Tuesday Morning Links

by | Jun 9, 2020 | Daily Links | 573 comments

Catch and a fumble.

In sports news, Cancel Culture comes to Clemson. (Maybe this will take the heat off Dabo?) And a bunch of other social signaling is going on. Also, no sports took place. What’s next? Will the PGA hold a struggle session as well, even though the second- (or third-) best golfer of all time is half-black? That’s all I’ve got, sorry.

Where would we be without this man?

Tsar Peter The Great was born on this day. He shares it with The “father of railways” George Stephenson, composer Cole Porter, solid-body guitar inventor Les Paul, singer Jackie Wilson, annoying fuck Dick Vitale, actor Michael J Fox, weirdo Johnny Depp, and actress Natalie Portman. I apologize for only including one minority, in case there are any people keeping count.

Not exactly a huge list there, sorry. Now on to…the links!

An actual racist piece of shit.

Throw this racist asshole under the jail. What a piece of shit.

Wow, nice meaningless gesture. At least common sense is prevailing. But either way, since the funding is almost exclusively from local and state sources, it’s still meaningless.

Not so sure the mob will respect this judicial move. It’ll probably end up in the James River while the city and state police are ordered to stand down.

Nice thinking, slick. It’s called a getaway car for a reason. There’s no such thing as a getaway subway. Do better, New York criminals.

Well done, New York! It only took you six fucking years to stop bending your knee to the NYPD goons who fund your campaigns.

None of these people matter. Yet here they are…doing what they do.

“Do what I say or I will fucking EAT YOU!”

Pritzker, you ignorant fat fuck. I guess the cops could wait to actually help protect those businesses (since it’s nearly impossible to get a gun in Chicago) but insurance companies can’t? Also, this is extortion.

You get what you pay for. Also, please don’t come here. Thanks.

::Sigh:: He didn’t even look especially Puerto Rican. He wasn’t next to a broken-down low rider.

Enjoy this one. I sure will.

Now get out there and have a great day, friends!

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

573 Comments

  1. straffinrun

    Not Rob.

    • Festus

      Not Brochetta! And you were first!

      • straffinrun

        Ah shit. Sorry, RobC. Meant Brochetta.

  2. robc

    Lets say Clemson goes insane and fires Dabo.

    Exactly how long is he unemployed? Does someone hire him in secret and then fire their coach the first day of fall practice? Or does he actually have to wait until November?

    • sloopyinca

      Nobody will hire him right away, even though a few may express interest. He’s in that elevated air for a coach where only a handful of jobs exist. And none of those schools are looking for one until Saban retires.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        It wouldn’t shock me if there are blueblood programs (coughUSCcough) willing to fire their coach to get Dabo.

        But the chances of Dabo being fired are about the same as me having a threesome with my wife and Karen Gillan tonight.

      • Count Potato

        So you aren’t going to put the Ju in Jumanji?

      • Drake

        I was thinking the same thing. SC would kick whats-his-name to the curb in a second.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        I have a feeling Southern Cal (having lived in the Carolinas for years, it’s sometimes confusing, since I for a long time associated “USC” with South Carolina) boosters would force the school into doing that (and donate enough that they’d be able to give Dabo a very fat contract).

      • robc

        USC and Texas might be the only two.

      • sloopyinca

        USC-West is way out of Dabo’s recruiting comfort zone and he would never go try to resurrect a program on the west coast. I can’t imagine him settling for anything less than Bama if he ever leaves Clemson.

      • sloopyinca

        And Texas is riding the Tom Herman train for at least two more years.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        If the Bama job comes open, either he’s leaving or Clemson’s giving him so much money he stays.

        If he’s fired, and it’s clear that Bama won’t come open for several more years, it’d be different. He could coach at USC or Texas for a few years and Bama would still hire him when Saban leaves.

      • cyto

        Tennessee would be the logical choice. They have money to burn and a decades long inability to locate a head coach.

      • robc

        1. I don’t think he goes to Bama as long as Clemson will have him.
        2. Yes, Bama would be the place he would end up, but Saban ain’t going anywhere yet.
        3. If he somehow got fired, he would go somewhere until Bama opened up, and either he steps down a notch to stay in the SE (he could go to USCe too, just to spite Clemson) or he has to leave the region for a job.

      • Drake

        IF you are a big-name coach, USC may be the easiest job is the country in terms of recruiting. If you keep most of the Southern Cal talent you are competitive. Recruit some more from around the country, you have a good chance for a national championship. If Dabo grabs some talent from the south along with the CA kids, he’s the next Pete Carroll.

        (I saw it first-hand in the John Robinson days. You fly in a kid from Indiana or wherever in December. It’s 75 degrees and beautiful. Marcus Allen picks him up the airport, shows him the beach, the cheerleaders, the campus, the band, the coliseum, hangs out with some movie stars at a party… The kid tells Penn State or Purdue to screw and immediately commits.)

    • cyto

      You underestimate the amount of woke on college campuses these days.

      As students arrived last fall, their first day of classes all followed a new ritual. One that most of us did not experience during our time in school. The first thing in every class, the first order of business in dorms and around campus…. declare your pronouns.

      I have family with kids in college around the country. We all shared the kids photos from the first day of class – professors initial slides with their name, title and pronouns.

      That was before the crazy hit.

      So this last week the letters from schools started rolling in. At nearby NC State, apparently every single department has decided that they need to make an individual statement about race and blacklivesmatter. So they’ve gotten fancy letterhead emails from the administration, housing, athletics, all of the academic departments, campus life, greek advisors, mental health student clinics, even the folks over at the physical plant. They all talk about affirming people’s concern for their “safety” in a world of Covid-19 and police killing people of color.

      This is the environment.

      Add to that the fact that at most universities there is at least a simmering animosity between the academic university and the athletic department.

      It would take a lot for the president of a university to endorse hiring a toxic personality at this moment. And you become a toxic personality super-fast these days. Simply not saying enough to appease the mob is grounds for being declared an enemy.

      Colleges, athletic departments and sports teams all just dumped CPI for their security because the CEO said something that was un-woke (suggesting that the Charlotte city council spend time on things that really affect the black community instead of wasting time on this defund the police nonsense. I think it was the example of black-on-black crime that did him in.) So the company is in deep trouble. They spend huge amounts supporting these athletic teams… their workforce is likely largely minority… but they are out. And those contracts are not coming back.

      So yeah, Dabo would definitely get a job in a year or two. But right now? That would be tough, if it was prominent enough to get him fired.

      The NYT ran off their editor for the crime of publishing an opposing editorial. This is where we are today.

      GoFundMe ended a campaign by Candace Owens to support a business who was a victim of this backlash over speech. The reason was that they won’t support hate.

      The wave of “anti-wrongthink” action is bigger than I could have imagined.

      • Festus

        November 2nd.

      • Rhywun

        Depressing. And terrifying.

      • robc

        USCw is a private school. With rich alumni who want to win and are otherwise despicable human beings.

      • cyto

        USC W is gonna be pretty hard-core proggie, isn’t it? I mean, turning a blind eye to recruiting violations is one thing.. but having someone who isn’t politically correct on staff?

  3. Count Potato

    “Named for Eric Garner, who was killed in 2014 after being placed in a chokehold by an NYPD officer, the bill criminalizes the use of chokeholds that result in injury or death. The use of chokeholds by the NYPD had already been banned in 1993.”

    So nothing will change?

    • Count Potato

      “The bill would make it so that a police officer who injures or kills somebody through the use of “a chokehold or similar restraint” can be charged with a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.”

      How about making killing people illegal?

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Why wait for legislation? Property owners could put up Murder Free Zone signs.

    • straffinrun

      I’m assuming selling loosies is still illegal. *Whoosh*

      • Count Potato

        Not if you buy them with a fake twenty.

      • Fourscore

        At today’s prices you’ll not get rich selling those 2 packs of smokes. Counterfeiting ain’t what it used to be.

  4. Donation Not Taxation

    “Thank you for coming again to read…the links!”

    You are welcome.

    • Festus

      You are a courteous Man, DNT!

  5. Rebel Scum

    Taylor said in the statement that due to Rogers’ admitted association with the KKK, they are investigating whether hate crimes charges are appropriate.

    Because thought-crime is a thing somehow.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      How else are federal prosecutors going to get their media coverage?

    • Atanarjuat

      Most of the “guy drives though crowd” stories are actually “scared driver tries to escape frenzied mob climbing on his car, attempting to pull him out” stories. I’ll wait on this one. CNN has certainly lied before.

      • Drake

        Yep – the alternative ending to the Reginald Denny story.

      • Rebel Scum

        scared driver tries to escape frenzied mob climbing on his car…I’ll wait on this one. CNN has certainly lied before.

        Me too, considering the still push the ‘Trump praised Nazis’ narrative from Charlottesville and ignore the additional circumstances surrounding that guy that drove through the crowd. Time will tell.

      • Atanarjuat

        I don’t know much about that one, but most of the ones I saw video of during the last week involved a stopped vehicle with people climbing on it, the driver revved the engine a few times as a warning and took off, not flooring it. That isn’t driving through a crowd to cause injury.

        Interestingly, I saved the tweet of an incident just like described above that happened in Tallahassee, which had video. The account is called Breaking 911. They seem to have deleted the tweet.

      • cyto

        Yeah… I am dubious of some of the prosecution claims here.

        Running down a crowd of protesters with murderous intent because you are the leader of the KKK and yet managing to avoid killing anyone would be quite a feat. Senile old guys who get confused about the gas vs brake pedal can take out a half-dozen in a crowd, no problem. You’d think a determined racist could rack up quite a body count before his car became disabled.

      • Tonio

        I live in the Richmond metro area. Everything seems to point to his actions being deliberate and provocative.

        But it’s interesting that the allegations of him hitting people only came up after the fact. Supposed eye-witness reports I read on social media during and after the event said lots of people were “terrified” (same word used uniformly), but nobody mentioned people struck only that he pushed through the protesters and somehow ended up on the median.

        The prosecutor upped the original charges and “activists” are calling for even more elevations. The prosecutor also released a self-serving public statement saying that she, too, had recently attended one of those protests. If I was of a more suspicious nature I’d think that she’s playing both sides — pandering to activists by overcharging, pandering to his sympathizers by overcharging which may result in his acquittal on the more serious charges. Possibly trying to set herself up to have to recuse herself with her admission of having participated in a similar protest.

        It’s going to be interesting.

      • Tonio

        I don’t think this protest was permitted, though I haven’t checked. I know that a similar “neighborhood” protest wasn’t permitted — “activists” not being down with the po-po and all.

        The reason permitting is important is that gives you a police escort for street marches, generally a cop car bringing up the rear to prevent motorists from ramming marchers either deliberately or accidentally.

      • Festus

        ^ yes.

      • Festus

        Meant to be a reply to the previous comment.

    • leon

      Membership of a terrorist org?

      • sloopyinca

        I don’t think domestic terrorist organization membership is even covered under federal law. Only foreign terrorist orgs are. Which is why Trump declaring Antifa a terrorist organization will require him to prove it is international in size and scope.

      • leon

        I don’t really care for the terrorist org designation anyway. I just want to see violent assault ended, and not nodded on because you share the political views of the thug.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        I’d settle for some basic arrests. I’m a simple man.

      • Atanarjuat

        Well, they’re definitely in England.

      • Rhywun

        And Germany.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        And Canada and Italy.

    • Nephilium

      They’ve got enough money rolling in from Fortnite and the Unreal engine to prop it up for a couple more years. Looking at Steam over the past week or so, it looks like EA has finally caved on the Origin storefront, and is bringing things back to Steam.

      • UnCivilServant

        EA is back to selling on steam, but they still require you to launch origin to launch the game. Their quality of work has been poor of late, so I haven’t played anything since my review of Andromeda for this site.

    • Juvenile Bluster

      The Epic Games Store is awesome. I have a gigantic library of games for free because of them.

      The only people who wine about it are the ones on /r/pcgaming and /r/pcmasterrace, because it’s not run by the almighty Gaben.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It wasn’t so much a commentary on Epic as it was on Valve’s lack of kissing BLM’s ass.

      • UnCivilServant

        My goodwill is not so easily purchased.

      • Nephilium

        Nope. I dislike the Epic Games Store because it doesn’t have basic functionality like download throttling. It will use all available bandwidth to download/update games. With everyone working from home, I know that every time Fortnite releases an update, I’m going to get an upswing of tickets reporting VOIP quality/stability issues because of people working from home who have kids who play Fortnite.

      • UnCivilServant

        Does it still lack basic eCommerse functions like searching and a shopping cart?

      • Nephilium

        I don’t think they have a shopping cart, but I do believe you can search now.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      LOL

      Good for Valve. Gabe is the morbidly obese god we deserve.

    • straffinrun

      Friends of Journalism
      @journalistew
      Replying to @journalistew
      STOP RETWEETING THIS NOW!!

      These people don’t understand the internet too well.

    • Overt

      Ok, this Twitter account does not make any sense to me.

      https://www.truthorfiction.com/who-runs-journalist-excellence-worldwide/

      Note the user ID…J.E.W…

      And everything on that web site above indicates that this is a right wing troll group…but my question is where is the punchline to the joke they are pulling? Because they just seem to constantly double down on vapid left wing tropes.

      • UnCivilServant

        Real or troll, I just found it funny.

      • Overt

        That’s fair- but when it is used to indict ideological “others” full disclosure that it is likely a bunch of 4-channers should be used.

  6. Certified Public Asshat

    “If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; … if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred,” he wrote.

    Also note, these books are complete fiction based on fucking magic.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Rowling later posted that she had been “empathetic to trans people for decades,” but doubled down on her stance, adding, “I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.”

      “At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”

      Wow, so much hate.

      • sloopyinca

        They’re both doing what’s necessary to stay relevant. That’s it. That’s what’s happening.

      • cyto

        And she is learning that you can never be woke enough.

        She lapped up the praise for retconning Dumbledore as gay and thought she’d bought herself a seat in the woke pantheon. Au contrair…. you have to tow their lions forever, or you will be torn apart by the wolves.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Hmmm, I thought the lions would do the job. Didn’t realize there were wolves waiting on their wangs.

      • cyto

        Apparently towed lions are never hungry or motivated enough to gather their own food. They have to be towed at all times.

      • Festus

        Her whole book universe is based upon supremacy! In her literary world “Muggle” may as well be “Negro”. Fuck her and fuck him for latching on to a cause when he has seen millions pour into his bank account because that shrike wrote some kid-fiction. Fuck them all with a rough-cut fence post.

      • SDF-7

        And I spent most of the books thinking the Wizarding world were all idiots and the Muggles would be much more effective. See also “Torg Potter and the Giblets of Fiber”‘s duel: “Lord Moldypants wielding a 10″ wormwood wand with a rabbit whisker core!” vs. “Torg wielding a 26″ chrome plated .724″ back-bored barrel with a buckshot core.”

        I’d link it directly but I don’t know if the archives are available outside of subscription these days… If they are.

  7. straffinrun

    “I am stepping down as editor in chief of Bon Appetit to reflect on the work I need to do as a human being and to allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place,” he wrote.

    That’s deep.

    • sloopyinca

      and to allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place

      By “better place”, do you mean financial solvency?

    • Festus

      That’s derp.

      • Rhywun

        I made it to the third paragraphs.

        “Transgender women are women,” Radcliffe wrote in the essay.

        *taps out*

      • bacon-magic

        Imaginus notrealitus

      • cyto

        You can support their right to live the way they chose without insisting on crazy accommodations like requiring feminine sanitary products in all men’s rooms because providing them for “men who menstruate” is a civil right.

        I can certainly see how “you are not really a woman” would be hurtful when aimed at someone dealing with those issues and choosing to live as a female.

        But that doesn’t mean that we have to redefine all of biology just to make them comfortable about every phrase ever uttered anywhere on the planet and in any context. Unfortunately, that’s where we are. So high school girls get to compete with a tiny handful of boys who identify as women. Because we don’t want to be insensitive.

        Someone needs to put the sketch of Eric Idle asking his fellow People’s front of Judea activists to call him Loretta on a loop for these folks.

      • Jarflax

        I can certainly see how “you are not really a woman” would be hurtful when aimed at someone dealing with those issues and choosing to live as a female.

        If a completely true statement of fact is hurtful to you that is a call to self examination not an attack. ‘You are not really a woman’ is not normative, unless the auditor brings a belief that female is > (or <, but then it is a compliment) male.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Your feelings are irrelevant. Period.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        unless the auditor brings a belief that female is >

        *taps nose three times*

    • Cy

      *golf clap*

  8. leon

    “Hill Democrats quash liberal push to ‘defund the police’”

    Oh good. So now libertarians can act like they care again since the Democrats aren’t pursuing it.

    • Donation Not Taxation

      “Hill Democrats quash liberal push to ‘defund the police’”

      What if we ‘defund the police’ of tax dollars and funded them by voluntary donations?

  9. Rebel Scum

    It’ll probably end up in the James River while the city and state police are ordered to stand down.

    They won’t have to be told to stand down because Mayor Phony wants them de-funded.

    • Tonio

      Those things are heavy af, being hollow cast bronze. While the rioters might manage to drag one off a pedestal (probably injuring themselves) I don’t see them being able to bring a crane and a big enough truck without attracting attention. Again, assuming the police do anything.

      A friend reported to me that people on non-government type vehicles appear to be patrolling monument avenue watching the statues. Will be interesting to see how long they can keep this up.

      • Festus

        When we had protests here a few years ago the malcontents decided that they would destroy the Terry Fox Memorial. A one-legged kid that raised money for cancer research by running across Canada and died trying. This is the the mind-set we are dealing with, Citizen. They destroyed a statue of Terry fucking Fox. He’s about as revered here as well, Paul Revere.

  10. Juvenile Bluster

    So it’s time for another lawsplainer, because I’m bored and I’m waiting on a conference call at 9 AM to start a new project.

    All of us know what Qualified Immunity is, how dumb it is, and how it’s another thing that encourages officers to violate rights. I want to talk about another factor in this.

    In 1978, the Supreme Court decided Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York. I won’t bore you with the facts of the case, but the basic holding is twofold. First, the court decided that cities could be sued for their own actions in §1983 (civil rights) cases. That’s good. But the second part of the ruling is the problem. The second part of the ruling was that cities could *not* be sued on a respondiat superior basis — in other words, being held liable for the actions of their subordinates.

    Now, let’s say a truck driver is negligent and kills someone. Of course the truck driver can be sued, but his employer can also be sued on that basis. But the government? Nope. Not subject to the same rules.

    You eliminate that AND QI? You significantly up the financial liability of cities for bad cops. It wouldn’t be enough on its own, but it would be a very big step to at least getting cities to change union contracts to allow them to get rid of the bad ones, because they couldn’t afford to keep them.

    • Juvenile Bluster

      Tomorrow’s lawsplainer will be about the triumvirate of cases that say that police have no responsibility to protect you, or why ACAB and why the 2nd Amendment is so important.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        Or maybe I should make that into an article. Any interest?

      • straffinrun

        Yeah.

      • Tejicano

        An article would be fantastic. I believe I know a good deal about this now but I’m sure there’s a lot more to learn about and know.

      • leon

        I’m interested. I’ve been saddened by the ammount of ” don’t refund the government goons!!! They are the last stand between us and the other goons.”

        Fuck Cops.

      • Tonio

        Yes, please. Reach out to me if you need proofreading and help formatting. tonio@glibs

      • Festus

        Fuck yes.

      • blackjack

        Yes, but Imma say that any action increasing the ability to sue the government for dollars in totally ineffectual. They steal all the money they have. If we took every red cent they stole, they’ll be back tomorrow stealing enough to cover it. The answer has to be legally punishing them the same as anyone else. I don’t commit acts of violence because they are wrong, but I also know that I’d be sent to prison in short order if I did. We know that many cops don’t believe that violence is wrong when committed by them, so we have to make them fear being jailed for it. They have little to no concern about sticking it to tax cattle.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Next you’ll be lawspreading and gaslawing.

      • Festus

        *actual sensible chuckle*

    • straffinrun

      So even if you end QI, you haven’t removed the city’s incentive not to hire bad cops? I’d bet there are people in city govt that want the bad cops there so that they can get someone who will bend the rules just a tad in cases where the DA just knows the guy is guilty. Bah.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        If you end QI, you’ve done that slightly, if only because union contracts result in the city, as opposed to the police force, paying out any judgements. But those are usually paid out by insurance (except in places like NYC and Maricopa County, where the police are so bad they’re uninsurable).

        But if you change Monell, you’re basically doubling that liability (probably more, because juries are going to be more willing to impose significant liabilities on cities than they are individual officers). Especially in cases where cities hire cops who were fired in the next city/county over for misconduct.

      • sloopyinca

        So the taxpayers take it up the ass again. That’s the problem with municipalities being forced to pay settlements: the politicians and police departments have no financial disincentive to clean up their act because they just pass the bill on to the taxpayers and hike property tax rates to cover the cost.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        True. That’s another part – the money should really be coming out of police budgets (it should really really be coming out of their pensions, but that’s illegal under federal law).

        But unfortunately soaking the taxpayers is the best option we have, because people in city government like to get re-elected, and people really don’t like having their taxes hiked to pay for bad cops (or for any reason, but especially for that), which means getting rid of the police chief who won’t get rid of the bad cops if necessary.

      • Tonio

        Police budget, general city budget, doesn’t matter. The taxpayers are still on the hook. Only when government officials are personally liable for their own actions, and the actions of those they supervise, will anything change. Also, nothing to keep a city council from giving the PD more money if the department has to pay a settlement.

      • Jarflax

        Civil liability is never going to fix this because the people whose behavior is a problem will not be the people paying the judgment, and the connection between the behavior and any increase in tax burden is too tenuous for 99% of voters to follow. The only fix is criminal exposure for the officers.

      • straffinrun

        Always comes back to “taxation is theft”, doesn’t it.

      • Festus

        That’s the crux of the matter, Sloop. They don’t want to abolish the Police, they want to impose their hand-picked successors AKA “The Police”.

      • Agent Cooper

        I’d like to see Gordon Sumner try to arrest anyone.

      • WTF

        He’ll be watching you.

      • cyto

        And one more layer… they just end up passing laws that limit their own liability. That’s why you don’t see cities and states paying multi-million dollar damages over hot coffee, nor do you see billion dollar class action lawsuits.

        (good lord… imagine a world where class action comes to civic liability)

      • invisible finger

        ” I’d bet there are people in city govt that want the bad cops there so that they can get someone who will bend the rules just a tad in cases where the DA just knows the guy is guilty. ”

        Maybe I’m too old and going back to the 1960’s, but I thought the reason the police beat the shit out of people and then let them go was because they ‘just knew’ the guy was guilty and got tired of the DA not following through on the cases. I don’t think it was any deterrent, it was just frustration from arresting a guy multiple times and the DA doing nothing time after time.

    • leon

      Here’s a question though. At what point can the truck company dismiss because at some cases it seems like just legalizing suing the deepest pockets.

      • invisible finger

        You are exactly right, which is why the Supremes ruled that way. Also, the Supremes ruled that police are under no obligation to do anything. So imagine a neighborhood controlled by Black Panthers. The police aren’t going to bother policing that neighborhood – far too much financial risk to the officers personally and to the municipality. This is what happened in the late-60’s through late 70’s. The only way those neighborhoods were going to get any policing (and insurance) was with those protections.

  11. Rebel Scum

    Bon Appetit Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport Resigns After Backlash Over Treatment of People of Color

    So he experienced a blacklash, of sorts.

    • sloopyinca

      No, in this case a “brownlash” since he dressed as a Puerto Rican with his half-PR wife for a party.

      Meanwhile, Governor Klanny McBlackface keeps his job and Turdeau is still PM of America’s Hat.

      • Festus

        “Kneeling Justin” shames me.

      • Festus

        Your Canadian friend (who is hot and you don’t know her) is a fucking dunce-cap wearing moron.

  12. Certified Public Asshat

    Speaking of Hogwarts: The NHS has quietly changed its trans guidance to reflect reality

    Old: The effects of treatment with GnRH analogues are considered to be fully reversible, so treatment can usually be stopped at any time….’

    New: Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.
    Although the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.
    It’s also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones. Side effects may also include hot flushes, fatigue and mood alterations.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Filed under “No shit Sherlock”

    • Count Potato

      “children with gender dysphoria”

      If there is such a thing, it’s impossible to diagnose.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Right up there with children suffering from Munchausen syndrome.

    • Festus

      So if they come to their senses they will be functionally asexual and never be able to have children without gigantic hormone dumping. The whole world is full of crazy people.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The government of NC

      • robc

        Based on the race track in NC, they just need to call the convention a protest…which it kind of is anyway.

      • cyto

        It was Charlotte. They are particularly woke and particularly prone to using political power to make partisan statements.

        Charlotte was the genesis of the whole trans bathroom controversy. NC passed a ban to counter the city who said that you have to let anyone use whichever bathroom they choose, as long as they say “I Identify” as the pass word. They explicitly did this to create such a backlash in order to push the ball down the field.

  13. Juvenile Bluster

    Seen on Twitter:

    #Breaking Former Miss Hitler beauty pageant entrant Alice Cutter and her ex-partner Mark Jones have been jailed at Birmingham Crown Court for three years and five-and-a-half years respectively for being members of the far-right terrorist group National Action

    There’s a “Miss Hitler” beauty pageant? Are contestants judged on their mustaches or something? Do they get extra points if they have a swastika tattooed on their ass or tits?

    • leon

      Interesting. Antifa assaulters getting any jail time?

      • Juvenile Bluster

        This is in the UK. They can arrest you there for being mean.

      • leon

        Ahh. Ok that makes more sense.

    • Chipwooder

      “There she is, your Miss Hitttttttler, yes there she is, one of a kind……”

    • sloopyinca

      There’s a “Miss Hitler” beauty pageant? Are contestants judged on their mustaches or something?

      If we’re judging women on both mustaches and level of fascism, shouldn’t it be named after an Italian like Mussolini?

    • Agent Cooper

      Winner gets a bullet in the head!

    • The Last American Hero

      I think they shave their unmentionables in the shape of the Hitler ‘Stache or a swastika.

  14. Count Potato

    “People who have the coronavirus but don’t display symptoms aren’t driving the spread of the pandemic, World Health Organization officials said Monday.

    “From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing in Geneva, CNBC reported.

    “It’s very rare.”

    Health officials warned early on that asymptomatic carriers could be fueling the spread by stealth –but Van Kerkhove said that while asymptomatic spread can occur, it is not the main way the virus was being transmitted.”

    https://nypost.com/2020/06/08/who-asymptomatic-spread-of-coronavirus-appears-to-be-very-rare/

    Why the hell should I believe anything the WHO says?

    • R C Dean

      Assuming WHO is pushing ChiCom disinformation, I would say that asymptomatic people are probably big time vectors because the ChiComs want the West as sick and weak as possible.

      Or I will continue ignoring everything WHO says. Compromised source is compromised.

    • Festus

      So it was all theater. Shut down the World Economy and nothing really happened. We’ve reached peak derp, Glibs. Until it gets to shooting or slicing I can’t see how it gets worse than this. God help us all. On that happy note Imma go eat some pasta and try to de-escalate so I can work today. So angry. Good night.

    • Festus

      Didn’t Huckleberry Hound say yesterday that there may be 16-20 subpoenas coming down the line and maybe more to follow? Sure, Ralphy.

  15. Festus

    Heh. It will be funny if they “mike up” some of the known hot-heads on the PGA Tour. I know that my own language on the course ain’t safe for school. Imagine being such a perfectionist and your approach shot didn’t hit that magical 5 foot zone on the green… Just wait until someone misses a three-footer. I stopped throwing clubs thirty years ago but my grumbling has never subsided. Darn. Now I want to go golfing! Shame about having nobody to do it with.

    • Juvenile Bluster

      Can we go back 25 years and mic up John Daly?

      • Festus

        Fuck that! I want to party with JD right this instant!

      • Juvenile Bluster

        Yeah, but imagine a mic on 1990s Daly, when his average BAC on the course was probably in the range of .20

      • robc

        Of course he was drunk, he was 9th alternate for the PGA, he wasn’t going to get to play.

      • Festus

        I like how he rolled with it until he couldn’t physically do it anymore. Baller.

  16. Count Potato

    “An Indian man required surgery after inserting a two-foot long phone charger into his penis for sexual gratification, a report said.

    The unidentified man tried to hide the true cause of his ailment when he sought medical help last month at a hospital in northeastern India, claiming he consumed earphones, Dr. Walliul Islam told CNN on Monday.

    Doctors prescribed the man laxatives, but he returned to the hospital five days later when he was still complaining of pain.

    Islam, a surgeon at the hospital, told the network that “despite passing stool several times the cable did not come out.”

    “As the patient complained of severe pain, we decided to perform surgery and found that there was nothing in his intestine,” Islam said.

    Later, through an x-ray, doctors then discovered the phone charger inside his bladder, which is connected to the penis via the urethra.”

    https://nypost.com/2020/06/09/indian-man-undergoes-surgery-after-inserting-phone-charger-into-penis/

    Is this the same guy who shoved a fish up his ass?

    • EvilSheldon

      Apparently they don’t have sex toys in India, either. This seems like it would be a growth market…

      • cyto

        I saw a documentary about a couple who have a sex toy business in India recently. They are indeed illegal. So some stealth is involved in running their business. They resell Chinese manufactured toys out of their apartment via mail order.

        The other way folks get them is in street marketplaces where there are semi-inappropriate items on display. Enough to signal that you can ask the merchant to see the good stuff when the cops aren’t looking.

        So kinda like getting a Cuban cigar here.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      “As the patient complained of severe pain, we decided to perform surgery and found that there was nothing in his intestine,” Islam said.

      Later, through an x-ray, doctors then discovered the phone charger inside his bladder, which is connected to the penis via the urethra.”

      Ummm, why wouldn’t the x-ray be done first? Must be a cost thing, yes?

      • Dread pirate Robert

        You would definitely have a CT scan before surgery in America and it would be easy to see. Surgeon probably wouldn’t even see the patient before a scan is done

  17. Rebel Scum

    Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday urged insurers to speed up the paying of claims for small businesses devastated by looters – and warned he’d take action against firms that fail to “do the right thing.”

    Maybe you should have done the right thing and prevented the looting. So these taxpaying businesses would actually get value out of having to fund law enforcement.

    • leon

      Governor’s and politicians beating down on corporations to do the right thing is so laughable.

      Those riots I didn’t try to stop, rioting against cos I did nothing to defang. Toy guys should do the right thing.

    • Rhywun

      “Sorry if you lost your business due to fire or myriad other reasons your policy covers. These people get priority.”

      CWAA.

      • R C Dean

        And if the policy doesn’t cover it because you failed to control civil unrest? I guess the denial of coverage letter better get issued ASAP, because its a “priority”.

    • invisible finger

      JB is just trying to make sure nobody does anything stupid like sell casualty insurance in Illinois ever again.

  18. Rebel Scum

    The New York State Assembly on Monday passed the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act. The act passed both houses of the New York State Legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo has indicated he will sign it into law.

    Or you could remove laws that promote unnecessary interaction between people and law enforcement, generally allowing more freedom.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      You’re hilarious!

    • leon

      ACAB and all. Cops don’t need chokeholds.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “AK-47s“

      Damn Russians meddling in our internal affairs again.

      • The Last American Hero

        By the way, the “full auto AK 47” thing seems to have been making the rounds again. Some dipshit was claiming that people were carrying them at the lockdown protests a few weeks back.

        Sure, because a governor looking for an excuse to arrest and also tar 2A supporters would totally pass up a chance to throw them in jail and use the megaphone to increase gun control.

        Also curious how the press knew they were full auto if nobody was firing them.

    • Rebel Scum

      “The Arabs. The fake ass Ramadan motherfuckers”

      I laughed.

    • Rhywun

      Saw that on CNN yesterday.

      LOL just kidding.

      • leon

        They let these people come outside with they AK-47s. Ak-47s to protect they stuff from black people. They ready to kill black people, the A-rabs, the fake a** Ramadan mother f**kers.

        #BlackAndBrownLivesMatter
        #EndRacisim

      • Festus

        #Ramaracist

      • WTF

        Black people can’t be racist because they hold the highest ranking on the intersectionality matrix.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      She can get those sweet brownie points and she can afford to hire (more) private security. Of course she’s for it.

    • PieInTheSky

      To be fair and shit, ignoring the racial angle, I think I am more protected by the cops than poor people in the shit side of Bucharest, cops take into account socioeconomic status.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Ask poor US whites who live in a trailer park how well treated they are by the police.

      • Chipwooder

        Ask white bikers

      • Viking1865

        I’d rather die in a cop ambush and gunfight than be slowly strangled to death in the street.

    • bacon-magic

      “Is this how democracy dies? With thunderous applause?” ‘And woke rich and famous white bitches virtue signalling behind their secure mansions?’ – Padme

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        You know who else sought funding from rich white bitches for his political movement?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Charles Manson?

      • bacon-magic

        Michael Avenatti?

      • straffinrun

        Hall and Oates?

      • blackjack

        You’ve gone too far…

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Jim Jones?

    • Agent Cooper

      Let it be known: Natalie Portman has never been on an episode of Cops.

      • The Last American Hero

        Though the sight of her naked and hopped up on meth would be entertaining.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Ask your great grandparents about your white privilege, Natalie.

  19. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Hertz up 115% yesterday. Chesapeake Energy up 181%.

    Maybe I should file for bankruptcy to help my valuation.

    • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

      McClendon missed all the fun !

      • Festus

        Hey Don! Enjoyed the post. Much amused, many laughing.

  20. Juvenile Bluster

    Will one of Trump’s staffers PLEASE slap the phone out of his hands?

    Donald J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump
    Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN
    I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

      • Juvenile Bluster

        Yeah, I ain’t listening to Dunphy (the real one or the Reason one, assuming they’re different people).

      • Drake

        Just look at the pictures. That isn’t an old man looking for directions to Denny’s.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        Even if I assumed what you said is true, it still doesn’t justify the reaction.

        Which is the same as all the “oh but George Floyd wasn’t an angel” talk. I don’t care if he’d just got done machine gunning a preschool. Still doesn’t mean a cop can put a knee on his neck until he’s dead.

      • Drake

        We going to have to disagree on this one. He got in their space and got pushed away.

      • Rebel Scum

        I’m with you. As the adage goes, play stupid games win stupid prizes.

      • cyto

        The problem was – you had hundreds and hundreds of people getting in the face of cops and refusing to follow police commands…

        And that results in hundreds of folks getting pushed.

        One of whom turned out to be an old man who fell hard.

        This is the expected result when you run that experiment that many times. Some folks are going to get hurt.

        It is an almost insoluble problem. You can’t just walk away and let them destroy your city. And if you put a bunch of human beings in uniform in front of them to be assaulted and harassed for days on end, eventually some of those humans are going to react by pushing someone. (or much worse)

        Nobody is superhuman enough to go for days having that sort of interaction and still be able to start each and every interaction fresh, as if nothing else had happened that day.

        Proclaiming it as an example of the extreme brutality of police upon innocents is just as disingenuous as proclaiming the actions of police in cases like Kelly Thomas to be perfectly justified and above reproach.

        The dude kept refusing orders to walk away in the other direction and cop overdid it in pushing the old guy. Sometimes both folks can be wrong… and sometimes they can both be wrong in ways that are entirely reasonable. Life is like that. Too bad we can’t acknowledge that reality when it comes time to discuss things in large groups.

      • R C Dean

        Yeah, the antics with the cell, the helmet, the social media – he was there to cause trouble, and he did.

        I’ll be interested to see what’s on his phone for signal capturing, if anything.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Why is a 75 year-old man even there? Stay home.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      You going to try to take crack away from twenty dollar whores too?

    • Count Potato

      He seems to be overdoing it lately.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Looks sketchy as hell

      • cyto

        Par for the course.

        Like the CNN team who refused orders to leave the area – standing in front of police advancing to clear the street and repeatedly asking “where do you want us to go”. The orders were clear….. and I’m fairly confident that the intent of the CNN team was clear as well. Kinda the inverse of “stop resisting”. “I’m leaving… just tell me where to go..” while not actually leaving.

        Instant heroes.

      • Jarflax

        Relevant

        If people keep insisting that I choose between opposing police brutality and opposing riots, those people are not going to like the choice I make. Unjustified police violence is bad. It is too common because it happens multiple times a year. But that does not mean it is common by normal definitions of the term. It is not an existential threat; it is a problem to solved or ameliorated. Riots are an existential threat.

      • straffinrun

        Wouldn’t put it past them to do set it up.

      • Chipwooder

        I don’t know what the old guy was doing, nor do I pretend to know, but it was odd.

    • Idle Hands

      he really really really has a hard time not stepping on his dick. The fact that he’s better than his opponents is an indictment on everything.

    • Tejicano

      And I felt a blasé disinterest in the force, as if millions of viewers nodded, drooling, while reaching for another potato chip…

      • Tejicano

        Bleah… that was supposed to be under robc’s comment above…

        Help me Edit Fairy!!

  21. Rhywun

    Cancel Culture comes to Clemson.

    And Los Angeles.

    Sins of the wife.

    I don’t recognize this country any more.

    • leon

      We’ve got sins of the father down and now sins of the spouse. What’s next? Brother? Niece?

    • straffinrun

      The bugaloo is looking more and more like the French Revolution but with race instead of class. Could blow over in a week or two. Could spiral out of control. Your guess is as good as mine. (Probably better)

      • Rhywun

        I’ve never seen it this bad. But yes, it could go either way.

      • Jarflax

        This is 1968 repeated.

      • Rhywun

        Before my time, oldster.

      • Jarflax

        Mine too except in the most literal of terms.

      • Rhywun

        I might have been a bun in the oven, if we’re talking about late 1968.

      • blackjack

        The difference is, there was a lot of racism in ’68.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I think the one thing stopping it from spinning completely out of control is the abject lack of racists in this country and the even more lack of tolerance for racists. Push it for a generation or two and unfortunately it’ll be a different story.

  22. AlmightyJB

    So now that corporations are handing out millions of dollars, hand over fist, to BLM and their comrades, can we expect the riots to be an annual thing?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Absolutely

      Milk that cow while it still can produce.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Incentives are a thing so yes.

    • Atanarjuat

      They’re paying Danegeld? Why?

      • R C Dean

        Because they are weak and stupid?

    • leon

      Am I bad for wishing the antifa would visit the corporate headquarters of the companies funding this shit.

    • Nephilium

      That’ll be one way to make more cities like Detroit.

    • Count Potato

      Nope, just every four years.

  23. Rufus the Monocled

    Did all this ‘racism pandemic’ talk flush out idiots like that guy? We only started to here from them when protests against Trump being a racist began and never stopped.

    Had they not beat that drum, people like him would have lived a miserable life and no one would have been missed him.

    I’ll tell you one bad thing about the extreme part of calling everyone who is white a racist. It’ll lead to a backlash from people who aren’t racist. The ones who will get tired of being made to feel shame.

    Cancel culture better end soon because I can see some kind of response.

    No?

    • Juvenile Bluster

      At least Yashar Ali was shamed into deleting his tweet and going into hiding yesterday.

      • Idle Hands

        Yashar Ali is a fat piece of shit who appropriates a skinny guy in his avatar fuck that dishonest fucktard.

    • Q Continuum

      I’m still looking for any evidence whatsoever that Trump is a racist. The entire issue is made up from whole cloth. I feel like I’ve been taking crazy pills for the last 3.5 years.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I can’t bring myself to do the Tard Tuesday bit. The thought of visiting DU is too much. They’re completely off their rockers. They’ve got him this time!

      • leon

        It’s good that they are able to stay positive.

      • Viking1865

        They did it with W too. There was that special prosecutor, I think his name was Fitz-something. Every week Fitz was about to hand down indictments. He had Chimphitler dead to rights.

      • Chipwooder

        Patrick Fitzgerald, I believe

      • Idle Hands

        you really don’t need to go to du to find retarded talking points. I’ve never seen social media any dumber than it is right now. And that’s saying a ton. I thought Covid was peak stupid I wasn’t ready for this.

      • Rhywun

        Just go to CNN or NBC or Yahoo or WaPo or NYT or….

      • Rufus the Monocled

        I have a friend who is flooding me wth ‘blue wave is coming’ nonsense.

      • UnCivilServant

        That is not the impression I’m getting. If anything there is a blue malaise among the wider, taken for granted base. I’m getting the impression of low blue turnout.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Premature anyway. They haven’t even debated. I can’t imagine Biden doing well in those.

      • Akira

        Yea, it seems like they’re just playing to the most radical part of their base while scaring off the moderates and fence-sitters (the ones who actually decide the outcomes, typically).

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I don’t think the US can survive another blue wave. We’re going so far left so fast as it is that we’re shaking ourselves apart. I’m not sure what “turning it up to 11” would do, but I can’t imagine it being good.

  24. Q Continuum

    2 inches of snow overnight. I was really hoping to go on a bike ride today.

    • leon

      Dang. It’s been cold, but just Rainy here. Hope it doesn’t kill all of my raspberries and plums. But I think we did get snow above the 7k line

  25. PieInTheSky

    So question: among the more prominent black ancaps on the tweets there is a dud named Eric July. He has what I understand to be a metalcore band called BackWordz.

    As I do not listen to metalcore, is anyone who does and if so how does the music hold up in the genre, political message aside?

    • straffinrun

      Not bad, but not my cup of tea. It’s more about the message.

      • PieInTheSky

        he says the majority of metalcore is lefter than usual even for the entertainment area

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Metalcore is a cultural outgrowth of punk. So yes, it has a lot of radical left genetics.

  26. Rufus the Monocled

    My anger knows no bounds.

    Pritzer saying ‘insurers must do the right thing’ is OUTRAGEOUS.

    It’s not insurance companies who went around breaking the law. It’s a travesty and injustice that these people who destroyed property are getting off scott free. Don’t they know these people are going to continue to terrorize even once this stops? So he wants them to step up faster for something they didn’t do and he could and SHOULD have prevented? I’m sure if you poll person individually if asked the choice if they rather have law enforcement arrest looters or take the damage and get an insurance, they’d opt for the former. At least I hope. Who knows anymore?

    What the fuck? Are we this broken morally?

    Governors have abdicated their duties for this craziness. How can people possibly vote Democrat anymore? It’s a party for the lawless.

    • Overt

      This is why those evil banks keep getting bailed out, by the way. Liberals demand that the next person in the money bucket brigade takes all the losses- hey don’t blame the rioter, the business man, or the landlord! The Insurance company should bail everyone out!

      The same is true with housing, and was true with coronaggedon. “Keep the employee getting a paycheck…Don’t close the business…save the landlord…uh…pay your share mr bank!”

      So instead of these liberal-created catastrophes ruining a bunch of small fishes (while other small fishes might weather the storm), they transfer all the losses to one big fish who, of course, is too big to fail.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      When will insurance companies have their own protection squad to protect properties they insure? Especially if they get strong-armed by governors into paying out big money.

  27. Rufus the Monocled

    The beauty about Quebec is we’re just about insulated from all this ‘culture war’ madness. Sure, some of it drips through, but ain’t no one coming here to erase their history. This shit going down in other parts of Canada and the USA with all this grievance crap has a limited scope here and I kinda like it.

    I may not be Quebecois but I’d rather they defend their identity to the death than allow for what’s going on. No one is going to take down a Samuel de Champlain or Jacques Cartier or General Moncalm or Wolfe statue here.

    When it does happen it happens on the Anglo side like when McGill bent and cowered to ONE student who complained about the Redmen name. That shit doesn’t happen on the French side.

    Anglos are soft, wishy-washy useful idiots.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Anglos are soft, wishy-washy useful idiots.

      It sure appears that way.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        The calculus is very simple and clear and with almost universal support: Immigration sure. All is welcome. But not at the expense of our culture and history. Here’s how it works here. French is the language, no religious bull shit and assimilate. So Muslims who complain have limited impact.

        I may disagree here and there with them but I tell you. With what we see in Ontario and in the USA? Lemme tell ya what’s happened. Guys like me who are considered the ‘third solitude’ (Italian heritage of non-French Canadian English speaker. And this goes for a bunch of other nationalities) are closing ranks with the Quebecois.

        The English speaking community talks more like Democrat retards.

        Anyway, maybe we’re just holding out more and may eventually get overwhelmed.

        You know. George Grant was an obscure Canadian nationalist who wrote a book called ‘Lament for a Nation’. He was, well, lamenting the fact that it was inevitable Canadian culture (to the extent it was one) Canada would one day eventually be swallowed by the United States. The difference in size and power was too great. But what really disappointed him was that the country was doing so without a fight. When I used to play squash, a friend who got into later than me became better at it. My only ‘edge’ was to make him work hard for every single point. My anger wasn’t because I was losing (though that played a role) but that I felt I was not making him work for the points.

        That’s the best analogy I have for Grant. Which I completely agree with. Canadians want to be nationalist but without the work.

        But when it came to Quebec, this old-stock English conservative, respected it because they had something to believe in: An identity. He felt they were going to be overwhelmed as well, but with one major difference he admired they were ‘going out guns blazing’ as he put it.

        We’re not even fighting for anything anymore

        We’re letting the Trudeaus and Prtizers of this world dictate a narrative that is NOT the voice of the people or reflective of its soul and identity.

        Liberty is nice and all that but if you won’t fight for it what good is it? The people right now gaining the upper hand are taking advantage of the liberty accorded not to enhance it but to in fact SQUASH it.

        They’re using it as a weapon against the people.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        We’re letting the Trudeaus and Prtizers of this world dictate a narrative that is NOT the voice of the people or reflective of its soul and identity.

        I’m not convinced that the narrative is all that disconnected from the will of the majority. This culture has been thoroughly corrupted from top to bottom. Setting aside the true believer left, I think there’s a massive group of people who can’t think beyond the complexity of a campaign slogan, and they’re always going to tow the mass media lion.

      • WTF

        We are seeing the result of allowing the left to gain decades of complete control over education and media. The long march through the institutions is producing predictable results.

      • Agent Cooper

        There’s still a huge silent majority.

      • The Last American Hero

        Because they are muzzled.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        I go back and forth on that.

        Trudeau lost most of the country in the last election. Toronto – not even Ontario – TORONTO gave him a lifeline with a minority government.

  28. Rhywun

    Re: Also, please don’t come here. Thanks.

    some believe the trend is only exacerbating the wealth divide

    So, the “wealth divide” increases when rich people move in. And when rich people move out.

  29. Q Continuum

    “including an old photo of him in brown face.”

    WTF? That picture doesn’t look like he did anything at all. So what now: (((I))) get very tan in the summer, to the point that I am constantly mistaken for Mexican and was even mistaken for half-black once. If someone takes a picture of me during the summer am I going to be accused of being in “brownface” and fired?

    Fuck this whole movement anally with a rusty piece of rebar.

    • Count Potato

      That assclown has pronouns in his twitter bio.

    • Q Continuum

      Well Leftists do hate (((us))) just as much as Klansmen. At least we’re not cucked to Klansmen though.

    • Rhywun

      A (((family))) rode the elevator with me up to my floor the other day – mom, dad, and two kids all sans mask. It was… jarring. Not something I have witnessed in months.

      They really DGAF about the ‘vid scaremongering.

  30. Q Continuum

    Best Soundgarden song: Pretty Noose or Outshined?

    • Chipwooder

      Rusty Cage

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        This guy fucks

    • Juvenile Bluster

      Blow Up The Outside World

      • Juvenile Bluster

        (this is both an answer to the question and a sentiment right now)

    • straffinrun

      Changes over time, but lately I prefer “The Day I tried to live”.

    • bacon-magic

      Fell on Black Days

      • straffinrun

        Actually, all their song represent the sentiment right now.

    • Nikkodemus

      Limo Wreck.

  31. Count Potato

    “Young Irish lad brutally stabbed and slash over a meager bus fare.

    He’s been released from hospital and his attacker was released on bail.

    His GoFundMe was taken down and now suspended.”

    https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1270070206178701312

    Wait, what?

    • PieInTheSky

      that account is really not a reliable source

      • Count Potato

        Nothing is a reliable source.

      • PieInTheSky

        true but some less than others

    • Count Potato

      “A GoFundMe was set up for the teenager, and received over €6000. It was then shut down, as leftist activists, including a radio host, claimed it was set up “as a front by a far-right group,” intending to pocket the money. This was denied by the organisers, who even offered to hand control of the go fund me over to the radio station to prove their intent.”

      https://nationalfile.com/video-irish-teenager-stabbed-over-two-euro-bus-fare-by-gang-of-teens/

  32. Rufus the Monocled

    “Rapoport said he had “blind spots as an editor,” writing, “I’ve not championed an inclusive vision.”

    Here’s the material. Now tar and feather yourself.

    “chez tammie
    @tammieetc
    I do not know why Adam Rapoport simply doesn’t write about Puerto Rican food for @bonappetit himself!!! https://www.instagram.com/p/gJwGKVioSj/?igshid=7q4bswzu0ghs …”

    The amount of face palming I do at my age is not good. I’m gonna do what Suthen suggests.

    I think I’m going to start a magazine.

    ‘Racist Magazine’.

    Who wants to invest?

    • Idle Hands

      I just got into an argument about this with a girl I sleeping with. This is all bullshit, Conde Nast is shedding payroll otherwise they wouldn’t have paid this bullshit any mind. The pay discrimination thing is a real and provable thing my guess is that wasn’t happening and you had a disgruntled employee who everyone took her side because that’s what you do now to avoid the the fucking mob.

      • Idle Hands

        But yes now mere editorial directions or preferences are proof of systematic racism.

    • leon

      Having them police their own communities will probably have better outcomes than the state sanctioned murder goons.

      At least you can bring up their guys on murder charges if things get out of hand.

      • Drake

        I don’t disagree – but if I said it, I would be called a Nazi Klansman Mafia thug and locked up.

      • Count Potato

        “probably have better outcomes than the state sanctioned murder goons”

        Why would they?

      • leon

        People who actually care about their community. People Who are held liable for their own actions. People who can’t plead “well the courts never said that this was wrong, so how was i supposed to know”.

        Should i go on?

      • cyto

        That last bit is one of the most astonishing developments of my lifetime.

        Unfortunately, people who do not follow this stuff closely have no idea that it even exists. And I include all of the supposedly woke media in that group. You think Anderson Cooper has any notion that this is the state of the law, despite bloviating for hours about his opinions on the matter every single day?

        We are all told “ignorance of the law is no excuse”, so the fact that this is the state of jurisprudence for our law enforcement officers should be astonishing to everyone. Yet it gains absolutely no traction.

      • ruodberht

        So the same people that make their communities so violent?

        Do go on.

      • R C Dean

        You think BLM, a Marxist front group, cares about “their community”?

        Well, maybe the community of Marxist activists.

      • Count Potato

        Since when do gangs care about the community or held liable for their own actions?

      • The Last American Hero

        How would you charge them with murder if there are no police to apprehend them and force them to stand trial?

    • Rebel Scum

      Armed patrols, sure. You guys can help to reduce the black on black violence that is so pervasive in the black community since, statistically, that is the real problem.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Give it up Drake. Few will even accept this valid reasoning.

      They won the culture wars.

      They control too much of the mediums to pass the message on.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Everyone talks tough about their guns and a lot of energy is spent on the 2A.

        But they went after something more powerful; THE INSTITUTIONS.

        Controlling the narrative is more powerful than guns. Unless, you’re ready to shoot your way out of this mess of course. Because there’s no way to get some of that back. Too much ground was ceded.

      • mindyourbusiness

        “Ideas are more dangerous than guns. We do not let our enemies have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”
        -attributed to Josef Stalin

    • Drake

      It has to be killing social media too. Who in their right minds would post any opinions under their own names?

      • Q Continuum

        Why would anyone to the right of Mao even think of using Twatter at all at this point? It’s way too risky. As the CEO of CrossFit showed, you could post something that doesn’t even make sense and it will be twisted into something “racist” and used to attack you.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        You aren’t a retired WWII luftwaffe general named Drake? Why have you misled us?

    • Rebel Scum

      Arizona State University has rescinded a job offer to the new dean of its journalism school after students complained of past microaggressions and other insensitive comments.

      Retarded blathering about “microaggressions” makes me feel like having a macroaggression.

      • Agent Cooper

        I just want one of these people to go out with a ball of fury.

      • Raven Nation

        Be interesting to know if she’d already signed the offer letter.

  33. invisible finger

    Can;t wait for an insurance company to claim that they are holding back payment of claims until the Pritzkers get off their fat, spotty behinds and pay the money they still owe depositors.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_Bank_of_Chicago

  34. Pope Jimbo

    I’m just going to assume that Clemson will rename their Honors college to Bde Maka Ska College?

  35. Pope Jimbo

    Why are any of those fools wearing those silly scarves in the story on the Dems not going full in on defunding the police?

    Isn’t that cultural appropriation?

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      Its political blackface

  36. leon

    I’m going to say it again. Fuck the police. And fuck the conservatives sneering about “See this is what happens when you don’t have cops”. Fuck you. We fucking have cops right now and they fucking don’t do shit but murder people to the point that you have widespread riots, that they then don’t do anything to stop. So maybe it would be better to just get rid of them. Then at least i could spend some of my money on more defensive shit than having it squandered so Bubba cop can pay to send trophy wife to the store to buy more concealer so she can hide the bruises.

    • Q Continuum

      I wouldn’t mind private solutions but one precondition for this would be nationwide Stand Your Ground protections with very broad application. Also mandatory shall issue CCW and revocation of all unconstitutional gun laws.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        ^This, otherwise it just invites even more mayhem, but that’s not what they have in mind. What they do have in mind is organized patrols of politically agreeable state workers and citizens which will be worse.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m not in the mood to trade an obviously imperfect but serviceable system for chaos and mayhem.

        People seem to be forgetting that the monopoly on the initiation of force is the only real reason for the government to exist.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I’d be all for it if it was done in a methodical and reasoned way with input from all sides which is far from what they’re doing.

    • straffinrun

      There is quite a bit of blame to go around for the riots with the cops certainly near the top of the list. Let’s not ignore the other culprits.

      • leon

        I think the Cops have been ignored quite a bit. The idea that American policing is some institution that needs to be protected from the “defund movement” is quite widespread on this forum it seems. Quite frankly, a lot of the proposals that have come out have been reasonable.

      • straffinrun

        The cops are just a manifestation of the coercion the state employs on peaceful people. That’s why I don’t hold out much hope on the promise of “reform”. The beast wants your money and obedience and it doesn’t matter how we try to bind it’s hands.

      • leon

        I agree. I have no hope nor do i hold any misconceptions that the lefts “Defund/Abolish” movement is nothing more than an attempt to remake policing into a leftists secret police. The lure of raw power is too much.

        I’m mostly just venting, which you people are too kind, and let me get away with it.

      • straffinrun

        We are on the extreme edge of opinions even here at glibs. But, I’d rather hang out here because they are good people. Cheers.

      • leon

        Yeah. I forget that even for here my views are sometimes on the edge. Good people to let us stick around.

    • PieInTheSky

      While I say fuck the police as much as the next libertarian, it is not fully accurate to say don’t do shit but murder people. A degree of crime fighting does happen.

      • Jarflax

        And the murder people thing is actually pretty damn rare. A lot of this is large number effect, where tiny percentages look big because the population is huge.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Pretty damn rare compared to what other profession? I don’t think any other profession has the per-capita murder/manslaughter/killing of unarmed people rate that police have.

      • Jarflax

        Police killed about 1,100 people last year total. The vast majority of those people were armed criminals. The job of police is to apprehend criminals. Criminals tend to violence. There will always be more killings by police than by actuaries or bakers or carpenters. The issue with police shootings is the handful of cases in which the police killed someone improperly. More specifically the issue is that the police frequently get a pass for doing so. It is like child abductions (only even rarer) we have a 24/365 newscycle and dramatic happenings make good news stories so we all hear about all of them and it seems constant. But in a nation of over 1/3 billion something that happens every day is still a 1:1,000,000 event.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        About half the people killed by police every year are unarmed.

        But I didn’t complain about justified killing of violent criminals. I said the “murder/manslaughter/killing of unarmed people rate” is higher than any other profession.

        I know I’m not a Real Libertarian TM but I feel like having the agents of the state being the most murder happy profession in the country, and holding them to the lowest standard of legal liability in the country, is a little weird.

      • Jarflax

        And I quoted you the total number killed, which is about 1100 last year, and pointed out that since their job is to confront violent people they will obviously have more killings in their job than all the other jobs out there that do not have “confront violent people” in the description. I agree about the liability issue, cops who commit murder or manslaughter should be prosecuted. Although manslaughter rules for cops are going to differ from those for non-cops because cops are charged with pursuing and arresting criminals and if a non-cop pursues someone or grabs a fleeing criminal and thereby causes the person’s death they are likely guilty of manslaughter.

    • Overt

      I’ve been really disheartened by the conservative response. “Stop picking on the cops! Can’t you spare a moment to condemn the looters?!”

      Ok, I condemn the looters. Now where do we go from here? Because as near as I can tell, there isn’t a single damn thing that can be done to forcefully stop looters and which doesn’t increase the power to abuse among police. I don’t want the police abolished, but this is what fucking happens when you don’t engage the protesters- there is no one who can legitimately counter the extremists. We could have busted the Unions, wrecked QI, and gotten other important reforms in place.

      Instead conservatives plug their ears and scream “I can’t hear you! Looters looters looters riots!” And now there is no one to represent them at the negotiating table.

      • Jarflax

        I follow a number of conservatives. Virtually every one of them has posted some variant of the 3 or 4 lobe venn diagram condemning both rioters and police brutality. It’s the left screaming that opposing rioters is racist, not the right screaming “looters looters looters”

    • Agent Cooper

      Watch Live PD and you’ll see that the majority of work cops do is babysitting stupid and poor people. I hate to say it, but it’s true.

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      Here here.

  37. straffinrun

    Team Trump ‘Desperately’ Wants Bush to Endorse Biden. Some Dems Love the Idea, Too.

    Bush certainly left the White House as a deeply unpopular figure, under the cloud of disastrous wars, various scandals, and a cratered economy. But his standing has improved in his years away from the political scene, including among Democratic voters. And on the few occasions he has waded back into public life, he has conveyed a more socially conscious approach to national affairs, including offering his recent support for ending systemic racism in police forces.

    • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

      left the White House as a deeply unpopular figure

      I don’t know what they mean by “deeply,” but only one president left the job in the past 50 years with a popularity above 60%: RMN.

      • leon

        Ruth Maynard Nader?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I figured Kennedy was still popular when he “left” office.

      • leon

        If he was so popular why did they kill em, huh smart guy?

      • bacon-magic

        Who killed him?

      • Overt

        We did…since government planned assassination conspiracies is just another word for the things we do together.

      • Jarflax

        He became popular after he ‘left’. He was loved by the pundit class, his approval numbers were crap until he died and was eulogized by every reporter for years on end.

      • Viking1865

        The media uses “deeply unpopular” to describe Republican Presidents. They mean “deeply unpopular here in Manhattan and in the listservs and Twitter ecosystems I spend time in”

        George W Bush was deeply unpopular with 52% approving, Barack Obama was “well liked and respected across the spectrum” with the same approval rating.

  38. Pope Jimbo

    Uffda. This is so fucking dumb, I have no words

    Warner Bros is stripping Elmer Fudd of his rifle in a new Looney Tunes cartoon series on HBO Max, handicapping the grumpy hunter as he continues his decades-long pursuit of the wise-cracking Bugs Bunny, according to reports.

    The change in the latest incarnation of the iconic animated series is a response to the gun violence in the US, the Telegraph reported.

    “We’re not doing guns,” Peter Browngardt, executive producer of the new series, told the New York Times. “But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All of that was kind of grandfathered in.”

    Fudd won’t be empty-handed, however — he’ll now use a scythe to try to bag Bugs

    • Q Continuum

      “he’ll now use a scythe to try to bag Bugs”

      Fudd becomes the Grim Reaper. How is that better?

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Jesus. Only a soft-handed urbanite would say “guns are too messy, lets have him use a nice clean scythe instead.”

      • Pope Jimbo

        They should have given him a wood chipper

    • leon

      Fudd won’t be empty-handed, however — he’ll now use a scythe to try to bag Bugs

      Ahh yes. I much perfer my cartoon violence be close in and personal.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Fudd was always a rather pathetic character, it seems like they’d want him to keep his gun for the association. Now if they take away Yosemite Sam’s six shooters I’ll be pissed.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Pathetic bald, white guy is why they kept Elmer around.

      • Count Potato

        “Now if they take away Yosemite Sam’s six shooters I’ll be pissed.”

        That’s already been announced.

    • Rebel Scum

      a response to the gun violence in the US

      Which is way lower than when the show was originally aired.

      he’ll now use a scythe to try to bag Bugs

      Brutal.

    • Viking1865

      “Warner Bros is stripping Elmer Fudd of his rifle”

      Pretty sure he uses a shotgun.

      • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

        It’s so hard to tell if it doesn’t have the thing that goes up

    • Agent Cooper

      WHY WOULD A FUCKING HUNTER CARRY A FUCKING SCYTHE? IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!

      • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

        barley any reason at all

      • Pope Jimbo

        He’s a vegetarian?

        Not hardcore, just sow-sow one and he’s about reap his rewards.

      • Jarflax

        It is the sickle of life.

    • The Last American Hero

      And if he can’t get him with a sickle, he’ll use the hammer?

  39. Pope Jimbo

    Health care ex-CEO takes down Governor Walz in his comparison of Minnesoda and Wisconsin CV stats after Wisconsin’s cower in place rules were eliminated via the courts.

    Most importantly, Wisconsin gives us a look at seven day moving averages for cases. You can see the decline setting in and you see no change in that after the orders were vacated. If the incubation period is around 5 days, you would have expected to see a big uptick in cases if the lockdown orders really were suppressing spread that much. There simply isn’t one, at all, in fact the trend began to decline in this period, despite more testing. No noticeable uptick in hospitalizations or deaths either. Lifting the lockdown made no difference at all. The implication is obvious, we didn’t need one in the first place.

    So when our Governor blathers on and on about the science and the data and what the public health experts tell him, it is all bullshit. It’s over, Timmy, it’s over. Now the Governor hilariously yesterday made some comments implying that somehow the virus was different from place to place or the science or something. This is startling news, that the laws of science could be so different in two adjoining states. Somehow the virus knows a Minnesotan from a Wisconsinite. (It is true that we drink less and eat less cheese, but not much less in either case.) Our Governor’s desperate grasping at straws to explain his grotesquely excessive lockdown is getting beyond pathetic.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      EXACTLY THIS.

      Listen the plot was lost the second they believed the virus was going to murder everyone during the MAGA protests but then it was ok to allow rioting and protesting because ‘racism pandemic’.

      Apparently, the actual measurable consequences of preventing people from working (ie starvation and suicides not to mention domestic abuse) weren’t good enough excuses to protest the lockdowns.

      • Pope Jimbo

        If they don’t get a huuuuge spike in the next couple weeks from the rioting Walz is going to have some ‘splainin to do.

      • R C Dean

        If they do get that spike, he will need to explain why he let the protests happen in violation of his orders.

    • WTF

      It’s purely and obviously political at this point. Dem governors think holding down the economy will benefit Democrats in November.

    • blackjack

      I get why a politician would choose to do this lockdown BS. There’s no downside. If the virus turned out to be crazy A/F, it made sense and would have been much worse without it. If the virus ends up being minor, It’s only that way because we locked down. If the virus is bad and we did nothing, everyone would say ” Why didn’t you anything” if it’s weak and we did nothing, they’re gonna say, ” how can you take those chances?” SO, the best two outcomes come from having done all of this crap. What’s screwing them is screeching to stop for the protests. That’s just how important to them civil unrest is.

  40. Drake

    I really hope that “wealthy buyers reportedly in ‘mad rush'” to leave New York and eastern New Jersey too. We plan to have this house on the market early next year.

    • Rhywun

      I’m OK with it too because that means the rents won’t be too damn high for much longer.

  41. Count Potato

    “#Antwerp authorities have removed a statue of colonial Belgian King Leopold II after the weekend’s #BlackLivesMatter
    protest. The campaign to remove all of them continues. #DRC #KingLeopoldII #Belgium”

    https://twitter.com/jackeparrock/status/1270313880800149504

    “We now have a target list of all of the statues that they’re seeking the destruction of.

    If we allow these people to get their own way, nothing will be safe.

    Make no mistake, this is Maoist Cultural Revolution in the United Kingdom.

    Stop this madness.”

    https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1270307444963631107

    You can’t have statues of white people in Europe.

    • straffinrun

      Defending a statue to King Leopold II is not a hill I would die on.

      • leon

        I agree, Though the question is “Who would it be appropriate to have a statue of”. It seems that any human is woefully imperfect to survive any level of scrutiny.

      • PieInTheSky

        I am good with 0 new statues being built. As for the past ones, I don’t care that much. Or as captain Mal said ‘It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another”

        Although my I don;t care that much would lean towards leaving them be in general. Just stop worshiping Great Leaders.

      • Rhywun

        I am good with 0 new statues being built.

        Nice sentiment but that’s not going to happen. They want to replace the “bad” statues with “good” statues.

        Same as “defunding the police” – they don’t want “no police”, they wan’t “their police”.

      • straffinrun

        Imperfect is one thing. Lopping off the hands of thousands of people goes beyond that.

      • leon

        Sorry, i wasn’t clear. I don’t care about a statue to Leopold II. I was just saying that since statue tearing down is a craze right now, i don’t know who could reasonably stand the test? Ghandi? No he’s got issues. None of the Founding Fathers. Lincoln? As if.

        No one i can think of would not offend someone.

        Like pie says, maybe we are entering a period of no statues being built, and i really don’t care much either way, I’m just asking to the ether.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Sell the statues to private parties. I wouldn’t want to be subsidizing a statue of Lenin in my neighborhood, I get why blacks don’t want to subsidize one of Jefferson Davis.

      • Viking1865

        They will draw the line where it’s always drawn: at their idols.

        They will never take an FDR statue down. They probably won’t take a Woodrow Wilson statue down.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yep, will only go one way.

      • Homple

        There never will be a hill to die on. Two thousand years of culture is being dismantled, one un-died-on hill at a time.

      • R C Dean

        Slippery slopes are slippery.

      • straffinrun

        Not saying I agree with it. While they are tearing down Churchill and Ghandi, use your energy to save those.

      • Q Continuum

        They already attacked a statue of Churchill; y’know, the guy who actually fought actual Nazis.

      • PieInTheSky

        But killed Indians… Although I can never get a clear picture of that famine and sadly history is not as dispassionate as it should be.

    • Idle Hands

      This issue has always about toppling the founding fathers. Always.

      • Jarflax

        It is about toppling western civilization. Toppling the founding fathers is just a step along the path.

  42. mexican sharpshooter

    OT: If you are growing tired of looking for ammunition online and only finding everything out of stock/backorder. During the last run on ammunition some nerd made a site that scans other sites for ammunition that was in stock and conveniently links it for you.

    http://www.gunbot.net/ammo/rifle/556/

    I am just paying it forward.

    • Aloysious

      Now that is handy.

      Thank you.

  43. Idle Hands

    Do normal people not remember this is an election year and all this stuff is bullshit and not seriously going to get addressed or did we all collectively lose are fucking minds the last three months?

    • Idle Hands

      We are going to go through a #metoo for racism aren’t we? JFC the next 5 months are going to be so goddamn stupid.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I assume that last part is a rhetorical question.

  44. PieInTheSky

    I am one of those on this site that say often libertarians don’t know how to present their message to non libertarians and am often trying to find better ways to phrase things. That being said, the more time goes the more I think this is futile. I mean I know it is futile, but was thinking if there is a small chance why not. But seeing the general refusal to think and the mass belief in outright bullshit I am doubting things more.

    • Idle Hands

      Always remember most people are normal and social media isn’t real life. People just want to be left alone and theirs a ton of people silently disgusted by what’s happening right now. I’ve never seen more apolitical people that have totally fucking had with every level of gov after the lockdown bullshit.

      • PieInTheSky

        Meh most people I meet in real life are woefully ignorant and have very strong wrong opinions nonetheless.

      • cyto

        This!

        And that totally doesn’t apply to me. Or anyone present. We are the exception.

        Dang.

      • PieInTheSky

        While there is stuff I don’t know, I do know more generally objective facts (politics audience and not) than 99% of people I meet. For what it is worth. That is not to say I don’t have my bias.

      • PieInTheSky

        And given that, I still say I don;t know more often than most when I don;t know

      • Idle Hands

        You are describing me.

      • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

        theirs

        * furiously polishes TedS talisman *

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Most people don’t seek positions of influence and power.

        The leftist twats that the universities have been churning out go straight into government. They crave that power.

      • Idle Hands

        I’m torn between this being the death throes of a movement and it being a total and this being the birth of a full blown cultural awakening and shift. Either way I really really can’t abide by these fucking twats winning and November I hate everything these totalitarian pieces of shit stand for. Trump supporter’s for whatever the stupid bullshit the promulgate aren’t a religious cult that insists you convert or be cast aside from a livelihood or society.

    • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

      I’m always getting slammed in the paper’s comment section. I ask why people are so content to be taxed so that the city can have their buddies build things that are late, run over budget, and then don’t even work? Defund the morons; spend your money as you see fit.

      Not once has anyone ever responded: gee, I never thought of it that way.

      • cyto

        Gee… I never thought of it that way!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      There’s a certain personality type you can convince with reasoned arguments and a certain personality type that responds with emotional arguments. It’s always been this way but social media is amplifying the latter in a dangerous way so be careful who you have political discussions with.

      • PieInTheSky

        the problem is all emotional arguments outside freedom bad do not work.

      • Overt

        The sad thing is that there have been plenty of studies that show the VAST majority of people respond to emotional arguments. In fact it may be that everyone except Autistic respond to emotional arguments. The question is whether they have the self awareness to question their emotional response.

        The best training I ever attended was a public speaking class where the teacher pointed this out. He started by showing a bunch of studies where they had people watch speeches while monitoring their brains. They could predict based on these readings whether the person emotionally agreed with the person or not. However the vast majority of the people (like 80%) said they needed time to research the subject before coming to a conclusion. And in nearly every case, those people came back as predicted. They weren’t being more reasonable- they were just looking for a reasonable amount of data to confirm their emotional decision.

        Now this of course could be psycho-babble bullshit. But then, it has worked well for me. My presentations used to be “Smack you with data”. But now my presentations first and foremost tell a story to get the audience to form an emotional response, and then give them the data necessary to support those emotions. It is so easy that I kind of feel dirty doing it. (For a perfect example of this presentation process, see pretty much every TedTalk ever).

      • Mojeaux

        tell a story

        Human brains need the story. We’re all storytellers at heart and it’s why Christ taught in parables.

        Now, whether they get or will accept the underlying message is up in the air.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        That actually annoys me when people pull that because I know they’re trying to manipulate me but I also realize it works for most.

    • cyto

      I’ve been saying the same thing in a different way.

      When I was a kid I read all the dystopian anti-communist stuff. Orwell, Huxley, Vonnegut, etc. At the time I thought Huxley was using extreme hyperbole to make his point. Ministry of Truth, doublespeak, doublethink…. just some silly and over the top way to make a point.

      Now….

      I realize that Huxley was underselling it. I’m watching our current Ministry of Truth explain that Trump was a Russian asset and that the Obama administration was definitely not spying on Trump. And the MoT explained to me that Kavanaugh was totally lying about everything and anyone who dared doubt the completely credible allegations against him was totally a rape apologist. And Sandmann was just a complete racist Trump supporter who attacked an innocent Native American Elder who was peacefully trying to protect an innocent group of black people who were being harassed by the evil white supremacists.

      Huxley would never have made his characters so cartoonish.

      • Idle Hands

        Huxley was way way way closer to the truth than orwell.

      • cyto

        This what happens when you have 8 ideas rattling around and you have 2 minutes to distill it down before running away to answer the call of the wife. Bonus points for not reading it back to see what you left out in trying to squish stuff into a more compact thought.

        I was supposed to be drawing a parallel between the cartoon of talking animals and the hyperbolic exaggeration of 1984 and then taking that premise and comparing it to today, where the absurd doublespeak of the media goes far beyond anything in 1984, and is so absurd that I cannot imagine a talking pig being written to say these things.

        But that was too much to compose and dictate through google voice recognition without reading it back and editing it.

        So there ya go… 8 thoughts worth of stuff squished into an off-the-top-of-my-head paragraph or two without reading it back because she who must be obeyed needed me NOW.

        And it still makes more sense than what I’m reading from VOX these days….

      • leon

        t the time I thought Huxley was using extreme hyperbole to make his point. Ministry of Truth, doublespeak, doublethink…. just some silly and over the top way to make a point.

        That was in his book Stranger in a Strange land right?

      • PieInTheSky

        this was a better answer than mine

      • Chipwooder

        Geordus Huxwell

      • Swiss Servator

        No, that was Charles Dickens’ Moby Dick

      • Seguin

        I prefer the anime.

      • PieInTheSky

        At the time I thought Huxley was using extreme hyperbole to make his point. Ministry of Truth, doublespeak, doublethink…. just some silly and over the top way to make a point. – the way I read this is that Ministry of Truth, doublespeak, doublethink were from Huxley. I am pretty sure that is Orwell. Or am I misunderstanding?

      • leon

        I just thought we were bringing the misatributing Orwell/author meme back. It’s been a while.

      • PieInTheSky

        I may have missed that meme. I thought it was generic misattribution I seen once in a while

      • leon

        It was a thing around here a couple of months back, but then died off. Didn’t quite reach Towed Lions status.

      • cyto

        no… just trying to say multiple thoughts off the top of my head and getting them squished together. A vocal typo, if you will.

        but it is funny…

    • cyto

      How is wearing that African cloth OK for those old, white senators? Is it because they have a permission slip from the CBC? I thought that cultural appropriation was one of the 7 deadly sins….

    • Q Continuum

      But remember kids, Trump giving a speech in front of a church was a publicity stunt.

    • Rebel Scum

      What’s with the scarfs? (I mean I get it but I don’t get it.)

  45. Idle Hands

    Well Biden’s strategy appears to have the lefties shreak and cry and scream for 5 months until people give them the lollipop. I swear to god It might drive me to vote in a federal election for the first time in 8 years.

    • leon

      So it’s working?

    • Homple

      Does it really matter who’s President? We might learn if it does after one year of Joe Biden followed by seven of Kamala Harris.

  46. Jarflax

    Grrr, a client wants me to review their insurance to determine whether they are covered for civil disorder damages (wonder why?), but has now sent me:
    1. Their liability policy
    2. The billing statement for their building and property coverage
    3. The Dec page for their building and property coverage

    What they have not sent me:
    1. The policy they want me to look over

    • leon

      Clearly you aren’t charging enough for them to think sending you every document associated with their building is worth the money of you going through and figuring it out.

    • Drake

      Do they actually have a policy in place, or are they shopping for a nice retroactive one?

      (My wife is an underwriter and sees that kind of crazy shit all the time)

    • Rhywun

      The dec page should list the policy forms that apply. Sometimes with the title of each form (“Flood Exclusion”, etc.).

      • Jarflax

        But what I need to review is the standard exclusions to make sure it isn’t in there in some form. there is not a separate exclusion listed on the dec page.

      • Rhywun

        You can probably find it online.

        Or not. I didn’t have any luck at ISO. If I was at my last job I could pull it up for you.

      • Sensei

        Small business? If it’s not a custom form it is likely an ISO form that is standardized in your state. The declaration may list the form number and you can get at it that way.

        Mind you that isn’t definitive and you may not want to waste the hours.

  47. Juvenile Bluster

    The NYPD union whines, apparently thinks that by saying things like “don’t use force against absolutely necessary!” will bring people to their side.

    https://twitter.com/shaneferro/status/1270355120316747779

    They said the quiet part out loud:

    “Your first priority is the safety of your own family and your fellow police officers. No matter what, every one of us must go home safely at the end of our tour.”

    (you’re not a fucking soldier. It’s a job, not a tour.)

    • PieInTheSky

      “Your first priority is the safety of your own family and your fellow police officers. No matter what, every one of us must go home safely at the end of our tour.” – Stuff like officers came home and that is what matters and similar is mentioned and honestly, I do not see how this fits with being seen as heroes, having special status/respect, often special pensions etc. The whole point is you get that because you risk your life for others. If your safety comes for. If there is an active shooter and a cop hides to save himself, what is the point of cops?

      • Juvenile Bluster

        If there is an active shooter and a cop hides to save himself, what is the point of cops?

        There’s a reason that cops will go in guns blazing if somebody is accused of having half a gram of cocaine but will set up a cordon and wait out a serial killer.

        As for the second question, the obvious answer is that they’re there to make money for the state.

      • Q Continuum

        Cops have guns to protect themselves, not you.

      • leon

        You have a societal duty to pay for the protection of society and good order. But society has no duty to actually provide those services to you the individual.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yeah, that safety at all costs talk isn’t conducive to reasonable responses.

    • Rebel Scum

      the end of our tour.

      The fuck?

      No matter what, every one of us must go home safely

      That mindset is part of the problem in policing. You are a government agent. You are supposed to defer to the rights of the accused.

    • Drake

      I was a soldier and before that a Marine – they never ever told me that getting home safely was the most important thing. Very much the opposite in fact.

    • R C Dean

      “Remember, boys, we’re in it for us, first, last, and always.”

      Yeah, so deep in their own bubble they don’t see the problem with this.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Doesn’t really matter. He was cuffed and under control. Chauvin murdered him.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        Exactly.

        I said it above. I don’t care if he’d machine gunned a preschool 10 seconds earlier. Still wouldn’t make it right. He was cuffed, on the ground and under control.

      • Viking1865

        If he had machine gunned a preschool, the cops would have been hiding behind their cruisers, not arresting him.

      • Idle Hands

        this.

    • WTF

      Yup, he was killed for being an uncooperative asshole, and Chauvin was going to teach him a lesson. And when bystanders said to get off of him, he decided to show them who was the boss. It had nothing to do with him being black.

      • Drake

        I heard that he laid down to resist getting into the police car, probably right after that video ends. Total dick move and I really wouldn’t blame cops for pepper-spraying or giving him a dose of the taser for being such an asshole. But yeah – murdering him was not necessary.

    • Rhywun

      The only smart move today is to delete your Twitter et al. accounts and never look at those sites again.

  48. Idle Hands

    Adding to the not at all news about asymptomatic spreading Doug Gotlieb reason’s favorite doctor in all this admitted of CNBC that fever isn’t actually a symptom in the vast majority of hospitalizations they have. These fucking people are a joke. We’ve had to operate on the fact that low grade fevers were the leading indicator for covid testing for fucking 2 1/2 months and the whole fucking thing was a giant sham.

    https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1270303272251936769

  49. Rebel Scum

    But screw the whites.

    Today, I’m going to make a commitment on coverage. I believe that health care is a basic human right and I talked about when I was running that I wanted everybody to have some form of health care coverage. Well, as I’ve been listening and as I’ve been trying to hear from those who have been giving voice on in inequality, it is that it’s time to give prioritization in black and African-American communities, so we are going to do that.

    If I wanted to foment racial discord I probably would just do what Dems are doing.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Two separate communities with different governmental privileges and rights. Sounds familiar.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Apparently they think explicitly separate and unequal are electoral winners now.

    • robc

      I am glad I left the state before he took over, he has been awful as Governor.

      If Bevin had been just marginally less idiotic, he would have been reelected. But they don’t call the GOP the stupid party for nothing.

      I have two questions:

      1. How are any blacks uninsured? the ACA took care of that, right Andy?

      2. He realized this gets shot down in the courts as blatantly illegal, right?

      • Drake

        3. They still have a Republican legislature, right?

        4. Does this “law?” define “black”? Do you need an ancestry test to qualify? Or are they just going to use some kind of skin pigment color scale?

      • Rhywun

        ??????????

      • leon

        This isn’t even ever going to happen. It’s just something he’s saying. Like how E. Warren threw out a bunch of shit that she had no intention of doing, because thats what people want to hear.

      • WTF

        He realized this gets shot down in the courts as blatantly illegal, right?

        Only if you think the courts still give a shit about the actual words and meaning of the constitution.

      • Rhywun

        Yeah, not a chance. Just for example, many localities explicitly throw money at “minority- and women-owned businesses”.

    • Viking1865

      If I wanted to foment racial discord I probably would just do what Dems are doing.

      __________

      Forseeable consequences are not unintended.

      Take a white boy. Get him in school at 4. Teach him that his race has oppressed and subjected everyone, throughout history, all the time and that this blood guilt will NEVER GO AWAY. Structure the school system around female skillsets and strengths. Drive male teachers out of the schools. After he spends 12-14 years in mandatory schooling, allow him to apply to a university system that has explicit racial and gender preferences placing him at the back of the line. If he does manage to get into his chosen school, make sure the scholarship money is allocated to nonwhite and nonmale students. Give him another four years of antiwhite and antimale propaganda. If he manages to deal with that and end up well adjusted, kick him out in the workforce, where he will go to work for a big corporation and watch his nonwhite and nonmale coworkers be promoted more easily, and receive more help.

      How on earth could anyone think that would do anything but promote radicalization?

      • WTF

        That’s why they work so hard to indoctrinate the guilt, so they feel bad about their white “privilege” and won’t rebel.

      • Q Continuum

        It’s the “never go away” part that really does it. To be a good cult, you have to offer some hope, however slim, of redemption. Tell someone that they’re bad to the core and nothing they ever say or do will ever change that and they’re going to work very hard to prove you right.

        Disaffected young men are the most dangerous demographic; they do crazy things like strap on suicide vests.

      • B.P.

        True. Tell certain minority communities that the system is rigged against them and they might as well not even try to get ahead, and see how that works out.

  50. robc

    The question that always seems to come up — why is the Breonna Taylor death a 2nd tier issue at best and Floyd the top tier? Her case is open and shut. No question about whether she was a criminal or resisting arrest or anything like that.

    And yes, there are protests about her also, but they didnt even start until after the Floyd protests started, and her death was 2 months(?) earlier.

    It is the old saying, “bad cases make bad laws.” Why not focus on the good cases? Yes, that question is rhetorical.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The difference is Biden hadn’t stepped in a big ole pile of shit with the black electorate right before Breonna Taylor got murdered.

    • Mojeaux

      Breonna Taylor death a 2nd tier issue at best

      She’s a black woman and the black community doesn’t seem to value its women at all.

      • RAHeinlein

        That’s an interesting perspective. Corporate is all-in on “particularly black women” related to hiring, promotion, modern versions of “no-work/no-show” jobs.

      • leon

        In what way are they all-in.

        Seems like that would walk the line of EEO laws. (SLD re those laws)

      • Mojeaux

        I’m not talking about employment or EEOC or corporate quotes.

        I’m saying the black community doesn’t seem to value its women on a social/cultural level.

      • RAHeinlein

        Nearly every Fortune 500 have strong diversity initiatives (formerly AA hiring practices). Black women are at the top of the preference hiring/promotion list (two Fortune 100’s where I have worked were open about this and circulated to hiring managers). The phrase I quoted above “particularly black women” was used by multiple CEO’s this past week in-response to call for corporate to increase diversity.

    • leon

      :wax paper hat:

      I think it is because she died in part because her boyfriend was defending themselves from perceived intruders. You won’t get any Left Wing money trying to show that you have a right to defend yourself, especially against the police. (reminds me of a left-wing lawyer that was dumbfounded that you could resist arrest legally in Georgia, if the officer was arresting you illegally). Add in that it was a black man shooting at cops and you won’t get a lot of sympathy from conservative media.

      • Idle Hands

        maybe I think the no knock raid shit is egregious and so do many conservative people I talk to. Especially the cases where they get the address wrong or swatting is involved.

      • leon

        I think there are a lot of people on both sides who care. I don’t think there is a lot of interest with money that care. I.E Bloomberg isn’t going to donate to this, because someone was using a gun to defend himself. Even though he might get up and talk about how our black community is under a genocide from this nations police, He won’t argue that they have a right to shoot home invaders.

        Likewise, conservative “Cops din do nufin” media aren’t going to go after a case where someone shot at some good guys going after the mary-jew-anna

    • Pope Jimbo

      Compare the Jamar Clark shooting which led to huge riots to the tasing and beating of Chris Lollie in St. Paul which was met with crickets here.

      I get that one ended up with a dead guy, but still Lollie’s beating wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. And Lollie is a much more sympathetic victim. He was simply sitting and waiting for his daughter to get out of day care. Clark was a criminal asshole who actually did grab the gun of one of the officers.

      • robc

        It happens over and over and over again. It makes you think it is intentional (Hint: I think it is intentional).

      • leon

        I think often some things are so egregious, that the mass public chooses to ignore it rather than accept how egregious it was.

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      Video

    • Pope Jimbo

      Well of course they are. As part of the systemic racism, they are looking forward to the fun they will have denying black covid victims any care in a couple weeks when the tsunami of cases caused by the rioting hits the country.

      They will sit in front of the Colored Only entrance during their breaks laughing at the silly black people who thought they actually mattered and didn’t realize they were just pawns that had been manipulated by white supremacist infiltrators into getting infected.

      • Q Continuum

        Mr. Holiness, I’m from CNN and I’d like to speak with you about a potential employment opportunity.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I was going to say that because of my association to a religion (even though it is one I made up) is a complete deal breaker – even though the association is insecure and cynical.

        Then I remember that you guys love Rev. Al Sharpton and I’m more sincere than him. So let’s do lunch and talk $$$.

  51. PieInTheSky

    A pair of English Dr Wansbrough’s metalic nipple shields in their original round container.

    Nipple shields were made from a variety of materials in the 18th and 19th centuries, wood, ivory and silver the most common. They were intended to protect the mothers sore nipples. They were often perforated allowing the baby to feed through them (probably with considerable difficulty). These unperforated examples would have been removed before feeding. The dangers of lead poisoning were well known when these were manufactured in the mid 19th century. They nonetheless came with the assurance that “They are in no way likely to be injurious to the infant”.

    An advert from 1892 reads:

    “For ladies nursing – By wearing the Wansbrough shields in ordinary use whilst nipples are healthy they screen from all external sources of irritation. They are easy to wear, holding on like limpets. Sore nipples heal whilst reposing in the bath of milk secreted within the shields, which give at the same time both comfort and protection.

    http://phisick.com/item/lead-nipple-shields-dr-wansbroughs/#:~:text=A%20pair%20of%20English%20Dr,protect%20the%20mothers%20sore%20nipples

    • Raven Nation

      Yeah, either Lott has been living under a rock for the last 20 years, or he thinks RCP readers have been.

    • Rhywun

      True, but it’s been dialed up to 11 now.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It would be better if they took the rest of their lives off and their positions were eliminated.

    • RAHeinlein

      I’m hoping someone will call out these asshole mayors/governors for holding memorial services and promoting protests in the name of national grief when families have been denied (still aren’t allowed in many areas) funerals, wakes, visitations, or even say goodbye to a loved-one in hospitals.

  52. Sensei

    An interesting bit of history I had no idea about!

    Was the front door worth it?

    KOBE – No reader has ever likely been stuck at the airport to find themselves in a situation like a couple of American visitors to Japan 60 years ago today. Not only was it inconvenient for their host (U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas A. MacArthur, II), who had gone out to Tokyo International Airport to meet them and also had to be evacuated himself, but the incident that kept them there for a couple of hours had great implications for the Japan-U.S. relationship afterward and was one of the major factors leading to the cancellation of a visit by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower a week later.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Interesting. Thanks.

  53. Count Potato

    “President Trump will hit the campaign trail this month — despite the deadly coronavirus pandemic, which continues to impact the lives and livelihoods of households across the country.”

    https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1270152794885021697

    *honk honk*

    • leon

      Coronavirus only effects republican events.

    • WTF

      Actually it’s only the government shutdowns that continue to impact lives and livelihoods of households across the country. The virus has run its course some time ago.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      5 gallon buckets full of water are deadly to.

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      Sex Island, the erotic orgy event, could be reopening it’s doors to punters after authorities in Las Vegas shut activities down over coronavirus fears.

      Place kickers everywhere have a sad

      • ChipsnSalsa

        This is the country that spawned the language but nobody speaks it!

  54. R C Dean

    Gosh, has it been only a year since I wrote A Pessimistic Assessment. Well, it was in the Before Times, February seems like an age ago. Last June is a distant memory it seems.

    Face it: The crypto-Marxist Left’s long march through the institutions is over. They won. The commanding cultural heights belong to them – government, academia, media. The evolution of Marxism from economic class warfare to identity politics has been a smashing success, to the point where the long march has moved on from the cultural heights to the economic heights. Key infrastructure businesses are now implementing their agenda – banking, the big data and platform quasi-monopolies, ISPs, and misc. other businesses are purging dissenters not only from the public square, but from the marketplace as well. They are shooting the survivors, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, because they have the backing (enthusiastic support?) of the administrative state and judiciary.

    I confess I did not foresee the particulars of what we are now witnessing. I wasn’t expecting this much violence, or that, of all the crypto-Marxist identity groups, BLM would be the flashpoint and the cover. And make no mistake; BLM is a crypto-Marxist organization and its role in the current rioting and disruption is purely that of providing a pretext, a cover story. Antifa may be the militant wing, but its not the only wing. I also did not expect to see elected officials actively supporting and pushing the crypto-Marxist line, at least not this early.

    So, batten down your hatches. Even if the normies come out ahead this time, the ratchet has moved, and the day will come when the lunatics are in full control of the asylum.

    • Drake

      They got a bad feeling about the 2020 election and decided to launch a dress-rehearsal. It still think the big show is in 4 to 5 years and am planning with that assumption.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I wouldn’t say they’ve won just yet but they seem to be feeling like they’re in a good enough position to bring all of this to a head now. I certainly hope they’ve overestimated their strength and I think we’ll find out soon enough.

      • R C Dean

        I certainly hope they’ve overestimated their strength and I think we’ll find out soon enough.

        As far as elections go, sure. I am seeing exactly nothing that makes me think they are overestimating their control of cultural institutions. This all confirms, in my mind, that the cultural institutions are hopelessly lost.

        Elections (where the Left loses, anyway) are always temporary, and do nothing to rein in the administrative state.

        Regardless, the odds are quite good right now that the Left takes the Senate based solely on the number of Repub v Dem seats in play (it would take a Repub wave election to prevent it). Too early to say for sure, but I think the odds are decent that the Left holds the Senate and the House. How will that not be validating and empowering to the hard Left?

        In any event, the hard Left will have complete control of not only the cultural institutions, but the national government, soon enough. This isn’t 1968, when the march through the institutions had barely begun and there wasn’t a generation of voters that had been indoctrinated throughout their childhood in crypto-Marxism.

      • Drake

        Really? I think the Senate stays Republican, maybe even with another seat or 2 (Alabama is reelecting the Dem). The House is a coin flip.

      • R C Dean

        The Repubs have 23 seats up, with 3 retiring. The Dems have 12 up, with 1 retiring. The Repubs have a three seat majority, and a lot of their seats that are up this year are held by first-termers.

        These are not numbers that are conducive to the Repubs keeping control of the Senate. Its early to start handicapping races, but currently the only toss-up seats are Republican seats currently and most of the “leans incumbent” seats are Republicans. Most of the Dem seats are pretty safe. Depending on how you count, the Repubs have 6 – 8 seats at risk, and the Dems have 2 or 3.

        I don’t like the odds. But, its still early. Really early, considering the frantic pace of events.

      • leon

        Dems probably will take the senate, or the GOP holds a one seat majority. Like you said, With those numbers and the thin margin the GOP has, it’s almost impossible for 1 or 2 races to not go bad.

      • Rhywun

        If the Dems win the Senate, America is fucked.

      • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

        I like a split Congress, a food-fight where nothing is accomplished.

        Here’s the 270 Senate map.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Certainly the left controls most of the cultural institutions but along with that control comes an air of illegitimacy and a lack of credibility in many people’s eyes (including peoples who pretend to be buying in to avoid social sanction). If people still viewed the media and academia with the same reverence they did twenty years ago I’d say were fucked but now I’m not so sure.

    • Rhywun

      I’m still unclear on to what extent the useful-idiot protesters and political & corporate hacks are aware that they are supporting a Maoist front-group.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They’re too scared to consider it.

        Seriously, they’re freaking out that they might be unpersoned or fired or have a brand scandal.

        The left has made the personal political and we’re all worse off for it.

      • R C Dean

        What does it matter whether they are aware of it, really?

      • Rhywun

        Well, one could hold out hope that they’ll wake up and stop supporting a Maoist front-group oh who am I kidding.

    • Q Continuum

      “Won” is relative I suppose. Remember the Weimar Republic preceded the Third Reich and I’d be worried about some kind of extreme backlash by the normies. This kind of race-based bullshit is how you end up with a resurgence of no-kidding Naziism as a political force. Lots of white normies when faced with the choice of a group that wants to kill or enslave them or a group that, while execrable, claims to represent their interests and protect them, they’ll go with the latter; especially in the current “you’re either with us or against us” climate.

      • Gustave Lytton

        And that will take a little bit of time. I really think the big thing keeping this from turning into an out and out race war right now is the lack of racists and support for racists. But keep stoking racial divisions and that could and probably would change.

      • R C Dean

        This kind of race-based bullshit is how you end up with a resurgence of no-kidding Naziism as a political force.

        I’m not seeing it in this country, at least not to the point where the normies/Nazis win. See, above, generation of indoctrination. Consider, also, that in Weimar Germany the commanding heights of the economy were not controlled by Leftists, Lefty-symps, and useful idiots.

      • Drake

        The absolute intolerance for dissent in the institutions is new and scary. Universities and big tech are now simply not tolerating any opinion outside the liberal orthodoxy. Destroying careers and reputations of anyone who wavers in the slightest. This is new and a real problem.

        Those who disagree either have to find a way to step back, make a living without them, and help collapse those institutions. Or else fight it, probably literally sooner than later.

      • Q Continuum

        “Destroying careers and reputations of anyone who wavers in the slightest”

        Many have said that what holds back the emergence of violent conflict in earnest is that the normies have too much to lose. Make cancel culture ubiquitous enough and that will no longer be true.

      • R C Dean

        Universities and big tech are now simply not tolerating any opinion outside the liberal Leftist orthodoxy.

        This isn’t your Boomer’s squishy liberalism.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Alan Dershowitz agrees.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Higher ed is headed for a major economic implosion.

        Probably the best thing we can do is fight to make sure they don’t get bailed out. The system needs a good flushing.

      • Not an Economist

        #ShutDownSTEM is trending on Twitter. Apparently 1+1 has a racial component.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Somebody has decided “Fuck it”

      • PieInTheSky

        who?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Malice

      • PieInTheSky

        I though Malice decided “Fuck it” years ago

      • Q Continuum

        HE DOESN’T EVEN CARE IF HE LIVES OR DIES ANYMORE

      • Jarflax

        None of you is linking the 3/5>0 one?

      • leon

        Damn. I missed that one.

  55. I'm Here To Help

    Over the past few years, I’ve seen an increasing number of articles that considered the possibility that we were heading towards a second civil war. These articles discussed various breakdowns of how it could happen (progressive vs. conservative, urban vs. rural, racial), and while I thought that it was an interesting topic to ponder, I didn’t think that we were actually headed down that road. But what I’ve seen the last few days, I’m beginning to think that it could actually happen.

    For the past week or two, there is sound of gunfire around here every day. I live in an unincorporated part of the county where it is legal to shoot your firearms on your own property, and seeing that the smallest piece of land around me is a 1 acre plot, most people have firing ranges set up somewhere on their land. Some are not what I’d consider “safe” – a target set up at the edge of the woods with no sort of backstop. Others (like the people who own the pastures behind me, who I am trying my best to meet and ingratiate myself with) have a pretty professional setup, with berms and shooting benches set up every 100 yards out to 300-400 yards. But they all seem to be out practicing.

    We are definitely living in interesting times. I just hope it isn’t the Firefly definition of interesting (“oh god, oh god, we’re all going to die?”)

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Whatever happens, it will be largely contained to the cities. The suburbs, let alone rural areas, are not going to tolerate this bullshit.

      • R C Dean

        It will only be contained to the cities if perimeters are set up and enforced to keep it in the cities. Antifa has already sent probes into the suburbs. Hell. one of the early riots was in a wealthy suburb of Phoenix.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Once the suburbs realize that they’re at risk, which I believe they are beginning to, they will change their tune quickly.

        The lefties are fine with the chaos if it’s contained to the cities. They’ll become the biggest law and order fanatics known to man when it hits their doorstep.

      • Don Escaped the Virus . . . remember the virus?

        Whoever is holding the ace has been leading with jacks so far. I don’t know what will be called trump or how to predict it, but I suspect my hand is rather weak.

        I sit five miles from the Lorraine balcony, took grade-school betwixt Shiloh and Brice’s Crossroads, and read Homage to Catalonia in Catalonia. I don’t think it’s wise to plan to fight these old wars: something else is coming. The streets are laced with cameras; every transaction lives forever on a server; the apps I’ve deleted still know where I was last night; every sort of sniffer can accuse of some recent trespass. It would seem unlikely that any Ceaușescu or Gaddafi would be cleanly deposed.

        More likely the madding crowd, Committees of Public Safety, or Viet Minh slaughtering their neighbors on the thinnest of suspicions while the most look on silently. No first principles in play: passion and just-do-something and blaming everyone else because your mousetrap wasn’t the best and no one read your poetry or someone’s skin was the wrong color.

        It would be glorious (pardon that usage) for some 2A la Resistance, if needed, to make life quite unbearable for occupiers and their collaborateurs and the wheels of whatever oppression fell off. But there aren’t camps, offices, or uniforms. Your destiny might be sealed by simply being outvoted by communists in your own zip code.

      • leon

        BOOO! I come here for good news and wining.

      • Q Continuum

        All politics is local and it pays to make good friends with like-minded neighbors. I know that if black-masked hooligans started attacking me, both neighbors on either side of me would join in fighting them. I would do the same for them.

      • I'm Here To Help

        I’m surrounded on three sides by hundreds of acres of cow pastures. On the last side, between my house and the road, are two houses that have elderly women living by themselves. I make sure to visit them pretty much every day (one is recovering from a stroke, so I’m lending a hand helping her take care of her pets). But I don’t think that they’d be much help if it the world goes sideways.

        On the plus side, you really can’t see our house from the road – it’s just a dirt drive going back between the two houses. So it’s doubtful anyone would even find us, and if they did…

      • R C Dean

        In the highly unlikely event the scum make it out to my end-of-the-road, I’d like to think I will meet them, armed, and, err, “strongly encourage them” to crawl back into their holes, somewhere far away.

        As in, you will wind up in a hole. It can either be the one you crawled out of, or a new one.

        What will be hard is when the scum come with government badges as “social workers”, “mental health counselors”, or just plain old LEOs following orders.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I’d say I’ve heard more gunfire at my house since corona and maybe a little less in the last two weeks, but it’s a regular weekend thing even before corona.

      We’ve only got a couple of acres but it drops off steeply into a gully in places. Once the blackberries are cut back enough, I intend to cut into a bank and make at least a pistol setup. If I can get 25M for a basic rifle lane, I’ll be a cat in cream.

      • I'm Here To Help

        Our plot is about 2 acres, and we back up onto cow pastures. But living in Florida the only gully I’ll ever have on my property is if a sinkhole opens up on it. So no range for me (I won’t shoot onto someone else’s property, and I don’t want to ruin the views with a berm). Plus we have a nice gun range where I can go shoot in the air conditioning anytime I want…

    • Urthona

      We are not.

    • Q Continuum

      Is there nothing it can’t do?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Personally, I think it’s young stupid white women that are going to be the death of us.

      • Idle Hands

        been that way for years. They are both the root of all societies problems and the cause of modern society. Without them we’d live in tents but we also wouldn’t have mass incarceration.

    • PieInTheSky

      I have a sneaking suspicion that members of such organizations have a disproportionately large carbon footprint and future reductions will be for the little people

    • ChipsnSalsa

      Get on the bandwagon, while you can!

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      My father used to be active in the Sierra Club when it was about hiking in the Sierras. He was a big admirer of John Muir, because “Muir married a rich woman in order to go hiking and fishing all the time.” He left when they decided the Sierras weren’t just a mountain range in California. It’s gone downhill since then.

  56. DEG

    Good song.

    A man who is accused of driving his car through a group of protesters in Virginia is an “admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a propagandist for Confederate ideology,” according to the Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney.

    Soo… his FBI handlers aren’t going to bail him out?

    Any misstep by Democrats could deliver Republicans a powerful political weapon ahead of November.

    I think it is too late for that.

    The jewelry store owner proceeded to hand over his firearm for the alleged inspection when the suspects, who were armed with two firearms of their own, reportedly restrained and tied up the store owner, and subsequently stole his firearm along with a number of pieces of jewelry valued at a total of over $150,000.

    Tricksy burglars.

    “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I,” he added, referring to Rowling by her first name.

    Go fuck yourself.

    the Democratic governor said he will not “hesitate to hold any bad actors accountable.”

    Pritzker is avoiding mirrors?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I,”

      He’s certainly not talking about Paul McHugh who headed the department of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins for decades and ended gender reassignment surgery there back in 1979.

  57. Incentives Matter

    Anyone heard from Yusef in the last 36 hours? He made some fairly despairing statements (concerning the loss of his wife) Sunday night, IIRC. Bit worried ’bout him.

    • blackjack

      I thought he said he was gonna roadtrip to Phelan CA. Maybe no internet there?

  58. Scruffy Nerfherder

    The stock market appears to be in full 1999 mode.

    I remember those days well. Companies with no earnings and stock prices thru the roof.

    • leon

      Party like it’s 1999

      • Q Continuum

        Like you’re at Sex Island; just don’t worry about the STD and liver function tests when you get home.

  59. Tom Teriffic

    Ol’ Governor J.B. is pushing the insurance companies so hard because, if the property owners get some compensation in a hurry, they won’t be quite as angry at him. I wonder if those fine denizens of the South Side know that the Governor is part owner of the company that made and supplied the pallets of riot bricks? Oh, and, until recently, Little Willie Gates was on the board?