No sports today. Sorry, but there was nothing interesting yesterday for me to report on. I guess I need to start making time to watch hockey highlights during the week. Moving on.
OK, define “harm.” This is a terrible change to an already terrible law. But Australians gave up on personal responsibility ages ago, so it should come as no surprise.
Well this story seems to pop up every couple of weeks. Are they ever gonna go bankrupt? Or will somebody bail them out to continue the in-air and terminal lulz from their passengers?
A bunch of people belong in prison over this. And none of them are the guy on trial.
Please, please, please let this happen. I predict a lot of no-shows and “I do not recall” statements directed at him in the next year. Let’s hope the new DOJ leadership has the same zeal for prosecuting contempt of congress that the current one has shown.
Congratulations. You played yourself. What a dumbass. He didn’t even give himself the Chinese diplomat treatment.
Congratulations. You played yourself (part 2). What a couple of dumbasses. You took their money when you sold out.
This will be hilarious. I only hope it gets reported on by everybody, so the American people can see how retarded and wasteful the government actually is the next time a shutdown gets threatened.
They’re not sending their best. Holy crap, those are staggering numbers.
OK, tough guy. OK. I guess he wants to keep his ten minutes going a little longer.
Goddamn hippies. Bring in the dozers.
Her’s a band that doesn’t get enough love. Let me correct that, at least temporarily. Here’s a second gem of theirs. Enjoy them both.
And enjoy this lovely Thursday, dear friends.
Given the quality of the sports links typically and that the links are at least 5 minutes early today (when I noticed, anyway) — I suspect folks ’round these parts will let you skate by, Sloopy.
Morning! Morning to the rest of ya reprobates as well!
So usually shitty sports links but early posting gets me a pass?
::makes mental note::
Hey! I was trying to compliment you on the sports links… they’re certainly about the best sports links seen around here, aren’t they? 😉
The sports links are merely there to start a conversation. Namely a conversation on what I left out of the sports links, but a conversation nonetheless. 🤣
I <3 early links.
I’m sure we can all come up with various ways this muzzles political speech because the opponents can claim “bullying” and “increased risk of suicide”.
Between this and Europe, I really do feel that the social media companies (other than CCCP TikTok of course) should move all infrastructure and operations back to the States and tell the rest of the world they will not be judged by other countries’ laws. If that means Great Firewall of Europe, so be it — otherwise you’re risking perpetual seizing of assets if you don’t bend the knee properly. Let them do their own Minitel again if they must.
But not surprisingly around here — I’m a bit of a free speech absolutist. And within the States, I do really feel the “We’re not responsible for our users’ content” is the best model because otherwise, the micro-managing moderation gets out of hand. Rant off.
It seems like we are headed for a showdown with our “allies” over this. I doubt Trump will watch them try to destroy Elon without jumping into the fight.
Agreed — and one of the big reasons I really didn’t want Kamala to win (and honestly am pleasantly surprised the House and Senate are there too). If the current Administration people were there another 4 years, I 100% expected government crackdowns “on behalf of our partners” and Elon to have his companies seized and go to prison based on some EU ruling or something.
I expect and hope OMB will flip them the great American bird if they try that crap now. And I’d like to see some of this codified into law (somehow?) so it can’t be flipped on a dime. Not a lawyer, so don’t pretend to know exactly what that would look like.
Kamala would have helped them destroy Musk. He’d be launching rockets from Dubai or Russia in 5 years if she had won.
Guyana and probably within 2 years.
Wasn’t there talk of cutting off NATO/SEATO funding if these countries tried to abuse US citizens over what is legal in the States?
I can see that happening.
Trump put out a short video last week about freedom of speech. It sounded like it was written by Mike Benz. He listed all the NGO workarounds and said they were going after everything.
The progs are too stupid to realize he is doing them a huge favor. The other option is the Republicans pass a censorship package and Trump hand picks the gatekeepers.
I think all it will take is for Elon to call their bluff and shut off service to Australia. I’m guessing the natives would riot if they lost access. Same with the EU. Shut if off. Maybe with a page saying, “Your leaders did this” with some email addresses and phone numbers.
Or air-drop in StarLinks that the government can’t monitor.
I would enjoy the show if Elon does as you both suggest.
I heard their Caribbean flights are doing a bang up job at least.
Hispaniola is gunning for them to expand routes into the western side of the island.
If they do go bankrupt – I expect Frontier will rifle through their accounts for loose assets.
Whoever buys them, it is going to be a shotgun wedding financially.
That’s the problem with not hitting your earnings target.
They’re using a double barreled approach, got the radar on, looking for a signal.
I think it’s unfair to take aim at them for an incident that wasn’t really their fault.
So Doc, you’re saying flying into Haiti is playing Russian Roulette?
Sad to see this happen, at one point they were number one with a bullet.
That report was full of holes.
That airline is a ghost of its former self, I tell ya. The profits are a shade low. Any hint of profits are just an apparition.
It is probably wrong that I look back with nostalgia on early ’90s Law & Order which showed the Manhattan DAs scrambling desperately to defuse racial tensions whenever possible. Now we get race-baiting DAs and slandering BLM “protests” right outside the courthouse. Yay for tribalism and identity politics to foster it! Progress! (ugh)
I’ll take it — part of me wanted to see Trump appoint Rand to head NIH or something just so he could tear it apart, but it would be too much of a power loss for him from his seniority in the Senate.
And yes — we’d better have a DOJ that actually acts on something. So, so tired of Rand finding multiple lies and misappropriations and nothing ever coming of it. Of course (step back from the keyboard, JI! I know!), the answer within Congress’s power when the DOJ is reticent is defunding… and instead we got… well, the perpetual raises through non-budget action we’ve been getting.
That’s a side topic — but there’s an idea to show you can actually govern, GOP — how about a budget this year (preferably balanced, but I’d take it if you do Rand’s 3% or whatever it was plan and document that you’ll get there in a reasonable timeline too)? You know… show you can do the jobs we the electorate think you’re there for instead of what the lobbyists, backroom-boffing staff and swamp gators think you’re there for? (Not holding my breath).
Kill the omnibus!
Nobody needs 23 kinds of omnibu!
Omnibou!!!.
You mean actually govern? What do you expect from them? They work in government!
Yeah, you make a move to actually govern and it could make constituents so mad they boot your ass from office.
(Not holding my breath)
Not after that rant you aren’t.
Dude… as long as I’ve lurked and ranted around here — if you seriously think that was a rant, I need to step up my game!
OK, OK, so I am underestimating your lung capacity…
we the electorate
[rest of the electorate looks at SDF-7 and says in unison “what do you mean we”]
I’m allowed my moments of purest optimism and misplaced faith in humanity, dammit! 😉
You still live in CA, you have a very misplaced faith in humanity.
We’re in as tight a bubble here as any of the proggy spheres.
I should have included this link:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/chris-cuomo-vote-trump-harris-andrew-election-b2646887.html
What a douche.
I suppose it is difficult to formally get the “Let’s Kill Granny!” Party going. Write-ins are their best shot for a while.
Despite that, Andrew Cuomo would have been better than low-bar Kamala.
Walz at the top of the ticket couldn’t have done any better.
I can’t blame him for fraternal love.
But that in no way means he’s not a douche.
Douche, yes. But not for that.
Yeah, that’s pretty impressively stupid given we know they can make things look nice when their boss comes to town to check on his honey pots.
Plus side — it looks increasingly like the nation is aware of what a jerk and vindictive dumbass he really is. Hopefully that sinks him to “no better than Kamala” levels if he tries in 2028.
Minus side — he’s terming out (2026 I think)… and I’m seeing “Kamala as governor is polling well!” Got to get out of here…. (Not just for that… CARB decided to bump the gas tax for “climate!” another 65 cents or so a gallon kicking in next year… another deep kick in the nuts from the Elites in Sacramento… yay!)
CARB is also about to result in about half the RVs being sold today not being allowed on lots in the state. I almost added that to the links but ended up not doing so. Here it is:
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/why-california-ban-motorhome-sales-2025-19911123.php
We aren’t banning them. We’re just making them really expensive.
That popped up on Autopian too. You are correct, it will be impossible to sell an RV.
The poors only buy used and the CA rich can afford the surcharges. Makes perfect sense.
Isn’t their diesel truck bullshit about to kill the ports while their at it too?
What really gets my goat about CARB is that they’re unelected yet setting massive-in-scope regulations and all… which I’d rant about, except if you actually put this through Sacramento, you know damned well they’d pass all of it 100%.
Madness (and not the fun British version).
This will fix the CA housing shortage for SURE!
unelected yet setting massive-in-scope regulations
[California Coastal Commission chuckles softly]
What really gets my goat about CARB is that they’re unelected yet setting massive-in-scope regulations and all… which I’d rant about, except if you actually put this through Sacramento, you know damned well they’d pass all of it 100%.
What’s worse is some states have delegated authority to CARB.
Rat on a Train:
They mention that in the article, but insinuate each state passed their own version:
Virginia’s “clean cars” standards are now in effect. Here’s what that means.
You either follow the federal standard or California’s. You either delegate authority to CARB or you revert to federal standards.
That exception for California was because California was known to have a unique smog problem.
Revoke the exception, the Commifornians can choke on their smog.
“California regulations align with several other states, including Oregon, Washington, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. ”
So, the usual totalitarian minded usual suspects. Color me shocked.
And the other states that follow CARB standards…
You do know that most of the RV’s in CA are just above junker status rolling on stolen plates, right? I mean, were else can people live now?
Don’t forget they want to ban diesel locomotives. With no trucks and no trains how do they expect the ports to function? Oh yeah, they don’t.
Don’t forget they want to ban diesel locomotives. With no trucks and no trains how do they expect the ports to function? Oh yeah, they don’t.
Baja California is ~100 miles south of Long Beach, and you can drive directly in to Arizona. Just sayin’.
I know, billions in infrastructure required, but really it seems like an opportunity.
How in the hell is the Commerce Clause used to justify every government expansion under the sun but when California erects a regulatory scheme that makes it incredibly expensive to ship to the West Coast it isn’t brought into play?
Hippies should be free to set up their cesspit communities in California.
Meh… skimming the article, I think the county (? think it was a county thing) has been more than fair. They read like they tried what my first reaction was — okay, the hippies don’t know how to do proper sanitation, tell them what they need to do and let them stay.
And they’ve tried… repeatedly it sounds like, and the hippies have no interest in doing so. As someone who isn’t terribly fond of the idea of sewage flowing into a river or creek near me, I would tend to agree that they’ve got to either do something (completely contain it so it doesn’t leave the property to satisfy those of y’all in the “If it doesn’t harm anyone else!” camp) or leave already. And it sounds really close to getting to the dozer part because they just won’t do anything.
Of course, I’m basing that on a cursory read of an article in a media we frequently acknowledge is inaccurate, wrong or inaccurate and wrong — so their side may be very different. But ranting on the Internet is kind of what I’m here for and all…. so here we are. Since I lack power, influence or anything else… still I shall persist.
But not to shit in the river.
Are their park rangers going to issue citations to the deer that indiscriminately shit all over the place?
Is this hippie camp adding levels of bacteria above what the downstream water treatment facilities can deal with?
Not upstream anyway
For some reason I am deeply suspicious of government officials using “Health” as an excuse to shut down people/organizations.
Aren’t there modern, major European cities that discharge untreated sewage into the local river?
Basic sanitation was the core function of the original public health world. It’s only when we take that for granted that they moved off to conquer new “problems”.
The article says some of the violations are 30 years old, surely there would be ample evidence of actual harm being done, oddly the article neglects to mention any.
I say let them shit away. Californians wanted this culture, let them experience it.
I see there is a heart on the side of the outhouse. I mean, yeah, shit is love, love is shit.
Obligatory.
Daily Ray of Sunshine
Nice. So “science” isn’t settled?
Amazing. Thanks, Holiness!
London and California reply — “Save money! Just let them do what they want!”
Calling back to the proposed DOGE leaderboard — I’d really like to see a total and breakdown on just how much is going to the NGOs and “asylum seekers”. If it isn’t in the hundreds of billions at this point, I’ll be very surprised. We can’t do anything about interest until we get the deficit reversed, SS and Medicaid are third-rails (though as I’ve said before, I still think it will be kaput for GenX-ers), and Defense might have some cuts but really needs to spend more wisely… but there has to be a good chunk of the overspend there. All the extra crap since 2019, I suspect — slush funds for states, NGOs, etc. We’ll see.
Seriously – it has to be hard to spend a trillion dollars.
Not really. A billion here, a billion there, skim a couple million off…
Montgomery Brewster would like a word with you.
A billion here, a billion there humdreds of times over, and the millions aren’t even rounding error.
Sure… call millions round errors and next thing we know, Pie will be asking us to send him the FedGov version of couch change again… 😉
“rounding” dangnabbit… typing faster than my brain is paying attention again.
I’ve said it before and will say it again. If you are morbidly obese and in terrible health, eliminating one of the 3 candy bars you eat every afternoon won’t turn you into the picture of health. That will take a major lifestyle change, and a massive change in dietary and exercise programs.
But if you can’t even cut the afternoon candy allowance a little bit, you cannot convince me you are going to go full keto and hit the gym 4 days a week, go for long walks on the off days, and run a marathon in 2 years.
From the tough guy article:
Hey now! Don’t go besmirching a great magician! (I’m one of the weirdos that likes that movie — probably saw it at just the right age or something… but I still enjoy it. And identify with Schmendrick more than I probably should…)
Further in:
Hmm…. sounds awfully like some Michigan militia members. I strongly suspect he would have been cultivated to be a Useful Idiot if he were raging on the other side….
Yeah, Last Unicorn was the first thing I thought of too when seeing the word ‘schmendrick’.
House Democrat to introduce resolution reiterating Trump can serve only two terms as president
Ensure it includes language stating Trump can’t murder his opponents, make himself dictator, or operate a motor vehicle on public roads without a license.
operate a motor vehicle on public roads without a license
But he can still leap over the seat and grab the steering wheel from the driver, right?
Seriously, my son was telling me that his potential future in-laws are convinced that Trump will just declare that the two term limit is gone and done with. He was pretty exasperated with them when I was chatting with him. I pointed out that it was a constitutional amendment and would have to be changed with another. He said he told them that if Trump nixed the limit, then Obama could run again.
That made them happy for about 10 minutes before they were convinced that Trump would have Obama either locked up or killed.
“You can’t fix stupid”
SCOTUS said he can kill his opponents …
The Democrats in my life are all like that. Their brains have been broken by the “news”.
In fairness TOK, there are plenty of Republicans that have broken brains as well, just different breaks.
JI, that is fair to say, but in general I don’t see Republicans posting mental breakdowns on social media when they lose.
Like other issues it went from “don’t stigmatize X” to “celebrate X”.
She must be pretty hot, huh?
posting mental breakdowns on social media
No, but they are real big on moral panics. It wasn’t leftie/atheists that pushed the Satanic child abuse narrative, and only a small slice of far-left feminists are on board with the moralistic right in the fight against “trafficking” (i.e. prostitution). And I’ve heard no small number of people that really seem to believe that Trump is God-appointed.
LOL @ Tundra.
Is this just like the GOP proposing a bill that says only American citizens can vote, which the Dems bitched about for days?
Or is it somehow (D)ifferent?
This is of equal importance as the resolutions establishing National Sierra Slug Day, etc. Or in this case, “National Wouldn’t Know a Joke If it Bit Me On The Bottom” day.
It’s probably a ploy to get Republicans to vote against it, because it’s already in the Constitution. The Dems can then go create a furor in the news and campaign commercials that Trump will serve more than two terms.
Unilever should change the name of Ben and Jerry’s to Butt and Fuckers Ice Cream. Because they can. They own it. Let those old hippies understand the meaning of “sell.”
I am glad of this reminder to stop buying commie ice cream. Sometimes I buy it without thinking first.
I was that way until a year ago when this crap started. I no longer purchase it. Sadly that impacts the real owner of the product. I was half-joking about the name. Unilever should change it and erase them.
My wife loves the stuff but starting reading labels RFK style. Many of the BJ flavors are nowhere near natural.
If I am reading this right Drake, you are saying your wife finds BJs unnatural?
B&J ice cream is very much like a microbrewer: if you cram a lot of stuff in it, you can get away with the base product being mediocre.
Yeah, there are so many better options nowadays.
Apparently there was an Ithaca Stewarts, but it closed two years ago.
From their store finder, it looks like they’re solely in the Capital Region now.
Pity. I am surprised how good the ice cream is up here.
BJs should only have one taste, from what I have heard.
Special favors come in 31 flavors
Prove My Love – Violent Femmes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKrniHXAME
starting reading labels RFK style
Same with my wife. Anything with “vegetable oil” is out. Enriched flour is out. “Natural flavorings” is code for “toxic shit we’re not required to enumerate”. And I’m mostly on board with it. Cost of groceries is even higher now, but I think it is true that the American food industry has captured the USDA just as much as Pharma has captured the FDA, so you’ve got to do your own research on what ingredients are not healthy.
The rule I learned low-carbing 25 years ago: Shop the outside of the grocery aisles. Produce, meat, eggs, butter, dairy (if you do dairy).
BJs should only have one taste, from what I have heard.
“You’re as useless as a cock-flavored lollipop” – Patches O’Houlihan
BJ’s here is 58 flavors of pure delight.
https://www.facebook.com/p/BJs-Ice-Cream-Parlor-100063527412027/
@NA – Stewarts has good ice cream because they are a dairy that happens to own a chain of convenience stores.
That will be for next Pride month, RJ. And it would probably be a hit — their current clientele will support it (politics!) and the frat boys will buy it for the Beavis and Butthead effect, I would think. Imagine the pranks of serving that as Pledge Ryan’s “favorite flavor” for his birthday party!
It’ll be rainbow colored of course.
They should offer it back to them at a substantial markup. As a good-faith attempt at resolving the disagreement.
There was a parody a long time ago about a B&J flavor: “double nut cream explosion.”
“Now available from Baskin-Robbins as an ice cream pie!”
Maybe RFK can find something unhealthy about this icecream and BAN IT using SWAT TEAMS
“Australians gave up on personal responsibility ages ago”
A year or two before the pandemic, I was planning a trip to Oz. It was more than I wanted to spend at that time, so I decided to wait a year or to and save more money. Over the years, I had met Australian tourists as I travelled. Every one of them liked to have a good time. I worked with Australian expats over the years, and they were the same. Who wouldn’t want to visit a country where everybody loves to party.
Then—COVID, and I saw almost an entire country lay down and kiss the boot of government, the same as the U.S. I have no further interest in going.
It could be that the ones you see when you travelling are a self-selecting group. The passive ones stayed home.
Uffda. What is up with the minorities? Don’t they realize they owe their votes to the Democrats? First it was the Latinos, now it is the … the Somalis?
Talk about ingrates! Walz let them steal $250M from the govt and this is how they repay him?
Funny how people of color have a different concept of kin-ness.
If you don’t vote Democrat you aren’t black.
This has been my brother’s experience working with them. If they’re employed, there is a good chance they’re white supremacist/hitler adjacent.
I wonder which third party they had in mind. I didn’t think Antifa was running anybody.
The Democrats will learn nothing from this, and will continue to call those voters racist or sexist or something.
If anyone is asking (I am well aware no one is) what Bronze Age pervert is writing these days… I am still vaguely amused that there is a good chance this guy is a Romanian who moved to America to teach at some college. At least his accent on Malice’s podcast seemed eastern European enough.
I assume this is metaironic as he criticizes people for going on way too long about uninteresting ideas, and I think I spaced out a quarter through this… But if anyone has nothing else better to read (unlikely)
Race in America and the Dork Right
Against an Authoritarianism of Clerks
https://bronzeagepervert.substack.com/p/race-in-america-and-the-dork-right
“The right’s thinking about race in America is mostly as pathological and boring as the left’s. Much constipated effort is devoted to refutations of “arguments” of the “woke,” or tedious genealogies tracing their origins back to Locke, or nominalism, or Hegel, or something else that the would-be pundit can then wordchop. As there isn’t much to go on in the way of ideas among the left, this exercise ends up being tormenting and banal. At its most vivid the leftist posture is summarized in the images of the “invisible knapsack” of white privilege and “systemic racism,” which are invoked to explain the poverty and dysfunction of blacks as well as other peoples of color, including, one presumes, shades of beige. This is an absurd conspiracy theory on the level of Alex Jones hallucinations about transdimensional dwarven clockwork aliens, or demonic reptiloids thousands of years old masterminding world events. Everything from colonialism to lack of respect for nappy hair is invoked to explain colored folk’s trauma and inability to make it in modern technological civilization. I don’t know that non-imbecile leftists are convinced by any of this; mostly they are people who believe in equality, are offended by inequality of whatever origin, and believe that whites are the Original Oppressors and exploiters who must atone. People who want to believe this will find the arguments to fit these moral desires.
Thanks for reading Bronze’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
In some cases the response to leftist race hysteria and superstition can make things much worse. One now-prominent faction could be called the “IQ-right” or the “HBD right” (for “human biodiversity”). In its most extreme and revealing, though rare, form this amounts to a kind of “IQ nationalism” which posits or desires a political or social alliance or unity between different groups that are high IQ against especially the interests or claims of blacks, who as a group have lower average IQ. Newcomers on X or generally online to “dissident” ideas who are exposed to interesting statistics about race and IQ for the first time may not be aware that these are promoted for the most part not just by lovers of free speech or forbidden knowledge, but by a diffuse group with a more or less coherent view or program. They’ve long been active on the internet, since around the late 1990’s and are familiar to anyone who’s used online forums for a long time. They have their own moral and political positive aims, although these aims are now often unstated or forgotten.”
If Alexander Pope was right about the proper study of mankind then Aquinas was wrong about rewards.
Stop name-dropping dead people to make people think you read.
Read? Wait the voices in my head write?
I knew it was The Fixx before I even clicked. Great choice.
Related:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAjA_V9tIHU
Ha – I believe that is from one of those movies I have not seen but everyone else has.
Rupert Hine is kind of genius – many great tracks to choose from. Here is one.
Yeah, you gotta get on that. 🙂
That tune was new to me.
You can tell he protegeed this guy, too.
+1
Another gem
Yep. Saw them once back in the day. Excellent band.
Keeping up my 7 Eleven coverage for the three Glibs that care. Wow…
https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/the-fight-for-7-eleven-isnt-just-about-money-d1af6db9?st=r9B1Ka&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
This is crazy. It’s a well run company with a consistent cash flow, but any downturn or issue is going to blow this thing up. After which, I’m sure, Tokyo will jump in and bail them out. It doesn’t just happen in the USA folks!
I don’t see the point of a Quebecoise company taking over a Japanese institution.
Assuming you are serious, they have experience globally in running convivence stores and they’ve found an underpriced asset or an asset that they believe they can run better.
Hey, sorry about the emerging permanent majority idea I sold all of you on. Oh wait, nope, I’m not even apologizing for that. But look, I’ve got a whole new strategy to sell you!
What a shame.
Does this mean the Wookiee and her husband will exit stage left and never be seen again pretty please?
Damn race traitors.
I think the Obama coalition is about dead.
It’s the Jimmy Carter of coalitions.
At least Carter survived long enough to vote for Harris.
A dead Carter vote is as reliable as a live one.
Sometimes the frog says “Fuck this. I am going out for a breath of fresh air.”
Now if we can convince the frog to stop hopping back into the pot.
It took a deep state captured media to push phony scandals to keep the Clinton-Obama-Pritzker machine going as long as it did. But it was their own real scandals that brought them down.
The left could just bide their time until real scandals come along to bring the conservatives down but that would require a level of maturity they don’t possess at present.
Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸
@pmarca
My religion is the opposite of whatever this is, from Louis CK:
Carlos That Notices Things
@QuetzalPhoenix
I am reminded of this scene from Camus’ “The Fall” about how self loathing is used by some to condemn (and control) everyone else!
https://x.com/QuetzalPhoenix/status/1856458124431110522
I say this often but the latest Timothy J Dillon podcast was great.
There is a clear choice for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services: Jim O’Neill (@regardthefrost)🧵
Jim has given more than a decade of service to America. He shares @elonmusk’s vision for small government and @RobertfKennedJr’s vision for a healthier America.
https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1856881634923942378
Love them or hate them both you have to laugh…
The two men have been inseparable over the past week at Mar-a-Lago, where the Tesla chief executive has become such a fixture that Trump has given him his own “walk-on song” to play when he enters the dining room: David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
Musk-a-Lago: Inside Elon Musk’s Role on Trump’s Transition Team
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/musk-a-lago-inside-elon-musks-role-on-trumps-transition-team-55235859?st=ygzHDM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Freeeeeeedom …
https://x.com/TheFigen_/status/1856320792344031673
We never had our kids swaddled up. A onesie and some blankets, babies need to kick, stretch when they want to.
And why was this information accessible to somebody operating in Cambodia?
CIA Official Arrested for Intelligence Leak on Israeli Plans to Strike Iran
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/cia-official-arrested-for-intelligence-leak-on-israeli-plans-to-strike-iran-24efaa24?st=hMmPZp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Same reason an E-2 was able to enter a scif and proceed to post that info on Discord?
if it was NGA material…if they had a SCIF at the embassy, it probably wasn’t too difficult.
Only reason I can see a field office in Cambodia having maybe an inkling of the plans was to assess South Asia’s response. The breadth of the info seems compartmentalization was lacking.
Then again I am not CIA
Exactly what a CIA boi would say.
Didn’t the original speculation point to someone else? I can say “fall guy”.
Original was an Iranian employee in the State Dept who already had a bad rep. I tend not to be in favor of granting clearances to most naturalized citizens from adversary nations (see also previous spies favoring Cuba, etc).
“This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election,” said a spokesman for the New York-based company.
FBI Seizes Polymarket Founder’s Phone in Raid of Home
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/fbi-polymarket-ceo-investigation-75472d18?st=CgzqKt&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Let the conspiracy theories flow!
YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT THAT!!!
That refusal summed up, I’d wager, any 18-30 undecided males
https://x.com/SantsPliego/status/1856829516036841882
HITLER!
See, I’m just not buying that (“perception within the campaign/democrats”) nor Rogan’s refusal to agree to avoid MJ legalization as the reason the campaign declined. Proximate cause/excuse cause, sure. But the root cause reason they declined is that he was (is) not captured media that would fall into the normal constraints they expect/require. She simply couldn’t handle thinking on her feet for 2-3 hours because she’s not a thoughtful person with any deep understanding of issues or a coherent underlying philosophy that can guide you on how to approach any particular issue where you don’t have an understanding. But those are requirements for holding a 3 hour conversation.
An open 2 hours without anyone else in the room in a studio not under their control, would have exposed to the world just how shallow a person she is, at least as far as being a thinker or even being at least capable of pretending/projecting a thinking person (e.g. Obama), at least on broad policy and/or philosophical issues. That’s just fine – not everyone can or should be – but it would have destroyed what was left of her political campaign. As the Biden debate showed, it only takes one instant to make it nearly impossible for people who have been willfully blind and ignoring the obvious to continue to do so and they will turn on a dime – her campaign couldn’t afford that.
I’m not saying either is the root cause. I totally believe it was said, and given merit though.
I also think that many around her were, at least partly, blind to what a horrible candidate she really was. Why else would they be there?
I’ve seen a theory that Harris sent the demands so that Rogan would say no, and the campaign could say that Rogan refused to work with them. Those theories also then say that they didn’t expect Rogan to release the conditions. Basically the Harris campaign thought that Rogan was just like the rest of the media, and would roll over for them.
The Onion wins Alex Jones’ Infowars in bankruptcy auction
Let the jokes begin!
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/onion-wins-alex-jones-infowars-bankruptcy-auction-rcna179936
Well, you know, if they could learn they wouldn’t be leftists.
I have never listened to Alex Jones.
I’m still very unreasonably sad about what they did to him. If they can do it to him, they can do it to anybody.
I used to listen to him while I was in Austin. He was quite the tard. Some of the guys that hung out at the recording studio went to work for him, and later the Ron Paul campaign.
Austin ran Alex Jones, College Station ran Pacifica Radio. There’s probably something about radio being the countercultural media of an area, which might also explain Rush/Air America.
I used to listen to him while I was in Austin. He was quite the tard.
You really have to take what he says with a grain of salt. He’s 80% entertainment and 20% legit stuff.
He’s really good at taking a couple of small press releases or research papers and connecting a bunch of yarn strings to them to make it into a global conspiracy.
That said, the source material he uses is usually real.
Thing is, dude had no money to begin with. I mean, more than I do, sure, but not Rush Limbaugh levels. I put his show on the same level as Coast to Coast.
He said something hurtful and probably untrue. Boo hoo.
Eh, his main schtik was 9/11 and the LIHOP/MIHOP controversy during my time listening. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams don’tcha’no?
Usually he was canny enough not to make explicit predictions about the date of upcoming further attacks, but occasionally he would fuck up and make a falsifiable one.
Was Alex Jones a jet fuel truther? He did basically call 9/11, naming Bin Laden as the ring leader.
Oh yeah, he had that “Mossad rigged WTC with demolition charges” guy on.
He was never willing to go fully MIHOP AFAIR.
Who *would* go Mormon International House of Pancakes?
As a rule, [[[we]]] do sugar very, very well.
It’s our only theologically acceptable vice.
Sad day for America.
Today, in More Things I Don’t Give a Fuck About
The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.
Whoop de fucking doo.
“Now we can use our dead children for political gain!”
It’s like a bad horror movie
The dismay engulfing establishment elites contrasted with the euphoria rocketing through conservative networks and social media among Trump fans. The president-elect draws political strength from his position as an outsider scourge of the establishment, and if his picks are confirmed by the Senate — a huge if in the case of Gaetz — they will be tasked with his mission of defenestrating government and driving out those Trump sees as enemies.
Trump won the election and has a mandate for change. And these and other picks are proof of a president-elect who is increasingly powerful and cares little for the critics who warn his second term poses a threat to the rule of law.
The Fifty Foot Tall President. He’ll be eating school children like popcorn before you know it.
More low hanging fruit for the DOGE. We have similar suspect training here too.
As a side note I turned a lot of my shop peers to Massie and Paul and their highlights of governmental overreach and reckless spending.
They set up a DOGE account on X, and are looking for people to work for it. Vivek and Elon will not be paid. I like that they set a deadline.
If anything, having smart people run an analysis and posting everything they find online will be big.
All they need to do to start is mine Rand Paul’s Twitter Festivus rantings.
But how will we know what the effects of LSD on shrimp running on treadmills if we cut their funding?
They expect results!
All they need to do to start is mine Rand Paul’s Twitter Festivus rantings.
Researching cocaine quail is essential to the nation’s survival.
Hank Green demonstrated a textbook example of motivated reasoning as he tried to “debunk” waste in government grants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfJUSehBMzk
Low hanging fruit maybe. My issue is that what is really driving spending is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Defense and the interest payments because of those. All of which are sacrosanct for one reason or another. The fact that we’re an aging society with no way to pay for the elderly just makes things worse. I’m all for a controlled border but if we don’t fixed those programs then we need to make sure we have enough immigrants to prop up the system.
From my experience, the immigrants aren’t propping up anything besides being a cheap source of labor for corporations and the wealthy/upper middle class. They’re on food stamps, they’re on medicaid, they’re getting free shit monthly for being on Medicaid. They work off the books in many cases.
They are net drains.
Bullshit that Defense is or should be sacrosanct. You could lop 20% off and still not squeeze out the stupid, let alone if we were at all thoughtful about what DOD should be doing. It is only because we allow the retards full rein that Defense can’t be touched.
Because of fear, and low trust, there’s no way to tackle SS/MC. Certainly another phase-in for raising retirement age would make sense – people just live longer than when this was started or the current retirement age was phased in.
It looks like The Resistance will include states refusing to cooperate with deportations. The Dems still can’t see they lost big on that issue. But by all means, they should keep digging.
“States that don’t cooperate on deportation lose all federal law enforcement funding.”
Don’t expect the horse trading to stop. It just won’t have the same uniparty flavor of the last 40 years.
These dumb fucks are still envisioning door to door swat raids and house to house searches.
It’s not gonna play like that.
I’d like to see federal agents raid the DMVs of states issuing non citizen drivers licenses to illegal aliens for those lists. And start arresting state and local officials for aiding abetting illegal migration under existing laws.
Millions of the president-elect’s voters agree that his own legal troubles are not the result of criminal wrongdoing but of years of victimization by the Justice Department. They think the Russia investigation in his first term was hatched by the intelligence agencies to destroy him. Trump voters want entire layers of government bureaucrats fired, think regulations contribute to their own economic problems, worry about millions of border crossings by undocumented migrants and oppose Pentagon diversity programs. Trump is their agent of change. And his lightning bolt picks for top government jobs are his lieutenants in that effort.
Hegseth, Gaetz and Gabbard pose questions about Trump’s motivations and the direction of his second administration that begins on January 20, not least because of their professional, ethical or experiential qualities, or lack of them.
They lack that desperate “Go along to get along” yearning to fit in with the Washington ball-of-snakes political culture? That’s the point..
They think the Russia investigation in his first term was hatched by the intelligence agencies to destroy him.
CNN still holding to the narrative eh? And they can’t understand their cratering ratings.
Kinda have to because it underpins a lot of their stances.
This is a lie we are willing to die for – I don’t know, I don’t see how that makes one more credible.
Technically, wasn’t it hatched by Hilllary’s campaign?
Would you consider certain members of the FBI/DoJ to be volunteer members of HRC’s campaign?
Putting people in charge of organizations that abused them in the past is a bold move. I’m happy to see that.
Hegseth seem like a soldier’s soldier, and I expect him to make some good changes. If he only gets rid of DEI and recruitment videos with trans people, that would help a lot.
Hegseth should settle all cases with Ozy!
Bunch of people gonna learn you don’t mess with the special investigators.
Talking about putting a lot of woke superfluous Generals and Admirals out to pasture. Promote some warriors.
How man Special Investigators we left alive by the end of S2?
And frankly S2 << S1.
4 I think.
As much of a let down that S2 was, it is still superior to most of the dreck being put out today.
What bugged me about that season was the reality-breaking. If I want to see ridiculous body counts and mayhem that goes unnoticed by the general population, I need a setting that is more like John Wick or The Crow.
I don’t know if the books were like that or not.
Hegseth should settle all cases with Ozy!
Ahem. Mr. Hegseth and I spoke earlier this year (when his book came out) and when neither of us imagined he would be in this position.
I am considering how to re-approach him in light of these developments.
I mean, Gaetz is no Eric Holder.
Or Granny Sessions.
Shit, has there been a decent AG any time recently?
I would have Scott Bullock be the AG. Putting the guy who heads the IJ and ought government overreach and power would be the perfect choice to head up the DOJ. Of course, it makes too much sense, so it didn’t happen.
I’d have preferred Gowdy. He strikes me as smarter and more honest. Gaetz tickles my “opportunist playing a role” senses.
Conspiracy-driven wing nut voters SMDH.
“…not least because of their professional, ethical or experiential qualities, or lack of them.”
The problem in this country is that the experts and the elites share an incestuous relationship where they enact rules that generally fuck over the common man. And they despite it hurting us, they gloss over our complaints and tell us that it’s for our own good.
I think the whole lack of experience falls on deaf ears because the ones currently running the show are the so-called experts and they are royally fucking things up.
Hegseth, Gaetz and Gabbard. They all sound like German names. He’s not even trying to hide it, man.
Welcome back to Jarflax. He’s less second than most of you, though still second.
Thank you, but as your second who am I agreeing to fight? and what weapons?
👏
Patel Kash will reportedly be the FBI Director when Wray gets fired.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1856792535496073445
I’d love the see the Philly offices doing political corruption work again. I’m sure the region is a target rich environment.
CNN still holding to the narrative eh? And they can’t understand their cratering ratings.
They will spend the next four years shrieking “We told you so!” at the top of their lungs.
David Brooks has 10,000 (possibly paywalled) words on why elite institutions are a bubble.
How the Ivy League Broke America
The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/
Do the Ivy’s have merit based admissions at this point?
For certain definitions of merit, sure.
Heck no…
The whole thing makes minimal mention of their diversity efforts and the new efforts of continuing to do by creating means to clue a the admissions staff about social background and race.
True, but that time counts only three presidents. Roosevelt went to Harvard, Taft attended Yale, and Wilson went to Princeton. Sheesh.
If I was The Donald, I’d go to the GOP caucuses in both houses and say “A lot of you don’t like me, and some of you actively stabbed me in the back. I don’t feel any particular loyalty to the GOPe, and I’m never running for any office again. After the last four years, I’m immune to being called mean things by the press. So: send me an omnibus budget, I veto it. Send me a continuing resolution, I veto it. Send me a budget that does not cut current spending by 3% I veto it. Screw me on my cabinet picks, and the percent cut goes up by 0.1% for each denied confirmation. I’ll let the government shut down, and stay shut down for months.”
If “fixing” the budget has to come from Congress, then Trump should use the leverage he has to force Congress to make cuts. The downside is he’d be ending the political careers of everyone who has joined his administration.
Yes. He seems to be on a mission with no fucks to give. When RINOs start complaining, it sounds jarringly off-key.
Now they are complaining that their constituents are threatening them.
Now they are complaining that their constituents are threatening them.
And yet it’s unlikely that it will sink in.
Trump has a few good instincts (less war, etc.). Fiscal restraint is not one of them.
True, but he does have a couple people around him who see a problem.
I’m hoping Elon whispering in his ear will serve to instill some otherwise lacking principles. Probably I’m hoping for too much.
My contention as well.
But all this public talk about cutting government is really making me happy. He’s gonna have a lot of pressure on him this time to do just that.
Never change TNR!
The New Republic
Schumer Rushes to Put Up Safeguards Against Trump’s Insanity
19 hours ago
By Edith Olmsted
The text of the Alien Enemies Act says it can be invoked whenever:
A war is declared between the US and “any foreign nation or government” OR
“Invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government” AND
“the President makes public proclamation of the event”
A little-known law from 1798 could be a key part of Trump’s deportation plans
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/14/politics/alien-enemies-act-1798-trump-cec/index.html
Why do we need a special act just to enforce the law as written? They came here illegally. Get them the fuck out. The asylum claims are bullshit.
The left will do everything within their power to stop this. So, the point is to butres with as many laws as you can dig up the basic right to enforce.
Make it airtight. Remove the ability to claim asylum.
One question that has been raised: How does U.S. deport illegals to their native countries who refuse to take them back? Venezuela, Cuba, China, Haiti, etc. may refuse to allow planes to land. Dumping 10 million of them in Mexico and telling them to find their own way home doesn’t seem like a plan, but would certainly cause Mexico to seal its own borders to keep out future immigrants headed to the U.S.
If they refuse the planes to land, dump the illegals out of the back of a C130.
If they were violent criminals, parachutes are optional.
If they have the ability to prevent entry to the airspace, pick the nearest body of water.
Speaking of fairy tales
Thanks to the rapid growth of renewable energy, global emissions from fossil fuels could soon start to decline. The long-awaited peak is a key milestone in the effort to limit how hot the planet will get. Studies show emissions must peak and then rapidly decline to limit impacts like more intense heat waves and storms.
——-
Even when emissions start to fall, the Earth will still be on track for extreme impacts from climate change. Any added greenhouse gases will keep warming the planet. Emissions would need to be cut roughly in half by 2035 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the key benchmark countries agreed to pursue in climate negotiations.
“We know that peaking is the start of the journey,” says Neil Grant, a senior climate and energy analyst at Climate Analytics, a climate think tank.
“But peaking emissions would be a real sign of human agency. If we could say: look, we can turn the corner, that would highlight to me that we do have power and so it would be a hopeful thing for me.”
The brave handsome knight slew the terrible fire breathing dragon and married the beautiful princess. And they all lived happily ever after, in their mud hut lit by balls of horse dung.
I haven’t noticed the effects of Climate Change yet. I carried in a load of fire wood this morning, run the wood furnace morning and evenings and wait.
Hope Climate Change includes warming.
And what do 2 or 3 billion people living in poverty do with their aspirations to join the industrial world and live in decent conditions?
Die and have all that carbon in their bodies sequestered in graves obviously. It’s a twofer
Trump and Biden spending some quality time together after yesterday’s meeting.
https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1856787925859443045
The rollerskating killed me.
Heh
Accurate, the rest is theater, for the home town consumption
The boom in renewable energy has largely been the result of economics: it’s now generally cheaper to build a new solar project than a power plant that runs on coal or natural gas.
Show your work.
This from the same people who call cats an invasive species while their shit’s killing animals at an alarming rate, the mining of precious and very finite materials is nearly catastrophic, disposing of those materials is just as bad (disposing of nuclear waste is safer and not having to be done nearly as often), and putting out lithium battery fires is impossible.
I can’t grasp the hypocrisy of this. I honestly can’t. It enrages me.
It probably is cheaper when you factor in the regulatory costs and lawfare by the watermelons involved in a new fossil fuel plant. Leftie econ 101 impose massive costs on the efficient and sane way of doing things and then pretend you are being fiscally responsible choosing the crazy inefficient way.
The typical trick on that “renewable is cheaper” schtick is to only look at nameplate capacity, not actual output. Multiply the cost of that intermittent energy plant by 3 – 4 to account for the 2/3 – 3/4 of the time it isn’t producing, and get back to me.
While a peak in global emissions from burning fossil fuels may only be a few years away, it doesn’t mean global temperatures will start falling. Countries will continue to add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, just at a slower rate. Those emissions will keep raising global temperatures. To stop temperatures from rising, greenhouse gas emissions need to fall to zero.
We keep adding more and more of these “toxic emissions” every year. Why haven’t we all suffocated?
China says, “hold my beer.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/eva-longoria-reveals-she-moved-her-family-out-of-dystopian-united-states-im-privileged/ar-AA1u2Jjs?ocid=BingNewsSerp
“Eva Longoria revealed this week that she and her family have moved out of the “dystopian” United States, now splitting time between Mexico and Spain.”
I’ve read a lot of dystopian novels, and I don’t think the US has reached that level of shittiness yet. The funny part is that if we are heading towards a dystopia, her side is trying to get us to that point. Forcing private companies to censor individuals, creating a “misinformation” board, using the DOJ to prosecute a political rival, spending us into bankruptcy, and tearing down the ideas of a meritocracy and replacing it with the dreaded DEI is how you get to become a dystopia.
I’d move to Spain too if I had the wherewithal and a willing spouse. Flamenco, tapas, and bullfights. What’s not to love?
Their taxes and regulations are hella crazy though but they have the money to navigate those sorts of issues.
My 2.5 years there nearly 60 years ago was filled with those adventures, Moj, it probably has changed as well though. Stuff was cheap, a maid was about 2-3 bucks a day. A dress maker a little more.
Beer and cheap wine delivered to the refrig. Unfortunately my domestic problems were wildly escalating out of control.
…defunding police, catch & release/no bail policies, allowing riots, encouraging shop lifting…
Totally normal stuff.
She’s so stupid and lacks any sort of awareness that the policies that she advocates for are causing these very same issues that she’s complaining about.
Ed….That what is known as ‘master political strategist’.
Certainly, when they hear this from Eva, all those caravans heading to the U.S. will just turn around?
Look, having a Ministry of Disinformation is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than a Ministry of Truth.
::insert “Well….. bye!” gif here::
This one has been debunked.
Turns out Eva moved out of LA many years ago because of crime and homelessness.
“Eva Longoria revealed this week that she and her family have moved out of the “dystopian” United States, now splitting time between Mexico and Spain.”
If I was looking for a refuge from “dystopian” chaos, Mexico would be right at the top of my list.
Agreed, although Mexico City area has more wealthy people than most American cities have people. I’m sure she could find a nice little neighborhood.
Wondering what D fuckery is going on in Penna. According to the latest news report, McCormick (R) is up by only 26,000 votes over Casey (D) with 96,000 provisional, overseas, etc. ballots still to count. A few days ago, McCormick was up 40,000 votes with a reported “approximately 100,000” ballots still to count. Kind of neat, isn’t it, that in an essentially 50/50 race, all the provisionals, etc. are coming in at 200% for the Democrat.
They better start fighting for the stolen Senate seats.
The front page is very fancy now. But when I use my iPhone’s default crappy (Safari) browser it doesn’t always update right for some reason.
Seems to give hours and hours between comments in the afternoon and evening.
AOC has removed the pronouns for her bio.
Time to hoist the victory flag?
She also went from “Representative” to “Congresswoman”.
Their polling on the whole they/them thing must have been absolutely brutal.
The come so close to getting it, without actually understanding.
https://x.com/alx/status/1857116671359553595
“Andrew McCabe is concerned that Matt Gaetz is a “disruptor” and will “tear things apart” at the Justice Department.”
Well, McCabe is so swampy he probably has gills.