Winston’s Mom Does the Links

by | Jul 8, 2021 | Daily Links | 298 comments

I’m not explaining why this is out late.

 

Fuck you, that’s why

Six months later:  “You fucked up, you trusted us.”

Absofuckingloutley not.

Unexpectedly

Did she say something controversial?

 

 

I need some coffee and a cigarette. Bye losers.

About The Author

Winston's Mom

Winston's Mom

Biological mother of Winston.

298 Comments

  1. Rat on a train

    No need to explain. Just claim executive privilege or such.

    • Swiss Servator

      Oh, she will explain….for a price.

  2. PieInTheSky

    “Unexpectedly” – bad luck comes at you out of the blue

    • AlexinCT

      Funny how this bad luck shit always happen when people do stupid shit, huh?

  3. Gustave Lytton

    Working girls need to work.

    • PieInTheSky

      word

  4. DEG

    If extradited Assange is facing life in prison on espionage charges, likely at the Colorado supermax where inmates spend 23 of 24 hours a day in solitary confinement inside a small cell; however, this week the US government is trying to give “assurances” to a UK court that he “won’t be held under the strictest maximum-security conditions if extradited to the US,” according to new Wall Street Journal reporting on Wednesday.

    Which would be empty anyways. You think the UK would stop extraditing to the US if the US shat over the assurances?

    • WTF

      How is what Assange did any different from the NYT publishing the Pentagon Papers, or any other leaked classified information?
      I know, I know, FYTW.

      • DEG

        /tin foil hat time

        The Pentagon was in on the NYT leaking the Pentagon Papers.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Those assurances are worth jack shit.

      Our country lies all the time. I’m under no illusions that we have good intentions at any time anymore. They’ve successfully beaten that out of me.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Assuming the absolute worst is usually the best path when it comes to our CIA spooks and anything associated with them.

      • Ownbestenemy

        *Muammar al-Qaddafi in agreement.*

  5. Stinky Wizzleteats

    I guess the revelation from the CIA’s pedophile fake Assange witness has caused them to change tack but the new angle is a steaming pile of garbage too.

    • AlexinCT

      Give us the perp, and we will find a crime to charge em with!

  6. WTF

    I guess Winston was active last night because his mom needed him out of the way while she entertained “guests”.

    • waffles

      Dude I think clients is the preferred term.

    • Swiss Servator

      That is going to leave a mark.

    • Winston's Mom

      Hey! You leave his ass out of it!

      • AlexinCT

        Euphemism?

  7. DEG

    New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

    Initial jobless claims climbed to 373,000 for the week ended July 3. Economists polled by Econoday had estimated 353,000 new claims after last week’s initial estimate of 364,000.

    The prior week’s claims were revised up to 371,000.

    Many Americans are hanging back from working because, for a very large share of those unemployed, supplemental federal jobless benefits, on top of regular state unemployment aid, pay them more than their old jobs did. Others are contending with health and child care issues related to COVID-19 and, in some cases, with career uncertainty after the recession wiped out many jobs for good. Some who have lost work during the pandemic have decided to retire while others have rethought their career choices after working from home or being out of work during the pandemic.

    Who could possibly have seen this coming?

    • PieInTheSky

      no one. it was unforeseeable.

      • Festus

        Shiftless, lazy assholes are raking it in. Amurcah!

    • B.P.

      White House says, ‘Nugh ugh!’…

      https://money.yahoo.com/wh-advisor-no-strong-evidence-unemployment-benefits-are-pulling-people-out-of-the-labor-force-131926943.html

      “”As the economy gets back up and running, we need to make sure that the unemployment insurance system does what it’s designed to do, which is support people during periods of unemployment,” Heather Boushey, a member of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “So far we have not seen strong evidence that this is having a significant effect of pulling people out of the labor force. People know that it’s temporary.””

      Peeing, telling me it’s raining, etc.

      • prolefeed

        “People know it is temporary.”

        Yes, and when getting paid to not work is actually ended, they’ll get back to work.

    • kbolino

      That story does a great job of explaining absolutely nothing.

    • Lord Humungus

      >>Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche

      those last three are the same company… ::pedantic cough::

    • blackjack

      Most of the owners were pissed that their cars were recalled and programmed to get worse mileage and have way less power. They got a taste of what it could do unshackled.

  8. trshmnstr the terrible

    “Why didn’t you stop?” he is heard asking.

    “Because I didn’t feel like it was safe!” Harper cries out in obvious distress.

    “Well, this is where you end up,” Dunn responds as Harper, then pregnant, struggles to exit the vehicle. “I thought it would be safe to wait until the exit.”

    “No ma’am, you pull over when law enforcement stops you.”

    Too bad the defund the police dolts aren’t gonna go riot at his house. This one deserves to have a bit of fear of the mob put back into him.

    • Winston's Mom

      fear of the mob put back into him

      “We’re here for the gang bang.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      He deserves to be disappeared.

    • Ownbestenemy

      That is one way to get the blood boiling. Fuck you, copper, I will safely stop my car, as the DMV has instructed me to do for my safety. Fuck off you fuckity fuck face.

    • Count Potato

      The outrageous thing is that she was only speeding. It’s like those NYC cops who strangled a man to death for selling loose cigarettes.

      • WTF

        The worst part of that is Garner wasn’t even selling loosies at the time, and didn’t even have any on him. They had no legitimate reason to put their hands on him.

      • Homple

        Or like whoever shot Ashli Babbitt.

    • EvilSheldon

      This seems like a good reason to go to the track and learn how to reverse a PIT maneuver.

    • rhywun

      I am not reflexively anti-cop but when I read shit like the following, maybe I should be. It’s part of Giuliani’s advice for the next mayor:

      4. Restore qualified immunity and morale
      By backing cops and giving them back the legal protection stripped from them that now leaves them open to being personally sued and financially ruined if an arrest goes wrong. De Blasio has qualified immunity, as does every member of the City Council.

      Because the poor dears are afraid to do their jobs, you see.

    • Rat on a train

      Many of these women will change their minds later and wonder where all the good men went.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      This seems 100% backward, or maybe not…don’t get married unless you want children.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I’ve never understood why so many atheist/agnostic, intentionally childless women (and men) get married. Seems like a lot of responsibility and limitation for the upside of… I guess the benefit is that it’s more of a pain in the ass to break up, so you’re not as likely to be tossed out in the cold for a relatively minor transgression.

      • Akira

        As far as I can observe, the only reason that nonreligious people (or religious people who are not very devout) get married is because the woman is threatening to end it if the guy doesn’t “put a ring on it”.

        Yea, the article has it backwards… Given that many women will have sex, cohabitate, and have children without being married, there’s not much to gain from the man’s point of view. A lot of men these days believe that marriage only introduces a risk of getting assfucked on alimony and child support in the event of a divorce.

      • Nephilium

        Agnostic with no intention of getting married. My sister once thought she could trap me, as I’m an ordained minister (Agnostic and able to perform marriages in Ohio). She asked why I would help two other people get married if I didn’t want to get married.

        “Just because it doesn’t fit my interests doesn’t mean it doesn’t fit theirs. Besides, who am I to stop someone from making a bad decisions, I can at least help them keep the cost down.”

      • waffles

        You aren’t free unless you’re free to be wrong.

      • leon

        Who’s ever heard of an unmarried man performing a marriage of two people?

      • R C Dean

        I’m an ordained minister (Agnostic and able to perform marriages in Ohio)

        The Church of Idunno, or are you one of the splitters with the Church of Beatsme?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I belong to the Church of Whatever

      • Rat on a train

        Church of Emacs? I’m Cult of VI.

      • kbolino

        Banks, employers, legal services, insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, courts, …

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Banks – do many DINKs do joint accounts anymore? Most people seem to do separate finances these days. Besides, I don’t think it’s all that hard to open a joint account with an unmarried partner these days.

        Employers – is there any employer left who hasn’t broadened out to “domestic partners” when assigning benefits?

        Legal services – I’ll take your word for this one. Not sure which legal services differentiate between married and live-in partner these days.

        Insurance – beneficiary can be changed with the stroke of a pen or the click of a button. You do more paperwork to get married than to add your live-in partner to your insurance. Domestic partners are treated as equivalent to married for eligibility purposes for every insurance I’ve ever bought.

        Doctors – I’m assuming you mean the HIPAA waiver here? They didn’t ask whether I was married when I added my wife to the waiver at my PCP. Maybe they just assumed, maybe it doesn’t matter. *shrug*

        Hospitals – I’m far enough out of the loop that I don’t know whether the marital powers have been expanded to domestic partners in hospitals.

        Courts – I’m under the impression that “common law marriage” handles the situation pretty nicely most everywhere short of family court. Probate would be my next inclination as to where it would matter, but getting married because you’re too lazy to write a will is ludicrous.

        I’m just not seeing it. Yeah, 20 years ago it probably made sense to provide access to conveniences reserved to married couples. These days? I’m skeptical. Seems like a lot of downside for the avoidance of a few sheets of paperwork.

      • Nephilium

        For employers, both companies I’ve worked with while being with the girlfriend only extend benefits to spouses and children (one of my friends had to go through a legal adoption for his step-son at one place).

      • R C Dean

        There’s not a lot left, really, in marriage-as-a-legal-institution that can’t be duplicated without marriage.

        Of course, some of us don’t see marriage as purely transactional, so there’s that.

      • prolefeed

        It’s a big commitment. It says you’re gonna stay together the rest of your life, sharing everything and working toward common goals.

        Or else. 😉

        I was really reluctant to marry Mrs Prole, because I had just finished getting divorced, from a spouse who spent about $100k in legal fees learning the meaning of “50-50.”

        Then something clicked inside, and I was good with getting remarried, because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a lovely human being.

      • slumbrew

        The married-filing-jointly tax rate is the one benefit you can’t get otherwise, AFAIK.

        When my now wife was my domestic parter at work, for health insurance purposes, her benefits were treated as taxable income – not the case for a spouse.

        Somewhat hilariously, when they legalized gay marriage in Mass my company did away with the domestic partner benefits, under the reasoning that there’s nothing stopping anyone from getting married at this point.

        (that’s not why I got married)

      • R C Dean

        The married-filing-jointly tax rate is the one benefit you can’t get otherwise, AFAIK.

        “Benefit” needs scare quotes, outside of a pretty narrow range of combined incomes. Its a whopping penalty for us, as my wife pays at either the top marginal rate or the second top marginal rate on income that would likely not be taxable at all otherwise.

        Somewhat hilariously, when they legalized gay marriage in Mass my company did away with the domestic partner benefits,

        We still have them. I have no clue why, other than squishy-headed liberalism.

      • grrizzly

        There’s no need to be legally married to open a joint account. Any two people with SSNs can open a joint account. I don’t recall if I checked married or “domestic partner” when we switched to Geico. That could be one time I pretended we were married–to get a discount. Once my partner and I sued somebody. No problem being co-plaintiffs.

        It’s been 16 years of being not legally married. Several rented apartments, a couple of houses bought, one house sold. Joint accounts with banks, brokerages, etc. Though we haven’t had any medical problems: cannot say much about this.

      • R C Dean

        Make sure you have a healthcare power of attorney, and your partner will have all the rights that a spouse would have as far as healthcare goes. I’d back it up with a living will, too.

      • Sensei

        RC is giving you good advice there.

      • The Hyperbole

        You do it for the big party with all your friends and family and hopefully someone buys you a 6 quart Kitchen-aid stand mixer.

      • WTF

        Yeah, women have all the advantage in a marriage, as any man subjected to divorce-rape will tell you.

      • prolefeed

        The person who earns the most, or has the most assets, is the one most at risk in a divorce. This is not always the woman, as I can personally attest to.

      • Akira

        I’ve pondered how marriage could be privatized… It should just be a contract between individuals and whatever organization or person (if any) they believe is in charge of marriage.

        The only hard part is what to do if a couple divorces and their contract is unclear on how the jointly-purchased assets should be divided. Who should adjudicate that? It could be the church/organization that performed the wedding, but what if they don’t exist anymore? Should the small claims courts handle it? Private arbitration?

        As an aside, I find it funny that people who oppose “the government defining marriage” (with regards to gay marriage) will ferociously defend state-imposed alimony. I think it’s one of the most absurd situations ever that a person can be forced to fulfill part of their marriage obligations to the spouse (“a lifestyle to which they are accustomed”) while the other spouse has no obligations whatsoever. If marriage were private contracts and both spouses agreed to terms of alimony before the wedding, whatever. But it shouldn’t be the government-imposed default.

  9. Rat on a train

    Hey UK, if we can keep a LARPer in solitary confinement for 6+ months, you can be sure Assange will be treated poorly.

  10. DEG

    This Freddie de Boer substack made me smile

    There’s been a lot of debate lately about the application of critical race theory in K-12 schools. Critics suggest that such lessons simply exacerbate existing racial tensions, but defenders argue tha –

    “CRT IS ONLY FOR LEGAL AND GRADUATE EDUCATION, NO ONE IS TEACHING CRT IN K-12 SCHOOLS, THE IDEA THAT THERE’S CRT HAPPENING IN K-12 SCHOOLS IS A CONSERVATIVE CONSPIRACY THEORY WHO ARE YOU TUCKER CARLSON ARGLE BARGLE”

    • PieInTheSky

      Is he related to the Dutch footballers?

    • zwak

      Freddie is liberal ASF, but he is a good bean.

    • B.P.

      Yep. The talking points have been uploaded…

      https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/critical-race-theory-controversy-comes-to-colorado-with-effort-to-ban-it-from-education-training

      “Critical race theory is an academic discipline that looks at how racism has shaped the United States legal system and other government and social institutions and policies. University of Colorado Boulder ethnic studies professor Jennifer Ho said the discipline would mostly likely be found in law schools and graduate level courses.

      “I’ve never encountered a critical race theory class in the K-12 system,” Ho said.”

      • ignoreLander

        “I’ve never encountered a critical race theory class in the K-12 system,”

        What a Ho.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s a good one too, Malice keeps him mostly on a short leash and Jones does well when his interlocutors steer him away from the ditch.

      • PieInTheSky

        the opposite of what Andrew Schulz was doing but that was a fun one as well

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I’ll have to relisten, I was a little disappointed.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I wouldn’t bother if I were you, there’s nothing profound there. I just like it when someone keeps Jones’ schtick in line and he reveals himself himself to be a pretty well-informed but hyperbolic nonloon.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Ah okay I got it then. I was hoping Jones would drop something big but there wasn’t anything new, just as you say, Malice keeping him on track to get his main points across.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    “No ma’am, you pull over when law enforcement stops you.”

    OBEY.

    This is why I don’t much give a shit when a cop gets mowed down on the side of the road.

    • PieInTheSky

      that sounds like hate speech to me.

    • leon

      I wonder how he’d react if she had slammed the breaks and caused him to crash into him.

      “I was only trying to obey.”

    • Tundra

      Malice is right: every cop is a criminal.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Are all the sinners saints?

      • Tundra

        I am in need of some restraint, ’tis true.

      • waffles

        I was surprised how resistant I was to his characterization. I had to think about it. But yes, totally. Every single cop is a criminal.

      • Tundra

        Same. I have friends and family who do the job and it was difficult to make tat leap. 2020 fixed that.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yeah, I have known quite a few people that were cops or deputies. My dad was a probation officer, so I know a lot of them as well.

        I’m not sure how Malice is defining stuff, so I won’t comment on that.

        The one contrarian take I will offer up is that the job of policing warps cops. Good people who get into the job see too much horrible shit to not have it start warping them.

        You can only imagine what happens to the shit people who become cops for all the wrong reasons (like the power).

        It is a horrible job. You deal with a lot of really bad people.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        The one contrarian take I will offer up is that the job of policing warps cops. Good people who get into the job see too much horrible shit to not have it start warping them.

        Yup. When you spend your entire 12 hour shift dealing with drunks, drug addicts, domestic abusers, and petty criminals, it doesn’t do good things to your psyche.

        I think that’s why suburban cops are generally less “bad” than urban cops. When you spend most of the day pulling over soccer moms for going 30 in a 25 and cleaning up traffic accidents, you’re much more likely to have a positive view of humanity than if you spend all day arresting people for shoplifting, B&E and worse.

      • blackjack

        Maybe true, but it’s still probably a lot of fun to PIT one of their cars and watch it flip.

      • PutridMeat

        It is a horrible job. You deal with a lot of really bad people.

        Yes, I don’t think you get a representative cross section. I have bacon in the immediate family, grew up around a lot of them and have a somewhat jaded view based on stories/interactions. Maybe enough fodder for a short article at some point.

        But I’m not sure how, in a job where you are forced to interact with the worst of society by and large, one stays a good person. Maybe in an era where policing was limited enough that you didn’t need a huge work force and hence could be more selective, it would be easier to select for the sort of character necessary. But combined with the training that is pretty explicitly “us against them”/”occupying army”, dealing with the worst elements (or seeing ordinary people at their worst – and I wonder what the direction of cause and effect is in that training vs. job experience is…), not sure how you recruit decent people or keep basically decent people from turning into assholes.

        Also saw it personally at a different level working as a bouncer in a bar in the before times, the long long ago. When you had to do your job, it was invariably dealing with people at their worst, and you rapidly start evaluating people based on your worst expectations of how they will behave.

      • Sensei

        At least in my part of the world part of the issue is the cops are “hired guns”. They can’t afford to live in my town so there is no sense of community with the police and the policed.

        When and where I grew up I went to school with the children of police officers and they were a part of the community.

      • PieInTheSky

        I would not say that. More along the lines of all cops who have a bad cop in their department and do nothing. If there is a county somewhere where no cop abuses people, you can’t say those cops are all criminals. They cannot control other counties. I do not know if such a county exists in the US or whatever subdivisions your cops have.

        Are sheriffs uniformly cops?

      • Tonio

        I believe Mick Jagger said it first.

      • Tundra

        One time. In a song.

        But yes, you are right.

        I appreciate Malice for repeatedly arguing a pretty uncomfortable point, though.

      • banginglc1

        One time. In a song.

        According to setlist.fm he’s said it at least 798 times, well 799 if you count the album too.

    • DrOtto

      +1 died doing what he loved

  12. The Late P Brooks

    EU fines German car cartel €875M over clean emissions technology

    So that’s why my Daimler is down. And it had been doing so well.

    Dammit.

      • EvilSheldon

        I can believe this.

      • db

        Why do you think every Jedi was supposed to craft his own lightsaber?

  13. db

    OK, so here’s a pet peeve.

    Has the dictionary definition of “to partake” changed recently due to common usage, or have I just not been aware of this for, like, ever?

    Merriam Webster says:

    1: to take part in or experience something along with others
    partake in the revelry
    partake of the good life

    2: to have a portion (as of food or drink)
    were invited to partake of a dinner

    3: to possess or share a certain nature or attribute
    the experience partakes of a mystical quality
    partake in each other’s sorrows and joys

    Dictionary dot com says basically the same thing.

    I never knew that the primary definition was “to take part in.” All my life, I have only heard it used as the second definition: “to have a portion of.”

    I only noticed this in the last 5 years or so, and *only* among younger people–in their early to late 20s. Is this something you have noticed as well? Has the definition changed to reflect common usage? It just seems *wrong* to me, because it’s an unfamiliar usage to me. How about you?

    • Winston's Mom

      I think you need to seek help from a professional. Not one like me.

      • db

        You might be surprised. I have what you might say is an uncanny talent for focusing on vital details.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I’ve heard it both ways my entire life. In some ways it’s the same definition. Taking a portion of a shared experience.

      • db

        It just sounds wrong to me. This is one of those Mandela / Berenstain bears things.

    • PieInTheSky

      I always knew the first definition

      • PieInTheSky

        To be fair I did not much differentiate between the first two.

        partake of dinner can be seen as taking part in the experience of dinner food talk etc.

    • Rat on a train

      I’ve always used the “take part in” definition.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I have used both, but more to the second definition in everyday conversation. Come over and partake in some drinks.

    • Tonio

      While it has usually been used for consuming a portion, I’ve also heard it used to refer to activities. Words and their usage changes over time.

      On a personal note, I’d urge you to be less Anthony Burgess, agonizing over linguistics at every turn, and more Mickey Spillane.

      [Returns to playing with business-suited action figure riding JetSki. “Pew, pew, pew…”]

    • Mojeaux

      I’ve heard/used both “take part in” and “take part of” all my life.

      “part take”

    • db

      Interesting. So I guess I’m in the minority, having heard only the second usage most of my life. You live, you learn, you laugh, you loofa.

    • ruodberht

      “Partake in the forms” has been a thing in English for a while, so…

  14. The Late P Brooks

    How is what Assange did any different from the NYT publishing the Pentagon Papers, or any other leaked classified information?

    Or the IRS leaking tax returns.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      He made the mistake of going after both sides. If he had stuck to criticizing either the right or the left he’d have a lot more defenders and it’d be impossible to railroad him like this.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s what you get for being principled.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It is, sadly. Who’s next I wonder? My money’s on Greenwald.

      • db

        I have a suspicion that the home invasion Greenwald suffered earlier this year was a warning.

  15. Tundra

    Good morning, WM!

    Musical link.

  16. leon

    Let’s make a deal:

    We’ll drop ICE, in return for dropping the ATF, and the DHS in return for the DOE.

    • Rat on a train

      What do we have to give up to abolish HUD?

      • leon

        DEA? These all sound like win-win’s to me

      • PieInTheSky

        I think Heads-up Displays have their uses

      • blackjack

        While not my favorite, it wasn’t too bad.

  17. Pope Jimbo

    Remember the big ice storm in Texas? Well turns out that Minnesoda’s public utilities didn’t have a contract to buy gas at preset prices, so they got stuck with a bill that was $800M more than expected. Stupid right? Brother Keith said “hold my beer” and raised the bar in the Stupid game.

    Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is recommending the Public Utilities Commission block gas companies from charging consumers the increased gas costs they paid during February’s winter storm after an investigation found the companies could have reduced gas purchases during the price spike, but failed to do so.

    Ellison is recommending the PUC disallow gas companies from charging $380 million to utility ratepayers in Minnesota, which represents nearly half of the approximately $800 million in higher costs utilities paid when the price of natural gas went up during Winter Storm Uri, according to a news release.

    According to Brother Keith, the gas companies could have done better and reduced the amount of gas it needed to purchase. The story has a list of things that the gas companies could have done. One of the items was “Failing to reduce gas purchases by “interrupting” customers who have contractually agreed to a lower rate in exchange for the ability of the utility to require them to stop buying”.

    I’m sure Brother Keith would have totally agreed at the time that the gas companies were right to cut off gas during a brutal cold snap. No way he would have sued the shit out of the gas companies.

    • db

      Yeah, that’s a minefield for a company to walk. They have to choose a path and hope their lawyers are good enough to argue either way when the hammer comes down.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I’m interested in how Brother Keith thinks that these gas companies are going to eat $380M.

      • UnCivilServant

        bankruptsy, allowing righteous green energy to bloom.

      • Lord Humungus

        They’re rich companies with a McScrooge vault of money?

        Oh wait, they’ll just raise prices.

    • Rat on a train

      Do the plus-sized models show up later? How about the trans? They are asking for a mob if they didn’t include the proper models.

      • PieInTheSky

        Most of the youtubes I link to are a few years old fortunately

  18. Festus

    Rashida Talib aka The Toad.

  19. Tundra

    From CrimeWatchMpls:

    Take that, coastal elite!

    Flyover country, my ass!

    • Ownbestenemy

      Someone had a good time

    • Pope Jimbo

      Uffda. We aren’t even a flyover suburb Tundra (This happened only a couple miles from our houses)

      Plymouth police are looking for the person who shot and killed a motorist on U.S. Highway 169 on Tuesday night.

      Police said in a statement released Wednesday morning that two vehicles were traveling southbound on Highway169 near Rockford Road at about 10 p.m. when a suspect in one vehicle shot the driver of the other car as the two vehicles were side by side on the road.

      • Tundra

        Yeah, I saw that. Getting kind of spicy out there, isn’t it?

  20. Pope Jimbo

    Won’t anybody think of the children Gaia?

    The Line 3 project, a rerouted expansion of the existing Enbridge Line 3, will initially carry some 760,000 barrels per day of highly toxic, carbon-heavy, tar-sands crude from strip-mined First Nations land in the boreal forest of Alberta to Superior, Wis., crossing pristine Indigenous wetlands in northern Minnesota and threatening the headwaters of the Mississippi River. When operational, this one pipeline would account for carbon emissions equivalent to 45 or 50 new coal-fired power plants, or 38 million cars, even as the global climate emergency accelerates.

    Straight news right there.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      WTF is an “indigenous wetland”?

      • UnCivilServant

        one that didn’t come in and colonize the area.

      • Tonio

        [golf clap]

      • PieInTheSky

        Well on that has always existed in the US. Not like when a rich American visited England saw a swamp he liked and had it moved to the US

      • UnCivilServant

        fun fact, the land my college was built on was originally not a wetland. Then the contruction changed the way the land drained and half the property is now federally protected against them using it, despite not naturally being that moist.

      • db

        Maybe Winston’s Mom can introduce you.

      • Tonio

        ^We have much comedic talent here.

      • Raven Nation

        John Rolfe

    • Festus

      It makes sense if you want 90% of us dead so that you’ll become the ruling class.

      • Festus

        A Kingdom Of Bones, as it were.

    • Festus

      Ya know what the natives did about swamps? They walked around them just like everyone else did.

      • Rat on a train

        The local tribes thought Jamestown was temporary because who would build a settlement in a swamp.

    • EvilSheldon

      I think of Gaia about as often as Gaia thinks of me.

      • waffles

        So all the time? Me too, man.

    • Suthenboy

      Carbon heavy? I stopped there.

  21. waffles

    I downloaded monocle, hey that’s pretty cool! Thanks for the neato browser extender.

    • PieInTheSky

      just ransomware bidding its time

      • PieInTheSky

        *biding

      • Pope Jimbo

        *Biden is what you really meant?

        A trigger will be sent and all the infected PC’s will start displaying gibberish and ordering ice cream online.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Shhhhhhh!

        *cackles maniacally*

        (you’re welcome, waffles. Let me know if anything doesn’t work as expected or if there’s a feature you’d like to have included)

  22. The Other Kevin

    So hockey is now over. Meet the new Stanley Cup champ, same as the old Stanley Cup champ.

    • Festus

      It makes me happy. Head Coach is a local.

    • waffles

      Canada sucks!

    • Rat on a train

      It’s better that Tampa Bay won. A Canadian team wouldn’t be allowed to have a victory celebration.

      • Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

        That’s why we let Tampa win. We’re nice that way. ”Enjoy your party!”

    • Urthona

      Tampa Bay is redonkulous. Dynasty.

      • Translucent Chum

        $18 million over the salary cap. That loophole will be closed in the off season. Stevie Y will be waiting …

      • Translucent Chum

        $18 million over the cap and that loophole will be fixed this offseason.

      • Rat on a train

        Reading, writing and arithmetic are racist.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s child abuse to both the direct recipients and to those being coddled and it’s a damn shame.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      CRT and the 1619 Project are the opposite of honest history and they’re well aware. They just want carte blanche to transition from covert to overt propaganda and brainwashing.

      • waffles

        I often wonder if where the tidal estuary of educators turns from stupid to evil. All teachers can’t be evil, some of them must just be stupid. At some point on this chain there has to be some kind of evil “will to power” kind of motivation and below that point it’s just herd mentality. What’s the end game of the brainwashing anyway? From my POV we just get ruin.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The unions are run like bureaucracies. The people who end up at the top of the union are the ones who have the interests of the union at heart, not the members and certainly not the customers.

      • Surly Knott

        Shit floats.

    • Chipwooder

      “Honest history”? Hah, they’re really flailing now because they are losing this battle. Badly.

    • leon

      Step 1. Make outrageous claims.
      Step 2. Claim that it is the truth and everyone else is wrong (even if you are a postmodernist who ‘rejects’ truth)
      Step 3. say “No one is saying that, we are just teaching honest history”

      • Tonio

        They also like to cherry pick examples of actual racial injustice and claim that people who want to stop CRT want to stop them teaching about those injustices. They will go to any lengths to avoid discussing the actual problem which is teaching that white people, and America, are and always will be inherently racist.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Under postmodernist theory the ends justify the means, so you can never assume that their intentions are true or that they’re not blatantly lying.

        They intend to make it as difficult as possible to fight them on an intellectual and moral basis and cheating is just fine.

        This is why it will ultimately end up in violence. They’ve provided for no other methods of resolution.

      • blackjack

        My kid’s black. If the school starts trying to brainwash him into thinking he’s a victim and I’m his victimizer, I will teach the school exactly what being a victim feels like.

      • Chipwooder

        I sincerely wish you luck, because there will be all kinds of people trying to drive a wedge between you and your son.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Seconded. That’s not going to be an easy road.

        There’s a black girl in my daughter’s middle school class who was adopted by white parents. She loudly proclaims about how horrible her life is and how her parents are racist troglodytes who should never have adopted her.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Actual racial injustice, schools based on districting.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Pretense of knowledge

    As public health practitioners moved to this view, a similar transition occurred among those arguing strongly for SIPs. Arguments about the effect of the pandemic on excess deaths now largely dominate the discussion of the justification for implementing SIPs. This justification has also been employed to suggest that without the implementation of SIPs, excess deaths would have been far higher than what were experienced, often based on the speculative models of disease spread and death.

    What is missing from too many of these claims is any discussion of data-driven, long-run evaluations of the relationship between SIPs and reduced excess deaths. Indeed, a plethora of articles purport that SIP and other lockdown measures help to lower excess deaths created by the pandemic, presenting raw counts of deaths compared to predicted deaths without employing standard statistical approaches that could allow such a hypothesis to be tested.

    For example in April 2020 and updated in February 2021, The New York Times published a piece that attempts to reconcile Covid-19 deaths with total deaths. The journalists quote a demographer at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research who says that while “today’s rise in all-cause mortality takes place under conditions of extraordinary measures…It is likely that without these measures, the current death toll would be even higher.”

    Similarly in May 2020, Business Insider released an article about the correlation between lockdown duration and excess deaths. They state outright: “Later lockdowns suggest higher excess death rates.” They similarly suggest places that are quicker to lock down have lower excess death rates.

    ——

    Despite these limitations, this study represents a welcome turn to the “‘real world’ impact of SIP policies,” not modelers’ assumptions about perfect implementation and adherence. Among the most interesting parts of the study is their view that based on the evidence, individual behavior and response to the Covid-19 risk might have changed even without an implementation of SIP, implying that SIPs are potentially gratuitous. Findings like these are based on actual data and use solid methodological approaches that are hard to ignore.

    Their overarching finding is that SIPs are largely ineffective at reducing excess mortality (except perhaps where populations can be completely isolated). These sorts of studies are of particular importance when expansive and drastic public policies––no matter how seemingly well-intentioned––are implemented. More studies like this one that use real data are needed to better understand both the issues that surround current policy and how to respond to similar problems in the future.

    Ultimately, these early findings reinforce the core difficulty that policy planners face. Planners can never know enough to plan for every eventuality, nor can they accurately predict what their plans will actually do. As a result, plans often end up based on a “pretense of knowledge” rather than real-world evidence or understanding.

    SCIENCE! deniers.

    Everybody knows a model, meticulously reverse engineered to support a desired outcome, is superior to hard numbers from real world observations.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    The worst part of that is Garner wasn’t even selling loosies at the time, and didn’t even have any on him. They had no legitimate reason to put their hands on him.

    He was heckling them from the sidelines. An intolerable affront to their AUTHORITY.

  25. Festus

    Signing off for now. Mask mandates are mostly (mostly) gone but I’m feeling a growing sense of anger and hostility. You guys have the best one that you can manage! I’ll try my damndest to not punch somebody square in the nose.

    • DEG

      Bye Festus!

  26. Nephilium

    Who the fuck uses three different sizes of bolts for a railing? And switches between imperial and metric sizes?

    The dicks who put the railing in to the garage steps at my house. That’s who.

    • UnCivilServant

      It’s called a Sampler Pack.

    • Lord Humungus

      “Now what do I have leftover in my junk box? Here we go!”

    • Pope Jimbo

      Calm down Neph. It isn’t a good look to rail on and on about the builders who went before you.

      • Lord Humungus

        STEVE SMITH RAIL ON AND ON

      • banginglc1

        But it’s driving him nuts!

    • DrOtto

      They were out of Whitworth?

      • Sensei

        He wouldn’t know as they don’t back out. They just break.

    • blackjack

      We had a policy at work that every service required removal of the wheels. There’s a long story about how I got jacked because of this, but I’ll save it for another time. The kid’s nowadays think everything is measured in Canadian. Lug nuts are mixed. Once they put the next closest metric socket on them, they will not fit the normal one any more. I have replaced dozens of lug nuts and wheel studs because of this and they just start in wrecking them again. Fuck Canadian hardware.

      • Nephilium

        What’s a few stripped nuts between friends and coworkers?

  27. Lord Humungus

    Now a new name has surfaced in the Babbitt imbroglio — Lt. Michael L. Byrd — and while USCP Communications Director Eva Malecki won’t confirm he is the shooter, in this case she isn’t denying it.

    In a little-noticed exchange, Byrd was cited by the acting House sergeant at arms during a brief discussion of the officer who shot Babbitt at a Feb. 25 House hearing. Both C-SPAN and CNN removed his name from transcripts, but CQ Transcripts — which, according to its website, provides “the complete word from Capitol Hill; exactly as it was spoken” — recorded the Capitol official, Timothy Blodgett, referring to the cop as “Officer Byrd.” His name is clearly audible in the videotape of the hearing (at around 39:20).

    Byrd appears to match the description of the shooter, who video footage shows is an African American dressed that day in a business suit. Jewelry, including a beaded bracelet and lapel pin, also match up with photos of Byrd.

    https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/07/07/naming_the_capitol_cop_who_killed_jan_6_rioter_ashli_babbitt_779601.html

    • blackjack

      Every thing a cop does while on duty should be completely transparent, especially killing an unarmed woman who posed no threat to him or anyone else and who’s killing made no difference to the situation at hand. The man is a murderer, flat out. His picture should be on every paper and he should be wearing orange pajamas in it.

    • Chipwooder

      He also left his pistol in a public bathroom two years ago. A real hero, this guy!

    • blackjack

      The day after the riot/strolling tour, a cop at work told me, unasked, that there’s no way this shooting could be justified. Looking at it from the eyes of ssomeone who might have to make the same decision, he was adamant that this shoot was bad.

  28. leon

    I saw a bloomberg bit on twitter about the “Two americas” Where Biden states are getting vaccinated, and Trump States aren’t, and those biden states are getting back to normal. Which strikes me as really really unaware writing by someone who has been stuck in a locked down biden state. The other states aren’t “getting back to normal” because they never deviated that far anyway.

    • Lord Humungus

      Florida says what? (while jumping their car through a fiery ring)

    • Nephilium

      /looks at events scheduled this weekend.

      What “Trump” states aren’t already back to normal?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Propagandist gonna progpagandize

    • blackjack

      In fairness, if the capital protesters had spread loose legos around on the floor of the rotunda, it would have substantially increased the violence of the attack. ( I have a kid who has legos.)

      • leon

        Legos on the battlefield is a war crime.

      • Nephilium

        4,240 newtons of force to crush a Lego.

      • Ownbestenemy

        You know I never understood why we used waterboarding and sleep deprivation.

        Put them in a mock house and provide lots of water to drink and when they fall asleep and need to get up to piss in the dark house…randomly toss about matchbox cars and legos.

        I would talk by the second night.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    I’m not explaining why this is out late.

    Never apologize.

    Never explain.

  30. Pope Jimbo

    Minnesoda GOP shows a bit of life.

    Comments from two prominent Republican state senators are providing more insight into their targeting of Laura Bishop, the now-former Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) commissioner who resigned ahead of a confirmation hearing that likely would have resulted in her immediate removal.

    “I want to say, there was a number of issues that just kept bubbling up, and it was more political than anything,” said Senator Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, of Bishop, in a Facebook video following her Tuesday resignation, “and so we just felt like we had to address it,”

    Gazelka and the Senate extended their special session work, with plans to hold committee confirmation hearings (and later, full confirmation votes) on a handful of commissioners and appointees selected by DFL Gov. Tim Walz. But prior to Bishop’s scheduled hearing, she resigned, with the governor’s office saying Gazelka indicated to them she would not be confirmed in a Senate vote.

    So one of the weird things we do in Minnesoda is to not actually confirm various commissioners. That way if the governor gets too uppity, they can decide then to vote not to confirm them. Earlier in the pandemic they refused to confirm another commissioner, but then stopped doing it because the media called them names. Now they pulled it again.

    • Pope Jimbo

      One of the reasons for this dustup is because Commissioner Bishop and the legislature have been feuding about rules regarding electric vehicles. King Walz told her to implement the same standards as the ones in California. The legislature was pissed because rule making should be their prerogative. There was a court case and it was decided that the clean car regulations were legit and the legislature couldn’t stop them. So now the legislature flexed its powers and sent her packing.

      Bishop has offered some comments of her own.

      In speaking with MPR (here and here), the former commissioner described what she called “political intimidation” from Gazelka.

      “I work for the governor. I do not work for Paul Gazelka’s policies,” she said, noting the MPCA, under her watch, began moving in a positive direction with regards to addressing climate change and clean transportation options.

      “Unfortunately the Senate GOP would not have, in any of their bills when we negotiated in session, they would not allow for the words “climate change.” They would not allow for the words “environmental justice.” And they would not allow for the word equity,” she said.

      Walz, in announcing Bishop’s resignation Tuesday, accused Republicans of using “taxpayer dollars to play partisan games,” and trying to “politicize an agency charged with protecting Minnesotans from pollution because they refuse to acknowledge the science of climate change.”

      You can see she has a winning way about her and those mean GOPers are just scared of her.

      • leon

        I had to leave because those old white men are just scared of a strong woman!

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Honest? Honest as the day is long.

    As they start the process of standing up a select committee to investigate security failings and circumstances surrounding the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol, House Democrats aim to use a strategy that avoids turning the investigation into a spectacle.

    They hope to keep some of their work behind closed doors, outside the glare of the fiery public hearings that defined the Republican select committee on Benghazi during the Obama administration.
    While the plans for the committee are still in early stages, sources tell CNN that Democrats intend to make an effort not to turn it into a second round of impeachment, but instead use it to explore a range of issues that don’t all center on Donald Trump, even if the former President’s role, they argue, cannot be ignored.

    ——-

    For many Democrats, who already have a narrow margin in the House, the challenge of not overreaching will be important, as Republicans will seek to paint the party as obsessed with investigating an already ousted President. The political challenges surrounding the select committee were one reason why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi picked Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who was expelled from GOP leadership after she repeatedly criticized Trump, as a member of the panel.
    “I don’t get the sense that my colleagues worry this is going to be a circus,” said Rep. Peter Aguilar, a Democrat from California. “I give the speaker a lot of credit for picking Liz Cheney as a member to send that message.”

    Aguilar argued that after just two meetings, the committee is united in following the truth and not letting politics dictate how it pursues its investigation.

    Not a show trial. A strictly apolitical quest for the truth. They want answers.

    • Lord Humungus

      Those brave brave selfless politicians!

    • leon

      “I don’t get the sense that my colleagues worry this is going to be a circus,” said Rep. Peter Aguilar, a Democrat from California. “I give the speaker a lot of credit for picking Liz Cheney as a member to send that message.

      Yes, Liz Cheny is as impartial as John McCain!

  32. The Late P Brooks

    “Unfortunately the Senate GOP would not have, in any of their bills when we negotiated in session, they would not allow for the words “climate change.” They would not allow for the words “environmental justice.” And they would not allow for the word equity,” she said.

    Who could possibly work under such an onerous burden?

  33. The Late P Brooks

    The day after the riot/strolling tour, a cop at work told me, unasked, that there’s no way this shooting could be justified. Looking at it from the eyes of ssomeone who might have to make the same decision, he was adamant that this shoot was bad.

    I would think there might be some sort of policy restriction on shooting wildly into a crowd, but what do I know?

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Put them in a mock house and provide lots of water to drink and when they fall asleep and need to get up to piss in the dark house…randomly toss about matchbox cars and legos.

    You MONSTER.

  35. Nephilium

    Dennis Kucinich is running for mayor of Cleveland again. Instead of his traditional yellow DENNIS! signs, he decided to go with a new logo. It did not go over well, and got an official complaint by the tourism group in Cleveland who has rights to the script Cleveland. The Kucinich campaign has agreed to stop using the logo.

  36. Count Potato

    “Alleged Trans incident at upscale LA Spa may have been staged

    The video quickly made the rounds in far right, and Trans-Exclusionary Feminist (TERF) sites and Anti-trans “feminist” websites.

    By Robert Lansing | LOS ANGELES – On June 24th, Instagram user “cubaangel” posted a video of herself angrily confronting a staff member at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles, accusing them of letting a disrobed transgender person into the women’s section of the business.

    There is increasing doubt among law enforcement and staff at the Wi Spa whether there was ever was a transgender person there to begin with. Anonymous sources within the LAPD tell the Blade they have been unable to find any corroborating evidence that there was a transgender person present on that day.

    Similarly, a source at the Spa told the Blade there’s no record of any of its usual transgender clients on its appointments guest list on the day in question. Treatment at the Spa is by appointment only, and most of its transgender clients are well known to the staff….

    It also remains a possibility that there was a person, unknown to the Wi Spa staff, who pretended to be transgender to create an inciting incident. In 2015, anti-transgender activists in Washington State deliberately encouraged men to enter women’s facilities. One cisgender man entered a swimming pool changing area wearing only board shorts while claiming that he had a right to be there (he was removed from the premises without charges being filed).”

    https://www.losangelesblade.com/2021/07/07/alleged-trans-incident-at-upscale-la-spa-may-have-been-staged/

    Who knows?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Who can tell? Since all that is required to be “transgender” is an affirmation, it’s not falsifiable.

      In other words, I don’t give a shit if it was staged or not, the principle remains.

      • waffles

        Between 11:17AM and 11:20AM I become a woman every single day.

    • R C Dean

      a source at the Spa

      Anonymouos sourcing. My favorite.

      told the Blade there’s no record of any of its usual transgender clients

      Boy, that “usual” is sure doing a lot of work.

      It also remains a possibility that there was a person, unknown to the Wi Spa staff, who pretended to be transgender to create an inciting incident.

      A possibility, sure. For which there is no evidence. And how could anyone possibly know if someone claiming to be transgender was faking it?

    • blackjack

      SOP, blame it on the normal people. In the vid, there’s a group of women all expressing dismay at the whole thing. We’re supposed to believe that they are all lying just to make the trannies look bad. It don’t much matter, it’s wrecked Bruce Jenner’s chances even more than they were to start with. Not a peep about an on topic issue right in his backyard (no pun, please, no pun).

      • R C Dean

        it’s wrecked Bruce Jenner’s chances even more than they were to start with

        Interesting. If it was a false flag, there’s reason for the left to be the ones waving it.

      • Urthona

        I would think it’d be conservatives trying to show how silly the rule is.

      • Pope Jimbo

        (no pun, please, no pun).

        C’mon man!

        Everyone knows that man puns are never a good look (especially when talking trans issues).

  37. Count Potato

    “The Capitol Police, Armed With $2 Billion in New Funding, Expanding Operations Outside of D.C.

    AOC and two other Squad members — who spent months chanting “Defund the Police” — had the power to stop this, but instead voted “present” to ensure it passed.”

    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1413131717087567873

    Unfortunately, the substack is only for paying subscribers.

    • The Other Kevin

      I’m waiting for the Bee article about the new Capitol Police offices planned for Hawaii, and the mobile command center located on a cruise ship with port of call in Jamaica.

    • rhywun

      They’re just fucking with us at this point.

      I mean, is there anything these clowns can’t get away with now?

      • Sean

        It’s thoroughly depressing.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Alleged Trans incident at upscale LA Spa may have been staged

    We’re gonna need a bigger fainting couch.

    • Animal

      I guess the Navy isn’t enforcing weight standards any more.

      • Lord Humungus

        The fat ones can be used as emergency flotation devices.

      • slumbrew

        Fat-shaming is Not OK!

        That might cost them their Body Positivity ribbon.

      • Rat on a train

        Did they ever?

      • R C Dean

        Give the Navy some credit. At least they didn’t give them real guns.

      • Rat on a train

        water guns?

  39. Certified Public Asshat

    RE: cameras in public school classrooms

    Don’t school buses already have cameras? Mine did in the late 90’s.

    • slumbrew

      in the late 90’s.

      Way to make me feel old.

    • Lord Humungus

      As far as I can tell, most sane people ignore this racist nattering.

      You know what I love about America? Things like going to my favorite bar, where a black gentleman and his friends take over the juke box. And play old country songs and sing along.

  40. CPRM

    On Assange, I’m not a supporter. He didn’t leak state secrets being kept from the public, he leaked tactical information that put people in danger. Fuck him; But also, that they went after him with what appears to be a flimsy ‘rape’ case, fuck the government as well. I hate everybody.

    • The Other Kevin

      I’ve learned quite a few things from this site. One of them is that it’s possible, and often entirely appropriate, to hate everyone involved.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sure you’re not thinking of Manning?

      • Winston

        Good thing you didn’t deadname

    • Urthona

      Yeah I’m not convinced he endangered anyone. It’s just an excuse.

  41. Winston

    https://jonathanturley.org/2021/07/08/the-rising-generation-of-censors-law-school-are-the-latest-battleground-over-free-speech/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

    Free speech on American college campuses has been in a free fall for years. From high schools through law schools, free speech has gone from being considered a right that defines our society to being dismissed as a threat. According to polling, the result is arguably one of the most anti-free-speech generations in our history. The danger is more acute because it has reached law schools where future judges and lawyers may replicate the same intolerance in our legal system.

    Free speech advocates are facing a generational shift that is now being reflected in our law schools, where free speech principles were once a touchstone of the rule of law. As millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that “China is right” about censorship, these figures are shaping a new society in their own intolerant images.

    • banginglc1

      I read that as fleshlight and thought you might be getting a little too personal. I guess my mind has been destroyed by Q.

      • Pope Jimbo

        It is both!

        It allows you to shine light while keeping both hands free.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Also: Did you feel extra bad for Sean when you thought it was a fleshlight and the model was “Nano”?

      • limey

        I know I didn’t. I’m pretty certain Sean is a lady-killer whatever the caliber of his armament.

      • limey

        Oh snap

    • limey

      Split second of panic when I thought I might have clicked on a link about your “brand new fleshlight”, but then I realised it was safe.

      #coolstory

    • blackjack

      Streamlight stinger, hl/ds. The best on I’ve ever owned. There’s another interesting light by a company called Dentfix. It’s a cobb light with a good strong magnet and a dial adjustment for brightness. I loved mine, before someone stole it. I keep meaning to buy another.

      • blackjack

        *one

      • R C Dean

        Streamlight has always been a little spendy for me.

      • blackjack

        Worth every penny. I use them everyday at work.

      • l0b0t

        I had a Streamlight Scorpion, which I loved, but it predated LEDs so used a wee halogen bulb. It got bumped on (unbeknownst to me) and caught its nylon pouch on fire while I was waiting on line at the bank.

  42. Winston

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Vermeullarmine/status/1412936754131255297

    “It’s unacceptable to use the power of government to coerce others. Rather you should only debate them in the marketplace of ideas. Unless you can run to federal court and get an injunction, that’s totally ok and not at all another way of wielding public power.”

    What a joke.

    Is he wrong?

    • Gustave Lytton

      I heard rumors. Shoulda cancelled entirely, but how would everyone get their beaks wet then?

  43. Ownbestenemy

    “[P]erhaps we should point out that the federal government has spent trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic, so it is absolutely the government’s business,” Becerra replied. “It is taxpayers’ business if we have to continue to spend money to try to keep people from contracting COVID and helping reopen the economy. And so it is our business to try to make sure Americans can prosper; Americans can freely associate.”

    “Knocking on a door has never been against the law. You don’t have to answer, but we hope you do. Because if you haven’t been vaccinated, we can help dispel some of those rumors you’ve heard and hopefully get you vaccinated,” he added.

    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/07/08/becerra-on-door-to-door-vaccination-effort-absolutely-the-governments-business-to-know-who-has-been-vaccinated/

    From that quote I can see the leap that the Government has the right to your communications and personal effects because they ‘spent money to keep us alive/safe’

    • Winston

      That’s why socialized medicine is the death of liberty. Once you agree the state will deal with your health what shouldn’t it do?

      • R C Dean

        Agreed. The leftists realized some time ago that socialized medicine was the Holy Grail of having the government stick its dick in literally everywhere. The pandemic taught them that “public health” works just as well. The British National Health Service is the hellspawn hybrid of socialized medicine and public health – its not there to treat sick people, other than incidentally when doing so might move the public health metrics in the right direction.

    • Urthona

      Yet by any metric they didn’t succeed.

    • Pope Jimbo

      You don’t have to answer

      Yeah, encounters between govt agents and the public never escalate out of control.

    • Lord Humungus

      >>You don’t have to answer

      something something shotgun at the door

    • slumbrew

      has spent trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic

      Citation fucking needed. Printing trillions to try and make up for the economic damage you created is not “keep[ing] Americans alive”.

      • Urthona

        And America has pretty much the same results as countries that did not do that.

      • Ownbestenemy

        We want a citation but our peers and neighbors will nod their heads and agree with this.

    • EvilSheldon

      This whole idea is so painfully stupid that the only conclusion I can draw, is that they’re trying to get some federal cops shot by freaks.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Stay the fuck out of my medical decisions.

      • R C Dean

        Ah, comrade. We are paying for them, so they aren’t really your decisions any more, are they? Now roll up your sleeve, or get on the cattle car.

      • EvilSheldon

        Your unwanted gifts don’t make up for your past abuse, nor do they oblige me to put up with your abuse in the future.

        Also, fuck you.

        Progressives are Abusers, episode 206.

    • prolefeed

      “We have violated your rights by stealing trillions of dollars from you and locking you up without due process. Protecting this ‘investment’ we’ve made allows us to ramp up the violations even more, serf.”

  44. Fourscore

    Lori Lightfoot claims Biden looked down on her during Chicago meeting

    • limey

      Is that a short joke?

      • slumbrew

        Innsmouthers are not very tall.

      • limey

        Not on this plane of existence, anyway.

      • slumbrew

        I suppose they’re going to have to have a special election when she finishes changing into a Deep One.

      • Fourscore

        Is it racism if he failed to sniff her hair?

    • R C Dean

      Well, she’s a failure. Everybody should look down on her.

    • slumbrew

      The Signature Biden – “Skeet Skeet Skeet!”