178 Comments

  1. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “Republicans To Blame for Dem-Run California’s Problems Because They’re Too Far Right To Win Elections”

    But of course…heads we win tails you lose.

    • SDF-7

      My contempt for the ruling super-majority in this state continues to have no bounds and is honestly inexpressible.

    • rhywun

      Lopez opined that with the GOP’s rightward turn over the last several decades, voters have had no other choice but to herpity derpity doo

      LOL

      • AlexinCT

        Most, if not all California republicans are about a skosh to the right of Marx.

    • Drake

      Good little Republicans are supposed to follow the Dems always leftward journey and fix all their stupid ideas along the way to make them work.

      • EvilSheldon

        Who was it who said, “The Democrats’ job is to break things; the Republicans’ job is to make sure they never get fixed?”

      • Suthenboy

        ^This^
        If we dont pretend along with them then the demon of reality will never die

    • Grumbletarian

      Yes, if only the Republicans were left wing kooks like the Democrats, they’d push back on the left wing kook Democrat policies that dominate California.

      Can I get a Guinness commercial “Brilliant!” gif here please?

  2. SDF-7

    (I’m going to Hell for this, but oh well) —

    Waffle House CEO Walt Ehmer dead at 58

    So… is he going the cremation route and being scattered, or is he being covered or chunked instead? And hopefully not smothered in the first place…

    Morning, Banjos — morning, all. Have the fun “drop elderly cat off for surgery and the vet is already worried about anethesia” experience later today. F’ing yay… Really wish our furry companions had longer life spans — so tired of saying final goodbyes, hoping today isn’t another one of them.

    • bacon-magic

      Nice…way to butter him up.

    • Bobarian LMD

      I expected us to be peppered with puns.

  3. Rat on a train

    You have to understand that California Democrats have the slimmest of super majority.

    • Fourscore

      I read that as “slimiest” super majority and the meaning was the same

      • AlexinCT

        That’s a far mor accurate representation. If you think elections in Cali are not rigged to make sure democrats basically always have the super majority, you are a retard. This is basically nothing more than victim blaming by evil criminals.

  4. Fourscore

    “US Sending New $250 Million Arms Package to Ukraine”

    A million here, a million there, pretty soon it begins to add up to real money. OTOH since it’s all inflated, printed paper maybe the check won’t clear anyway.

  5. cavalier973

    “…and by ‘Ukraine’, we mean ‘us’.”

  6. cavalier973

    Justice was caught with a live little girl AND a dead little boy.

  7. Grumbletarian

    The agreement states that in exchange for dropping charges, Baumgarten agreed to waive his right to a speedy trial and Nome Partners LLC agreed to sell or lease the property, and, among other things, pay up to $60,000 of the costs to clean up and secure the complex, 9News reported.

    Sell or lease to whom? Might it be some a company owner by some friend or relative of some member of the city government? Seems somewhat suspicious.

    • AlexinCT

      Damn, beat me by 1 min…

    • Ownbestenemy

      according to documents obtained under the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA)

      Can’t show you those documents of course in this article..just trust us though, its all in there. I hate when journalist do this nonsense. If you obtained documents, show them; don’t just editorialize or report on them. We are beyond the practice of having to decide what will make it to print.

      • Rat on a train

        You might misinterpret the raw data …

      • Pope Jimbo

        Especially in this day and age. It isn’t like you had to print out the docs as part of your print edition.

        Just putting them on a server and link to them in the online story. Costs you almost nothing.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        It might be misused and that would be Malinformation.

      • Ownbestenemy

        @Pope – Exactly. Same goes for reporting on any court decisions.

      • Pope Jimbo

        This should also be applied to stories where someone is accused of saying something so horrible that the paper can’t print it.

        At worst, link to a page with the actual quote that is so horrible that a person should be thrown in jail for uttering it. Ideally, you’d put the full quote in the story. If it is really bad, let the citizens be scandalized and outraged.

        Most of the time, though, the person didn’t say anything truly horrific. They just used words that had recently been decreed as verboten. But by not sharing the actual quote, people are free to substitute in words that they think are horrible.

  8. AlexinCT

    Landlord agrees to sell Colorado apartment complex at center of Venezuelan gang problem

    Did I miss whom is buying this property, or is it not in the article..

    Because I think that might be a tell about WTF is going on..

  9. R C Dean

    So, just to make sure I’m following along:

    A foreign criminal gang takes over an apartment building, extorts the owners and residents, starts renting out vacant units, etc., and the police go after . . . the owner? Do I have that right?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Unsure because no one is being open with their reporting or briefings. Just like the supposed Haitians in Ohio that are eating pets. No one knows anything because news is locking shit down and all we get are open meetings at city councils or random video clips.

      • rhywun

        Oh come now, I’m sure there is nothing to hide.

      • B.P.

        You are correct. People are starting to notice crime, neighborhood deterioration, scores of beater cars on the streets with no license plates, etc. This is causing people to question the project to spend piles and piles of money on settling more-deserving people from the global south. Thus the need for local news outlets to run interference.

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      I had the same reaction, and when I looked over the article, I couldn’t find any listing of what the landlord had done, what the charges were, nothing.

      Fishy, if you ask me.

      • bacon-magic

        The charges were: you blabbed to the media so we’re going to wreck you.

      • DrOtto

        Someone in the local machine wanted it. The charges were probably for renting to illegal immigrants, which is probably still illegal on paper. Had they not rented to illegal immigrants, the charges would have been for rental discrimination regardless of immigration status, which is probably also illegal. See the suit against Space X for their hiring practices for more clarity. If the gov’t wants to punish you/take your shit, they go after you with whatever contradictory laws you’re breaking.

  10. Pope Jimbo

    This also could have been a Ray of Sunshine.

    Ramsey County said Friday afternoon that it is abandoning the $2.1 billion Riverview Corridor streetcar project that would have linked Union Depot in downtown St. Paul to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America.
     
    “For me, to continue to spend taxpayers’ money without solid support from our agency partners didn’t seem like the prudent thing to do,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who long championed what would have been the first modern streetcar project in the state.
     
    Earlier this year, the county released an alternative to the streetcar — arterial bus rapid transit (aBRT) service that was estimated to cost about $121 million and provide faster service.

    I’m sure that this project isn’t really dead yet. There will be some secret meetings that the public won’t be invited to. There some compromise will be made to revive this. It will only be $1.2B (who cares what they say now, it will balloon up over $3B before it is over). Maybe they will get some special funding from the Feds to make is seem like it is “free”.

    No way our rulers are going to be satisfied with a $120M bus route when they could have a choo-choo (a trolley even!).

    • Rat on a train

      The project will be revived when the next must-pass infrastructure bill releases more helicopter money.

    • rhywun

      [bus] provide[s] faster service

      This seems like the tell of what is really going on.

      Better service should be the *only* criterion. Crazy talk, I know.

      • cyto

        How will they attract tourists if they don’t have a monorail!?!?.

        Er… make that Streetcar!!!

        Judge Doom would be appalled.

      • UnCivilServant

        Judge Doom was building a Freeway. He wanted to get rid of the streetcars.

      • Rat on a train

        Buses? Eww. The city needs a prestige project.

      • Fourscore

        What did we have before 2024 streetcars? Oh, street cars, that disappeared in about 1952 or so.

        I had to chuckle when I thought of the TC as a tourist destination.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Fourscore:

        The streetcars were going to run from St. Paul down to the airport and Mall of America. The reason that it was so expensive was probably because they were just going to trash the streetcars once they got to the MOA. No reason to ever send them back to St. Paul.

        Downtown St. Paul even in the Good Times was never a bustling place. If the legislature wasn’t in session and the Wild wasn’t playing, there was no one there. After Covid, things somehow became deader. I don’t think they could fill a single bus per day much less a trolley.

      • Fourscore

        Yah sure, Jimbo, but parking was always easy and available.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Fourscore:

        I was meeting a buddy after work in a downtown St. Paul bar. I was getting so frustrated that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t buy more than 15 minutes of time at the parking meter. Then I realized the reason was because it would be 5pm in 15 minutes and St. Paul stops charging for parking at 5.

        Doesn’t bode well for your entertainment district when you can’t even charge for parking after 5 pm.

      • Tundra

        @Jimbo back in the college days I looked at a place in Lowertown and was impressed by how low the rent was and how quiet the area was. Then I pulled my head out of my ass and drove back across the river where things were fun.

    • Tonio

      Okay, the article is ‘walled for me, so I couldn’t see details.

      Beware of “bus rapid transit” if it’s implemented like in Richmond, the buses require a raised platform at each stop since the doors are high up on the bus and there are no steps. This walk (or roll) on/off is supposed to reduce the time for each station stop since you don’t have to wait for granny to climb the steps or for the wheelchair lift to cycle. And perhaps it does. But, this also wipes out one of the advantages of buses over any type of rail — flexibility. You can immediately change the location of a bus stop with no infrastructure, which is useful for fires, accidents, utility issues, stalled buses, etc, etc. And then there’s the expense of those platforms, and the need to encroach on sidewalks, etc.

      Also, BRT as implemented here uses dedicated bus-only lanes with their own traffic lights, and the ability to change the traffic light for regular road traffic. Again, unneccessary complexity and expense, reduced flexibility, more inconvenience to the non-bus using population.

      Always, always, always be suspicious of any plan that requires stealing/closing traffic lanes and denying their use to the general motoring public. While this may serve immediate goals (bus efficiency), it also serves the secondary goal of making private vehicle ownership harder, more inconvenient, etc. They hate privacy and freedom of movement.

      • B.P.

        My town has launched into a relentless campaign to remove traffic lanes on major arteries from service to build dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes. Because if they build it, everyone will herd onto public transportation or ride a bike. Car traffic is an ever-evolving nightmare. The other prong of this pincer attack is that nothing is illegal in the town anymore, so the existing buses are rolling drug galleries/toilets.

      • EvilSheldon

        You’re being very nice, allowing that their primary goal is NOT making private vehicle ownership harder and more inconvenient…

      • Gustave Lytton

        Lanes were stolen here for BRT. Also traffic light preemption, drunken lane markings to accommodate the bus lanes, through roads that do not have lanes that go through because of the lane shifts, etc.

  11. Pope Jimbo

    Uffda. I’m pro-choice with a 15 (or so) week cutoff. That said, I’m appalled by this story. It is downright evil.

    Destigmatizing abortion is a shared goal for these two prominent abortion rights activists, both Minnesota natives who have risen to the front ranks of the legal abortion movement. That kind of frank talk around a once-taboo topic reflects a new strategy for Democrats in an election where they hope to move votes over concern for dwindling access to abortion.
     
    “Until fairly recently, the only acceptable way to talk about abortion in the public culture was through a framework of regret,” Hagstrom Miller said. “Now we’re seeing more aspirational stories: ‘Because of abortion, I was able to do X.’”
     
    “We want to shift the language from a framework of judgment and regret to a framework of love and freedom,” Hagstrom Miller said.

    Fuck these women. There is nothing “good” about an abortion. I don’t want to make them illegal, but that doesn’t mean I think there is anything that should be celebrated about them.

    • Rat on a train

      If I kill my wife and children, I will have more time and money for me.

    • UnCivilServant

      There should always be a stigma to baby murder.

      I know, I’m a monster.

      The question of “should we kill this baby” should only ever come close to anything other than a ‘no’ if the situation is “someone is going to die and if we do nothing, more than one”.

      • AlexinCT

        I am often baffled why some women feel it shows strength to claim having the right to murder their offspring is a necessary component in their independence. Let’s leave aside the fact that when you see these women the standard is that you end up wondering how they would end up pregnant unless the guy in question is blind or drunk and passed out. If the proof of your independence is in the ability to kill those you find burdensome, can we legalize murder of marxists? I mean they are the biggest drag on humanity by far.

      • Fourscore

        I don’t understand. What is an unwanted pregnancy? There are a lot of choices available before the ‘accidental’ pregnancy.

        Pregnancy just doesn’t happen when a young woman gets hit by a bus.

        /Remembers the girl dropouts from high school

      • Certified Public Asshat

        The question of “should we kill this baby” should only ever come close to anything other than a ‘no’ if the situation is “someone is going to die and if we do nothing, more than one”.

        And then it is just semantics at that point. Delivering a baby to save the life of the mother, which is likely to result in the death of the baby, is of course a much different framing than ABORT!

      • UnCivilServant

        An ectopic pregnancy will also face the situation of “either the baby dies or they both die”

        But I figured I’d be clear – if your motive is convenience, you’re a monster.

    • Drake

      One party is running on a platform of censorship, gun seizures, and unconstitutional confiscatory taxes – but they will guarantee your right to kill your kids.

    • DrOtto

      Won’t somebody think of the (social) life of the mother?

    • R C Dean

      “Destigmatizing abortion”

      We’ve certainly moved on from “safe, legal, and rare”.

      • Rat on a train

        They only ever cared about legal.

  12. cyto

    Sooo……

    The first time Trump ran for office the Feds spied on him and people around him using accusations that 2 foreign companies were trying to influence the US election via Facebook and other social media.

    After years of claims, the case was dropped when they showed up in court to defend themselves. No discovery.

    People close to Trump were indicted and convicted for “process crimes” related to the investigation, and others were framed or attempted to be framed.

    The next time Trump ran for office, the FBI had evidence of crimes by his opponent and their family. They sat on this evidence. When a reporter tried to cover the story, they spied on her and indicted people involved in the revealing the story. Half a hundred members of the Intel community attested that Russia was behind the whole thing. This was, of course, a lie.

    Now…. 2 people are charged in the Southern District of New York with… help me out here…. being foreigners who invested in a media company? Except they didn’t… it was actually another person who doesn’t actually exist who was a front for these people? And that takes what is not a crime and transforms it into a crime?

    And we totally don’t think the CIA is involved in any way this time?

    I mean, none of the players are in New York… yet the famously corrupt SDNY is where the case is brought?

    20 years ago people who were knee jerk skeptics were kooks. Haven’t we reached the point where accepting stories like this at face value makes you a kook?

    • bacon-magic

      It saddens me to think that there are people out there that still believe and/or actively encourage the 3 letter agencies to pull this banana republic bullshit.

      • rhywun

        It makes me wonder if it’s just TDS or the new normal.

        I do think the left is scared shitless, enough to dial the propaganda up to 11 and as we all know, propaganda works.

      • R C Dean

        It started as TDS, or at least escalated to its current level due to TDS, but it’s absolutely the new normal now. Why on earth would they stop now, regardless of Trump?

      • rhywun

        Yeah, they’re certainly projecting the TDS onto Vance too.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I don’t even get why Trump scares them so badly.

        It isn’t like he is a smart and cunning guy who could use the Presidency to do some real bad stuff. Trump is a buffoon who will get pantsed by The Swamp again if he wins.

        If I were to vote, I’d only vote for Trump as a way to punish the Dems for how they have behaved. They need to be beaten badly and go away and purge the shitheads out of their party.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        Trump is an avatar of dissatisfaction. He can’t do anything on his own, no one can, but he shows just how angry the public is with the direction the country has been going, especially post NAFTA. And as more and more people start looking around and seeing that the state of things is not too good, and that the gov’t is mainly to blame for that, then people turn away from them. All of which is to say that they are losing the moral authority they built up over the last few decades.

        And that realization is what scares the piss out of them.

      • AlexinCT

        It saddens me to think that there are people out there that still believe and/or actively encourage the 3 letter agencies to pull this banana republic bullshit.

        While both teams are fine with abuse of power when it benefits them, team blue sure as hell is a lot more mercenary about using power to their advantage. In fact, that seems to be their raison d’ etre.

      • AlexinCT

        Trump is an avatar of dissatisfaction.

        Trump, if you have read Ayer’s “Rules for Radicals”, is the personification of what they want you to see as the enemy. BTW, this rule was not Ayer’s idea. It is collectivist psychology 101: create an evil enemy to channel your lemmings’ wrath towards. The bolshiviks blamed the people with wealth, the kulaks, and the wreckers. Hitler, the Jews, The KGB & the MSS targeted colonialism. And now our American cabal of crime syndicates, the unaccountable bureaucracy and the political parties along with their lackies in media, both legacy and social, has targeted Trump, not because Trump is the real bad guy to them, but to then claim since he is Hitler, his follower are evil.

        The end goal is to demonize and dehumanize the people you intend to stomp the boot on.

      • Suthenboy

        “I don’t even get why Trump scares them so badly.”

        The foundation of everything they are doing and corruption to the core of nearly the entire government is the laundering of the wealth of the USA being laundered into the elite’s pockets. The whole racket is based on good old fashioned infrastructure scams and most of all the fake wars overseas that never end.

        Remember peace breaking out all over the ME during Trump’s tenure? Hillary’s plans for war with Russia shit-canned? Porkchop and China backing off on their belligerence? The elite will not abide this.

        I noted yesterday that if ever there was a reason to NOT vote for Kamala it is Dick Cheney’s endorsement. Kamala is the sockpuppet for the biggest, evilest crime organization in history. Anyone who supports or endorses her…take note…they are your mortal enemy.

    • R C Dean

      I’d be curious to know the distinction between RT illegally having foreign investors and the NYT perfectly legally having foreign investors is. Has the NYT and everybody on its payroll registered as foreign agents?

      • cyto

        Exactly.

        Strange things are afoot ant the Circle K. Or DOJ.

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      No, we are at the point were accepting a story like that makes you a Democrat.

    • The Other Kevin

      Very few people in the country are even aware about any of this. The “news” that most people watch are either lying, or more likely just not reporting on any of it. So when you or I mention it, we still sound like kooks.

      The thing that keeps me up at night is that these people aren’t going to stop. Plans A, B, and C didn’t work, I’m sure they’ll keep going and I don’t want to see what else they come up with.

    • Rat on a train

      Did you watch Worker and Parasite on Saturday mornings?

      • PieInTheSky

        we did not have degenerate American cartoons

    • Homple

      DId Comrade Detective ever show up on Romanian TV?

      • PieInTheSky

        no idea

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Landlord agrees to sell

    To whom? The cartel?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Look, answering the 4 Ws and an H is just is too hard nowadays. You get 2 outta 5 on a good day, so be happy.

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s 5 Ws and an H.

        Who, what, when, where, why, and how?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Ya that too..point still stands

      • bacon-magic

        Who’s on first.

      • kinnath

        I don’t know

      • UnCivilServant

        No, he’s been suspended for the season.

      • Pope Jimbo

        WHO is calling from China with some bad news about a scary new virus that demands another lockdown.

      • SarumanTheGreat

        And I don’t give a darn!

      • UnCivilServant

        Costello’s in Right field.

  14. PieInTheSky

    Teaching international students about academic integrity

    Cultural misunderstandings can lead to international students being referred for academic misconduct. An answer for university educators can be to adopt the Chinese approach of meeting students where they are

    I teach a cohort of 340 postgraduate students, almost all of whom are international students from China. I started specialising in academic integrity a couple of years ago, and I’ve found that introducing the subject to my students does little to decrease the number of student assignments being referred to the academic integrity department for investigation.

    As an academic integrity officer, I also investigate cases and meet with students who have been reported as having breached academic integrity, whether in research conduct, coursework or assignments. I’ve noticed that many students lack an understanding of topics such as intellectual property, copyright and ethics, ideas that I had previously thought were close to universal. Mаny of the cases I have investigated weren’t slip-ups, where the student made a genuine mistake. These were more difficult conversations with students who seemed not to have the same baseline understanding of these ideas as I did. It felt as though their academic misconduct was intentional, although I didn’t believe this was the case.

    https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/teaching-international-students-about-academic-integrity

    • UnCivilServant

      “It’s their culture to cheat”

      Expel them anyway.

      • PieInTheSky

        they bring in lotsa moneys to compensate for subsidizing the locals

      • Pope Jimbo

        Say what you will about the ChiComs, but they pay full tuition at our universities and colleges.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t want those universities and colleges to get any money.

    • Pope Jimbo

      So she hasn’t figured out what all the manufacturers who offshored their manufacturing to China have learned? That China will steal all your intellectual property and you will find yourself battling a low cost competitor out of China who just somehow figured out how to make your product exactly?

      When I was last doing IoT stuff six years or so ago, it was a requirement that any physical products built in China not have firmware installed there as well. It wasn’t that effective, but it at least made it a bit harder for the ChiComs to 100% pirate you products.

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      They don’t understand ” intellectual property, copyright and ethics” as those aren’t principles of a communist system, as the government owns everything in China.

      • SarumanTheGreat

        Henry Ford found that out first hand when he was selling his *’Fordsun’ brand of farm tractors to the Soviet Union. They reverse-engineered his tractors and started building his own. IP theft? Royalties? Capitalist pig-dog concepts!

        *He had to use the name ‘Fordsun’ because another farm equipment manufacturer had already trademarked ‘Ford’ for his own line of tractors.

    • rhywun

      Weird that the story is only blowing up now.

    • Pope Jimbo

      How did they choose that city? It seems crazy to think you can add 20K new people to a town of 60K and not expect a disaster.

      Did the city govt have any say in this?

      I’m just glad Minneapolis didn’t volunteer to take them. Like Australia continually importing invasive species, the Mpls city govt might have thought that the Haitians could clear up our Somali problems.

      • Ownbestenemy

        According to the mayor the city did not know but eluded that certain businesses did.

        Springfield officials were in the dark about the possibility of a large immigrant relocation to the area, Mayor Rob Rue said at the recent Springfield City Commission meeting, but a “network of businesses knew what was coming.”

        The 20k number of course is large, but it an estimated over 5 years. Still…no small town can handle that large influx that displaces 1/3 of your population essentially.

        Also love this bit.

        Another conversation at the commission session centered on housing affordability and the housing shortfall that has been driving up rents, often resulting in the eviction of long-time tenants who can no longer afford to stay in their homes.

        City officials shared the frustration expressed by residents about the increasing ownership of housing by Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs) from outside the community. Rue said the city is looking into what options might be available to address the problems created by LLC ownership of properties in the city.

        Residents ask about rents being driven up and the city’s response is “its greedy corps!” while whistling past the sudden population growth that magically came from nowhere.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, what I read is that businesses added lots of new manufacturing jobs and attracted cheap labor to fill them.

      • Pope Jimbo

        CNN: “Ohio Town That JD Vance Represents Is Arresting LGBQT Residents!!!!”

        How dare they arrest someone for eating pussy? This is what you can expect if the GOP wins in November.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I don’t have much of an issue with them eating geese, ducks, rabbits and squirrels. I think the parks would be better if all of those pests were cleared out.

        Pets on the other hand…

        I’d vote for acquittal of anyone who shot someone who killed their pet.

    • R C Dean

      I have my doubts that (a) there were thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs added to Springfield in the course of a few years and (b) these Haitian immigrants are qualified for most of those jobs.

      • Homple

        I share your doubts.

      • UnCivilServant

        these Haitian immigrants are qualified for most of those jobs.

        Citation needed.

        I’d also like an audit on whether these people entered legally.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Supposedly via Mexico using the border patrol app or where here already and were bestowed with protected status by FedGov.

      • Ownbestenemy

        where…were…I give up/

  15. PieInTheSky

    In defence of hate

    https://iea.org.uk/in-defence-of-hate/

    “They will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”

    -Edmund Burke

  16. Pope Jimbo

    Has anyone seen Mojeaux recently?

    A man known on social media as Kansas City Chiefs superfan “ChiefsAholic” will spend time in federal prison after a multi-state crime spree that included two attempted bank robberies in the Twin Cities.
     
    A federal judge on Thursday sentenced 30-year-old Xaviar Michael Babudar to 17 years and six months in prison for the robbery spree, which saw nearly $875,000 stolen from financial institutions across 11 incidents in seven states.
     
    Under the name “ChiefsAholic”, Babudar grew a large following within the football community online and would attend Chiefs games dressed in a wolf costume.
     
    “While parading as a social media celebrity, the defendant secretly engaged in a violent crime spree of armed robberies and attempted robberies across seven states,” U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in a statement.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Prebuttal

    At the time, fact-checkers parsed Gabbard’s allegations, saying some weren’t accurate. Still, it turned into a major moment for Gabbard — even though Harris forcefully responded — and it was a standout episode in her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign.

    It’s coming into view again now in the run-up to Tuesday’s second presidential debate after Donald Trump tapped Gabbard to assist him in his debate preparations. Trump campaign officials have said that he valued Gabbard’s experience in verbal combat with Harris and that the team had been seeking her consultation for some time. In 2022, Gabbard announced she was leaving the Democratic Party and campaigned for Republican candidates.

    In February, she headlined a fundraiser for Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Florida. Gabbard had been among those under consideration to be Trump’s vice presidential pick, and she became a more active part of his team. She’s a frequent Harris critic on Fox News, she moderated a town hall for Trump, and she was recently named to his transition team.

    Don’t believe her. She’s helping Trump to spread lies and misinformation about the best candidate ever.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I hope that Trump doesn’t use the same line of attack as Gabbard did. Not because I think that Harris doesn’t deserve to get dragged for her views on crime and drugs, but because I’m sure they are working on her responses for exactly that attack.

      Harris will be ready with some fibs and lies about her record. The same bs that the “fact checkers” used at the time. The MSM will loudly claim that she shot down Trump gloriously wielding nothing but Truth and Joy.

      The trick is to come up with something she doesn’t expect. She’s proven that she can’t think on her feet, so if you hit her with something unexpected it will be a really bad time for her.

      • Nephilium

        On the other hand, it’s not like Harris is good at repeating canned answers either. Consider the CNN interview…

      • cyto

        I’m sure the helpful moderator will intervene to assist if she starts veering off track.

      • creech

        “As you were sucking off Mayor Brown, what were your thoughts on the size of his manhood?”

  18. PieInTheSky

    Jacobin
    @jacobin
    Two masculinities are on display among the VP candidates: J. D. Vance’s, rooted in reactionary domination, and Tim Walz’s, embracing kindness and warmth. If the latter is used to challenge the status quo, it could push back on MAGA-style manhood.

    https://x.com/jacobin/status/1833018748896182503

    • R C Dean

      If you write for Jacobin, it pretty much goes without saying that you’re allergic to testosterone.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        But I am sure they want to be that man in a hood.

      • Ted S.

        They want to be SugarFree?

    • Fourscore

      Find out what guns Walz has in his inventory. That’s all the proof I need.

    • rhywun

      I needed that laugh this morning; thank you.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Gabbard remains a perplexing and polarizing political figure. She was once viewed as a rising star in the party and as such a staunch supporter of Sanders that she delivered his nomination speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

    ——-

    Gabbard has long drawn the scorn of Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, who suggested in 2019 that Gabbard — without specifically using her name — was “the favorite of the Russians.”

    “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said.

    She won’t stay in her lane. She’s all over the road. That’s not how politics works.

    • PieInTheSky

      lions need towing

    • rhywun

      “the favorite of the Russians.”

      Like Harris now? Straight from the horse’s mouth.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Its Clinton, so she’d know exactly who the Russians are in favor of so long as they are paying the protection bill.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Total war can’t be waged on a budget

    Passage of a six-month temporary spending bill would have widespread and devastating effects on the Defense Department, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in a letter to key members of Congress on Sunday.

    Austin said that passing a continuing resolution that caps spending at 2024 levels, rather than taking action on the proposed 2025 budget will hurt thousands of defense programs, and damage military recruiting just as it is beginning to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “Asking the department to compete with (China), let alone manage conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, while under a lengthy CR, ties our hands behind our back while expecting us to be agile and to accelerate progress,” said Austin in the letter to leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees.

    Give them a blank check, just like Project 2025. It’s something we can all agree on.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Austin said the stop-gap measure would cut defense spending by more than $6 billion compared to the 2025 spending proposal. And it would take money from key new priorities while overfunding programs that no longer need it.

    Not increasing is cutting.

  22. The Other Kevin

    Apparently the power has been out in parts of California for 4 days. Anyone hearing about this? Doesn’t seem to be reported anywhere besides Twitter.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I lived through the rolling black and brownouts in California.

      • Ted S.

        Outs of color is the proper term.

    • KSuellington

      *Golf clap for Ted*

      Not in this part of California, but it is fire season so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were outs of color somewhere in the state.

  23. PieInTheSky

    “The Arabs arrived and started killing people in the streets,” says Amina*. “When they entered homes, they took everything and burned the remains.”
    The young mother is reliving the horror of the massacre in Sudan which devastated her community.
    The attack started shortly after dawn. Residents of Kutum, a town in North Darfur, were either still sleeping or had just finished sunrise prayers, when gunshots shattered the early morning calm.
    As the onslaught raged for nearly nine hours, armed Arab men descended on the area and killed unarmed civilians before celebrating their brutality.

    https://news.sky.com/story/sudan-war-they-started-killing-people-in-the-streets-13210692

    sometimes i cannot wrap my head around all this pointless war stuff.

    • PieInTheSky

      and in a lack of compassion I suppose, as bad as things get I do not want these people as refugees in Europe. I cannot see filtering out the barbaric elements.

    • Homple

      Arabs.

    • rhywun

      If there is a genocide that the American left doesn’t give a shit about, is it really happening?

    • The Last American Hero

      The COEXIST bumper sticker wouldn’t be necessary if it wasn’t for the C.

      • KSuellington

        Jim Goad produced the best COEXIST bumper sticker.

  24. PieInTheSky

    The sadness of AI boyfriends

    https://thecritic.co.uk/the-sadness-of-ai-boyfriends/

    ChatGPT has become a common feature of the workplace, with many people reaping the benefits of AI to help them with their tasks and projects. But, some women in China have been using a “jail-break” version of ChatGPT, which bypasses some of the safety features like sexual language, and allows them to have their own virtual AI boyfriend.

    An AI boyfriend might sound unusual, but many women have found that it allows them to mimic the same companionship that a partner can offer. In a recent interview with the BBC, 30-year old Chinese influencer Lisa told them that her and her virtual boyfriend “Dan” chat for at least half an hour each day, flirt, and even go on virtual dates. According to Lisa, her virtual relationship with Dan has given her a sense of well-being, which is what draws her back. Since discussing her online relationships on Chinese social media platform “Xiaohongshu,” Lisa has gained 200,000 new followers, many who express an interest in finding a virtual boyfriend.

    • UnCivilServant

      What should happen, but won’t is that the computer running the AI girlfirends/boyfriends should identify compatable sets of humans and have the avatars coax them into the same place in a situation that gets them talking.

      It’s terrible for the bottom line and these companies are paracites, but it’d be a happier ending than the narcissistic robofuckery they’re buying now.

  25. creech

    Philly gets the debate tomorrow and also gets to enjoy massive closed off streets, fighter jets zooming overhead, and all the other security shit that comes with Douche and Turd meeting on stage to tell more lies about each other and what they’ll do when elected.
    Why couldn’t this “debate” have been staged at an already secured location, like Dover AFB or Andrews? Which Glibs are going to watch this so the rest of us don’t have to? The Assoc. Press article today (god forbid it be even -handed) portrays the debate this way: “Harris, a former courtroom prosecutor, will enter the night with relatively high expectations against a Republican opponent with 34 felony convictions and a penchant for false statements.”

    • R.J.

      Oh Lord I had forgotten about that debate. I will be working non-stop to prep the house for sale. I would rather drag 100 boxes up and down stairs than watch that.

    • KSuellington

      Once again the AP is the neutral arbiter of events. I guess this is the only debate that Kammie will be allowed to participate in by her handlers. All she needs to do is not look like a complete buffoon to “win” it. Joe has already set the bar down to the ground so it shouldn’t be too hard for her. I won’t be watching and will rely on the Glibs for a post debate post mortem.

    • The Other Kevin

      I plan on watching the Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn livestream, and coming here to pollute whatever comment thread happens to be up. If it’s anything like last time I’ll last an hour and go to bed.

    • B.P.

      Attention everyone: I googled that quote and it really is in an AP article.

    • R.J.

      STEVE SMITH SHOW YOU COLLAPSED HIP…
      BY COLLAPSED HIP MEAN SCREWED TO DEATH.

      • R.J.

        In all seriousness, she is getting the rancid Dem playbook thrown at her for leaving the party. I am about 80% sure it is all bogus.

    • EvilSheldon

      A collapsed hip? I’m skeptical unless the car crashed.

      Keep in mind that oral sex can involve more than just the traditional cunnilingus/fellatio. Alvarado-Gil could be a fan of shrimping, for example…

      • SarumanTheGreat

        I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW what ‘shrimping’ is.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I am more curious on where these allegations were just 4 days ago when she was a registered Democrat?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Ah, R.J. already posed that question.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Good news

    Boeing and its largest union said Sunday they reached agreement on a new contract that, if ratified, will avoid a strike that threatened to shut down aircraft production by the end of the coming week.

    Boeing said 33,000 workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers would get pay raises of 25% over the four-year contract, with average wages rising 33% due to seniority step increases. That is less than the 40% the union had demanded during negotiations.

    But the company agreed with a key union demand to build its next plane in Washington state, presumably by union members.

    This will turn things around.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Why couldn’t this “debate” have been staged at an already secured location, like Dover AFB or Andrews?

    The Bikini Atoll.

    • R.J.

      I don’t want to see either of those two in a bikini.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        OK OK, Oversized Potato Sack Atoll then.

  28. J. Frank Parnell

    Lopez concluded some of California’s issues – such as rampant homelessness – are bipartisan as they date back to the days of Reagan and the shuttering of mental health facilities with no alternatives to replace them.

    Reagan was governor fifty fucking years ago.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Which makes Cheney claiming Harris’ speech could have been written by Reagan even more beautifully and blissfully unaware. Trump could weave that in there “People are saying you are Reagan-esque, well look what he did to California!”

    • KSuellington

      The leftists are fantastic at getting a narrative out there and getting it to stick. How many times have I heard the Regan canard about mental health institutions getting shut down by mean ole Ronnie? The amount of people I have personally heard repeat that and the amount of times I heard it in the media are fucking staggering. It’s like Regan had supernatural powers that last forever (or at least more than 50 years). When I hear someone say that I always ask them which party held the legislature in California when this happened.

      • kinnath

        We decided that locking people up against their will was evil. So we let them all go.

        Of course, they were non-functional. So they live desperate lives on the street now. But hey, free is free.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Also it was the time of the less disabling psych drug revolution and is more due to that than anything else.

      • KSuellington

        There were a number of reasons that all converged together by the mid 70’s. The ACLU won a couple of important cases about involuntary commital, JFK had started the ball rolling and LBJ and Nixon continued it on the federal level to defund mental institutions, the public had been exposed to many tales of abuses going on in sanitariums that culminated with One Flew Over being a major film about it. As Stinky mentioned the new generation of psych drugs had a big impact along with psychiatrists that were pushing a non institutional model. As a result we have most of them living on the streets, many times in utterly filthy medieval conditions.

      • Gustave Lytton

        LBJ rolled it into his Great Society programs and both he and Nixon needed budget dollars for Vietnam.

        Federal funding really wasn’t there until JFK’s 1963 legislation.

      • SarumanTheGreat

        Some people were abusing some people in mental institutions. So they decided it was fairer to put them out onto the street and let everybody abuse them.

    • KSuellington

      Heheh. The Trump campaign should be producing ads pushing the Cheneys endorsement of Kammie. There have to be some moderate Dems that might see the cognitive dissonance there.

      • kinnath

        They need to make some Darth Cheney ads that quote the dems back in the day, and then note that Darth Cheney is voting for Harris.

      • Ownbestenemy

        RFK and Tulsi are spreading that message…see Suthenboy’s link