Return to Monday Afternoon Links

by | Jul 27, 2020 | Daily Links | 305 comments

According to WordPress, there were 4,999 posts before I clicked “New” for this one. So while I suspect we have published fewer than 5000 posts, I’m going to take credit for it. Happy 5000th post! (Man I hope SP doesn’t kill me for this. I know she was already on a warpath). On the me-front, it’s pretty busy here. I took on a side project, and then got a call about another side gig, which I didn’t say no to. So I may continue to be in and out of the links rotation. Thanks to all the other contributors who picked up my slack, especially RAPERNON.

Senate GOP rape our future less. Just send me the CovidBucks so I can buy all the fancy baby-crap momma wants.

Stop blocking the streets, and I’ll feel some tiny smidgeon of sympathy. But for now, this goes in my “probably a good shoot” bucket.

Waiting for the SF treatment on this one: Joe momentarily perked up as his only functioning neurons fired at the scent of feminine hair products. “Damn, ” he sighed, “smelled that one before, October 27, 2009… definitely 2009.”

 

 

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

Brett set out to find America, the real America, the America of strip malls and serial killers, of butthole waxing and kelp smoothies, of cocaine and maggots. He sought it in the most American part of America—Florida: swamp gas and fever dreams, where love arrives on a rickety boat and leaves when it doesn't have the money for its fourth abortion. Oh, where has Brett gone? He’s drinking at the neck of America’s wang, chewing its foreskin and working its shaft. Brett is becoming legend. Brett can never die. Brett can never die. Brett is America, facedown in his own patriotic puke: the red his blood, the white his stomach lining, and the cold, cold blue his gas station slushie, spiked with coconut rum and tetracycline.

305 Comments

  1. Yusef drives a Kia

    More Trump Bucks!
    Spend it now……………..

  2. Brochettaward

    This is a First for all mankind.

      • Brochettaward

        The lot of you didn’t deserve it, anyway.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        You’re just Jelly I showed up Loser Boy!

  3. Rebel Scum

    Senate Republicans will propose cutting weekly emergency unemployment benefits from $600 to $200 until states can bring a more complicated program online, according to two people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity about details that had not yet been released.

    Why do the Rethuglicans hate the poor?

    • Drake

      They want less of them?

    • The Other Kevin

      At this point I think any of us would be able to get a job as a headline writer for any of the major papers.
      “Republicans Cut Unemployment By 2/3 Even As Pandemic Rages and Economy Stalls”.

  4. KSuellington

    How will Biden be able to properly get his sniff on with that mask?

    • Count Potato

      His mask is woven from the hair of little girls?

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        He gets his from Japan.

  5. Rebel Scum

    But for now, this goes in my “probably a good shoot” bucket.

    Play stupid games…

    • R C Dean

      Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter, but I suspect his case for being in reasonable fear of his life is bolstered by the fact that another protestor shot up his car as he was driving away.

      I don’t know if Austin has one of the Soros prosecutors. If so, he will be charged and, if tried in Austin, could well be convicted.

      I’m wondering why Abbot hasn’t sent the National Guard in to shut this shit down, but I haven’t been following the riots in Austin very closely at all.

      • Viking1865

        The video I saw had 5 shots from what sounded like a rifle, followed by 3 that sounded like a pistol.

      • R C Dean

        I think the story is that the guy in the car fired 5 times, then as he was driving away somebody in the crowd shot at him.

        I don’t see how the second shooting is a good shoot, but the Austin police let them both walk.

        For now.

      • Viking1865

        That makes a lot of sense then, because the space between the two strings is really extended.

        Honestly, if the second shooter didn’t hit anybody, I don’t know that I’m comfortable locking him up. Yeah, it was poor judgement but I always default to “If you’re arresting someone, you need to point to the victim.”

      • R C Dean

        Reports are he hit the guy’s car.

        Regardless, it seems like its easily attempted murder, in the absence of a legit self-defense claim, which is hard to put up when shooting at someone driving away from you.

    • JMBOO

      “AK-47 is the tool. Don’t make me act a motherfuckin’ fool.”. When will people learn?

    • bacon-magic

      If they were not blocking his progression then there would not be a problem. The deceased and all those who were impeding Americans are directly responsible for the death. Protesting peacefully means not hindering others rights.

    • R C Dean

      My take: the simple fact that your car is mobbed like that creates a strong presumption that you are in reasonable fear for your life. Nobody in that position should have to wait for somebody to actually point a gun at them before they can take action.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        “My son would never, ever point a gun at somebody and risk going to jail or getting shot because he wouldn’t want to leave the love of his life helpless like she is now,” she said.

        Well, he did and she is. Congrats mom, you raised a good little useful idiot there. Stalin would be proud.

      • R C Dean

        My son would never, ever point a gun at somebody

        That one admittedly fuzzy pic is pretty suggestive, at a minimum. Sure looks like he’s got the butt of his rifle planted in his shoulder. Impossible to tell exactly where its pointing, of course.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        It’s a classic ‘I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6’ situation. As a civilian, my RoE doesn’t require me to be shot at before I can act. If you approach me while I’m in my car with a rifle at low ready, your life is already forfeit.

      • grrizzly

        I’ve read this book. In MA or CA I won’t be in the wrong defending myself with a firearm only under the most exceptional circumstances.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        That looks like a good book. Thanks!

      • EvilSheldon

        Excellent book. I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s a must-have.

    • PBRstreetgang

      The driver turned directly into the oncoming marchers (mobbers, whatever). He could have driven straight on Congress (?) one more block and turned without getting in the middle of the protesters, rather he turned right onto 4th after having seen hundreds coming from that direction. Maybe still a good shoot, but the driver didn’t do anything I’ve seen to try and avoid a confrontation.

      • R C Dean

        I don’t know where he was going. Maybe going straight and turning around wouldn’t get him there.

        Maybe by the time he did that, the “protestors” would still be in his way.

        Maybe the protestors shouldn’t be (illegally) interfering with traffic at all.

        Maybe there’s no duty to avoid a confrontation, just just a duty to not initiate one.

      • Rebel Scum

        This was not a permitted protest. They had no right to be on that street, the driver did. And the “protesters” swarmed him.

      • PBRstreetgang

        No they didn’t swarm him. Video shows him stopped at light with lots of marchers passing in front of him and then he makes a right turn (heading north if I have my 4th and Congress directions correct) into the middle of the group marching south. Driver does have the right to be there and marchers don’t. It looks to me though like the driver for spoiling for chance to “defend” himself.

      • Rebel Scum

        They had no right to be in the right of way, the car did. And they definitely threatened the driver. Obviously time will tell. I’ll leave it there.

      • Overt

        “They had no right to be in the right of way, the car did.”

        Unfortunately this is probably the least compelling argument. Pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way. Even if they are being jaywalking or being assholes, they have the right of way.

        This isn’t to say that you will always fry if you hit a pedestrian- just that the presumption is always going to be against you. You are going to have to argue that there was some other mitigating reason for you to violate their right of way (i.e. they were concealed so you couldn’t see them, or they were acting with such recklessness that it was impossible for you to yield).

        No, “They shouldn’t have been there” is not a sufficient argument. It will have to be “I was fighting for my life”.

      • R C Dean

        The video in the linked article shows him turning onto Congress (into the oncoming marchers), stopping, and then lots of people charging toward his car right around the 35 second mark.

        If that’s not being mobbed or swarmed, what is?

        Also, its not clear at all what the street looked like when he started turning onto it. There’s not a big crowd right at the corner – he drives a little ways before he stops.

        On the other side of the coin, he sure got his gun out and ready to fire in a big hurry. When I’m driving, between being seated and having a seatbelt on, unholstering and bringing to bear are not that quick.

      • PBRstreetgang

        That’s not how it looks to me. He turns onto Congress (guess I had the streets reversed earlier) directly into a crowd that’s already there, essentially trying to barrel through the group. Like you said though, he sure fired in a hurry, so he almost certainly had the gun in his hand before even turning the corner.
        On the other-other hand though, with a whole bunch of people around the car he gets off five shots and only hits the ONE person who presented an immediate threat to kill him, rather than indiscriminately spraying the crowd. I think that last part makes him look much better.

      • R C Dean

        Its fascinating how two people can watch the same video and see different things.

        I don’t think its clear at all that there was a big crowd on Congress right where he turned.

        I don’t think he tried to barrel through the crowd (or he would have); I see him stopping after a fairly short interval. Its plausible to me that he could have thought he was seeing the tail end of the crowd, and would be able to make his turn and be on his way, but who knows? Too bad he didn’t have a dashcam.

        I don’t think there’s any question that, as soon as he stopped, he was mobbed. Look at all the people who had already marched past that point who immediately turn around and charge what, at that point, is nothing more than a stopped car. That, plus the aggressive pointing by one of the marchers at the dashcam driver who was just stopped at the light, certainly makes me think there were plenty of people looking for an excuse to drag somebody out of their car and beat the shit out of them.

      • pan fried wylie

        Its fascinating how two people can watch the same video and see different things.

        I discovered and binged through the whole YouTube series Mind Field this weekend. Not sure I’d say any of the episodes were directly about this phenomenon, but the idea was touched on more than once.

        What I loved most was when I’d start yelling at the screen about some flaw or inconsistency…and then promptly shut up as it’s addressed next.

      • blackjack

        Yeah, I believe he waited until he thought they had passed, then it turned out there was more stragglers. The rioters seem to really take umbrage at people driving on the streets they choose to “take.” I think it really matters that all his shots that hit, hit the guy with the AK. It was a really dense crowd. I imagine they were slapping his car and shouting/generally menacing the driver. I think the protester who fired at the fleeing vehicle should be charged, personally. Threat was over. Now, he’s just trying to be the punisher.

      • Viking1865

        Agreed in terms of “the best way to win a gunfight is to avoid one entirely.” I don’t pick bar fights, I don’t flip people off in traffic, I don’t go to sketchy areas. Any rightwing gun nut who purposefully heads into these protests is a monumental fucking moron. Nothing good can come of it for you.

        But you can be stupid and still be legally using force in self defense.

      • PBRstreetgang

        This is what I think it looks like.

      • EvilSheldon

        This is really very good advice.

      • The Hyperbole

        Yep, I think more than a few Glib Gun Nutz have in the past put forth the notion that if you carry you have to be extra careful about getting into shooting situations, If that means backing down when one is Akshually right, then so be it. I hope that mindset isn’t being thrown out with the bath water, so to speak.

      • Overt

        “Maybe still a good shoot, but the driver didn’t do anything I’ve seen to try and avoid a confrontation.”

        Yeah, I’m a bit on the fence about this one, and think it will be an “Eye of the Beholder” issue for eternity. He was going fast when he made that right turn. That isn’t at all the behavior I’d expect if I saw someone going past a bunch of people. Now why was he going quickly? Was he scared? Pissed? I don’t know, but he didn’t seem to be overly cautious and that seems like it would cause a confrontation.

        On the other hand, he did stop, and then if people started mobbing his car, that is on them. The minute you start banging on someone’s car, you are damaging property, and you are at risk of being shot.

      • EvilSheldon

        I talked about AIJP in a previous thread. Let’s apply that model to this situation.

        Ability – Does he have the demonstrated ability to kill or seriously injure me? Yup. He’s pointing a rifle at me. Ability is present, without question.

        Intent – Has he demonstrated through words or actions that he intends to do me harm? You maybe could argue this point, but as far as I’m concerned pointing an AK at me is plenty sufficient demonstration of intent. Maybe Garrett wasn’t really going to shoot, but a pointed gun is a lethal threat even if you don’t intend to use it. As I’ve said before, guns are not magic wands that you wave at somebody to make them do what you want…

        Jeopardy – Do I have a reasonable belief that my life is in immediate grave danger, not based on bare fear or paranoid fantasy? Again, the dude is pointing a rifle at me from three feet away. Jeopardy is absolutely present.

        Preclusion – Is there any other option available to me, other than the use of deadly force? If there is another option available beyond, “Kill the guy with the rifle right fucking now!”, then I’m not seeing it. He could have hit the gas, that would almost certainly have gotten him blasted. He could have tried to reverse out of there, but that’s not gonna prevent the guy with the rifle from pulling the trigger. There was no cover that he could get to. As best I can tell, preclusion is satisfied.

        From the information available right at this moment, this appears to me to be a good shoot. As usual, my opinion may change with further information.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      When a person is engaged in criminal behavior and their victim defends themselves from the aggressor, any sane society should place the benefit of doubt on the victim and the burden of proving otherwise on the aggressor.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        *actual criminal behavior that violates NAP. Not “victimless crime” criminal behavior.

    • B.P.

      I like the part in the dash cam video where everyone drops what they were doing and rushes toward the vehicle, all excited to get their LARP on, and then everyone rushes back in the opposite direction once shots are fired.

      • pan fried wylie

        Now I want to connect two light-proof boxes with a hamster tunnel. Put alternating lights in the boxes, then fill the apparatus with cockroaches.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        everyone rushes back in the opposite direction once shots are fired.

        Funny how a gun changes the dynamic, isn’t it?

      • EvilSheldon

        “Can’t you people see there are guns here?”

        *crickets*

        “Get, the fuck, OUT! GET OUT!”

        *sounds of bystanders running for the exits*

      • Fourscore

        “Yelling gunfire in a crowded street”

        So much for your 1st Amendment rights

    • Ted S.

      And then drugs fell out their ass.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Worth a repost, tho.

    • bacon-magic

      “The age of Man is over!” – Peaceful Orc right after he splits some dude’s skull

    • Aloysious

      I think Orcs are being slandered. They’re not as malignant as Marxists.

  6. Rebel Scum

    Susan Rice’s advantage: A long work history with Biden

    And the willingness to straight up lie to support a narrative.

    • Drake

      Along with a Clinton-like lack of shame or regret when repeatedly caught telling lies.

    • Drake

      The squid – too easy. Hope he’s okay.

      Fucking idiotic to have them out there in that heat wearing fucking masks. Heat stroke a far likelier out come than virus transmission.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Must maintain the fear

      • Gustave Lytton

        $5 says he locked out his knees like a newb.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I remember doing that in elementary school choir.

        And he’s down for the count!!!!!!

    • grrizzly

      A healthy young military man collapses in 96 degree heat–but wearing masks is not any worse than using a seat belt. This is on maskers.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Said it this weekend, Lewis is doing a good run of Weekend at Bernie’s. Being carried over the Selma bridge. Lying in state in three capitals. Public memorials.

  7. This Machine

    Stop blocking the streets, and I’ll feel some tiny smidgeon of sympathy. But for now, this goes in my “probably a good shoot” bucket.

    Yup. Dude fucked around and found out.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      he sure did, rolling up on a car in low ready can’t be taken as anything other than a threat.

  8. B.P.

    “Stop blocking the streets, and I’ll feel some tiny smidgeon of sympathy.”

    Here in Colorado we had another vehicle-runs-through-protesters-on-freeway incident.

    https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/elijah-mcclain-rally-turns-violent-as-protesters-set-fire-to-aurora-municipal-court-building

    In this one, a protester attempted to shoot the vehicle but hit two other protesters instead. Later the protesters went into riot mode, trashing the court house in Aurora. Fires, fireworks, laser pointers, etc. It was basically Portland Cliff Notes. Also, journalists can’t write for shit:

    “During the hours-long protest, Aurora police didn’t make their presence known. Our crew on the scene reported seeing very little officers around.”

    It’s nice to know the Aurora PD has a squad of miniature officers.

    Also also, see article for pictures of scary, alleged-gun-wielding person of interest.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Good to see that Hobbit-Americans are finally making inroads into the police force.

      • Aloysious

        Maybe the Bearded Hobbit can add his two cents as to the views of vertically challenged hairy footed peoples.

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        I’m not touching that with a five-foot pole.

      • C. Anacreon

        I’m in the middle of a novel which relies on a lot of anthropology, and states that some 70,000 years ago there were three hominid lines….ours, Neanderthals, and a smaller line they keep referring to as Hobbits. Any of our amazing group of widely knowledgeable posters know anything about this, is it based on any sort of truth?

      • Rhywun

        That sounds really familiar. What is that novel?

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Sounds like Hominids

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        And good to see you back and recovering Rhywun.

      • Rhywun

        That was my guess too, and thank you.

      • R C Dean

        I think somewhere in the Pacific they have found hominid fossils that they called “Hobbits” on account of they were really small.

        TW: wiki.

      • Lackadaisical

        It does, ddg denisovans.

    • Ted S.

      Our crew on the scene reported seeing very little officers around.

      I always hate seeing those tiny officers.

    • R C Dean

      The “protest” was organized by the “Party for Socialism and Liberation”.

      Shouldn’t you have to choose which one?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Well they do liberate you from your possessions…

      • prolefeed

        “Liberation” from having all those choices you can make.

      • leon

        Oh they have chosen, the other is just for marketing.

    • R C Dean

      Police made contact with the driver of the Jeep who told investigators crowds began surrounding, “yelling and striking his vehicle” a release said. The driver told police he was driving toward the protestors because he was “scared and trying to get away.”

      I swear, years ago I read an article about how people were jury-riigging flamethrowers onto their vehicles in South Africa because crime had gotten so bad.

      I wonder if there are any blueprints online?

      • KSuellington

        You did. I remember seeing a show about security in SA that demonstrated such an option. I’d spring for the bullet proof glass and doors as well.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Very little officers are very adept at nut punches.

    • Overt

      This is absolutely inexcusable for the Aurora PD. I have been a (unwilling, due to car breakdown) pedestrian on I-225 and it is fucking dangerous, even when you think that most of the traffic is stopped. In fact it is when traffic is stopped that you have the most danger of someone zooming in, not seeing the problem up ahead, and cutting over to a free lane and hitting someone.

      Aurora allowing people to march in mass on I-225 is an act of such government negligence that they ought to be tarred and feathered.

    • pan fried wylie

      Our crew on the scene reported seeing very little officers around.

      Stannis Baratheon Hardest Hit?

  9. Rebel Scum

    The Great PanicDEMic of 2019-2020

    There are no reliable tests for a specific COVID-19 virus. There are no reliable agencies or media outlets for reporting numbers of actual COVID-19 virus cases. This needs to be addressed first and foremost. Every action and reaction to COVID-19 is based on totally flawed data and we simply can not make accurate assessments.

    This is why you’re hearing that most people with COVID-19 are showing nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms. That’s because most Coronavirus strains are nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms. The few actual novel Coronavirus cases do have some worse respiratory responses, but still have a very promising recovery rate, especially for those without prior issues.

    The ‘gold standard’ in testing for COVID-19 is laboratory isolated/purified coronavirus particles free from any contaminants and particles that look like viruses but are not, that have been proven to be the cause of the syndrome known as COVID-19 and obtained by using proper viral isolation methods and controls (not the PCR that is currently being used or Serology /antibody tests which do not detect virus as such). PCR basically takes a sample of your cells and amplifies any DNA to look for ‘viral sequences’, i.e. bits of non-human DNA that seem to match parts of a known viral genome. …

    The Mickey Mouse test kits being sent out to hospitals, at best, tell analysts you have some viral DNA in your cells. Which most of us do, most of the time. It may tell you the viral sequence is related to a specific type of virus – say the huge family of coronavirus. But that’s all. The idea these kits can isolate a specific virus like COVID-19 is nonsense.

    And that’s not even getting into the other issue – viral load.

    If you remember the PCR works by amplifying minute amounts of DNA. It therefore is useless at telling you how much virus you may have. And that’s the only question that really matters when it comes to diagnosing illness. Everyone will have a few virus kicking round in their system at any time, and most will not cause illness because their quantities are too small. For a virus to sicken you you need a lot of it, a massive amount of it. But PCR does not test viral load and therefore can’t determine if it is present in sufficient quantities to sicken you.

    If you feel sick and get a PCR test any random virus DNA might be identified even if they aren’t at all involved in your sickness which leads to false diagnosis.

    And coronavirus are incredibly common. A large percentage of the world human population will have covi DNA in them in small quantities even if they are perfectly well or sick with some other pathogen.

    Do you see where this is going yet? If you want to create a totally false panic about a totally false pandemic – pick a coronavirus.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Everything I read and hear echos this, it’s a scam, not the virus, but the reaction,

    • R C Dean

      75% of survivors

      And how they know that without even being able to identify survivors of asymptomatic and mild infections (which is to say, most survivors), well, who knows.

    • leon

      We must stay locked down for forever, until everyone dies off, so that we can prevent sickness.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I heard COVID makes your dick limp and your balls itchy.

      • kinnath

        Oh No. I’m going to die.

      • mrfamous

        *runs off to get tested*

      • pan fried wylie

        It was actually COVID that made dude’s dick fly off in the South Park gluten episode.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Looking a little chubby there

    • Oy the Billy-Bumbler

      Nope. Sensational figure.

  10. Rhywun

    More about the fucking bitch.

    I wasn’t aware that this is what set it off:

    In the telling of Lillis: “Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez she was ‘disgusting’ for recently suggesting that poverty and unemployment are driving a spike in crime in New York City…

    CWAFB. Passive/aggressive much? Not to mention mendacious fucking Marxist.

    • Count Potato

      She is absolutely awful, yet extremely popular.

      • Rhywun

        Every time she opens her mouth I am more surprised by how utterly, contemptibly evil she is. I’m too old to be taken aback like this.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They were spawned from the remnants of the Red Army Faction in Germany. I think the earliest usage of the term Antifa was around 1979.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        I have a picture that I took in a museum in Dresden of an Antifa poster from the closing stages of WW2.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Huh, there must have been an earlier incarnation. Was it virulently communist as well?

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        The translation is “The Red Army is coming as helpers. Their cars are rolling and bringing us food.”

        So yeah, they were commies then too.

      • dbleagle

        They predate the NSDAP seizure of power. They would frequently be in street clashes with the SA. But since Stalin was our buddy that part is harder to find in history books.

    • R C Dean

      Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years.

      And here I thought there were two in CHAZ alone.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That was a hateful act, so it was white supremacists by definition.

      • pan fried wylie

        ESPECIALLY whenever the perp and victim are both black.

        KILL WHITEY!

    • Ted S.

      Let me guess without having read the article: the data come from the SPLC.

      [skims article]

      Ooh, no, it’s CSIS.

      But they approvingly quote Yvette Felarca, a name I knew I’d seen before.

      • B.P.

        I went to high school with her. She was fairly normal way back when. I assume she was radicalized during college.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Clicking through to the lawsuit, where Judicial Watch was awarded fees for her frivolous lawsuit

        “Lastly, Judicial Watch’s request doesn’t account for the plaintiffs’ limited financial resources,” he said.

        Boo fucking hoo. Maybe she shouldn’t have done that if she had limited resources.

      • pan fried wylie

        Yvette Felarca, a name I knew I’d seen before.

        KotR1, a character on the Dantooine or Manaan level, I’m pretty sure.

    • Rhywun

      I don’t know about the current “antifa” but it was inspired by a 1920’s outfit in Germany.

      PS. Guardian fact-checking. LOL. ?

    • R C Dean

      Some of the gunmen who killed police had connections to black nationalist groups, which extremism researchers at CSIS and elsewhere said they typically categorize as leftwing, largely because in the 1960s, influential black nationalist groups like the Black Panther party were anti-capitalist and considered part of the New Left.

      Making that categorization is less straightforward today, some researchers acknowledge, since some prominent black nationalist organizations express homophobic, misogynistic and antisemitic views, values that set them in opposition to the current American left.

      As somebody who makes a living twisting facts to fit a narrative, I gotta say, that’s some topnotch work.

      I especially like the notion that anti-semisim is in opposition to leftism.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        That paragraph just got worse and worse, Ghaa!

      • Rhywun

        That’s hilarious. Peak Guardian.

  11. Aloysious

    I know she was already on a warpath

    Like the term Redskins, this is offensive to Indians. Whether they know it or not.

  12. Rebel Scum

    Teachers Union is asshole.

    At least two of the demands are, in fact, related to the novel coronavirus, with teachers demanding “safe conditions including lower class sizes, PPE, cleaning, testing, and other key protocols equitable access to online learning,” and at least one other is tangentially related, asking that “all schools must be supported to function as community schools with adequate numbers of counselors and nurses and community/parent outreach workers.”

    The list also notes that schools should not be required to open until “scientific data” supports a mass return to classrooms.

    But in addition to PPE and cleaning requirements, the list of demands also includes “police-free schools” — a marked change from previous memos which, following a rash of school shootings, demanded heavier security for at-risk schools — a “moratorium” on evictions and foreclosures, direct financial handouts to those with unspecified “critical social needs,” a “moratorium on charter and voucher programs and standardized testing,” “adequate and equitable funding,” and a fresh influx of cash for public schools provided by “taxing billionaires and Wall Street.”

    Although it’s not directly specified, Journeys for Justice Alliance, the Chicago-based activist organization that authored the list of demands, also wants a full moratorium on private education, not just charter schools and voucher programs.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      full moratorium on private education

      and I want a moratorium on property taxes too, but it ain’t happenin’

    • Gustave Lytton

      Forget Citizens United. Overturn Pierce v. Society of Sisters!

    • Rhywun

      So, an arm of the DNC advocates the Democrat wish-list. Shocking!

      The list also notes that schools should not be required to open until “scientific data” supports a mass return to classrooms.

      Would that include the pediatric organization (or two? forget the details) that has already come out advocating opening schools…?

      • Plisade

        War is peace
        Freedom is slavery
        Science is ignorance

    • Mad Scientist

      “Take all the kids out of private schools and make them go to public schools! And also make the class sizes smaller!”

      • Trolleric the Goth

        Well, I mean, they’re only teachers, we can’t expect them to be good at mat….

        Oh. Oh no.

      • kbolino

        The union wants more dues. That means more members. They’ve got the math figured out, alright.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Well there’s an evil bunch.

    • The Other Kevin

      So ban all Catholic, Muslim, Lutheran, Jewish, Montessori, and rich people private schools? (Did I miss any?) Let’s see if Biden steps on this rake.

    • kbolino

      There is a certain kernel of truth to the notion that private education enables public schools to languish. Charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling among many other functions also act as relief valves for problems in the public school system. Students who get to opt-out of public schools reduce the pressure on those schools to improve, just as disengagement and emigration from an organization or country, respectively, reduce the pressure on that entity to improve.

      However, pressure does not inherently translate into results. Even if change occurs, it may be resisted. People with vested interests can intentionally or unintentionally sabotage reforms. Established players can become recalcitrant, especially as their pet theories, personal reputation, or compensation is put on the line. An education system under a lot of pressure may simply produce lots of angry, disaffected, maleducated, etc. students, teachers, parents, and administrators.

      One of the biggest purveyors of in-group thinking and resistance to consequential change is a trade union. Their primary concerns are making more money while doing less work. Getting rid of the police presence stands apart, but it is the odd one out in a list of demands that boil down to more funds and less effort. Indeed, at no point is teaching children specific knowledge in useful subjects even mentioned.

      Even if one weren’t a libertarian who values individual freedom, banning private education is putting the cart before the horse. First the public schools must improve, then they will outcompete the private schools and the issue will be moot.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Missing from their entire screed is the notion of the customer.

        Functionally, the problem with public education is that it’s customer is not the parents, it’s the politicians.

      • kbolino

        Well, that and the widespread bias that public schools should just exist by default, as though it’s a supremely better idea to have a government-funded and run school than any of the other options.

        However, I’d say the real problem with public schools is that there is no customer at all, or more precisely there is no single entity which holds both responsibility and power. The taxpayer is the only actual stakeholder and yet their input is rarely heard and practically irrelevant. The parent isn’t the customer, for good or ill, because the school’s job is not to cater to the parent, it’s to educate the child. It is a bit funny (funny, not wrong) that people talk about parental involvement being the predictor of school success; the Prussian model was about removing the parent from the equation, as the parent could be a barrier between the state and the child, and the purpose of public education is to produce better citizens for the state. Yet even that purpose has been lost. While many public schools still adhere to some model whereby the teacher imparts knowledge to the student, the primary function of the public school system today is to be a system. People get paid, mandarins have jobs, a large number of middle class workers become a reliable voting bloc, textbooks and digital devices get purchased en masse, unions get dues, parents get to offload the raising of their children, taxes get spent, and politicians get to grandstand. The form of the system has almost wholly overtaken its function. We don’t have schools to teach, we have schools for the sake of having schools, and sometimes as an unintentional side effect people get taught.

        The incentives are entirely out of whack.

      • peachy rex

        An analyst quoted in a recent City Journal article pointed out that the disruption from Katrina had less impact on the education of poor minorities in New Orleans than expected… because those kids weren’t learning anything in school anyways.

  13. KibbledKristen

    My workplace canceled/postponed “Phase II” of re-opening, whatever the fuck that means. One thing it does mean is I’m stuck here for another couple months, at least.

    I need to plan a vacation ASAP.

    • R C Dean

      Wouldn’t it be ski season in South America?

      • KibbledKristen

        They’re all closed 🙁

        (and they’re getting DUMPED on with snow. Absolutely shit upon with snow)

      • pan fried wylie

        [non-skier] Is there such a thing as too much snow for skiiiiiing? [/ns]

      • KibbledKristen

        “Too much snow” is not being able to get to the mountain. Otherwise, no such thing

      • pan fried wylie

        Seems like you, of all people, ought to be able to secure an air-drop onto the mountaintop.

      • Ted S.

        Well, there’s also the avalanche risk.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      Well actually it’s technically only a avtomat kalashnikova if it manufactured in the Avtomat region of Russia. Otherwise it is in fact the assualt kifle.

    • R C Dean

      That’s one hilarious thread. The unending stream of “Well, ackshually”s is almost as funny as the original joke and the many follow-up jokes. I thought this one was rather sly:

      Well actually it’s technically only a avtomat kalashnikova if it manufactured in the Avtomat region of Russia. Otherwise it is in fact the assualt kifle.

      • R C Dean

        Dammit!

        *shake fist impotently at the Goth*

      • TARDIS

        For us civilians, shouldn’t it be a SAK-47 then? I don’t anyone that personally owns a full-auto version. If you get the CCP version, it’s a SACK-47.

    • KibbledKristen

      Lit’rally every reply is gold

      • grrizzly

        I guess that’s why I don’t do twitter. The original joke was meh at best and the replies were predictably boring.

      • R C Dean

        I expect that all those glasses being pushed up noses before the frenzy of “well, ackshually” registered on the Richter Scale.

      • grrizzly

        Perhaps, there’s more to it if you don’t speak Russian.

    • This Machine

      Oh! This is one of the guys who used to write for cracked.com back in the day (when it wasn’t godawful). Glad to see he hasn’t lost his sense of humor like the rest of the scolds that took that place over

  14. Pope Jimbo

    Uffda. Figures the guy they quote extensively to support Giant Liar Susan Rice is Ben Rhodes an even bigger liar.

    Why would any journalo talk to Ben Rhodes?

    • R C Dean

      Because he tells the lies they want to hear.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Because they’re as dumb as Rhodes accused them of being.

  15. Count Potato

    “First, gratitude to those who have reached out to me in support and care. Second, it came to my attention that someone posted on FB and Craigslist the below citing my exact locale and what hotel l was in at the time. Let’s together make it safer for survivors to come forward.”

    https://twitter.com/ReadeAlexandra/status/1287583479547404291

    Wow.

    • Drake

      I forgot about her. Damn, they’re killing people for speqking out of turn now. Be careful – and armed.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Damn, that’s just not cricket.

  16. DEG

    The White House and Senate Republican plan is expected to call for around $1 trillion in new spending, while the House Democrats have coalesced around a $3 trillion plan they passed in May. Pelosi earlier on Monday criticized Republicans for waiting so long to begin negotiations, saying “children are hungry, families cannot pay the rent, unemployment is expiring and the Republicans want to pause again and go piecemeal.”

    Prediction: They’ll compromise on $4 trillion.

    • KibbledKristen

      Sounds about right

      (we’ve missed you on the Zooms, man!)

      • DEG

        Now that bars are open for indoor dining, I’ve been heading out on the weekends. I drop in occasionally in the Zoom.

        I’ll drop in on one of them this weekend.

    • Sean

      That’s not even funny. ?

  17. DEG

    American Greatness on “Virtue Signal”

    “Virtue Signal: The Game of Social Justice,” released earlier this year by Incel Riot Studios, is a humorous table-top card game of parody and snark about social justice activists. Petty power spats, microaggressions, and wacky plot twists abound as the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) of the game spend more time fighting each other than for their supposedly glorious causes.

    Game creator William Dalebout is a commercial illustrator. He started developing the “Virtue Signal” game after he got canceled from the graphic arts profession in 2016 for designing a banner featuring Donald Trump.

    I supported their Kickstarter. I have the game. I’ve played it. It’s good. I recommend it.

    • pan fried wylie

      “This why Cancel Culture is insufficient and murder should be legalized for people I don’t like.”

    • Plisade

      Just bought the game and problematic expansion pack. Thanks!

  18. DEG

    NHPR on yesterday’s Plymouth, NH anti-mask ordinance rally

    The Plymouth Selectboard will host a town-wide zoom hearing Monday evening on a proposed ordinance mandating face coverings in town. Over the weekend, on the town common, an anti-mask mandate protest was held. NHPR’s Sean Hurley was there.

  19. Brochettaward

    Reason’s unbiased take on the Austin shooting:

    On Saturday, Foster was exercising his right to open-carry an AK-47 rifle, as allowed by Texas state law, and marching alongside fellow protesters. Just before 10 p.m., the protesters crossed the intersection of Fourth Street and Congress Avenue. That’s when a driver, who remains unidentified by the APD, aggressively accelerated his car towards the crowd of protesters. The protesters, including Foster, who was pushing Mitchell through the intersection, approached the vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop.

    While Foster’s loved ones grieve, libertarians also honor Foster’s life and his commitment to principle. Foster was very vocal about his support for Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen and vice-presidential candidate Spike Cohen.

    Cohen tells Reason that he was “honored” to have someone like Foster in the movement and that Foster will be “greatly missed” by his loved ones and those in the Libertarian Party.

    “Garrett Foster understood that libertarianism was about speaking on behalf of those who are the most acutely affected by the abuses perpetrated by an overly aggressive and unaccountable government,” Cohen says.

    • DEG

      Hmm….

      Welch?

      /clicks link

      Nope, wrong. I don’t recognize the name.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      So that’s what libertarianism is about. I had no idea.

      Also nice to know that libertarianism isn’t about judging a case on its individual merits and facts, but instead about social signaling.

    • Gustave Lytton

      libertarianism was about speaking on behalf of those who are the most acutely affected by the abuses perpetrated by an overly aggressive and unaccountable government

      I don’t know which is more retarded. That statement. Or that somehow Foster’s actions were in any way a support of that statement.

      Fuck the LP. I thought they had reached peak retard with the last ticket, but I was once again wrong.

      • kbolino

        We don’t speak on behalf of others, because we believe all people should have the right to speak for themselves. Why do you need white knights when every man is equal?

        Where this corruption of purpose began I cannot identity, and why it has happened I cannot understand. The purpose of our philosophy is the maximization of individual freedom, and the abuses perpetrated by government are consequences of the restriction of that freedom. We call them out not to go righting all the wrongs of the world but to right the laws and policies that have caused them. Because, at the end of the day, our purpose is to bleed our hearts out solely for others, it is to recognize the truth of “me today, you tomorrow” and that any freedom denied to another can be denied to me as well.

      • kbolino

        our purpose is NOT to bleed our hearts out*

      • Brochettaward

        Look at this guy here trying to tell me how to libertarian right.

      • kbolino

        How a philosophy and party that started with TANSTAAFL ended up at “we speak on behalf of the oppressed” I just don’t get. I’m not saying we don’t have room for the bleeding hearts, indeed the more the merrier. But the whole point is to obtain freedom, not slay dragons.

      • Rhywun

        They are confusing what they think libertarianism is about with what they think journalisming is all about.

      • kbolino

        That is a very good point. And it is true far beyond just Reason magazine. Nearly every publication today is falling over itself to talk about some kind of social ill or some victim of this and that. From video games, to movies, to sports, to politics (of course), to education; no matter what the nominal topic is, no matter who the ostensible audience is, the purpose of journalism is (read: has become) activism. And so, therefore, the purpose of everything must be activism, because journalists are the ones doing the writing about everything.

      • Brochettaward

        I’d go back to my point below on not buying the cosmos going woke as some sort of reaction to right wing critics. They don’t give a shit about right wing criticism, especially from the fringes of the right that actually even care to criticize the LP or libertarian outfits like Reason. If the populist right or yokels played a role here, it’s merely in the cosmos attempting to distance themselves further from the icky types loathed by the left wing critics that they actually about.

        Reason writers or the like don’t care what Ted Tancredo has to say. They do care what their left leaning journo friends think about them. They move in left wing social circles.

        Unless I’m misunderstanding the argument here, I’d want to see actual examples of these peckerwood populists who supposedly caused the reaction of the cosmos.

    • R C Dean

      aggressively accelerated his car towards the crowd of protesters.

      Godammit. Back to the video.

      Nope. Not seeing it. He’s stopped at the light and makes a turn, pretty steady speed, then hits the brakes. He was going a little faster than I would have liked, but there isn’t anybody right in front of him in that lane, either.

      The protesters, including Foster, who was pushing Mitchell through the intersection, approached the vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop.

      That’s certainly one way to describe what some of the “protestors” may have been doing. Left unasked: why did they want him to stop? To have a brief, friendly chat about being careful driving through their totes peaceful protest? Or, perhaps, something else?

      It doesn’t describe what many others, who ran at the vehicle after it stopped, were up to.

      • B.P.

        Someone over at that Reason thread points out something in the one picture that has the AK-47 guy in it. The woman in center frame looks like she has her purse on the trunk of the car and is looking through it. Not exactly a sign that the driver was perceived as driving dangerously.

        “He was going a little faster than I would have liked, but there isn’t anybody right in front of him in that lane, either.”

        Maybe he saw a gap in the mob that he thought he could get through, and the mob closed in on him.

      • Drake

        I lived in LA right after the 92 riots. I won’t be stopping for any rioters or slowing down much. Not going to get Reginald Denny’d.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Well meaning or not, don’t approach someone’s vehicle with a weapon visible during a fucking riot. If he had murder on his mind, fuck that guy; if it was all a big misunderstanding, RIP.

    • grrizzly

      Foster was very vocal about his support for Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen and vice-presidential candidate Spike Cohen.

      Now I understand better why Jorgensen implored her supporters to be actively anti-racist. Wow, the alliance among the LP, BLM and antifa. I now have a solid reason to be actively hostile to the LP.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Dave Smith’s been talking about just that quite a bit on his podcast lately. It sounds like the more right leaning libertarians are disgusted by the LP’s handling of this whole situation as a whole. I know I am but then I’ve thought of the LP as a lost cause for years and years now.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        It’s the exact opposite of how SJWs created the reaction of the alt-right. Are you surprised after a decade of being screeched at with cries of “COZMO!!!” to the milquetoast suggestion that perhaps ‘peckerwood populism’ isn’t the best strategy for the party that the bleeding heart libertarians would eventually play the cocktail party stereotype to the hilt?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Sure, they’re embracing what they’ve been accused of as a reaction to the accusations. That it’s a reaction to what might be an unfair accusation doesn’t mean it’s a smart thing to do or that it’ll be effective though.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Humans is humans. That’s how it do be, though over and over.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        one man’s reaction to an unfair accusation is another man’s ripping the mask off.

      • kbolino

        I don’t say this lightly but I think you might have found a new Iron Law.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Really? Cuz it reads like ‘the way she was dressed, she was askin’ for it’ to me.

      • kbolino

        Well, I was applying it in both directions, and in leftist as well as rightist discourse. Perhaps flipping the order of the operands around gets to the point better, by ending on the more charitable interpretation: one man’s ripping the mask off is another man’s unfair accusation.

        For example, a lot on the new left are happy to write off anyone they disagree with as always having been a racist/mysognist/transphobe/etc. all long. If that person does eventually fall down the genuine racism/sexism/transphobia rabbit hole, then all the better as it proves they were truly not of the elect. This neo-Calvinism infests left-wing discourse today in a way it didn’t 10 or even 5 years ago. To them, starting with “black-on-black crime is a serious problem” and ending with “black people are low IQ savages” or whatever other racist tripe you want to dig up is not just common, it’s entirely predictable and expected, so much so that in fact the two comments are indistinguishable anymore. This is why “all lives matter” can be called irredeemably racist even though if you said it 5 years ago it would be greeted by the same people with “duh”.

        And so it is with the new right. To them, there are two types of non-rightists: out-and-out communists and communists who are still pretending. This is directly in line with the argument you are making, I think: a reaction to an unfair accusation becomes indistinguishable to the true believer from having been not of the body all along.

        I spend less time trafficking in the far right and their accusations than I do here or following Twitter or YouTube or slightly heterodox stuff where 1) the dissent with the mainstream is limited and 2) it’s not long before you’re tracked by algorithms into the more mainstream content. I’ll read Zero Hedge when it’s linked here but I damn well won’t wade into the comments. So, trashy’s comment caused me to examine my own biases a little more deeply than I normally would, and to reevaluate your argument. I think there’s a deeper principle at play, though maybe someone can articulate it better.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        I get what you’re saying. What I was trying to get across is that when unfair accusations are made, many people in that group eventually disassociate with it, leaving only the ones who don’t have a problem with that label, which the accusers then use as evidence that they were correct in their accusation all along.

      • Viking1865

        ” there are two types of non-rightists: out-and-out communists and communists who are still pretending.”

        I wouldn’t say “pretending” I’d say “lacking a limiting principle”.

        These people are hothouse flowers, intellectually. There’s no such thing as “the government shouldn’t be involved in that.” Since they follow the lead of the vanguard, it doesn’t really matter that they aren’t ideological commies. If you follow the commies everywhere, and never turn back, then you’re a commie de facto, if not de jure.

        In 2020, America has a social democracy. That’s the system we have. We have taxpayer funded education from K to college. We have taxpayer funded medical care for everyone, albeit through a make believe free market system. We have guaranteed food, guaranteed housing, basic living stipends. The tax code is highly progressive. There are strong labor protections, employment laws, health and safety regulations.

        The only thing leftward of here is to actually start communism. Yes, the vast majority of those advocating it don’t understand that. Because they are idiots. They don’t intend to have communism. But intentions don’t matter, only results do.

      • Brochettaward

        I don’t know if I buy that what we’re seeing is a reaction to anything done by yokeltarians as much as its the cosmos continuing to drift to the cultural left with the rest of their ilk. Reason didn’t become what it is right now because there was a revolt in their comment section. They didn’t give a shit about that.

      • Brochettaward

        What the cosmos do care about is signalling as strongly as possible to the mainstream that they are the good ones.

      • kbolino

        There were always rightist trolls. There were also leftist trolls. Why didn’t they embrace Pinochet-style fascism, with all the socialists accusing them of being capitalist running dogs?

        It’s interesting to me that that article was written in 2009. I looked, and it seems Moldbug first put pen to (digital) paper in 2007. While I’m not sure neomonarchism and peckerwood populism can be called the same thing, they both fall broadly on the “new right”/”alt-right” spectrum. Yet if their current attitudes are a reaction to a reaction (or The Reaction, I guess), why did it take so long to manifest? And if anything their cultural affectation seems to be driven more by how young all of their writers are now than by the old guard tacking leftward in opposition.

      • kbolino

        Antecedent of “their” in the second-to-last and final sentence is the authors/editors of Reason.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Why didn’t they embrace Pinochet-style fascism

        They did. They’re called ‘Hoppeans’ now.

        While I’m not sure neomonarchism and peckerwood populism

        I would say they are directly opposed. You saw this in the debates during the early days of the alt-right between the older neo-reactionaries, who were more Moldbug-ian elitists, and the new Kekistani types who were NatPops that displayed both suspicion and resentment towards the Silicon Valley techie culture that made up Moldbug’s milieu.

        why did it take so long to manifest?

        Either Knapp was prescient or lucky. You pick.

      • R C Dean

        Peckerwood Populism is a marriage of libertarianism to “states rights” conservatism. In terms of political strategy, Peckerwood Populism is an attempt to gain support for that marriage by packaging it as a populist appeal with (sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle) evocations of past and present cultural and racial animosities.

        Alright, that’s good stuff.

        I wonder how much of the actual sneering at cosmos getting on the woke train by, say, supporting the Bake That Cake movement or otherwise becoming (temporary?) allies-of-convenience of progressives, was actually crypto-racism. Libertarians have always had their racist fringe (who hasn’t?), but I’ve never really seen his “explicit appeal to racial animosity” in the libertarians I know/follow. Hell, the handful of people actually pushing racial animosity that I know of are mostly pretty hostile to libertarians (but this may be a reaction to the cosmo strain of libertarianism).

        Or, maybe I’m a racist who just can’t see the racist waters I swim in. One should never overestimate one’s own self-awareness.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        but I’ve never really seen his “explicit appeal to racial animosity” in the libertarians I know/follow.

        You’re fortunate. Stay the hell away from ‘Liberty Hangout’ and the like if you want to keep it that way.

      • R C Dean

        *Googles Liberty Hangout*

      • Brochettaward

        It’s the official home of Kaitlin Bennett. I’m personally sold.

      • Suthenboy

        I have never bothered to look but what does ‘working with David Duke’ mean?
        David Duke works? Doing what? I thought he slithered back under his rock years ago.

      • Suthenboy

        I see very few people outside of leftist circles pushing overt racism, but the left is rife with overt racism.

        Also, I hate all of these labels.

      • Viking1865

        While an interesting read, the fact is it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

        The Power Elite is not some crazy conspiracy. Jeff Bezos buys the WaPo, Netflix hands Obama 100 million bucks, Google is massaging their search to keep rightwing sites pushed below leftwing ones, etc. Look at a Who’s Who of DC and see how senior government officials, politicians, and the media that are supposed to be the watchdogs are in point of fact the best of friends, and are often literally in bed with each other.

        Academia, media, tech, and government collude to create a permanent ruling class that all operate from the same set of narrow premises, and think nothing of violating the law to make sure their preferred policy outcomes result. It’s not “peckerwood populism” to actually look at what’s happening in 2020 instead of checking under your bed for Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.

      • R C Dean

        Bob Barr announced on national television that “states rights is the essence of libertarianism” was one such incident.

        I’m a fan of devolution of power to the states in line with the original intent of the Founders, with, per the 14th, robust federal enforcement of citizen’s rights against the states.

        Vice-presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root gave a race-baiting interview to Reason magazine, an interview almost entirely dedicated to portraying Barack Obama’s successes as nothing more than a result of identity politics.

        “Nothing more” is probably an overstatement, but to imagine that identity politics had nothing to do with his political success strikes me as naive.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        As someone of Jewish heritage and an academic, if everything they said was true, I should be living in a mansion somewhere with Soros’s number on speed dial to get the latest tips on which economy he’s going to destroy next for profit.

        Instead, I live in a modest ranch house with a one-eyed dog and I drive a Mazda 6. Where exactly did I miss the Illuminati boat?

        Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.

        Seriously though, I wouldn’t classify them as peckerwood populists. It’s more Ted Tancredo (when the article was written) and much of the current crop of the Nu-Right.

      • Viking1865

        I didn’t say anything about Jewish people, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.

        I vaguely remember Tom Tancredo. How many bills that he wrote became law?

      • Heroic Mulatto

        I didn’t say anything about Jewish people, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.

        It’s a joke about the typical and historic targets of populist conspiracy theories.

      • R C Dean

        Where exactly did I miss the Illuminati boat?

        Well, given the overt anti-semitism of the hard left, maybe because you’re Jewish?

        I imagine being a mulatto and a Jew really crosses some wire in the progressive stack.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        I imagine being a mulatto and a Jew really crosses some wire in the progressive stack.

        Dammit. I was hoping for at least a barony.

      • Suthenboy

        ” I live in a modest ranch house with a one-eyed dog and I drive a Mazda 6.”

        Sounds pretty good to me. Your life is your own.
        Having a Scrooge McDuck swimming pool means grifters coming at you constantly. Being in charge means everyone else’s problems, needs and fuck-ups become yours.

        I will take the ranch house, TYVM.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        @Suthen

        I am quite content, to be honest. I never wanted a giant house; I prefer to spend my money on travel. Also, having been trained by parents who worked in finance to live below your means, I can’t even imagine what I’d fill a larger house with.

        Hookers and blow, I guess.

      • kbolino

        Well, the LP used to be a lost cause for different reasons than today. Badnarik was no leftist. Barr was… washed up, but not a commie. Even Gary Johnson wasn’t a hippy when he first ran in 2012. The party was a lost cause because all third parties are lost causes, and of course the party had its own quirks (colloidal silver, anyone?).

        Now, though…

    • peachy rex

      Well, if they named a little crappy ship USS Peachy Rex, I’m pretty sure I’d take it as an insult. At least give me a garbage scow, dammit.

      • Gustave Lytton

        You misheard, they said the USS Peachy Rex should be hauled away as garbage.

      • pan fried wylie

        *unleashes full compliment of photon torpedoes into bar brawl*

        (idiot spell check. I leave out the ‘e’ and it replaces with “torpedo’s”. the torpedo’s what, huh, spellcheck?)

      • peachy rex

        If it’s an LCS, I’ll captain the tug boat dragging it to the scrapper.

        God willing, the Navy won’t fuck up the FREMM.

    • Rhywun

      Good luck finding angels without sin to name shit after.

      • R C Dean

        Robert Byrd, perhaps?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        USS Linda Lovelace would be good for a river dredge.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        USS Shatner

      • Surly Knott

        But what kind of vessel to, um, adorn with that name?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Isn’t he Canadian?

      • LCDR_Fish

        yep…but the USS Winston S Churchill does set something of a precedent.

        Although I think James Doohan would be a better fit.

  20. Stinky Wizzleteats

    A doctor at the white coat summit talks about hydroxychloroquine treatment for y’all know what (clip after brief intro, then a lot of talking after):

    https://youtu.be/KBil9H33MLA

    Sounds like it works if used correctly. She won’t be cancelled either because, we’ll, you know.

    • R C Dean

      One of the many crimes of Fauci and the CDC/FDA was their bad trialing of hydroxychloroquine. Only on end-stage patients, only in isolation and not part of a cocktail. They had plenty of “observational” studies on both early-stage patients and the cocktail, but did not do trials on those at the outset. Perhaps I am discounting their incompetence, but its hard for me to believe it wasn’;t intentional, to put a thumb in Trump’s eye after he touted it.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It almost had to be intentional. I who am not a doctor could see they were going into the ditch on the study designs after thirty minutes of research on Google Scholar.

      • Drake

        The stuff is too cheap! Why you want big pharma to suffer low profits?

      • kbolino

        It could also have been rushed ass-covering. The bureaucracy hates Trump, but they hate accountability even more.

      • R C Dean

        As ever, the only debate is whether it was malice, or incompetence.

      • kbolino

        ¿Por qué no los dos?

      • R C Dean

        Malicious incompetence, perhaps.

        Incompetent malice, no. Because if the goal was malicious, they accomplished it, so they weren’t incompetent.

      • Tres Cool

        Im not qualified to weigh-in, but from the peanut gallery Id yell “Reckless Disregard”

      • Tres Cool

        In Ohio, http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2901.22

        (B) A person acts knowingly, regardless of purpose, when the person is aware that the person’s conduct will probably cause a certain result or will probably be of a certain nature. A person has knowledge of circumstances when the person is aware that such circumstances probably exist. When knowledge of the existence of a particular fact is an element of an offense, such knowledge is established if a person subjectively believes that there is a high probability of its existence and fails to make inquiry or acts with a conscious purpose to avoid learning the fact.

    • Chafed

      What group are those doctors with?

  21. JMBOO

    A Three way tie for this year’s Nobel Prize for Outstanding Achievment in the Field of Excellence: Lori Lightfoot, Tim Frey, and Tom Wheeler. Better luck next year, AOC.

    • pan fried wylie

      “OAFE”

  22. Sean

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1235013

    “The neighbor of Sen. Rand Paul who in 2017 attacked the Kentucky Republican during a dispute about their yards was sentenced Monday to an additional eight months in prison for the assault.”

    • R C Dean

      “during a dispute about their yards ”

      Sure, NBC.

    • B.P.

      “In a separate civil case, Boucher was also ordered to pay Paul more than $580,000 in damages.”

      $580K from your asshole neighbor will buy a lot of tacky yard art.

      • This Machine

        +1 wooden pair of Dutch kids kissing

      • Gender Traitor

        …genders TBD.

      • Drake

        Lots of guns too.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        .50 Cal Rooftop emplacements

  23. B.P.

    Anti-communist protesters heckle CCP consulate commies in Houston…

    https://news.yahoo.com/anti-communist-protesters-heckle-staff-220913293.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=1_02

    “Among the protesters, Zhony Yi Ma, 34, traveled to Houston with a group from New York to heckle consulate staff. Police kept the crowd away from the building. “We want to end the CCP, take back China and build a nation like America,” he said.”

    Perhaps we could swap some of the commies in our streets with folks over in China who ain’t down with the CCP. I would think all parties would be satisfied by that.

    • R C Dean

      I doubt our commies would be satisfied by being on the receiving end of Chinese racism, and being locked out of the Party. They fancy themselves as the people who should be in charge, after all.

      • Drake

        That’s why you shoot the useful idiots after the revolution.

      • This Machine

        Well, yeah, but we’ll just tell the Chinese “No takebacks” and then they’ll be stuck with them

      • Drake

        Sure try rioting in a Chinese city, please send videos.

    • Mad Scientist

      Perhaps we could swap some of the commies in our streets with folks over in China who ain’t down with the CCP. I would think all parties would be satisfied by that.

      You are mistaken if you think living under communism is their goal. Their goal is for YOU to live under communism.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Communism isn’t any fun once the stealing is over.

      • Tejicano

        That’s not exactly true. It can be a hell of a good time if you’re a psychopath or sociopath. You could really get your freak on and be rewarded for it.

    • EvilSheldon

      Hearing shit like that legitimately hurts my soul.

      *sigh*

      Sorry we can’t seem to be a better example for you, buddy…

    • Ted S.

      Good. Margaritaville is an awful song.

      • Mojeaux

        I thought I knew you.

      • Tres Cool

        Sorry. #StandWithTed’s’eses

      • Tres Cool

        Escape > Cobacabana

        /shots fired

      • Mojeaux

        They’re both awesome in their ways.

      • Tres Cool

        She isnt that far from me- comments like that make me think she’s AntiFA. Im laying caltrops on the road right now…

      • Ted S.

        I’d have thought you and Mojeaux would prefer something like “Sad Eyes”.

      • Mojeaux

        I like them all. My childhood, dude.

      • Gender Traitor

        I remember that one! But when I see the title “Sad Eyes,” I think of this song.

      • Gender Traitor

        Meh – not one I’m likely to think of. Not horrible, but it just never did anything for me.

      • Surly Knott

        It wasted away from too much airplay.

      • The Hyperbole

        If it weren’t for the existence of the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffet’s crap would the worlds worst music.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Are you defaming Pet Sounds?

        My God man.

      • Ted S.

        I’m not a fan of the Beach Boys, but there’s much worse out there. After all, look at the earworms I post for you guys. 🙂

      • The Hyperbole

        Much worse?… sure one offs from nobody bands, but for sheer quantity of crappy music (that still get’s played, over and over) there is no band as sucky as the Beach Boys.

      • Mojeaux

        Under your criteria, yes, the Beach Boys suck big fat donkey balls.

    • one true athena

      I made a terrible gigglesnort sound at the “12 year olds for Prince Andrew” line.

      • DEG

        #metoo

      • TARDIS

        No love for Johnny and Amber?

    • Rebel Scum

      I like a girl with ball control.

      • Tejicano

        What ball? Was there a ball in that video?

    • DEG

      #metoo

    • UnCivilServant

      Stop paying attention to Twitter.

      Your life will improve.

      • Sean

        Oh, everything is good here. I have one work obstacle that needs to be removed, and it might be this week. That will be very good for me. I can’t be too specific, but it’s a contract holding us back over covid -1984.

  24. Sean

    Picked my first ripe jalapeno today. Yay!

    The superhots are bearing fruit too, but not yet ripe. Soon.

    Apocalypse scorpion chocolate. I might hurt myself.

  25. grrizzly

    The relationship between the severity of lockdowns and deaths from COVID-19. In a chart. The severity of lockdowns is estimated using Oxford University’s government stringency index.

    • leon

      It was worth giving up those freedoms huh.

    • R C Dean

      Help me read that.