Tuesday Morning Links

by | Aug 11, 2020 | Daily Links | 497 comments

Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas!  And what a beautiful morning it always is!

 

The Secret Service escorted Trump out of a press briefing yesterday after there was a shooting outside the White House.

 

Black male leaders threaten Biden to pick a black woman as VP.

 

Wuhan doctor claims that Chinese government scrubbed Coronavirus from death certificates to keep numbers down.

 

Amazon considering using closed J.C. Penney and Sears stores as fulfillment centers.

 

When it comes to government, always blame incompetence first then malice.

 

Difficult to play hardball when Trump pops your ball.

 

Good.

 

The Urban Exodus.

 

So can my 5 year old.

 

That’s all I got for today. I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.

About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

497 Comments

  1. PieInTheSky

    Black male leaders threaten Biden to pick a black woman as VP. – I am confused are trans women women for this purpose?

    • AlexinCT

      All black people think alike. That was not me… Biden told Latinos that…

      • PieInTheSky

        Black yes, but the question whether trans women have male privilege is yet to be answered.

        I think Emma Watson should chose the VP.

      • AlexinCT

        I was told that if you EVEAH! peed standing up, then you have male privilege…

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        Sitzpinkler!

      • PieInTheSky

        I though you made up that word but it seems not

    • straffinrun

      Wasn’t sure if “male” was a typo. Either spelling would’ve worked.

    • Rhywun
    • DrOtto

      So, you’re pulling for Ru Paul?

      • Bobarian LMD

        No kink shaming!

      • Not Adahn

        Kanye/RuPaul 2020!

  2. Nephilium

    So Amazon’s moving on from buying the whole mall just to buy the anchor stores?

    We’ve got one mall here that went under as is now an Amazon fulfillment center, and there’s construction happening at a second mall that went out of business to do the same.

    • AlexinCT

      Lots of these malls will end up being nothing but storage spaces now that people that already gave up on the idea of malls have been told to stay in their cages by their masters.

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      Capitalism’s pretty amazing. There’ve been a few big box stores in my town that have closed down in the past several years, and I always think, “They’ll never be able to fill that space now.” But there’s always something there to replace it within about 6 months. The old K-Mart just recently turned into a golf supercenter.

      • Nephilium

        We’ve got several abandoned big box stores here that have been vacant for over a year. There’s one whole shopping center that is pretty much empty, and this was before the lockdowns started. I don’t see it getting better anytime soon.

      • AlexinCT

        Same in The People’ Republic of Connecticut. I think the responses will be regional. In states like mine where government has strangled commerce, businesses – and people – are all fleeing and nothing else comes back in their place. You must not be living in a place suffering from that plague.

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        In Virginia, we’ve only had a Democrat-dominated legislature since last fall. They’ve been doing their best to destroy Virginia’s generations-old light regulatory touch, though, so I suppose it’s just a matter of time.

      • Viking1865

        For the last 20 years VA has had the best of both worlds: we’ve been the bedroom community for all the federal parasites, and we had a GOP state legislature that kept taxes and regulation on the less onerous side.

        Then the leftist judge ruled our state districts were unfair, and let a UC Berkley poli sci professor redraw them. For fairness, of course.

      • Nephilium

        There’s enough open land here that for the big players, it’s usually cheaper to buy property, built to suit, and then rake in those sweet, sweet, tax abatements for “development”. Meanwhile, several properties sit vacant. The only ones that seem to have a quick turn around (pre-lockdown) were fast food places. Those usually got repurposed into another small place in about six months. In fairness, of the big vacant properties, 3 were K-Marts and 1 was a Sears. These are all in a 10 mile radius.

        One of the K-Marts did get torn down and replaced with the first Menard’s in the area, it’s between a Home Depot and a Lowe’s (about a quarter mile away from each).

      • Bobarian LMD

        Our Menard’s is opening a quarter mile from the Home Depot, which is another quarter mile from the Lowe’s. But ours got built over a cornfield.

        The K-Mart turned into a home decorator super-store that I don’t know how it has lasted six months.

      • AlexinCT

        ChiComm money laundering operation? There are a ton of those out there…

      • Nephilium

        The little computer stores (screwdriver shops as they were called here), were the money laundering operations for the Russian mob in the outer ring suburbs back in the 90’s. The Greeks and Italians mostly just stuck with restaurants.

      • Pine_Tree

        Serious question: How does the money-laundering thing work on fronts like these? I see various “enterprises” which seem like they must have a back side like that, but don’t know anything about how it really works.

      • Nephilium

        Pine_Tree: Not an expert, accountant, or financial person… but my understanding is you have a business that runs with a heavy bias towards a large number of small cash transactions. You then fake a small amount of transactions, and inject your ill gotten gains in with the respectable money that came in through the “legitimate” business.

      • Akira

        @ Pine Tree and Neph:

        Buffet restaurants are popular for money laundering because there’s no possible way to tie the volume of product sold to the amount of cash in the drawer.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Our big mall has been trying unsuccessfully to fill the anchor location for about 20 years. It used to be a Sears, then it was a Target and then a Rona. Pretty sure something like that is on the next page. Big warehouse space.

      • Nephilium

        One of the more epic failed malls in the area has filled its storefronts with those little pop-up churches. I’m mildly entertained by it, and could almost believe it was some post-modern art project.

      • Ted S.

        In our dead mall, three of the four anchors are vacant, with the fourth renovated into Dick’s/Best Buy/Target.

      • AlexinCT

        Heh, back in the day when I worked for Aetna, they had us in a building in the town of Middletown that GE had build as a mall that had but had leased to them as a facility. To make a long story short. The newly elected democrat mayor of the town decided he was gonna make up their budget deficits by sticking it to the evil big corporations, and told Aetna in no uncertain terms their taxes would double. The facility was huge – 5600 employees – and the idiots figured Aetna had no options that wouldn’t be financially painful. Aetna decided to just shut down that facility and move all employees elsewhere. The mayor freaked out and then told GE they would have to pay the taxes, even though the property now stood empty. GE immediately sent in the demolishing crews and knocked the whole thing down (all but a small data center) to the ground, before the mayor could take them to court to stop that. In the end Middletown lost 5600 employees that contributed to its weekly economy, the tax money not just from Aetna, but from the GE property, and was stuck with having to fleece the people of the town to pay for the increase in unsecured spending. Lots of other companies went belly up or left as part of that debacle. Middletown never recovered, but the town is still mismanaged by corrupt democrats because the marxist students of Wesleyan keep electing a democrat the people of the town don’t want.

        Idiots the lot of them, but their response is always to double down on the shakedown tactics.

      • Viking1865

        College students shouldn’t be allowed to vote, period. But they particularly shouldn’t be allowed to vote in college towns.

      • Akira

        The girlfriend and I went to our local mall (the one in Piqua) the other week to snag some cheap stuff at a JC Penney’s going-out-of-business sale, and we just wandered around for a bit. The old movie theater in that mall had been turned into a weird hotel, and there was a sporting goods store. Other than that, there were a few random shops clinging for dear life. It was kind of like Dan Bell’s “Dead Mall” series on YouTube (look it up if you have a weird fascination with abandoned places like I do).

        There was actually a “Hannah’s Southern Bistro” that just opened up. Very brave move; hope they can keep it going. I got some fried catfish and collard greens that were pretty good.

  3. PieInTheSky

    Wuhan doctor claims that Chinese government scrubbed Coronavirus from death certificates to keep numbers down. – Sounds like a saboteur to me. Want to attack the glorious government for the purpose of stabilizing it. Probably a CIA plant. Fake news…

    • AlexinCT

      In the US they did exactly the opposite. Most did it because claim the death was from Kung Flu meant they could file for some real serious moollah from the government, but many, many more did it because they needed numbers to prevent their insanely ridiculous models and predictions from leaving them looking like the idiots they are. That’s our expert class at work right there.

      • Festus' Mustache

        The #’s from there are laughably under-reported.

      • AlexinCT

        Just like the numbers from here are laughably over reported. I am afraid we will find out the guy that died on a motorcycle and had COVID put as the reason for his passing on the cert was not an outlier, but SOP for these people.

      • Viking1865

        7 year old seized in a bathtub and drowned it got logged as a COVID death.

      • Akira

        A few months ago, the Lefties I know were breathlessly declaring that we surpassed China’s death toll. When I pointed out that it’s just China’s official numbers, which are notoriously unreliable, they just kind of hemmed and hawed and conceded that there may be a point there.

        I’m not claiming to be some statistical supergenius, just pointing out how the public schools and corporate media have totally killed critical thinking skills.

  4. Just a thought not a sermon

    “When it comes to government, always blame incompetence first then malice.”

    I like how you put this. Not incompetence instead of malice, but incompetence and then malice. Yes, that’s the right way to do things.

    • TARDIS

      I have to disagree. Maybe incompetence was the primary mode of failure pre-Shrub days, but now malice is. They just do malice incompetently. Fortunately for them, the media, academia, and the general bureaucracy keep things nicely hidden or ignored.

      • Rhywun

        #metoo

        I always go malice first. I know it’s comforting to think so but these are generally not stupid people.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Smart enough to get through College = dangerously stupid.

      • Rhywun

        To be fair, there are multiple kinds of “stupid”.

      • AlexinCT

        It is funny because I remember the reaction of the left back the day after the 2016 election had been called for Trump. They had been on a high horse about the Hillary presidency, acting as if the election was not just a forgone conclusion (they knew Obama had done his best to rig it in her favor and thought it was a forgone conclusion that she would win), and accused anyone that even mildly rebuked, let alone opposed, the Hillary presidency was doing so out of purely nefarious and base negative emotional reason. Then they did a 180 and immediately started talking about the guy not being their president. I pointed out to a couple of these people that I now expected 4 years of scorched earth leftist chicanery that would make the resistance from the right to Obama’s abuses not just look tame, but which would be unhinged and would not care about how many people they hurt or destroyed to get their revenge on the people that dared to upset the left’s belief that they represented the natural order.

        I am not trying to toot my own horn, but just pointing out that it was blatantly obvious to anyone that had seen the way the left behaved and acted in the age of participation trophies and people that had not accomplished anything beyond wiping their own asses full of their own self-esteem driven belief they were more important than anyone else, and that there was not just a tantrum coming, but a destructive one. The left has not disappointed. Instead of playing it cool and winning the next election with ease as people tired of Trump being a bombast, they have decided they will make sure everyone knows they will not ever tolerate someone in power that doesn’t come from their camp (or gulag, since these marxist really want to send the unwashed deplorables to them).

        Democracy to them means they win and everyone opposed to them loses.

      • juris imprudent

        The people aren’t stupid – but bureaucratic processes/systems could reduce Einstein to a gibbering idiot.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The social stigma for injecting your personal politics into your work is mostly gone.

        Therefore, mid-level bureaucrats and managers are screwing with the system to further their own political preferences. And it’s not just limited to government, look at Google, Twitter, et al… It’s not the execs that are censoring speech, it the mid-level managers that feel free to screw with their political enemies.

      • Rhywun

        The social stigma for injecting your personal politics into your work is mostly gone.

        Right?!

        You could neatly divide humanity into two camps – the right one and the wrong one – on this issue.

      • juris imprudent

        Disagree. 3 camps – the loudest advocates, the loudest opponents and the majority who really don’t give a fuck but will side one way or the other just to shut those motherfuckers up.

      • Drake

        I think of it as malicious incompetence.

        Not only do they not care about customer satisfaction – they actively hate the people who pay their salaries.

  5. PieInTheSky

    The Urban Exodus. – They should all move to Rural Texas and vote for gun control

    • PieInTheSky

      Also this must be why Jenifer Lawrence sold her new york apartment at a 6 million loss.

    • Cy

      Joe Rogan…

      • PieInTheSky

        well he hunts deer with a bow no guns needed.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        He’s figured out that California government sucks but is still a Bernie Bro. I can’t figure the guy out.

      • Tundra

        He’s like that on a number of subjects. I think it’s mostly the bubble and a little CTE.

      • PieInTheSky

        The guy in a recent podcast literally complained about the current taxes in California being to high. What the hell does he think Bernie is advocating.

        I honestly think a lot of lefties are lefties because it is fashionable and they don;t expect it will affect them.

        I remember the Will Smith interview in France when they talked taxes and he said something as a citizen of a great country I pay m,y share. Then the french host said the recent french law made the top bracket 70-% and Willy was shocked. “70%? I don’t know about no 70%”

      • Rhywun

        He’s rich as fuck. Diminishing returns and all.

      • AlexinCT

        I honestly think a lot of lefties are lefties because it is fashionable and they don;t expect it will affect them.

        So much this. As soon as them unwashed illegal messicans looking for work or welfare, or the BLM rioters/looters, show up in their neighborhoods, they fucking freak out. Same with the bathroom dilemma. Had one actually tell me since she never let her daughters go to public bathrooms, she could care less if some guy in a dress was in there wanking it while checking them out. They are for all these stupid rules and theft of productivity as long as others suffer the consequences. Look at how many of them cried when Obamacare gave it to them in the ass hard and good. I laughed at the “I thought it was the rich people that would pay for this” butthurt they showed.

        In general leftists tend to be morons when it comes to common sense.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        In general leftists tend to be morons when it comes to common sense

        Yep, because they emote rather than think. You see it also on the right. The issues they’re the worst on are the ones where they feel their way to an answer.

      • Viking1865

        The support of Bernie by people who aren’t actually morons seems to mostly be people who think “billion” and “trillion are the same number.” Like, I talked with one once, and he was going on about Medicare for All. Which, hey, lets just do some back of the envelope work.

        We spend about 750 billion on Medicare. Let’s say that covers 20% of the population. So, roughly, we need an additional 3 trillion to do Medicare For All. Every single year. The entire DOD budget is about 750 billion. So, if you literally eliminate the US Armed Forces, that gets you to 40% of the nation covered under Medicare. Alright, now you need to get another 2.25 trillion dollars out of the economy. If you go to the top 36 of the Forbes billioniares list, and somehow manage to get the Americans off the list, and get their entire paper value liquidated into cash, that is 1 trillion. That’s Bezos, Gates, Buffett, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, all the Walton heirs, Page and Brin, the Kochs, Phil Knight. Plus a few more. Well then, what’s your plan for the rest of the year, and the next year.

        I’m opposed in principle to confiscatory taxation, but leaving aside principle for just a second, lets look at practicality: you’re going to reduce the 15 richest people on the planet to absolute poverty and then hope that people just keep innovating and creating?

      • PieInTheSky

        I would think the money would come from all the private insurance that would disappear over night

      • Idle Hands

        On the other hand if you really did medicaid for all that should eliminate nearly all personal casualty insurance and most of your workers comp premiums.

      • Viking1865

        But remember, the way Medicare For All is sold by Bernie and his cult is that The Billionaires that Moved the Dodgahs will pay for healthcare, and you the workers keep the money you spend on insurance. That’s a key part of him selling it.

        He’s not calling for middle class tax hikes, he’s working with the fantasy that you can soak those Dodgah Moving Bastahds and pay for it all.

  6. The Late P Brooks

    “It’s unfortunate that this is the world, but the world has always been a dangerous place. It’s not something that’s unique,” he added.

    Monstrous indifference. What a sociopath.

  7. Count Potato

    Good morning , Banjos.

    “The Trouble With Mail-in Voting Might Not Be Fraud, But Government Incompetence”

    Why not both?

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  8. Rebel Scum

    The letter argued that “the urgency” for Biden to name a Black woman as his running mate “has gone from something that SHOULD happen to something that HAS to happen. It disgusts us that Black women are not just being vetted in this VP process but unfairly criticized and scrutinized.”

    “Vetted”. What does it mean?

    Also it is quite racist to only vote for someone because of his/her melanin content.

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      ” It disgusts us that Black women are not just being vetted in this VP process ”

      Is this true at all?

      • Rebel Scum

        Sleepy Joe already committed to selecting a female colored person person of color. So idk what these racist idiots are complaining about.

      • Brochettaward

        Warren has apparently raised more money for Biden than anyone else, and by a lot. The political operatives behind these campaigns are still convinced that money is the key ingredient. Not just having enough, but having way more than your opponent even though Hillary grossly out spent Trump in ’16.

      • UnCivilServant

        A political consultant gets to siphon off of spending by the campaign, so the more funds raised and spent, the more they personally make.

        And for some reason, even consultants who have never run a winning campaign keep getting hired…

      • Rhywun

        ?

    • Nephilium

      Also it is quite racist to only vote for someone because of his/her melanin content.

      That sounds like white supremacist talk to me. Next you’ll say it’s sexist to vote for someone due to what they claim to identify as.

  9. Count Potato

    Trump should challenge Biden to a game of golf.

    • AlexinCT

      Biden doesn’t golf. He does pool side fights with chains…

      Ask Cornpop…

    • Fourscore

      Have a Trump-Biden Recliner Runoff and see which one falls asleep first. My money would be on Joe.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Soap-Box Derby in the La-Z-Boys… First one that nods off before the end of “Murder She Wrote” wins.

      • Rhywun

        I wouldn’t make it past the cold open.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Also really enjoyed the article from last night! There was something about the smell from my Grandparent’s electronics that really hit a vein with me just reading it. Oh, and actual glass fuses. Grandpa had a home with a pump for the water but a huge copper thing in the “spider-place” in the basement for actual drinking water.

      • Viking1865

        Sucker bet. Trump is one of those hyperactive crazy people who only sleeps a couple hours a night.

      • Swiss Servator

        4×20, I didn’t get a chance to say how much I liked your post yesterday.

        We spend a lot of time on this site bitching – it was good to see a joyful piece.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I would watch a walking comp between the two. Trump is no model of health, but my money is on him to keep walking long after Biden falls over.

      • Festus' Mustache

        That’s a Stephen King novella.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Trump is the Walking Dude?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        The Long Walk

  10. Just a thought not a sermon

    “I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.”

    Bela Fleck came to my college and played around 1995-ish. Not really a fan of his music, but I sure came away impressed with his musicianship. His drummer had a homemade-looking electronic gizmo covered with buttons that he walked around with, hitting different buttons to produce the sound of a snare hit, a cymbal, etc., so he could “play” the drums but not be stuck behind a kit. Just an amazing show.

    • beer league keeper

      The drummer goes by Futureman. His brother, Victor Wooten, is a stellar bass player.

      • l0b0t

        A friend often goes to Wooten’s summer camp. According to him, Victor Wooten is one of the kindest, most generous fellows he knows. Also, the camp is amazing; they do all kinds of intensive stringed instrument work: writing for strings, playing, basic repair training, etc..

      • AlexinCT

        One time at band camp….

  11. Rebel Scum

    Wuhan doctor claims that Chinese government scrubbed Coronavirus from death certificates to keep numbers down.

    *shocked face*

  12. Just a thought not a sermon

    128) Last week, I was playing my iTunes in my house on shuffle, and up came Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, from the musical Avenue Q. It’s a catchy song, and pretty hilarious! Here are some lyrics from it:

    Everyone’s a little bit
    Racist, it’s true.
    But everyone is just about
    As racist as you!
    If we all could just admit
    That we are racist a little bit,
    And everyone
    Stopped being so P.C.,
    Maybe we could
    Live in — harmony!

    And I was thinking, man, we sure used to be relaxed about race in this country, back in, um, 2003. Yes, Avenue Q, which won about a zillion awards when it came out and was the darling of liberal audiences, came out only 17 years ago.

    I kind of tried to think myself back to 2003. I guess we had other things on our mind besides race? In fact, we were so relaxed about race in 2003, we elected a black man president only five years later. And yet century-old statues of Confederate generals remained unmolested. How was that possible? We sure were troglodytes then, what with lyrics like this:

    Ethnic jokes might
    Be uncouth,
    But you laugh because
    They’re based on truth.

    I think in considering it, what I feel the loss of most is humor. How could an entire country lose its sense of humor in one generation? America used to be funny, right? When I worked a summer in Germany in the mid-90s, all the Arabs, Greeks, and (even one or two) Germans I worked with wanted me to tell jokes because Americans were supposed to have such good sense of humor. When was the last time there was a really funny comedy in theatres? The last one I can think of is Hot Tub Time Machine, from 2010.

    And I think that’s it. Somewhere around 2010, something happened (not pointing fingers at whoever was in the White House then or anything) (although wasn’t it around 2010 when Twitter blew up? So forget the president, it was that awful technology) when it became impossible to tell jokes about race, about sex, about relationships, about ethnic origins, or to say anything that might make people laugh and relax about difficult subjects.

    • Grosspatzer

      Nice. One reason, maybe the main reason, I started hanging around on this site is the sense of humor which permeates everything here. Not just poking fun at the stupidity of everything, either, but the (good-natured?) ribbing about typos, people’s moms, pizza, BBQ, etc. Hard to find these days.

    • Brochettaward

      Under Obama, everyone critical of the Democratic agenda was labeled a racist. So you had media just crying racism racism racism over and over again. That’s where this shit started. The left always politicized race, but it became especially expedient under Obama and the media and academic puppets pushed the Marxist wokester bullshit to support it.

    • Agent Cooper

      Ricky Gervais persists.

    • Rhywun

      it was that awful technology

      Agreed – it’s a huge factor.

      I saw that show & I remember the music being insanely catchy.

    • Plisade

      Karen is now a virtue.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Didn’t Facebook really explode then? I mean that’s about the time I quit using it. When you’ve got your kids scolding you for banter is just about the time to back away, right? I hated it not even for that but for the fact that I couldn’t keep up with it. I hope it dies in a fire.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Facebook started sucking when they stopped requiring an edu email to sign up.

        Seriously, I think it was the support for articles (and the trending topics) that did Facebook in. It used to be a place where I could keep up with friends more frequently and more consistently than by any other means. I left when I used one of those Facebook filter plug-ins to remove all the news articles people were posting, and all that remained were less than 5 posts per day on my feed.

      • prolefeed

        I got rid of Facebook when the nutjob Vietnamese-French GF I had at the time, who had just left me for the second time, and then wanted back into the relationship even though I had finally spotted the asston of red flags she was composed of and was just Hell No, hacked into my Facebook account and posted all sorts of shit on it, after first thoroughly trashing my apartment.

  13. Count Potato

    ““New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount,” the Associated Press reported. “Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there.””

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-report-suggests-nys-nursing-home-deaths-far-higher-than-reported-comes-after-cuomo-declined-to-support-investigation

    If I remember correctly, they made that change – how nursing home deaths were counted – in response to the coronavirus.

  14. Festus' Mustache

    Mornin’ Banjos! Black Male Leaders are sort of a myth. I’ve seen all the Tyler Perry films and they all represent as weak-ass bitches. Okay, I lied. I haven’t seen a single Tyler Perry movie.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

      • Festus' Mustache

        Thanks for that music link, too. I sorta needed that!

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Apocalypse porn

    Like all pandemics, it started out small. A novel coronavirus emerged in Brazil, jumping from bats to pigs to farmers before making its way to a big city with an international airport. From there, infected travellers carried it to the United States, Portugal and China. Within 18 months, the coronavirus had spread around the world, 65 million people were dead and the global economy was in free fall.

    This fictitious scenario, dubbed Event 201, played out in a New York City conference centre before a panel of academics, government officials and business leaders last October. Those in attendance were shaken — which is what Ryan Morhard wanted. A biosecurity specialist at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, Morhard worried that world leaders weren’t taking the threat of a pandemic seriously enough. He wanted to force them to confront the potentially immense human and economic toll of a global outbreak. “We called it Event 201 because we’re seeing up to 200 epidemic events per year, and we knew that, eventually, one would cause a pandemic,” Morhard says.

    ——-

    In January 2017, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington, backed a pandemic simulation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — a gathering of global leaders in business, politics and academia. The exercise highlighted a need for better coordination between companies, governments and non-profit organizations when it came to managing global supply chains for medical equipment, diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines. The scenario coincided with the launch of an Oslo-based foundation to develop and distribute vaccines for emerging infections, called the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). It has received funding from the Gates Foundation, the UK biomedical charity Wellcome and countries including Japan and Germany. At the same time, Morhard and his colleagues set about building a network that would coordinate logistics and regulations globally, such as those associated with the use of potential new treatments, if an epidemic caught hold. “We were working on that when this pandemic hit,” Morhard says. “But it’s become clear that all the things we worked on were not commensurate to what we need.”

    According to my model, we need an iron-fisted global socialism, run by Top Technocrats.

    ps- It’s Trump’s fault.

    • Grosspatzer

      There is a significant omission in the simulation, namely, the role of the Farmers’ daughters in transmitting the bug. I am applying for a grant to rectify this, and will need some volunteers. Who here is willing to sacrifice in the name of science?

      • Cancelled

        The naughty schoolgirl and nurse vectors must be examined as well.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Now do a simulation on an over-reaction to a relatively mild pandemic that causes the whole world to go into a global economic tailspin and the number of long-term deaths and degradations that come out of it.

      Or how about rushing out a relatively untested ‘vaccine’ to a virus they tell us we can’t develop an immunity, (wonder how that vaccine is supposed to work then) and the long term impact of that vaccine causing unknown long term effects.

      Anybody remember swine flu?

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      I think it’s possible. I saw it on Star Trek once. The one where Picard learned how not to be racist against the Cardassians. A real lesson there for all viewers.

    • robc

      I don’t see why it takes a Field medalist to say that if we redefine all our symbols then we can make any string of symbols be true. Duh.

      But that isn’t what is going on, it is a Mott and Bailey situation. Get someone to accept that 2+2=5 UNDER THIS WEIRD DEFINITION, then drop the emphasized part.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s called “being up your own asshole”

      • Not Adahn

        Socrates was calling out this bullshit 2400 years ago.

      • robc

        And see what that got him.

      • Not Adahn

        All natural, organic and herbal!

      • mrfamous

        Of course I could then say it’s true that “Henry P. Townser is a pig fucker” using the same argument, couldn’t I?

      • SDF-7

        Yeah — 2 + 2 probably doesn’t equal 4 if we’re talking in C++ and “2” has been overloaded to a class/object reference, hence “+” can be overloaded to string concatenation… or vector math… or putting “duck” in front of every method. So if the argument is “Outside of Western cultures, if you say “2+2=4″ people may not assume you’re talking about addition of whole numbers”, fine… that may well be true (I personally doubt it in practice). But it is kind of irrelevant when the whole conversation is within Western cultures and changing the common context introduces the insanity of always having to give our math pronouns “addition/subtraction/factorial!” just to understand each other.

        Harking back to an earlier rant — The Tower of Babel is NOT AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL, YOU MORONS!
        *grumble*

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        When you throw out all tradition as backwards hokum, is it surprising when you fall into the same exact pits that tradition warned you away from? Chesterton had some wise words on this phenomenon.

      • Bobarian LMD

        If we only had two fingers and two thumbs, 2+2 would equal 10.

      • kbolino

        But that isn’t what is going on, it is a Mott[e] and Bailey situation.

        Exactly this. They keep dumbing down K-12 math and then, because there’s frankly not enough material being taught anymore, they fill in the gaps left behind with confusing claptrap that doesn’t have any direct benefit to most students. Call them out and they’ll retreat to the motte. The fact of the matter is you can’t learn advanced mathematics until you have been taught basic mathematics, and really you can replace “mathematics” with any other subject. If somebody doesn’t know what a noun, verb, adjective, or preposition is, they can’t diagram a sentence. And if they can’t diagram a sentence (or the non-visual equivalent), then they can’t assess grammatical correctness. And if they can’t assess grammatical correctness then they can’t appreciate when somebody breaks the rules for a particular effect.

      • juris imprudent

        Math has relatively simple and straightforward rules that yield an answer that is either right, or it is wrong.

        That’s the “problem” – rightness and wrongness need to be much more subjective and malleable in the leftist worldview. When we tell you it is right, it is right and when we tell you it is wrong it is wrong; and that can change whenever we decide and you must submit to our decision and not have any means to challenge that.

      • kbolino

        Much of the math that is (or should be) learned through the first half of K-12 is pretty concrete. Two plus two is four, two times three is six, and so on. Yes, those are symbols and operations and you can deconstruct them and do other things. Such deconstruction even becomes useful in higher level mathematics (Boolean algebra, group theory, so on). There are right and wrong answers, and you (hopefully) learn why they are right or wrong so you can apply the same lessons to novel problems.

        That having been said, one should not become too dependent on “everything has one and only one right answer” as such inflexibility is also inimical to mathematics and really life among other humans. STEM types were/are overrepresented among Islamists and I don’t think that’s entirely a coincidence. But two plus two really is four, and until you can define two using e.g. the Peano axioms, I don’t think you should start worrying about the ways in which “2” “+” “2” “=” “5” can make sense.

    • Rhywun

      I almost went home with a super-drunk guy who told me he had a Fields medal. That isn’t him, thank goodness. This guy was Spanish.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Was he well-hung? With snow-white tan?

      • Rhywun

        I dunno. He didn’t whip it out in the bar.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Ah, youth….

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Was he well-hung?

        If you redefine your units, he was enormous.

      • Bobarian LMD

        In base 4, I’ve got 12″.

      • robc

        No one from Spain has won the Fields medal.

      • robc

        No one from a primarily spanish speaking country has won it, in fact.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That’s a really long “Well, ackshually…”

    • PieInTheSky

      My general point is that in advanced math you can dream up a lot of shit, but for basic arithmetic and algebra for the general population that is all meaningless.

      • mrfamous

        Actually in very advanced theoretical mathematics, two plus two absolutely has to equal four. There’s ironclad proof. The only way it’s not true is if you simply stop doing mathematics.

      • PieInTheSky

        or you define a different operator for + in a special group…

    • kbolino

      Why is it that teaching “2 + 2 = 5” under certain definitions of +, =, 2, or 5 is where they take this, and not say teaching axiomatic formulations, major analytical theorems, or heck just writing and reading proofs in K-12? Yes, math is abstract, but if you don’t learn the concrete definitions of things you can’t understand the abstractions and then you just know nothing at all.

  16. Grosspatzer

    Questions About Biden’s Mental Fitness: He Can Ride A Bicycle!

    And he can paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!

    • Swiss Servator

      Does he have a job, and wear a hat?

      • Grosspatzer

        He needs to grow a very small moustache.

    • Nephilium

      So I’m as qualified as Biden to be president?

      • PieInTheSky

        I would not go that far

      • Nephilium

        That’s it Pie! Pushup contest now!

      • PieInTheSky

        What kind? Strict or whatever form?

  17. Rufus the Monocled

    Cidrap is reputable. Not surprised by this but the talk that lockdowns are still an actual strategy floors me. Doctors really are oblivious to the consequences of these actions.

    They should give their advice and step aside.Politicians have to make that call. Problem is, they defer to readily to public health officials.

    https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/08/us-reaches-5-million-covid-19-cases-experts-press-bold-steps-ahead-fall

    Buckle up buckaroos. It’s going to get more retarded than March I reckon.

    • Not Adahn

      On the pic of that Springfield, that is NOT the correct safety for a 1911A1.

      *grumbles about SASS equipment rules*

      • Sean

        Loaded version.

  18. PieInTheSky

    Imagine if instead of one president, the US has 2 like old Rome. Whoever one the republican/democratic primaries both become president and both can veto legislation, which can be overwritten by the congress with 66% majority. So All laws are agreed upon by both presidents or by lots of congress and such be bipartisan. The laws would probably be still rather shitty, but you could have fewer of them.

  19. Swiss Servator

    That SFGate “news article” editorialized any harder, the paper would implode. EVIL DANGEROUS CHRISTFAGS ENDANGER EVERYONE!!!!!111oneoneeleventy!!1

    • Shpip

      Is was a bit refreshing to see that the local sheriff’s office has (for now, at least) taken the position that “We’re not going to take a proactive stance and disrupt the church service.”

      I caught a whiff of “Judge Guasco has made his order. Now let him enforce it.”

  20. Rebel Scum

    “Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats tried to use this unprecedented economic and healthcare crisis to force Republicans into approving a $3 trillion bill flush with irrelevant liberal priorities. But thankfully President Trump called their bluff and took matters into his own hands,” the House GOP aide told the Daily Caller.

    If only you a-holes had a spine on the first go around you could have avoided a bill so laden with pork it resembled a Smithfield processing plant.

  21. PieInTheSky

    Also I tried one of your American beers from the local supermarket. It was not bad, 4% abv so refreshing on a hot day.

      • Swiss Servator

        Oh…NE IPA… *shrugs*

      • Nephilium

        Interesting, I thought Stone had pulled out of the Europe market entirely with the failure in Berlin. I haven’t had that one so cannot comment on it.

      • Swiss Servator

        You know who else failed in Berlin?

      • Chipwooder

        Nick Rivers?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        +1 Anal Intruder 120V Model

      • Chipwooder

        “Our doctors did everything they could, but they were unable to remove the smile from his face”

      • Tres Cool

        #SkeetSurfin

      • Agent Cooper

        Dan Van Patten?

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        Michael Jackson, when he dangled his baby from a hotel balcony?

      • TARDIS

        A lot of East Germans from what I heard.

      • Agent Cooper

        Richard Burton?

      • juris imprudent

        Kaiser Wilhelm?

      • Mojeaux

        Not David Hasselhoff.

      • juris imprudent

        The 1936 German track team?

      • PieInTheSky

        For most of my life I though that was a R.E.M. song…

      • robc

        I don’t drink Hazy IPAs. Hazy == Lazy IMO.

      • Plisade

        “Cookin’ in the kitchen, insects on the bone
        Hazy, lazy, dream world drippin’ on”

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      4%? Are you sure it wasn’t Coke?

    • Nephilium

      We’ve only got a couple of thousand beers available here, so you’ll have to narrow it down a bit for us to be able to judge your selection.

      • PieInTheSky

        well my selection is limited to the 8 beers they had in the supermarket

  22. Rebel Scum

    A California church held indoor worship services Sunday despite a judge’s temporary restraining order barring the church from doing so.

    *reads 1A*

    The judge does not have the authority to prevent church services.

  23. Rhywun

    The Urban Exodus.

    *excellent*

    /Mr. Burns voice

    Rents are already down hundreds of dollars near me. Sorry for your exploding prices, suburbia.

    • Swiss Servator

      Are you kidding – I am hoping to downsize in a few years, let the torrid demand flow!

      • TARDIS

        Same with me. When my daughter moves out, I think I’m done with suburban life. I’m tempted to see what they are offering right now though. I love the skeevy people that cold call asking if I want to sell.

      • Chipwooder

        Someday, when our kids are done with school (which is a ways in the future as they are 10 and 12), we’ll be moving out to the sticks. I’d rather have more property than a bigger house anyway.

      • Nephilium

        Shit. I get random texts now asking if I’m looking to sell my house. “Why yes random stranger, I would love to get involved in a very expensive risky financial transaction with you based on an unsolicited text! Allow me to provide my financial information to make it easier.”

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I’m constantly getting mailers from local agents about selling my house. Yes, market is hot but I also need a place to live too.

      • Chipwooder

        I’ve started getting those too, with ridiculously lowball offers – I paid 190K for this house seven years ago and now some joker wants me to sell to him for 165K? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you.

      • Tundra

        I’m hours away from being an empty nester. I want to leave the state completely, but we’ll probably be here for at least a couple more years. More land, smaller house, bigger garage.

        With a fucking lift – I’m tired of crawling underneath cars!

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        My dad just sold our suburban house in Indianapolis. All cash, asking price, first day. The market is hot for now. Probably won’t last too much longer.

      • Rhywun

        OK… “sorry, buyers”.

    • robc

      If you already own, exploding prices are good.

      • Rhywun

        Fuck those other people who don’t own, right?

        ?

      • robc

        Clearly, in that case, they value the house more than they are paying, so they still win.

  24. Rhywun

    Also today in covidiocy.

    It’s not clear from the article whether they cleaned up after themselves or not – I would like to think that they did…

    • AlexinCT

      The morons that want us to bow down to the will of the expert class will blame some Trump related activity or group for the spike in cases, is my guess.

    • Agent Cooper

      Was DJ Herd Immunity playing?

    • Count Potato

      Raves still exist?

      • Rhywun

        And shittier than ever if that video is any indication.

      • Count Potato

        Based on the video, I would not call that a rave.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    They should give their advice and step aside.Politicians have to make that call. Problem is, they defer to readily to public health officials.

    You’re wrong. According to that Nature article, our failure to defer to every whim of the public health expertocracy has made the plague vastly more devastating than it otherwise would have been.

    Trust SCIENCE!

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      Not possible. These are exploited, trafficked women who cannot possibly be making a rational economic decision, so the inability to work can be nothing but a blessing.

    • Chipwooder

      In other words, they’re getting fucked?

      • PieInTheSky

        the wrong kind of fucked but yes

      • Agent Cooper

        “The men who run the business that you sell, they screw you, too.”

        The Beautiful South, 36D.

  26. Rebel Scum

    “Fox’s narrative and talk radio’s narrative for months has been that Joe Biden is falling apart. You just heard Ben Shapiro say it, falling apart,” Stelter concludes the segment. “And there he is riding a bike, out for a bike ride. And Fox, of all networks, is the one that showed it happen.”

    I bet he can also sip tea and eat a hard-candy while rocking in a chair on his porch.

    • Brochettaward

      I hear Biden’s next stunt that will totally prove his mental competency will be coloring in the lines.

    • invisible finger

      The left is selling Biden on an “Oranger Than Thou” strategy.

  27. AlexinCT

    WTF? I am watching an interview with Larry Elder where he is now pointing out that the people that looted Chicago the other night had pointed out what they did was no big deal because, for one, the businesses have insurance, and this was just them getting their reparations. I just am unable to compute…. Does the left really think they can control (buy off) this mob they are encouraging?

    • Rhywun

      Time to pivot back to “right-wing provocateurs”.

      • AlexinCT

        Seriously, this gets even crazier. I just saw a follow up and it looks like some BLM spokesperson actually had the temerity to claim the people arrested for the looting should be released from police custody and this whole thing should be swept under the rug and considered reparations. After all the insurance companies would pay the bill. When these anarcho-terrorists feel they can freely say stupid evil shit like this with impunity, we are looking at some dark times ahead…

      • Nephilium

        The line “they have insurance” is really starting to piss me off. Yes, they pay for it. It generally doesn’t cover civil unrest or looting, regardless their rates will most likely go up if you steal from them.

        Besides, the looters all have medical insurance, don’t the?

  28. straffinrun

    Cool song, Banjos. Amazing how similar they sound to shamisen when plucked that way. Morning.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Oh no! New Zealand has a case of plague! How can this be? They did everything right, starting with electing a woman president(?).

  30. juris imprudent

    Good morning Banjos, and, nice banjos!

  31. PieInTheSky

    Kansas Mask Vs No Mask Experiment: 15 counties made masks mandatory (red line) & have seen new cases fall 40%; the 90 counties that did not (blue) have had no fall

    https://twitter.com/JimHarris/status/1291832065693016064

    meh this is not that meaningful being urban vs rural and the fact that the mask areas had a much higher case number to begin with. Stats like this can be hard to interpret

    • AlexinCT

      I saw a study where they concluded masks can be an even bigger risk factor since most people manhandle & misuse them (The other day I saw some asshat remove his mask to sneeze, then put it back on) making them petri dishes.

      • Count Potato

        “The other day I saw some asshat remove his mask to sneeze”

        WTF??

      • AlexinCT

        Yep.. I should have mentioned that when the lady behind the woman that did this told her the mask was there to prevent her from spreading what came out from the sneeze, she was indignant and told the lady she was not going to breathe through a dirty mask…

        They are all for following the ritual, well when convenient, without understanding the reason they are doing what they are doing. After that shitshow I basically gave up on even trying to reason with these morons.

      • leon

        As someone who has had to deal with the mask on a job, and the allergies, there is no fucking way i’m going to be sneezing into my mask. I’ll sneeze into my arm/shoulder, like i always have thank you very much.

      • AlexinCT

        You are nuts for not sharing it man…

      • CPRM

        I’ve seen this as well.

    • Agent Cooper

      The graph is pretty debunked in the following commentary.

      • PieInTheSky

        the different axis are strange… why not use just one?

    • Rhywun

      new cases

      Irrelevant.

      Next.

    • kbolino

      Shades of the “adjacent counties” minimum wage “has no effect” studies.

    • Idle Hands

      The mask vs no mask debate is so fucking retarded. On one hand there is really no science at all that points to any efficacy beyond at best they might work marginally. On the other hand it’s just fallacy arguing against the irrationality of the retarded wave of people hoping beyond hope they have found the dumbo feather allowing them to survive outside their homes.

      • Nephilium

        The #ThisMaskDoesNothing got quite a few positive comments on the island.

      • Plisade

        Where can I buy that?! I don’t see it on this site’s shop 🙁

      • Plisade

        !Gracias!

      • Tundra

        Here you go!

        Also available in white.

    • R C Dean

      We absolutely had a lag between when it ran in urban v. rural areas in AZ.

      And now that our peak is a month in the rear view mirror, there is zero movement toward reopening.

      The Branch Covidians have pretty well stripped away any remaining faith or trust I had in American society. We have been propagandize and panicked with incredible ease into wrecking so much of what we had. It’s easy to see how nations have been propagandized into going to war against each other.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        the authoritarians, both here and abroad, are taking teams of notes. Whether or not they make substantial progress toward their end goals this time, they sure as hell have a blueprint for bringing the west to its knees.

    • prolefeed

      If you look at how they have different numbering for masks versus no masks, you see that every county that chose a mask mandate has a higher number of bullshit “cases” than every county that chose not to do a mask mandate. Literally true headline: “Counties with mask mandates continue to have higher case counts!”

      Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

    • Bobarian LMD

      That fucking chart is evil, manipulated bullshit.

      Using two different scales and cutting off a significant area under the mask curve to make the drop seem more precipitous.

  32. Grosspatzer

    Somehow I got roped into watching the CBS Evening News last night. I knew it was bad, but holy shit it is straight-up propaganda.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/video/081020-cbs-evening-news/#x

    My favorite was this quote:

    “The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop”.

    That is correct, but you’re a little late to the game. What was the origin of “pen-and-phone” again?

    • Agent Cooper

      I think The Pen and The Phone should make an appearance in The Hat and The Hair.

      • TARDIS

        That would be good.

        I would also like the addition of a pussy that was grabbed.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Somebody is just asking to be kink-shamed.

    • juris imprudent

      IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT!!!!

  33. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Thanks for the lynx.

    I knew Biden and the Dems were retarded, but painting yourself in a corner by proclaiming a diversity hire was a new low. Couple that with fucking up the latest round of ‘stimulus’ and you’ve got a nice little shit show.

    Fuck them. I hate them and wish nothing but bad to befall them.

    Nice to see people defying these ridiculous lockdowns and going back to church. It will be interesting to see if the state really clamps down and shuts off power, etc. Thugs.

    Those two really make the banjos work. Sometimes I feel that the banjo player gets added to the group because he is the one with the van, but damn – that’s some amazing work!

    i hope you all have a fantastic day, full of light, happiness and cold hard cash!

  34. Brochettaward

    Russia is claiming victory in getting a corona vaccine.

    I mean, it’s Russia so obvious skepticism. But it wouldn’t surprise me if their willingness to do whatever the fuck it takes and say fuck it to the sorts of rules and regulations other nations follow sped up the process.

    • Rhywun

      do whatever the fuck it takes and say fuck it

      I would have expected China to win that contest but yeah Russia would be a close second.

    • Urthona

      I am likely completely biased here as I’m about to go in for the final Pfizer/COVID vaccine injection and am in the phase 3 vaccine trial. But there’s a totally decent chance their vaccine is just fine.

      Pfizer and Moderna both have vaccines that have been 100% effective (in terms of antibodies) in the first two trials and I doubt they’re alone. In the U.S. we have a phase III trial that expands to tens of thousands of people (the one I’m in). Usually this goes on for years, but is accelerated for now so they’re hoping months.

      An executive could easily just grab this vaccine for his daughter right now and feel pretty good about it. There have been few side effects and it has been extremely effective so far.

      • Bobarian LMD

        So you’re saying you’re gonna be one of the first fleshy-headed mutants of the waste land?

      • Urthona

        if all goes well

    • Brochettaward

      I’m going to ignore the political message and just say that that is one really shitty poem. Like, if my five year old child wrote that, I’d tell him what a disappointment he was and send him to his room without dinner to think about what a mistake he was.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      vote against everything
      Jesus ever talked about

      Wait, he talked about vindictive command and control economies run by despots? Divisive racism and sexism? Detached “charity” at the point of a gun? Utopianism that promises to end all the evils of this world through human action alone?

      Yeah, somebody thinks that Jesus is Robin Hood and that Robin Hood merely “took from the rich to give to the poor”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think he forgot “The poor will always be with you.”

      • Grosspatzer

        That, and “My kingdom is not of this world”

      • invisible finger

        Marxism is a miracle.
        Jesus talked about miracles.
        Therefore I will vote against Marxism.

      • leon

        “I don’t believe in your silly religion, and regularly make fun of you for it, but I feel like i understand your theology from TV and that I can try to use it to get you to do what I want”

      • Chipwooder

        This. I get very, very very sick and tired of leftists who almost certainly spend the rest of their time chortling about “bleevers” and “Jeebus” and “invisible sky god” lecturing me about the teachings of Jesus Christ as if they just graduated from a seminary.

      • Not Adahn

        “But what else does the Bible say, Jay-zus?”

        /Joss Weedon

        …who has been amazingly effective at keeping his IP off of youtube.

      • kbolino

        Clearly Jesus wanted the CIA to dictate our foreign policy, the CDC to dictate whether we can go outside without a mask on, the EPA to decide whether we can make a living or not, and the FBI to harass anyone who’s politically disfavored. It’s right there in the Bible, I’m sure.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Emanations and penumbra.

      • Nephilium

        They also forget that Robin Hood stole from the rich TAX COLLECTORS and government cronies! To give back to the people who were being taxed into poverty.

  35. beer league keeper

    Thanks for the Bela and Abagail to start the morning! Did you see the “Banjo House Lockdown” shows they were livestreaming? Good stuff.

  36. Mojeaux

    I have not seen LemonGrenade or Toxteth O’Grady lately. I hope they’re okay.

    • Count Potato

      Maybe they ran off to one of those Greek islands I read about in Penthouse.

      • Mojeaux

        *debates whether to post Lesbos or not*

        *decides “That’s the joke” and refrains*

    • TARDIS

      They don’t really exist, and neither do you. ?

      • Mojeaux

        *looks in mirror*

        *sees white hairs*

        You’re right. I don’t exist.

      • leon

        A symbol of wisdom.

      • Swiss Servator

        Lies! We are all Tulpa.

    • Viking1865

      Lemon was traveling with family, camping out and such. Bad Internet?

      • Mojeaux

        Let’s hope. That’s a long time without proper internet and she works from the road via internet.

        Me, I’ve got a hotspot as long as I have my phone.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Braggart!

      • Brochettaward

        She was posting within the last week.

    • Gender Traitor

      Last I recall, LG et al were still roadtrippin’. Maybe in a wifi “desert” at the moment? Maybe ask Yusef re: TO’G? Just sayin’…

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      TO’G is fine, just rather busy with family stuff, She told me to say Hi!

      • Mojeaux

        Thank you!

        How’s the job going, Yusef? This is week 2, isn’t it?

  37. Rebel Scum

    Move along. Nothing to see here.

    Dead citizens, disconnected relatives, and even a family pet were among more than half a million inaccurate applications for absentee ballots sent throughout Virginia last week by the Center for Voter Information

    “Approximately half a million applications sent to eligible voters in Virginia included incorrect information, and we are working diligently to address the issues,” the center said in a statement. “Mistakes in our programming are very rare, but we take them seriously, and our methods overall are extraordinarily effective.”

    According to the printing vendor for the Center for Voter Information, the error was largely caused due to an incorrectly aligned spreadsheet. Despite the explanation, many voting rights advocates are still worried about the integrity of the voting process as more Americans consider turning to mail-in ballots rather than going to the polls and risking exposure to coronavirus.

    • Brochettaward

      How exactly is voting more risky than going to the grocery store? I still see bitches and the elderly couponing on the regular. I think people can get off their asses and vote if they’re so inclined.

      • Viking1865

        “I think people can get off their asses and vote if they’re so inclined.”

        Yes, but this is about making the sure the people who aren’t inclined to vote go vote…..for Democrats. To save the planet from Bad Orange Man.

    • DOOMco

      Look, if we don’t look into it we can keep claiming it rarely happens.

      So. Shuddup. It’s rare! And always done by the bad guys! But it never happens.

    • kbolino

      “voting rights advocates”

      What in the fuck does this actually mean. It reminds me of “community organizers”, how many fucking community organizers does a given community need? The last time I checked, the communities I’ve lived in have approximately 0 “community organizers” (not counting HOA petty tyrants).

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        having worked with “voting rights advocates” in the past, they’re democrat henchmen who lie and cheat and swindle their way to getting stronger team blue turnout and weaker team red turnout.

      • kbolino

        That sounds an awful lot like “voter suppression” and I’ve been assured that only the GOP ever does that.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s called “resigned to your fate”

    • Brochettaward

      I was promised a study on homo-v-hetero body images and instead got a tweet about Indira Gandhi being some sort of pre-Thatcher Thatcher in 1970’s India.

      • Not Adahn

        Horning in on OMWC’s territory, aren’t you?

      • PieInTheSky

        oh I give up

      • AlexinCT

        I lost double digit IQ points trying to actually read this shit Pie. WTF?

  38. DOOMco

    Hey everyone! Been way too busy to check in.
    I hear everything is still on fire out in the world.

    School opens Sunday. I have a month of work to fit in a few days. “We can’t change All this in a week?”
    “We can’t order the parts in that time”

    • Tundra

      DOOM!

      Nice to see you again! And your baby is as cute as ever!

      Good luck this week. We’re moving our daughter in Monday. It goes really fucking fast, dude!

      • DOOMco

        Thanks. Good to be back for a few!

        It really does. I can’t believe I’m almost 8 months in.
        It feels like a few weeks. And years.
        She got up and stood by herself for a few seconds. There was nothing nearby to hold on to. Mom says she’s said mama. I don’t buy it.

      • Tundra

        She said ‘Momo’. She wants a new steering wheel for the Subie.

      • DOOMco

        See that I buy.

        Good luck with her move in!

  39. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Tard Tuesday: But Of Course

    You have to go to work and pay rent because of capitalism. Luckily for us, it’s just an economic model and not a facet of human evolution. That makes it much easier to dismantle <3

    • Brochettaward

      Scarcity is far more real than the 50 different genders she believes in. Also, probably would.

      Also also, I think the most comical Twitter trend is leftists who now signal their virtue by posting profile shots of themselves masked up.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And Facebook mugshots of people in their basement wearing a mask.

      • Viking1865

        “Also, probably would”

        Pretty sure that’s a dude.

      • Brochettaward

        https://onlyfans.com/sigridsnow

        I mean, the little profile pic looks female to me unless it’s some sort of…trap.

      • Viking1865

        I did some “research” before I posted. If you notice on “her” Insta she always is posed very carefully, with a spot out of the camera’s view to tuck it away.

      • Idle Hands

        I mean in fairness it’s only really a trap if you don’t want to get caught by something. Nttiawwt.

      • Bobarian LMD

        “I don’t believe your out here for the hunting.”

    • Rhywun

      Come and try it, bitch.

    • straffinrun

      Nature charges rent and that bitch is a lot less forgiving.

    • Count Potato

      That “meme” is retarded.

    • Idle Hands

      Well you really can’t dismantle the market, it still will exist, you just kind of bury it underground and create a feudal system of winners and losers as decided by the person with all the guns.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Shorter idiot: Food comes from the grocery store and electricity comes from the plug.

      • Idle Hands

        The electricity comes from the plug perspective is far more dangerous and pervasive than the food people at this point in time.

    • kbolino

      Obligatory Kipling:

      In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
      By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
      But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
      And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

      The problem with “luxury communism” is that it requires one of three things:

      1. Everybody else, or nearly so, to be enslaved for your benefit;
      2. You to be enslaved for someone else’s benefit;
      3. You to be imprisoned or killed to keep up the masquerade.

      • leon

        I’ve said this before, but very few people care about slavery.

        Sure they will talk about how they are opposed to slavery as practiced in the South, but listen to congress and you’ll see large amounts of support from populist right and radical left for “national service” or military conscription. Fuck the slavers.

    • Chipwooder

      Thank goodness I have a blue-haired child to explain the world to me! It’s all so simple, really.

    • WTF

      Luckily for us, it’s just an economic model and not a facet of human evolution.

      Yes, it’s well known that hunter-gatherers never had to work, because the food and shelter was just magicked into existence for them every fucking day.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    The ghost of Christmas yet to come

    As polling places closed on November 6, 2018, the expected “blue wave” looked more like a ripple. Not only had some of the highest-profile Democratic candidates lost, but the party’s gains in the House and the Senate looked smaller than anticipated.

    The wave, it turned out, simply hadn’t crested yet. Over the ensuing weeks, as more ballots were counted, Democrats kept winning races—eventually netting 41 House seats. In Arizona, the Republican Martha McSally conceded the Senate race to the Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who picked up more than 70,000 votes in post–Election Day counting. Democrats narrowed deficits in races in Florida and Georgia too. Republicans were stunned.

    “California just defies logic to me,” then-Speaker Paul Ryan said in late November. “We were only down 26 seats the night of the election and three weeks later, we lost basically every contested California race.”

    This sort of late-breaking Democratic vote is the new, though still underappreciated, normal in national elections. Americans have become accustomed to knowing who won our elections promptly, but there are many legitimate votes that are not counted immediately every election year. For reasons that are not totally understood by election observers, these votes tend to be heavily Democratic, leading results to tilt toward Democrats as more of them are counted, in what has become known as the “blue shift.” In most cases, the blue shift is relatively inconsequential, changing final vote counts but not results. But in others, as in 2018, it can materially change the outcome.

    Totally on the up and up. Nothing to see here.

    • leon

      If we don’t look at it, it can’t be fraud

    • Grumbletarian

      It’s totally a mystery why pretty much every contested election eventually swings blue. Pay no attention to the man finding crates of Team Blue votes in the trunks of cars behind the curtain.

    • Idle Hands

      lmfao. It’s amazing that the Atlantic actually wrote that piece.

    • leon

      This sort of late-breaking Democratic vote is the new, though still underappreciated, normal in national elections.

      Get used to not being able to have elections you trust. This is the new normal

      • Idle Hands

        Well as long as you are a democrat this is fine.

      • kbolino

        It has never not been the norm as long as I’ve been alive but they seem hell bent on taking it further. There are concrete steps that can be taken to improve the state of voting and representation in this country and almost to a man everyone who gets elected* is against them.

        * = This is not really a coincidence, why would you reform the system that keeps you in power?

    • Rhywun

      Silly Americans, thinking Election Day still means something.

    • leon

      “people briefed on the selection process said”

      GAAHHH I fucking hate this.

    • Brochettaward

      If he picks Duckworth does that count as a POC or are we not counting Asians are minorities for this like college admissions?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      One popular topic in psychology when discussing test performance is the idea of stereotype threat. First proposed by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson in 1995, the stereotype threat is phenomenon where a person who belongs to a stereotyped demographic group performs in accordance with the stereotype after being reminded of it. Usually this is suggested as a partial or total explanation for the average score differences among demographic groups on academic tests (e.g., Nisbett, 2009)

      Now do white people/racism

      • Brochettaward

        Usually this is suggested as a partial or total explanation for the average score differences among demographic groups on academic tests

        I’d prefer if they just stuck to ignoring data they don’t like rather than coming up with retarded ways to explain it away. But that’s just me, personally.

      • leon

        That’s because you’re a stereotypical male who keeps the rage pent up, till it overcomes you.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        It is worth noting the statistic that 60 percent of violent sex crimes are committed by white men.

      • UnCivilServant

        In what country?

        The implications vary by the base demographics.

        Also, what definition is being used for ‘violent sex crime’ and what do the numbers look like for sex crimes that are not classified as violent.

        A single data point is not enough. Need more data!

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Shut up and perform according to your stereotype.

      • AlexinCT

        Now that’s good science!

      • Brochettaward

        All of my sex crimes are safely unreported, thank you very much.

      • TARDIS

        Does treating your body like an amusement park count?

      • Not Adahn

        That seems suspiciously low.

      • Idle Hands

        Self-fulfiling prophecy. We can only live up to the expectations are society has of us.

      • Idle Hands

        Self-fulfiling prophecy. We can only live up to the expectations our society has of us.

      • kbolino

        Then how did Asians go from coolie labor to tiger moms? That’s quite a stereotype swing, if nothing else.

        Similarly for Jews… and West Indians… and African immigrants…

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Awesome. Been listening to Atlas for quite a while now.

  41. Hyperion

    “Amazon considering using closed J.C. Penney and Sears stores as fulfillment centers.”

    No one needs more than one retailer.

    • AlexinCT

      DA BITCH SET ME UP!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Boil for three hours, serve with ketchup and hot sauce.

    • leon

      Advertisement
      ‘Looting is reparations’: BLM protesters gather outside Chicago PD in support of looters

      BLM needs to handle their white supremacist problem.

    • kbolino

      Bill O’Reilly doesn’t understand how tides work, leftists don’t understand how insurance works.

      • R C Dean

        I’d be interested in the reaction if I burned a looter’s car and said “What are you worried about? You have insurance.”

    • creech

      Gucci bag? Based on the line outside the Gucci store in the mall last Sunday, there is quite a demand for such bags from the minority community.
      So black market Gucci bag probably worth a few meals.

  42. Mojeaux

    One thing that’s stuck with me from Shatner’s Twitter rant is the concept of “Don’t label me to define yourself.”

    It was a vague feeling at the back of my mind but I could never articulate it.

    • Heroic Mulatto

      An admirable exhortation, but sadly, that is how the human mind has evolved to work. We label things we experience to define the boundaries and composition of “self” vs. “non-self”.

      • leon

        You sound like a Hippy.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Those are fighting words.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        My self includes all you figments of my imagination.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        See? I totally get it.

  43. straffinrun

    Doesn’t look to be Kamala. Abrams or Rice?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’ll be Rice and I look forward to the upcoming war with Russia if they manage to win.

      • leon

        we’ll go to war with Russia to stop the Turks from hurting our allies the Kurds in Syria.

      • creech

        No, it will be war because Russia will refuse to give us their 100% certified guaranteed ChiComVirus vaccine that lying running dog capitalist pharma profiteers refused to discover in order to keep the masses locked at home.

      • Drake

        War with Russia so our new allies and friends in the People’s Republic of China can annex Siberia for a little elbow room.

  44. prolefeed

    Speaking of incompetence:

    Board of Elections threw out more than 84,000 mail-in ballots for the June 23 Democratic primary. That was out of a total of nearly 319,000 mail-in ballots, which means about 21 percent of all mail-in ballots were invalidated.

    Didn’t need to run that through a calculator to know that 21% figure was wrong. Try 26%.

  45. prolefeed

    President Donald Trump signed four executive orders Saturday in order to help the unemployed and the economy

    I’m thinking the EOs were more about buying votes than “helping” by piling on more debt.

    A more accurate headline: “Republican Congresspeople Furious, Actual Republicans Relieved That Bipartisanship Failed to Fuck Them Over Once Again, As Democrats Leave Town With No Deal”. But it lacks brevity.

    • juris imprudent

      I hate to say it, but it seems that Trump has it right – the politics matter and he has plenty of people (who howled about Obama EOs) supporting him and fuck the Constitution.

    • TARDIS

      I wonder how many lefties he will be able to buy. I suspect not many for the equivalent of $10/hour, even though it’s still a bit pay raise for many.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Put your boot on that face!

    New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday urged the New York City Police Department to “step up” in enforcing social distancing rules on bars and restaurants as coronavirus hospitalizations in the state hit a new low.

    New York conducted about 54,000 tests on Sunday and less than 1% came back positive for Covid-19, Cuomo said on a conference call with reporters. The state also hit new lows for the number of people hospitalized, in intensive care and intubated, he said.

    “We need the NYPD to step up,” he said, adding the state issued 19 violations to bars or restaurants on Sunday. “I understand the sheriff’s office is helpful and that’s good news. But the sheriff’s office is relatively small … NYPD is something like 35,000 people. This is an enforcement issue.”

    Tighten your grip, Imperator. Show those plebs who’s boss. Grind them down. Make them obey.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The good numbers show things are working out well. Why bring down the hammer now?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Because the kids are sneaking out the bedroom window when daddy said you are grounded.

        Seriously, that is how it looks

      • R C Dean

        New York peaked 4 months ago and has been on a classic long tail decline in new cases ever since. There is zero justification for cracking down.

      • UnCivilServant

        Facts are racist, Squire Dean. You wouldn’t want to implement racist policies, would you?

  47. Drake

    Urban Exodus – my wife and I are currently making a checklist of stuff that needs to be done to put our house on the market. Since we bought near the peak in 2007, I assumed we’d take a big loss when we sold. Now, I think we can get close to what we paid (and since we put a lot down and did a 15-year mortgage, walk away with enough cash to have some options).

    Unfortunately, the first item on the list is to do a thorough clean-out of the garage when it cools down a little.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The new prudes

    • Drake

      Surprising because the Democrats were fine with Gary Studds screwing underage male pages back in the 70’s.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Well it was the seventies.

    • Agent Cooper

      That’s great. I love the original deer vs. playset one.

  48. Drake

    robc – South Carolina still completely open and mask-free? We’ll be back in Conway to drop the kid off next week.

    Anyone know the level of covid “precautions” required in West Virginia? We plan to stop there next week for a few days of relaxing in the mountains and maybe looking at potential places to live.

    • Viking1865

      “We’ll be back in Conway to drop the kid off next week.”

      I had a wonderful Halloween in Conway once. There was a girl who made herself a sexy mermaid outfit. Basically a bikini top made out of an old fishing net, with some fake seaweed strategically placed as pasties, with a very short skirt that was done up to look like fish skin . She came over to a friend’s dorm room, saw herself in the mirror, and said “ughh these panties ruin the outfit” and slipped right out them.

    • robc

      Masks are mandatory – at least in Charleston area. I was down in Hilton Head and they had masked signs everywhere but beach was packed with nary a mask in sight.

      Outside they aren’t required. Restaurants while eating aren’t required. A few other exceptions, but required in grocery and etc.

      • Drake

        Thanks – at least you can eat indoors like civilized people.

      • UnCivilServant

        Who wants to be civilized?

      • Drake

        Me while in SC in August.

  49. creech

    My local newspaper, which slobbered all over BLM demonstrators, had a small article this morning updating Simon Colwell’s condition after his bike accident.
    Notably absent from the paper was any tally of how many blacks had been shot yesterday in Chicago, NY, Phila, Baltimore, Atlanta, or any other crime ridden city where black lives don’t matter to other blacks.

  50. Ozymandias

    “Polls indicate Biden holds a massive advantage over Trump among Black voters – but not as large as the margins enjoyed by Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

    This little nugget here is why we’re seeing all of the nonsense from Team Blue that we have been.
    Logic 101: If he doesn’t get what Shrillary got – and she lost – how the fuck is he supposed to win?? Joe has some tricknology that’s going to bring home a different piece of the electorate to his side? Ohhhh, I get it, he just needs enough for the voter fraud to cover the rest of the difference.

    • Hyperion

      There will be a massive 2nd wave of commie flu right before the election, along with mobs of thugs surrounding all the polling places to make sure no one can use them, 100% mail in voting only. That’s their plan. If you cannot predict exactly what these people will do, you also cannot predict the sun will come up tomorrow morning.

      • Drake

        That might work in a city. Anywhere else the thugs would be beaten to a pulp or shot.

      • WTF

        All they need is to control the vote count in a few democrat-controlled urban areas in swing states to steal the election for Biden.

      • juris imprudent

        Sure, like 100% or better voter turnout will escape notice.

      • R C Dean

        They’ve done it before with no consequences. Mix in a few Soros-funded hard left prosecutors, and they have even less to worry about.

        Its not just about manufacturing Dem ballots. Its also about not counting Repub ballots, or counting them as Dem ballots.

      • WTF

        It already happened in Philadelphia and a couple of other places, nobody gave a shit.

      • Agent Cooper

        Trump’s October Surprise will be a vaccine.

    • Viking1865

      “Polls indicate Biden holds a massive advantage over Trump among Black voters – but not as large as the margins enjoyed by Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

      Trump doesn’t even need to get them to vote Trump. He just needs them to not show up and vote for a 77 year old senile fuck who eulogized George Wallace.

      One of things Trump has done that no other Republican has done is try to appeal to single men. The Democrats have done that for single women for decades, explicitly positioned themselves as the party of the cool middle class and up single woman, and given cash and prizes to poor single women for having bastard children.

      Trump doing stuff like Barstool, his public “give no fucks” persona, and now Tweeting about college football, is a play to get young dudes to the polls to counteract their female peers who also go to the polls and vote Democrat.

      I’ve said it before: if you’re a man who works in the private sector, I have no fucking idea why you would vote Democrat. Like, even if you’re a diehard union man, how much business do you think the hardhat crowd will get in a world where the Sierra Club is in charge of approving new construction?

    • leon

      It would be hard to beat Obama’s 93% support. I mean 7% is pretty much just getting your quota of contrarians. I think Hillary had 88%? Not that bad either.

      • Ozymandias

        leon – Hillary got 88%, but percentages don’t tell the story. She got 88% of those who voted. A LOT more stayed home than did for Obama (obv).

        I don’t know what the highwater mark is for a GOP Presidential candidate among black voters, but it looks like about 10% is pretty much what one can expect. In 2016, Trump got 8% of a low number.

        Since then, however, polling suggests that Trump has made significant inroads among that voting bloc. Significant. The economic numbers were so good they just couldn’t be ignored. And Trump has a style that seems to resonate with that demo, as well. I see a bunch of stuff from non-MSM media suggesting that Trump has very good numbers among likely black voters – numbers that would spell electoral doom for Biden. Maybe it’s not true, but I look at the democrats’ actions and it seems to me that everything they’re doing is designed to court the bloc that they absolutely have to get – in big numbers – in order to win in November because Biden is not producing the kind of enthusiasm that even Hillary did.

      • leon

        That’s a fair point.

        I was looking at the Demographic statistics, and i saw that she also lost among independents, which i think might have hindered her a lot.

        I agree that the Dems are terrified of loosing control of the African American bloc of voters, though i don’t think it will happen all that fast. We’ll have to see.

    • Urthona

      The Democrats don’t just need the minority vote. They need mobilization. If the candidate is too boring, this is the most likely group to stay home and not vote.

    • R C Dean

      If he doesn’t get what Shrillary got – and she lost – how the fuck is he supposed to win??

      Millions of mail-in ballots going to Repub areas misplaced, either outgoing or incoming.

      Millions of mail-in ballots “harvested” with Dem votes.

      Millions of voters who never got their mail-in ballots only allowed to cast “provisional” votes on Election Day, which will never be counted.

      • Sean

        Voter fraud never happens!!!

      • juris imprudent

        Given the number of local election officials – that is a staggering conspiracy.

      • R C Dean

        They don’t actually need to do it nation-wide, just in a few key cities in swing states. Cities, I might note, that have had “questionable” election management in the past. The shenanigans with mail-in votes were beta tested in CA in 2018, and are no doubt being refined now in primary elections.

        So, you’re right. It won’t need to be millions. Only tens of thousands. As Don Escaped says, what matters is who votes where. Although I think we know what really matters is who counts the votes where. Just take Wisconsin, which Trump won by 27,000 votes. 15 years ago, when election security was much tighter, there was significant voter fraud in Madison and Milwaukee. It will be child’s play for the Dem machines in those cities to manufacture enough votes to swing the state.

        With mail-in ballots, the count will be dragged out, opening the window for ballots to be lost and/or found until the right count is achieved. I believe it will take a Repub wave election for Trump and the Congressional Repubs to win, as the margin of fraud just got a hell of a lot bigger.

  51. Hyperion

    “The Urban Exodus.”

    Going as predicted. But it has nothing to do with commie flu. Guess what it does have to do with? Congratulation people living in non-hipster douchebag land, you’re about to get Christmas early, your very own shipments o yuppy hipster douchebags. ‘Hi, we’re new here, we had to leave from our old place because it sucks and they were looting and burning it down, where do we sign up to vote and help make here exactly like our old place?’.

    • Count Potato

      I say we send them to China, and bring the Hong Kong people here.

      • robc

        A 1-for-1 trade. I think we have enough commies to get all of HK here.

    • Viking1865

      That’s the shit I hate more than anything else.

      Like, take VA. VA actually has good public schools. 4th in the nation. I think a huge reason for that is that public sector unions are banned. Well, they were banned. Now they are not banned. Schools will start declining. Unexpectedly. Bad luck. Lack of funding. RETHUGLIKKKANS.

    • hayeksplosives

      where do we sign up to vote and help make here exactly like our old place?’.

      This. This drives me bonkers. Same for urban hipsters as for Somalians and other immigrant groups that want the hell out of their shithole countries, then get here and foist their values on society.

      No. If you come to the USA, bring your clothing, music, food, art—but don’t try to take away others’’ rights. And you may keep your language alive at home but please learn English, if only for the sake of your kids.

  52. Idle Hands

    So this vote by mail business is just going to be the next thing they try to impeach trump over if he somehow wins correct? If I was to come up with a way to literally instigate armed conflict I don’t think I could come up with a better way than to extend the results of the election as long as possible. I really really can’t believe how scorched earth the dems are going for orange man bad, it really really is something.

    • EvilSheldon

      If the big igloo kicks off, my money has it starting with a confrontation at a polling place.

    • leon

      Sally Yates. Why not throw up Andrew McCabe on their while you are ate it.

    • leon

      Also i see they have Serial Sexual Assaulter and Known Epstein associate speaking.

    • Idle Hands

      Imagine if the RNC had Mr. Epstien Island at their Convention. Think the Dems should just go all in and invite jizzalaine to Zoom call from jail.

  53. The Late P Brooks

    It’s dark in here, and it smells awful

    In her latest op-ed, published Monday, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin questioned the necessity of the Republican Party.

    In the column — headlined “Do we even need the Republican Party?” — Rubin made the case that President Trump has sealed the GOP’s fate after “years of racism and xenophobia” as a minority dependent on “White grievance and cultural resentment.”

    “The unpleasant truth for those expected to say ‘there are fine people’ in both parties is that, aside from a few stray governors and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), there really are not fine people running the Republican Party,” she wrote. “They have sold their souls to Trump and either passively or actively bought into white supremacy and religious authoritarianism. They waged war on the Constitution and objective reality. There is nothing redeeming in any of that — or in the right-wing media machine encompassing the deluded true believers and money-hungry charlatans willing to throw red meat to an audience they suppose consists of uneducated bigots.”

    Rubin, an MSNBC contributor and self-described “conservative blogger,” suggested that the “death knell” of the Republican Party came during the 2020 Democratic primary.

    “We need a two-party system, but we do not have a two-ideology political culture if the price of admission is a reality-based, decent, inclusive and constitutionally respectful ideology,” she explaned. “If there is to be, as I hope, a grand coalition from center right to center left that generally defends constitutional government, curbs on the excesses of the free market, globalization with a safety net, responsible international leadership and a determination to root out systemic racism, I am not certain what that leaves to the opposition. On the left, it might be Sanders-style socialism. But on the right?”

    She continued, “Trump cultists and the proponents of zombie-libertarianism continue to drive the party into the ground, relegating it to a regional party of dead-enders. Maybe the real question is not what the Republican Party will believe and who will support it, but whether we need it at all. Perhaps there is no morally, politically and intellectually decent party of the right to be had.”

    Have another goblet of paint thinner, Jen.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      LOL. Rubin isn’t even pretending anymore.

    • leon

      Trump cultists and the proponents of zombie-libertarianism continue to drive the party into the ground, relegating it to a regional party of dead-enders. Maybe the real question is not what the Republican Party will believe and who will support it, but whether we need it at all. Perhaps there is no morally, politically and intellectually decent party of the right to be had.

      Sure Trump won, but that will be the death Knell for the Republican party. They need to go back to loosing, that would make them more successful.

      If there is to be, as I hope, a grand coalition from center right to center left that generally defends constitutional government, curbs on the excesses of the free market, globalization with a safety net, responsible international leadership and a determination to root out systemic racism, I am not certain what that leaves to the opposition.

      All the good thinkers agree with me. Therefore there can’t be a group of bad people who would want to form a party and disagree with me.

      Alternate headline: Centrists upset that America is tired of their bullshit.

      • Rhywun

        generally defends constitutional government

        *snort*

    • Rhywun

      *yawn*

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      “zombie-libertarianism”
      Shit, She found us!

      • UnCivilServant

        So that’s why you all keep harping on about Brains.

    • Viking1865

      Why are there so many leftists who insist on describing themselves as conservatives? Rightwing pundits and commentators include many former leftists, but they explicitly describe themselves as having changed their thinking and moved over to the right. I can’t think of any mainstream rightwing commentators with an actual platform who have voted Republican for a decade but still describe themselves as a leftist.

      Meanwhile on the left side there’s like half a dozen “lifelong conservatives” who are about to vote Democrat for the 3rd, 4th, 5th straight election. I like reading Andrew Sullivan’s Twitter feed, for example, but his whole shtick is “I’m a conservative and I am voting for the Democrat, just like I did in 2008, 2012, and 2016.”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Because they’re paid to do so. The media has no interest in giving a voice to people who can and would actually argue against leftist policies in a cogent manner.

      • Idle Hands

        Or for that matter really leftist policies in a cogent manner. There’s a reason Bernie bro’s and people like Jimmy Dore aren’t given a platform at all. These people are cultural oligarchs hell bent on maintaining the status quo.

      • Idle Hands

        See also the fact that as much as BLM is talked about we almost never ever hear a member talk on any of these fucking panel shows.

      • Idle Hands

        They are just establishment grifters. The equivalent on the right is the Trump coalition, who is just basically just 90’s era democrat coalition. But with less signaling because the point of the coalition isn’t to assure the people they are signaling to that they actually actually care about party so much as they hate the establishment. Andrew Sullivan is a bizarre figure because I’m almost positive the sole reason he jumped ship was over Sarah Palin, given his never ending crusade to convince people how beyond the pale and stupid she was.

    • Rebel Scum

      either passively or actively bought into white supremacy and religious authoritarianism. They waged war on the Constitution and objective reality. There is nothing redeeming in any of that — or in the right-wing media machine encompassing the deluded true believers and money-hungry charlatans willing to throw red meat to an audience they suppose consists of uneducated bigots.

      But enough about marxist-indoctrinated, lily, white proggies.

      • Viking1865

        “The Constitution” in this context just means “The Boomer liberal consensus.” High taxes, high regulations, legal abortion, guns abroad (RUSSIA!!!, butter at home.”

        Things like abortion, the Drug War, over half the federal departments have zero support in the text of the Constitution, while things that are explicitly stated in the Constitution are completely ignored.

        The Constitution is Buffalo Bob’s skinsuit at this point.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Pretty much

        It’s a pick and choose buffet of legality.

    • CPRM

      They waged war on the Constitution and objective reality.

      It reads like an ayahuasca trip.

    • WTF

      years of racism and xenophobia
      either passively or actively bought into white supremacy and religious authoritarianism. They waged war on the Constitution and objective reality

      Verifiable examples, please.

      • Ozymandias

        Never forget: It is ALWAYS projection with Progs. Always.
        She can’t help writing this because it’s how she sees the world and she simply projects onto others. It’s crazy as shit, but if you want to know what Progs are and think, just listen to them talk about the things they’re obsessed with: race, religious authoritarianism, the Constitution, and even objective reality.

        “White Supremacy and religious authoritarianism?” Which party actually thinks blacks need to be told what to do…?
        Who does that really sound like given what we’ve been witnessing? Is the “2+2=5” schtick coming from Catholic schools?!? Are the nuns now cracking kids’ knuckles for 2+2=4?

    • juris imprudent

      Perhaps there is no morally, politically and intellectually decent party of the right to be had.

      That must be one self-hating ‘conservative’.

      • R C Dean

        I bet she had delete “deplorable” and “irredeemable” from her first draft.

  54. Count Potato

    “In early May, those reports quietly began omitting long-term care residents who died of coronavirus in hospitals. Even so, New York still leads the nation with 5,433 reported deaths at nursing homes and adult care facilities as of Wednesday.

    The revelation comes as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faces criticism for ordering nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to accept patients from hospitals who had tested positive for coronavirus. Cuomo rescinded the March 25 order, which experts say led to higher levels of death among nursing home residents, on May 11 to allow such facilities to wait until a coronavirus patient tests negative before readmitting them.

    The NYSDOH confirmed to the DCNF that until around April 28, it was disclosing coronavirus deaths for all nursing home and adult care facility residents, regardless of whether the patient died at their long-term care facility or at a hospital.

    But the department made a subtle change to its disclosures beginning around May 3, according to web archives. The NYSDOH told the DCNF its disclosure now only reports coronavirus deaths for long-term care patients that died while physically present at their facility.”

    https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/15/new-york-coronavirus-reporting-nursing-home-deaths-undercounting/

    • Urthona

      Most popular guy in the Democratic party right now.

      • leon

        He’ll be speaking at the convention.

    • R C Dean

      That’ll be a big undercount. Nursing home patients with chronic disease get shipped to hospitals as soon as they need anything more than simple “nursing” care – help eating, getting cleaned up, ambulating, etc.

    • Idle Hands

      The way things are going Cuomo will be remembered as the hero that saved america when the history books are written on Covid.

  55. AlexinCT

    Fucking dnc operatives with bylines reporting on COVID. Or not

    • Idle Hands

      All I can say is I feel really really terrible for the Kiwi’s and Australians.

      • Drake

        Why? They got what they asked for – good and hard.

      • Idle Hands

        noone deserves total economic ruin and how do we even know that? I have a feeling we’ll find out those lockdowns were never as popular as they are made out to be after the dust settles. Either because of the possible economic fallout or the fact they suppressed all dissidents with hysterical screams calling them grandma killing hillbillies.

      • Rhywun

        I wasn’t there but I doubt “world’s second-most repressive lockdown” was on the party platform at election time.

      • Drake

        The same people in both countries already did a repressive gun-grab and they are still in power.

      • Rhywun

        I think Australia has had four or five prime ministers since then.

        I get it. But at some point you can’t blame every thing you don’t like on “that’s what people want”. That is not how representative democracy works. Unless you approve of every single action taken by every person you vote for.

      • Raven Nation

        Yep. I think this was mentioned above but the (brief) details are: 4 new cases in a metro area with a population of 1.7 million. So, the PM has ordered the city to alert level 3 which means: work from home unless they are essential workers, Bars and restaurants have to close, restrictions in place for funerals and weddings. “Travelling into Auckland is prohibited unless you normally reside there and are travelling home.”

        And, because of these 4 cases, she’s moving the entire country to alert level 2 which kind of looks like the restrictions in place in, say, New Hampshire. So, even if you live in Invercargill on the southern tip of the South Island, there are new restrictions because of those four cases.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      What they don’t cover is more important than what they do.

    • hayeksplosives

      Irresponsible media whores. How do they tell themselves they’re doing the world a service?

    • Urthona

      On the other hand, I am one of the ones who went and Googled Sweden’s covid when the media was kicking them in the nuts.

      Because I don’t trust the media. When I see a report from the media, I go ahead and verify now.

      But when the new reports came out that Sweden had basically eliminated covid, I wasn’t skeptical at all. So didn’t bother to confirm.

      ..

      Don’t overestimate the media’s influence here. They’ve never been less trusted because it’s so easy to figure out they’re full of shit now.

  56. The Late P Brooks

    VIOLENCE

    Case in point, Dr. Rachel Levine. She’s the pediatrician who is the secretary of health for Pennsylvania. Her “steady, composed, data-driven approach” to the COVID-19 pandemic has won her widespread praise.

    She’s also become the target of a torrent of online hate, in print and on the radio, and repeatedly called a man. Levine, a transgender woman, has for the most part ignored these small-minded, intolerant bigots.

    ——-

    Last month, Levine decided it was time to address the onslaught, and in doing so she spoke for every trans person who just wants to do our jobs, to live and to love without having to defend our right to exist as the person we know ourselves to be. She said those slings and arrows aimed at her are actually hurting their neighbors.

    “While these individuals may think that they are only expressing their displeasure with me, they are, in fact hurting the thousands of LGBTQ Pennsylvanians who suffer directly from these current demonstrations of harassment,” she said at the start of one of her coronavirus media briefings. Then, she addressed her haters.

    “Your actions perpetuate the spirit of intolerance and discrimination against LGBTQ individuals, and specifically transgender individuals,” said Levine.

    “To perpetuators and the perpetrators of these actions, if your apologies are sincere, then I accept them. But an apology is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation. As for me, I have no room in my heart for hatred, and frankly I do not have time for intolerance.”

    Good for you, bub.

    • leon

      She’s also become the target of a torrent of online hate, in print and on the radio, and repeatedly called a man. Levine, a transgender woman, has for the most part ignored these small-minded, intolerant bigots.

      LOL. Something about that made me laugh.

      Oh yeah, well you are just a bunch of small-minded, intolerant bigots!

      That’ll teach em.

      • Rhywun

        Something about that made me laugh.

        The fact that she IS a man?

        I have no problem calling them “she” but I won’t go so far as to pretend they “are” women.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Isn’t this the person that pulled their elderly parent out of a nursing home while forcing nursing homes to accept covid patients? That kind of data driven policy can get fucked and so can she.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yes. And that is why xe is facing criticism. But it’s a more convenient defense to claim TRANSPHOBIA.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        When someone takes that tack after fucking up you know they’re full of shit and not acting in good faith on any level. She’s either incompetent or she thinks the rules only apply to the little people neither of which is good.

    • hayeksplosives

      having to defend our right to exist as the person we know ourselves to be

      That language sounds poised to excuse any behavior a person d oh sent want to change to fit in polite society. “Standing in line for my turn isn’t who I know myself to be.”

      “I shouldn’t sleep with my buddy’s girlfriend, but a loyal friend isn’t who I know myself to be.”

    • Idle Hands

      I think what bothers me the most about these types of retarded woke statements on tolerance is the fact that people are literally trying to hurt this woman’s feelings and in doing so they are going to target the thing they think get’s the most rise out of a person which is usually a something they perceive as an insecurity. In this case many probably assume rightly that would be a statement about her gender. That doesn’t automatically make them phobic at all just more or less possibly bigoted/rude. This person is an unelected bureaucrat who is perceived as attempting to ruin their lives by limiting what activities they can engage in I don’t really get why any of these public health people are surprised at the amount of hate mail they are getting. In fact the fact they don’t understand why things are this heated it serves as further evidence as why they have no business making any decisions. I really hate these types of articles they enrage me.

  57. hayeksplosives

    After all this current wave of #BLM, is a resume with the name Shanaynay or D’Vondrious at the top more or less likely to make it to the short stack of resume candidates?

    • Rhywun

      #uncomfortablequestions

    • Heroic Mulatto

      Are you implying that is something you would personally do?

      • Mojeaux

        A long-ago bestie (white, blue-eyed, blonde, pretty) married an Hispanic dude. She was trying to get a job and noticed that her requests for interviews went way up when she used her maiden name as opposed to her married name.

        So it’s something *I* think about, because of her experience, whether it’s something I personally would do or not.

        Of course, I noticed that getting jobs for me was noticeably easier when I was thinner than not.

        Now, if I were to go out of doors to work, I’m sure my age would work against me.

      • R C Dean

        Its sad, but our anti-discrimination laws actually incentivize discrimination at hiring.

        A protected class is hard to fire. And hard to fire means hard to hire. Its entirely rational, in our current legal system, to choose the white guy over an equally qualified woman or POC.

        Way to go, geniuses.

    • juris imprudent

      I don’t know, I’ve always been able to weed out the bullshit in the resume rather than focus on the name at the top of it.

  58. DEG

    President Trump has repeatedly warned of potential voter fraud associated with mass mail-in ballots for the November election, but a bigger threat might be sheer incompetence. Can we really rely on the U.S. Postal Service to handle a nationwide influx of mail-in ballots beginning next month?

    So far, there’s not much reason for confidence.

    Supposedly the NH Secretary of State is coming down on Town Moderators who want to force all absentee ballots. There has been some talk of some towns requiring masks and there are folks lobbying the Secretary of State to prevent that.

    Republicans in Congress are furious that Democrats left town after failing to reach a deal with them on a phase 4 coronavirus stimulus package.

    So no compromise at $4 trillion? I can live with that.

    Pastor Rob McCoy led three services in defiance of coronavirus health orders at Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Ventura County’s Newbury Park. McCoy had vowed Friday to continue in-person services even though the judge’s order cited “an immediate threat to public health and safety due to the 2019 novel coronavirus.”

    Good.

  59. PieInTheSky

    So what is the deal with Ben Shapiro and WAP?

    • Heroic Mulatto

      It’s not policing speech when socially conservative Orthodox Jews do it.

      • Viking1865

        Ben Shapiro was appointed Censor Of The Music?

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Self-appointed.

    • Idle Hands

      I really really dislike Ben Shapiro. I don’t know how anyone listens to that nazelly voice for longer than a minute before turning it off.

      • Viking1865

        He might be the most annoying voice in politics.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        But he does so well at COMPLETELY OWNING overly emotional college freshmen. Beyond that I’m afraid he doesn’t do that well plus he’s a pretty standard neocon.

      • juris imprudent

        COMPLETELY OWNING overly emotional college freshmen

        Real high bar there.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Though that does sound like my dating life in my early 20s.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Oh yes. Yes, I did.

      • mrfamous

        I wonder how many times he’s had his underwear pulled over his head

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Hell if I know.

    • leon

      You’d think someone who has experienced so much anti-semetism in his life, wouldn’t dish out on the Italian hatred.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Clean your desk dude.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        My irl workspaces are much more disorganized than that.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I only shame because I’m projecting my guilt onto you.

    • PieInTheSky

      looking kinda pale you feelin well?

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Oh, I’m the guy in the white sweatshirt.

  60. PieInTheSky

    #WritingCommunity #authors #scifi #science #TravellerRPG Answers for Authors: Where should I site a Galactic Empire?

    Location, location… want to locate a galactic civilization somewhere that fits the tech and society you’re writing?. Here’s a guide…

    https://twitter.com/MadScientistJo/status/1292988097643323392

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Crocodile Dundee was a myth.

      • Drake

        Yep – Otherwise every man in the neighborhood would be kicking that cop’s ass.

  61. Yusef drives a Kia

    Well Trump’s EO for extended UI hasn’t shown up, so something’s going on……………………………

  62. The Late P Brooks

    Mask enforcement, Australia edition:

    That nice policeman is saving her from certain doom. Try to imagine the horrific consequences of just leaving her the fuck alone.