

    • The Last American Hero

      The idea is that growth will overtake spending. In theory it works in practice the government can’t restrain itself.

  7. PieInTheSky

    TEXIT Bill Proposes Vote on Texas Seceding From the US Ahead of 2024 – When Texas is independent do you think the tourist visa will cost more or less than the US one?

    • R.J.

      Cartels would be a big problem if Texas did secede. All spare money would go to law enforcement.

      • robc

        Can we get 48 other states to join TX?

      • PieInTheSky

        I thought all Texans would be armed to the teeth and handle cartels themselves with little help from the Rangers

      • Count Potato

        That story about cartels buying Arizona elections seems to have disappeared.

    • PieInTheSky

      The basketball / football leagues would be pretty boring with 2/3 teams though

      • Count Potato

        MLB and NHL include teams from Canada.

      • robc

        And NBA and NFL for some Buffalo games.

      • PieInTheSky

        yes but the vengeance of the US would not allow that

      • Count Potato

        At least the Cowboys would have to stop calling themselves “America’s Team”

      • Michael Malaise

        Texas’s’s’sss’s Team

      • R.J.

        At the rate Joe is going, he will dispense with title ‘America’ as soon as possible. It’s horribly colonial. As we all know from important studies, America was discovered by bisexual indians who named it ‘Poo Poo Tonka.’ Post break up Biden will ratify that name,

      • robc

        We let 2-3 Canada teams in already.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Will Kapernick be able to play for the Texans then? Because he wouldn’t have to kneel during the Republic of Texas’ national anthem?

      • Michael Malaise

        Texas was a slave state, bro. Kneel forever!

  8. AlexinCT

    GOP to Use ‘Power of the Purse’ Against FBI: Rep. Jim Jordan

    So will they assassinate him (or farm the job out to one of the other US 3 letter intel corruptocracies) to make a point to people fighting them, or will he die from an accident? Did anyone ask Schumer for commentary?

    • SDF-7

      They’d only bother with that if he were an actual threat.

  9. PieInTheSky

    Iowa taxpayers will pay out over $2 million in IU football racial discrimination settlement

    How many titles did IU football win in the last 10-15 years do you know?>

    • AlexinCT

      The more important question is what their cheerleaders look like. How many dudes dressed like chicks are in that group?

      • Pope Jimbo

        That is just reality Alex. Iowegian women really, really look like farmboys who are wearing skirts.

      • Raven Nation

        Although I have heard they really make you feel all right.

      • AlexinCT

        You have heard?….

        These things I lurn from people out in that part of this beautiful nation…

        What’s the take on NoDaks?

      • Raven Nation

        “the way they kiss – They keep their boyfriends warm at night”

    • juris imprudent

      Civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons’ firm will receive the full settlement amount, and each of the 12 players who signed the settlement agreement will receive about $184,000, the Des Moines Register reported.

      There’s your money shot.

      So, during the Ferentz era (which stretches back some years) these are the only black players discriminated against? That’s not very systemic.

  10. cyto

    So, Tucker released his first episode about the Jan 6 tapes. Saw a few clips on the internet, didn’t see show.

    But wanted to see the response.

    So… CNN…

    Already had their debunk locked and loaded. But they burried it halfway down the page. “What you need to know about Tucker Carlson and the January 6 video”.

    First, it is super shady that he is allowed to violate national security. Second, he is using it to support Donald Trump, who is despicable. Third, he claims that capital police showed Q-Anon Shaman around and opened doors for him. This is a lie. They asked him to leave and he didn’t. They were concerned about violence, so they continued asking him to leave. Plus. He is in jail because he plead guilty. So..yeah.

    And Carlson is despicable because he lies about Officer Brian Sicknic, hero of Jan 6. His reporting is dishonest because it contradicts every fact we know. I mean. How are we to even verify that this is even him on the video. Plus, his whole family totally condemns besmirching his name and bringing him up…. It is too painful. (No, really).

    • juris imprudent

      …he is allowed to violate national security

      Ambrose Bierce, where are you when we need you?

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Third, he claims that capital police showed Q-Anon Shaman around and opened doors for him. This is a lie. They asked him to leave and he didn’t. They were concerned about violence, so they continued asking him to leave. Plus. He is in jail because he plead guilty. So..yeah.

      That’s one of the videos I did see. Cops are clearly just letting him wander around, and then the Shaman PRAYS FOR THE COPS when he is on the senate floor.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Audio to accompany video would be useful.

        It’s clear they’re not at all threatened by him, but I do find it a bit odd that there are 2 cops following like that.

    • Pope Jimbo

      You could almost get away with the line about them following Shaman Guy around asking him to leave, until he gets to that spot where there are 10 cops blocking the hallway and a cop leading Shaman Guy gets them all to clear a path for him. That is the point where you know they were escorting him to the middle of the Capitol Building.

      • Count Potato

        Also, wouldn’t they arrest him if he was breaking the law?

      • Not Adahn

        Of course not! If they had arrested him there might have been violence!

      • juris imprudent

        And there were only 10 cops to deal with a half-dressed dude armed with horns!

      • Not Adahn

        Have you SEEN the damage a gore attack can do?

      • Pope Jimbo

        A gore attack? You mean like making you watch An Inconvenient Truth Clockwork Orange style?

      • AlexinCT

        No your holiness. Like Al busting into your thanks giving family event and jumping on the table to gorge on all the food before giving you a lecture about your CO2 footprint. He then drives off in his convoy of SUVs that get 7 mpg to hop on his private jet to go repeat that shit elsewhere.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Why would ypu arrest him some you can escort him and get him on every camera in the building

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Sicknic’s family can eat my ass. They sold out and probably got a nice payout for their troubles.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I sort of remember them pushing back hard at the very beginning of all of this. My memory might be bad and I’m not going to enact any labor looking it up, but I remember them talking to Fox to debunk this shit.

        Maybe the Sicknick family and the family of the truck driver Joe always blames for killing his wife while drunk get together for really depressing support sessions?

      • Ownbestenemy

        You aren’t mis-remembering. But then the parades, medals and praise started to roll in

    • Drake

      Those clips of Brian Sicknic calmly directing people out of the building as the whole thing was winding down were pretty clear.

      • juris imprudent

        STOP BELIEVING YOUR LYING EYES!

  11. PieInTheSky

    Four Americans kidnapped during trip to Mexico are named, female victim had traveled down for tummy tuck

    Just go high protein low carb and hit the gym

    • AlexinCT

      That’s what the poor people do…

      Rich people do elective out of pocket surgery!

      • Michael Malaise

        But really rich people don’t go to Mexico for elective out-of-pocket surgery.

    • Drake

      Or try the kidnap diet. That may do the trick.

      • Sean

        Or try the kidnap diet.

        Oof.

      • AlexinCT

        She will be eating rice & beans and cockmeat sammiches?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Such systemic racism. I heard that dog whistle you just did.

        “Kidnap victim” => Kidnappy headed victim

      • dbleagle

        My bet is that they are all filling a hole in the desert. Kidnapping Americans who are not in the drug trade is too dangerous to further cartel biz interests.

  12. SDF-7

    GOP to Use ‘Power of the Purse’ Against FBI: Rep. Jim Jordan

    I think most (all?) of us here would love to see that… but put up, or shut up there Jim. Congressional GOP has been talking a good game since GWB left office and pretty much hasn’t done shit. Stop jawing about it and get it through committee. Make your case, make the left defend their enforcers on the record.

    Of course, even if they do — the Senate will almost certainly strip it out in “reconciliation” and PPP will angrily veto anything that tries to rein in the Executive… but damned well do your best. Get it out in the open.

    • juris imprudent

      Jordan, like every other Republican leader only speaks to the media for the benefit of misleading the voters.

      • R.J.

        I feel the same way. It’s just some words. He will do nothing.

      • R C Dean

        Confident prediction: The Repubs will go back to the time-tested “we can’t do nuffin without the House, the Senate, and the President”.

      • SDF-7

        Yup… the farce that was “Repeal Obamacare repeatedly when it won’t pass, balk when we could actually do it” lept to mind writing that.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        If’n I remember right, with the exception of (spits) John McCain going back on his promise to repeal, they had enough votes, and indeed voted to get rid of it. But that POS McStain turned traitor.

      • juris imprudent

        I hate to disappoint you all – but there was no real repeal. Just some window dressing.

        The fucks were never going to really roll back a chunk of the govt. And you’re nothing but a dupe if you believe they were (are, or ever will).

      • AlexinCT

        Shit like that is why trump happened…

        Americans are tired of the uniparty.

      • Penguin

        The Republicans always seems to talk to the Democrats as if they were a teenager who just finished a fight where they came out second. Talk a big game, but sidle away when it’s time to put your ass on the line.

      • Pope Jimbo

        So you mean they aren’t really going to repeal Obamacare?

      • Banjos

        That was 100% Cuntbag McCain’s fault.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        👆👆👆

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        This’n.

      • Not Adahn

        Nah, he volunteered to be the deciding vote to give the others cover. But repeal was never going to happen.

    • Drake

      Didn’t they just fund a new FBI building that will be bigger than the Pentagon?

      • juris imprudent

        Never mind that NSA facility in Utah.

    • Michael Malaise

      “Use the purse, Lu-er-Jim”

    • Count Potato

      “The New York Times initially reported that Sicknick had been beaten to death with a fire extinguisher”

      The NYT reported that while he was still alive, then pulled it, then reported it again.

      • rhywun

        LOL really?

        Classy.

      • Not Adahn

        On Jan 7, the Capitol Police put out a statement about Sicknick NOT being murdered. It has since been scrubbed. But it’s still possible (if difficult) to find a Reuters piece referencing it.

        Stil no ID on NYT’s “sources” for the murder lie. You’d think that would be important so that other people wouldn’t rely on them.

  13. Fourscore

    And I thought the government was here to help me? Did I miss something in high school Civics?

    It just keeps on coming. I read the Iowa story but didn’t learn what the racism consisted of, ’cause it might be too offensive for my delicate ears.

    Lessons learned: Avoid Mexico for a tummy tuck.

    • PieInTheSky

      And I thought the government was here to help me – terms and conditions may apply, void where prohibited

    • rhywun

      As part of the settlement, UI has to give players who used $90,000 (up to $20,000 per person) in reimbursements for graduate or professional school expenses, a year of mental health counseling through the UI Athletic Department’s Counseling and Psychology Services Office, registration and travel fees for up to 10 student-athletes who wish to participate in the Black Student Athlete Summit annually through 2026, and hire University of Texas at Austin professor Leonard Moore to help the athletics department run its five-year diversity, equity and inclusion strategic plan and review the department’s structure, programming and initiatives, The Gazette reported.

      OMG what a fucking grift. Imagine my surprise that the article does not mention the nature of the “racial discrimination”, at all.

  14. Count Potato

    “Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Jamie Raskin have warned that Carlson poses a “serious security risk” and have accused the Fox News host of being a “pro-Putin, pro-Orban, pro-autocrat propagandist.”

    “There’s thousands of hours of footage that are out there already,” Raskin told MSNBC. “But the reason all of it wasn’t released is precisely because it lays out floor design, it lays out evacuation routes, it lays out where the vice president went, it lays out where the senior members of Congress were evacuated, and so on.””

    All of that is public knowledge of a public building generally open to the public.

    • rhywun

      Not to mention that Tucker said he cleared showing the clips with the Capitol police.

      *womp womp*

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Raskin is a real piece of work.

      • juris imprudent

        I rooting for cancer with him.

  15. PieInTheSky

    Masks, the jury returns
    Dr. John Campbell

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3vY2LyQn1A

    RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks.

    There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers,

    when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.

    Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness

    wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/COVID-like illness

    • Certified Public Asshat

      His McDonald’s rant in the second part of the episode is good too.

      • PieInTheSky

        rants are one thing he does well but yes

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I actually don’t enjoy his standup, but I do like his podcast. Same with Rogan.

      • PieInTheSky

        His standup is mid as the kids say these days, not great not awful

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      Huh, fat dude with shitty sunglasses.

      Pass.

    • Fourscore

      I had to pay rent at home when I was working but it was still a bargain. All the amenities of being a kid for only $10 a week.

  16. PieInTheSky

    Residents in central London could be able to report their rich neighbours for leaving homes vacant for six months of the year, under new plans.

    Under the proposals, those living in the borough of Westminster will be able to call a hotline.

    Homeowners will also be encouraged to make empty space available for rent and discouraged from buying holiday homes.

    Council leader Adam Hug said: “These measures are an important first step in tackling the issue of empty houses.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64864916

    yes that is the issue for Britain…

    • AlexinCT

      Now that’s how you equity the right way…

      Humanity is heading for hell in a handbasket and most lemmings think this is fine because of jealousy & envy of what others might have that they don’t.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        The vast majority of modern political doctrine is based in envy. It’s fucking sick.

    • Drake

      Can they report the royal family?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Do they actually own any property in Westminster or is it all crown estates (government ownership)?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Sounds like that scene in Dr. Zhivago where he comes home to find a bunch of families living in his house.

  17. PieInTheSky

    With the book ‘ Global Farmy Songun Internationale ‘ , by Bangladeshi author M Jahangir Khan, at the KFA UK picket of the south Korean puppet embassy 04.03.2023

    https://twitter.com/juche0071/status/1632853865321119753

    the vanguard of the revolution putting the fear in the bourgeoisie

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      Gengis Khanist mixed with Agorist here.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that fairy tale about the debt is based on revenue projections which ignore the ongoing effort to destroy the economy.

  19. Sean

    Daily Quordle 407
    5️⃣3️⃣
    7️⃣4️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 407
      6️⃣5️⃣
      7️⃣4️⃣

  20. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘OIrdles — March Mediocrity continues. Sigh.

    Daily Duotrigordle #370
    Guesses: 37/37
    Time: 05:11.20
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 407
    7️⃣3️⃣
    5️⃣8️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Cowboy

      Daily Quordle 407
      5️⃣3️⃣
      7️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com

    • rhywun

      I walk the line, for a change.

      Daily Quordle 407
      5️⃣4️⃣
      7️⃣6️⃣

    • Penguin

      Daily Quordle 407
      4️⃣6️⃣
      7️⃣5️⃣
      quordle.com

  21. PieInTheSky

    Soviet swimmer, Shavarsh Karapetyan. In 1976, he saw a trolleybus plunge into a reservoir and made 40 dives to rescue 20 people.

    Injuries from glass shards hospitalized him for 45 days, where he developed pneumonia and sepsis, which ended his swimming career.

    https://twitter.com/LaocoonofTroy/status/1632455946382237699

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      I think all the medals they gave him injured his back and that’s what really ended his career.

    • juris imprudent

      Well that’s a new twist on the trolley problem.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      She’ll get a promotion out of it. “so brave, so strong!”

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      More boobs than brain. It happens.

    • Brochettaward

      I’m conflicted. I despise her politics, but she supports me as a birthing person. I want my First to be accepted into the world regardless of whether it came from my man womb or from more traditional birthing arrangements.

      Plus, would.

      • Brochettaward

        When she says that she believes people are inherently good inside, I’d love to be able to interject and ask her, “EVEN TRUMP!!1/11/???1”

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        people are inherently good inside

        Well, except the one inside her. That one was bad.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        We need the nuclear strike gif over here. Stat.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        The sacrifice was necessary for the AT&T Gods.

      • R.J.

        Absolutely would. She did a werewolf movie I want to post at some point.

      • Ownbestenemy

        She wants it both ways and I get it I guess but she knows her tits sell tickets/streaming subs.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Lily, what are your views on big corporations?

      • Not Adahn

        Dammit! It’s too early in the day for me to be looking forward to going home and taking her to the park!

      • Necron 99

        Lily is too busy counting her money to reply.

  22. PieInTheSky

    In 1607, a physician named Dr Wootton, of Exeter, was convicted for libelling one of his fellow medics. He had sent a letter that began ‘Mr Docturdo & Fartardo’, and went on to contain ‘2 sides of paper full of wild matter, ribaldry, & defamation’.

    https://twitter.com/SocialHistoryOx/status/1632731896827244545

    • The Other Kevin

      We don’t have enough good old fashioned ribaldry any more.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Fair share! Fair share!

    U.S. President Joe Biden will seek to raise the Medicare tax on high earners and push for more drug price negotiations to help keep the federal health insurance program solvent through at least 2050 as part of his budget proposal this week, the White House said.

    The tax increase from 3.8 percent to 5 percent on earned and unearned income above $400,000 is part of a package of proposals aimed at extending the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund by at least 25 years, the White House said in a statement on Tuesday.

    “Let’s ask the wealthiest to pay just a little bit more of their fair share, to strengthen Medicare for everyone over the long term,” Biden wrote separately in a New York Times guest essay.

    Biden has sought to link Republicans to the idea of cutting funding for the insurance program for seniors and the disabled as part of negotiations over increasing the United States’ $31.4 trillion debt limit. The Democratic president has pledged to offer his vision for funding Medicare and challenged Republicans to offer their own.

    Salvation is at hand.

    • Brochettaward

      I want to receive my fair share for once. I mean, it’s quite obvious that I contribute more to the human race than anyone else, but I am not being fairly compensated. It’s well past time that the unpaid labor of the Firsters was given the proper financial rewards it deserves from society.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      “unearned”. “ask”.

      How to manipulate language.

    • R C Dean

      My vision for funding Medicare, SocSec, Medicaid, all the transfer programs is this:

      They are funded solely from a fund that includes no general revenue or debt financing. That fund is spent down every year, and is funded solely by payroll taxes collected that year. Every year, Congress must set both the level of spending, and the level of taxes needed to fund that spending.

      Watch the conversation change when people see generous benefits directly reducing their paychecks.

  24. Count Potato

    “TikTok star ‘rabbi’ who adopted nine boys as a single dad is charged with raping son, 17, and accused of molesting his other children after ‘victim’ called into podcast with allegations: Also said to have faked his Judaism and chronic illness

    Cohen has also been accused of faking his Orthodox Jewish heritage and his alleged disabilities, having claimed he was raised in the Hasidic community in New York City.

    But records showed Cohen, who lives in Houston, was in fact from Odessa, Texas, and that his real name was Jeffrey Lujan Vejil, according to Reduxx.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11829217/Orthodox-rabbi-shot-fame-adopting-nine-sons-charged-child-sex-abuse.html

    That doesn’t sound kosher.

    • rhywun

      “adopted nine boys as a single dad”

      Because that doesn’t set off any red flags.

      • juris imprudent

        The adoption agency was smaht, they didn’t give him any girls! [taps side of noggin]

    • Pope Jimbo

      Rape? Maybe he is just a new fangled non-cruelty mohel? Instead of a traumatic snipping, he just removes a tiny layer lick by lick?

  25. Raven Nation

    In more anti-freedom news from down under, the new Labour government wants to tax/confiscate some superannuation accounts. Brief primer: superannuation is kind of like social security. It’s mandatory, employers are required to pay into it for each employee, the government sets the amount paid in as a percentage of salary, employees are encouraged to pay extra into out of their salary, an act described as a “salary sacrifice arrangement.”

    Now the government is horrified/disgusted that some people have accumulated too much in their super funds (again, mandatory funds with the amount paid in set by the state). So Labour has channeled FDR in their talking points:
    1. some people have too much saved
    2. the new tax will only apply to the very, very top of the super accounts (I think the PM is saying less than 100 people)
    3. the vast majority of Australians polled on the issue agree with the tax/confiscation
    4. some members of parliament are declaring that “even some of those who would be affected by the new tax support it”

    There really is no evil to which humanity will not stoop once they’ve decided that the state has a claim to all property.

    • PieInTheSky

      . the vast majority of Australians polled on the issue agree with the tax/confiscation – DEMOCRACY

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      It was only a matter of time before the Argentinian Model of Retirement Financing went global.

    • Not Adahn

      Common sense says:

      Every year, find the richest person, seize all their assts and sell their organs to China.

      Lookit that sweet GINI go!

    • Penguin

      2. the new tax will only apply to the very, very top of the super accounts

      Joe Bidenilllabong.

    • AlexinCT

      Government is the only entity allowed to pick winners & losers. In that society, people that do the right things could be used as examples to encourage others to also see government is too bloated, can’t be tolerated.

      Why are they robbing these people? Cause just like banks, these criminals know that’s where the money is.

      I will not be surprised that someone proposes our corrupt US fedgov also look at raiding people’s 401Ks soon. It’s unfair that some people lived well below their means in order to save for retirement. If they can peddle this racket where people that couldn’t afford to take on a college loan and wisely avoided that debacle, or those that actually paid off or are paying off their loans because they studied in fields that allowed them to make a decent living, are being robbed to pay for the morons that couldn’t afford the loans but still took them out or studied shit that left them unable to make a living at a premium, they can certainly make up excuses to raid the savings of those that did the right thing in order to “help” those that didn’t.

      • juris imprudent

        The belief in equality, taken to the reductio ad absurdum end is Harrison Bergeron.

        We aren’t equal. We never have been, and we never will be. It is literally inhuman.

      • AlexinCT

        And yet, so many knowing this still go “Hold my beer Chardonnay and watch this”.

      • juris imprudent

        What they know is that they will be the Handicapper General (who is unencumbered by any of the devices that insure equality amongst the masses).

        That is their second delusion.

      • AlexinCT

        Shit, I would be all for a Stalin/Mao-esque regime as long as I, and only I got to play the Stain/Mao role…

        Otherwise, fuck that shizz.

    • Gustave Lytton

      There’s a reason greed and envy are four of the ten commandments.

      • AlexinCT

        Say wut? You mean the 7 deadly sins, I hope..

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Coveting thy neighbor’s ass probably counts as envy.

      • Gustave Lytton

        No, four of the prohibitions deal with greed and envy.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Biden called the rate increase “modest,” adding in the Times: “When Medicare was passed, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans didn’t have more than five times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent combined, and it only makes sense that some adjustments be made to reflect that reality today.”

    Hoarders! We must confiscate their ill gotten loot and redistribute it to poor deserving federal employees and elected representatives.

    • Not Adahn

      : “When Medicare was passed, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans didn’t have more than five times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent combined,

      Not to impugn Mr. “A 9mm bullet blows the lungs clean out of the body”‘s honesty, but is this actually true? There was a shtitton of really poor people back then.

      • Michael Malaise

        He could just come out and state “I don’t understand how generational wealth works, and it makes me mad.”

    • Certified Public Asshat

      And the wealthiest already use medicare the most.

  27. Winded

    Daily Quordle 407
    6️⃣3️⃣
    7️⃣5️⃣
    quordle.com

    My best in a while. Also the first time I’ve played in a while. I am settling in for what is hopefully a long retirement north of 8 (Wisconsin reference, although its made its way to the Urban Dictionary too.) I’m just a few days in, so I don’t know if I’m doing it correctly yet. But I hope to get to glibs a lot more often–in my working-for-pay days I’d be lucky to get to the morning links at my lunch hour, and the afternoon links on the weekends.

    • PieInTheSky

      One Quordle thread is more than necessary, 3 are quite excessive

  28. Scruffyy Nerfherder

    Tard Tuesday: For Certain Definitions of Factual

    Daily Kos editorial mission statement

    Our editorial mission:

    Daily Kos is a progressive news site that fights for democracy by giving our audience information and resources to win elections and impact government.

    Our voice:

    Our voice is strong, authoritative, confident, and informative, yet strikes an emotional chord. We need people to feel something when they read, motivating them to take action. We write with passion, fierceness, joy, humor, and urgency. Our language is accessible, conversational, colloquial, and jargon-free.

    People should be able to read a story, source unknown, and think, “That must be from Daily Kos!”

    Our coverage:

    Our coverage is assiduously factual, ethical, and unapologetically progressive—there’s never a need to “both sides” the truth. Still, everything we write is based in reality, which means that we do not hesitate to report when the news does not favor our preferred party or positions. We don’t contort facts to fit preconceived narratives or biases.

    This is the outlet that publishes Keith Olbermann.

    • Raven Nation

      “People should be able to read a story, source unknown, and think, “That must be from Daily Kos!””

      Well, that part’s probably true.

      • Rat on a train

        It could be from numerous propaganda sources.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      We need people to feel something when they read, motivating them to take action.

      We don’t contort facts to fit preconceived narratives or biases.

      Those two statements are in direct opposition.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Cognitive Dissonance, it’s what’s for dinner.

    • Count Potato

      They also make shit up.

    • R C Dean

      “We need people to feel something when they read, motivating them to take action.”

      Does revulsion, motivating me to close the tab, count?

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Hot sauce and coffee

      • Not Adahn

        Maybe coffee is on the trivet upper-right?

      • PieInTheSky

        I would think tea with milk for a proper breakfast

      • Not Adahn

        Beer or cider is better — helps cut through the grease.

      • PieInTheSky

        I like a good beer for breakfast on a weekend morning and an irish pub is one of the few places in Bucharest where you are not the only one drinking beer at 9 AM which makes one seem like less of a drunk

      • Not Adahn

        If you ever go to Harry Potterland in Florida, there is one stall where you can get Cornish pasties and cider for breakfast — best breakfast in the park by far.

      • PieInTheSky

        I do not like cider. I would never set foot in someplace called Harry Potterland or Florida

    • Not Adahn

      There’s no steak, no pork shops and no waffle/french toast. Need a sweet to counterbalance the bitterness of coffee and the acid of the tomatoes.

      • PieInTheSky

        In Europe butcher shops have all kinds of meat I never saw one just for pork.

        Need a sweet – No.

      • Count Potato

        Then where does the Romanian mafia hang out during the day?

      • Penguin

        I never saw [a store] just for pork.

        Bacon, by the slice.

      • Count Potato

        “counterbalance the bitterness of coffee”

        What sort of Guatemalan floor sweepings are you drinking?

    • UnCivilServant

      Why is it you always ask about a Full English?

      • PieInTheSky

        1. Not always

        2. I often get food pics from that ratemyplate twitter account where English breakfast is over-represented.

    • AlexinCT

      Is that a plate for one?

      • PieInTheSky

        Given just 2 eggs, two at most… Or a hungry lumberjack

      • Not Adahn

        Yeah, the more toast/potatoes/carbs on the plate, the more eggs you need for yolk sauce.

      • Ownbestenemy

        The Yolk-Starch Paradigm.

      • Not Adahn

        Trufax: I have to order an extra egg at my diner because of the portion size of their hash browns.

  29. Brochettaward

    I’m Brooksing this shit:

    She’s clearly a leftist, onboard for all the leftist hot issues, and as a “cis-white” wealthy birthing person she needs to turn her million-dollar-a-year job over to a POC. Do it, Lily. Turn over your job in the next AT&T ad.

    This is really something I’d like to see thrown into the faces of the diversitgy, equity and inclusion people’s faces more often. Every time I hear a white person say they’re an ally and support taking away white people’s jobs or slots in prestigious schools (when they have better resumes for the positions), I want to demand they put their money where their mouth is. Every corporate CEO who talks about how important diversity is can step aside and name an indigenous POC birthing person to take their place.

    • Raven Nation

      That’s been my argument with academia for years. You want POC on faculty and upper-level admin? Simple, let’s see a well-known prof at Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, wherever stand up and say, “I don’t think we have enough diversity in our ranks. For that reason, I intend to resign at the end of this academic year and I demand my institution make a diversity hire to replace me.” Instead they sit in their nice comfortable, tenured positions and demand that this stuff be enforced on people looking for jobs.

    • The Gunslinger

      Here’s a perfect example. Liam Nelson asked about taking a pay cut to close the gender pay gap in Hollywood.

      https://youtu.be/fBW2i7Jbefw

  30. Lackadaisical

    “Cut Deficit in Half and Debt Will ‘Stabilize’ in 10 Years: CBO Chief”

    Like they’re going to cut spending by 25%. Just proposing to reduce the growth of spending means you want to kill grandma.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Like they’re going to cut spending by 25%. Just proposing to reduce the growth of spending means you want to kill grandma.

    Listen to the weeping and wailing about the end of “temporary” “emergency” food stamps.

    Biden’s new budget will probably make that increase permanent, to save the lives of millions of starving children.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      That is bonkers. A government guaranteed mint at that.

      Everybody should trust their fiat money though.

    • Michael Malaise

      “ALlEDGLY”

      That’s not a typo, is it?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Is Perth Mint something like Altoids?

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Not to impugn Mr. “A 9mm bullet blows the lungs clean out of the body”‘s honesty, but is this actually true? There was a shtitton of really poor people back then.

    The way I heard it, John D Rockefeller by himself had more than half the circulating cash in the country under his mattress.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    There really is no evil to which humanity will not stoop once they’ve decided that the state has a claim to all property.

    “This ditch is full of dead people. Why did you bring me here?”

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Looks like Scholastic made the changes without Stine’s input.

    • R.J.

      He wrote too many books. He’d never have time to go back and change any.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I read all of the original Goosebumps books to my kids (I read most of them as a kid myself, but stopped midway through). He was really phoning them in by the end.

        25 years later, he is still phoning it in and making money doing so.

  34. The Other Kevin

    I’m excited for all those lefties out there to explain to me today how all that footage of the buffalo guy being escorted by cops is “misleading” and “one sided.”

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      More than anything else, 1/6 is their Defining Moment.

      My prediction: They double/triple down and start calling for more people to be rounded up, including misinformation purveyors.

      Their bluff has been called, let’s see if they bring the army across the Rubicon.

      • juris imprudent

        They’ll stand on the far shore saying “you’re lucky it’s too high to ford, and that my army can’t swim, or we’d show you”.

  35. Certified Public Asshat

    I don't even know if "equity" is a real thing that anyone outside of twelve leftists and the entire right-wing believe is real. The overwhelming majority of progressives agree with @BernieSanders (and me) that equality of opportunity is the right standard.— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) March 7, 2023

    Looks like he did get ratioed with this dumb take.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Because Bernie believes that equality of opportunity is the right standard?

      Imma need a citation on that.

      • juris imprudent

        Hell, I’d grant you Bernie, but not the rest of the morons.

    • PieInTheSky

      equity is everywhere

      also all leftists will equate equality of opportunity to equality of outcome because if parents outcome is not identical then kids cannot have equality of opportunity as the left defines it

    • Ownbestenemy

      Subtle shift there with saying its a small left wing issue but the entirety of the right wing believe in it.

      • juris imprudent

        Motte meet bailey.

    • Penguin

      Equity is real. They had it in a lot of the governments he favors. Most people were quite equitable in Cambodia in 1975.

      • Ownbestenemy

        In the end, everyone has equity as they line up against the wall.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Why wait?

    Climate change is already having a major economic and financial impact on the United States and may trigger asset value losses in coming years that could cascade through the U.S. financial system, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will warn on Tuesday.

    Yellen will tell a new advisory board of academics, private sector experts and non-profits there has been a five-fold increase in the annual number of billion-dollar disasters over the past five years, compared to the 1980s, even after taking into account inflation.

    “As climate change intensifies, natural disasters and warming temperatures can lead to declines in asset values that could cascade through the financial system. And a delayed and disorderly transition to a net-zero economy can lead to shocks to the financial system as well,” she said in remarks prepared for delivery at the advisory board’s first meeting.

    ——-

    Yellen said the new Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee, set up last October by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), would boost U.S. efforts to mitigate the risks that climate change poses to financial stability.

    If there is a possibility that natural disasters might tank the economy, we should just go ahead and wreck it now.

    Quick, let’s impose some stupid new regulations and make certain there can be no innovative response or rational analysis, just a bunch of hysterical pearl-clutching.

    • Gustave Lytton

      even after taking into account inflation

      That’s official inflation.

    • R C Dean

      “Climate change is already having a major economic and financial impact on the United States”

      As with the pandemic, we are conflating “climate change” with “the state climate change cult”.

      • AlexinCT

        Government corruption driven programs and agendas in the name of fighting the climate change, a major racket, is really what is causing all the economic upheaval. Trillions were pissed away fighting the war on poverty. Trillions more will be pissed away on this racket.

    • R C Dean

      I read that as “yes, there are leftists who are pushing “equity”, and the entire right wing is correct in believing this is the case.”

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Yellen said climate-related events had already prompted insurers to raise rates or stop providing insurance in high-risk areas, which could have devastating consequences for homeowners and their property values. That in turn could spill over to other parts of the financial system, she said.

    The last thing in the world she wants to see is legitimate risk analysis.

    • AlexinCT

      Lies, damned lies, and statistics…

      I have heard this trope about insurance companies raising their rates because there is more loss, meaning there is more climate trouble. What is left out is that these places even if you only go back 30 or 20 years or so, had 60-80%, or lower, number of properties (and then also of far cheaper construction) on them. Correct for that issue, and the actual damage/payout is less.

  38. Certified Public Asshat

    To prevent robberies, “we are putting out a clear call to all of our shops, do not allow people to enter the store without taking off their face mask,” Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said. https://t.co/KbmBdyENjj— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 7, 2023

    Not the bee.

    • Rat on a train

      Did he remind people to put them back on when they leave the store?

    • Ownbestenemy

      I see the problem

      “The victim’s mother introduced Hensel and the child. The former doctor and the woman had been talking about paying for a movie in which the 9-year-old would appear, per The L.A. Times.”

      Stop pimping out your god damn children.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Welcome to LA

    • kinnath

      Angry father should have put a bullet in him.

    • Cowboy

      “Hensel then embraced the child’s father, who told the doctor that he’s forgiven.”

      While I know my Christian values say its proper to forgive, eff that. Only reason I’d embrace that scumbag is so I could plant the knife in his back.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I’m not going to knock the guy’s approach. His faith, his conscience and his relationship with God. However, I am with you Cowboy, I am not sure what my reaction would be but an embrace isn’t one of them.

      • R C Dean

        Technically, a chokehold is an embrace.

      • Sean
    • AlexinCT

      That mother fucker could work for the fucking IRS…

      • R.J.

        Don’t give them ideas!

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        “Don’t pay the toll Pachys!”

    • Penguin

      I love that he does it at a crossing sign.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Fair share! Fair share! pt 2

    It is unarguable that the U.S. has a debt problem. Even as a staunch liberal, I recognize the cold hard truth that interest payments alone on the more than $31.5 trillion we owe now approach $400 billion a year. This is simply not sustainable, and it will only get worse if our annual deficits average out to the $2 trillion a year the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is currently projecting. Republicans are currently calling attention to this issue by refusing to increase the nation’s debt ceiling without a major curb to government spending. Even when putting aside the folly of this tactic and the hypocrisy of preaching fiscal discipline only when a Democrat is in the White House, their plan is nevertheless nonsensical. The reality is that the best way to tame both the debt and our current problem with inflation is to raise taxes.

    ——-

    However, Republicans have vowed that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are off the table despite the fact that many of their members have, on numerous occasions, called to curtail these programs. That Republicans would even mention Social Security when addressing the nation’s debt problems is evidence that they aren’t really aiming to debate about the debt in good faith given that it cannot, by law, add to the deficit. The real reason Republicans bring it up in times like these is they are afraid that if they don’t frame it as a hallmark of government overspending, we’ll eventually raise taxes on those they try hardest to protect—the rich.

    We’ll take from the rich and give to the poor. Works every time.

    • Rat on a train

      Hmm, $2 trillion. That happens to be the amount of “emergency” spending the Democrats pushed through. An amount that is less than they wanted and want to make permanent.

  40. kinnath

    Neither Slate nor Salon mentions the Carlson video dump. So apparently, it didn’t actually happen.

    • AlexinCT

      That seems to be the tactic with any information that undermines the narrative these days…

      • kinnath

        I expected headlines ranting about the lies, but they are just silent.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Top Big 3 ran those headlines, Slate and Salon will come in after

      • AlexinCT

        talking points have not yet been agreed upon and shared?

    • KSuellington

      This was something that they finally learned by the end of the Trump years, that it is a better strategy to mostly ignore anything counter to The Narrative, while providing a few token fact checks with the same talking points just in case a true believer encounters a wrong thinker.

      • AlexinCT

        From the guy that supposedly won the WH by hiding in his basement and avoiding the news?

      • KSuellington

        Mutually reinforcing I’d say. You really saw it in how the media dealt with Trump’s announcement of his 24 run. And we will definitely see a similar tactic if it’s Harris. She will be largely hidden except for highly scripted events and crafted interviews. If it is Michelle, we will see something quite different. I’d still say it’s at least a fair chance we will see an Obama 3 Presidency.

      • AlexinCT

        These people are inept an no longer even bother fixing things. Their priority is Kabuki theatre to convince idiots to keep them in power (and give them more power). And they spend 100% of their efforts on the theatre shit.

      • UnCivilServant

        What’s the point of power if not to fix things?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Point of power is to give the illusion of fixing things, not actually doing it. Otherwise you could fix yourself right out of power.

      • juris imprudent

        Power is for rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. Fixing things is just a side effect.

      • UnCivilServant

        You people are deranged, off to the Gulag with you.

      • Michael Malaise

        Problems solved are no longer useful problems.

      • UnCivilServant

        There are always new problems. Keeping the old ones around is wasteful nostalgia.

  41. Richard

    Part six of “The Secret History of Vermont” is going up at noon EST but I’m afraid I won’t be live for it initially. I had a plumbing disaster yesterday and I have an unexpected opportunity to help deal with it midday today. I’ll see if I can join in later.

    • Mojeaux

      plumbing disaster

      My deepest condolences. /nosarc

      • Drake

        Pepto-Bismol to the rescue.

    • Rat on a train

      turtles?

      • Aloysious

        Overlarge toilet fish.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      Plumbing disaster? Did your cabin spring maple syrup?

    • Rat on a train

      Bond has been around since 1962 so he should be played by someone 80+.

      • KSuellington

        “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to nap.”

    • Michael Malaise

      I cannot trust a chart that places Casino Royale as a Pierce Brosnan Bond and omits Never Say Never Again (although I can understand why a lot of people would want to omit it)

  42. The Late P Brooks

    This means the only place to find what we could call bloat is in the remainder of the discretionary budget. Which, you could eliminate all non-defense discretionary spending and those $2 trillion annual deficits projected by the CBO would not even be cut in half. We could hollow out the modern state and still be on a trajectory to fiscal ruin. Even if waste were present, this is clear and incontrovertible evidence that the problem isn’t springing from overspending, but from lack of revenue.

    I think this qualifies as a legitimate case of begging the question. “Non-discretionary” is presumed to be necessary and immune to re-examination or reduction.

    Nothing to cut. We just have to turn those moneybags robber barons upside down and give them a good hard shake.

    • juris imprudent

      As usual, ignoring history. Not even at the peak of World FUCKING War II did taxes top 20% of GDP, but this numbnuts thinks we can defy that.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    In studying our tax rate, the problem comes into sharp focus when we look abroad and see that the U.S. is 32nd out of 38 in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s revenue statistics report. If the U.S. were to go from our current tax-to-GDP ratio of 26.6 percent to the OECD average of 34 percent, we would generate over $1.8 trillion in new government revenue, almost exactly enough to entirely wipe out the deficits the CBO warned are coming.

    Inflation remains high and tax increases are a great way to fight it. Inflation is currently being driven by an increase in aggregate demand—we see too many dollars chasing too few goods. A tax increase would soak up more dollars from the market, dampening demand, and easing inflation almost immediately.

    Assume a can opener.

    • PieInTheSky

      I say you need an European style Federal level 24% VAT on all purchases

    • Sean

      I guess they’re hoping to shut down more small businesses.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        The tax hikes are coming. I don’t see how they avoid that.

        They’re certainly not willing to gut Leviathan.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Never mind that the US has never reliably achieved a collection rate over 22% of GDP.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Impoverish our way to ending inflation!

    • Trigger Hippie

      Yes, nothing dampens inflation like the cost of extra taxes being passed on to the consumer.

  44. Ownbestenemy

    Caught History of the World Part II. Not an instant classic but not afraid to skewer.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Tut tut!

    Imean, I get it. The sights and sounds of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) are eminently mockable. There was Steve Bannon accusing Fox News of stealing the election from Donald Trump. And Marjorie Taylor Greene lying that Ukraine President Zelensky demanded American “sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine.” And nearly 90 percent of attendees saying they would never again take a COVID vaccine. And Kari Lake calling Bannon a “modern-day George Washington” before she was picked the top choice to be vice president of the United States. And Lauren Boebert strutting and yelling on stage. And Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro claiming his election was stolen. And MyPillow’s Mike Lindell . . . well, speaking at all.

    So yeah, I get it. CPAC was, once again, a boiling cauldron of batshit-crazy stew. But we can’t let the laughter and the richly deserved mockery lead us to not take these people seriously, to dismiss them. To do so would be a mistake—the sort of mistake that put Donald Trump in the White House in 2016 and almost kept him there in 2020.

    A reminder: We have two major political parties in America. We’re stuck with them for the foreseeable future. And if it wasn’t clear long before CPAC this past weekend, it ought to be clear now—the voting base of one of our two major political parties is completely radicalized.

    A tisket, a tasket, a deplorable-filled crazy train basket.

    Why won’t people listen to us reasonable grownups? We know what’s best.

    • R C Dean

      The voting base of the Republican Party is consultants and politicians?

      • R.J.

        Oddly, it’s the same group of consultants who work for the Democrats as well.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Curiouser and curiouser.

    • juris imprudent

      Give us back control of the ship or we’ll pout.

    • Michael Malaise

      “And Marjorie Taylor Greene lying that Ukraine President Zelensky demanded American “sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine.”

      Did he not say this, in so many words?

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        To be fair, the other option was dumping a ton more money in his lap.

      • R C Dean

        Supposedly (I haven’t seen the full excerpt), he said if the Russians weren’t stopped in Ukraine, they would keep rolling into NATO countries, where Americans would have to fight and die.

      • juris imprudent

        We always could treat the Europeans like our other useful idiots (Hmong, Kurds, etc).

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Impoverish our way to ending inflation!

    Big Nanny giveth, Big Nanny taketh away.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    With that in mind, here are two CPAC takeaways. First, the people who attended CPAC are not some loony far-right fringe of the party. They’re not—as so many “wise” conservative thinkers at the outlets that once defined the conservative mainstream have opined and prayed and hoped for—a temporary populist spasm that will go away. CPAC attendees represent the base of the Republican party. They are the party. They represent GOP party activists, the most committed, involved and engaged Republican voters. There was nothing “fringe” about CPAC this past weekend. This was mainstream GOP. The stolen election lies, the vaccine paranoia, the fearmongering about a “deep state,” the obsession with Hunter Biden, the cruelty toward transgender people, the bowing down to Putin, the demand that Anthony Fauci be behind bars, the authoritarian impulse to punish private individuals and companies deemed too “woke”—this is all quite literally the agenda of the current Republican-controlled House of Representatives. If you call CPAC attendees fringe, then you must call the House Republican Conference fringe.

    It’s like when people still try to tell me that Marjorie Taylor Greene is GOP fringe. She’s not GOP fringe. She represents GOP base voters. She represents all the activists gathered at CPAC this past weekend. And she is arguably the most powerful Republican in Washington. Kevin McCarthy is speaker because of her, and Tucker Carlson received all that January 6th surveillance footage because of her. A “fringe” character would not have anything like that kind of power within the party.

    It’s a MADHOUSE!

    • juris imprudent

      Obviously, such real conservatives as take the Bulwark seriously have only one option – become Democrats.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Weird plume of dust just wafted into my office.

    • AlexinCT

      Damn…

    • juris imprudent

      The best part was the throwing off the hat.

    • Tundra

      Beautiful.

      And accurate.

    • ron73440

      Reminds me of one time I came back from a deployment and my 3 year old son grabbed the hand of a different Marine. (we all had the same clothes, build, and haircut, so it was an easy mistake to make)

      He realized it and looked back to where I was and ran as fast as he could.

  48. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    And good morning to the rest of you extremists.

    Judging by the reaction to the videos, the world remains unchanged. Those who knew still know and those who wet their pants got to do it again.

    Win?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Yep, wasn’t going to move any pieces on the board.

    • ron73440

      the world remains unchanged. Those who knew still know and those who wet their pants got to do it again.

      I remember when I believed that surely this(insert whichever irrefutable proof of government malfeasance you want) would change opinions.

      I no longer have such optimism.

      • juris imprudent

        Faith is a powerful force, and not always for good.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    Obviously, such real conservatives as take the Bulwark seriously have only one option – become Democrats.

    But how would that help them in elevating Mitt Romney to his rightful place as the leader of the free world?

    • juris imprudent

      Isn’t Mittens a little bit of a softy for their war-boners?

      • R C Dean

        Oh, his warboner can be bluepilled, if that’s it takes to get him support. Mittens is one of those people who have principles. And if you don’t like them, he has others.

      • Count Potato

        I don’t do YouTube on this machine.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Lol, realitys last stand.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Ah I see, she was writing on someone else’s substack.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/06/never-trumpers-rally-dc-00085758&quot;. Wise men (and women) in exile

    Donald Trump used his primetime stage at the CPAC conference this Saturday to taunt the Bush Republicans, globalists and neocons.

    A dozen miles away, at a lower-profile gathering in downtown D.C. the remnants of that bygone GOP era gathered in a hotel ballroom, attempting once more to plot their way out of the obscurity into which the former president relegated them.

    ——-

    The two-day confab at the luxury Conrad Hotel, billed as the Principles First Summit, was implicitly constructed as a counterweight to the MAGA-fied Conservative Political Action Conference. But the programming also served to underscore the often-bleak, occasionally hopeless, existence that comes with being a modern day anti-Trump Republican.

    The former Bush speechwriter turned columnist David Frum compared their effort to reform the party to blazing a landing strip in the middle of the jungle and simply waiting for planes to land. Former congressional candidate Clint Smith, who switched his party affiliation from Republican to Independent to challenge Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), described his state’s GOP as a forest of trees killed by an invasive species of beetle that crawls under bark to poison from the inside. Panels for the event included “Looking to 2024: Hope and Despair — but Mostly Despair” and “Can the GOP survive?”

    If it all felt a bit dark at times, it was a reflection of the mood of some headliners.

    “Trump is a cancer that’s now metastasized,” said former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), shortly after wrapping the latter panel. “So it’s going to kill the party more.”

    Waiting just outside the campfires’ glow for their chance to regain command of the troops and seize the reins of the out-of-control party. Any day, now, the call will come.

    • R.J.

      I believe the cancer comparison is backwards. The cancer of the neocons is about to be excised, hopefully for at least a generation.

  51. Count Potato

    “The SPLC will continue to urge de-escalation of violence and police use of force against Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities — working in partnership to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people. #STOPCopCity”

    https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/1632886790205095938

    LOL

  52. The Late P Brooks

    The summit itself is just three years old. A decade ago, many of the speakers at this year’s gathering were some of the party’s rising stars and top thinkers. Adam Kinzinger. Bill Kristol. John Kasich. But those who held office have hit political dead ends (Comstock notably lost by 12 points in a 2018 Trump-charged suburban revolt) and the anti-Trump talking heads found their usual confines less inviting. Of the few current elected officials who spoke at the Principles First Summit, two of them were Democrats: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

    ——-

    “It turns out that once you let the toothpaste out of the tube, so to speak, demagoguery and bigotry and all that, some people like it. It’s hard to get it back.” Kristol said. “You can’t just give them a lecture.”

    “We need to defeat the Trump Republicans. And if that means being with the Democrats for a while, that’s fine,” he added, suggesting a presidential ticket of Democrats Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. “That’s fine with me.”

    A political juggernaut, sweeping all before it aside.

    *outright prolonged laughter*

    • juris imprudent

      rising stars and top thinkers. Adam Kinzinger. Bill Kristol. John Kasich.

      One-hit-wonder, never-was and has-been. That is seriously funny in a complete own-goal way.

  53. Count Potato

    “Buried lede in this piece 👀👀

    Today, eight out of ten Americans between ages 17 and 24 are ineligible for military service, mostly due to obesity, medical issues, and criminal records.”

    https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1632894679615172608

    Sad!

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      very fine line

      A fine line from one side, an unfortunate bulge from the other.

    • Lackadaisical

      You didn’t see the toddlers stuffing money into her panties?

      This is from the same people who equate mean tweets with killing people in the middle east.