197 Comments

  1. l0b0t

    I had to wait a good 6 months in 2020-2021 for a storage unit to open up at our local place.

  2. l0b0t

    Also, good morning Banjos, and everyone else, I hope y’all have an easy slide into 2022, then a fabulous year.

  3. Tres Cool

    whadup doh

  4. Scruffy Nerfherder

    I’m always amazed at how much theft happens from inside the prisons.

    • UnCivilServant

      There are a number of places who use prison labor for call centers.

    • Fourscore

      Good cross training, lots of time and what’s to lose?

      “What are they going to do, send me to jail?”

      • Tonio

        Yes, for longer. And this creates a perverse incentive — if they commit crimes while incarcerated then they get tried for that, which means they get transported, housed, etc. IOW if they get caught and prosecuted they get a vacay.

  5. Trigger Hippie

    ‘Asked about the more recent surge in retail robberies last month, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki appeared to blame former President Donald Trump, saying President Biden has proposed more funding for local police than Trump did. She also blamed COVID-19, saying the pandemic is “a root cause” of the rise in looting incidents.’

    Sure, Jen.

    • rhywun

      Yeah, that stuck out.

      • WTF

        Left unsaid: the actual chain of causation from a pandemic (now just endemic) with a 99% survival rate to mass looting of stores by mobs.

      • rhywun

        The struggling poor need those cases of Tide Pods and body fragrances to survive.

  6. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Good morning all.

    I’m not sure what to say to a guy who thinks fighting bigotry within the LP should be the LP’s primary objective.

    • UnCivilServant

      “Thought policing is anathematic to the platform.”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’ve tried that to no avail.

        I think “Fuck off” is probably my best choice.

      • UnCivilServant

        Can you ‘disappear’ him?

    • Trigger Hippie

      We’ll find that Scotsman yet.

      • UnCivilServant

        He was kilt years ago.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Haggis we can only hope for his rebirth one day.

      • Seguin

        I didn’t think Scots were caberple of reincarnation.

      • UnCivilServant

        If not, a new one will have to be pict.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Sometimes, the there is non-Commie hiding as a Scot.

    • Ted S.

      “Go to hell, Nick Sarwark”?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s not Nick, but he’s definitely of the same stripe, a virtue signaling asshole that loves ad hominem attacks and strawman arguments.

  7. Fourscore

    Rand Paul’s 52 B hardly make a dent in 4 T annual spending, not to mention a couple Ts borrowed

    • rhywun

      Yeah, it doesn’t sound like he tried very hard.

      But I get it; he’s pointing out ridiculous stuff.

      I’m sure he knows entire departments could disappear tomorrow with no impact whatsoever on the country.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        He appears to be now following the strategy that getting enough people to agree to utter corruption of the federal govt in a few examples might get a ball rolling toward the real money being stolen from taxpayers.

        He has tried to point out the big stuff first, like Social Security and Medicare. Boomers and Silent Generation just are not cutting stuff on their way out of this World.

        At least he’s trying. I’ve had a couple problems with him but overall he’s the best US Senator probably since its founding.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s just flitting around the edges.

      The entirety of the government is a bad joke at this point.

    • Rat on a train

      Unless you can eliminate the deficit in a single line item, why bother?

      • UnCivilServant

        If we can put in a one line-item budget, we can eliminate the defecit.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Our federal government is a Gordian Knot now.

        There’s only one way to untie it.

      • UnCivilServant

        Oh, come on, there’s more than one way.

        We can use the alexandrian method. We could burn it. We could dissolve it in acid…

      • rhywun

        Nuke it from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure.

      • Rat on a train

        But how will Sesame Street survive without taxpayer support?

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s past the point where it needs to be put out of our misery anyway.

      • Rat on a train

        Burn it down during a mostly peaceful protest.

      • Zwak, All dressed up in his ridiculous seersucker suit

        Cut its babies in half?

    • Grummun

      Yeah. I was surprised to see such a small number. Didn’t someone recently link an article that said 100B of COVID “relief” was lost to fraud?

      • Rat on a train

        Never let a crisis go to fraud, waste, and abuse.

      • Loveconstitution1789

        Who knew that IG “fraud, waste, and abuse” advocacy was a guidebook on methodology.

      • Drake

        Well, 10% went to the big guy.

  8. Trigger Hippie

    I don’t get the reasoning behind corporations shying away from the NASCAR guy. All he did was win a race. He didn’t say Fuck Joe Biden, he didn’t encourage the chanting in the stands, he didn’t as far as I know voice support for the FJB sentiment, he didn’t do shit but keep driving a car. Why would anybody who supports Biden be in a huff if Pennzoil or some such company gives his race team money for logo? Are we all just overgrown irrational children now? It’s so damn silly.

    • UnCivilServant

      Are we all just overgrown irrational children now?

      Yes.

    • Fourscore

      He could change his name to Bro….., oh, that’s right, that’s already been taken. Brandon is a winner so why would he change his name.

    • Ted S.

      I doubt TEAM BLUE is that much of NASCAR’s viewership anyway.

      • Not Adahn

        But they are in advertising companies.

      • Fatty Bolger

        His real problem right there.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m still of the mind that advertizing is a death-penalty worthy offense.

  9. rhywun

    Have some good, old-fashioned reefer madness.

    With little fanfare, a great pot divide is opening between cities and suburbs — and disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, long suffering from drug use, look again to be the losers, denied even the choice the more affluent are exercising.

    • Ghostpatzer

      According to the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s frequently updated Marijuana Opt-Out Tracker, 588 of 1,518 municipalities have resisted the blandishments of new tax revenues and just said no to marijuana retailers, while 670 have turned down consumption sites — what the Dutch euphemistically call “coffee shops.”

      The point is that well-off suburbs are choosing to go slow — and it’s a choice they can make.

      And just as is the case today, residents of these drug deserts will have no means to obtain weed. This is how you win the war on drugs.

      • Lackadaisical

        Word salad.

    • l0b0t

      “No, pot is not the same as fentanyl (though some versions are laced with it).”

      OK, Boomer.

      • Ghostpatzer

        C’mon. man. We boomers surely fucked up a lot, but we laced our pot with PCP. Fentanyl was not a thing back then.

      • Ghostpatzer

        LOL. “It’s Angel Dust, man!”

      • Ghostpatzer

        “No mortal can stop me!”

      • Penguin

        I thought it’d be this.

    • rhywun

      long suffering from drug use

      My favorite weasel words in the whole thing.

    • Rat on a train

      The point is that well-off suburbs are choosing to go slow — and it’s a choice they can make. In contrast, city neighborhoods — many as residential in character as their suburban counterparts — don’t get a choice. They’re opted-in by, for instance, the New York City Council.

      This is a form of vote suppression, if you will: Every New York City community board should have as much right as Hempstead or New Castle to say no to cannabis outlets. The risk to disadvantaged, minority neighborhoods — disproportionately found within big-city boundaries — is evident.

      I am also in favor of decentralized government. The residents of NYC, not so much.

      • l0b0t

        Amongst the Brooklyn and Queens residents I know, almost everyone is enthusiastic or indifferent; the folk who aren’t are the people whose livelihood is theoretically threatened.

      • rhywun

        I’m sure your dealer will make out fine when everyone gets sticker shock from the legal weed.

      • Rat on a train

        The California System

      • Trigger Hippie

        Yeah but they’ll also face more competition when the dispensaries face the tax shock and start fudging the books to sell weed out the back door like they always end up doing.

  10. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Hey Ozy, I need some argumentation help.

    Do you have a specific example of where the FDA explicitly violated its own rules and they don’t have regulatory wiggle room?

    I’m in a debate with a biotech guy who is quite well versed on the regulations and is quite content with allowing the FDA to be arbitrary if the rules allow it. As far as he is concerned, if they follow the letter of the law (as they define it), everything’s kosher.

    • Ozymandias

      The FDA is as corrupt as it is possible for an agency to be and still not have collapsed from its corruption. But to your point, yes, the FDA loses cases within its claimed “discretion” by claiming its “expertise” and “discretion” allow it to do shit that it can’t. This one is a very good example – and relevant to our current case. Genus Med. Techs. LLC v. U.S. Food & Drug Admin., 994 F.3d 631 (D.C. Cir. 2021) https://casetext.com/case/genus-med-techs-llc-v-us-food-drug-admin-1

      You could also cite the entire Doe v. Rumsfeld litigation in which the FDA got spanked three separate times trying to claim it had the exact same “discretion” it claims to have now.
      Doe v. Rumsfeld, 297 F. Supp.2d 119 (D.D.C. 2003), followed by Doe v. Rumsfeld (II), 341 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2004) – available here. After the FDA got waxed at Doe (II) they classified anthrax as an EUA (the first) and then asked for a modification to the court’s injunction – specifically noting that an EUA could only be given voluntarily. That modification to the order is at Doe v. Rumsfeld, Civil Action No. 03-707 (EGS) (D.D.C. Apr. 6, 2005), available here.
      The FDA’s own opinion of record on EUA vaccines is found at 70 Fed Reg. 5452, 5455 (Feb.2, 2005).

      The relevant text:

      With respect to condition (3), above, relating to the option to accept or refuse administration of AVA, the AVIP will be revised to give personnel the option to refuse vaccination. Individuals who refuse anthrax vaccination will not be punished. Refusal may not be grounds for any disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Refusal may not be grounds for any adverse personnel action. Nor would either military or civilian personnel be considered non- deployable or processed for separation based on refusal of anthrax vaccination. There may be no penalty or loss of entitlement for refusing anthrax vaccination.

    • Ozymandias

      Scruffy – I replied but it says my comment is awaiting moderation… but I can see it.
      I don’t know if you can – I ‘pect it’s from the three links.
      If you want it with links, hit me up on email. If not, I’ve pasted without links down-thread.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    It’s hard for a brand to want to attach to somebody who might be kind of divisive in their consumer base.

    Stop it. You’re killing me.

    • WTF

      Yeah, they seem to have no problem with woke leftism.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Bubba Wallace is doing just fine.

        And he’s a lying asshole.

    • Homple

      They’re all Václav Havel’s greengrocer.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    “When the government was faced with evidence showing that the defendants had no interest in a kidnapping plot, it refused to accept failure and continued to push its plan,” the mens’ attorneys wrote.

    The Detroit News reports that the 20-page motion for dismissal was filed Christmas night. Defense attorneys claim that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and federal prosecutors took advantage of frustration with Whitmer’s stringent COVID-19 restrictions and created the conspiracy.

    “Oh, come on. You know you want to.”

    • WTF

      Entrapment isn’t really a thing that matters anymore. Because FYTW.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Have some gibberish with your coffee

    Like in many industries, tech recruitment (from internships to full-time jobs) happens well before graduation. High-potential low-income students often don’t fit into the “ideal candidate” archetype sought by this recruitment structure, which overvalues and rewards characteristics that are often a better indicator of privilege than talent or potential. How does that happen, and how can we stop it?

    Just pull names out of a hat.

    • WTF

      this recruitment structure, which overvalues and rewards characteristics that are often a better indicator of privilege than talent or potential

      Sure, because companies that depend on the productivity and talent of their employees for their profitability and survival don’t know how to identify the characteristics that are most likely to pay off for them.

      • robc

        Standard arbitrage situation: if the author really believed what he was saying, he would start a company to take advantage of the situation. Even if he doesnt have the skill, he could make bank as a consultant to a businessman who wants easy money.

      • Rat on a train

        They can also replace all their expensive male employees with less expensive females.

      • R C Dean

        Remember: showing up on time, focussing on the task at hand, being able to communicate clearly, etc. – these are all markers of white privilege.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      *reads through article*

      Just a bunch of argument by assertion by a couple of writers who probably couldn’t get hired by a tech company.

    • Rat on a train

      Why are so many low-income students making it to college but not to degree completion
      Low admission standards?

      • WTF

        There are numerous studies showing how Affirmative Action creates mismatches and puts minority students into places where they are in over their heads and then do poorly because of it.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Affirmative action is just college admissions papering over the failures of public primary education.

        It would make more sense to direct economic aid to those who are qualified but cannot afford it.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Just lower academic standards across the board, problem solved.

      • Rat on a train

        You are trying. That is what matters.

      • Tulip

        This is why they hate the Texas plan of guaranteed admission to state schools for the top 10% of public school students. It’s actually working.

      • rhywun

        “Why is the higher education system not able to solve the massive problems caused by decades of leftist policies that have destroyed the ability of low-income students to be successful?”

      • WTF

        Republicans, of course. Everyone just needs to prog harder.

      • creech

        Listen, if you can stomach it, to NFL athletes being interviewed. Many have the speaking abilities of 8th graders, even though the majority of them can wave a degree from some university or another. Even DOCTOR Jill should be appalled with the results of public education and college admissions without any regard to intellectual ability or desire.

      • Mojeaux

        They aren’t there to get an education.

      • Penguin

        I worked with a guy while I was going to Florida State. He told me Deion Sanders was blatantly cheating off him on a test, so that even the professor was well aware. The prof stared daggers at him, but his thought was “what was I supposed to do?”

    • rhywun

      As long as they’re the “right” names.

    • PieInTheSky

      plenty of Eastern Europeans with no connections got into tech in the US

  14. PieInTheSky

    Aaron Chalfin
    @AaronChalfin
    1st figure: Quarterly number of violent crimes on public transit in San Francisco. 2nd figure: Quarterly number of violent crimes per transit boarding. Crime counts may not be a good proxy for changes in public safety during the pandemic. I’ll have more to say about this soon.

    https://twitter.com/AaronChalfin/status/1475128880986009604

  15. PieInTheSky

    My article on Washington Post
    Khamenei bans 83 million from Twitter but has 9 accounts in different languages. He has called for the destruction of #Israel, the execution of @salmanrushdie
    , ordered the crackdown on protesters that killed 1,500
    #Bankhamenei

    https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1475211987537862658

    To Be Fair Twitter cannot ban a head of state

    • WTF

      Well, you know, except for ORANGEMANBAD.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Berenson has been on a tear about Twitter’s arbitrary standards because he’s in the middle of suing them for banning him while letting any number of other standards violators remain.

      He should be suing them for first amendment violations as well because Twitter is blatantly coordinating with the government on their bans.

  16. Q Continuum

    Feature, not bug.

    https://archive.md/3SjOv

    Dumber, socially awkward and psychologically fragile kids are that much easier to brainwash.

    • Trigger Hippie

      ‘Adolescents above the age of 12 also did worse than children under 12, as adolescents face increasing peer pressure, social pressure, and are more aware of messages being delivered globally, according to Heneghan.
      “The first thing is to deescalate any fear and anxiety around COVID for children,” Heneghan said. “For children, [COVID] is actually a very safe disease” and children shouldn’t be worried about the impact of COVID “on themselves or their future health.”’

      Burn the heretic!

    • PieInTheSky

      DEIDRE SAYS: Drink can certainly break down our inhibitions but your wife has to take responsibility for her actions and properly apologise. – yeah that don’t cut it. Leave the bitch then fuck her sister

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Dumber, socially awkward and psychologically fragile kids are that much easier to brainwash.

    Blind unflinching obedience does not require problem solving skill. Quite the opposite.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    “The first thing is to deescalate any fear and anxiety around COVID for children,” Heneghan said. “For children, [COVID] is actually a very safe disease” and children shouldn’t be worried about the impact of COVID “on themselves or their future health.”

    OMG somebody call the Ministry of Truth!

    • Rat on a train

      Unless their use is regulated, scorpion addiction poses a threat to the availability of scorpions for medical purposes.
      Big Pharma

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It would seem to create a market for scorpion ranchers, thereby increasing the availability of scorpions.

  19. PieInTheSky

    Here is what confuses me about San Francisco.

    We have the most liberal, left-wing government & population in the country.

    We have a $13B budget.

    And we have 8,000 people sleeping in the rain this week.

    Can someone please explain this to me?

    https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/1475143652942893056

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I started reading the rest of it. She’s obviously of the delusion that they can just spend their way out of the problem and that they just don’t care enough.

      • Ghostpatzer

        57 years into the War on Poverty, and no end in sight. 50 years into the War on (some) Drugs, and no end in sight. We need new Generals.

      • Fourscore

        Roosevelt solved the Depression by going to war. We need the war of poverty/drugs but we are winning the War on Education.

        Now if we could only get a mystery disease to declare war on. No,no,no, not like cancer but something more exotic, say from a far off Oriental place.

    • Plisade

      “What do progressives stand for, exactly?

      I thought it was about making things more fair.

      About standing up for the little guy.

      About human rights, equality (equity?), compassion.

      San Francisco (to me) looks like the least compassionate city on the planet.”

      Well, at least one useful idiot is waking up.

    • WTF

      Those questions answer themselves, really.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      What do progressives stand for, exactly?

      I thought it was about making things more fair.

      About standing up for the little guy.

      About human rights, equality (equity?), compassion.

      San Francisco (to me) looks like the least compassionate city on the planet.

      I’ve been a registered democrat for 18 years.

      I grew up in a Progressive family and went to a Progressive school, and have mostly Progressive friends.

      Yet what I see in SF – if this what Progressive stands for – I want the opposite.

      You’re obviously not progging hard enough.

      • Plisade

        “What are you trying to say, I’m crazy?
        When I went to your schools, I went to your churches,
        I went to your institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I’m crazy?”

        She needs a Pepsi.

      • Bones

        We decided!?

      • Bones

        My best interest!?

      • Seguin

        Just went to that show in Dallas. I was there for TSOL though.

      • EvilSheldon

        You’re not crazy, you’re just a chump. Nice thing about being a chump, is that you can stop being one anytime you like.

      • rhywun

        I grew up in a Progressive family and went to a Progressive school, and have mostly Progressive friends.

        And now you know what happens when “Progressive” meets reality.

    • KSuellington

      We are in late stage progressivism here in SF. The last Republican city supervisor elected was almost 50 years ago now (and he had his home and office bombed by leftist radicals). We used to have some more blue collar union type Dems in office, but those have disappeared here along with in most of the Dem Party. Now our electoral choices are proggie and super proggie. We have the largest per capita budget in the United States.

      What these prog ejits fail to grasp is that we have created a Mecca for drug addicts and ne’er do wells that is unrivaled in the country. You can use any drug in any form you choose just about anywhere you like (just don’t try and smoke a cigarette indoors anywhere but your home). You will receive plenty of services including free needles and crack pipes. You can set up a tent most anywhere you choose, the most that will happen is you’ll be asked to move it. You can commit petty crime to fund your habit and there are plenty of well off people to beg and steal from. All this and our weather is mild year round for outdoor drugged out living at its finest. If you’re lucky you might score some heavily taxpayer subsidized housing. Why would you be an addict anywhere else? The city of SF is an enabler writ large.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Where’s your home? I’d like to send some men to discuss your manners

    That’s when Schmeck, speaking to the leader of the free world, parroted a catch phrase that’s been adopted in conservative circles, and which, when translated, means “[expletive] Joe Biden.”

    “Yeah, I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well,” Schmeck said. “Merry Christmas and let’s go Brandon.”

    Biden took the remark in stride. “Let’s go Brandon, I agree,” he said. “Hey, by the way, are you in Oregon? Where’s your home?”

    Schmeck didn’t answer — he said later that he had been disconnected.

    Schmeck posted a video of his side of the phone call on YouTube, with the hashtag #letsgobrandon.

    Facing pushback on social media, Schmeck told The Oregonian it was a “joke,” and that he was merely venting frustration over Biden’s policies, supply chain problems, and vaccine mandates. “And now I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech,” he said.

    “I understand there is a vulgar meaning to ‘Lets go Brandon,’ but I’m not that simple minded, no matter how I feel about him,” Schmeck said. “He seems likes he’s a cordial guy. There’s no animosity or anything like that. It was merely just an innocent jest to also express my God-given right to express my frustrations in a joking manner.”

    Who do you think you are, speaking to the leader of the free world in that disrespectful manner?

    Just wait ’til we get this tar boiling, and pluck some chickens.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      What are the odds the Uncle Joe doesn’t even know the meme exists?

    • PieInTheSky

      the leader of the free world – the free world is fucked

      • Drake

        Yep – and it isn’t even free any more.

    • Q Continuum

      Lèse-majesté will not be tolerated!

  21. The Late P Brooks

    I started reading the rest of it. She’s obviously of the delusion that they can just spend their way out of the problem and that they just don’t care enough.

    Government money is just like magic fairy dust. Sprinkle liberally, and there’s nothing it can’t fix.

    • PieInTheSky

      liberally just dont cut it anymore. sprinkle progressively

  22. DEG

    Mornin’

    Squirrel Nut Zippers is good.

    The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse was a political lightning rod that challenged the doctrine of self-defense, the right to protest, and the gray areas in between.

    It was a straight up self defense case. I’m happy Rittenhouse won.

    “When the government was faced with evidence showing that the defendants had no interest in a kidnapping plot, it refused to accept failure and continued to push its plan,” the mens’ attorneys wrote.

    So it is a day that ends in Y?

    ‘This was unexpected,’ United spokesperson Maddie King told USA Today.

    Unexpected? Horseshit. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it is raining.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      That was cool, thanks Pie!

      • Plisade

        Seconded.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    2021, stupidest year in history

    Trigger warning: Michael Hiltzik, a contender for stupidest newspaper columnist in history.

    In reviewing the most intellectually demoralizing events of 2021, I’ll leave aside a few discrete outbursts of asininity.

    So I won’t go into detail about the conservative movement’s lionizing of Kyle Rittenhouse, the self-confessed but acquitted killer of two unarmed men at a protest rally in Kenosha, Wis. Or the openly antisemitic ravings by former President Trump. Or the ugly, dishonest attacks that forced the withdrawal of Saule Omarova, one of the most qualified nominees for a federal banking regulatory job in memory.

    ——-

    The pandemic is surely the focus of the most obtuse and ignorant public reactions and state and local policy responses to any crisis in American history. It’s as if the grown-ups have all been beamed up, and we are left in the hands of people like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (I am paraphrasing a line from the great pandemic movie “Together.”)

    In any rational world, the refusal or failure by some 50 million adult Americans to take a vaccine of known efficacy against a deadly disease would be inexplicable. But this is not a rational world, and the situation is even worse.

    Vaccine refusal is seen in many benighted corners of the United States not merely as the exercise of personal choice for personal reasons but as a means of showing moral superiority over the vaccinated.

    A conservative critic of anti-pandemic measures writing from rural southwest Michigan for the Atlantic bragged absurdly and selfishly, “I am now closer to most of my fellow Americans than the people, almost absurdly overrepresented in media and elite institutions, who are still genuinely concerned about this virus.”

    It’s a dadgum pandemic of wrongthink!

    • R C Dean

      self-confessed but acquitted killer

      True.

      of two unarmed men

      False. One was using a skateboard as a club (and yes, shortly before the trial someone was killed by being clubbed on the head by a skateboard) and the other was armed with a heavy chain.

      at a protest rally

      False. It was a riot.

      in Kenosha, Wis.

      True.

      • Brochettaward

        That is some grade-A derp. As if he doesn’t even comprehend that the trial was about self-defense. Given the stupidity of his ramblings as a whole, like pretending that DeSantis is somehow the norm when it comes to pandemic responses, I think he may just be legitimately retarded.

      • Zwak, All dressed up in his ridiculous seersucker suit

        They, progressives, are incapable of making that connection. They simply do not believe such a right exists, and therefore cannot state that someone was doing that. To state such an obvious thing would remove them from progressiveness, and their whole persona depends on considering themselves to be the righteous.

    • Not Adahn

      If you think Rosenbaum was murdered, but Babbit wasn’t, then the simplest explanation is you’re evil.

      I’d be willing to hear a different explanation, but I doubt it’s anything other than “it’s ok to kill people I don’t like.”

      • Rat on a train

        “Even if what he did wasn’t a crime. he belongs in jail for what he did.”

      • UnCivilServant

        Shooting holes in a stack of leftist narratives along with a triplet of criminals?

      • R C Dean

        I’m a bad person. I still chuckle at Greusskreutz being a lefty for reals now.

        What struck me during the trial is that, after Rittenhouse shot him, he was still upright and still had a gun in his hand. Rittenhouse would have been justified in making an anchor shot, but refrained.

      • UnCivilServant

        Remarkable restraint in a stressful situation.

      • Plisade

        Restraint or a habit from his range practice? I see too many people whose pistol/carbine range practice consists of taking long and careful aim, firing one shot, stopping to look to see where it hit, lather/rinse/repeat. That’s fine for beginners or to warm up, IMHO, but the reality is, for self-defense at close range, one needs to practice focusing on the target with both eyes open and unloading mag after mag rapidly. Developing muscle memory for aiming purposes, so that you can focus on the target, which could be moving, attacking, etc., should be the goal, again IMHO.

      • UnCivilServant

        Magdumps for the badgeless get you convicted of murder.

      • Plisade

        Officer: “Why’d you shoot him 31 times?”

        UCS: “I only had 2 mags.”

      • R C Dean

        Mag-dumping 30 rounds of rifle ammo into somebody at short range does seem a little excessive. My training is two rounds from a handgun, evaluate. One shot from a shotgun, evaluate. Rifle, Im not sure since Ihaven’t done that class. Rounds downrange are not risk free – they overpenetrate, they miss, someone can step into your line of fire, etc. – and you have an indefensible shooting of a bystander.

        The doctrine is that you shoot to stop the threat. Kyle apparently made the correct judgment that the shot to the arm stopped the threat. He also would have been justified, IMO, at firing again at an opponent who was still upright and armed. However, that would have been harder to defend in court – he made the right call.

        I agree that self-defense practice is different than target practice. You can do some things at a range – rapid fire/target acquisition, mag swaps, even malfunction clearing (depending on range rules). It is very difficult to do other things at a range – people don’t appreciate you shooting multiple targets, doing 360 degree threat checks with a loaded weapon, moving to cover, etc.

        I don’t think Rittenhouse only fired single shots as a range habit. He shot crazy pedo guy with a chain more than once, I believe.

      • Plisade

        “The doctrine is that you shoot to stop the threat.”

        Agreed, however that looks, whatever that takes.

      • rhywun

        He’d be in great company.

    • Count Potato

      “Or the openly antisemitic ravings by former President Trump. ”

      Citation needed.

  24. PieInTheSky

    Maxwell TabarrokGlobe with meridiansRocket
    @MTabarrok
    1. The superior economics of electric cars will lead them to become the default in ~20 years

    2. Govts will ban ICE once electric is already much more popular

    3. The history books will say “Until governments banned ICE, unregulated free markets killed millions via air pollution”

    https://twitter.com/MTabarrok/status/1475188509535256579

    • rhywun

      #3 is the true statement. What do I win?

    • R C Dean

      The superior economics of electric cars

      Net of direct subsidies? I’d need to see the math on that.

      Dust to dust? I’d need to see the math on that, too.

      And “direct subsidies” includes government-funded recharging stations.

      • WTF

        Yes, of course, the economics of electric cars are superior, that’s why they need massive government subsidies.
        All the top economists agree.

  25. Brochettaward

    That’s it. This is the end. No more Mr. Nice Bro. No more benevolent, humble First Of All Firsters. This shit is going to get raw and unfiltered from now on!

    • R C Dean

      Well, somebody’s having hormone-fueled mood swings.

      • Brochettaward

        I’ve cried four times this week…No one understands…

      • Mojeaux

        Let us know when your c-section is scheduled.

    • KSuellington

      It’s probably not too late to talk with Planned Parenthood.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Republicans and conservatives have never cottoned to spending on programs that assist the middle and working class. President Biden’s Build Back Better program was destined to get their backs up.

    How could they attack a program that provides for universal prekindergarten education, assistance with child care, caps on the price of drugs such as insulin and better access to healthcare? Simple: Raise the old bugaboo of inflation.

    That’s been the approach of Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who recently announced — via Fox News, of course — that he couldn’t support the plan in any way. He’s since backed off a bit from his adamantine opposition, but the core of his position was concern that the measure would add to inflation.

    As we’ve reported, that’s just wrong. Not even former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who sounded an inflation alarm about the pandemic relief package enacted this year, thinks it applies to this measure. The provisions of Build Back Better are paid for and represent investments in the economy, so they’re anything but inflationary.

    The more you spend, the more you save!

  27. Ozymandias

    Scruffy – your answer sans links.

    The FDA is as corrupt as it is possible for an agency to be and still not have collapsed from its corruption. But to your point, yes, the FDA loses cases within its claimed “discretion” by claiming its “expertise” and “discretion” allow it to do shit that it can’t. This one is a very good example – and relevant to our current case. Genus Med. Techs. LLC v. U.S. Food & Drug Admin., 994 F.3d 631 (D.C. Cir. 2021).

    You could also cite the entire Doe v. Rumsfeld litigation in which the FDA got spanked three separate times trying to claim it had the exact same “discretion” it claims to have now.
    Doe v. Rumsfeld, 297 F. Supp.2d 119 (D.D.C. 2003), followed by Doe v. Rumsfeld (II), 341 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2004). After the FDA got waxed at Doe (II) they classified anthrax as an EUA (the first) and then asked for a modification to the court’s injunction – specifically noting that an EUA could only be given voluntarily. That modification to the order is at Doe v. Rumsfeld, Civil Action No. 03-707 (EGS) (D.D.C. Apr. 6, 2005).
    The FDA’s own opinion of record on EUA vaccines is found at 70 Fed Reg. 5452, 5455 (Feb.2, 2005).

    The relevant text:

    With respect to condition (3), above, relating to the option to accept or refuse administration of AVA, the AVIP will be revised to give personnel the option to refuse vaccination. Individuals who refuse anthrax vaccination will not be punished. Refusal may not be grounds for any disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Refusal may not be grounds for any adverse personnel action. Nor would either military or civilian personnel be considered non- deployable or processed for separation based on refusal of anthrax vaccination. There may be no penalty or loss of entitlement for refusing anthrax vaccination.

    Your body may be “smahht” but most people don’t seem to understand that the entire system of delegating Congressional authority to “expert” executive agencies isn’t exactly on firm constitutional bedrock. That’s all court-created garbage. But even if you accept it as legitimate, the entire point of APA oversight by the courts is to ensure that Congress isn’t just giving away its constitutional oversight duties to the Executive. There have to be measurable standards against which a court can determine whether an agency is acting ultra vires or not.

    The Missouri court case that struck down one of Brandon’s vaxx mandates does a wonderful job of explaining unlawful legislative delegation and abuse of agency discretion. You should dig that one up and force your “smahht” friend to read it. It really is a good primer on the subject.

    • R C Dean

      the entire system of delegating Congressional authority to “expert” executive agencies isn’t exactly on firm constitutional bedrock

      Indeed. Notably absent from Congress’s enumerated powers is the power to delegate.

      The Missouri court case that struck down one of Brandon’s vaxx mandates

      Is that the one that got overridden and the vax mandate reinstated?

      • Ozymandias

        I believe this one was a Missouri specific case that struck down Missouri’s own health Nazis, RC.
        https://brownstone.org/articles/covid-restrictions-and-mandates-imposed-by-the-whims-of-public-health-bureaucrats-are-illegal-missouri-court-rules/

        The decision is embedded at the bottom of that link. I don’t think that’s the one you’re speaking of – and worth noting is that nothing’s really been struck down except the 5th Circuit OSHA decision by the 6th. The only other “change” was a decision to limit the scope of one judge’s injunction from nationwide to only the states who had applied to the court for relief. The media has been spinning that one HARD as an “overturning” of the decision, but it was nothing of the sort. It was merely limiting the scope of the injunction to about half of the states – something like 27 I believe.

      • R C Dean

        nothing’s really been struck down except the 5th Circuit OSHA decision by the 6th.

        That’s the one I was thinking of. I’m still a little fuzzy on how one court can strike down a ruling by a co-equal court, BTW.

      • Ozymandias

        The statute that allowed the states to go VFR direct to the circuit courts en masse also has provisions for judicial review by another Circuit under the whole “circuit lottery” provision. All it did was make a Circuit court panel the first level of review (vice a sitting federal judge). More fuckery with the whole system by various interests to try to get their preferred outcome.
        The 6th Circuit overturn of the 5th is funny because the whole 6th is predominantly “conservative” appointees, by something like 10-5. They split right down the middle (8-7, IIRC) on whether they should review the 5th’s decision en banc or by using one of their own 3-judge panels. They chose the 3-judge panel version and that panel just happened to be two Obama appointees and one Bush – that’s the one that went 2-1 for overturning the Fifth’s decision.
        “NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!!”

      • DEG

        So what, you’re saying is, is the Supreme Court will uphold the 6th Circuit’s decision allowing Brandon’s mandate to go forward?

        #notreallyacathynewmanquestion

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Thanks Ozy.

      I believe the issue I’m coming up against in discussing the COVID vaccines is that the FDA has an enormous amount of discretion when reviewing and approving medical treatments. They change the standards on the fly and are still within the regulatory framework when to an outsider it is blatantly obvious that the rules of the game have shifted.

      Therefore, it is easy for a vax proponent to claim the FDA is being on the up and up because they haven’t technically broken their own rules because the rules are arbitrary.

    • R C Dean

      Photoshopped.

    • R C Dean

      Missouri woman.

      Unexpected.

    • UnCivilServant

      Two meth users who still have all their teeth?

      Faaaake.

      • Mojeaux

        Agreed. They both look so…dorky.

    • Brochettaward

      She has multiple children and is looking at a lengthy stay behind bars…but is smiling like it’s a joke.

      Gem of a human being.

    • rhywun

      No, she is a professional propagandist.

  28. Count Potato

    “90% of the people I know have covid.

    100% are triple vaxxed & thankfully they have mild symptoms.

    We need to look at the vaccine like we look at seatbelts. A seatbelt won’t prevent you from getting in an accident but it can prevent serious injury and death.

    Wear your seatbelt.”

    https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1475299213927878662

    Now do vaccinating kids and masking school children.

    • Fourscore

      Need seat belts in school, prevent kids from getting up and drifting. Teachers won’t know who the kids are with the masks on, need to give them each a number.

    • R C Dean

      100% are triple vaxxed & thankfully they have mild symptoms.

      This compares to the unvaxxed, in the same age and risk strata, who have tested positive over the same timeframe, how?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        From Louder with Crowder.

        VACCINATED PEOPLE ARE HOW MANY TIMES LESS LIKELY TO DIE?

        Dr. Fauci has been saying the unvaxxed are 57x more likely to die from Covid SOURCE: Twitter
        The 57x figure comes from patient data at just ONE hospital in King County, Washington. SOURCE: KingCounty
        Fauci is picking the scariest numbers from a rolling 30-day average which greatly fluctuates. SOURCE: KingCounty
        Fauci omits data on breakthroughs and age demographics.

        https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccination-outcomes.aspx

        Basically the factoid that most people who are hospitalized as being unvaccinated is from cherry picked data. In fact RC you’re probably in a better position to get that information at least from one hospital. What the actual numbers are from across the nation. Well that’s a state secret citizen.

        My feeling is that what were seeing is herd immunity taking place as people are getting infected in large numbers. There isn’t as much death because the only pre-therapeutic allowed (the vaccine) does work to reduce symptoms as death.
        27% of all deaths in the past 30 days are breakthrough infections
        72% of deaths are in people over 60

      • R C Dean

        RC you’re probably in a better position to get that information at least from one hospital.

        We’ve been running about 10 -15% of our COVID inpatients are vaxxed over the last few months. I’m not sure how much that number is moving as we get into the Omicron wave. Its a lagging number, after all. Our total number of hospitalized patients is down to about 1/3, of what it was last year at this time. Cases/positive tests for AZ are at about 1/2 where they were a year ago.

        *To amuse myself, I try to pronounce it differently every time – Ahmicron, OHmicron, O-my- cron, etc.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        So about 85-90 percent of inpatients are un-vaccinated? So the demented old fool may have a point. Still don’t care for the mandates.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He only has a point if early outpatient treatments weren’t being suppressed by the NIH and CDC.

      • R C Dean

        There are two justifications for a public health vaccine mandate:

        (1) It reduces transmission of the disease. This is looking very weak indeed.

        (2) It reduces the load on the health care system so that it isn’t overwhelmed. This is getting more nebulous/weaker all the time. The system is running at close to max capacity now, but what marginal difference are the unvaccinated COVID patients making? Capacity is reduced due to staffing shortages (unaffected by the unvaccinated). Demand is up due to delayed care and other stressors (unaffected by the unvaccinated). Is the “extra” demand by the unvaccinated making much of a difference? Hard to say. We’re running at about the same level as we did during the last bad flu season, and the COVID patient count is probably only a little higher than the flu patient count during that season.

      • R C Dean

        So about 85-90 percent of COVID inpatients are un-vaccinated

        Around there. My data lags, though. I’ll have to pop by the incident command center (we’re in crisis mode these days) and see what they have as of today.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Out of curiosity, what definition of “vaccinated” are you guys using?

      • Urthona

        If you look at the CDC’s most recent numbers (October), the vaccine appears to little more double your chances of having mild covid.

        It doesn’t really control for age, health etc. but guessing the vaccinated tend to be less healthy.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Land of the free. Home of the brave.

    The unhinged woman — identified as Patricia Cornwall — was arrested by the feds after the wild incident aboard Flight 2790 on Thursday, Atlanta police said in a statement.

    She was accused of causing a midair “disturbance” that led to the “injury of fellow passengers and Delta employees,” police said.

    A video tweeted by ATL Uncensored shows the woman standing in the aisle cursing at a male passenger as they exchange heated words.

    “Put your f— mask on!” she yells, as her own mask sits below her chin.

    “Sit down, Karen!” he shoots back at the woman.

    “Mask up!” she shouts.

    “You mask up, b—!” he yells back.

    She is then seen slapping the man, who shouts, “You’re going to jail!”

    Crew members are seen trying to restrain the woman, who is led down the aisle while yelling, “You f— piece of s—!”

    This country is fucked. All out civil war complete with grotesque atrocities is a real possibility.

    I never in my worst imaginings would have believed it.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      ^I’m under no illusions that many of my colleagues and even some extended family wouldn’t approve of my family and me being placed against the wall, if not actively participating in the purge.

      This is not going to better until something much worse happens. A civil war may be among the better options since the alternatives could include gulags and camps. It’s already started with the Jan 6 protestors.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Someone in the clip said the woman “went crazy on the airplane, punched this man in the face, spit on him, scratched him (and) poured hot water on my leg.”

    According to TMZ, Cornwall went ballistic because the man wouldn’t mask up while eating and drinking.

    Public health experts. SCIENCE!

    • KSuellington

      There are reasons why wearing a mask in public was highly socially (and legally) discouraged in the before time. As soon as the mask mandates started I knew we would be seeing all sorts of problems as a result.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yes, because there’s a deep desire to tell other people what to do and get upset when they don’t. It’s not limited to masks forever karens by any stretch.

  31. LJW

    Overheard someone mentioning that there is a theory that the covid rates are low in Africa because the people regularly use hydroxychloroquine to treat malaria. I can’t find anything to support this. Has anyone heard of this, or have any data on it?