Saturday Morning WTF? Links

by | Jun 18, 2022 | Daily Links | 192 comments

(featured image on main page, “Burrata Salad,” meal and photo by SP)

It hit me the other day that I haven’t actually been single for 30 years. So there’s going to be a lot of re-acclimation and a recognition that a lot has fundamentally changed since then.

To wit: SP left behind a lot of gadgets, things she was particularly fond of. We couldn’t turn lights on or off with a switch, it had to be with an app. Remote cameras, lights, the TV, whatever, all gadgetized. I’m reverting a lot of that back to old fashioned because it sorta makes sense to my old brain to use actual physical controls for lights, fridge, climate control, soap… But one gadget I’m keeping is this Apple Watch. Besides the Dick Tracy vibe, I’ve found a lot of the features more useful than I imagined I would. Answering the phone, seeing messages, all quite nice. I really like the Fitness function, which measures physical activity and shows you progress toward your daily goal.

But let me give the single guys (and frankly most of you married guys) a tip that is peculiar to: take the watch off before you crank the hog. Otherwise, you’ll get the creepy reminder, “It looks like you’re working out. Do you want track the physical activity?”

With that tasteless observation, we move on to Birthdays, and today is one of the days when they’re mostly junk. But amongst the dross are a few nuggets, like a guy who would make a great son; a legend who actually gave me seed money for one of my businesses; a guy Spud wanted to be when he grew up; a guy who could not tell a lie; a guy with a dynamic personality; a dude who liked ’em pale but didn’t get a vasectomy in time; a guy who parlayed his family fortune into some decent beer; and a guy who wrote a couple decent songs.

Links will be better, I promise. And a promise from an old Jew, you can trust. Emmis.

 

I love the fact that anyone thinks we’re going to believe this.

 

“You’re a great audience…. FOR ME TO POOP ON!”

 

I just can’t imagine being this desperate for attention. But I’m not a politician.

 

“We’re all pretty ignorant, so this seems like a good way to plug up innovation.”

 

I’m amazed that calling your boss names and asserting that you will not let him have any say in how you do their work will get you fired.

 

In a world full of negativity and bad news, it’s delightful when there’s heartwarming stories like this.

 

Old Guy Music may be my favorite composition (and definitely my favorite song to play) from one of today’s Birthday Boys.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

192 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    So what is the magic vegetable?

    • Ted S.

      It used to be Sunny von Bülow; I don’t know what it is now.

    • Sean

      Parsnips.

    • LJW

      Pretty sure they just learned to eat the potato before distilling.

      • Nephilium

        So they wasted them?

      • Chafed

        Don’t be silly. We made hash browns.

      • Nephilium

        Not latkes?

      • Gender Traitor

        Now I want latkes. With my mom’s (well, now my sister’s) homemade applesauce (and lots of sour cream, of course.)

      • Chafed

        We save those for Passover.

      • Rat on a train

        They just learned not to drink all day like a goy Russian.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Baldrick votes for turnips.

  2. Count Potato

    ““Responding officers observed seven individuals, unescorted and without Congressional ID, in a sixth-floor hallway. The building was closed to visitors, and these individuals were determined to be a part of a group that had been directed by the USCP to leave the building earlier in the day,” Capitol Police said while not disclosing the identities of those charged.”

    INSURREKKKTION!!

    • Translucent Chum

      Let go? Ray Epps must have been with them.

  3. Count Potato

    “”We cannot allow the consumer electronics industry to prioritize proprietary and inevitably obsolete charging technology over consumer protection and environmental health,” the senators said in their letter.”

    WTF??

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Erm, USB-C and Lightning seem to be the vast majority of new devices. What, they’re gonna go after the odd laptop manufacturer with a barrel plug charger?

      • Count Potato

        Things have used different kinds of wall warts for decades.

      • Tonio

        Yes, that’s what it sounds like. Although you could make an argument that those are power supplies. My laptop power supply puts out 19 VDC; USB chargers output 5 VDC. Imagine trying to explain the difference to someone like Markey, Warren, or Sanders, or even their aids. They probably think it’s just as simple as mandating a common power plug.

      • kbolino

        USB Power Delivery, developed several years after Apple and Qualcomm had their own solutions, can handle up to 48V and 5A, i.e. 240W, sufficient for all but the beefiest of laptops, but only over cables that are designed for it (i.e., not most of the cables in common use).

        This connector push is starting to smell astroturfed. It’s not going to be the magic win it’s being sold as, because the different uses of the “same” USB-C connector will require different cables.

      • Rat on a train

        Mandate every cable has to meet the maximum power requirements. It is better that consumers pay more for more than they need than to have to make decisions.

      • Count Potato

        Also different power supplies.

        Anyway, having to use USB for only two conductors is stupid.

      • kbolino

        Two conductors is only good enough for a dumb charger, for which they’re also eying a ban. “Smart” chargers like what USB-PD requires need extra wires to negotiate the capabilities of both sides and decide on a mutually acceptable voltage/amperage combination. In theory, this means one charger to rule them all, but in practice, it’s going to mean a wave of new chargers/cables at increased cost.

      • Count Potato

        Plenty of devices use “dumb chargers” even if they use USB. For example my vape mod and both my phones. They use the same USB jack for data though. But I also have a number of things that use barrel jacks.

      • kbolino

        Dumb charging over USB will still work, but it will remain limited to original power capabilities (5V/100 mA if dumb-as-a-brick, 5V/500mA if it pretends to be a USB2 hub, 5V/900mA if it pretends to be a USB3 hub).

      • DrOtto

        Nobody needs more than 5 VDC -Bernie Sanders

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Imagine trying to explain the difference to someone like Markey, Warren, or Sanders, or even their aids.

        Joke’s on you, they just mandated wireless charging for everything because “It doesn’t need those icky cables to pump gasoline into the computer”

      • Nephilium

        I’ve seen at least one article specifically calling out wearables (such as FitBits, Apple Watches, Smart Watches, and the like) all for having proprietary chargers. At least the article pointed out that there wasn’t enough room on any of those devices for a USB-C connection.

      • Plinker762

        They should have made them larger.

    • rhywun

      “Inevitably obsolete is our schtick.”

      • Tres Cool

        Someone in Congress has a family member that works for BatteriesPlus?

    • LJW

      Let’s mandate that all roads are converted to giant continuous wireless chargers so you can charge as you drive!

      • Tonio

        Don’t give them ideas.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Never underestimate their stupidity.

      It’s a guaranteed way of never getting any better choices.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    Magic vegetable? We have one of those. We love him so well we elected him President.

    • Tres Cool

      The punchline used to be James Brady.

      • Chafed

        We upped our game.

    • Fourscore

      It’s a trick, we can see through the curtain

    • Tres Cool

      Im out of the game a bit, and I dont drink pop. But Im betting the amount of pepsi money daily may only get you a bump off a car key.

    • The Hyperbole

      Yes but they’ll let you run a tab.

      • Count Potato

        RC what you did there.

      • Grumbletarian

        I enjoy these spritely conversations.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        We’re going to be Nehi in puns.

      • Fourscore

        Dad’s don’t like puns

      • MikeS

        Swiss will be along shortly to Crush this.

      • l0b0t

        No worries. He’s not here yet; seems to be Ale-8-One. Anyway, his Barq’s are worse than his bites.

  5. Ted S.

    In a world full of negativity and bad news, it’s delightful when there’s heartwarming stories like this.

    Then this should have been Old Guy Music.

  6. Tonio

    Re: Government-Mandated Universal Charger

    No, just no. Obvious technological illiteracy at work, here. So, your cell phone must use the same connector and voltage as your plug-in electric vehicle? Granted, that’s an extreme case but a clumsily-written law authored by idiots could end up mandating that. And there is a lot of idiocy in Washington.

    • Sean

      “And there is a lot of idiocy in Washington.”

      Understatement of the day.

    • rhywun

      American leftists really need to stop stealing all of Europe’s stupidest ideas.

      • kbolino

        While the EU regulatory regime is occasionally more sane than ours (e.g. baby food), in general the stupid ideas that get trialled in Europe are already well accepted by American leftists, it’s just that they can’t adopt them as quickly or easily here.

      • Chafed

        Those three schnooks are jealous of the EU’s regulatory apparatus.

      • Drake

        Nope. EU regulations are usually just one layer. Go to a place like NYC and you have deal with city, state, and federal regulations – some of which conflict with each other. Worked for a company that had a Swedish sub. A Swedish Director was stunned at what we went through to get something done.

      • rhywun

        OTOH, we’ve been told not to expect any results from our Swedish sub for several months each year because they take so much vacation.

  7. The Late P Brooks

    We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.

    But they find the time to jibberjabber about fucking pride month during the countdown.

  8. trshmnstr the terrible

    Studies have found that cat owners who die at home risk being eaten alive by their hungry moggies.

    Erm… How would that work exactly? Do they breathe the life of one of the babies they snuff out into you?

    • Tonio

      “I’m going to die alone and be eaten by an Alsatian.” -Bridget Jones

      • Fourscore

        Not mutually exclusive

  9. The Late P Brooks

    So, your cell phone must use the same connector and voltage as your plug-in electric vehicle?

    Charges like lightning!

  10. rhywun

    I love the fact that anyone thinks we’re going to believe this.

    I’m starting to believe that “the west” really does want WWIII so… who knows.

    • Sean

      Well, it would be a distraction from inflation.

    • Mojeaux

      We have been promised one for o long, tho!

  11. Sean

    Mmmm…burrata…

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Looks tasty but awkward.

      • Sean

        Slap on a bed of greens. Accessorize to taste.

    • Gender Traitor

      Didn’t you just get one of those from GunBroker?

      • Sean

        😛

        Sitting at my FFL.

    • Sean

      Lulz.

  12. Tres Cool

    When I bang Jugsy with my Apple watch on, it thinks Im on an elliptical.
    I figure if I switch positions it may think Im rowing.

    Its needs a pr0nhub setting reminding the wearer to switch hands.

    • Sean

      I enjoy your TED talks.

      • Tres Cool

        Im not a boots-on-the-ground developer. Just the idea guy.

      • Tres Cool

        Oh, and tri-tip was going for (choice) $3.99/lb at my Kroger. Beef for supper/breakfast later.

      • Sean

        Nice price (2022).

        Porterhouses on sale today. I think 10.99/lb.
        Tomorrow might be a double porterhouse day.

    • LJW

      Mine just tells me I’m having a heart attack.

      • Fourscore

        Mine must be broken

        /shakes watch

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Senators Edward Markey, D-Mass.; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., sent a letter Friday to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo urging the department to develop a comprehensive charger plan.

    When I think of bold, innovative problem-solvers…

    • Chafed

      Like Marx, Engels, and Stalin?

  14. The Late P Brooks

    The senators wrote that the need for many different chargers for electronics devices can be a financial burden for consumers.

    Party of the Little Guy.

  15. Sean

    #waffle148 3/5

    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩⭐🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩⭐🟩🟩
    🟩⬜🟩⭐🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    🔥 streak: 23
    🏆 #waffleelite
    wafflegame.net

    • The Hyperbole

      🌎 Jun 18, 2022 🌍
      🔥 31 | Avg. Guesses: 5.48
      ⬜⬜🟩 = 3

      #globle

      • MikeS

        *taps fingers impatiently

      • The Hyperbole

        What? I set up the new page last night.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Zombies

    A federal waiver that made school breakfasts and lunches free to students regardless of their family’s income is set to expire June 30, eliminating a benefit that has helped millions of schoolchildren at a time when they need it more than ever, anti-hunger advocates say.

    The free school meals program began in March 2020 when Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to issue dozens of child nutrition waivers, including ones that expanded summer food programs, to provide a lifeline during the pandemic.

    If the waivers end this month as scheduled, experts foresee a crisis as families, already facing soaring prices at supermarkets, gas stations and elsewhere, lose access to meals that their children have counted on for the last two years.

    No government program, no matter how unnecessary, can ever be allowed to end.

    • Grumbletarian

      I’ve noticed that everything that expires does so at a time when it is needed more than ever.

    • rhywun

      It’s not like poor people should be expected to feed their own children, I mean come on.

      • Gender Traitor

        It’s not like poor people anyone except the rich (defined as people who make more than I do) should be expected to feed their own children…

    • Tonio

      While some students did depend on their free school lunches, and breakfasts, the program was largely make-work for the cafeteria workers and for the bus drivers who delivered the meals.

      • kbolino

        The point of most government programs today is to spend money frivolously and employ otherwise useless people. Accepting this is generally easy for libertarians (and people more extreme than that) but amazingly difficult for the mainstream.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Uh, easy intellectually or emotionally?

      • kbolino

        “easier” might be more accurate here, I do think there are some libertarians, especially left-libertarians and “state-capacity libertarians”, who have a harder time accepting this; and if I follow your point, then many more accept it conversationally but perhaps not deeply

    • Rat on a train

      It was nice of other people to give us some groceries every week even though our household income is well above county median. We went the longest time without buying milk or snacks for the kids.

    • l0b0t

      NYC has been sticking the tax cattle with that bill for years. Breakfasts and lunches are free to all students throughout the school year and certain schools provide free breakfasts to anyone under 18 all Summer as well. Can’t have the stigma of being too poor to buy a shitty school caf meal, don’tcha know.

      • rhywun

        Next up: It’s not fair that parents have to pay for dinners.

      • Fourscore

        …on weekends.

    • R C Dean

      Thankee, sir. One case on the way to Casa Dean.

      I was really planning to not buy any more ammo this month, but . . . .

      • Sean

        😁

        I didn’t expect to be ordering a case of 5.56 this week either. Stuff happens.

  17. Grumbletarian

    Daily Quordle 145
    3️⃣4️⃣
    7️⃣5️⃣

    Less than 20 is always good.

    • SDF-7

      Daily Quordle 145
      3️⃣6️⃣
      8️⃣7️⃣
      quordle.com

      After yesterday, finishing is good. Will probably miss it for a while — staring a 3 day driving expedition in the wee hours tomorrow morning. So have fun in advance, all you reprobates. 😉

    • l0b0t

      Daily Quordle 145
      6️⃣3️⃣
      8️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com
      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      🟨🟩🟨⬜🟨 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜ 🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

    • kinnath

      Daily Quordle 145
      4️⃣7️⃣
      9️⃣6️⃣

      I suck at this game

    • MikeS

      7️⃣4️⃣
      6️⃣3️⃣

    • grrizzly

      Daily Quordle 145
      6️⃣4️⃣
      8️⃣5️⃣

    • Cannoli

      Daily Quordle 145
      6️⃣4️⃣
      7️⃣3️⃣

    • one true athena

      Daily Quordle 145
      5️⃣3️⃣
      7️⃣4️⃣

    • TARDis

      Oh noes, I suck again.

      Daily Quordle 145
      7️⃣6️⃣
      9️⃣5️⃣

  18. Tundra

    Daily Quordle 145
    4️⃣5️⃣
    8️⃣6️⃣

    A 50/50 on LL sent me over the line. Pretty easy one today – I think this was the fastest I ever finished.

    • Tundra

      Good morning Old Man!

      Haven’t most devices just gravitated to USB-C anyway? Even Apple got rid of their specialty chargers for the laptops.

      Great song this morning! Makes me want to go down and find my guitar.

      Have a great Saturday, peeps! What’s on the agenda?

    • Ozymandias

      Same mistake on the LL.
      Daily Quordle 145
      6️⃣5️⃣
      8️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com

    • rhywun

      “It looks like you have attention-deficit disorder. Would you like to stop playing in the mornings already?”

      Daily Quordle 145
      4️⃣8️⃣
      🟥7️⃣

      • Gender Traitor

        Clippy has invaded Quordle?? 📎😨

      • rhywun

        Clippy invaded my brain and made me stoopid.

    • JG43

      Daily Quordle 145
      8️⃣3️⃣
      6️⃣5️⃣
      quordle.com

  19. kbolino

    Regarding Clarence Thomas, apparently a man’s wife is his chattel again, at least when it’s politically useful.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Hunter Biden doing sketchy stuff and “sending 10% to the big man” is totes not an indictment of Joe. Clarence Thomas’s wife being politically active means that Clarence should be impeached.

      This is what state-sponsored propaganda looks like. This is why TMITE.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    A bandaid won’t cure your cancer

    As President Biden inches toward an announcement on federal student loan forgiveness, a new NPR/Ipsos poll has found slightly more than half of Americans support what has been reported to be Biden’s likeliest path: forgiving up to $10,000 per person. But an overwhelming majority – including a majority of those with student loans – said the government should prioritize making college more affordable over forgiving existing student loans.

    ——-

    In one of the poll’s most unexpected findings, respondents were asked to choose which sentence they agreed with more:

    “The government should prioritize making college more affordable for current and future students”
    “The government should prioritize forgiving some debt for those with existing student loans”
    A whopping 82% said the government’s priority should be making college more affordable for current and future students. Just 16% believed forgiving student debts should take priority.

    “What that tells me is that, while student loan forgiveness for some is seen as a good proposal and a short-term fix, where we actually need to go from here is true, systematic change,” Newall says.

    What is needed is a massive restructuring of “higher education”. You won’t see that.

    • LJW

      Stop with the Americans support! Americans are mostly dumb!

    • kbolino

      Wow, people who’ve undergone a cradle-to-grave propaganda push for generations telling them that more formal education is better regard more formal education as better.

      Imagine my shock!

    • rhywun

      If by “restructuring” you mean “collapse”. I think we will see that, especially if the government sticks its dick in there even harder.

    • Chafed

      I can’t help but notice eliminate federal student loans isn’t a choice.

      • Fourscore

        “the government should prioritize making college more affordable over forgiving existing student loans”

        Any government powerful enough to determine costs is powerful enough to determine each students’ academic direction

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The universities will soak up that 10k almost immediately.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Those legions of directors, assistant deans, senior associate vice provosts and support staff desperately needed to combat the white patriarchy won’t fund themselves.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Federal student loan payments have been on pause since March 2020. According to the poll, 57% of borrowers have not made a single payment during the pause, and 20% have never made a payment toward their student loans.

    Twins Morgan and Trianna Downing are among the roughly 4 million college students who graduated in spring 2020, directly into the student loan payment freeze. They’ve never known the pressures of regular loan payments. Now, a couple years into the job market and with their sights set on grad school, the twins have very different views of their finances.

    Trianna wants to pay down her undergraduate debt before taking more loans out for grad school.

    “I don’t mind starting to pay mine back now. My hope is to pay them off in less than four to six years, and I’ve made a budget so that I can do that.”

    The poll suggests she’s an unusual case – just a small slice of 18- to 25-year-old respondents said they have made payments during the pause.

    Morgan feels differently. She says she made a few loan payments after graduating, but “after like the second or third payment, I was like, ‘This is ridiculous. Why am I making payments?’ ”

    She says her undergraduate loans don’t feel real, and she’s waiting to see if President Biden will come through on his campaign promise to cancel at least $10,000 in student debt per person.

    “I don’t feel like reading this book. Maybe the school will burn down before this book report is due.”

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      *holds up “I’m a chump” sign for paying off my loans in full in May 2020*

      Little did I know I could’ve spent that $100k on hookers and blow and still not be a penny delinquent.

      • Don escaped Texas

        chump: get the tattoo

        A chump is someone who didn’t get away with what everyone else got away with. Somehow this is pejorative.

        Virtue is its own reward: rock on (or, since you’re back in DFW, “stay hard”)

    • rhywun

      I can’t wait to revisit those two in a couple decades and see if Morgan is still living in her own fantasy world.

  22. Count Potato

    “Elon Musk is not a leader. He’s just another Republican billionaire who supports white supremacy and authoritarianism because he doesn’t want his workers to unionize or to pay his fair share in taxes.

    The GOP just tried to end democracy and now he’s supporting them.”

    https://twitter.com/JamaalBowmanNY/status/1537092938425061376

    Because an African immigrant voting for a Latina is white supremacy?

    • kbolino

      I must admit, I realized how out-of-touch the Democrats/mainstream left were a decade ago, but seeing it fully realized is something else. There seems to be not even an ounce of understanding that politics is a competition and your lies need to be appealing to the mushy-middle voters. Instead, the lies are just spiteful and accusatory, “vote for us or else”, “the other side is evil”, etc.

    • rhywun

      Like a NY congresscreature needs to have an opinion on Elon Musk. Oh, that’s right, he has to mouth the platitudes that his idiot voters expect to hear.

  23. Count Potato

    “A high school teacher has been fired from her job after she let female students take topless photos for an art project.

    Emma Wright, 41, was working as an art teacher at Huxlow Science College in Northamptonshire, England, back in 2017 when the classroom photoshoot took place.

    According to The Sun, Wright let girls as young as 15 take “partially naked” pictures of themselves and other female students.

    In some of the photos, the pupils purportedly used bottles of alcohol and their hands to cover their breasts. In other images, the girls allegedly made offensive gestures while smoking and wearing their school uniforms.

    The Sun claims that one shocking snap even saw one of the girls “posing with their hand inside their underwear or in a pose which simulated masturbation.”

    https://nypost.com/2022/06/17/art-teacher-fired-let-underage-students-pose-topless-simulate-masturbation-in-photos

    From 2017, but she he looks just like you would think.

      • kbolino

        Not enough (caught vs. out there)

      • Count Potato

        True, sadly.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That distribution of kiddie porn charge was apparently for a video of him with a thirteen year old boy.

      • R C Dean

        “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?”

    • R C Dean

      A solid British 7. Definitely in the MILF zone.

  24. Count Potato

    “White House officials exploring sending Americans rebates cards to offset gas costs ran into another problem — the chips shortage, which meant US couldn’t physically produce enough cards to make the plan work even if lawmakers tried to do it, per sources”

    https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1537754965774573569

    OFFS!!

  25. Plinker762

    Cats got to eat; same as worms.

  26. Tres Cool

    Great Scott! The Republic is in jeopardy!
    “In recent weeks, Musk has also crudely mocked the looks of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Twitter and posted a poop emoji during an online discussion with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.”

    I wonder if the AP would recoil in horror if they heard the (POC) employees at work cut each other up each night.
    “You so dark, when you get out of the car, your check oil light comes on,”

  27. Don escaped Texas

    https://americanfreedomtour.com/events/248

    Don’t miss this one, folks. Seats are still available in the “Patriot Section Directly in Front of Stage!” Topic coverage will be tremendous:

    Don Jr: why my wife left me before Opa’s money ran out
    Candace Owen: an introductory lecture on logic
    Mike Pompeo: wagon hitching for brilliant and bored executives
    Kimberly Guilfoyle: life after fucking Gavin Newsome
    Dinesh D’Souza: Kenya and Obama and other recent scandals
    Mark Burns: BigMacs, telelevangelism, profit
    Sheriff Mark Lamb: paintball, Trumpism, and the pleasures of bankruptcy

    Stop the Steal!!!!It’sNOTtooLATE!!1!!!!1 Give to TRUMP….he’s a billionaire who needs your money….give til it hurts!@!GD#EFASDVADBRDG

    • kbolino

      Nancy Pelosi’s true gift is to be able to do the same thing but make it look classy.

      • Don escaped Texas

        I think those rumors about Nancy, Gavin, and Kim aren’t true, but maybe you’re right.

      • kbolino

        I was referring to the way she conducts her fundraisers, but given what we’ve learned about Hunter thanks to his own carelessness, I’m sure a more salacious interpretation of my comment is plausible

      • Don escaped Texas

        I hate her too

        but you deserved the veiled whataboutism crack

      • kbolino

        What is there to hate about Pelosi? She is good at her job. I have long since dispensed with the illusion that there’s a “good” form of politics. She isn’t subverting the institution, she’s upholding it, and upholding it well. Let her be a role model for other politicians.

        What I want to see is not the end of crass money-bilking but the putting of that money to good use. Pelosi has rewarded herself, her family, and her friends well. Can Don Jr and the others say the same? If not, then I agree that he deserves to be called out.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    He’ll hate himself in the morning

    U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he was not traveling to Saudi Arabia’s explicitly to meet de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman during a trip next month and said he was seeing the Saudi crown prince as part of a broader “international meeting.”

    Biden’s plans to see the crown prince, known as MBS, are part of his first trip to the Gulf region as president. He has been criticized by U.S. lawmaker, including some from his own Democratic party and human rights advocates, who say the visit is at odds with his promise to put human rights at the heart of U.S. foreign policy.

    “I’m not going to meet with MBS. I’m going to an international meeting, and he’s going to be part of it,” Biden told reporters on Friday when asked how during his Saudi Arabia trip he will handle the topic of the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and critic of the crown prince.

    The president is traveling to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of King Salman along with eight additional heads of state for the GCC+3 Summit, a spokesperson for the National Security Council said.

    ——-

    As a presidential candidate, Biden said he wanted to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah”. However, his struggle to reduce record high gasoline prices this year has complicated the situation as the U.S. urges oil producing nations to boost production to offset Russian losses following Western sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

    He’s only doing it for us.

    • Rat on a train

      We don’t appreciate all he has done for us.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    The floggings will continue until morale improves

    Equating the oil and gas industry to Big Tobacco, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that “fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat.” But President Joe Biden wasn’t quite itching for a fight.

    With both soaring energy prices and a warming planet weighing on the world at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, Biden talked about trying to ease the pain of high gas prices while pushing more long-term green policies.

    Dismissing the idea of boosting gasoline production, the United Nations’ top diplomat threw out traditional diplomatic niceties and bluntly vilified the fossil fuel industry at a virtual session that included oil rich Saudi Arabia, China, Europe and Egypt, which is hosting the next United Nations summit on climate change. It was the first time Guterres compared the energy industry to tobacco interests, saying they use “the same scandalous tactics” to delay action that is good for people and the planet.

    Equating the oil and gas industry to Big Tobacco, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that “fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat.” But President Joe Biden wasn’t quite itching for a fight.

    With both soaring energy prices and a warming planet weighing on the world at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, Biden talked about trying to ease the pain of high gas prices while pushing more long-term green policies.

    Dismissing the idea of boosting gasoline production, the United Nations’ top diplomat threw out traditional diplomatic niceties and bluntly vilified the fossil fuel industry at a virtual session that included oil rich Saudi Arabia, China, Europe and Egypt, which is hosting the next United Nations summit on climate change. It was the first time Guterres compared the energy industry to tobacco interests, saying they use “the same scandalous tactics” to delay action that is good for people and the planet.

    Making the world a better place.

    • kbolino

      Antonio Guterres may have been born in Portugal but his go-to example for a political comparison is straight out of American history.

    • Don escaped Texas

      trying to ease the pain of high gas prices while pushing more long-term green policies

      make it easier for people to do the thing that you oppose?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      In have a lamppost that’s being underutilized over here.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “By the throat “ is roughly equivalent to “having provided every possible luxury we now take for granted”

  30. Count Potato

    ““While only 4 percent of Democratic men over 50 thought feminism was harmful, 46 percent of Democratic men under 50 did.”

    https://twitter.com/dylanmatt/status/1537802812616232960

    Didn’t read NYT article, but poll could be bullshit.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      This ain’t your dad’s feminism any more.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    “I’m using every lever available to me to bring down prices for the American people,” Biden said. “But the critical point is that these actions are part of our transition to a clean and secure and long-term energy future.”

    Biden is also expected to visit Saudi Arabia next month. The White House recently praised the kingdom after OPEC+ announced that it would pump more oil to boost the global supply.

    Guterres dismissed more drilling, saying “nothing could be more clear or present than the danger of fossil fuel expansion.”

    “Even in the short-term, fossil fuels don’t make political or economic sense,” Guterres said.

    It all makes me me of this.

    21st Century Schizoid Man

    • rhywun

      “Even in the short-term, fossil fuels don’t make political or economic sense,” Guterres said.

      Suffer, little people! Let them eat shit.

      CWAA

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Edit? Proofread?

    BAH!

  33. Tundra

    Correct!

    Although it is pretty good.

  34. Tundra

    Ever wonder where the 6 foot “social distance” thing came from? I bet you thought they just pulled it out of their collective asses, right?

    Wrong.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Biden sounded the alarm on extreme weather events in an Oval Office interview on Thursday with The Associated Press.

    “We have more hurricanes and tornadoes and flooding,” he said. “People saw what — I took my kids years ago to Yellowstone Park. They call me, ‘Daddy did you see what happened at Yellowstone, right?’ Well, it’s unthinkable. These are 1,000-year kinds of events.”

    But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has scrambled Biden’s climate goals by driving up the cost of gas. Facing political pressure to get prices under control in a midterm election year, the Democratic president has urged U.S. oil refiners to produce more fuel even as companies say they lack the long-term incentives to do so because the administration is accelerating the move to clean energy.

    “Well, I say in the short term, do the right thing,” Biden said Thursday, stressing his view that energy companies should increase production instead of trying to maximize their profits.

    The best this nation has to offer.

    • creech

      How lucky was this boob to have a toxic opponent?

  36. Homple

    Two American veterans learned the difference between chasing goatherds around the Hindu Kush and fighting the Russian army in Europe.

    • Gustave Lytton

      And they’re going to get fucked with their own government’s policy of labeling fighter they don’t like as illegal combatants, rather than according them status as EPWs.

      • Homple

        Imagine what a Russian version of Guantanamo Bay would be like. Of course there’s always the firing squad or hangperson, which is what they’re set up for now.

      • Gustave Lytton

        There might still be a German or two who rembers being held as a pow until the 50’s.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Bizarre

    President Joe Biden called assertions that his spending policies have been a cause of the skyrocketing inflation “bizarre.”

    When asked about how his American Rescue Plan’s substantial spending might have exacerbated the economy and pushed inflation into high gear, Biden waved away the accusation.

    “You could argue whether it had a marginal, minor impact on inflation. I don’t think it did,” Biden told the interviewer. “And most economists do not think it did. But the idea that it caused inflation is bizarre.”

    ——-

    Biden was adamant in his defense of his spending practices, saying that critics of his policies and federal spending should look at how other nations have dealt with recent inflation woes.

    “We’re in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation. It’s bad,” Biden claimed before pivoting to questions aimed at his critics. “Isn’t it kind of interesting? If it’s my fault, why is it the case in every other major industrial country in the world that inflation is higher? You ask yourself that?”

    Don’t worry, we’ve got our best people on it.

    • creech

      “And most economists do not think it did. But the idea that it caused inflation is bizarre.”
      Even Obama’s chair of the National Economic Council, and Obama’s Sec. of the Treasury, have labelled the American Rescue Plan as highly inflationary.

    • R C Dean

      If it’s my fault, why is it the case in every other major industrial country in the world that inflation is higher?

      What is, the US Dollar is the global reserve currency, Alex?

      • Ted S.

        It’s not as if other countries aren’t spending like drunken sailors, too.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Baffling

    Republican voters in Nevada were aware Tuesday that the Jan. 6 committee was building a public case that Donald Trump knew the election wasn’t stolen.

    They saw some of the committee’s new video footage of violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

    “Reprehensible,” said one voter.

    “Disgusting,” said a second.

    “It has everybody angry,” said a third.

    It wasn’t the noose hanging outside the Capitol that upset them, the chants of “hang Mike Pence” or the testimony of the president’s former attorney general.

    Instead, it was “Washington politicians” and “the media establishment,” several voters interviewed said, who they saw as trying to stack the deck against the former president.

    “It might as well be impeachment No. 3 for Donald Trump,” said Judy Cameron, a Reno retiree who had just voted in Nevada’s Republican primaries on Tuesday with her husband. “This is their big push to get Donald Trump off the ballot.”

    NBC News talked to more than two dozen voters in both Washoe and Clark counties — the two most populous in Nevada — and found that the Jan. 6 committee hearings that captivated Washington not only failed to persuade these voters but pushed them in the opposite direction.

    NBC reporters stunned to realize the Doemocrats’ tightly scripted Punch and Judy show isn’t fooling anybody.

    • creech

      I wonder how most Americans would feel about being charged with a crime and then having the prosecutor tell you that you couldn’t have a lawyer or defend yourself?

      • kbolino

        There’s a reason they’ve been trying to label everyone involved a terrorist.

    • rhywun

      “This is their big push to get Donald Trump off the ballot.”

      That’s just crazy wingnut talk.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    DAMMIT!

    President Joe Biden fell when he tried to get off his bike at the end of a ride Saturday at Cape Henlopen State Park near his beach home in Delaware, but said he wasn’t hurt.

    “I’m good,” he told reporters after U.S. Secret Service Agents quickly helped him up. “I got my foot caught” in the toe cages.

    Biden, 79, and first lady Jill Biden were wrapping up a morning ride when the president decided to pedal over to a crowd of well-wishers standing by the bike trail. Biden, who was wearing a helmet, tumbled when he tried to dismount.

    Poor Kamala.

    • R C Dean

      Alright, I’m not going to jump on this one. Seriously, who hasn’t had their foot get hung up on the clip-on pedals?

  40. juris imprudent

    It sounds to me like a suicidal move for the party – here’s hoping they do it.

    Notably, Schiff is a successful fundraiser – second only to Nancy Pelosi – a factor that could go a long way in deciding a leadership race. Both Schiff and Pelosi have the benefit of being from California, with no shortage of liberal megadonors ready to fill their campaign coffers. California is also home to a whopping 42 House Democrats, which may give Schiff a baked-in base of support among the Democratic caucus.

    Despite these advantages, however, Schiff’s career in Congress has been defined by a series of embarrassing incidents that have both undermined his personal credibility and made the party as a whole look foolish in the eyes of the public – two things that are sure to loom large in a potential power struggle next January.

    • rhywun

      Schiff’s career in Congress has been defined by a series of embarrassing incidents

      Get out.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Seriously, who hasn’t had their foot get hung up on the clip-on pedals?

    Why does a wobbly old geezer like Biden even have clip-ons, for crying out loud?

    • Gustave Lytton

      And the next question, are they really toe clips or toe cages? Or regular pedals?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        When was the last time you saw a toe cage on a bike?

      • MikeS

        They look like regular old pedals to me.

        That said, I’ve done the same thing while at a far younger age than Biden, so I’m not gonna read too much into this.

    • Gender Traitor

      His SS guys would probably thank him for switching to a nice, safe tricycle. Complete with a nice big basket for the nuclear football! 🏈💣